Reversion to Metroid: Other M

george-x

Hey all - random question. I'm at the last boss in Other M, and I know I have to

power bomb in the Metroid Queen's belly

But I don't HAVE the

power bomb

yet.

Wtf? I looked online and folks were just saying to charge in ball mode and it'll happen. It doesn't.

Anybody else gone through this?

Timestones

Yeah it's really dumb. You actually DO have the Power Bomb at that point but unlike every other ability in the game you're never actually told that it's activated. Just charge it up and hope you have enough life left to get a power bomb off.

george-x

That's really odd. A frustrating inconsistency - 90% of your weapons had to be "approved", which was stupid in and of itself. Then late in the game you just "approve" your own shit when the time comes. Absolutely retarded.

I got the power bomb to work - I had to hold A and 2 to use it, which I discovered by chance.

Really stupid, Team Ninja. Otherwise terrific game.

cloudeagle

george-x wrote:

That's really odd. A frustrating inconsistency - 90% of your weapons had to be "approved", which was stupid in and of itself. Then late in the game you just "approve" your own shit when the time comes. Absolutely retarded.

I got the power bomb to work - I had to hold A and 2 to use it, which I discovered by chance.

Really stupid, Team Ninja. Otherwise terrific game.

Wait till you get to the "final boss."

Cantido

cloudeagle wrote:

george-x wrote:

That's really odd. A frustrating inconsistency - 90% of your weapons had to be "approved", which was stupid in and of itself. Then late in the game you just "approve" your own shit when the time comes. Absolutely retarded.

I got the power bomb to work - I had to hold A and 2 to use it, which I discovered by chance.

Really stupid, Team Ninja. Otherwise terrific game.

Wait till you get to the "final boss."

See Klyka's LP for shenanigans.

Yeah, this game is actually the exact sort of thing I would like from Metroid (mixing the platforming of the 2D games with the gunslinging of Prime,) but executed horribly. I wouldn't mind Retro trying the same thing. Hell, I'll take Team Ninja all over again after a very thorough slapping over everything their did wrong. This is will go down as the first Metroid I did not finish.

cloudeagle

Cantido wrote:

cloudeagle wrote:

george-x wrote:

That's really odd. A frustrating inconsistency - 90% of your weapons had to be "approved", which was stupid in and of itself. Then late in the game you just "approve" your own shit when the time comes. Absolutely retarded.

I got the power bomb to work - I had to hold A and 2 to use it, which I discovered by chance.

Really stupid, Team Ninja. Otherwise terrific game.

Wait till you get to the "final boss."

See Klyka's LP for shenanigans.

Yeah, this game is actually the exact sort of thing I would like from Metroid (mixing the platforming of the 2D games with the gunslinging of Prime,) but executed horribly. I wouldn't mind Retro trying the same thing. Hell, I'll take Team Ninja all over again after a very thorough slapping over everything their did wrong. This is will go down as the first Metroid I did not finish.

Oh sure, I'd welcome Team Ninja back. Especially since, by most accounts, everything that's horrible with Other M is the result of whatsisface on Nintendo's side (the lame plot, the over-feminization of Samus, the authorization torture, the whole "Deleter" thing, completely forgetting to wrap up the Deleter plotline, the horrible localization, etc.... hell, he even nixed playing the game with a nunchuk, which would have made the first-person parts seamless).

Then again we should probably move this over to the most recent Other M thread:

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/148248/lets-play-metroid-other-m-s14-always-wear-your-helmet/p1

Endless_Serpents

I haven't played Other M, but how would this formula work:

Same gameplay.

But the game would use the nunchuck too, for moving around mainly, plus what, two extra buttons?

Find upgrades rather then having them ordered into existence.

Stretches of desolate, isolated cavern.

Fairly open, at least you should be able to go to two different places at once.

Cantido

cloudeagle wrote:

Cantido wrote:

cloudeagle wrote:

george-x wrote:

That's really odd. A frustrating inconsistency - 90% of your weapons had to be "approved", which was stupid in and of itself. Then late in the game you just "approve" your own shit when the time comes. Absolutely retarded.

I got the power bomb to work - I had to hold A and 2 to use it, which I discovered by chance.

Really stupid, Team Ninja. Otherwise terrific game.

Wait till you get to the "final boss."

See Klyka's LP for shenanigans.

