One shall stand, one shall ball.
Well, maybe not love, that's a strong word. Not hate, maybe.
Hello! I am tomatobob, professional hater, part time troll, and dabbling okay poster. I have just begun my very first playthrough of the infamous video game of the series Metroid and silly subtitle, Metroid: Other M.
I have decided on this occasion to also make a thread which serves the singular function of putting my money where my mouth is regarding this game and my near constant criticisms of it and its methods. I feel I owe it to myself and you all, dear members of the Metroid 2002 internet web forum site, to own up to my words and maybe back them up with actual reason! I've had my fun at the expense of this game and its supporters by now, it's only fair that I actually give it a real shot.
So I have set out on my journey, with my mind as open as it can be regarding this slightly polarizing game and I will be sure to let you all know every time I feel that I was actually wrong about Other M. I will also attempt to restrain myself in instances when I turn out to be right as I wish to keep things fair.
At this point I have made it to the first save point in Sector 2, so I've gotten through one of the more... contentious portions of the game already and it was definitely the section I was most looking forward to seeing for myself.
So first things first, as expected, those cutscenes are still bad as is the writing. The voice work for People Who Are Not Samus is decent enough it seems, but People Who Are Samus should have gotten some caffeine in their system before recording. I don't know if I want to blame that actress entirely though, I don't know how one could be expected to read those lines and deliver them with anything other than utter contempt for the writer and possibly the person who got me this job. You'd also need a supremely talented actress to make that sort of deadpan, cold delivery actually work even if the writing was good, this poor lady never had much chance.
That out of the way, I can say that I actually am enjoying the game so far, the game parts are pretty good overall. The controls do take getting used to, as many reviews said, and even once you have them down they aren't great. Mostly competent, d-pad movement in 3d space bothers me about as much as I expected. I want to add one note for Opium here and say I agree with her complaints about the auto aim to an extent, I ran into some issues where Samus started shooting at a stupid target and not one that would have been more helpful such as the one diving at her face. I actually got killed during the encounter where you get the Ice Beam because she decided the giant burning bug nest that she couldn't damage was a better target than the pirates jumping around shooting the hell out of her. A little annoying.
But still, I'd say fights like that one are where the game really shines, you have a lot going on at once as far as enemies go and it doesn't really feel overwhelming (particularly if you just mash the d-pad like a mad man), especially when the Diffusion Beam comes into play. So far that's my nomination for best thing in the game, it's just handy as hell. The rooms with regular enemies hanging around aren't very fun though, the game doesn't seem designed for that slower pace you get outside of the action set pieces. When it's on it's pretty much everything I wanted to hope it would be based on the trailers.
Now. Sector 3. Let's talk about good old Sector 3. In places it felt like it was ripped straight out of a rom hack. Heat rooms with no Varia. Enemies that exist solely to toss you into the lave when you don't have Varia. Better run bitch cause that lava's rising real fast and you still don't have Varia by the way. I was surprised though, based on the amount of complaints I heard I'd have thought that the heat was more devastating than it was, it really didn't do much damage, it just seemed to do enough to make everything else more annoying. The Lava Whale just straight up murdering you at the entrance to the area was kind of funny though, I just wish I had some indication that it was a hidden quick time event and not some scripted thing. I assume more of those are coming as the game goes on. I also like that you finally get the Varia Suit at the very end of all that nonsense, it's like a deliberate troll on the part of the developers, they had to know full well what they were doing on this and geared it for maximum rage. I can respect that. I was also pleasantly surprised by the fact that there was apparently more than one way to beat that boss, seems like you can forgo the Overblast and just freeze and missile if you want. I didn't, but I almost did so that's kinda neat I think. Overall, not as bad as I expected based on the number of complaints I saw.
Thus far I'm actually liking the game well enough. I know I harped on the whole concentration thing a lot during development, and I still think it's stupid, but it actually does work okay. It's not terribly easy to use in the middle of a fight but it does work relatively quickly so when you do get to use it you don't have to hang around like a tool of too long. I also like that missiles actually hurt things pretty badly so far in this game, given how awful they were in the last two Primes. They almost seem worth the trouble in this one. Probably won't be by the end though. When the game works, it really works so I'm feeling pretty good about going through this one.
Out of curiosity, does that sub plot thing with the little white furry thing that showed up in Sector 1 get as stupid as I think it will? I have a couple ideas on where that may be going and they seem pretty stupid. Is it actually connected to Mullet Lizard cause it seems like it is and if so... Oh boy.
