Metroid: Other M - The Black Sheep....or so we thought

[Kenryoku_Maxis]

Airas said:

Mr Khan said:

The original game is as much an outlier as Other M is, i would contend

Maybe. But it's the reason Metroid even exists. And the reason I called him out to begin with was that he downplayed the exploration aspect of the original.

I never downplayed the exploration of the original.  I mearly stated Super (and the original) have a general path for you to go down, eventhough it allows you to explore elsewhere.  And in the first game, that freedom to explore is actually a negative because you die so often and upgrades are in abstract places.  Whereas in Super and its remake, Zero Mission, its a benefit.

And again, these were all just points I was making to show how Prime is even less like the 2D games in terms of 'exploration'.  That being, Prime doesn't have a general path to follow and forces you to explore everywhere, even when you won't get items to proceed for several hours.  Compare this to a game like Super Metroid, where you find all the necessary items very close to when you need them.  Heck, you only see a handful of Grapple Beam or Super Bomb spots before you actually stumble upon them.

Other M also has this problem.  Noticably, not being able to use the Super Missile, Grapple Beam until near the end of the game.  And Power Bombs until you've beaten the game.

And once again, eventhough I've aknowledged all the faults, even of Other M, I'm ready for a dozen people to jump down my throat and come up with things I supposedly said.

gumby_trucker said:

Airas said:

Mr Khan said:

The original game is as much an outlier as Other M is, i would contend

Maybe. But it's the reason Metroid even exists. And the reason I called him out to begin with was that he downplayed the exploration aspect of the original.

This is a very good point and the single most important reason I wanted Other M to sell well.
It's not that the game doesn't have many issues, it's that it opens the door to a whole new exciting direction for the series.
A game made in the style of Other M featuring a more expansive over-world, more room for exploration and less emphasis on cheesy cut-scenes could be a Masterpiece and an instant classic if it were ever made... kinda like Super... The thing is, now we'll never know... We'll never see the good qualities in Other M taken further to where they truly fulfill their potential...

That, to me, is a much greater loss than a few blemishes in the existing game.

This.  This is what I've been trying to say the whole time.  Other M did a lot of unique things.  It tried to make a Metroid game that had a REASON for not being able to use all the items from the beginning.  It made a viable 2D game in a 3D world (with gameplay concepts I've been waiting for since the N64/PSX days).  And it tried to develop Samus' character beyond 'bad ass silent Bounty Hunter'.

Did it do all these things correctly?  No.  I'm right up there with the camp who thinks the story and flow of the game was done poorly.  But that doesn't mean the WHOLE game was.  No matter what you say, I will still think the main game engine and concepts were sound.  If they had just focused less on story (and probably didn't make Samus talk), it would have been one of the best games on the Wii.