I enjoyed the gameplay of the game despite the bad control scheme, but if it had used a good one I would have definitely enjoyed it a lot more.
The story was dogshit though and just ruined the entire experience. It definitely felt like they wanted to do a prequel but then realized "wait, if we do a prequel we can't have any Metroids" and then switched it to being after Super by tacking the mother allegory on top. I could see it really working well as a prequel story where she's still in the military with Adam as her CO so she starts off deferring to him but she gets fed up with his bullshit during the mission and stops holding herself back for his sake, eventually saving the day and then quitting the military to go off and be a bounty hunter. In that context her having to take a moment to collect herself after seeing Ridley in person for what would be the first time since her childhood makes some sense, but then you'd expect the next thing to be her going "fuck the mission, I need to kill that motherfucker no matter what" and not "now I'm going to freeze like a deer in headlights until a man saves me."
Having a story where your hero has a heavy emotional burden and moments of weakness before coming out stronger is a classic for a reason, but Other M hits every single note as wrong as possible, it's not just that one scene. Samus is depressed over the death of an alien creature that it would be more reasonable if she was vaguely fond of it... like a neighbor's dog, not even HER dog. Her considering this thing her BABY is insane and basically shows the writers' hand of being regressive sexist creeps from the jump. "She's a LADY so her hormones would make her consider a young creature of ANY kind as her own BABY. That's how lady brains work!" Then she encounters an old boss who, in this very story we find out she found controlling and ultimately impossible to work under. Since then, she's become one of the most successful and powerful operators in this field by any metric. So naturally, she notes how she was a dumb, stupid baby girl and he was a super cool smart guy and offers to be his subordinate again, unbidden, even as he immediately shows her unprofessional disrespect considering all of her history doing jobs for his organization. From there, we get the whole "I will burn alive rather than trouble this man with my minor, lava related problems," the breakdown scene, and the life threatening ambush he puts her through because Adam is an abusive, controlling sociopath, aka a super cool man's man in the writers' eyes. Other M is the rare case where sometimes I feel like people aren't harsh ENOUGH about it.
Samus a Metroid/Human hybrid.
Imagine going into Metroid 6 with the green Metroid suit. Ah well.
Undead Scottsman on
+1
Golden YakBurnished BovineThe sunny beaches of CanadaRegistered Userregular
The best criticism I've heard of Other M as a game where 'Samus gets in touch with her softer, feminine, motherly side' was someone asking 'would you want to play a Batman Arkham series game where Batman gets in touch with his softer, feminine, motherly side?'
You want Batman to have to ask Commissioner Gordon if it's okay for him to use his heat-seeker batarangs?
The best criticism I've heard of Other M as a game where 'Samus gets in touch with her softer, feminine, motherly side' was someone asking 'would you want to play a Batman Arkham series game where Batman gets in touch with his softer, feminine, motherly side?'
You want Batman to have to ask Commissioner Gordon if it's okay for him to use his heat-seeker batarangs?
They took the part of Fusion that everybody HATED, where you aren't allowed to use things until the robot says so and the robot gets mad at you the few times you actually use your weapons, and made it a larger part of the game.
If I can walljump my way to a powerbomb expansion before I'm supposed to have power bombs I should get to use those power bombs damnit.
It's technically just a veneer over the regular power progression and not REALLY any different than finding the thing at the place you're supposed to, but it's an irritating one that doesn't feel good from a gameplay perspective.
Samus a Metroid/Human hybrid.
Imagine going into Metroid 6 with the green Metroid suit. Ah well.
Well...
I feel like all that really happened at the end was she got the whole thing under control more? Not really clear if it's something she could pull out again or not, or if she just needs something to jump-start it, or... But yes, the final suit is amazing and we need to have that show up again.
The best criticism I've heard of Other M as a game where 'Samus gets in touch with her softer, feminine, motherly side' was someone asking 'would you want to play a Batman Arkham series game where Batman gets in touch with his softer, feminine, motherly side?'
You want Batman to have to ask Commissioner Gordon if it's okay for him to use his heat-seeker batarangs?
They took the part of Fusion that everybody HATED, where you aren't allowed to use things until the robot says so and the robot gets mad at you the few times you actually use your weapons, and made it a larger part of the game.
