I haven't played much past the introduction section of Other M, but the game is already sending up some red flags for me; i'm going to reserve judgement, but so far this is looking potentially unsatisifying for a Metroid game.
From the general impression I've gotten by reading all the opinions so far, do yourself a favor and try to set those general Metroid expectations aside as much as possible, at least for the first playthrough. It seems to be the folks that carry this highly idealized standard of Metroid quality that feel the most bitterly disappointed, which makes plenty of sense considering the direction they took with this title.
hamchan said:
Exactly. If we praise people too much for just trying then they'll get it into their heads that they're awesome, even when they're not.
The point that I've tried to make previously regarding this is that, yes, bad quality is still bad quality, but everybody has to start somewhere. Again, Sakamoto (and Nintendo in general) has extremely little experience putting together a presentation of this style. People are more forgiving of an experimental approach the first time it's encountered in the hopes that they hit upon a new idea that can be refined with future effort. Yeah that might be an unrealistically optimistic stance, but I'd rather go that way than be completely critical of everything and further stifle a studio's desire or ability to shoot outside of what they're used to.
Well, shit, seems like my receiver is producing an overly dark image for the Wii. I always suspected this, but was able to compensate with in-game brightness settings. The only Wii game I've spent time with since I've finished the new setup was Mario Galaxy 2 (which is super bright).
Metroid looks perfect when plugged directly into my TV, but through the receiver (whether it's component, composite, or using the HDMI adapter), it appears too dark. It is akin to selecting the "wide" color space on a PS3 without a proper display (blacks are crushed).
Not sure what I can do here. All of my wires are through the wall. It's just the HDMI upconversion.
What's odd is that this ONLY occurs with the Wii. My old PS2, Gamecube, and even stuff like Sega Genesis all looks the same as when plugged directly into the TV. There is something about the Wii that is causing this issue. :\ Obviously, this does not occur with the HD consoles either. PS3 and 360 are properly calibrated. No way to work around this, though, as the receiver is crushing the blacks. Areas that are super dark through the receiver are extremely light through the TV.
Anyone else encounter this? Can't play with the Wii plugged into the TV as I have no way to output audio from the TV directly (I removed speaker bar and do not run audio out to the receiver). Don't want to leave the Wii in the middle of the floor either.
Why were people having so much trouble with chameleon midbosses and using overblast on the early bi-pedal enemies?
You can jump from enemy to enemy using overblast easily, and the chameleons...while you might need to sensemove dodge a few times, can easily be taken down by blasting them a few times, quickly distance yourself, then blast them with missiles.
Helps that you can still dodge in first person, as well as some enemy lunge attacks go in slow motion when you're in first person.
So far it still feels like Metroid to me, with an extra dose of action. Even did a little backtracking early on. Its easy to bypass upgrades if you arent careful.
I'm in an area where a yellow dot is pointing toward somewhere I previously wasn't able to get to (there is a hill I keep sliding down). I just returned from fighting a monster whose ass is a mouth. If I progress farther I get stuck in a room with an elevated terminal just after some duck plants, but I can't reach the terminal and I can't acquire the item in the room because it is blocked by a super missile door. I'm running back and forth now but I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. Is there a way to reach the terminal after the ass beast that I am missing?
I don't have it yet but it seems that shooting doors to open them is unnecessary in this game. After years of doing this I'm betting that I'll still be shooting just out of habit.
I don't have it yet but it seems that shooting doors to open them is unnecessary in this game. After years of doing this I'm betting that I'll still be shooting just out of habit.
Crunchy, seems like you're stuck like the guy earlier. I can't for the life of me recall what to do there at least not without being there myself. I'm sure it'd click if I was there or got a better idea of where you are.
I'm in an area where a yellow dot is pointing toward somewhere I previously wasn't able to get to (there is a hill I keep sliding down). I just returned from fighting a monster whose ass is a mouth. If I progress farther I get stuck in a room with an elevated terminal just after some duck plants, but I can't reach the terminal and I can't acquire the item in the room because it is blocked by a super missile door. I'm running back and forth now but I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. Is there a way to reach the terminal after the ass beast that I am missing?