Yeah, this game is actually the exact sort of thing I would like from Metroid (mixing the platforming of the 2D games with the gunslinging of Prime,) but executed horribly. I wouldn't mind Retro trying the same thing. Hell, I'll take Team Ninja all over again after a very thorough slapping over everything their did wrong. This is will go down as the first Metroid I did not finish.

Oh sure, I'd welcome Team Ninja back. Especially since, by most accounts, everything that's horrible with Other M is the result of whatsisface on Nintendo's side (the lame plot, the over-feminization of Samus, the authorization torture, the whole "Deleter" thing, completely forgetting to wrap up the Deleter plotline, the horrible localization, etc.... hell, he even nixed playing the game with a nunchuk, which would have made the first-person parts seamless).

Then again we should probably move this over to the most recent Other M thread:

http://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/148248/lets-play-metroid-other-m-s14-always-wear-your-helmet/p1

It's not even the story that killed it for me, but the maps. Getting from point A to point B in some spots was a nightmare because of "invisible walls" and crappy puzzles.

Brainiac 8

Just jumped in to give my expected "silly story aside, I absolutely enjoyed Other M."

*jumps out*

UncleSporky

Did you portmanteau revulsion and aversion to form the word that means to revert?

LBD_Nytetrayn

UncleSporky wrote:

Did you portmanteau revulsion and aversion to form the word that means to revert?

I thought he had been playing better games, and then regressed back to this one.

Wyvern

Call me crazy, but I thought the bit with the power bomb was literally the only part of Other M that wasn't aggressively stupid. It actually makes perfect sense if you think about it. You're inside a Metroid Queen. Anyone who's played Metroid 2 knows that the best way to kill a Metroid Queen is to bomb it from inside. Regular bombs don't deal damage. The only actions you can physically take are dropping bombs and charging power bombs (which you can always attempt, even though it never tops out). The arguments against using power bombs start to look pretty stupid when the alternative is being digested alive. So one's natural inclination should be: screw it, I'm totally trying a power bomb. It's common sense, really.

The issue is that every other second of Other M stands in staunch opposition to intelligence and treats common sense as the enemy. It's really liberating and satisfying to finally, finally have the opportunity just to solve a damn problem using your own reasoning and decision-making without being force-fed tutorials or absurd exposition, but the average player has totally given up on the game by this point and hasn't bothered thinking outside the tutorial-mandated box in hours because it has never once been allowed or encouraged.

I guess I hadn't given up my rebellious streak yet (if only out of spite) and thus got it on my first try, but I can see why most people wouldn't.

Shady3011

george-x wrote:

Really stupid, Team Ninja. Otherwise terrific game.

I guess if you ignore the incredibly retarded plot, then it is a decent Metroid game. Also, Team Ninja isn't solely responsible for the gameplay frustration. If anything, the story is the main reason why that part ended up being completely random.

klemming

Wyvern wrote:

Anyone who's played Metroid 2 knows that the best way to kill a Metroid Queen is to bomb it from inside.

Percentage-wise, how many people is that going to be? That argument presumes a level of experience that the rest of the game doesn't support.
Like you said, the entire game was spent keeping you on a leash, even defying basic logic to keep you from doing something until it was permitted, no matter how stupid the reason.
Expecting anyone to keep trying to break the rules the game had set down right at the end is incredibly poor design.

Imagine if there was a level of Mario Bros on the NES where the exit was to the left. You've spent the entire game not only running to the right because that's where the exit is, but being kept from heading left by the actual physics of the game.

chiasaur11

klemming wrote:

Wyvern wrote:

Anyone who's played Metroid 2 knows that the best way to kill a Metroid Queen is to bomb it from inside.

Percentage-wise, how many people is that going to be? That argument presumes a level of experience that the rest of the game doesn't support.
Like you said, the entire game was spent keeping you on a leash, even defying basic logic to keep you from doing something until it was permitted, no matter how stupid the reason.
Expecting anyone to keep trying to break the rules the game had set down right at the end is incredibly poor design.

Imagine if there was a level of Mario Bros on the NES where the exit was to the left. You've spent the entire game not only running to the right because that's where the exit is, but being kept from heading left by the actual physics of the game.

No, Mario Bros example is still less bad. More time to adapt to the rules, and once you figure them out, it's basic, if weird.

This... well, I can't think of a good example.

Davoid

It's like if, in Super Mario Bros, one of the powerups were to behave differently (with no indication) right at the end of the game, or like, the item boxes or bricks suddenly changed in behaviour.

