Not Spaceghost
Spaceghost
To call other M an unpolished gem is like calling Stalin a good guy that did bad things, in other words it's just wrong. But the sad thing is, it still manages to give you brief moments of fun where you're like "oh so this is how it works!" but then the game makes you say "oh never mind it's just busted"
Other M is a flawed game, not just as a Metroid game but as a action adventure platformer hybrid thing.
My opinion on other M can be broken down into 4 main categories, their fairly generic - but then again so is this piece of shit.
1) Expansion Upgrades
2) Game design choices
3) The combat design
4) The story
Expansion Upgrades
The common complaint I kept hearing about Other M was that it was a pixel hunt, but this is a silly complaint because every metroid game has been a pixel hunt and on top of that you don't even need the expansion upgrades in this game.
The core problem with this game is that it gives you no reason to do anything other than the objective. I find myself at the finale of the game with 5 energy tanks and 29 missiles. Why so low do you ask? Because the game encourages nothing, it out right tells you "hey buddy there is an expansion upgrade in this room" and some times you can even see it before you can get it, unless it's beyond easy to get and I don't have to go out of my way to get it or it's a full energy tank, I'm going to skip it. Explaining why is going to unravel the core of the gameplay issues as well which is just wonderful.
Let's begin with missiles. Missiles are a staple of Metroid games, you gather an expansion and you have 5 more at your disposal, by the end of the game you'll probably be pushing 150 - 200 missiles in your arsenal but in Other M the core design behind missiles changes. In previous games missiles were like an instant charge beam that you could spam rapidly and unless the enemy was impervious to them they were usually a far more speedy method of dispatching enemies. In Other M they're treated more like a tool, to blast off enemy armor, expose weakspots, or break stuff in the map. While missiles are treated like a tool in the previous games as well that feels like a secondary function, but given the fact that to trigger missiles in Other M you must stop holding the wii mote like a controller and point it at the screen then lock on to the enemy and only then you may fire a missile, using them in combat unless the enemy is at a distance, immobilized or dazed is highly impractical. What this means is that in Other M you'll be using them as required and rarely as an offensive option.
What this means for expansion upgrades is that getting a missile expansion (which only gives 1 additional missile in this game) is an underwhelming feeling and leaves you feeling like you wasted your time hunting it down.
However, there is yet another reason why missile expansions are further devalued. It's a mechanic that other M adds called "concentration mode". Basically if you hold your wiimote upright and you hold A you recharge missiles to max in only about 2 seconds of charging.
Why the fuck does this shit exist? Because enemies no longer drop ammo or health.
Which brings me to why energy tanks are devalued- concentration mode also recovers 99 energy base when you're at critical health. When Samus drops below 30 energy your health bar turns red, at this point you can just run away concentrate for about 4-5 seconds and restore 1 energy tank. There are also these new items called e-recovery tanks that increase how much concentration mode restores. This shit makes me fucking laugh, because it changes so much about the game, the tension in combat is basically gone outside of situations where you're trapped in the room and may not get the chance to recharge if it comes down to it, not to mention it creates some extremely silly player behavior such as: Being low on energy just makes you wanna drop to critical so you can recharge 200 more health, great design huh?
Now energy tanks aren't as worthless as missile expansions because enemy damage over all is much higher in Other M than in the other games, so much so that you'll probably die a lot more in Other M because you didn't realize those last two hits you took erased almost 90 energy, but because of concentration mode, as soon as you see your health bar go red, go to the corner and recharge.
Game design choices:
This kind of ties into the previous section a bit, but there are some things here that need to be discussed. A lot of the time in Other M when you see that there is an expansion upgrade in the room you're in it's unreachable with your current equipment which means you'll have to come back...but you likely won't give a shit later on because the game gives you no reason to care as I explained above. The fact that you're expected to walk past a ton of upgrades because you've got to come back later with a new thing is great and all except that it clashes directly with how linear the game is. You've always got an objective marker, which isn't soo bad except that the maps are SO STRAIGHT FORWARD there is literally no way you can ever find yourself saying "I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere".
