Metroid: Other M has recently come out and seems to have caused uproar in the Metroid fandom over certain things found in the games cutscenes and the characterisation of the bad ass space bounty hunter, Samus Aran. I’ve decided to brave the Bottle Ship and find out just what this Other M is and just what it’s done to Samus. All I know is I’m bound to run into some Metroids, hidden missile and energy tanks and some contrived reason as to why I can’t use Samus’ full arsenal from the start.
Nintendo decided to hand over the development of this game to Team Ninja. After Retro Studio’s success with the Metroid Prime series I guess they wanted to see if lightening could strike twice and if another externally developed Metroid would be as critically and commercially received as Prime.
A first for the Metroid games is that this entry is heavily focused on the story, giving a much more detailed look at Samus and her past than any other Metroid game. It starts off with a recap of the ending to Super Metorid, the final fight with the giant bipedal Mother Brain and how the baby Metroid saves Samus by sacrificing itself. Once that’s over Samus is in a Galactic Federation base to give her report and to get checked out to make sure her suit and herself are in top condition. She then leaves in her ship but before she gets to wherever she was heading she intercepts a baby’s cry, a high priority SOS coming from a Galactic Federation bottle ship. There she runs into her old commanding officer Adam Malkovich and a team of Galactic Federation operatives including Anthony Higgs (“Remember me?” guy from the trailer). Throughout the game Samus explains her past and her relationships with Adam and Anthony and past missions before she became a bounty hunter while also exploring the mysteries of the bottle ship and why Adam and his team are here.
The story itself isn’t too bad, it has some pretty good twists, and my main problem with it is the characterisation they have given to Samus. The game makes Samus out to be a delicate lady full of doubts and fears and worries about what Adam thinks of her. That just isn’t Samus to me. Granted I have not read the Metroid manga which apparently humanises Samus a lot making all this characterisation believable, but it was never released here so to us Samus has always been a bad ass bounty hunter who doesn’t take shit and has blown up a lot of planets and annihilated a race of deadly space jellyfish. I’m not going to spoil anything but there was one part, around 60% of the way through the game I’d estimate, that just had me fed up with what they’d done to Samus so I chose to ignore it. Another annoying thing with Samus in this game, she doesn’t shut up. When she gets going in a cutscene she drones on and on explaining things and how she feels about them and what would Adam do. Don’t worry about forgetting the story as when you load the game you get a nice story reminder to bring you back up to speed with what has been going on and where to go next.
The voice acting also isn’t too hot, especially Samus’ voice. It comes off as monotonous and disinterested during her monologues with what little emotion she has saved for one or two lines in the game when something bad happens. The voices for the rest of the cast are decent enough though, nothing great but not bad enough to comment on.
The good news is that the story is easily the worst part of the game. The graphics on the other hand are some of the best offered on the Wii. It might be some of the best graphics on the Wii, up there with Super Mario Galaxy 2. If only the Wii could output in HD, it would rival stuff on the 360 and PS3. More Wii developers should take the time to make their games look good on the Wii, it really seems like only Nintendo makes the effort. The models look amazing and while the textures aren’t the best they get around that by not including too much detail in them, giving the world and the characters a very clean and futuristic feel. Samus’ suit in particular looks fantastic. The FMV cinematics are also great looking and you can tell a lot of time and effort was put into them. The area designs are also great in this game with your typical variety of lava area, ice area, forest area etc. They all look very nice and do good jobs of making them seem like believable habitats for the ships creatures. If you are wondering why there is a lava area on a space ship it’s because the bottle ship can be looked at as a giant holodeck from Star Trek. This is a great way of explaining why this ship is full of animals and different environments. Oh, and speaking of designs I have to mention this giraffe/tree/dinosaur thing that shoots plasma balls or something, so crazy and great.