I'm in an area where a yellow dot is pointing toward somewhere I previously wasn't able to get to (there is a hill I keep sliding down). I just returned from fighting a monster whose ass is a mouth. If I progress farther I get stuck in a room with an elevated terminal just after some duck plants, but I can't reach the terminal and I can't acquire the item in the room because it is blocked by a super missile door. I'm running back and forth now but I don't feel like I'm getting anywhere. Is there a way to reach the terminal after the ass beast that I am missing?
IIRC, the room where you need the super missiles has a spot where you can get through with the morph ball. Or it could be the room where you ride an elevator on a track on the left side of the wall. That's all I got, hope it helps.
I don't get people saying the stuff w/ Adam being out of character (or particularly sexist). Samus didn't really have a character before. And if you've played Fusion before, everything that's going on here between them seems to be right in line with that game. I've always wanted to know the background behind "Any objections, Lady?".
I don't have it yet but it seems that shooting doors to open them is unnecessary in this game. After years of doing this I'm betting that I'll still be shooting just out of habit.
So been playing for about an hour and a half, must say, I think the game is fairly awesome.
Not even sure what people are talking about half the time - in just the beginning, I've already done a fair amount of back tracking and item collection. Tons of hidden stuff, and the expansions even at the beginning arent that straightforward. The item dots give you no context to height or level in a given room, or even if its in a pipe or in the room itself - just that it's near that sector. Some you even have to access from different sectors. Just like you'd expect from a Metroid game.
And damn, does Samus look and animate wonderfully.
IIRC, the room where you need the super missiles has a spot where you can get through with the morph ball. Or it could be the room where you ride an elevator on a track on the left side of the wall. That's all I got, hope it helps.
I was thinking that. If it's that, you need to change the hologram projector to off, then go to the end of the room, bomb the crack and proceed thru with morph ball.
After playing a bit over two hours, I can say this game is great, if not AWESOME, so far. The cutscenes are completely underwhelming (ew Samus' voice), but everything else feels refreshing to an extent.
Whoever said there isn't any exploration is a stinky liar. I'm already stuck, but I won't ask for help just yet.
i just love to see samus' spin jump back. I jump around like an idiot a LOT. love the "whirwhirwhirwhirwhir" sound with the slight afterimage it makes :lol
After playing a bit over two hours, I can say this game is great, if not AWESOME, so far. The cutscenes are completely underwhelming (ew Samus' voice), but everything else feels refreshing to an extent.
Whoever said there isn't any exploration is a stinky liar. I'm already stuck, but I won't ask for help just yet.
Mostly everyone been too busy crying about the controls and story to even mention the gameplay IE G4 and many of the haters in here. I'm so glad to see positive stuff in this thread finally after the hellish flames in the last few days.
I was thinking that. If it's that, you need to change the hologram projector to off, then go to the end of the room, bomb the crack and proceed thru with morph ball.
I can think of one example right off the bat: Resident Evil 4. And that game was almost universally loved, by GAF, and the rest of the world, and that includes a lot of die hard RE fans. Afraid of change? Hardly.
I haven't played much past the introduction section of Other M, but the game is already sending up some red flags for me; i'm going to reserve judgement, but so far this is looking potentially unsatisifying for a Metroid game.
The universal approval of RE4 has always been over stated. Great critical approval, yes, and it sold well. But you don't have to work hard to find an RE fan who felt it betrayed the series being about horror and in the long run, ruined the franchise.
I honestly think the reason why RE4 was so praised and accepted though was because it took what was perceived as a flaw - RE tank controls - and turn it into a positive - the already well established and accepted first / 3rd person shooter game mechanic. It didn't hurt that RE4 did it so well, it helped define an entire new set of conventions for the 3rd person action game and the shooter. RE4 was seen as /saving/ the series in terms of gameplay. RE4, however, was not really a /new idea/ as a whole. It took Resident Evil and moved it from one paradigm of gameplay to another, just as Metroid Prime was not a /new/ idea. Prime took Metroid and moved it from one genre (2D) to another (3D FPS).