If I can walljump my way to a powerbomb expansion before I'm supposed to have power bombs I should get to use those power bombs damnit.
It's technically just a veneer over the regular power progression and not REALLY any different than finding the thing at the place you're supposed to, but it's an irritating one that doesn't feel good from a gameplay perspective.
I can tolerate a lot of Other M's many faults, but Samus willfully not engaging the Varia Suit while running through a room full of goddamned lava until she basically forced Adam to give her the official go-ahead or else she would die will always drive me mad.
The best criticism I've heard of Other M as a game where 'Samus gets in touch with her softer, feminine, motherly side' was someone asking 'would you want to play a Batman Arkham series game where Batman gets in touch with his softer, feminine, motherly side?'
You want Batman to have to ask Commissioner Gordon if it's okay for him to use his heat-seeker batarangs?
They took the part of Fusion that everybody HATED, where you aren't allowed to use things until the robot says so and the robot gets mad at you the few times you actually use your weapons, and made it a larger part of the game.
If I can walljump my way to a powerbomb expansion before I'm supposed to have power bombs I should get to use those power bombs damnit.
It's technically just a veneer over the regular power progression and not REALLY any different than finding the thing at the place you're supposed to, but it's an irritating one that doesn't feel good from a gameplay perspective.
I can tolerate a lot of Other M's many faults, but Samus willfully not engaging the Varia Suit while running through a room full of goddamned lava until she basically forced Adam to give her the official go-ahead or else she would die will always drive me mad.
Yeah, but if you had to run through the lava and didn’t FIND the Varia Suit until you got to the exact same point gameplay wise it would be fine. It’d probably be awesome, because it’s like “Dude! I barely made it!” And there would be people dedicating huge chunks of time to entering the lava with as low max health as possible to try and reach the Varia suit.
The best criticism I've heard of Other M as a game where 'Samus gets in touch with her softer, feminine, motherly side' was someone asking 'would you want to play a Batman Arkham series game where Batman gets in touch with his softer, feminine, motherly side?'
You want Batman to have to ask Commissioner Gordon if it's okay for him to use his heat-seeker batarangs?
They took the part of Fusion that everybody HATED, where you aren't allowed to use things until the robot says so and the robot gets mad at you the few times you actually use your weapons, and made it a larger part of the game.
If I can walljump my way to a powerbomb expansion before I'm supposed to have power bombs I should get to use those power bombs damnit.
It's technically just a veneer over the regular power progression and not REALLY any different than finding the thing at the place you're supposed to, but it's an irritating one that doesn't feel good from a gameplay perspective.
I can tolerate a lot of Other M's many faults, but Samus willfully not engaging the Varia Suit while running through a room full of goddamned lava until she basically forced Adam to give her the official go-ahead or else she would die will always drive me mad.
Samus is just trying to low% this mission and only activates it at the last moment out of respect for Adam.
In the context of it being a prequel I'd say the Varia Suit stunt would have been a perfect point for her to tell Adam to go fuck himself and turn the story from her obeying him and shit going wrong to her doing her own thing and getting better results.
I tend to prefer a characterization of Samus as more collected warrior than Roided Up Ragemonster Doomguy-but-female that people often seem to want, personally. She seems pretty chill normally and happy to help. She's basically a paladin for hire raised by chill mystic birds and wearing armor powered by her own willpower and all that. I can't help but think it has to take a LOT to get Samus to hit "proper angry".
Just, well. After so many games, Raven Beak finally managed to do it.
It went like you'd expect.
Yes, I think most Metroid fans think of Samus as just professional and "this is the job" throughout most moments of most games. Which is why the breakdown in Other M comes off as wildly inappropriate, this is her 3rd or 4th (or much more if you count Prime) fighting this guy, but this time it's so scary and won't a big strong man come save her please??
Yeah. She's put Ridley down so many times. I could see her going a bit berserk on Ridley, but never cowering from the bastard.
I get the feeling Sakamoto imagines those encounters differently than we do. Like something much scarier. Just look at how he appeared in Zero Mission when you go to fight him:
I'm wondering if, in Sakamoto's mind, every encounter with Ridley is supposed to have gotten into her head like it did in MOM, and it's always a life-or-death struggle where Samus barely survives by the skin of her teeth, and he just. Never. Dies.
