| super_etecoon said: I agree with it being underutilized...or maybe it was just in the wrong game to begin with. Maybe Mario Maker will be a great place for that concept to reappear. But yes, the hate bandwagon is strong...I love so much about Other M, including the changing perspectives, but I think Nintendo will throw the baby out with the bathwater with that game and never attempt that gameplay style again. It is one of my least favorite Metroid games, but for reasons of tone and story elements, not the actual construction of the game. Hopefully, since the developers are scouring the net for feedback on their titles, they are actually reading the comments and not just the one liners. |
I almost mentioned Other M as an example before, but there's a lot that could be said there. The tone and story elements were horribly screwed up. The controls were awful, and should have included the nunchuck to make things better. The idea of not being able to use certain weapons because a commanding officer told you was actually a neat idea, though, just executed horribly. In the Prime games, I got really sick of Samus having some catastophe happen to her to make her lose all her powers got really old. Done correctly, this new way of unlocking powers could have been interesting. Instead, they made Samus into an idiot, which people complain is a story issue, but it's a gameplay issue too. I'm literally dying in this heat, why can't I activate the Varia Suit? Why was it deactivated in the first place? Why should I have to ask for something like that? So stupid. Then there was the fact that Metroid games have a genre named after them for a reason: Metroidvanias. Other M was a TERRIBLE Metroidvania. It was the most restrictive of ANY Metroid game. And all due to lazy design. Why can't you go there? Adam locked the door. Wanna backtrack to get an item you missed? Too bad, Adam locked the door. Why? No storyline reason, that's for sure. The real reason Adam locked the door was because the crappy design meant that if he didn't, a new power you unlocked would allow you to get stuck and break the game. The world in Super Metroid, by comparison, was painstakingly designed, tested, and laid out so that nothing like that could ever happen. Clever players could invent explotive moves like the infinite bomb jump, but if they did, it was on them to use that same technique to get back if they got themselves stuck. And anything storyline related was more protected from exploits. Metroid Prime was the same way, perhaps even more so. People found ways to clip into the walls to get items way before they were supposed to, but still didn't run into game breaking glitches because...I dunno, actually, it's like the developers thought of everything. Then go back to Other M. Artificial barriers everywhere. There was one point where I had to beat the secret final boss just to get a missile expansion I missed earlier, because they had to block it off (and it didn't even make sense at this point because Adam was no longer there to lock the door) in order to prevent you from getting to the final boss through a back door. That kind of crap never happened in any other Metroid game EVER.
TL;DR Other M was bad in story, but also bad in the construction of the game, as well.
But I agree that it's a good example here! There were some good things as well. It wasn't a bad game, just a bad Metroidvania. It had some concepts that would go great with Metroid. The style was interesting, a mix of the 3D Metroid and 2D Metroid elements, of both first and third person Metroid elements. The transition between 1st and 3rd person was sloppy and cumbersome, and could have been done much better with the nunchuck, but it was a good idea. A lot of people don't like the old 2D Metroid style anymore, but Other M's style, executed properly, could have satisfied some of those 2D Metroid fans, while changing things up in such a way to draw in people who otherwise wouldn't give a 2D Metroid a second look, giving new life to some elements of the 2D style. Most importantly though, the action! Aside from certain moments in cutscenes, in the gameplay, Samus was a total badass! Even more than she's ever been anywhere else in the series! People blame Team Ninja for Other M's failure, but it wasn't their fault, they mostly just did the gameplay! Jumping on enemies and blasting them in the face with a charge beam, grabbing them with the grapple beam and flinging them into a faceplant on the floor, and dodging enemy fire with reflex activated jet boosts are all things that should be in EVERY Metroid game from now on (though at times they overdid that last one). I could go on and on about why Other M is the absolute worst Metroid game, hands down, but I could also go on and on about how epic it was at times, and we have Team Ninja to thank for that.
TL;DR But dat action doh! Epic! And the 1st and 3rd person mix! So much potential!
