Hahahaha, you just made my day. Post of the year right here.

i don't think that's true... maybe they're just the opposite of the way you imagined them in your head. after going back and playing super metroid the story actually makes more sense when you picture other m's samus in it- she recklessly makes a decision to save the baby metroid (she had feelings for it then too) and it winds up killing a lot of scientists and restarting the pirate's metroid cloning and samus nearly kills herself frantically trying to stop it. being impulsive about doing the right thing is 100% what her character in other m is about, it's very easy to imagine the samus from both games as the same person.

_{i can't believe i posted about this game again. i thought it was over!}

Not sure if you've played Fusion, but Samus acts very differently in similar situations. The way Other M shows her contradicts what she was originally supposed to represent.

Samus likes to have her thumb pointing down. She's weird.

In the end, she have her thumb pointing up. She's all grown up

this post should be remembered by future generations

You people are awful!
Is anybody here above the age of 20?

There are more than enough forums on the Internet that have proven that trying to make sense of Other M on a superficial level is a pointless endeavor.
Allow me to emphasize once again that I think the plot's execution is far from perfect.

Having said that, I think the fact none of you are interested in taking this debate to a higher level just proves my point about how unwilling and immature we are when it comes to discussing certain issues.

Frankly, the fact that you can talk freely about crime, war, sickness and violence in gaming but issues related to womanhood (gasp "ewww you said a BAD word!") are taboo is rather absurd, not to mention childish. Then again, I think we've already established that part.

edit: also, evidently "unfreezable" is very much a grown-up word and has been in use for over a century.
http://www.google.com/search?um=1&hl=en&safe=off&...

http://www.youtube.com/user/neverchris#p/u/19/ZgVnnQaHxfM
I thought this was a good review. It's not 100% what I'm thinking about Other M, but at least this is a thinking man with arguments and without premature hate.

@n0body: I don't want to go too deep into that issue, but one thing I experienced is: Other M is the first Metroid game that is much more appealing to female gamers. Even my mother can play this and my girlfriend loves it. And that is a step into the right direction since, well, you're playing a female character (more female gamers should play this!) Reason for this isn't only the simple and perfect gameplay (the others were close in that regard), but the story of Other M as a whole. My girlfriend never expressed negativeness about the story or Samus' behaviour/character (and as everybody knows I absolutely adore Samus in this game and I think it's the best Metroid game released yet). No, it was pure excitement!! What's that little white fluffy alien? Who's the traitor? How to get to that missile container? Why aren't you using your Varia Suit in the hot areas, Samus? etc. Questions like these make this game exciting the 14 hours from start to finish. (14 hours isn't too short either compared to the other original Metroids: Metroid, Metroid II, Super Metroid, Zero Mission and Metroid Fusion were about the same length or shorter!) And we did not recognize any sexist stuff or holes in the storyline. Samus is just a young woman, and they all behave stubborn at times, that's especially true when they grow up in a traumatic world! In that respect Other M is the most realistic and most immersive Metroid game.

Other M makes female gamers interested in playing other Metroid games such as Prime Trilogy and Super Metroid and as such is absolutely enhancing the audience. Before Other M these were just mainly viewed as hardcore fps and action games for boys. I recommend gifting this game to girls instead of supporting singing and fitness games.

My only minor gripe with this game is the music. Orchestral is great and all and the battle tunes are thrilling, but Metroid Prime simply had some better tunes.

Thank you for sharing from your own (and your girlfriend's) experience. I enjoyed reading your post and really appreciate the fact that you made it! I think this goes to show that they must have done something right in terms of the characterization, and in terms of how approachable an experience the game was. I agree with everything you said and I also believe the creators intended to make a Metroid with broader appeal in order to increase its fan base so the games can finally get the sales they deserve.

In that respect, I always felt there was a bit of miscommunication as far marketing and presenting the game to its audience was concerned. For instance, unless you have prior knowledge of the series, you would never have known that Samus is an orphan and that her family was killed by Ridley. I felt like there should have been at least a brief mention or allusion to this in the games introduction for those playing their first Metroid. In hindsight this may have also had the added benefit of appeasing some of the cries by "hardcore gamers" that took the flashback as being "too emo" (incidentally, it seems many of them didn't know about this detail in Samus' history either).

Nintendo may have been somewhat conflicted when they had to market the game, since its target audience wasn't as well defined as they would have liked, being made of old fans as well as newcomers to the series, or even to gaming in general. They probably could have done a better job explaining what the game is in hindsight.

It makes me very glad to hear that they still managed to reach a few new players, and make a few new fans, as your story can attest to.
The review you posted is also very well structured and professional. It's good to know there are others who can think about gaming seriously every now and then. I enjoyed listening to it very much.

cheers!

Yeah, the characterization was done absolutely wrong! Nintendo better made her the generic silent superheroine that loses all her abilities by a hit on the head. Over and over again.

Seriously, it's just the few haters that are wrong. It seems like they never payed attention to the storyline of the Metroid series and they definately never tried to understand how life in space really is. The most these people got out of Metroid was "BAM BAM BAM TIS A GOOD ALIEN SHMUP!!!" None of them are true Metroid fans. Other M does a spagat that gets all my respect.

Samus reminded me a lot of people like Sergei Konstantinowitsch Krikaljow, an astronaut that lived in space for years (recently saw an interview with him). Sakamoto must have researched people like him to make Samus' character as realistic as possible.