You've also got the much hated "authorization" thing, while Samus does collect a few power ups on her own and uses them as she finds them I actually didn't really hate the authorization system. It gave the game a way to introduce a new type of obstacle and a way to deal with it in the same room. Early on you find enemies that wont' take damage from the power beam so Adam says "yo sammy gurl use that ice zapper on those bitches" so you do. It may not be elegant and it's not very exciting but it's not as horrible as people make it out to be. Also it was kind of satisfying when Samus would authorize herself to use stuff, like she'd be all snide and be like "Any objections adam? kekekek" then authorize herself to use the space jump.
Odd design choices include: Iconic sound effects are almost totally gone, a horribly muted sound track with literally no iconic songs on it, the decision to remove shooting to open doors, those awkward slow moving sections, and not allowing people to use the nunchuk.
There is also that complaint that the game doesn't do a good job of making the player feel isolated because they're always in contact with the other squad mates but honestly you always forget they're on the ship because the whole cast is so forgettable not even an elephant would remember they exist. Except for Anthony, because he says "REMEMBER ME!?" in the trailer and it's always hilarious to think about.
Perhaps the funniest mishap in the game has to be the power bomb, it is shown how to use it in the tutorial mission but it becomes totally locked until the final boss. Fucking lol.
The Combat:
I'm sure you've heard people say "OH OTHER M HAS GREAT GAMEPLAY BUT IT HAS A BAD STORY" Well I won't tell you to tell them that they're wrong, but they're definitely not right. Combat in this game flip flops between two states, functional, and unresponsive. When the combat mechanics work the game is pretty fun and fluid and actually pretty thrilling, when it's being unresponsive it's a disaster.
There are 4 main mechanics to Other M's combat:
-Sensemotion - Move in any direction as you're about to get hit for a slow mo dodge that insta charges your shot
-Charge attacks - Charge up blast that deals big damage and usually has a nice secondary effect
-Lethal blow - Tap towards a floored enemy while charging a shot to insta kill them
-Overcharge - Jump on an enemies head while charging to deal massive damage.
Sensemotion usually works consistently, the idea is that you flip away and you can instantly land facing them to release the charge shot and hit them back, but some times Samus is facing the complete wrong way out of the flip. Other times you're dodging into walls and you still get hit during recovery frames, and other times it just won't register, usually I noticed this happens when there are multiple projectiles heading your way from many angles. Also sensemotion is really sensitive and very forgiving as to what triggers it, meaning in most cases when you're not sure when the big attack is going to come rapidly tapping a direction while holding shoot is the best way to guarantee a dodge. Which is kind of funny looking on screen. This could have been rectified by giving samus some kind of visual feedback on when it's time to dodge.
Charge attacks are fine but they don't feel like they do enough damage and feel like they're more of a set up, for maybe using a missile on a dude or starting an overcharge attack. Also because of the advantage instant charge gives you during a sensemotion dodge it encourages the player to remain still charging and shoot and just wait for dodges to help you charge and shoot faster...kinda makes for shitty combat pacing.
Lethal blow and Overcharge at the main offenders of being really big pieces of shit, The game has no feed back system on when you can perform these actions, some enemies floored animation is just a slightly longer knocked back animation which makes doing a lethal blow a total guessing game. Some times it looks like they're downed by you can't seem to trigger it, other times you're just re-positioning around them after hitting them and the move just triggers. What would have been wonderful is if enemies would flash red when you're allowed to use lethal blow.
Overcharge is a bit easier, but even landing on an enemies head is a cumbersome affair, Samus won't really stick to an enemy, and most of the time failing to land in the correct hitbox for their "head" makes you take damage from enemy contact. An alert for this too would also be nice but the game does allow you to jump on enemies when they're not ready to take overcharge damage (like they still have armor on their head or something).
Basically combat in Other M is fast but boring, it gives you the illusion of it being more interesting than it actually is but it's generally pretty serviceable, the classic games feel more mobile during combat despite that fact that you're not zipping around dodging like in Other M. The best thing about the combat is that it has a lot of strong player feed back, firing a charge shot feels powerful and firing a missile feels like you just did a ton of damage. Also I do like that overcharge attacks are available without any special conditions, it kind of adds a nice dynamic to the combat.
