Nintendo Developer Hints at Metroid Wii U

[gumby_trucker]

First allow me to apologize to the original maker of this thread and its followers. This will be my last post on the matter and I apologize for derailing the thread from its original topic.

This is my delayed response to Rol and Mr Khan  - sorry it took so long, I was out of town for the last few days.

Why Other M felt like a 2D game to me
(aka gumby's nutcase essay )

According to Sakamoto, his original vision for Metroid Other M was basically to create an "NES game with the latest technology". This is also evident in his original vision for the game, which was meant to be played solely with the Wii remote held sideways.
The addition of pointer controls was only implemented much later by Team Ninja and was not something that was taken lightly by Sakamoto.

Having said that, let's start by looking at the game in its "purist" form, by which I mean the parts that more closely resemble the original vision. I will address the other parts of the game later.
The game is rendered in polygons. Movement takes place on a plain with a limited number of discrete directions. Areas throughout the game mostly consist of either segments which have one dominant direction (with the orthogonal one being severely constrained) such as hallways, bridges, some of the bio-decks, and so on, or very small contained areas which offer movement in all directions, such as boss-fight rooms, character gathering (story-related) areas, a few other bio-decks, etc.

There are also some occasional simple branching 2d paths (be it to gather upgrades or to reach other areas), but in general no real movement in all directions is available in the game (at most 8, usually 4 are enough). Additionally, there is no control over camera in the game's primary mode of play (when remote is held sideways) - it is essentially a static camera, be it side-viewing, isometric, back-facing or otherwise. The fact that the camera angle is different in every room is just an aesthetic design decision, and does nothing to change the fact that gameplay is always relative to a certain fixed point of view.

Here is a short Metroid Other M gameplay trailer to demonstrate some of my points - not the best video to serve my purpose, but you've played the game so you probably get what I mean.

Now let's compare the above characteristics to some old classic games:

sprite-based areas featuring one dominant direction:
Classic Game Room HD - GOLDEN AXE

sprite-based small contained area (boss-fight):
Golden Axe Revenge of Death Adder

2d branching paths:
Monkey Island

other examples of games that incorporated some or all of these features include double dragon, river city ransom etc. The classic "walk towards/away from the camera" is also something seen in many many old 2D games.
So despite not being featured in previous 2d Metroid games (which were played from a strict "side-view" with only left-right movement on each platform),  all these elements are essentially classic 2d elements.

To make a more direct comparison, in terms of "feel", this:
Metroid Other M [Part 15 - Sector 3 - Mini Boss 5] - http://youtu.be/R7Wx45AopZc?t=5m35s
to me, feels a lot more similar to this:
Metroid Fusion Final Boss Battle + Ending - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2ErIS8cDIA&feature=related
than to a full-fledged 3d game like Mario 64 that has full freedom of movement, no fixed paths, and control over the camera - this last element is even something the creators of Mario 64 felt was enough of a distinguishing feature that they needed to deliberately point it out to the player - if you remember the mirror room, the camera is in fact its own character.

Now for my second point. The addition of "on demand" pointer controls are, in this context, more of a neat "hook" to go along with the 2D gameplay than an addition of another dimention IMO.
At any given moment the player can, in addition to viewing the game from the default perspective, "jump in" the game-world to get a glimpse of the character's point of view. This is obviously no more than a glimpse because it only allows you to rotate around a single point, ie: offers no movement to the player and thus can not be seen as a complete mode of play.
Personally this also reminds me of classic games from before the 3D era like Myst, or Zork: Nemesis, where you could basically "jump" around between pre-renderred 360 degree pictures but weren't actually a physical part of the gameworld.

In fact it is not difficult to imagine such a game existing before the era of 3D graphics, where you essentially play from a side-scrolling or isometric 2D point of view, and occasionally have the option to "jump" into these points of interest which would show you pre-renderred 360 degree images from a first person perspective. Such a game very well may have been made that I am not aware of.
The only difference Other M offers to such a design is that it is based on real time polygons and as such allows you to jump into first person at any time and not just at discrete points in each room. Personally I don't see this difference as being so significant that it completely transforms the game from one style to another. Obviously it is a more modern, more natural and also more convenient way to do it than was possible before real-time 3D graphics, but that's about it.

Another way to look at this is by comparing it to what many of us had probably imagined as children when we played old 2D games: "what would the world look like from the character's perspective, if we could see it even for just a second?"

This kind of idea was incorporated in the likes of Lemmings 3D (there is no control over the Lemming in this view), or the many First Person Mario 1-1 vids floating around the internet, or even Super paper Mario to an extent. The last example is a good comparison because it shares many elements in common with Other M. Even though SPM takes place in a 3D world, the gameplay is essentially that of a 2D game with a few bells and whistles hooked on. It is definitely not a 3D game like Mario 64, Sunshine, etc.

If the line of thinking I've presented means that many other modern polygonal games are also essentially 2D games, that's because I agree with that conclusion.

As a final note, I also think it's interesting to see just how varied different people's perception of this game are, and how that perception probably also affects their opinion of the game.
I'm not trying to sway anyone in either direction, but let me say personally that if I viewed Other M as a 3D game with features taken away, I would also be far more critical of its basic design than I would if viewing it as a 2D game with some added bells and whistles.

I think responses should continue via PM or a new thread so as not to further derail this one.

I now return you to your scheduled programming