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One shall stand, one shall ball.
Haha Phantoon, Dark Wizard From Beyond The Stars. That was pretty rad. And appropriate for me, given that he's pretty much my nemesis in Super Metroid. Never had a clean fight against him, dude kicks my ass.

The real ending was kind of lame, I don't know if it was worse than the first ending or not but really wasn't great. Maybe I just don't care enough about Adam or even this Samus really. Which is sort of the story's fatal flaw, they never really made any of the characters stand out as... well, characters honestly.

Why am I supposed to care about Adam and anything that happens to him? He never really does anything, unless wandering into a room full of unfreezable metroids that could very clearly be frozen to make it go explode. I'm like 100% sure there was a better way to do that.

Why should I care about any of the Federation mooks? Hell, Samus even? She just sort of whines a lot about things that don't really seem connected to anything happening on board the station, I mean sure she's the player character, but she's not one I really want any part of. These things would be easily overlooked if the game didn't stop you so often to try and convince you they're important. Clearly there's a reaction they want to the events of the game but the one they're getting probably isn't it. I guess I'm not really sure what the ideal response is, either so there's that.

I'm really glad cutscenes can be skipped on subsequent playthroughs because I'm pretty okay with the idea of replaying the game, not so much with seeing the cutscenes and listening to all the dialogue again. Half listening really, but that's not important.

On the whole I suppose I'm one of the few that can claim not to be disappointed with Other M, I actually enjoyed it more than I had anticipated. Not that this was hard, of course, I was pretty down on the game from the second they started to really hammer on the whole story angle and mostly just curious as to how the game parts would play given the control limitations. Part of me feels that I enjoyed the game in spite of itself; the controls weren't always what you'd want them to be (more often than not really), some rooms seemed designed specifically to waste your time or just annoy you, and some questionable enemy encounters sort of stacked up to try and make you stop playing.

The Seeker Missile guy was more annoying that anything to deal with and would not go the fuck away. Related to that, he was one of a few opponents it was not always clear as to whether or not you were hurting him. I mentioned this issue with Ridley as well and it still stands. I suppose on one hand it shouldn't matter overly much given that it'll die at some point and you could move on, but it would have been nice to know which attacks were really hurting him so as to speed up the later encounters. Being able to switch off the Diffusion Beam for those fights would be nice since the massive explosion from that was what was really obscuring the red flash from successful hits. Much as I like that weapon for more mundane encounters, it's not so helpful for one on one fights like that one.

Luckily, that was really the one enemy I didn't like dealing with, most of the less interesting ones an be safely ignored and I found most of the larger encounters to be pretty fun. More so when I wasn't accidentally fumbling a dodge or missing shots because lol d-pad. But when things worked, I think the worked pretty well, rarely perfect, but solid enough usually.

I don't know what everyone thought of the bosses here, but I actually thought they were mostly okay. I can't really think of any that really stand out as great moments in video game boss fight history, but nothing stands out as totally awful fuck that boss either, so that's something. Nightmare and Queen Metroid were pretty good I thought, though the latter I will admit may be mostly from totally nerdgasming at a 3d Queen fight because Metroid 2 is like my pet game or something. Nightmare might be a bit of that kind of thing too though... Phantoon might have actually been the best fight in the game all things equal, appropriate enough given when he shows up. I'll open this up to you all because I'm actually pretty interested in what people thought of really the combat in general in Other M.
I thought the combat functioned beautifully, it just doesn't develop enough over the game. You start off with the dodge and quickcharge abilities which are pretty much the basis of all the combat. If they'd drawn out that gameplay aspect (through Adam's approval or otherwise) over a longer period of time, the game would have felt less like a series of encounter-dodge-charge-kill-repeat, which is how I remember it.
ANKOKU
Personally, I thought the bosses were the best part of the game. And probably for the same reasons Green wished the combat had developed instead of stayed static.

As a VG Dev, I look at the engine and almost weep at how poor a game they had created with such a potential ridden engine.
If only I could get the rights to the engine for ONE damn sequel... or atleast lead the Dev team more.

Anyways, you don't realize how easy this game was until you manage to unlock Hard Mode. Once you play through that you realize just how much the Normal game pampers you.
Quote from TheGreenManalishi:
You start off with the dodge and quickcharge abilities which are pretty much the basis of all the combat. If they'd drawn out that gameplay aspect (through Adam's approval or otherwise) over a longer period of time, the game would have felt less like a series of encounter-dodge-charge-kill-repeat, which is how I remember it.


"Samus, I'm authorizing you to dodge attacks."

??
ANKOKU
You could hide it in another power up.

For instance Prime's version of Space Jump.
"Space Jump Authorized.
Space Jump activates the boosters upon Samus' back.
Allows for a secondary aerial boost after jumping once.
Also, allows for a quick boost dodge during battle."
Quote from Paraxade:
Quote from TheGreenManalishi:
You start off with the dodge and quickcharge abilities which are pretty much the basis of all the combat. If they'd drawn out that gameplay aspect (through Adam's approval or otherwise) over a longer period of time, the game would have felt less like a series of encounter-dodge-charge-kill-repeat, which is how I remember it.