Honestly though a lot of my main gripes with the combat don't really stem from any of these things, they all stem from the horrible soft auto lock system. It's not as snappy or responsive as it should be. Given that you're being asked to navigate a 3D world with a fucking D pad at least make the auto lock more powerful. I should always be snapping to my nearest target, if I start shooting I expect the game to snap to something in front of me not start shooting at the wall.
Boss battles were eh, the infamous Ridley encounter was kind of a total joke and was probably the easiest boss fight in the whole game, mean while the final boss was absurdly frustrating. Having to freeze metroids and super missile them down was really rough considering how little time you had to adjust.
There were a few sequences that felt ridiculous too, the two final ones were the worst by far, you have to use a power bomb in the queen metroids tummy to kill her but the game doesn't alert you to the fact that you've got the power bomb online (which I found to be hilarious that you use the power bomb only at the end of the game when it's one of the first things the game teaches you how to use in the tutorial) so you just kinda sit in the belly bombing away and then you die. The final first person sequence is extra hilarious because you're expected to super missile the enemies away from Madeline but if you miss twice it's all over unless you happen to have collected enough missiles expansions, then again I'm not entirely sure if that's the case at all because I still don't know how this section works.
Probably the most disappointing thing as far as combat goes is that the game just starts to feel right by the time it's over, Samus with all of her upgrades and weapons finally feels right, enemies die in a reasonable amount of shots, you have a good amount of options at your disposal (space jump helps a lot with whiffed attempts at overcharge attacks) and it just feels more solid.
What's funny is that the bulk of the combat issues could have been fixed by giving the player more visual feed back on things, it's not exactly necessary and the game isn't even very hard but it would make things feel a lot less clumsy. Imagine playing MGR without the red / yellow flashes and that's kind of what Other M feels like.
The story:
Samus is depressed all the time, she's really sad or something, her voice actress sounds about 5 years too young and sounds really bored, I hate everyone who speaks, nothing gets resolved and the whole mission feels pointless. Early on it is established that the facility is making bioweapons which are illegal and they've clearly gotten loose and are running rampant through the station, do we really need more information before we decide to blow the ship up? Apparently we do...
There is no resolution and the game just kind of ends, the big twist is introduced and promptly resolved in the next 15 minutes.
There is an entire subplot that is basically discarded, and the BIG moment of adam's death was just kind of....there? It made Samus look like a fool and it made me lose brain cells. It was just kind of implied he walked off to his doom but not seeing it happen made it feel like a really weak moment.
I'm not asking for Adam to be ripped to pieces in front of me, but I would have liked to see him start a self destruct sequence and then eject himself with the sector or something that would at least make me go "yep he's toast".
MEAN WHILE ANTHONY FUCKING BIGGS JUST COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD SOME HOW AT THE END
Jesus this fucking game.
Conclusion:
Honestly if I had to sum other Other M briefly it would be that it's an okay game that is totally destroyed because every single aspect of its core has at least one small problem. There isn't anything I can point to in Other M and say "Yep that's perfectly fine with me!" or even "Yeah they did a great job here!".
Even visually the game feels weird, there are times where it feels really metroid and other times where it feels like it could be any other generic sci-fi world. It doesn't help that the animations are just awkward as hell, especially the standing animations during cutscenes, they make Samus look almost like a turtle in her power suit, which is really sad compared to how Samus looks in the prime games, she stands tall and proud and it gives her a very heroic pose at all times when she's standing upright. In Other M she's just kinda poorly proportioned or something.
Speaking of how Samus looks, uh did she get shorter or is it me? She's 6 foot 3 right? Because she's shorter than every single character in the game by at least a foot in some cases.
The whole game isn't even a train wreck in slow motion, it's like you're riding this train and every once in a while the lovely scenery outside turns into mountains make of bloody skulls and they're laughing at you, then you go through a tunnel and it's all sunshine and lollipops for a while.
The game has glimpses of fun in it and when the combat flows it flows well but when it stumbles it feels like getting clothes-lined out of no where. It was only a 6 and a half hour experience but man did it feel like 30 hours.
You know, the sad thing is I don't even feel like I've covered everything wrong with the game but I just can't go on any more this shit is already like 3000 words.
