New Nintendo

Disclaimer: There are no spoilers in this review. All of the examples cited are elaborated out of context and give no hint whatsoever on the content of the story.

Introduction

Well, there are a few more rough edges to polish here and there, but the New Nintendo overhaul is now nearly complete. And in order to celebrate, I am presenting you with the full review of Nintendo’s latest installment, Metroid: Other M.

I was very excited when I started playing this simply because I have read so many mixed reviews of the game. Let me start by saying that in order to fully grasp the story and understand why Samus is acting the way she is, you have to read the Metroid manga. Otherwise everything that happens will seem excessively melodramatic when in fact it isn’t.

I am really having a hard time approaching this review because the unique gameplay, surprisingly complex and deep story, make it hard to me to find a starting point. So for convenience let’s split this review into Visuals, Audio, Story and Gameplay.

Visuals – 94

No long story here, the game looks incredible. The graphic is something unseen on the Wii and all the movements are extremely smooth. I am going to nitpick though and say that I am not a fan of the design of the Metroids. Nothing in specific, they just seem a bit off.

The “big” flaw in visuals are the faces of 2 characters – Anthony (Remember me?) and the blonde girl from the trailer. Apparently Japanese have a hard time picturing a black man so Anthony’s face looks as if he has a broom up his ass all the time. Ridley on the other hand looks different, but personally I prefer his Other M design over his traditional one. The Shine Rush might just be the visually most impressive move I have seen in a game as of yet.

If you want to nitpick some more, Samus’ movements seem REALLY fast at points, unnaturally so.

Audio – 30

…and this is where the game falls flat on its face. I am honestly baffled. Some of the names that were working on this game’s music are jaw-dropping and 99% of the time all you hear is a simple ambient sound. Sound, not music. The very few times there’s a climax the game remembers that it needs music and chips in a bit more serious tune. The one time where the music caught me was near the end after a conversation with Adam. But that’s about it. This is the BIGGEST flaw of the game, the deal breaker. Music could have made this game a true masterpiece, soaring sky high, enhancing the atmosphere tenfold… But it failed utterly. Note however that the music in the game isn’t bad… It’s just that you hear it so rarely that it plays nearly no role.

Voice acting is superb… aside from Samus’ voice, which is bad, which is in turn ironic. Samus’ voice acting is the thing that kills the story deal for most people, but if you can look past that, there are no issues here. More details on this in the story section.

Gameplay – 87

Now we’re getting o the bulk of the material. My biggest fear for this game was that combat will feel repetitive but that is not the case fortunately. The boss battles are surprisingly varied and ingenious, each one being rather challenging. No enemies safe for the smallest critters are a simple deal of point’n'shoot, but require a bit of strategy to take out. Most enemies have been airlifted from 2D Metroid games and given a 3D makeover, which is in no way a bad thing because whereas you have spiky critter and fiery critter walking along the walls damaging you on contact in Super Metroid, now those two critters use different types of movement patterns and attacks. This is not to say that there are no new enemies.

Combat is very smooth and feels natural. The whole “D-pad = clunky” argument is a load of BS because every issue you might have with movement is resolved after 15 minutes of getting used to the controls. Many people mention having a hard time standing in front of terminals to interact with them due to the lack of precision control but those people are either playing with their nutsacks or I am missing something, because I personally didn’t encounter any such issues. Auto aiming is reliable… most of the time. If the enemy is very close to you it might fail but the majority of the time it works just as intended. There were only a handful of moments where the autoaim failed me in a serious situation.

Switching to first person seems to be the biggest issue most people are having with the gameplay, but once again I’m gonna have to call those people braindead. Yes, it’s different from other Metroid games in the sense that you can’t run around shooting missile barrages decimating everything in your path. Missiles are situational and even in fights against multiple enemies, if you are fast and skilled enough (Something most people take for granted, but shouldn’t) you will get a missile off without getting hit.

Example: At one point you fight 3-4 space pirates, one of which must be hit with a missile to be destroyed. In order to pull it off quickly enough, you perform a jump attack on one pirate (Jump on him, stick the gun into his mouth and fire, something like a finishing blow), and in the second in which Samus is jumping off his head and onto the ground, point the remote to the screen so you’ll land in first person right away. Fire the missile the switch back.

Even in first person mode the d-pad dodge moves work and should be utilized. Big attacks will be warned against in ways of slow motion etc. so first person missiles are in no way hindering the combat. In the contrary, it makes combat much more dynamic and interesting, especially boss fights in which you must use missiles. Switching into first person and back is very fast and responsive.

Another popular point of complaint is the focusing, which restores Samus’ missiles and, if her HP is critical, restores some of her energy. Samus’ suit materializes within seconds out of thin air, and people are complaining about its ability to replicate / produce missiles? Sure, having overgrown house flies that live in pipes drop them when killed makes much more sense.

Health regeneration might have been skipped, sure, but you’ll die a lot as it is. A set amount of health gets replenished after the focusing process is complete, which takes ~4 seconds. That means that using it in the heat of combat is nearly impossible. It isn’t a deal breaker either way, it’s up to you if you like the concept or not.