"Samus, I'm authorizing you to dodge attacks."

??

Exactly what I was thinking.

Though considering that you have to go no Varia through the Lava area... yeah, I wouldn't be too surprised if he said that.

For Ridley, you can lock onto him in first person to get a health bar. Or any boss.

For the Seeker Missile boss, you can't, he is classified as an enemy. A really strong annoying enemy.
I like turtles.
Yeah, I was gonna say.  Does no one lock on to bosses?

Of course, the fact that doing so makes the boss' HP visible is just another thing that the game doesn't see fit to tell you, for some reason.
Indie Lover
they do tell, but no one really saw it, you need to lock-on onto the bug boss before adam authorizes the ice guns...

at least i saw the bar and associated the two things...
Edit history:
KingBroly: 2010-11-11 03:36:19 pm
I think Samus being "whiny" is a worldview thing for Sakamoto since Madeline Bergman acts in the exact same way, but the roles are reversed [parent/child]; of course, no one points that out.  We view it as Samus being emotionally immature, when no, it's just his worldview.

The game has Samus focus and harp on the unimportant things, well...most characters too.  That's just because it's really poorly written.  There's only one thing I've read about Other M that actually tries to make sense of everything going on in the game, including the authorization system.  It's scary how well it fits too.
I like turtles.
I don't think it has anything to do with subtext or trying to sneak in a moral message or something.

Rather, they just have no idea what to do with the character, and figured they should try angst and navel contemplation out.  It didn't work. 

Just a badly written segment of a series with an otherwise solid plotline.
my umbrella goes directly to Bankai
i liked the bosses too. the encounters become pretty intense once you learn how to use Samus' moves effectively and most are fun. Nightmare was one boss i didn't really expect to see here and i didn't even recognize him a few minutes into the battle but i really liked seeing him here. he's much better at attacking here compared to Fusion (lots of laser beams and stuff vs spinning around the room). the seeker beast was very annoying initially but he's more fun to fight once you're used to the controls and can just dance around him. i think the only boss that i found irritating was Ridley's second form because of his twitchy tail attack.

i guess the story being so badly written and delivered is what makes the situations involving characters something to not care about. Adam came off as a dick most of the time and you couldn't really feel sorry for the dude outside him going kamikaze to keep Samus on the ship (why does she want to die so badly anyway? even Adam realizes she's dumb with that attitude)

cutscene skips are great to have but i would have liked to skip the slow moving segments too. those parts really bring down the pacing.
Edit history:
Prime Hunter: 2010-11-11 06:01:27 pm
Quote from UchihaSasuke:
why does she want to die so badly anyway? even Adam realizes she's dumb with that attitude

I don't think it's that Samus wants to die. I think it's more that Samus recognizes the threat of the cold immune Metroids and will do whatever she has to in order to take them down, regardless of the consequences to herself. (So basically what she plans to do again later in Fusion with the BSL Station and the X.) To me it seems Adam stops her and goes in her place because he deems her to be "more important" in the grand scheme of things than he is, mostly because of her overall her role in protecting the galaxy.
Metroid Other M's story is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you'll get.

http://www.endoftheweekpodcast.com/apps/blog/show/4796504-the-psychology-of-samus-and-the-roles-of-adam-and-ridley

That link is how I'll interpret most of Other M's story from now on.  Why?  Because it makes too much sense.  I hope they rewrite it at some point like that.

The only reason why I can think why Adam shot Samus was because it was implanted in her brain that he was evil, and that she wouldn't listen to him/try to take him down.  I also thought it was she wasn't thinking clearly.
Edit history:
Turtle: 2010-11-11 10:55:29 pm
I like turtles.
Everyone is making the mistake of thinking that there is deep psychology theory at work in the story of Other M.  It's just bad writing, people.

And even if it isn't, keep your ****ing psychology out of my video games.
I see Adam shooting her as the only way to stop her from going to the Zero, instead of him. Although, as seen in  Fusion, Samus survived anyway. (The ships are most likely related)
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Quote from MarioGalaxy2433g5:
For Ridley, you can lock onto him in first person to get a health bar. Or any boss.

Nah, I knew about that, it was just... I don't know, maybe he just has a shitfuckton of health or something because it seemed like my attacks just did incredibly inconsistent amounts of damage. Sometimes they seemed to do nothing, others a fair chunk of the bar would come off, sometime just a tiny but. I know that he has that mode where he becomes immune to beams or whatever, but I stopped shooting non missiles at him in that phase in round 2.

Quote from Prime Hunter:
I think it's more that Samus recognizes the threat of the cold immune Metroids and will do whatever she has to in order to take them down, regardless of the consequences to herself.

Except they were very clearly not cold immune. Adam froze one like thirty seconds before he tells her that you can't freeze them. And the more mature metroids from RoS could never be frozen in the first place. Adam's just a tool.
Quote:
Except they were very clearly not cold immune. Adam froze one like thirty seconds before he tells her that you can't freeze them. And the more mature metroids from RoS could never be frozen in the first place. Adam's just a tool.


