Metroid: Other M

[neoboy259]

I think this is absolute pants personally.

Crappy, forced, illogical puzzles mixed with pointless shooting. The mobs don't even drop anything when you kill them so why bother stopping to shoot them? I'm better off legging it past them.

Was expecting better from Team Ninja

[parkinho]

100% completion achieved with 15 hours on the clock - a fantastic game in my eyes, though clearly not everyone agrees with me! Still, my views on the Metroid series differs greatly from the majority of fans so I'm not entirely surprised. Time for a very brief summary:

Pros
Samus - controls better than any other Metroid game. Fast, agile and deadly.
Combat - never a focus of previous titles but takes centre stage here to great success. Boss battles in particular are a joy and very nearly trump Echoes' beasts.
Pacing - the sense of progression is rapid, largely due to the linear nature of the title, and I'm quite happy with this trade off.

Cons
Where's Wally? - The bits where you are forced into first person to identify a specific feature are ok on the whole but a couple are ridiculous in how accurate you need to be. One in particular took at least 5 minutes to solve and threatened to spoil the pacing of that particular segment.

Will try a hard mode run in a few weeks to see if my comments hold up. Clearly if you head into this game with the expectations of another Prime or Super you will likely be very disappointed. Accept it as a different take on the Metroid formula and you might love it like I did.

[Sketcz]

Been playing this for... ooh, about 5 hours now?

Sad to see that developers are still content to crap out the same usual level themes of JUNGLE, FIRE, ICE! I wouldn't be surprised if the last stage is set on minecarts.

This is infuriating, since they seem to be copying this **** from Prime. Super Metroid never had a true ice stage. It had basic themes of rocky overworld, vegetation, water, fire, and wrecked ship. Sections of Meridia were cold, but it wasn't proper ice levels and it was very original.

Brinstar though was beautiful, since some sections were based on fungal spores, and others on pollen saturation (there's one section resplendent in white like a blushing bride, complete with plant pollen falling from all around - quite stunning).

The first and second Metroid games were even better in this regard. The first was meant to feel alien and creepy throughout, whereas the second was a claustrophobic trudge through underground tunnels in the dark.

I'm very disappointed to see that as the series has continued from the NES original, it has used increasingly generic and cliched themes for its environments (I've not played Prime 2 or 3 - I hear it had some really originally bits in it).

The sci-fi setting of Other M is absolutely wasted, and they could have really gone to town with some interesting environments for the creatures. What about an area with corrosive atmosphere from a gas giant planet, or one with a strong fungal theme, or hell, something cribbed from humanity's vast history of sci-fi literature.



Having said that the combat is ace and I love the puzzles (one bit had me on platforming moving in time to water filling the room, and I was forced to jump under a wall and then quickly start wall jumping to the top.

Crappy, forced, illogical puzzles mixed with pointless shooting. The mobs don't even drop anything when you kill them so why bother stopping to shoot them? I'm better off legging it past them.

Killing all enemies results in a blue dot on your map showing the location of items. It's worth cleaning out every room at least once to make them permanently show up.

Personally I think this is better than the Prime trilogy, but worse than the original trilogy.

It's also better than the godawful Fusion, and maybe not as good as Zero Mission.


QUESTION:

I'm in the ICE LEVEL. How the hell do you kill that giant one-eyed snake boss in the middle of the circular room. Bast keeps grabbing and sucking my energy. I want to wipe the smug look of ecstasy off his one-eyed face.

[parkinho]

QUESTION:

I'm in the ICE LEVEL. How the hell do you kill that giant one-eyed snake boss in the middle of the circular room. Bast keeps grabbing and sucking my energy. I want to wipe the smug look of ecstasy off his one-eyed face.

->Open Spoiler<-

If it's the enemy I'm thinking of, you may notice it has some sort of forcefield surrounding that cannot be penetrated until you have acquired the appropriate beam...

[mr_sockochris]

Sketcz: You really need to play Prime 2 & 3 if you want some original environments. The design of some of the worlds on show are just amazing at times.

Echoes





Corruption







I really enjoyed Other M, but I have to agree I found the environments a bit cliched, especially compared to the Prime sequels.

[Sketcz]

Cheers Parkhino.

@mr_sockochris:
I played Prime 1, which had mostly generic environments, but never had the chance for Prime 2 or 3. But those screens look ace, and precisely what I'd expect from an original sci-fi adventure.

[parkinho]

Echoes in particular does more than any other game to create a hostile alien world IMO. The Dark World pretty much acts like the corrosive environment you suggested Sketcz, chipping away your energy and forcing you to to find shelter in any nearby safe zone. In fact the Space Pirate Homeworld in Corruption has corrosive acid rain that annihilates you pretty quickly until you find suitable protection.

Other M was definitely a step back in this regard and I hope any future Metroid game looks to Echoes & Corruption as inspiration for environmental design.

Anyway, I'm about half way through in hard mode and still loving it. Samus is just a joy to control throughout and the combat is better than in any other Metroid game IMO, especially the Primes where Samus is more tank like than the athletic killer ninja she is here. Only had one sticking point so far difficulty wise

->Open Spoiler<-

elevator boss

which really put to the test one's ability to use the sense move and instigate opportunities to use your missiles.

[Rep]

I'm really, really enjoying this, a lot more than I thought I would. The biggest issues so far are what It improves on from the series roots (combat, story), It takes steps back on others (Music, Design).

Control is surprisingly fluid considering only the Wii-remote is used, the finish attack seems a bit hit and miss to land on, but that might just be me at this early stage.

It's nice to see the series taken in other directions, even if they're not to everyone's liking.

[Sketcz]

Samus is just a joy to control throughout and the combat is better than in any other Metroid game IMO, especially the Primes where Samus is more tank like than the athletic killer ninja she is here.

Yes, I absolutely love the combat, especially the finishing kill moves, and it all manages to feel true to the originals. In the original trilogy she was pretty damn sprightly!

[Sketcz]

Finished it today. Man, I have never been so bored with a game towards its end. Is there anything totally ****ing amazing for doing the post game stuff Samus mentions?

Because unless it's a time machine so I can go back and not buy this, I really can't be arsed.

[mr_sockochris]

There's nothing for 100&#37; but it's worth going back after the credits

[Strider]

LOL could have guessed that 4 was going to be yours Jon

[mekanor]

Finally got around to finishing this last night.

->Open Spoiler<-

That last boss looked great, and I was relieved there was finally an escape sequence. Cool way of making sure you didn't use the speed booster too

Going back to get the rest of the items now, which is proving quite entertaining. Is there anyway you can do the end sequence again once you've got 100% or have I missed the boat on that one?

[parkinho]

Yes mate you can do the end sequence again once you have collected 100% of items.

->Open Spoiler<-

Think that's how hard mode is unlocked

[Sketcz]

LOL could have guessed that 4 was going to be yours Jon

The Prime games were better. Sakamato must have been off his trolly when he did this.