Let's look at the trailer:
First bad sign: Team Ninja. You're giving a franchise starring a woman to the people responsible for this. Little did I know back then, that they would ruin Samus, but in a completely different way...
Second problem: Pre-rendered cutscene. They're turning this into Final Fantasy. And why does this look like anime BS?
Third problem: Samus's voice. 'course, at the time, we hear only these two lines, so I had no idea what to really expect from the voice acting in the game. I could only hope it would be better than what's here. But...it really isn't. :/
The gameplay parts looked exciting, though.
All these things brought to me one fear: This game is going to be too Japanese.
Now, Japanese stuff is usually pretty cool... but I don't want Metroid being like that. Sure, Metroid is a Japanese creation, but there's a reason why Metroid wasn't that popular in Japan, and why I didn't really start to notice the series until Austin-based developer Retro Studios made Metroid Prime, arguably the best Metroid game in the series.
Metroid: Other M is an attempt to make Metroid appeal to Japanese audiences. It seems pretty clear about that. Unfortunately, I am not a part of that audience...
Anyway, I beat the game 100%, so I think I'm qualified to complain about it right?
"Dear Diary, it's me, Samus."
My biggest complaint about Other M is how they handle the story and characters. The actual story is of a conspiracy, which is fine, but they already did that with Metroid Fusion. I thought Fusion was the first time this conspiracy would be revealed, but Other M takes place before Fusion...so...I don't know.
The way the story is told is stupid, though. Samus likes to talk to herself. She tells the story through inner monologues. Again, this kind of happened in Fusion, but at least then it was text. This time, it's told through Samus's TERRIBLE voice acting. It's a shame they didn't get Jennifer Hale to play the part of Samus again. The stuff she says is pretty dumb, too. G4's review compared it to Samus reading out of her diary, and...yeah, that seems almost spot on. This type of story-telling CAN work, as evidenced with games like Alan Wake and Max Payne...it's just terribly written, and the delivery is equally terrible.
They ruined Samus in ways other than her voice. The way she acts goes against the mental image I had of her. Her interactions with Adam are just dumb. There's a flashback where she's all like, "ADAM GIVE ME A CHANCE PLZ", and is all desperate to prove herself or something. That kind of makes sense, 'cause it's a flashback. But later, she does the exact same thing, showing she hasn't grown up at all since then. I get it, she sees Adam as some sort of "father figure", but this is Samus, the lady who's destroyed planets, exterminated entire species, and saved the galaxy many times.
What happens when she encounters Ridley in this game is just RIDICULOUS. Samus has killed Ridley many many times prior to this, and suddenly his appearance literally turns her into a scared little girl. Just watch. (Spoilers, obviously.)
It's not just that she freaks out, she also endagers the life of the black man, and we all know that is UNACCEPTABLE. Seriously, Samus, get your crap together. The boss fight wasn't even that hard.
Now, a lot of people are saying that Samus was already characterized this way in the manga... but if I didn't like it here, I probably wouldn't like it in the manga either, so WHATEVER.
"Samus, I'm now authorizing poor gameplay explanations."
Anyway, back to Adam. In most Metroid games, Samus loses all her powers at the beginning of the game as an excuse for you to explore and collect them later. This was kinda silly, but the way that Other M handles it is waaay dumber. Samus has ALL of her powers and equipment at the start of the game, she just chooses not to use them until Adam says she can. Sure, I can understand that they won't let her use power bombs 'cause they might be "too dangerous", but...the grapple beam? How is that gonna hurt anyone? And Samus's various suits... the Varia suit, for instance, protects Samus against extreme heat... but Adam won't let her use the suit until AFTER she's gone through an area of extreme heat. And her other suits also protect Samus against damage better. Why does Adam think Samus having protection would harm anything? Maybe he thinks it wouldn't be fair to his other troopers who don't have awesome Chozo powersuits.
Despite all this, Samus is alone for a lot of the game, only communicating with Adam through radio. So Samus using powerbombs or the screw attack in some remote location of the space ship really wouldn't harm anyone. It would only protect Samus. I guess Adam doesn't really care about Samus at all, because if he would just let me use the screw attack from the beginning of the game, I probably wouldn't have died so many times.
Now, I understand that this stupid "authorization of equipment" is just an excuse to limit your progression through the game so you don't start off super powerful and able to access everything in the station. On the surface, it really isn't that different than just picking up new items like in the old games. But it's still dumb. That sense of character progression collecting new abilities is gone, since Samus has them already. In the old games, the ridiculous "oh no, I lost my powers for some dumb reason" is a singular reason that only happens at the beginning of the game. Adam's poor judgment on equipment authorization happens many times throughout the game.
And it gets even dumber when SPOILERS Samus loses communication with Adam, and decides to use the Screw Attack on her own. Then later fights a boss that can control gravity, making it a difficult fight. Then right after that fight, Samus activates her gravity suit...which she apparently had all along, but decided NOT to use it on the boss that controls gravity. I guess poor judgment runs through all the characters of the game. END SPOILERS
...Graphics
The game looks good in a simple, clean sort of way. Samus is shiny, and the framerate is pretty good, aside from a few instances during cutscenes and when there's tons of stuff happening on the screen at once.