I prefer not to get into details, but I've had some things happen to me repeatedly, and they've never really gotten any better. If anything, they've gotten worse with time, and even writing this paragraph is tough because of how it affects me.
The best criticism I've heard of Other M as a game where 'Samus gets in touch with her softer, feminine, motherly side' was someone asking 'would you want to play a Batman Arkham series game where Batman gets in touch with his softer, feminine, motherly side?'
You want Batman to have to ask Commissioner Gordon if it's okay for him to use his heat-seeker batarangs?
They took the part of Fusion that everybody HATED, where you aren't allowed to use things until the robot says so and the robot gets mad at you the few times you actually use your weapons, and made it a larger part of the game.
If I can walljump my way to a powerbomb expansion before I'm supposed to have power bombs I should get to use those power bombs damnit.
It's technically just a veneer over the regular power progression and not REALLY any different than finding the thing at the place you're supposed to, but it's an irritating one that doesn't feel good from a gameplay perspective.
I can tolerate a lot of Other M's many faults, but Samus willfully not engaging the Varia Suit while running through a room full of goddamned lava until she basically forced Adam to give her the official go-ahead or else she would die will always drive me mad.
Samus is just trying to low% this mission and only activates it at the last moment out of respect for Adam.
If I remember correctly, that's closer to how it was in the Japanese version; Samus was basically trying to put on some sort of facade by not using it, and Adam is like "Dammit, Samus, use your &$@%ing Varia already!"
And then she does.
Really, I think the biggest problem has been the dissonance between how Japan sees Samus and how the west sees Samus ("pro-bono Hunter", anyone?), compounded by -- to my understanding-- Metroid being bigger in the west, despite their best efforts.
So you have the creator's vision not aligning with their creation's biggest audience, and trying to sway them to their way of seeing things isn't working.
With the last couple of games, though, I feel like maybe they're relenting?
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
With the last couple of games, though, I feel like maybe they're relenting?
They are indeed having Samus say basically nothing in Dread to avoid those audience-creator mismatch, just like the good old Super Metroid times. It sticks out noticably in a game that in every other way is basically a direct sequel to Fusion that we got zero introspection from Samus.
Sakamoto's stated vision for Other M was to know the person "underneath the visor", after that unmitigated disaster of both criticism and sales, the simplest solution is to just not do that again.
If we're just going to get Sakamoto's vision I'd have to say that I agree. But if we could get a competent writer to try a different approach at actually crafting a personality for Samus I'd be down with it.
Got this baby hot on the heels of the Prime 4 reveal.
Edit: Hmmm. I tried to reduce the file size in my phone to make it suitable for posting. I might have gone overboard. Anyone let me know if you want to see a bigger version and I’ll try again.
With the last couple of games, though, I feel like maybe they're relenting?
They are indeed having Samus say basically nothing in Dread to avoid those audience-creator mismatch, just like the good old Super Metroid times. It sticks out noticably in a game that in every other way is basically a direct sequel to Fusion that we got zero introspection from Samus.
Sakamoto's stated vision for Other M was to know the person "underneath the visor", after that unmitigated disaster of both criticism and sales, the simplest solution is to just not do that again.
If we're just going to get Sakamoto's vision I'd have to say that I agree. But if we could get a competent writer to try a different approach at actually crafting a personality for Samus I'd be down with it.
While it would be some immensely heavy material to cover, having Samus dealing with a level of self destructive PTSD where she isn’t at the point she’ll outright kill herself, but will casually obey the literal expression of an order that has her run into a volcano without protective gear could be very powerful. The idea that even the greatest warrior in the galaxy can’t overcome mental illness by herself, that it isn’t weakness to reach out to others when you’re struggling. Of course with how Other M was written the closest you’d get is the weak and feeble woman needs a big tough man to tell her to get her womanly feelings under control, which is almost exactly the opposite of the “even the strongest person can’t beat mental illness by just toughing it out” message.
I've always thought Samus would fit well in a kind of sci-fi noir action story, that's the vibe I got from stuff like fusion's story bits and the zero mission casual samus end screen art.
BahamutZERO on
+3
Magus`The fun has been DOUBLED!Registered Userregular
Got this baby hot on the heels of the Prime 4 reveal.
