Hmmm... this is going to be tougher than I thought..

Reading your main points made me realize that I might not have enjoyed Other M as much had it been a much more difficult game. I am indeed a relative newcomer to the series; played zero mission, parts of prime 1 on my brothers gamecube at the time, and completed corruption on the wii. This game has however made me curious about the older games, and I'm even looking into getting the trilogy when I have the money, since I'm sure it will provide a much meatier experience, but on the other hand I'm not sure if I would have gotten into the series as much as I currently am if it wasn't for other m.

For me, as a relative newcomer to Metroid and Nintendo in general (only ever owned a DS and now a Wii), the more streamlined parts actually helped me get into the experience more easily, and relate to it quicker. I may indeed look back in a year or two and say that the sense move, concentration, auto aiming and acrobatics were too shallow, but on the other hand I may not have wanted to experience the more difficult metroids of it wasn't for this game...

For the same reasons I guess the method of control was appealing to me... there's something about playing complex games with the wii-mote only that feels incredibly progressive and more intuitive to me, and this is a direction i've wanted to see explored ever since playing endless ocean:blue world.That game made me feel like I was an explorer unearthing forgotten civilizations a lot more than corruption for example... and gave me a vibe much closer to that of zero mission to be honest.

Obviously splitting the user base is a problem with any long-running franchise in which skill is required to progress...I'm not sure what should be done about this though:

maybe the next game can use the vitality sensor to change the difficulty of enemies and the complexity of the environment on the fly according to the user's level of excitement?

another option is to split the franchise (and the timeline with it), like in mario and zelda's case... though this being a smaller franchise makes it seem less likely...

It does seem however, after thinking about your points, that no matter what they decide to do, having the story play such a large part has the potential to seriously burden them down the line...

I hope Nintendo can figure out a good way to deal with this one because eventually it will become impossible to please everybody... Personally I like to think of this problem on a deeper level pertaining to how games adapt their skill-level and story to a fluctuating user base without loosing their uniqueness... but that's more of a long term goal of game development than something to fix for the next metroid. For what i's worth Nintendo is making an effort this generation to deal with these kinds of issues via the super-guide, vitality sensor and probably other unannounced research projects...

I hope they can also come up with some good short-term solutions as well... 

No it's still the worst metroid game. What I hate most is samus personality in this one. I wnat retro to return to it and make a new 3d one or even make a 2nd sidescollers one.

But Spirit Tracks is like the best Zelda game since OoT with challenge, reasons to explore, amazing music, inventive puzzles, new weapons that change up puzzle solving and boss fights a lot, it was the first real NEW Zelda in a while since things like Phantom Hourglass used the same puzzles and weapons from older titles and was so easy.

I don't see how an more action take on the gameplay from Super Metroid is really all that different, it was already an action adventure game, and I feel people just look for things to hate on to be honest right after they don't like the voice acting/story set-up in the intro.

Just beat him.  

D'oh!

just realized there was a far simpler solution to the fragmented user-base issue. allow for creation of user generated maps and custom campaigns, like Blizzard does. What are the chances of that happening? considering we've got wario-ware DIY and the like? Does Nintendo have anything to lose with this approach? (other than some pride?)

Not directed at you, I'm simply making comments based on observation of discussions, which I sorta picture as two fat kids in glasses yelling at each other when I read them (in the same vein of who is the better captain Picard or Kirk).

And Other M takes a lot from Super Metroid, the powers and such, and combines them with an action oriented battle system that really flows well, so I don't get the hate for the gameplay, though that seems to be what people hate on the least, mostly what I hear is story, voice acting, and length.

I agree with most of these changes. They could cut down the CG sequences a bit, but not too much either. I enjoyed most of the cinematics in Other M. But the cinematics should be shorter and Samus should not talk TO HERSELF as much as she did in other m if you ask me. It was a liiittle bit too much maybe, but I didn't really bother. I can understand people who didn't appreciate it though. I liked the fact that they put a lot of story into the game. They just shouldn't have had that "freezegun in the back"-scene. But the deleter-plot and the MB-twist was nice. I really appreciated that. I want a Metroid with a lot of story next time as well! =)

About dodging: how about shaking nunchuk while moving the analog stick? I think that would feel smooth.

And I think you should be able to choose between normal and hard mode from the beginning - unlocking an extra hard mode if you beat the hard mode. Then the game could be easy enough for beginners and us who've played a lot of metroid before ( or just games in general) could jump straight into hard mode.

I don't really agree about avoiding linearity. I mean, not completely at least. Some stuff would be nice to find in whatever order you do, but for me - just the additional stuff like those special beams were in prime.

All of what you said I can live with, I enjoyed it, though I admit I haven't played hard mode myself because I had a backlog to run through, even some games I really wanted to reply I didn't, the original SMG, Brawl, and Final Fantasy IV DS is about the only games this gen I've went back through a second time, so for me it isn't because of it being like your typical modern core game.

But overall I see where you're coming from and you're obviously not doing it out of spite like some people, but I do disagree that the story itself is inconsistent, she had some interest in the baby metroid pointed out in Metroid II and Super Metroid, and she really cared and respected Adam as seen in Fusion, and Ridley has terrorized her for her entire life so being a bit shocked he was revived doesn't seem out of place she snapped out of it and kicked ass per usual.  Now for the script, I really do think the intro needed more work, hell you should put your best foot forward and not have the premise be so shaky, but by the end I was satisfied.

I just got to that part on Hard Mode, and there is a problem with your theory.  There is a metroid you see just outside Sector Zero just before Adam shoots you.  Samus has her guard up, and is about to attack the metroid when she gets shot.  She definitely senses danger, just not Adam.  I would think her suit would protect her from all angles, not just from what she sees.

Do you get to fight Phantoon on hard mode?