Lara Croft vs Samus Aran: Rebooted personalities

I never got into Tomb Raider, and I never played Metroid The Other M.

Both main characters received, apparently, extensive reboots - to my understanding, Samus's was criticized for making her feeble versus her initial, more badass, classic self, whereas Lara is portrayed as more vulnerable than her older, more badass self.

I'm curious as to what the difference is between The Other M's reboot of Samus and Tomb Raider's reboot of Lara.

edited 13th Jun '14 10:16:55 PM by FOFD

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).

One major difference:

The Rebooted Croft is explicitly part of a new continuity. While there are certain expectations for her to live up to, she has a built-in loophole if things don't quite line up.

The "rebooted" Samus, on the other hand, is stated to be the same Samus as previously existed. Worse, it's the same Samus, but following 90% of what's come before, and yet still running afoul of what's come before. So the disconnect there is immensely jarring.

...so say nothing of the fact that feeble is not exactly going far enough to describe other m samus.

i believe at one point sakamoto went on record saying "Samus is a woman who is poor at coping with life's problems.", which is beyond making her vulnerable and instead just flat out insults the character, and sakamoto wrote other m samus the way he had always personally seen samus, so its only a reboot from the fan's perspective, who see a samus who is regularly fighting off "life's problems" (in this case being, exploding planets, sybiotic viruses, a nigh-invulnerable species of alien, and killing her parents killer waaaaaaaaay too many times to throw in the ptsd thing right near the end of the timeline, and having to deal with the conspiracies of the federation she occasionally works with) and find sakamoto to be full of shit.

which, frankly, he is.

---

oh sorry, actually it wasnt sakamoto that said that, but rather kitaura. and then sakamoto compared her to the voice actress.

edited 13th Jun '14 11:07:29 PM by Tarsen

This is a lopsided comparison. Not only is the new Lara Croft a reboot, it's never explicitly stated or implied that new!Lara is weak willed or inherently vulnerable - she's just a college student with no interest whatsoever in fighting insane cultists or surviving in the wilds largely by herself who is thrust against her will into an impossible situation she nonetheless adapts to with alarming speed. If anything, there are more complaints that she's not vulnerable enough given her new backstory.

Meanwhile, Samus Aran - the very same Samus Aran who had defeated Ridley several times in the past, faced off against space pirates and other intergalactic threats, and destroyed aliens far more advanced and powerful than her nemesis, is suddenly revealed to be a scared little girl inside who fawns over a poker faced prick and falters at the sight of a creature she's blown to hell at least twice already.

What everyone else has said, basically. Whatever iffy-ness that the Tomb Raider reboot has pales in comparison. Other M doesn't have Unfortunate Implications, it has outright horrifying Word of God statements.

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That's called Death of the Author.

The problem with Samus is there wasn't much to go on except for little tidbits of info here and there. Metroid Fusion gave Samus more depth, showing how she was willing to do whatever it took to stop the threat of the week while reminiscing about Adam and how he would respond to such situations. The Prime trilogy still made samus as a near flat and mute character, but her facial and bodily expressions in Corruption showed just what she was going through when her fellow bounty hunters were corrupted one by one.

Other M basically took all of that and said "Remember how Samus was characterized? I didn't like it so I gave her a new personality and you're gonna like it cause it's canon and the Japanese players will eat it up!"

edited 14th Jun '14 9:46:49 AM by Steven

Remember, these idiots drive, fuck, and vote. Not always in that order.

Thankfully, Other M contradicts previous games so much (even in terms of how the suit works) that it can be safely ignored. Probably would have to jump through more hoops to keep it in continuity.

I have a message from another time...

There is characterization via actions. The folks at Extra Credits did a very good analisis regarding the problems with Other M, including characterization.

"Yeah, it's a shame. Here we are in an underground cave with all these lasers, and instead of having a rave we're using it for evil."

Except they didn't, really. Consensus seemed to be that the Japanese players also lamented the characterization given to Samus in Other M, but I'm not sure how they responded to Adam. Despite it's supposed lack of popularity there (I know Metroid isn't as popular in Japan as it is elsewhere, but I don't think it's terribly unpopular there either), most of the players felt that Samus was a stronger person/character in the older games.

Anyways, the main subject of this topic (comparing reboots, which is moot because, as mentioned, Other M wasn't a reboot; it was meant to give Samus an actual personality beyond her usual depictions of being a stoic and dutiful bounty hunter, but obviously that backfired) should probably be shifted to something else (like, say, comparing how influential the two protagonists were on the game industry or something, I dunno), otherwise we're just going to end up with Other M taking over the discussion, and we already have a thread for that game specifically.^note Unless it was nuked while I was gone.

edited 14th Jun '14 10:11:58 AM by Customer

Othe M was the highest-selling Metroid game in Japan, it was the old-school Japanese Metroid fans who disliked it.

edited 14th Jun '14 10:14:12 AM by SaintDeltora

"Please crush me with your heels Esdeath-sama!

Just because it sold well there doesn't mean that they liked Samus's characterization (in my opinion, as someone who has only played a handful of Metroid titles, I liked Other M, barring some odd gameplay elements, but not its writing), nor am I meaning to imply that there were more Japanese players griping about it than not (especially not when compared to all the griping everyone else was doing at the time), but I'll concede the point.

My main point was that this topic may end up being redundant with the other Other M thread unless we pick a different comparison to work off of for discussion.

Uhh, Donte, maybe?

ALL CREATURE WILL DIE AND ALL THE THINGS WILL BE BROKEN. THAT'S THE LAW OF SAMURAI.

I was under the impression it was an "origin story" for Samus, and that was why she was portrayed as she was, which led to further confusion and curiosity over why Lara was better-received. I haven't played or researched either game well enough it seems.

Sure. Character comparison between Lara and Samus?

edited 15th Jun '14 8:58:44 AM by FOFD

Akira Toriyama (April 5 1955 - March 1, 2024).

Nope, it takes place between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion. Fusion is the last game chronologically BTW, so you can see why so many have problems with Other M's portrayal.

To be honest, I'm not too hot on what I've seen of Lara's new portrayal either, but I haven't played the game so I can't comment. At the very least they aren't trying to force a new characterization in the same Lara as before.

"Yeah, it's a shame. Here we are in an underground cave with all these lasers, and instead of having a rave we're using it for evil."

You can also switch Samus with the Dante from Dm C Devil May Cry that Schitzo suggested, since he fits better with what you were originally trying to compare (I'm assuming the subject of the thread is "two retooled characters are being received differently, Why?". Correct me if I'm wrong). However, due to Capcom's floundering, I don't remember if DmC is supposed to be a reboot or an Alternate Continuity or what.

edited 15th Jun '14 9:15:42 AM by Customer

Note that it does feature some flashbacks to Samus's origin story.

Interesting to note: the Metroid manga, which is an origin story, had previously done a few of the same things like having Samus freeze up in front of Ridley. However in this case it only happened after Ridley gave Samus a Breaking Lecture when she was at her most vulnerable^{Rough contents} Your entire life is a lie. The Chozo are Complete Monsters who never loved you. You're not a person, just a weapon, who's only ever valued for destroying everything around them. It's your fault your parents died. You watched them die, and I think I'll drag up that repressed memory for you. Also I ate your parents to regenerate and now they're part of my body, so by fighting me you'd be killing them again. The friends you brought with you to stop us are already dead., and she stopped being afraid of him when she fully accepted her responsibilities as a protector of the galaxy.

edited 15th Jun '14 9:43:20 AM by Prime32