Other M is plowing a much harsher road. It is taking something that people already thought was good - 3rd person Metroid platform / shooting - and experimenting with an off-the-wall control mechanic to see where that leads.
I'll have my own ideas in a few hours when my copy gets here, but based on what I am reading from other impressions, I keep getting the idea that Other M is trying to find a different way of doing a mostly side scrolling 3rd person action game that doesn't just rely on being a split genre: a game that fully moves back and forth between a 3rd person platformer and a first person shooter. I think in concept that's a fascinating and noble goal - constructing a side scroller so that it has a fully three dimensional world and allowing the player to look around and interact with that world from the inside, without changing it into something that isn't a side scroller. In other words, that is a /new idea/.
Amazon finally shipped my copy. Thanks for getting around to it, sorry for the inconvenience. Assholes.
Also finally figured out where they got the inspiration for the Adam ability unlocking system...
Ripley: Lieutenant, what do those pulse rifles fire?
Gorman: 10 millimeter explosive tip caseless. Standard light armor piercing round, why?
Ripley: Well, look where your team is. They're right under the primary heat exchangers.
Gorman: So?
Ripley: So, if they fire their weapons in there, won't they rupture the cooling system?
Burke: [interjecting] Ho, ho, ho. Yeah, she's absolutely right.
Gorman: [turns round to Burke] So? So what?
Burke: Look, this whole station is basically a big fusion reactor...
[Gorman turns back to stare, horrified, at the screen]
Burke: ...right? So you're talkin' about a thermonuclear explosion and "Adiós, muchachos."
Gorman: Oh, great. Wonderful. Shit!
I was laughing out loud at this, and this other scene that seemed like it was straight from Predator.
*Sees a purple beetle monster on the ground*
"Get away from me!"
*Punts it across the room and empties his entire machine gun clip off screen while screaming"
Holy shit, these cutscenes go from cringe-inducing to flat out hilarity in an instant.
Not that it has any effect on gameplay, but I think it's cool that if you get hit while jumping/wall jumping, you actually fall/try and regain balance before you hit the ground.
Snaku said:
Amazon finally shipped my copy. Thanks for getting around to it, sorry for the inconvenience. Assholes.
Also finally figured out where they got the inspiration for the Adam ability unlocking system...
That and the fact they dont want Samus tearing up every damn thing since its a massive GF investment.
sidenote: I wish the Alien bluray pack wasnt so expensive...
Also is that little
white fuzzy thing going to transform into some hideous monster? It was small enough to fit through the hole in the plant lab tunnel, and seems like the same thing that ate the scientist with black charred scars on his back
Opening movie was stupid as shit. They've butchered Samus' character as well. the whole 'thumbs down' shit was retarded. But I'm loving the gameplay so far.
would rather: have cut scenes than ~ not have cut scenes
That said, the only thing disappointing to me so far is the music. If there is any.
Sound effects are cool. But I miss music. Even the Prime save music. This game has nada.
Just 3 hours in from a session. I'm pretty far, actually. Playing so many Metroid games conditions you to know where to look.
But I'll be damned if Sakamoto is going to convince me that finding the PSP (Perfect Staring Point) is actually engrossing. Who called this shot? Shigeru should have upended that table A LOOONG time ago.
I played for a couple more hours, I'm liking the game a lot more now. Just some general thoughts:
+ I've had a couple of pretty awesome boss fights.
+ Felt "stuck" a couple of times already...
+ ... But not THAT stuck, usually they've felt like pretty clever moments.
+ The camera has been great and has shown some really cool gameplay angles.
+ The d-pad is fine, I'm actually impressed that the game seems to know what "up" is.
+ Long cutscenes seem to stop after the initial ones.
+ The cinematics aren't THAT bad people. They're at least well rendered.
- It's WAY too cutscene heavy at the start.
- Certain gameplay elements weren't explained to my satisfaction.
- A little too hard at the start when you're just learning how to play.
- Couple of cheap deaths where you die with a full health bar.
- Would have liked to use missiles in normal mode (B button would work fine!)