TL;DR Other M is 90% Ugh and 10% kind of fun.
Other M is a flawed game, not just as a Metroid game but as a action adventure platformer hybrid thing.
My opinion on other M can be broken down into 4 main categories, their fairly generic - but then again so is this piece of shit.
1) Expansion Upgrades
2) Game design choices
3) The combat design
4) The story
Expansion Upgrades
The common complaint I kept hearing about Other M was that it was a pixel hunt, but this is a silly complaint because every metroid game has been a pixel hunt and on top of that you don't even need the expansion upgrades in this game.
The core problem with this game is that it gives you no reason to do anything other than the objective. I find myself at the finale of the game with 5 energy tanks and 29 missiles. Why so low do you ask? Because the game encourages nothing, it out right tells you "hey buddy there is an expansion upgrade in this room" and some times you can even see it before you can get it, unless it's beyond easy to get and I don't have to go out of my way to get it or it's a full energy tank, I'm going to skip it. Explaining why is going to unravel the core of the gameplay issues as well which is just wonderful.
Let's begin with missiles. Missiles are a staple of Metroid games, you gather an expansion and you have 5 more at your disposal, by the end of the game you'll probably be pushing 150 - 200 missiles in your arsenal but in Other M the core design behind missiles changes. In previous games missiles were like an instant charge beam that you could spam rapidly and unless the enemy was impervious to them they were usually a far more speedy method of dispatching enemies. In Other M they're treated more like a tool, to blast off enemy armor, expose weakspots, or break stuff in the map. While missiles are treated like a tool in the previous games as well that feels like a secondary function, but given the fact that to trigger missiles in Other M you must stop holding the wii mote like a controller and point it at the screen then lock on to the enemy and only then you may fire a missile, using them in combat unless the enemy is at a distance, immobilized or dazed is highly impractical. What this means is that in Other M you'll be using them as required and rarely as an offensive option.
What this means for expansion upgrades is that getting a missile expansion (which only gives 1 additional missile in this game) is an underwhelming feeling and leaves you feeling like you wasted your time hunting it down.
However, there is yet another reason why missile expansions are further devalued. It's a mechanic that other M adds called "concentration mode". Basically if you hold your wiimote upright and you hold A you recharge missiles to max in only about 2 seconds of charging.
Why the fuck does this shit exist? Because enemies no longer drop ammo or health.
Which brings me to why energy tanks are devalued- concentration mode also recovers 99 energy base when you're at critical health. When Samus drops below 30 energy your health bar turns red, at this point you can just run away concentrate for about 4-5 seconds and restore 1 energy tank. There are also these new items called e-recovery tanks that increase how much concentration mode restores. This shit makes me fucking laugh, because it changes so much about the game, the tension in combat is basically gone outside of situations where you're trapped in the room and may not get the chance to recharge if it comes down to it, not to mention it creates some extremely silly player behavior such as: Being low on energy just makes you wanna drop to critical so you can recharge 200 more health, great design huh?
Now energy tanks aren't as worthless as missile expansions because enemy damage over all is much higher in Other M than in the other games, so much so that you'll probably die a lot more in Other M because you didn't realize those last two hits you took erased almost 90 energy, but because of concentration mode, as soon as you see your health bar go red, go to the corner and recharge.
Game design choices:
This kind of ties into the previous section a bit, but there are some things here that need to be discussed. A lot of the time in Other M when you see that there is an expansion upgrade in the room you're in it's unreachable with your current equipment which means you'll have to come back...but you likely won't give a shit later on because the game gives you no reason to care as I explained above. The fact that you're expected to walk past a ton of upgrades because you've got to come back later with a new thing is great and all except that it clashes directly with how linear the game is. You've always got an objective marker, which isn't soo bad except that the maps are SO STRAIGHT FORWARD there is literally no way you can ever find yourself saying "I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere".
