Guys, knock it off — either discuss M:OM or stop posting in this topic.

Yes, let's get back on topic.

Other M sucks, RAWR!

Metroid Prime Trilogy is not a Metroid game, it's just some first person shooter. I agree that Other M is a million times better.
But what can I do, I love all Metroid games - it's just that Super Metroid and Other M are so brilliant compared to the rest.

The only reason I gave Metroid Prime Trilogy a 10/10 is because it's three 9/10 games combined.
Other M solely on its own is a 10/10, just like Super Metroid.

The cutscenes are only part of what's eating at people. Other M was very short, super linear (discourages exploration), and others have voiced hating lethal strike and not being able to fire missiles in third person. On top of that it also has a game ending glitch (that's a problem).

That's a long time. Yoshio Sakamoto might die of old age by then.

Metroid Prime isn't a FPS it's a first person platformer. You jump as much as you shoot, and you don't even have to aim--sounds like old Metroid to me.

early 2002 called, they want their first impressions back

Metroid Prime is the most flawless transition to 3D I've ever seen in a video game, and that's a huge accomplishment considering how much of a masterpiece Super Metroid was. More than anything else, Other M is a button-mashing shoot 'em up that happens to take place in the Metroid universe.

Um, yeah ok guys...I was kinda JOKING when I said to complain about Metroid Prime Trilogy...xD

This is classic.
Also, I'm still amazed by how massively polarizing Other M is. I'm starting to think it's because they inserted a lot of "japaneseyness"into a very western franchise. I love Japanese games, so I loved Other M. I love uber-melodramatic cutscenes with ridiculous stories (for laughs, obviously) and off-the-wall gameplay. I can totally understand why it's not everyone's cup of tea, though.

I like that stuff too but it's been done better.

Metroid Other M seems to be the new 'black sheep' of the series, which was originally Metroid II (a game which i always found excellent)...

In retrospect my only minor 'complain' would be the minimalistic soundtrack. And the auto-saving (you must save in order to progress at most save-stations) which cannot be turned off is also a minor complain.

I'll be interested to see where the series goes from here. The logical thing for Nintendo to do would be to make a 2D handheld Metroid, but they'll have to come up with something else for the next console game.

I personally want good retconing, post-Fusion Metroid game. Other M happened, but they do actual go with the "she had post traumatic stress disorder and her awesome is the only reason she even did as well as she did. She was fine by the time Fusion started." Like they just say that. It would help so much.

I want something that shows Samus dealing with politicians and higher ups at the start after what happened in Fusion, and then most of the game is just a story that has minimal to do with continuity. Because I genuinely want to see this more corrupt parts of the Galactic Federation play out over quite a few games after being...hinted in a few games (especially Other M and Fusion).

Just as an idea, I'd like to see Samus go to a world in the middle of a planet sized civil war (or maybe after the planet sized civil war has made it close to a wasteland or something). Anthony Higgs goes with as a recurring character you'll fight with occasionally who is also exploring the area but usually by himself. Another idea I've thought of is some random peaceful family being protected by a new clone Ridley, who Samus eventually realizes isn't evil. There's backstory to that, Samus has to learn to basically help her mortal enemy, it could be quite fun. And I've heard that despite what was said in Other M the real space pirates are still around so maybe bring them back for this too.

oh and it would likely be a 2.5D game for 3DS.

Just some ideas I've had for a while.

***WARNING*** THOUGHT OUT COMMENT AHEAD***

After reading the last few pages of comments on this thread, I've come to realize that the exploration of femininity was intended to be a major theme in this game from the start. In that sense, this is a VERY brave and progressive effort, trying to explore such a complex and controversial subject within a medium that has up till now done a pretty poor job dealing with much MUCH simpler topics.

In a sense it fits well with the essence of Metroid, since this is also a strong recurring theme in the Alien series which influenced it. If you think about some of the parts in that series that tried to deal with this theme more openly, such as Alien 4, I believe you can get a better understanding of how difficult an issue this is even for more experienced writers.
I don't think it's a coincidence that "Alien: Resurrection" also very much struggles to get across its perspective on Ripley, in a manner that is both consistent with her character and respectable to women in general. How do you approach a topic as convoluted as a maternal bond between a human and an alien without appearing grotesque or insulting?

The easier to grasp topic of regular human-to-human maternal bonds, and the conflicts and baggage that come with it has hardly ever been explored in a satisfactory manner in the medium of film, to the best of my knowledge. Hopefully there exist precedents in modern Literature that do a better job, and if so I hope Sakamoto and Co. referred to such pieces when planning Other M's script. What I find more surprising in this respect, is that a women writer wasn't hired for this job, at the very least with equal influence as Sakamoto. Then again, maybe there was a women writer involved, and she somehow felt the awkward perspective in the game (like the ham-fisted recurring 'locked men's room' thing) was appropriate since it was representative of the typical clueless male point of view about the opposite sex.

