In Defense: Metroid: Other M

I'm pretty sure that just about anyone who knows me realizes how much I love the Metroid series. I've always preferred it over Mario, Kirby, DK, and the Legend of Zelda, likely due to its awesome science-fiction universe and the fact that the Metroid games were just damn good sidescrollers. So when a new Metroid game comes out, I've already had it pre-ordered for months and I waste no time in conquering it/drooling on the carpet.

That being said, Metroid: Other M came out on August 31st and I completed it in one sitting (8 hours, 18 minutes...that's without getting every powerup). If there's one thing that I've noticed about Other M, it's that it has been garnering a lot of popularity simply because people all have their asses in a knot about it. It's a bit different and fans may not appreciate that, but I find that in the end, it comes together quite well and as a result it turned out to be even more enjoyable than I thought it was going to be.

This game had me really excited from the get-go. When it was first announced as a cross-project between Nintendo and Team Ninja, I was certainly intrigued as to how it would be handled. I knew right off the bat it was going to be way different from the Prime series, which I love dearly...but I always felt that they didn't really capture Samus' agility as well. This may have simply been a design choice, or a restriction that stems from the first-person viewpoint of the games. That being said, Metroid Prime is still my second favourite game in the series (after only Super Metroid *tear*), so it's not like I hated it by any means. Either way, as the trailers came out for Other M, I noticed that Samus was moving around very much as she does in Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, and Zero Mission: terribly quickly and efficiently. In addition, I was really interested in how Other M was supposedly going to have a fleshed-out story with information about Samus' background, thoughts, and feelings. Having read the manga that came out (translated and on the Interwebz), I was really excited to see what they were going to touch on. Having such quick control over Samus and learning about her past really made me expect a lot out of this game...so I'm gonna throw my 2 cents into the fountain and write up a review.

***SPOILERS MAY BE AHEAD***

Metroid: Other M takes place directly after Super Metroid...Samus has just awoken from recovery after blowing the ever-living crap out of the Space Pirates and the entirety of planet Zebes along with them. The first cutscene even shows a quick recap of the final battle in Super Metroid with some great-looking CGI. This already put the game in my good books because seeing the ending of Super Metroid recreated as such is pretty epic, particularly Mother Brain's ugly mug because she just doesn't get enough recognition anymore if you ask me. Samus then wakes up on a table and is asked to perform some movements and motions, which functions as the short tutorial for the controls.

What a dirty bitch.

These controls, I found, were pretty damn good! It's interesting that Sakamoto went ahead with the design choice to make it controllable with only the Wii Remote as held like an NES controller to make it familiar to those who sunk their teeth into Metroid 1. I've noticed that there are a few complaints in reviews or forums or what-have-you with respect to the lack of an anolog stick (via the Nunchuck attachment), but I didn't really find that it bothered me. The layout is as follows:

The control pad moves Samus around, and really friggin' quickly I might add. In addition, if you tap any of the four directions just before an attack hits you, Samus will dodge out of the way in the direction you pressed and avoid damage. This is called a Sense Move...it's pretty neat when you can pull it off correctly, but I'll get into that a bit more later on. The 1 button fires Samus' beam in whatever direction she's running or facing or charges the beam if you hold it down. The 2 button causes Samus to jump, and the A button rolls her into the Morph Ball which allows she can drop bombs, roll into small passageways, and even jump on her own without having to bomb herself!

When you turn the Wiimote and point it at the screen, however, things change around. You enter a first person viewpoint from Samus' visor and can point and shoot at enemies or other targets at will with the A button, or lock on to enemies by holding the B button. Locking on allows Samus to fire missiles which are incredibly powerful this time around, so finding openings to use them on large foes will definitely reduce them to dust in no time. You can't move, however...only pivot your view by holding B and moving your reticule to the edges of the screen. Turning the Wiimote back to its side will leave this view and give you full control of Samus again. Although it seemed like it would be irritating at first, it's actually very smooth and you can find yourself switching back and forth to fire quick missiles quite effectively. However, there are some points in the game where you are forced into this viewpoint and must examine a certain part of the room in order to proceed. Normally this would be fine, but for the fact that in some cases the item you need to scan is really fuckin' hard to locate. I found myself getting stuck for 5 minutes at a time, just looking around trying to locate a tiny part of the scenery in order to progress, and it can get frustrating at times.

First person mode is pretty cool...when you're not locked into it.

Also, holding the A button while holding the Wiimote in a vertical position will activate something called Concentration. This allows you to recharge your missile supply at any point, and also a small amount of health but only if you're in critical condition. Since enemies don't drop energy and missiles, Concentration is clearly an important factor. Pausing to restore health in the middle of a fight and with a terribly low supply of it can be tense, so you really have to think about when you have a moment to do so. I don't find this to be the most ideal method of restoring Samus' supplies, but it's not terrible either. My main issue with the Concentration aspect is that it pretty much makes Missile Expansions useless. What the hell's the point in collecting more missiles and having tons of them in your stock when you can just stop for a moment and replenish your supply anyway? You technically have an infinite supply of missiles the moment you start the game...so what's the point of gathering more?

I've noticed that the Sense Move is attracting a lot of flak because it's "too easy to pull off"...but the fact of the matter is that although it's easy to perform one, it's difficult to perform one without still getting damaged. You have to think about what way you're going to dodge, as some of the attacks that enemies throw at you will still hit you if you Sense Move in the wrong direction. Add this to the fact that the major baddies are pretty damn quick, and I would say that the Sense Move isn't as easy to successfully use as people seem to be suggesting. In addition, if you're charging your beam when you Sense Move, it will reach a full charge instantly. If this were Metroid Prime, that would maybe be a huge advantage, given the fact that one charged Power Beam in Prime was the equivalent of about 20 or 25 standard shots...but a charged beam in Other M is equivalent to about 3 or 4. In this respect, I found that the quick charge during a dodge move didn't really give you too much of an advantage, and in the right conditions you can actually finish off a large enemy just or nearly as fast with uncharged beams. That being said, I haven't exactly perfected the game yet so maybe that opinion will change in the future.

Other interesting moves include the Overblast move, which is performed by jumping on an enemy with your beam charged and blasting them in the face, and Lethal Strikes which involve dashing toward a staggered enemy and finishing them off in a flashy way. These are cool little additions to the game that can really speed up your battles with stronger enemies if you learn how to use them correctly, and they show off Samus' agility nicely which is cool.

Bounty hunters give the worst hugs.

Anyway, that's it for the controls. Sure it only uses a D-pad instead of an anolog stick...but I found that you really don't NEED a stick for this game thanks to the clever camera angles (which, by the way, were never irritating). The controls are simple and they work well, and that's what Sakamoto was going for. I was skeptical at first as well but I assure you the control layout is just fine, particularly if you've been playing since the 8-bit era.

The setting for the game is a mysterious little vessel called the Bottle Ship. Did I say little? Cause what I really meant was fuckin' big, particularly for a ship. Samus receives a distress call and chooses to investigate, finding a small team of Galactic Federation soldiers on board that have been dispatched to assess the situation. As you explore the ship, you start to figure out what the hell's going on, and the story is told through *gasp!* CUTSCENES! As I stated earlier, story was a huge emphasis for this game and they've been plugging the shit out of that fact ever since the original reveal trailer. People went nuts and, for the most part, thought it would be really something to have a story-driven Metroid game that finally reveals some details about Samus' mysterious past and backstory, which has never really been fleshed out all that well. Sure, Fusion took a shot but it fell kinda short in my opinion.