A lot of people are saying it's the best-looking Metroid game yet, but I think they forget what Metroid Prime 3 looked like. Some of the stuff in Other M looks way too simplified. At times, it felt like I was playing an XBLA or handheld game. Really, I think this would've been amazing as a 3DS title or something like that.
Oh yeah, it's a game, too.
So yeah, aside from the lame-o pre-rendered cutscenes, there's a game part, too. And...it's pretty good. Now, you may think my previous complaints against the game are invalidated with that statement, but it isn't. Team Ninja and Nintendo decided to make story a big part of the game, and since the story sucked, a big part of the game sucked. Had they not insisted on the stupid characterization of Samus and the 2-hours of cutscenes, I probably would've liked the game better.
But yeah, the game part is cool, but you really wanna hear me complain about it, don't you? Well, first thing, the controls are dumb. For some reason, Sakamoto (co-creator of Metroid) wanted to make this game control with the Wii Remote only. He wanted to simplify the controls, 'cause I guess the analog sticks that came with every Wii system is too scary for some people? I admit, they have guts for going through with this experiment by the means of an entry in high-profile franchise. I kinda wish they didn't, though.
The game features full 3D movement, but you have to use the d-pad to navigate it. It works, but I would've preferred an analog stick. In addition to that, aiming is, for the most part, automatic. You tap the fire button, and Samus will shoot at the closest thing to her...sometimes. There were numerous times when Samus would just shoot at either the wrong enemy or NOTHING AT ALL. This was mainly when I tried to shoot while jumping, causing Samus to shoot completely over whatever I wanted her to aim at. While not game-breaking, it is VERY annoying.
Also, fighting enemies is really just a chore sometimes. Enemies no longer drop health or ammo. Because of this, you lose a lot of incentive to fight them in the first place. So you ignore them and run away. Kinda dumb.
The game also features a first-person mode, which is probably the dumbest thing about the game. The only way to shoot missiles is to go into first-person mode by pointing the Wii Remote at the TV, lock-on to something with B, and then press A. When in first-person, you cannot move, other than shaking the remote to dodge some attacks, making you have to reset your aim and lock-on again if you still want to shoot your missile. It's pretty annoying that you have to rotate your controller and point at the screen in the middle of the action. I often found myself holding my controller in some weird fashion so I could go into first-person, then move around when I discovered that I couldn't lock-on to what I wanted to.
Contributing to the stupidity of the first-person mode are sections of the game that force you to look around the environment to advance the game. At seemingly random points, the game will stop and force you into first-person. You'll have to find one small, less-than-obvious detail in the environment before you can continue the game. Honestly, I got stuck on some of these parts for probably 5-minutes or more. And just thinking about how it would work in the context of the game. "Hey Samus, uh...what are you doing?" "I'm looking for something." "Like what?" "Uhh...I dunno. Lemme just stand here staring for five minutes-- WAIT, THAT EMBLEM IN THE FAR OFF DISTANCE!" With a game full of cutscenes, these parts just unnecessarily slow the flow of the game even more.
A big thing that stuck out to me about this game is that it's essentially a 3D Metroid Fusion. The way the levels are laid out (Hey, Samus, go here, and only here. We're gonna lock some doors so you can't explore elsewhere) and the silly story bits are very Fusion-esque. You even fight a boss from Fusion at one point. At some point, I wondered whether or not this was supposed to be a remake of Fusion. Fusion was an okay game. It wasn't amazing, but...okay.
And there's this one part at the very end: SPOILERS. DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE BEATEN THE GAME OR NEVER INTEND TO BEAT IT During the last part of the boss fight, you end up in the boss's belly, with your health quickly draining. I tried laying some bombs and rolling around...NOTHING IS WORKING. And then I died. I died many MANY times at just this one part of the game, because I had no idea what to do. I at first thought I had glitched the game. But no, you're supposed to use your Power Bombs by holding down the 1 button until fully charged. The game never tells you you can even use Power Bombs at this point. The only time they tell you how to use Power Bombs is during the tutorial, which, for me, was over 9 hours of game time ago. I wonder how many questions about this particular boss fight will end up on GameFAQs...END SPOILERS
Mild Spoilers. After beating the game, you're allowed to go back to the space station to find something Samus says is important and "irreplaceable." That thing, my friends, is a Metroid game. During this second journey through the station, there is no story BS to interrupt your exploration. It's just you going through any area that you please, hunting for any items that you may have missed by using your newly "authorized" abilities. That is a Metroid game. There, is, however, one final story objective to complete. The cutscene that plays there is also dumb, but what happens afterwards is pretty awesome, and a perfect end to an actual Metroid game.
Music
I cannot remember a single song from this game.
The Conclusion
The story sucks. The game part is alright. Go play Metroid Prime.
"Dear Team Ninja, it's me, Samus."
