the official metroid: other m speculation thread!

Edit history:

Opium: 2010-06-23 06:45:47 pm

Opium: 2010-06-23 06:45:35 pm

2010-06-23 06:45:24 pm

I think MoM will allow for sequence breaking much the same way ZM did. They seem to be taking alot of the popular things/ideas from the whole series and putting them into this game, so it would make sense if they planned for sequence breaks.

tomatobob

2010-06-23 07:56:47 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Please don't say things like that, some poor sap is liable to believe it.

There is a zero percent chance that there will be planned sequence breaks. ZM was a special case as it was a remake of M1, they had to keep some of the open world element of the original, Other M has no such restrictions and will almost certainly be inline with the more recent entries in the series and railroad you to each power up.

Opium

Edit history:

Opium: 2010-06-23 11:55:20 pm

2010-06-23 11:54:54 pm

Quote from taigabob:

Please don't say things like that, some poor sap is liable to believe it.

There is a zero percent chance that there will be planned sequence breaks. ZM was a special case as it was a remake of M1, they had to keep some of the open world element of the original, Other M has no such restrictions and will almost certainly be inline with the more recent entries in the series and railroad you to each power up.

And what about the open world elements of Super? I believe most of the sequence breaks in that game were not intended, but some were.

tomatobob

Edit history:

tomatobob: 2010-06-24 12:32:16 am

2010-06-24 12:31:57 am

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Super Metroid happened a long time ago, Zero Mission is the only recent game with intentional breaks, and seeing as how Nintendo has gone out of its way to make the games unbreakable since that isn't likely to change. Less so with a game that is apparently so focus on plot.

Opium

2010-06-24 01:13:05 am

Lets just wait and see what we get, and one of us will be entitled to a big public I TOLD YOU SO. :P

kesvalk

Edit history:

kesvalk: 2010-06-24 08:03:47 pm

2010-06-24 08:03:04 pm

Indie Lover

lol, i don't really care about sequence breaking, all metroids are linear, they just lie to you saying you have to "explore"...

off topic: this pic remember me of maru-mari
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.joystiq.com/media/2010/06/metroidom2010-06-08-8.jpg
where is fonzie? YeeeEiieeee

tomatobob

2010-06-24 09:05:02 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Quote from kesvalk:

all metroids are linear, they just lie to you saying you have to "explore"...

lol no.

kesvalk

2010-06-25 10:10:11 am

Indie Lover

tell me why you think it's not linear bob, we can't discuss the matter if your answer is "lol no."

Quietus

2010-06-25 10:30:40 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

I always think of the term 'linear' being applied to games as a bit daft. All games are linear in that you have to perform tasks in a sequence to complete the game. This can be applied to any game, even things like sports, in which you have to beat a certain number of teams in order to reach your goal. They have to be, or you could never 'win'. Adventure games such as Metroid are no different. They only have one path to completion, or one sequence of events that must be completed. The order in which you can do them may differ, in which case you talk of 'sequence breaking', but the core game is still the same. Only when you reach the realms of glitching do you deviate from this, but then you could also consider that you aren't really 'playing' the game any more.

TheGreenManalishi

2010-06-25 12:42:42 pm

At the most basic level, you can say that Super Mario Bros. is linear because you only go right throughout the whole game. In Metroid, you go left as much as right.

tjp7154

2010-06-25 12:59:57 pm

Bananas GOOD, Kremlings BAD

If you mapped out all the major goals of a game and connected the dots, you can see just how linear a game is. SMB is a good example. Warp pipes in each level tell you that it isn't completely linear. It would he cool to see a map of different games to analyze just how linear they are.

Opium

2010-06-25 01:05:22 pm

Any game that has a beginning and an end is linear, if your definition of linear is that loose.

Kharay1977

2010-06-25 01:10:30 pm

Quote from Opium:

Any game that has a beginning and an end is linear, if your definition of linear is that loose.

Quoting Tuvok - "There is a certain logic to your logic."

Prime Hunter

2010-06-25 01:10:40 pm

Quote from Quietus:

Adventure games such as Metroid are no different. They only have one path to completion, or one sequence of events that must be completed. The order in which you can do them may differ, in which case you talk of 'sequence breaking', but the core game is still the same.

I think that's the point though. In a game like Metroid you're not always forced to go down the same path each and every time you play. You can get items out of order, skip them entirely, and there are a lot of smaller factors that influence what you do on one specific run. Sure, there may be an intended path and a item progression that is suggested to you, but unless you're talking about Corruption or Fusion where the story drives the gameplay, you don't always have to follow what's presented to you. That's what non-linear means to me in this case.

Of course there are varying degrees of linearity vs non-linearity. The 2D Mario games are more on the linear side for instance, because while you may have room to choose which levels and worlds you want to pass through, once inside it's (generally) a one way trip to get to the end of a level. But with games like StarCraft, XCOM, the Sims, Sim City, Civilization, etc. there can be goals set into the gameplay, but you have a wide variety of options available to you and things never happen the same way twice, making them more on the non-linear side. "Do I want to build up some air support, or go for an all out rush with just my marines?" "Do I research this topic first, or run guns blazing into battle now while my soldiers/army can handle the enemy?"

I consider most Metroid games to lean towards the non-linear path overall, but it may not be as open-ended as the games I just mentioned above. In some ways most games can have non-linear elements once you throw in a human player, since there are a lot of variables within our own skillsets. (For instance, having to go back for an extra e-tank because we can't handle the area ahead.)