Hello! I am tomatobob, professional hater, part time troll, and dabbling okay poster. I have just begun my very first playthrough of the infamous video game of the series Metroid and silly subtitle, Metroid: Other M.
I have decided on this occasion to also make a thread which serves the singular function of putting my money where my mouth is regarding this game and my near constant criticisms of it and its methods. I feel I owe it to myself and you all, dear members of the Metroid 2002 internet web forum site, to own up to my words and maybe back them up with actual reason! I've had my fun at the expense of this game and its supporters by now, it's only fair that I actually give it a real shot.
So I have set out on my journey, with my mind as open as it can be regarding this slightly polarizing game and I will be sure to let you all know every time I feel that I was actually wrong about Other M. I will also attempt to restrain myself in instances when I turn out to be right as I wish to keep things fair.
At this point I have made it to the first save point in Sector 2, so I've gotten through one of the more... contentious portions of the game already and it was definitely the section I was most looking forward to seeing for myself.
So first things first, as expected, those cutscenes are still bad as is the writing. The voice work for People Who Are Not Samus is decent enough it seems, but People Who Are Samus should have gotten some caffeine in their system before recording. I don't know if I want to blame that actress entirely though, I don't know how one could be expected to read those lines and deliver them with anything other than utter contempt for the writer and possibly the person who got me this job. You'd also need a supremely talented actress to make that sort of deadpan, cold delivery actually work even if the writing was good, this poor lady never had much chance.
That out of the way, I can say that I actually am enjoying the game so far, the game parts are pretty good overall. The controls do take getting used to, as many reviews said, and even once you have them down they aren't great. Mostly competent, d-pad movement in 3d space bothers me about as much as I expected. I want to add one note for Opium here and say I agree with her complaints about the auto aim to an extent, I ran into some issues where Samus started shooting at a stupid target and not one that would have been more helpful such as the one diving at her face. I actually got killed during the encounter where you get the Ice Beam because she decided the giant burning bug nest that she couldn't damage was a better target than the pirates jumping around shooting the hell out of her. A little annoying.
But still, I'd say fights like that one are where the game really shines, you have a lot going on at once as far as enemies go and it doesn't really feel overwhelming (particularly if you just mash the d-pad like a mad man), especially when the Diffusion Beam comes into play. So far that's my nomination for best thing in the game, it's just handy as hell. The rooms with regular enemies hanging around aren't very fun though, the game doesn't seem designed for that slower pace you get outside of the action set pieces. When it's on it's pretty much everything I wanted to hope it would be based on the trailers.
Now. Sector 3. Let's talk about good old Sector 3. In places it felt like it was ripped straight out of a rom hack. Heat rooms with no Varia. Enemies that exist solely to toss you into the lave when you don't have Varia. Better run bitch cause that lava's rising real fast and you still don't have Varia by the way. I was surprised though, based on the amount of complaints I heard I'd have thought that the heat was more devastating than it was, it really didn't do much damage, it just seemed to do enough to make everything else more annoying. The Lava Whale just straight up murdering you at the entrance to the area was kind of funny though, I just wish I had some indication that it was a hidden quick time event and not some scripted thing. I assume more of those are coming as the game goes on. I also like that you finally get the Varia Suit at the very end of all that nonsense, it's like a deliberate troll on the part of the developers, they had to know full well what they were doing on this and geared it for maximum rage. I can respect that. I was also pleasantly surprised by the fact that there was apparently more than one way to beat that boss, seems like you can forgo the Overblast and just freeze and missile if you want. I didn't, but I almost did so that's kinda neat I think. Overall, not as bad as I expected based on the number of complaints I saw.
Thus far I'm actually liking the game well enough. I know I harped on the whole concentration thing a lot during development, and I still think it's stupid, but it actually does work okay. It's not terribly easy to use in the middle of a fight but it does work relatively quickly so when you do get to use it you don't have to hang around like a tool of too long. I also like that missiles actually hurt things pretty badly so far in this game, given how awful they were in the last two Primes. They almost seem worth the trouble in this one. Probably won't be by the end though. When the game works, it really works so I'm feeling pretty good about going through this one.
Out of curiosity, does that sub plot thing with the little white furry thing that showed up in Sector 1 get as stupid as I think it will? I have a couple ideas on where that may be going and they seem pretty stupid. Is it actually connected to Mullet Lizard cause it seems like it is and if so... Oh boy.
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