Regarding this last point, and obviously speaking only from my own experience, I do think even the most enlightened of males in today's society still has a somewhat skewed perspective about what it means to be a woman, and furthermore I wouldn't be surprised if the same held for a considerable portion of today's women too. We may think we live in socially progressive times, but there are many aspects where we as a society are still very much in the dark ages.

Don't forget that until the 20th century in most countries women weren't allowed the right to vote, and that as recently as the seventies the feminist movement was responsible for equally extreme points of view. This is all in the Western world, I'm not even going to get into how women are misunderstood and mistreated in less civilized countries.

The bottom line, for everybody reacting at how sexist and demeaning Other M's story is, just remember that it's still a relevant reflection of our society and how backwards it can be. Are women different than men? Absolutely. Are these differences more than just physiological? Probably. Should they then result in differences in behavior and social benefits and obligations? Definitely. Where do we draw the line in terms of our expectations of the different sexes? Frankly, we haven't a clue.

After writing this I honestly wouldn't be surprised if in the future Other M will be looked back at as a pioneering game in terms of attempting to deal with complex social issues that are on the forefront of entertainment at large. As far as having any artistic merit as a game, controversy can only be a good thing.

you're thinking about this too hard. It's a sci-fi Nintendo game, not an award winning novel.

Now if we were talking about Mother 3 or even some Zelda games, thinking too hard might make sense.

I don't really know how to comment on that... do you really think the people who developed this game didn't spend more time thinking about it than I did when writing that post? I'm pretty sure you don't just go a develop all those CG assets on a whim before you've carefully thought out what it is you intend to convey. What you plan to show may go against popular opinion, hell it may even be downright wrong, and even if you have the best intentions sometimes they can get lost in the process of transferring them to the screen. You can say a lot of bad things about Other M, but if you read the 'Iwata Asks' interviews and the like, you'll know that it most certainly was not recklessly thrown together.

it was good ideas with good intentions that was poorly written. And no one either realized or was willing to say "you know, there's a problem with this". And it was written by the original Metroid creator (or at least A original Metroid creator), so he probably had a lot of say on what was written, even though I don't believe he's ever done something like this before (always a bad sign). Pretty simple really, happens quite a lot. Somewhat similar reasons to why the Star Wars prequels sucked.

That's pretty much in agreement with my original post. You'll note I never said the game manages to successfully deal with the issues it brings up, rather I pointed out how this is a complex issue regardless. I also said there should have been other lead-writers besides Sakamoto. Beyond that, seeing as how a great deal of effort was obviously put into making this game, I think it's useful to try and understand the vision the creators had in mind when they conceived it.

They couldn't have spent much time thinking about what they were doing. Not only is the story full of holes and lapses in logic, but nearly all of the game's characters and themes are polar opposites of the rest of the series. Whether or not it addresses things like female psychology is irrelevant. Samus's character is supposed to prevent the stereotypes that Other M is saturated in. Aside from that, it's still painfully obvious that no one bothered to proofread the game's rough draft, or even make it consistent with other Metroid games. Much like the Star Wars prequels, as kkslider pointed out.

the hilarious thing about that is that it's a blatant midquel for Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion and much of the game is about the consequences of Super Metroid's ending and explaining certain things from Fusion.

and this is complaints from someone who (somewhat) liked the game.

I've been imagining the development process must have gone something like this.

Sakamoto: Okay. So in Project M, Samus has just lost her baby metroid, and we all know how emotional girls get when their Tamagotchi die--this is like ten times worse. Samus is going to have her own special brand of woman crazy in this game. Also Mother Brain is back in angry little girl form because my daughter hates me right now.

Team Ninja: uh... We have some story ideas too.

Sakamoto: Look guys we just hired you to handle the technical stuff you aren't authorized to help with the story, Nintendo is perfectly capable of creating exciting new storylines without you. Also Project M will be an origins story for Adam Malkovich. I'm picturing Malkovich as a young powerful Yoshio Sakamoto; you know, the sort of daddy figure women exhibit strange obedience for. He'll eventually sacrifice everything and save the day.

Team Ninja: Isn't Samus going to save the day?

Sakamoto: Haven't you been listening? She's going to be too busy with cyborg PMS to stand a chance against the new unfreezable metroids. Then after Adam dies a bigger hero than anyone ever in the history of video games, his death gives Samus...

Team Ninja: Excuse me, Sakamoto-san? But "unfreezable metroids"? Unfreezable isn't a word and doesn't that sound like something a three year old would make up?

Sakamoto: Dude, don't be a dork. It's just a video game.