Edit: Hmmm. I tried to reduce the file size in my phone to make it suitable for posting. I might have gone overboard. Anyone let me know if you want to see a bigger version and I’ll try again.
Got this baby hot on the heels of the Prime 4 reveal.
Edit: Hmmm. I tried to reduce the file size in my phone to make it suitable for posting. I might have gone overboard. Anyone let me know if you want to see a bigger version and I’ll try again.
The introduction of 3D environments and movement is the biggest change that has ever happened to video games (as an artistic medium, not necessarily as a business). Even though it happened over a few years in the mid '90s it feels like two decades or more of change.
Wolfenstein 3-D: May 5th, 1992
Doom: December 10th, 1993
Quake: June 22nd, 1996
We went from a game that didn't even have varible height to true 3D in like 4 years and change. Id also put out Spear of Destiny (September 18th 1992), Doom II (October 10th, 1994) and Thy Flesh Consumed (April 30th, 1995) during that time as well.
Undead Scottsman on
+1
Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
I was watching a Metroid lore video last night and it brought up that old manga, so it got me in the mood to go read it again. I totally forgot that was written for Zero Mission - I thought it was much older and wasn't expecting mentions of the X parasites and such. Overall really good though. It got me wanting to also go back and read the Super Metroid Nintendo Power comic and I was kind of surprised... Uh, I thought that comic was super super non-canon. Like, I figured Nintendo Power just hired some American writer to make up something based on the game events and what little story details Super Metroid gives. But there is straight up correct information in here that later re-appears in the Zero Mission manga (which as far as I'm aware IS official). Not only does it mention Samus's backstory on K-2L but it also includes several characters who later appear in the ZM Manga like Galactic Federation Chairman Keaton, Officer Hardy, and Old Bird. So now I'm just super curious if the ZM manga author actually referenced that Nintendo Power comic or if there's some additional story source I'm not aware of (maybe some Japanese-only source or Sakamoto actually has some kind of lore bible he wrote for all this stuff :P). Anyways I just found it super interesting
Side note, man that Nintendo Power comic really didn't need to add in the blue Samus. That dude was super pointless to the story (he literally does nothing beyond picking up Space Pirate claws to sell and then later carrying Samus to Old Bird to heal when she steps on a spike or whatever... I feel like she could have just gone there on her own tho).
Also, in terms of the ZM manga, I have to think Sakamoto was referencing this with the very cringe Ridley freakout scene that everyone hates in Other M. There's a scene that's extremely similar in the manga, except that here it actually makes sense as it's literally the first time she's seen him since he murdered her parents (not to mention he super ruthlessly taunts her about how he ate them - it's honestly really brutal for Nintendo).
P.S. - I went browsing what other mangas they had out there and there was a really cheesy one written for a Metroid 1 strategy guide. Honestly well drawn if not cartoony (it legit might have been the same artist as the Metroid 1 manual - it looked exactly the same). Was super waiting for them to stop calling Samus a man but despite covering the entire game (because it's a strategy guide) they never once did. I guess they wanted to keep it a secret, but it was still funny to see Samus surrounded by bikini babes swooning over her and being called "Mr. Samus" XD Also according to this manga Samus sucks at Zelda 1.
Amazon is cancelling Metroid Prime 4 preorders. There goes the one I've had since 2018!
I saw an article about this. The article made it sound like it wasn't just Amazon but I dunno (I didn't look into it that closely). Does make me wonder if Prime 4 has been moved to be Switch 2 exclusive though.
What I saw made it sound like more of an issue of Amazon not doing much about counterfeit Nintendo products. They've had periods in the past where Nintendo refuses to stock Amazon so this might be more of the same.
0
Warlock82Never pet a burning dogRegistered Userregular
What I saw made it sound like more of an issue of Amazon not doing much about counterfeit Nintendo products. They've had periods in the past where Nintendo refuses to stock Amazon so this might be more of the same.
Amazon has always had the weirdest relationship with Nintendo, I think dating back to some disagreement about console returns or something. I still remember one time, very briefly, where it seemed like some kind of fanboy was in charge of their pages and basically all of the Nintendo software was linking to Playstation and Xbox stuff and heavily trying to drive people to competitor products (don't remember exactly what happened but it was super egregious and obvious). I think this only lasted a day or two but still, the fact that something like that even happened was kind of incredible to me.