- Would have liked to move back and forth in 1st person mode with the d-pad.
Jury's still out on the "Where's Waldo" 1st person stuff (it breaks up the action so far) and the behind the shoulder view (she still moves as fast as say, the people in RE4, but I don't see a point to it yet, other than cinematic flourishes). Not sure I've formed an opinion on the quick dodge and melee style kills yet either. But overall, I guess it's pretty cool that they've definitely taken some chances on such a classic franchise.
I actually like the first person searching and missed scanning objects when replaying Fusion...
The slowdown (similar to bullet time/AR in the Vanquish demo) when an enemy lunges at you in first person mode helps, and feels satisfying to missile blast them right out of my face.
Opening movie was stupid as shit. They've butchered Samus' character as well. the whole 'thumbs down' shit was retarded. But I'm loving the gameplay so far.
i just love to see samus' spin jump back. I jump around like an idiot a LOT. love the "whirwhirwhirwhirwhir" sound with the slight afterimage it makes :lol
i was just thinking about the limitations of the controls and stuff and then it hit me...
this game's engine coupled with the 3DS's button layout would make a really awesome game. they would solve all the issues with the lack of buttons from the remote and the whole flip problems and they even have a spare stick for the first person aiming. seeing Metroid 5 being made like this on 3DS would be great (or the Metroid 2 remake).
i would take the classic 2D style for the next games too but the Other M style has lots of potential on a more versatile system like the 3DS. the only thing that would be up in the air is the whole linearity since all of the games are linear outside of ZM's built-in alternate routes (i'd really like more of those if we can't have sequence breaking glitches)
white fuzzy thing going to transform into some hideous monster? It was small enough to fit through the hole in the plant lab tunnel, and seems like the same thing that ate the scientist with black charred scars on his back
Yeah, and to be fair, despite that sort of a mannerism being somewhat of a Japanese trope, she went out of her way to explain that the Galactic Federation had been doing this sort of thing for awhile.
You get used to the cutscenes after you realize that this is just how the Japanese do things, sometimes.
Do enemies seriously not drop health in this game? I've been playing for a few hours and not seen a familiar purple health orb once. I mean its cool that when you die you start in the previous room, but I can see this be more annoying later in the game when I have more than 1 sub tank.
Do enemies seriously not drop health in this game? I've been playing for a few hours and not seen a familiar purple health orb once. I mean its cool that when you die you start in the previous room, but I can see this be more annoying later in the game when I have more than 1 sub tank.
Do enemies seriously not drop health in this game? I've been playing for a few hours and not seen a familiar purple health orb once. I mean its cool that when you die you start in the previous room, but I can see this be more annoying later in the game when I have more than 1 sub tank.
Nah, they got rid of item drops. Instead, when your health drops really low you hold the Wiimote up and hold the A button to charge your health. Not really a bad change, I think.
From some one who plays an abnormal amount of JRPGs... it's most times in my books. I'm used to this kind of story telling, but I didn't necessarily expect it would penetrate Metroid of all things.
From some one who plays an abnormal amount of JRPGs... it's most times in my books. I'm used to this kind of story telling, but I didn't necessarily expect it would penetrate Metroid of all things.
Yeah. It's somewhat of a shame that they're using this kind of drama in a universe that has always seemed devoid of any grounded cultural influence. It is Japan's first 3D Metroid game though.
From some one who plays an abnormal amount of JRPGs... it's most times in my books. I'm used to this kind of story telling, but I didn't necessarily expect it would penetrate Metroid of all things.
Having put about an hour into the game I will say:
1. Yeah, the voice acting/dialogue are awful. Very anime-ish, which as far as I'm concerned is not a good thing.
That having been said I am curious to find out what exactly is going on on the station, so the plot seems like it could be very interesting.
I find myself having to sort of interpret things a certain way to make them seem less retarded.
For example, the authorization of weapons thing, I'm just going to assume that that's because they're on a space station and Adam's worried about her punching a hole through the hull.