You've also got the much hated "authorization" thing, while Samus does collect a few power ups on her own and uses them as she finds them I actually didn't really hate the authorization system. It gave the game a way to introduce a new type of obstacle and a way to deal with it in the same room. Early on you find enemies that wont' take damage from the power beam so Adam says "yo sammy gurl use that ice zapper on those bitches" so you do. It may not be elegant and it's not very exciting but it's not as horrible as people make it out to be. Also it was kind of satisfying when Samus would authorize herself to use stuff, like she'd be all snide and be like "Any objections adam? kekekek" then authorize herself to use the space jump.
Odd design choices include: Iconic sound effects are almost totally gone, a horribly muted sound track with literally no iconic songs on it, the decision to remove shooting to open doors, those awkward slow moving sections, and not allowing people to use the nunchuk.
There is also that complaint that the game doesn't do a good job of making the player feel isolated because they're always in contact with the other squad mates but honestly you always forget they're on the ship because the whole cast is so forgettable not even an elephant would remember they exist. Except for Anthony, because he says "REMEMBER ME!?" in the trailer and it's always hilarious to think about.
Perhaps the funniest mishap in the game has to be the power bomb, it is shown how to use it in the tutorial mission but it becomes totally locked until the final boss. Fucking lol.
The Combat:
I'm sure you've heard people say "OH OTHER M HAS GREAT GAMEPLAY BUT IT HAS A BAD STORY" Well I won't tell you to tell them that they're wrong, but they're definitely not right. Combat in this game flip flops between two states, functional, and unresponsive. When the combat mechanics work the game is pretty fun and fluid and actually pretty thrilling, when it's being unresponsive it's a disaster.
There are 4 main mechanics to Other M's combat:
-Sensemotion - Move in any direction as you're about to get hit for a slow mo dodge that insta charges your shot
-Charge attacks - Charge up blast that deals big damage and usually has a nice secondary effect
-Lethal blow - Tap towards a floored enemy while charging a shot to insta kill them
-Overcharge - Jump on an enemies head while charging to deal massive damage.
Sensemotion usually works consistently, the idea is that you flip away and you can instantly land facing them to release the charge shot and hit them back, but some times Samus is facing the complete wrong way out of the flip. Other times you're dodging into walls and you still get hit during recovery frames, and other times it just won't register, usually I noticed this happens when there are multiple projectiles heading your way from many angles. Also sensemotion is really sensitive and very forgiving as to what triggers it, meaning in most cases when you're not sure when the big attack is going to come rapidly tapping a direction while holding shoot is the best way to guarantee a dodge. Which is kind of funny looking on screen. This could have been rectified by giving samus some kind of visual feedback on when it's time to dodge.
Charge attacks are fine but they don't feel like they do enough damage and feel like they're more of a set up, for maybe using a missile on a dude or starting an overcharge attack. Also because of the advantage instant charge gives you during a sensemotion dodge it encourages the player to remain still charging and shoot and just wait for dodges to help you charge and shoot faster...kinda makes for shitty combat pacing.
Lethal blow and Overcharge at the main offenders of being really big pieces of shit, The game has no feed back system on when you can perform these actions, some enemies floored animation is just a slightly longer knocked back animation which makes doing a lethal blow a total guessing game. Some times it looks like they're downed by you can't seem to trigger it, other times you're just re-positioning around them after hitting them and the move just triggers. What would have been wonderful is if enemies would flash red when you're allowed to use lethal blow.
Overcharge is a bit easier, but even landing on an enemies head is a cumbersome affair, Samus won't really stick to an enemy, and most of the time failing to land in the correct hitbox for their "head" makes you take damage from enemy contact. An alert for this too would also be nice but the game does allow you to jump on enemies when they're not ready to take overcharge damage (like they still have armor on their head or something).
Basically combat in Other M is fast but boring, it gives you the illusion of it being more interesting than it actually is but it's generally pretty serviceable, the classic games feel more mobile during combat despite that fact that you're not zipping around dodging like in Other M. The best thing about the combat is that it has a lot of strong player feed back, firing a charge shot feels powerful and firing a missile feels like you just did a ton of damage. Also I do like that overcharge attacks are available without any special conditions, it kind of adds a nice dynamic to the combat.