Expect didn't he says something like "Luckily for you, that was an regular one, I can still freeze the only freezable Metroid around here that conveniently.
That line always seemed to me like the writers wrote out the entire scene then somebody said "hey wait, didn't Adam just freeze a Metroid?" then everyone was like "oh yeah" so they decided to have samus point it out so they could explain it.
Edit history:
sabata2: 2010-11-12 01:28:24 am
ANKOKU
Personally I think that scene is actually in there because Team Ninja was like "Alright, Tourian fanservice room!" And then Mr. "Samus is emotionally broken" comes along and says, "NO! Adam must make sacrifice for Samus!"

It would have been much better if You actually can enter Sector 0, You FAIL to take out the sector or the metroids, MB's backup data does all kinds of weird shit to the station forcing you to have to evacuate, and Adam stays behind to try and constantly encrypt a Self Destruct command to get rid of the station for good.

Closer to what his brother did, and makes him a little more forgivable (for sending his brother to his death) since he was willing to do the same himself.

That or they needed a convenient way to say "yeah we didn't finish on time so you can't play this area" Ala the 3rd Pearl "dungeon" in Wind Waker.
One shall stand, one shall ball.
Quote from Baron Dante:
Expect didn't he says something like "Luckily for you, that was an regular one, I can still freeze the only freezable Metroid around here that conveniently.

IIRC he said something along the lines of "That was still in the larval stage, so it's probably not immune yet." Which, you know, was always the case. Ice Beam didn't do shit to anything past the those lovable larval metroids in Metroid 2. Like the writers weren't even paying attention. I guess it's possible he might have said infant instead, which might be slightly different, but it's still stupid. I want my 3d Omega Metroids dammit.
Edit history:
Hitaka: 2010-11-12 03:43:14 am
Hitaka: 2010-11-12 03:39:27 am
Phoenix
I think he said infant. It was pretty small, so I'm guessing it was a hatchling.

After having played through Other M a few times, I decided I liked it. Most of its glaring flaws can be skipped in subsequent playthroughs. Skipable cutscenes, and the pixel hunts, while annoying the first time, take two seconds once you know where to look. While the authorization system is stupid from a story persepctive, from a gameplay perspective it works pretty much the same. Just pretend the lava monster was guarding the Varia pickup. The actual gameplay is pretty fun. I like the combat and boss fights, and I like nerdgasming for 3D Queen and Phantoon: Evil Space Wizard.

Perhaps my biggest annoyance is the god damn SLOW WALKING PARTS. Because unlike the other stuff I hate, there's no way around them. You just have to suck it up and slow walk your ass around the sector 1 building twice. Another thing is the training sequence in the beginning. It's very helpful the first time to get you used to the controls, but holy shit is it tedious on subsequent runs. Tutorials are great, but they should always be optional. Either separate from the actual game, or if in-game, skipable.

The lack of health pickups was also kind of annoying, because if your health is low, but not low enough to be able to do concentration, and there's a boss fight up ahead and you want to refill, you have to intentionally take damage like a putz so you can recharge. This was most noticeable on hard mode, where concentration = full recharge and thus is more worth it.

Another positive is the return of the speed booster and shinesparking. Along with that is a negative, the fact that they blatantly intentionally put all kinds of shit on the floor in hallways to prevent you from speed boosting where they don't want you to. Assholes.

As for the linearity factor, well. Part of the fun is breaking what seems unbreakable, so you could say it's just more motivation to rip the game a new one. Look at Fusion. While no actual sequence break was ever found, the TRO trap is the next best thing. It's almost early Plasma except that the game fucks up. And then there's the early Power Bombs that don't let you use them. Entertaining if useless. And of course the antics of Bob the missile.

Overall, I liked it. I must have liked it, because I wasted several days of my life speedrunning it to get a sub-4 time. That said, it wasn't what it could have and should have been.
One shall stand, one shall ball.
I don't really see the complaint with things lying on the floor to restrict speed boosting, it's not like that's a new thing only this game did. Literally every Metroid game with the speed booster in it had randomly uneven ground or rooms designed specifically to stop you from using the speed booster at that point. Every single one. You can't say those games were less blatant about it either, one tile walls placed just short of where the speed booster would trigger are like the basis of all Metroid world construction. At least this game made it look at least somewhat like part of the environment.

Not that it matters much to me because just letting people shinespark all over the damn place would probably break the game in unimaginably brutal ways.
I like turtles.
But it didn't seem like there was quite as many Shinespark-denial mechanisms in the sidescrollers.  In Other M, pretty much the only places you can use the Speed Booster are the places where there's a contrived obstacle to get past.  Much like the Wave Beam, although that one at least boosts Samus' damage output.
The Omega Metroid was hurt by the Ice Beam in Metroid Fusion.
Indie Lover
they propably forgot what they did in metroid 2...

i think i didn't even got the ice beam in that game, i was with plasma all the way...