Metroid: Other M

It's been a great three weeks for gaming, huh? Metroid one week, Halo in another, and they both sandwhich a Kingdom Hearts. While I'm not a Halo fan, the friends claim it was very good, as do the glowing reviews.

While they came out a week apart from each other, I received Other M on a Tuesday followed the next day by BBS. Amazon shipped Other M from a couple of States away, while Kingdom Hearts shipped 30 minutes from my house. Funny world, I know. I'll obviously talk about Other M this time, with Kingdom Hearts soon after.

Ah, Other M. As a Metroid fan since Super Metroid, this was quite a shock to see such an action-oriented take on the Metroid series. While the Prime games leaned towards the action slant, specifically Corruption, the exploration element was always present with superb level design that really showed off Retro Studios' talent. Now we've ditched the first-person perspective for the classic run-and-gun platforming the series was known for, now with extra focus on gunning.

While Retro went on to make the soon-to-be-released Donkey Kong Country Returns, a game I have high hopes for, Nintendo brought in Team Ninja of Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden fame to help shape this newest installment. The new blood definitely has a presence, as the game's new mechanics are a test in reflex and pattern recognition, with some of that old school Nintendo Hard game play thrown in.

It's a game where the simple enemies will bat you around to next Tuesday if you're not alert and/or quick enough. Almost as if to emphasize the new focus on action, enemies no longer drop ammo or health, forcing you to dodge and shoot, which is very satisfying once you get the hang of it. While the Prime Trilogy was amazing, it's nice to see Samus doing her thing again, flipping around enemies whilst retaliating in a flurry of colorful explosions that fill the screen. It also gives a sense of speed that first-person can't effectively portray - she's quite agile, and the redesigned art style accentuates with a shark, sleek look reminiscent of Metroid Fusion for the GBA.



In fact, in many ways this is the spiritual sequel to 2002's hand held gem. The game takes place on The Bottle Ship, which is a research facility with varying Sectors - the usual lava, ice, jungle levels - to add variety like Fusion's research station. It's a more story-centric title than Fusion and the entire series as a whole, and also shares it's predecessor's linearity. Fusion used a computer to effectively lock you out of areas that didn't pertain to your mission at hand, cutting the exploration a bit. Despite these 'shortcomings' to the Metroid formula, I didn't have a problem with Fusion. It was a different take, yes, but it was still Metroid in it's pick-ups, game flow, and spot-on controls.

This is all played with the Wiimote held sideways like an NES controller for most of the title, with you pointing at the screen to enter a pivoting first-person mode to fire missiles (the only way you can in this iteration) and to scan the occasional pick-up, story-centric element. This simplification felt very retro in practice, though some minor and/or major problems in certain situations.

I, for one, didn't have any trouble switching from first to third-person during intense battles, since the game implements a slick slo-mo effect to give you a small chance to aim a missile square at a foe, then a quick covering of the Wiimote's sensor and a quick press of the + Pad will enable you to dodge away before retaliation. It's very much a case-by-case on how adept you will be at the act, to be sure. There are also storyline sections where the game zooms into Samus' visor for you to fixate on a particular point of interest to continue the cutscene. While I didn't have any trouble with these (I managed to run across them due to my own curiosity as well, I suppose), I've seen two friends have a bit of trouble during these instances, making for definite game-breaking moments, though I was lucky enough not to be bogged down by them.

It's also a visual and aural delight. The pre-rendered cutscenes are definitely impressive, surely adding to the game's dual-layered status, and it's nice to see a Nintendo game fully embrace voice-acting (looking at you, Skyward Sword). The score during cutscenes (also very impressive-looking for being in-engine) is an orchestral delight, while there aren't that many 'iconic' ambient music like previous titles, leaning more towards mostly-metallic or energetic in crowded fight-scenes and larger enemies. The presentation is a benchmark for Wii titles, along with Galaxy 2 as the highmarks of the system, definitely. It surprisingly holds up pretty well with some 360 and PS3 titles, making it both an impressive feat as well as proof at how little developers have tried with the Wii's horsepower.

And now I hit the point that divides most gamers: the story.



There's been so much said on Other M's narrative that I can't add anything but my own opinions at this point. A quick search around the Internet will reveal mostly-negative opinions on the depition of the character and the story, while you'll occasionally find those who defend it with arguably-canon and some scientific proof. Which side of the fence you fall on is yours. Is the game being sexist, depicting Samus Aran as such? Or is this how the director always envisioned her, and the sudden injection of story after 25 years of almost-complete silence a shock to everyone's personal depiction of the character?

Speaking for myself, I'm not terribly bothered by her depiction (surprise, surprise). I was somewhat familiar with the Metroid manga, which depicts her antics before the games proper, and the characterization there is very similar to the Other M's, so no surprise there. It also didn't shock me that she had a lot of pent-up frustrations and problems, such as seeing Adam Malkovich as a father-figure, growing up with him as her CO when she served under him in the Galactic Federation Army. Many saw this as daddy-issues and they'd be correct, since she barely had time with one. Guess I'm full of sympathy.

Maybe part of that was the dialogue and/or Japanese way of storytelling the title posesses, which honestly doesn't bother me since I loved Final Fantasy XIII. I definitely see where people find fault, but that was the unique presentation Other M chose. Another point of contention was Samus' voice. Most hate it, naturally. I found it similar to a Sarah Conner vibe, as her disinterested, monotously delivered running narration throughout the game, giving a spelled-out window into her mind. All these seem to pale in comparison to the seemingly-biggest point of discussion.

Slight spoiler-warning.

There's a particular scene in which Samus, freezing up at the sight of her arch-nemesis Ridley (in a fantastic appearance, may I add), thinks back to her frightened 3 year-old self when she first encountered Ridley when he promptly killed her parents, snaps out of her daze after the fall of a comrade and proceeds to fight the again-resurrected Space Pirate Commander.

Why didn't she shoot? Why did she freeze up? I took this one as her thinking his death was absolute, with Zebes being obliterated, leaving no chance of the creature appearing again, and his sudden appearance rocking her to her core. It also backs up the PTSD argument that is brought up by those with knowledge of the manga, which I agree with. When shown to an expert and one suffering from the disorder, they claimed it was a very accurate depiction of PTSD, but lots of peole still call BS on it, thinking she should've "just gotten over it" by this point in her career. She froze up before in the manga, prompting a comment of PTSD, and I believe the game was slyly referencing it, since the manga is almost certainly canon, endorsed by Nintendo itself. However, to the detractor's credit, it wasn't brought up in any previous game and there was absolutely no build-up to it, lending to it's seemingly-out-of-the-blue occurance.

In conclusion, the story elements didn't bother me in the slightest. I enjoyed the gameplay despite it's inherent flaws (feeling like a simpler Fusion), I would definitely recommend the game, especially to Metroid fans to know their opinion, but I wouldn't recommend a buy until they had tried it out do to it's established love it or hate it status. A solid 4/5 were I to rate it numerically.

I now part with a tasty gift:

The obligatory Zero Suit Samus pic.

You knew it was coming.