[quote="Quietus"]Adventure games such as Metroid are no different.  They only have one path to completion, or one sequence of events that must be completed.  The order in which you can do them may differ, in which case you talk of 'sequence breaking', but the core game is still the same.[/quote]
I think that's the point though. In a game like Metroid you're not always forced to go down the same path each and every time you play. You can get items out of order, skip them entirely, and there are a lot of smaller factors that influence what you do on one specific run. Sure, there may be an intended path and a item progression that is suggested to you, but unless you're talking about Corruption or Fusion where the story drives the gameplay, you don't always have to follow what's presented to you. That's what non-linear means to me in this case.

Of course there are varying degrees of linearity vs non-linearity. The 2D Mario games are more on the linear side for instance, because while you may have room to choose which levels and worlds you want to pass through, once inside it's (generally) a one way trip to get to the end of a level. But with games like StarCraft, XCOM, the Sims, Sim City, Civilization, etc. there can be goals set into the gameplay, but you have a wide variety of options available to you and things never happen the same way twice, making them more on the non-linear side. "Do I want to build up some air support, or go for an all out rush with just my marines?" "Do I research this topic first, or run guns blazing into battle now while my soldiers/army can handle the enemy?"

I consider most Metroid games to lean towards the non-linear path overall, but it may not be as open-ended as the games I just mentioned above. In some ways most games can have non-linear elements once you throw in a human player, since there are a lot of variables within our own skillsets. (For instance, having to go back for an extra e-tank because we can't handle the area ahead.)

TheGreenManalishi

Edit history:

TheGreenManalishi: 2010-06-25 01:15:33 pm

2010-06-25 01:15:18 pm

Metroid is non linear even if you follow the intended path. Every time I play Super Metroid, I go down rooms only to reach a dead end and remember that I did the same last time. I get an upgrade and backtrack to pick up an expasion I made note of earlier. That, to me, is non-linear.

However, when I play ZM, I have exactly what I'm going to get and when I'm going to get it planned already. That is linear. Linearity is where you know what direction you should be going in already. ZM was not linear the first time I played it.

Quietus

2010-06-25 07:05:43 pm

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

All of you are pretty much confirming what I said, in that there is no hard rule for it, and therefore the term 'linear' is pointless. If you jiggle the meaning around enough, every game fits its description. Collecting items out of order doesn't affect a game's linearity, as the core components - defeat a boss, collect a key item - are still in place, and these are what present such a game's linearity.

tomatobob

2010-06-25 07:33:06 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Quote from Quietus:

Collecting items out of order doesn't affect a game's linearity, as the core components - defeat a boss, collect a key item - are still in place, and these are what present such a game's linearity.

Your point is basically, having beginning and an end makes for a linear game because you have to start at a certain point and you always fight that one boss at the end, the various methods of progression up to that end point mean nothing. That's retarded; that middle part is the game, finding the best route for how you want to play, and what upgrades you want to use to reach that point is the part where you are actually having fun. There's no reason to disregard it so completely.

Fusion is linear, there is one possible route to progress the game, you cannot deviate from this route and you never have the option to do so, it is one straight line from beginning to end.

Zero Mission is the definition of nonlinear, you have a suggested route thanks to the Chozo Statues, but you have plenty of potential deviations from it. You do have to start with getting the morph ball, but while the game points you in the direction of the long beam you are free to ignore it and progress the game in the manner you see fit from that point on, aside from needing to get that one missile. The route has very clear branches and, for the most part, you can bounce between branches as you please. Yes, you reach the same end point no matter what and you fight certain bosses eventually, but there's no one path you absolutely must take to reach them.

[quote="Quietus"]Collecting items out of order doesn't affect a game's linearity, as the core components - defeat a boss, collect a key item - are still in place, and these are what present such a game's linearity.[/quote]
Your point is basically, having beginning and an end makes for a linear game because you have to start at a certain point and you always fight that one boss at the end, the various methods of progression up to that end point mean nothing. That's retarded; that middle part is the game, finding the best route for how you want to play, and what upgrades you want to use to reach that point is the part where you are actually having fun. There's no reason to disregard it so completely.

Fusion is linear, there is one possible route to progress the game, you cannot deviate from this route and you never have the option to do so, it is one straight line from beginning to end.

Zero Mission is the definition of nonlinear, you have a suggested route thanks to the Chozo Statues, but you have plenty of potential deviations from it. You do have to start with getting the morph ball, but while the game points you in the direction of the long beam you are free to ignore it and progress the game in the manner you see fit from that point on, aside from needing to get that one missile. The route has very clear branches and, for the most part, you can bounce between branches as you please. Yes, you reach the same end point no matter what and you fight certain bosses eventually, but there's no one path you absolutely must take to reach them.

arkarian

Edit history:

arkarian: 2010-06-25 09:20:34 pm

2010-06-25 09:19:32 pm

red chamber dream

linearity is all entirely relative. zero mission is fairly linear when compared to heavy rain. it doesn't make sense to say x game is linear/nonlinear without comparing it to anything.

tomatobob

2010-06-25 09:21:30 pm

One shall stand, one shall ball.

Heavy Rain is not a game.

TheGreenManalishi

2010-06-26 06:58:05 am

This here interview has me a bit more optimistic about where they're taking Samus as a character.

By the looks of things, they're not changing her from what we've come to know, they're just putting her in situations that we haven't seen her in before (ie. with people she actually has words for)