It wasn't just Amazon that cancelled the preorders. I've seen notices from people from Best Buy too; I assume there are others. I imagine it was just a broad directive from Nintendo to all retailers to mass cancel, likely because the base price of new games is more now.
Also, possibly, maybe relates to how it might be cross gen; there could be two sku's, or some weirdness?
Posts
I'd love to see Nintendo take another shot at a non-Prime 3D Metroid.
The story was dogshit though and just ruined the entire experience. It definitely felt like they wanted to do a prequel but then realized "wait, if we do a prequel we can't have any Metroids" and then switched it to being after Super by tacking the mother allegory on top. I could see it really working well as a prequel story where she's still in the military with Adam as her CO so she starts off deferring to him but she gets fed up with his bullshit during the mission and stops holding herself back for his sake, eventually saving the day and then quitting the military to go off and be a bounty hunter. In that context her having to take a moment to collect herself after seeing Ridley in person for what would be the first time since her childhood makes some sense, but then you'd expect the next thing to be her going "fuck the mission, I need to kill that motherfucker no matter what" and not "now I'm going to freeze like a deer in headlights until a man saves me."
Or, let Samus control metroids with her mind, like some sort of… some sort of mo… motivational telepath.
Given the new (decades old) bad guy has two metroids floating next to them, it’s already a possibility.
Imagine going into Metroid 6 with the green Metroid suit. Ah well.
You want Batman to have to ask Commissioner Gordon if it's okay for him to use his heat-seeker batarangs?
They took the part of Fusion that everybody HATED, where you aren't allowed to use things until the robot says so and the robot gets mad at you the few times you actually use your weapons, and made it a larger part of the game.
If I can walljump my way to a powerbomb expansion before I'm supposed to have power bombs I should get to use those power bombs damnit.
It's technically just a veneer over the regular power progression and not REALLY any different than finding the thing at the place you're supposed to, but it's an irritating one that doesn't feel good from a gameplay perspective.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
Well...
3DS: 0473-8507-2652
Switch: SW-5185-4991-5118
PSN: AbEntropy
I can tolerate a lot of Other M's many faults, but Samus willfully not engaging the Varia Suit while running through a room full of goddamned lava until she basically forced Adam to give her the official go-ahead or else she would die will always drive me mad.
Yeah, but if you had to run through the lava and didn’t FIND the Varia Suit until you got to the exact same point gameplay wise it would be fine. It’d probably be awesome, because it’s like “Dude! I barely made it!” And there would be people dedicating huge chunks of time to entering the lava with as low max health as possible to try and reach the Varia suit.
Instead it’s stupid and I hate it.
twitch.tv/Taramoor
@TaramoorPlays
Taramoor on Youtube
Samus is just trying to low% this mission and only activates it at the last moment out of respect for Adam.
Yet everyone tries to salvage the same discussions about it.
I get the feeling Sakamoto imagines those encounters differently than we do. Like something much scarier. Just look at how he appeared in Zero Mission when you go to fight him:
I'm wondering if, in Sakamoto's mind, every encounter with Ridley is supposed to have gotten into her head like it did in MOM, and it's always a life-or-death struggle where Samus barely survives by the skin of her teeth, and he just. Never. Dies.
I prefer not to get into details, but I've had some things happen to me repeatedly, and they've never really gotten any better. If anything, they've gotten worse with time, and even writing this paragraph is tough because of how it affects me.
If I remember correctly, that's closer to how it was in the Japanese version; Samus was basically trying to put on some sort of facade by not using it, and Adam is like "Dammit, Samus, use your &$@%ing Varia already!"
And then she does.
Really, I think the biggest problem has been the dissonance between how Japan sees Samus and how the west sees Samus ("pro-bono Hunter", anyone?), compounded by -- to my understanding-- Metroid being bigger in the west, despite their best efforts.
So you have the creator's vision not aligning with their creation's biggest audience, and trying to sway them to their way of seeing things isn't working.
With the last couple of games, though, I feel like maybe they're relenting?