It's just abysmally poor design. You can say it's a "liberating common sense solution", but it doesn't feel that way. It feels like the game has established its rules and then yanks that rug out from under you without letting you know at worst, or that it is giving you an extremely contrived sense of "breaking the rules" at best.

I don't really recall, but does it even tell you how to use the item? Because if not, wow.

MechMantis

Davoid wrote:

It's like if, in Super Mario Bros, one of the powerups were to behave differently (with no indication) right at the end of the game, or like, the item boxes or bricks suddenly changed in behaviour.

It's just abysmally poor design. You can say it's a "liberating common sense solution", but it doesn't feel that way. It feels like the game has established its rules and then yanks that rug out from under you without letting you know at worst, or that it is giving you an extremely contrived sense of "breaking the rules" at best.

I don't really recall, but does it even tell you how to use the item? Because if not, wow.

It tells you specifically not to use it.

And indeed, the best way to kill a Metroid Queen is to bomb it from the inside. With normal bombs. Power bombs didn't exist in Metroid 2.

klemming

They tell you how to use a power bomb right at the start (like, in the first room where you're learning the controls), then turn it off for the rest of the game.
Not cool.

Brainiac 8

To all those who hate the plot and all that.

If you don't know, Team Ninja is NOT responsible for that. All they did was animate everything, program the world/cut scenes/etc, the story is the sole work of Samus' father, Sakamoto. He's the guy who wrote most of the previous Metroids.

It may be why he doesn't like Retro's Metroid games, as he didn't have a hand in writing those at all.

cloudeagle

Brainiac 8 wrote:

To all those who hate the plot and all that.

If you don't know, Team Ninja is NOT responsible for that. All they did was animate everything, program the world/cut scenes/etc, the story is the sole work of Samus' father, Sakamoto. He's the guy who wrote most of the previous Metroids.

It may be why he doesn't like Retro's Metroid games, as he didn't have a hand in writing those at all.

Um, no. Samus' father is Gunpei Yokoi. Whatsisface only took the reins after Gunpei left. Despite his constant blathering on and on about how he created the series.

Brainiac 8

cloudeagle wrote:

Brainiac 8 wrote:

To all those who hate the plot and all that.

If you don't know, Team Ninja is NOT responsible for that. All they did was animate everything, program the world/cut scenes/etc, the story is the sole work of Samus' father, Sakamoto. He's the guy who wrote most of the previous Metroids.

It may be why he doesn't like Retro's Metroid games, as he didn't have a hand in writing those at all.

Um, no. Samus' father is Gunpei Yokoi. Whatsisface only took the reins after Gunpei left. Despite his constant blathering on and on about how he created the series.

Sorry, I meant to put quotations around that, 'father' in kind of a mocking way, since he is constantly droning on about being her 'father.' :P

cloudeagle

Brainiac 8 wrote:

cloudeagle wrote:

Brainiac 8 wrote:

To all those who hate the plot and all that.

If you don't know, Team Ninja is NOT responsible for that. All they did was animate everything, program the world/cut scenes/etc, the story is the sole work of Samus' father, Sakamoto. He's the guy who wrote most of the previous Metroids.

It may be why he doesn't like Retro's Metroid games, as he didn't have a hand in writing those at all.

Um, no. Samus' father is Gunpei Yokoi. Whatsisface only took the reins after Gunpei left. Despite his constant blathering on and on about how he created the series.

Sorry, I meant to put quotations around that, 'father' in kind of a mocking way, since he is constantly droning on about being her 'father.' :P

Ah, gotcha. :^:

reVerse

Even if it isn't incest, it's still rape.

Shady3011

Brainiac 8 wrote:

To all those who hate the plot and all that.

If you don't know, Team Ninja is NOT responsible for that. All they did was animate everything, program the world/cut scenes/etc, the story is the sole work of Samus' father, Sakamoto. He's the guy who wrote most of the previous Metroids.

It may be why he doesn't like Retro's Metroid games, as he didn't have a hand in writing those at all.

Actually, Sakamoto had an influence on them especially Prime 2 forward. Zero Suit Samus in Echoes is pretty much his mandate.

cloudeagle wrote:

Brainiac 8 wrote:

To all those who hate the plot and all that.

If you don't know, Team Ninja is NOT responsible for that. All they did was animate everything, program the world/cut scenes/etc, the story is the sole work of Samus' father, Sakamoto. He's the guy who wrote most of the previous Metroids.

It may be why he doesn't like Retro's Metroid games, as he didn't have a hand in writing those at all.

Um, no. Samus' father is Gunpei Yokoi. Whatsisface only took the reins after Gunpei left.

