The pixel hunts were just terrible. I got stuck on the first one (The one with ki-hunter larvae) for 15 minutes, and for the next one (A patch of green blood in the middle of grass), I just gave up and went to Gamefaqs. There were other similar problems too; I got stuck for-fucking-ever on that stupid holographically concealed morph ball tunnel, and unlike in the 2D Metroids there wasn't anywhere to explore while I was stuck in one place. And the final boss (Not including Mr. Post-credits-cameo)? What a fucking joke.
I do like some of the creativity in enemy design, though. The Rhodegian (Giant flying stalking missile-spamming laser-shooting anomalocaris) was my personal favorite.
So yeah, there were some really great ideas in this game, but just problematic execution.
Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.
That's really what annoys me the most about this game. That it would've taken so little to make it a fantastic game. Completely remove the pixel hunts, remove 90% of Samus's droning dialogue, burn Sakamoto's script in a fire and get somebody from the Metroid Prime team to rewrite the dialogue from scratch, allow players to backtrack to previous areas at their own leisure, completely redesign the upgrade system with anything ANYTHING but the authorisation system no matter how little sense it makes.
And voila! Awesome game. There really isn't any mystery why this game is selling poorly for a major installment in Nintendo's Big Three of Mario, Zelda and Metroid.
...Actually, Pokemon is currently one of the big three (Although it is developed and owned by a second party company). Metroid's kinda a niche franchise, sadly. :(
But yeah, as the game is right now, it's kind of a case of liking it if you can ignore the flaws. If the cutscenes were skippable for the first playthrough, or if the items didn't automatically appear on the map when I checked it, or if I was given a choice between Wii-Mote alone or Wii-Mote and Nunchuck, I might have been more charitable.
Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.
Oh yeah, Pokemon. You are so right.
To prove to myself that the gameplay really is the main strength of this game, I tried replaying it while skipping every cutscene at the point where Samus goes into "dull droning monologue" mode, and pretending really hard that she acquires upgrades as she goes along instead of having them and being forced to wait for some douche to decide it's vital enough she use them. Well, the result was a much more enjoyable playthrough. The first-mode missile system does take a while to get used to, but I noticed and appreciated how all the enemies are specifically designed for you to be able to create an opening to use your missiles, if you so choose. There's a nice level of strategy, and there are different ways of tackling the same challenge. Unfortunately, with basically all the cutscenes skipped (seriously, there's less than a handful in which Samus doesn't do her zombie voice) it amounted to an incredibly short game. Ridiculously short by Metroid Prime's standards. So I guess you just can't win, Other M.
And here we see why Samus should just be in solo missions, given her record of destruction.
With a '0', not an 'O'Leave a Comment:
A great game wrecked by incredibly foolish design choices
I want to say that Team Ninja did a great job with their Metroid game. They made a daring choice by adding major changes to the core formula, and for the most part their decisions work well. Interesting and varied new combat system that focuses on skill to avoid getting hit at all rather than energy tank/missile supply to burn through. A complete update of the classic bestiary making traditional enemies aggressive and challenging. Even the gas mines stop being passive. The graphics are excellent, the sounds nicely tense, and the gameplay fun. The government conspiracy and murder mystery provide a great background for the game.
Unfortunately, the fate of Team Ninja's game is put in the hands of a dunce and a bad writer who succesfully suck far too much of the fun out of the game. Samus Aran's character is butchered so badly that it retroactively ruins her in the good old games, due to Sakamoto's insistence that this is the "true" version of Samus. So if you saw her as a capable warrior and confident loner in the past, you were just plain wrong. The self-doubting submissive you play as in Other M is the "true" Samus. Our heroine starts with all her upgrades, but willingly disables them all before even being told to by her hunky oedipus complex-generating superior. In fact, the guy never actually tells her to switch her powers off. He just says she can't activate them until his say-so. So switching off the Varia suit and refusing to turn it on until halfway through the lava level is entirely Samus Aran's choice and fault - the "true" character you've been playing as since the NES days.
It gets worse. Cutscenes and action levels are suddenly broken up by pixel hunts that can last from thirty seconds to forty minutes or as long as it takes you to lose patience and check gamefaqs. Backtracking is frowned upon by the game, which is the most linear in the series, a title it inherits from the much-criticised Metroid Fusion. If you're expecting a Metroidvania, you'll be sorely disappointed by Other M.
The music isn't. If you're not fighting a boss, you're not listening to music. If you're lucky you'll hear a few notes repeating in the background, but that's it. The Ridley theme is at least awesome as always.
Metroid Other M. Rent it first and decide for yourself if the bad design choices wreck the fun.
5/10