Now let’s talk about the gameplay FLAWS. Starting with a minor one… jumping out of morphball shafts can sometimes be a hassle. A flaw with switching to first person can be fixed easily by training yourself to hold down the B button while switching to first person always. Since there’s no reason NOT to do that, your best bet is to just hold down B all the time while in first person. The reason is simple – while holding down the B button you can look around in first person, because any movement to the side without holding the B button counts as not pointing the WiiMote to the screen and the game will switch back to third person. So, in the heat of battle if you have to shoot quickly you might find yourself switching to first person and back again instantly because you tried aiming at something, but the game thought you moved the WiiMote back to horizontal position.

Some complaints have been made about the camera, because it doesn’t turn around when you’re backtracking through a room, so if you’re moving “towards” the screen you might end up shooting at enemies off-screen. However, I did not run into any situation where this was an issue.

The shoulder camera gameplay is hard to elaborate upon because… well, it isn’t hard, because there isn’t any. That perspective is only used when in small rooms which you need to examine closer or in elevators. Or at one point because the game wants to screw with you and has you run 3 miles in that mode (Samus walks like a snail during that time).

And now for the two big gameplay flaws. First, exploration, or lack thereof. If you just follow the main quest, you don’t have to wonder about your next destination at any point during the game. Everything is neatly organized and all you gotta do is move to the blinking dot on your map. In this sense the game is very much like Fusion and Zero Mission. If you however want items then it’s a completely different ballgame and you’ll end up moving throughout the available zones many many times.

The second one, which pissed me off enough to consider dropping the game twice, is scanning. Seriously, %&#! scanning. There are sections during which the game forces you into first person and requires you to scan something to advance the plot. 99% of the time this is completely fine because the object you have to scan is either blatantly obvious or very easy to find. However, on 2 occasions this is not the case.

Occasion 1: Soldiers find dead body, start examining dead body. Samus stands behind them and you’re switched to first person. Logical conclusion – examine body too! But that’s not it. In reality you have to turn around and scan a patch of green goo on the ground 20 meters away, easily confused for a patch of grass (The surrounding is a grass field no less).

Occasion 2: Just before the Ridley fight, he makes a few sweeps around the room and disappears into the darkness. You have to scan. Logical conclusion – find Ridley! But that’s not it. In reality, you have to scan the door on the opposite side of the room because you’re looking for an escape route, not Ridley. A few seconds later Ridley is kind enough to block that route for you and you have to scan again, this time you don’t even know what you’re looking for at all. Turns out it’s some sort of black plate thing high up on the wall.

These scans are just mindless plot devices to advance the story, without any logic attached to them in terms of giving the player a hint as to what he should be searching for. A simple line on screen saying “Find an escape route” in the second situation would have sufficed to make the doors an obvious choice but instead the game chose to piss me off.

The way you acquire items is… different. You have all your items but you must wait for the authorization of the superior officer before you can use them. This is a dodge ball and somewhat tied to the story. Adam sees everything that Samus sees, and Samus has full trust in him and his decision to restrict her equipment. Sometimes it does go to ridiculous lengths where Adam only authorizes the Varia suit after you’ve already passed several heated rooms (barely).

Story – 89

Last but definitely not least – the story. As already stated, you will need to read the Manga to have an understanding of Samus’ past in order to grasp why she behaves the way she does. In short, the destruction of Zebes, coupled with the death of the baby Metroid, the fact that a Metroid of all creatures sacrificed itself for Samus and the fact that Samus grew up on Zebes all come together at the start of the game and drive her at the brink of despair. This is the key point which most people seem to miss, which is understandable somewhat due to the voice acting. But voice acting isn’t the only thing – some of the dialog is very very cheesy. Essentially, the core story is very very well done, exceptionally deep and beautifully structured. The presentation of said story (i.e. dialogue) could have been improved.

The actual story pleasantly surprised me near the end when everything becomes revealed. The meaning of Other M that was speculated upon earlier is both wrong and right at the same time. Now that I think back, the phrase has at least a dozen underlying meanings, and the big prevailing theme throughout the game is parenthood. It all comes beautifully together in the end and even though I at one point feared that the game will become too similar to Super Metroid it ended up going another route.

It is however too similar to Fusion with the setting – government secret illegal research facility thing. As a matter of fact, it’s nearly identical to Fusion in that aspect. The whole underlying moral conflict of Samus and the roles that the other characters play during the story rectify that completely however.

The biggest mistake everyone makes is that Samus’ character has been ruined, even though it has been perfectly illustrated. Her difficulties aren’t melodramatic, they’re very warranted, and once the player realizes what just happened during her life, growing up with aliens, without her real parents, the Metroid baby, destroying her own home planet, meeting Adam, etc etc etc. it becomes clear that Samus has all the requirements to be portrayed as a very troubled character, which this game does beautifully. Essentially Samus’ little speech during the live TV ad sums everything up very nicely.

Conclusion

Metroid – Oher M is NOT Super Metroid. It’s NOT Metroid Fusion. Comparing it to any other Metroid game is unfair towards it. The game is, on its own, an extremely impressive game, earning straight A’s in terms of originality. Both Nintendo and Team Ninja displayed huge guts in pulling this off and you need to play it simply because you won’t play anything else like it. IF you’re a long-term Metroid fan, you’ll enjoy the development of Samus’ character. If you’re a new fan, you’ll love the %&#! out of this game because it combines the extreme awesome of Super Metroid’s gameplay with a whole new action twist. The story might feel a bit melodramatic to you though.

Final Score (NOT an average): 91/100