She is wearing a piece of technology that the Galactic Federation doesn't fully understand and hasn't been able to reverse engineer, that was created by the most powerful civilization in the galaxy, and Samus does have a history of blowing up every planet/space station she sets foot on.
It's the kind of thing where if they'd even included a throwaway line to that effect I'd be much more comfortable with it.
2. The controls are great. Very responsive.
I don't know why I thought a Nintendo game would have bad controls.
Probably all the whiners on here. But it works pretty much flawlessly as far as I'm concerned.
And I've played games where the lack of an analog stick was a huge deal trying to navigate in a 3D environment (Mario 64 DS, I'm looking at you), but here it just works, largely due to the pseudo-2D plane most of the action occurs on.
Also not minding the auto aim at all.
Random thoughts:
I love seeing how Nintendo themselves interpret all of the old enemies in 3D. Already it seems to be a huge departure from Retro's approach, which seemed to err on the side of reverence and not changing anything.
The Shriekbats, for example. In 3D them simply falling down and exploding doesn't pose nearly as much a threat, so Sakamoto's people made them swoop down, and if they miss, they fly back up the ceiling and try again. They aren't nearly as suicidal.
Similarly the Geemers actually react to your presence and move towards you.
Also, the lack of doors that need to be shot seems very much in line with not holding onto certain conventions just because they were in previous games, whereas Retro would have.
The music isn't great. It's serviceable, but utterly generic. I miss Kenji.
Beautiful graphics as far as I'm concerned. I love the way the Federation troops look. Heh, Anthony, despite the "remember me?" .gif, is probably the best voice acted main character and I actually like him. I get the feeling the voice actor may have modified the dialogue himself just a bit. Wish the others would have.
Me, bitches. I'm stopping for the moment. The last significant story moment is (spoilers):
getting the Wave Beam.
It's a good game. The reviewers are definitely right when saying it's not as mindblowing as Metroid Prime was. People really have a hard time playing this game I guess. All the fights from the Giant Bomb Quick Look took only seconds to complete for me while it took Brad so long for each.
Having put about an hour into the game I will say:
1. Yeah, the voice acting/dialogue are awful. Very anime-ish, which as far as I'm concerned is not a good thing.
That having been said I am curious to find out what exactly is going on on the station, so the plot seems like it could be very interesting.
I find myself having to sort of interpret things a certain way to make them seem less retarded.
For example, the authorization of weapons thing, I'm just going to assume that that's because they're on a space station and Adam's worried about her punching a hole through the hull.
But that reason is stated out loud. Adam specifically says not to use power bombs because she could accidentally vaporize everyone, and that other weapons will be authorized after analysis of the station.
Couple more hours into it, feels like im gonna finish it tomorrow. Game is awesome and i already said everything i wanted to a few pages back, cant believe some of the stuff im reading here.. seriously.
- The voice acting seems decent to me. Admittly, Samus does come off sounding artificial as if she's reading from a script. However, I'm not that bothered by it. Besides, I'm sure we've all heard far worse VO in other games before.
- I haven't seen much in the way of story but so far its off to a pretty good start. However, its not without some issues. The first cheesy/awkward moment I came across was Samus's
"Confession Time"
. That's just an example of an unnecessary thing to have to say. Then right after she goes on to give a dumb explaination of her
thumbs down hand gesture
. Sorry Samus, but no one cares about that.
- Visually, I think the game has a pleasingly slick and clean asthetic look to it. It is definetly up there as one of the finest looking games on the Wii. The animations are fluid and there's some cool special effects too. Samus looks great and enemy designs are creative and detailed. The enviroments look good too even though their no match for the attention to detail in the Prime series which oozed with a sense of atmopshere.
Speaking of atmosphere, Other M seems to get the isolation part right but it feels like it is lacking in the atmosphere department. I suppose a big part of that is due to the mostly linear level design which gives the impression that the enviroments are artificial and the music which doesn't seem to have much of a presence.
- The level design does feel quite linear but it usually offers branching paths along the way to help make it feel more like a proper Metroid title. That's by including some explorative puzzle-solving via FPS mode and morphball pathways. I get the feeling that the Bottleship's lay out is similar to Metroid Fusion's.