Honestly though a lot of my main gripes with the combat don't really stem from any of these things, they all stem from the horrible soft auto lock system. It's not as snappy or responsive as it should be. Given that you're being asked to navigate a 3D world with a fucking D pad at least make the auto lock more powerful. I should always be snapping to my nearest target, if I start shooting I expect the game to snap to something in front of me not start shooting at the wall.
Boss battles were eh, the infamous Ridley encounter was kind of a total joke and was probably the easiest boss fight in the whole game, mean while the final boss was absurdly frustrating. Having to freeze metroids and super missile them down was really rough considering how little time you had to adjust.
There were a few sequences that felt ridiculous too, the two final ones were the worst by far, you have to use a power bomb in the queen metroids tummy to kill her but the game doesn't alert you to the fact that you've got the power bomb online (which I found to be hilarious that you use the power bomb only at the end of the game when it's one of the first things the game teaches you how to use in the tutorial) so you just kinda sit in the belly bombing away and then you die. The final first person sequence is extra hilarious because you're expected to super missile the enemies away from Madeline but if you miss twice it's all over unless you happen to have collected enough missiles expansions, then again I'm not entirely sure if that's the case at all because I still don't know how this section works.
Probably the most disappointing thing as far as combat goes is that the game just starts to feel right by the time it's over, Samus with all of her upgrades and weapons finally feels right, enemies die in a reasonable amount of shots, you have a good amount of options at your disposal (space jump helps a lot with whiffed attempts at overcharge attacks) and it just feels more solid.
What's funny is that the bulk of the combat issues could have been fixed by giving the player more visual feed back on things, it's not exactly necessary and the game isn't even very hard but it would make things feel a lot less clumsy. Imagine playing MGR without the red / yellow flashes and that's kind of what Other M feels like.
The story:
Samus is depressed all the time, she's really sad or something, her voice actress sounds about 5 years too young and sounds really bored, I hate everyone who speaks, nothing gets resolved and the whole mission feels pointless. Early on it is established that the facility is making bioweapons which are illegal and they've clearly gotten loose and are running rampant through the station, do we really need more information before we decide to blow the ship up? Apparently we do...
There is no resolution and the game just kind of ends, the big twist is introduced and promptly resolved in the next 15 minutes.
There is an entire subplot that is basically discarded, and the BIG moment of adam's death was just kind of....there? It made Samus look like a fool and it made me lose brain cells. It was just kind of implied he walked off to his doom but not seeing it happen made it feel like a really weak moment.
I'm not asking for Adam to be ripped to pieces in front of me, but I would have liked to see him start a self destruct sequence and then eject himself with the sector or something that would at least make me go "yep he's toast".
MEAN WHILE ANTHONY FUCKING BIGGS JUST COMES BACK FROM THE DEAD SOME HOW AT THE END
Jesus this fucking game.
Conclusion:
Honestly if I had to sum other Other M briefly it would be that it's an okay game that is totally destroyed because every single aspect of its core has at least one small problem. There isn't anything I can point to in Other M and say "Yep that's perfectly fine with me!" or even "Yeah they did a great job here!".
Even visually the game feels weird, there are times where it feels really metroid and other times where it feels like it could be any other generic sci-fi world. It doesn't help that the animations are just awkward as hell, especially the standing animations during cutscenes, they make Samus look almost like a turtle in her power suit, which is really sad compared to how Samus looks in the prime games, she stands tall and proud and it gives her a very heroic pose at all times when she's standing upright. In Other M she's just kinda poorly proportioned or something.
Speaking of how Samus looks, uh did she get shorter or is it me? She's 6 foot 3 right? Because she's shorter than every single character in the game by at least a foot in some cases.
The whole game isn't even a train wreck in slow motion, it's like you're riding this train and every once in a while the lovely scenery outside turns into mountains make of bloody skulls and they're laughing at you, then you go through a tunnel and it's all sunshine and lollipops for a while.
The game has glimpses of fun in it and when the combat flows it flows well but when it stumbles it feels like getting clothes-lined out of no where. It was only a 6 and a half hour experience but man did it feel like 30 hours.
You know, the sad thing is I don't even feel like I've covered everything wrong with the game but I just can't go on any more this shit is already like 3000 words.
TL;DR Other M is 90% Ugh and 10% kind of fun.
_/¯