Like Mega Man Legends? Then check out my story, Legends of the Halcyon Era - An Adventure in the World of Mega Man Legends on TMMN and AO3!
They are indeed having Samus say basically nothing in Dread to avoid those audience-creator mismatch, just like the good old Super Metroid times. It sticks out noticably in a game that in every other way is basically a direct sequel to Fusion that we got zero introspection from Samus.
Sakamoto's stated vision for Other M was to know the person "underneath the visor", after that unmitigated disaster of both criticism and sales, the simplest solution is to just not do that again.
If we're just going to get Sakamoto's vision I'd have to say that I agree. But if we could get a competent writer to try a different approach at actually crafting a personality for Samus I'd be down with it.
Edit: Hmmm. I tried to reduce the file size in my phone to make it suitable for posting. I might have gone overboard. Anyone let me know if you want to see a bigger version and I’ll try again.
While it would be some immensely heavy material to cover, having Samus dealing with a level of self destructive PTSD where she isn’t at the point she’ll outright kill herself, but will casually obey the literal expression of an order that has her run into a volcano without protective gear could be very powerful. The idea that even the greatest warrior in the galaxy can’t overcome mental illness by herself, that it isn’t weakness to reach out to others when you’re struggling. Of course with how Other M was written the closest you’d get is the weak and feeble woman needs a big tough man to tell her to get her womanly feelings under control, which is almost exactly the opposite of the “even the strongest person can’t beat mental illness by just toughing it out” message.
Where'd you get this?
Steam Profile | Signature art by Alexandra 'Lexxy' Douglass
First 4 Figures
Metroid Prime: 2002
Metroid Prime 3: 2007
Metroid Prime 4: 2025
Time is a strange thing
XBL - Foreverender | 3DS FC - 1418 6696 1012 | Steam ID | LoL
The introduction of 3D environments and movement is the biggest change that has ever happened to video games (as an artistic medium, not necessarily as a business). Even though it happened over a few years in the mid '90s it feels like two decades or more of change.
Doom: December 10th, 1993
Quake: June 22nd, 1996
We went from a game that didn't even have varible height to true 3D in like 4 years and change. Id also put out Spear of Destiny (September 18th 1992), Doom II (October 10th, 1994) and Thy Flesh Consumed (April 30th, 1995) during that time as well.
Side note, man that Nintendo Power comic really didn't need to add in the blue Samus. That dude was super pointless to the story (he literally does nothing beyond picking up Space Pirate claws to sell and then later carrying Samus to Old Bird to heal when she steps on a spike or whatever... I feel like she could have just gone there on her own tho).
Also, in terms of the ZM manga, I have to think Sakamoto was referencing this with the very cringe Ridley freakout scene that everyone hates in Other M. There's a scene that's extremely similar in the manga, except that here it actually makes sense as it's literally the first time she's seen him since he murdered her parents (not to mention he super ruthlessly taunts her about how he ate them - it's honestly really brutal for Nintendo).
P.S. - I went browsing what other mangas they had out there and there was a really cheesy one written for a Metroid 1 strategy guide. Honestly well drawn if not cartoony (it legit might have been the same artist as the Metroid 1 manual - it looked exactly the same). Was super waiting for them to stop calling Samus a man but despite covering the entire game (because it's a strategy guide) they never once did. I guess they wanted to keep it a secret, but it was still funny to see Samus surrounded by bikini babes swooning over her and being called "Mr. Samus" XD Also according to this manga Samus sucks at Zelda 1.
It's important to love yourself.
Heartbreaking.
I saw an article about this. The article made it sound like it wasn't just Amazon but I dunno (I didn't look into it that closely). Does make me wonder if Prime 4 has been moved to be Switch 2 exclusive though.
Amazon has always had the weirdest relationship with Nintendo, I think dating back to some disagreement about console returns or something. I still remember one time, very briefly, where it seemed like some kind of fanboy was in charge of their pages and basically all of the Nintendo software was linking to Playstation and Xbox stuff and heavily trying to drive people to competitor products (don't remember exactly what happened but it was super egregious and obvious). I think this only lasted a day or two but still, the fact that something like that even happened was kind of incredible to me.
I have found all three to be very reliable.
Also, possibly, maybe relates to how it might be cross gen; there could be two sku's, or some weirdness?
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand