Metroid: Other M Review
xandermartin98 OTHER M REVIEWSIGH...seriously, Nintendo, what in God’s name were you even DOING with the Metroid series during the timeframe in-between Prime 3: Corruption and Samus Returns? Let me tell you right now exactly what the answer TO that question is, you pompous arrogant egomaniacs; ABSOLUTELY NOTHING OF INTEREST!
Yes, I’ll admit that Metroid Prime Hunters and Pinball were both A-class spinoffs in their own right, and that Nintendo also admittedly got WAY too much hate for issuing one of their infamous copyright strikes on AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake, ironically the FIRST successful remake project for Return Of Samus) when they never actually fully took the game down, instead opting to give it a DMCA strike so that curious Metroid fans browsing the Internet would still be able to download it online and play it for themselves, even if it WAS never really going to be made profitable (which, by the way, still FAR from excuses the fact that they copyright-struck the game in favor of fracking FEDERATION FORCE of all things, but I digress), and that Samus Returns was flat-out AMAZING, in fact quite arguably just as good AS Super Metroid and AM2R before it…
But with all of that being said and done, this game (Other M) is just an absolute cynical, corporate mess that pretty much embodies literally EVERY SINGLE ENERGY-SUCKING REASON why Team Ninja should NEVER be involved in the making of even REMOTELY the type of game that traditional Metroid is...which, of course, is what this game TRIES almost UNBEARABLY hard at times to emulate, but ultimately just outright fails miserably.
Let’s get started on digging through this forgettable, overhyped, mass-produced turd, shall we?
STORY: YEEEEEESH...quite frankly, I don’t even know where to BEGIN on how much of an absolute mess this game is in this aspect in particular. The core plot is simple enough and by all rights should not have been a problem in the LEAST bit (Samus and her fellow Galactic Federation troopers, most notably their insultingly stereotypical and token “black guy who dies first” named Anthony Higgs, are sent to a biological space laboratory that is downright UNCANNILY similar to Metroid Fusion’s, with a general order from Adam Malkovich to exterminate the hostile alien threats living there), but the contrived-ness...oh, dear GOD, the horribly written contrived-ness…
Okay, so to make an overly long, padded-out and largely nonsensical story that tries WAY too fracking hard to be the next Metal Gear Solid short, Samus Aran (who, for some reason, has basically devolved into Bella Swan from the Twilight saga between Super Metroid, which took place immediately before this on the timeline, and this game, not to mention that she’s also been objectified into a blatant fanservice tool more than EVER before) is feeling literally blue (yeah, get used to her Zero Suit, because you are going to be seeing WAY too much of it) over the death of “the baby” from Super Metroid after its death at the hands of that game’s Mother Brain…
...and is also rather petulantly annoyed that her relationship with her super-hot boyfriend
Of course, this later ends up devolving into an even more unsettlingly large assortment of cliched, nonsensical and thoroughly ridiculous plot threads and ESPECIALLY twists, like how Samus can no longer USE any of her numerous abilities unless Adam TELLS her to, or how Ridley is apparently the evolved form of some kind of weird mutant space-alien Furby Pokemon now, or how Samus is suddenly scared scat-less of Ridley after having completely ERADICATED him TWICE in the past (not even counting the Metroid Prime trilogy, which this game also COMPLETELY retcons out of the entire sodding Metroid timeline for nothing more than its own selfish personal gain) or how Mother Brain is actually LITERALLY human now, or...dear God, why am I even still going? In case you can’t already tell by now, the writers behind this game need some SERIOUS mental help. Anyway, moving on to the next important aspect (well, for Metroid, at least)…
GRAPHICS: Honestly, I have nothing to complain about here. This is truly an amazing-looking game in general, not just by Wii standards, and it captures the Ninja Gaiden style that it’s shooting for impeccably. It also looks almost as good during actual gameplay as it does during its cutscenes, so it also definitely has THAT going for it, if nothing else particularly remarkable.
(The design on Samus’ Power Suit in this game is utterly horrendous, though, just for the record.)
SOUND: Meh...it has a decently cool remix of the classic Ridley theme from Super Metroid (though nowhere NEAR as good as Meta Ridley and the Brawl version), and that’s about it as far as actually memorable or even remotely interesting music goes. The actual sound design is decent, but the voice acting for the characters can just go STRAIGHT to
GAMEPLAY: Once again, meh...yes, I’ll admit that for being the extremely generic Ninja Gaiden clone that it is, Other M is actually quite solid as a standard action game (by fracking NINTENDO 64 standards, at least), but as a Metroid game, it’s insulting to even CALL it one.
Collecting the upgrades is boring and unsatisfying, the combat system is bland and by-the-numbers (and also creates an utterly HORRENDOUS characteristic disconnect between how Samus acts in cutscenes and how she acts in-game), the game is so forcefully linear and hand-holding that its main storyline path (as if there EVER really IS any other path, mind you) can actually be quite CONFUSING at times if you try to play it like a traditional Metroid game and assume that exploration is at least SOMEWHAT a genuine requirement for beating it…
Overall, the controls aren’t bad, but the concept behind them is absolutely asinine beyond measure. Basically, what Nintendo and Team Ninja decided was that even though Other M was VERY CLEARLY marketing itself as a SPECIFICALLY THIRD-PERSON action game, they simply could not LIVE without needlessly shoehorning the first-person perspective from the Prime trilogy (which, by the way, is exactly what this game, by all rights, SHOULD have been a new installment to) into the experience regardless...and good God, is it just as awkward as it sounds.
Basically, there’s literally only one way to play this game, and if you’ve never really seen it in action before, I’m sure you might be wondering exactly WHAT said way is...with the Gamecube or classic controllers, perhaps? Possibly even (“God forbid”) with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk?
Why no, of COURSE not, YOU HAVE TO USE THE SIDEWAYS WII REMOTE OF ALL THINGS! Yes, that’s right, the game purposefully decided, even though it CLEARLY had PLENTY of other choices, to HORRIBLY diminish the amount of buttons available for its control scheme and also FORCE players to play a 3D game made in 20-FRACKING-10 with a D-pad of all things…
...all just so that they should cram in this completely tacked-on, un-necessary and pointless new gimmick (that really only makes the game WORSE overall) where you can point your Wii Remote at the screen and it causes the game to switch into stationary first-person view...yeah, real immersive, Nintendo, REAL IMMERSIVE.
OVERALL: Honestly, the Metroid fanbase was actually kind of right about this one; while Other M technically isn’t THAT bad as a standalone game, it is absolutely HORRID as a Metroid game and should honestly never have seen the light of day in a series where the quality standards for new installments are normally as ridiculously high as they are in Metroid. It is WAY overly reliant on the success of its predecessors without actually understanding any of what made those games GOOD in the first place, it’s a boring hand-holding slog to the extremes...and I don’t like it.
In conclusion, 6/10 as a game and 4/10 as a Metroid game; overall, it averages out to 5/10.
Comments
Can't believe they bogged down Samus's characterization this badly in this installment. I mean, I know I don't play Metroid myself, but Other M did absolutely no justice to the Metroid franchise. Thank goodness for Samus Returns. - visitor