- I have to say that the 2D/3D automatic camera is cool. It kind of reminds me of Sin & Punishment where your view is constantly and seamlessly changing in a cinematic way that provided a refreshing perspective of the environments. On top of that, you're free to go into FPS mode to view the areas even if the camera is currently shifted to a 2D view.
- The combat feels unique and refreshing. It's actually what I'd expect a Metroid game mixed with Ninja Gaiden to feel like. It's fast-paced with tough enemies who put up a good fight. The melee finishing moves are brutal, stylish and cinematic. Its as if they add an illusion of intensity to the combat. So far, it seems to basically boils down to almost always charging up ur power beam (normal beam shots are essentially useless against the majority of enemies), running around and jumping over enemies until you can land a shot on an them. Rinse and repeat. Or If you feel lucky, try moving in closer and pull off the melee finishing moves... or if oyu have the guts, go into FPS mode and lock on to targets from far away as possible (before they can run up to you) and blast em with a few missiles (seriously, this is easier said than done).
- The Auto-aim system works better than I thought it would. It essentially does the work for you which does take some skill away from the player. However, given how most enemies put up a good fight and deal high damage, it is probably wiser to focus on
making the most out of the sense move to surive enemy attacks instead of focusing more on where you are shooting while in the 3rd person perspective. As far as the sense move goes, I think works quite well as it all comes down to timing. However, it can be tough to pull off given how chaotic some of battles can be especially since you're generally fighting more than one enemy at a time.
- The concentate move also works well but it can tough at times to use while in the middle of combat since it takes a few seconds to perform. Despite this, I actually like how you have to hold the Wii remote up and hold on the A button to recharge your mission and at other times, replenish health when its dangerously low.
- Some how, the d-pad works surprisingly well with the changing 2D and 3D camera and linear as well as open world (to an extent) level design. Quite frankly, I'm happy with the controls. However, I imagine players would have been just as happy with nunchuck support. After all, the nunchuck would have solved any potential controller issues with the FPS mode since the IR pointer would already be pointing at the screen due to the Wii's default controller position with the nunchuck attachment on.
- I found having to switching from the NES-style control to the FPS mode on the fly is intuitive and fast process. However, it's fairly troublesome when trying to fight multiple enemies in the heat of battle, particularly when using the lock-on targeting with the missles. While you cannot walk while in FPS mode, you can turn with the IR pointer while holding the B trigger held down. You can even turn to get a 360 degree view as well.
- I'm confused by the occasional over the shoulder sections where you can switch into FPS mode in. These sections just don't seem to indicate what you're supposed to be looking for, if anything at all. For example,
I walk into what appears to be a woman's restroom and scan some sort of yellow object inside one of the bathroom stalles but nothing happens after that so I just leave the area
. Strangely enough, the d-pad actually feels kind of clunky/sluggish here despite the very short and slow-pace of these sections. It does some harm to interfere with the pacing of the game. It's like Other M wants to be fast-paced and slow-paced by doing it a seamlessmanner. Problem is, the way it is executed isn't ideal.
- Wow, the CG cut scenes look fantastic. More scenes with Zero Suit Samus please!
-----------------------------------------
Nit pick time!
- The reason for Samus having her abilities locked is stupid. It would be one thing for it to be used as a lazy excuse in in the context of the story, but from what I hear, it becomes even more nonsensical on its impact on the gameplay.
- I admit it does feel kind of odd to play a Metroid game and not replenish your health and projectiles in the same way as the 2D and Prime series. I'm not saying it is a bad thing, but its just one aspect of Other M that makes it feel quite different from any other title in the franchise.
- Alright, where are the classic
Metroid-style circular doors ?
I appriciate having to shoot doors to make them open, but it still feels like something is missing here! It makes me wonder if I'll encounter any later on.
In some ways, Other M feels like Metroid but in others it feels unlike anything else I've played before, and you know what? I'm liking it. I'm not expecting Other M to reach the greatness of the 2D titles or Prime series but I think it will turn out to be a worthwhile experience.