The characters are somewhat interesting, but it's safe to say that it's not the absolute most memorable lineup in the gaming world. Of particular note are Adam Malkovich, Samus' former commanding officer, and Anthony Higgs (the "Remembuh me?" guy from the previous trailers). These characters are the ones that are touched upon the most, aside from Ms. Aran of course, and overall I find them to be likable. Unfortunately I can't talk too much about them without giving stuff away, so I'll stop myself here.

As you explore the ship, in true Metroid fashion you find powerups and gain new abilities. There's quite a large map to explore, which is nice, and it fills out a little more once you reach Navigation Stations which function as waypoints and save pods. Standard powerups come in the form of classic missile expansions and energy tanks, as well as new powerups to the series. These include Accel Charges, which decrease the time it takes for your beams to charge up, E-Recovery Tanks, which increase how much health you can recover from Concentration when you're in a critical state, and Energy Tank parts which function similarly to Heart Pieces in the Zelda series...find 4 parts and you have yourself a brand new energy tank. The major powerups, such as beam and suit upgrades, mostly come in the form of *dun dun dunnnnn*...authorization from Adam Malkovich. Samus actually still has all her powerups from Super Metroid. However, since she has decided to follow Adam's orders while she's on the ship, he decides when she can use and activate those abilities. This has sparked a lot of hate amongst fans, but I'm gonna talk about it in another article very shortly so I'll leave it for now. The fact is that you still get items to use and explore the environment with, and each one is awesome and satisfying. I especially love the Speed Booster, because I missed it so damn much in the Prime series and to see it return in a full 3D Metroid is just awesome.

The enemies are really great as well, and any Metroid fan will see tons and tons of throwbacks to enemies of the earlier series. Familiar baddies such as Zoomers, Reos, Desgeegas, Sidehoppers, Skrees and Wavers can be found scattered around the Bottle Ship, among other recognizable critters. That's not to say that there aren't plenty of new ones, however. I'm not even sure what half the new baddies are called, but they're all pretty neatly-designed and can definitely give you a tough time if you're not careful. They fit into the Metroid universe quite well I find, and no particular enemy seemed to be out of place.

The bosses are pretty cool, which may simply be larger enemies than the standard cannon fodder, or giant creatures that take some good reflexes and oftentimes some thinking to bring down. Fans will be glad to see quite a few bosses return (I'm sure you can guess who one of them'll be), and fighting them all was certainly entertaining. Unfortunately I can't give away too much here without spoiling some key parts of the game, but the bosses are definitely points to look forward to. Oh, and there are a lot of 'em too, so that's nice for people who like lots of bosses (moi). My only issue for the boss monsters is that, in some battles, the creators have chosen to put you in that goddamned fixed first-person viewpoint again and you basically need to just point and shoot certain targets with certain abilities with speed and precision. If you mess up, you'll usually find yourself getting killed or taking an assload of damage. I'm not a fan of the forced first-person thing they did in this game...I like the switching in and out, but when they lock you in first person to search for things as I previously mentioned, or to blow bosses away, I just find it's not all that fun.

WHOA, NELLIE!

The sound in this game is interesting in that the sound effects are pretty much perfect, while the background music is in much less presence than in previous entries of the Metroid franchise. There are a few memorable tunes, but for the most part you'll find that the BGM consists mainly of ambient noises or something just a tad more melodic than ambiance. One of the things I've always liked about the Metroid series is the music, and it's unfortunate that this is really the first entry in the series that introduces very few tracks that are both atmospheric AND catchy or memorable. The voice acting is alright, but there are some things that I feel they could have shortened or given a little extra polish. Certain monologues will go on much longer than necessary and as a result can get a little bit tedious...but I find that there are only a few of these. Still though, when they happen, they can get a little bit grating. The voices themselves, however, match the characters well and generally are cool to hear.