Unfortunately most people on our planet are alienated by something that doesn't behave as fictional and unrealistic as characters like the ones from Starship Troopers, Star Wars/Trek, Halo and even Metroid Prime. I stress that I have nothing against these movies and games. They're enjoyable as unrealistic as the characters are and that's what makes them fun. Other M is enjoyable as realistic as it is - a different approach of a sci-fi story for a different kind of gamer. Space obviously means loneliness and lots of self-reflecting and sadness and schit, especially when you're confronted by gigantic pestilent aliens all the time that killed your parents and all your friends. But it's not just life in space, but also Samus' ancestry and her life as a young woman where deep thought has been put into. Maybe it's not executed perfectly, but it's the first time a story like this has been produced for a videogame and that is a true revolution.

Other M sexist? http://www.youtube.com/user/neverchris#p/u/39/yTw68mxJs20
I agree with almost any argument in this video (which is made by the same person who made the Other M review I posted earlier.)

I agree with you. I also think it's an important step when you can have a protagonist who is their own person and does not conform with any simple archetype that is easy for the audience to digest. As long as characters continue to go down the familiar route, they aren't really distancing themselves from being merely an avatar for the player. If you truly want your game's protagonist to be an individual, you must accept that you aren't going to agree with them on everything, and you might not even understand them sometimes. If their personality is 100% agreeable then they might as well not have one since the player will unavoidably fill in the blanks with their own persona, at which point they are reduced back to avatars.

There may be other ways to go about it, but by having the main character exhibit behaviors that are clearly not in the consensus from the very start, the developers are able to avoid this trap since the player will have a difficult time projecting familiar qualities onto them in order to fill in the gaps. This kind of ill-fated struggle should eventually push the player towards the logical conclusion that he/she and the main character are different people. This is also the struggle that most critics of the game seem to be going through, even a year after the game's release. Unfortunately many of them seem to have been too lazy to follow this struggle to its completion. Instead they have opted for the easy way out: resolving the conflict by way of the (logically possible however unrealistic) argument that the developer was either negligent, or intentionally trying to sabotage his own creation.

To be quite honest, I find that often when such a line of reasoning is used, it is coming from a weak and lazy intellect.

One more note about the video you linked, which I agree with, is that some of the comments for it are quite interesting. Among them is one making reference to another cinematic icon, besides Ellen Ripley, who goes through a similar struggle: Beatrix Kiddo of Kill Bill fame. I think Kiddo makes for a very good comparison to Samus as well, especially when you consider the later parts of the second film, where her unhealthy relationship with Bill is demonstrated, and where she experiences similar emotional upheaval at the sight of her allegedly dead child. To me personally, the last scene of the film (where Beatrix and her daughter are in a motel, and she goes into the bathroom and cries) is one of the few that holds that entire epic tale together, and gives it any semblance of humanity.

So it took Metroid: Other M to finally reveal to gamers that Samus Aran is female.

yeah, I stopped reading after this.

You seem to think that Samus never had a personality before Other M. It's not like this is the first time they've given her a character.

I'm not sure if this is your point, but the people who payed attention to the rest of the series would have noticed that Other M's story elements are completely inconsistent with the other games.

Ironic, since Other M is the only game in the series to be a shmup. I really don't care that the story was bad, I would have loved the game anyway if it wasn't a run and gun button-masher. I'm sure many people liked that about it, but it's the antithesis of Metroid.

Samus Aran is a human being, and that is why I love about this game. She is more human than any other Nintendo character from any franchise.

Really? Because If I recall Ridley was the one who did that.

And Samus didn't go back to save the baby. She was answering the distress signal. Hardly a reckless decision.

@Project-L: Samus has always been a human being. Other M just likes to pretend she hasn't.

Hahahahhahaaaaa

Yeah man, shame on you traitor. Samus doesn't love you.
Go grab your midi guitar and play some K.K. Lament: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgpxJ9cD5cs
Edit: Sorry!! I thought it was Saturday evening today!

@Rift: 1. Yeah. 2. Disagree. 3. Completely disagree.

@Project-L: Completely agree.

@Kid-Crono: Agree.

@Rift: 1. Yeah. 2. Agree. Then disagree.

Sorry, don't have much time for elaborated answers.

It doesn't matter how many people you find who're willing to put unfreezable into their book, it's very much a made up word. But English is a living language. If unfreezable isn't a word, maybe it should be. As should unburnable, unfrightable, unfixable, unkillable, unchewable, unfindable, unmeltable, unpunchable, and unbustable.

you'd have to give some specific examples, i don't know what you're referring to. my problem was that the dialog and dubbing weren't great, i didn't see much wrong with the characterization or story.

sakamoto knows who samus is supposed to be better than anyone else, he's been in charge of her for over twenty years. he was very protective of her when retro was making the prime games and made sure all of her actions in those games would be consistent with her character, in that way you could say he's even more of a nerd about it than the fans who are complaining. everything you see in other m you can see in the manga from 2002, ptsd freakouts and all, and sakamoto probably pictured her that way even before then. "other m's samus" has been around for at least a decade, it's not like he just suddenly revised her character on the fly and added all these new elements to her.

she saved it from sr388 instead of destroying it like she was ordered to is what i meant. it was a big risk but she thought she could keep it a secret, she was wrong and that's what led to ridley destroying the station and stealing the metroid, it was a direct result of her decision to save the baby. she was lucky enough to stop the cloning and wipe the pirates out in the process, otherwise she would have been in deep sh*t. the general at the end of other m even states as much and samus talks about adam losing respect for her for being so reckless.

It's true the word doesn't appear in any English Dictionary (none that I've found at least), but since it's been in popular and professional use for so long, I hardly think using it as a dig against Sakamoto personally is appropriate.

edit: besides, if it really bothers you that much you should blame the localization team, not him.