I think you mean when he met an unfortunate "accident".

Anyway, the funny thing about Gunpei is that he didn't want to continue the series after Super Metroid. Not that that means much now since he passed away before Metroid Prime was even a project.

Voth

I ended up really liking the game after you get the shinespark. I think it was only then that the gameplay managed to overpower the story for me.

BigJoeM

Shady3011 wrote:

Brainiac 8 wrote:

To all those who hate the plot and all that.

If you don't know, Team Ninja is NOT responsible for that. All they did was animate everything, program the world/cut scenes/etc, the story is the sole work of Samus' father, Sakamoto. He's the guy who wrote most of the previous Metroids.

It may be why he doesn't like Retro's Metroid games, as he didn't have a hand in writing those at all.

Actually, Sakamoto had an influence on them especially Prime 2 forward. Zero Suit Samus in Echoes is pretty much his mandate.

cloudeagle wrote:

Brainiac 8 wrote:

To all those who hate the plot and all that.

If you don't know, Team Ninja is NOT responsible for that. All they did was animate everything, program the world/cut scenes/etc, the story is the sole work of Samus' father, Sakamoto. He's the guy who wrote most of the previous Metroids.

It may be why he doesn't like Retro's Metroid games, as he didn't have a hand in writing those at all.

Um, no. Samus' father is Gunpei Yokoi. Whatsisface only took the reins after Gunpei left.

I think you mean when he met an unfortunate "accident".

Anyway, the funny thing about Gunpei is that he didn't want to continue the series after Super Metroid. Not that that means much now since he passed away before Metroid Prime was even a project.

That was one of the tragedies of videogame history i wish Yokoi were alive today to shower in all the accolades he is owed.

As to Other M, i enjoyed it but there were some missteps in the gameplay and the story was not conveyed well at all.

My complaints

Authorization flat out did not fit with the gameplay and no sequence breaking
Pixel hunting was stupid and the game should have used the nunchuk

LBD_Nytetrayn

I thought Yokoi was the Producer, while Sakamoto was one of the designers?

Magus`

george-x wrote:

That's really odd. A frustrating inconsistency - 90% of your weapons had to be "approved", which was stupid in and of itself. Then late in the game you just "approve" your own shit when the time comes. Absolutely retarded.

I got the power bomb to work - I had to hold A and 2 to use it, which I discovered by chance.

Really stupid, Team Ninja. Otherwise terrific game.

You take that back. You take it right the fuck back.

klemming

I don't think it would be a terrible game on it's own, it just doesn't feel right as a Metroid game.

Klyka

My LP of Other M was the most fun I had with an LP.
But not because the game was good.

Chris FOM

The funny part is there are a lot of really great ideas in Other M. I adored the Prime games (in particular the first one), but the Samus in those always felt far less agile than in the 2D games (likely because the 2D Samus would be impossible to control in first person). Echoes and Corruption tried to bring some of that agility back and then even succeeded to a limited extent, but there was always a notable difference. The basic gameplay of Other M fused the agility of the 2D games to a 3D world surprisingly well. Add in the nunchuck and redo a few of the control choices and you could have had a terrific template to build off of. Unfortunately things fall off the rails thereafter. The game is even more relentlessly linear than Fusion (likely Sakamoto's decision) and the Bottle Ship as an environment is weak. Fusion already used the "research sectors" to justify the different zones, but at least Fusion's research station came together into a reasonably cohesive whole (not perfect, but good enough for a video game). The Bottle Ship's sections seemed to bear no relation to one another and their design was wildly inconsistent. Nevermind the individual rooms tended to be bland and uninteresting. After three games of Retro's unparalleled attention to detail Other M's environments were simply boring. Early on I would constantly change into first person mode just to look around the rooms, but after an hour or two I stopped because there invariably was nothing worth seeing. Figuring out puzzles tended to hinge on simply finding the right spot to do something, while Prime used the scan visor to focus your attention while leaving you to tease out the solution. Add in the fact that you couldn't backtrack even if you wanted to until the end-game and you had a drab, simplistic, and ultimately boring game. There were a lot of really good ideas in the concepts for this one, but the execution was pretty mediocre.

All that said, I'd be up for giving Team Ninja another shot. I think they really did the gameplay as well as possible within Sakamoto's limits. Let them use the nunchuck and rethink the controls, while have Nintendo keep a firmer hand on environmental/level design as well as the overall progression and there's still the potential for something special.