Graphically this game is very well done, particularly with respect to the character and enemy models. It's clear that Team Ninja and the Big N were interested in focusing on details in the enemies, bosses, and main characters, and it definitely shows. You'll be hard pressed to find a terrible-looking character or enemy in this whole game. The environments on the other hand, while still pretty friggin' good, are clearly a bit less detailed, but that doesn't seem to be a big issue. You move very quickly around the levels and the locations still look good while you're blasting aliens and gathering powerups, but in some locations you can tell they favoured people over places for this game. I have no qualm with this, because you'll still find yourself stopping to check out the details and scenery quite frequently and the game looks great overall...maybe not as solid as Metroid Prime: Corruption, but still great. Framerate dips are also pretty damn hard to find, and that's always seemed to be a priority in Nintendo's main video games.

The creatures really look awesome in Other M.

Other M feels like a Metroid game to me. Retro did a great job with the Prime series, and they nailed the movement of Samus for an FPS-styled Metroid, but in Other M the gal moves and feels like she should (again, not hating on the Primes, because I still like two of them more than Other M). She's always been established as quick, agile, and precise, which didn't seem to come out in Prime 1-3 as much as it does in Other M. Some of the movement powerups nearly made me crap myself because I missed how they functioned in the non-Prime games (or missed them in the Primes completely, since some of my favourites were just completely absent). The exploration, although limited in comparison to other entries, is still solid, and finding all the powerups is damn satisfying as some of them are very cleverly tucked away. In addition, whenever you clear a room of baddies the game reveals if there's an item in there by marking it as a dot on your map. Although this at first seemed like it would be a massive detriment to the exploration factor that is at the core of Metroid, it actually still takes quite a bit of searching and thinking to actually get to the pickups. It somewhat reminds me of Super Metroid in which the map would show a dot in the location of an item, but getting there wasn't as easy as it seemed.

There're a few other features as well, which are definitely worth checking out. There's a Gallery, so you can check out a ton of concept art that you unlock as you play the game. Finally, there's theater mode, where you can watch the cutscenes all you want, and even watch them all in a row, intermingled with pre-scripted gameplay segments to fill in the necessary gaps. I haven't checked it out yet, but I'm planning on it soon. And finally, there's Hard mode, in which there are no pickups whatsoever except for the powers you need to complete the game. It strips the Bottle Ship completely of Energy Tanks, Missile Expansions, and Accel Charges.

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The Bottom Line

Overall, Metroid: Other M is certainly a different title in the Metroid series...but it's one that I prefer over a good few of the other entries. As I have previously said, my issues with the game are few in number.

a) Some droning cutscenes can be agonizing at times, but that's okay because if you really hate them you can skip them the second time through. In addition, the really long ones only occur sparingly.

b) The soundtrack kinda sucks and I wish there were more standout tunes.

c) Samus' backstory didn't touch on some things that I had hoped would be elaborated upon, but I suppose that's a matter of my personal wishes.

d) The fixed first-person segments. Who knows though, some people might like these...I just don't.

e) Concentration's a little stupid, but I think it could be easily fixable if they do a future entry by making it only replenish a bit of your health if you're in critical condition. Go back to missile drops from enemies or something.

The game in general feels like a Metroid game. Yes, they tried something different with the increase of story elements, but for the most part I find that it worked, and I was certainly always interested in not only seeing the upcoming gameplay, but the upcoming story segments as well. No, it's not the best Metroid game, I'll admit...but it's far from the worst. It looks and sounds great, it's presented well for the most part, and it's a damn fun game to play overall and I'm really glad I picked it up. It's not the "perfect Metroid experience", as Sakamoto was hoping, but it's nice to see the Metroid universe fleshed out and as detailed as it is presented in Other M. Even though a lot of people think Nintendo, Team Ninja, and Sakamoto really fell on their asses with this title, I think it's a great shot at something new and different for Metroid and I certainly enjoyed it.

8.5/10

I've got a second part coming up shortly, tackling issues that people seem to find the most irritating in the game and expressing my own opinions about them, so keep an eye out for Part 2 in the near future.