The best way to describe the gameplay is a hybrid of Super Metroid on a 3D plane and Metroid Prime. It really does play like a 3D classic Metroid, the bottle ship is split into rooms and there are hidden pickups scattered around and some doors only open to missiles or super missiles. The game is played with the Wii remote held on its side like an NES pad with the d-pad for movement, 1 to shoot, 2 to jump, and pointing at the screen to enter first-person mode to shoot missiles, get more precise aiming and to grapple onto things with the grapple beam. The game plays well enough this way but you can’t help feel the game would have played better with the nunchuck used as movement. It would be hard to aim just using the d-pad if not for the auto-aim that targets the nearest enemy in the direction you are facing. This makes killing enemies enjoyable and when you’re at the end of the game and using all your suits beams it feels great running through the corridors annihilating every foe without stopping. The first person mode isn’t too bad; it plays like a stationary Metroid Prime. This is the only way to fire missiles so can be a bit annoying in a heated fire fight as you cannot move and have to lock on to fire missiles. You can also fire your basic beam or charge beam in first-person mode for when you need extra accuracy like hitting a switch. The worst part about first-person mode is the lack of mobility; it leaves you vulnerable to attack. There is a way to dodge out of first-person when attacked so you can still avoid some damage. The only part I really had trouble with the controls though was with the wall jumping in some places where you had to jump between a stationary wall and a rotating tower. It ended mostly with Samus jumping off to the side of the wall or something, pretty annoying but my only major complaint with the controls.
Some new things for the Metroid series added in this game are Finishing Moves, Dodges, Concentration and jumping on enemies’ heads. Finishing moves are performed by fully charging the beam and running into a downed enemy. This looks cool and most definitely inspired by finishing moves from the Ninja Gaiden series. Dodgeing is done almost automatically; just press the D-pad in any direction when an attack is close and Samus will skilfully dodge the attack. If you are charging your beam when you dodge you will instantly get a full beam charge as a reward. Concentration is a way to get back missiles and health as there are no item drops from enemies in this game. You just hold the Wii remote straight up and hold A. This replenishes your missiles and gives you back some health when you are in critical condition (around 10 health and below). This does make the game a bit easy as you can always make a comeback. Finally there’s the move where you can jump on certain enemies heads and shoot them. You need to have a full beam charge and then just jump on an enemy’s head. It’s harder than it sounds though thanks to the D-pad controls.
One of the Metroid staples that seemed more forced than in other games was the acquisition of Samus’ powerups. Instead Samus losing her suit in an explosion or due to damage from her last mission she keeps her suit in the same condition and with all the power-ups from Super Metroid. The way the game limits your abilities is by Samus listening to Adam and only using abilities and weapons he says are ok. It makes sense for the Power Bombs as Adam provides a very good reason, they blow shit up real good, but with other stuff like the Varia and Gravity suit powers Adam gives no reason why he makes you run around in a lava filled environment without the heat protection on. I have no real problem with this sort of progression, the powers given to you at certain points instead of you finding them, but what annoys me is the way they go about it by having Adam authorise what you can and can’t use. Many times Samus could have died due to no authorisation being given (like in the lava area) and it just makes Adam seem like a bastard and Samus an obedient child for not switching her Varia suit functions on as soon as she enters the lava section. One of the powerups you are authorised to use from right near the start is the morph ball and the morph ball segemnts seem like standard Metroid Prime stuff just a bit simpler due to lack of Morph Ball upgrades and progression. Speaking of progression, the save points are spaced perfectly apart, far enough so as not to make the game too easy and close enough so you can have a decent session where you just get to the next save point. Sadly, the game is quite linear until the very end. Usually you have to follow a set path as doors are sometimes locked behind you or just locked to prevent you from straying from the path.
There are also a few more… bad things in this game that are not necessarily horrible. The music is very bland. I honestly can only remember one piece and that was the jungle you get for loading up a game (the classic jingle). I suppose you could say the music blends so well with the game that it not standing out is a good thing as it doesn’t break immersion, I don’t think this though. I just think the music was so bland that even going back to the game I can’t remember the pieces. Another bad thing is the ‘Where’s Wally’ segments after certain cutscenes. These are first-person segments where you have to find usually obvious things shown in the cutscene right before. Sometimes though the area you have to look at is so small and precise that you’ll find it first time, not get it to register and then spend ten minutes looking everywhere else and then finding out you were a pixel away the very first time. These investigation parts are few and far between so that’s good but there are a few that get really annoying the first time you play though. Speaking of a playthough mine was around 8 hours for 70% of the pickups. I went out of my way a few times for things so you could take longer or shorter depending on your Metroid playstyle. I personally thought the length was good for this game.
All in all this game is a great Metroid game if you can forgive the story, dialogue and contrived suit progression system. It plays just like an updated, 3D Super Metroid with some Metroid Prime inspiration. It’s a decent length for a Metroid game and I had a lot of fun with this one. I personally would love to see more console Metroid games in this style, maybe with refined controls and first-person mode and a more bad-ass Samus like the fans imagined her to be.
