Topic: Metroid: Other M Hype/Discussion Thread (MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS SO BE CAREFUL)

No. What would add to it? This game is quite fast, the fighting parts are very quick, dodging, fast charges. Including a slow, clunky movement that first person would bring (see the Prime games) I don't think it would add much.

Well you'd be able to play the game for more than an hour without getting Nintendo thumb. If not the Nunchuck at least let the classic controller be an option.

Now I would play with the classic controller, hold down L or R to switch to first person, that would be cool.

Better than not being able to move at all.

Why is not moving such a bad thing? You can dodge in first person, and your much more equipped in first person aswell.

everything i've read actually sounds pretty reasonable after playing the game. you've got to be stubborn when working with so many people from different companies if you want the game to turn out well, don't you? if no one took a strong directing role on such an ambitious project the game would have been a mess. rather than saying sakamoto ruined it you should be thanking him for saving it.

i'm extremely grateful sakamoto made sure you could doge in 1st person. what team ninja was thinking arguing against that i don't know; it sounds more like they didn't know how to make it work and wanted to give up but sakamoto made them keep at it until they got it right. isn't that a good thing?
he also kept them from unnecessarily showing samus in her zero suit, and considering how much of it you see in the final game, it's hard to imagine just how much samus buttock would be imprinted on your eyes right now had sakamoto not reigned it in for the sake of her protecting her character.

the nunchuck has already been argued over enough, all i'll say is that if you're trying to move in 1st person you're not doing it right. jump in, fire your missiles, jump back out. maybe the impulse to walk is too hard to shake thanks to metroid prime, but in this game you're not supposed to be hanging around there long enough to think about movement.

and the analog stick would suck for 3rd person. can you imagine using the speed booster, trying to keep the stick perfectly still for hallway after hallway? the 2D segments would feel awkward and with all the great camera angles you wouldn't even gain much responsiveness for the 3D areas.

Zero Mission was pretty darn good, Kid A. Like I said, it's hard for me to rank the series because they're all so different. I have gone through phases where I've remembered that one as the best, but I really didn't find the exploration particularly great. Certainly not as linear as Fusion and Other M, but didn't seem as open-ended as the first three. Of course, I've played Zero Mission twice and the rest much more, so could be I'm hastily concluding this. I would really like a Metroid in Zero Mission style except more like the original where there isn't even a suggested order to go about doing things, whether this is power-up collection or even bosses. Zero Mission probably had the most balanced action, not too easy but not too hard, and always fast. Not to mention a very fun hard mode.

As for Other M, it is not the best of everything the series has ever done. It's a great game, and it does everything it tries to do exceedingly well, but it is linear. Very linear. And I don't say that as a bad thing, it just means it isn't the ultimate Metroid because that is something the franchise is known for. This was basically Fusion in 3D, exploring individual rooms for power-ups but not so much an entire world as there is generally a very clear sequence. I could see the same engine being used to make a Super Metroid / Zero Mission 3D kind of game, and for me that would have the potential to be the ultimate Metroid. But while I like the linear games, the non-linear ones will always be a notch above for me because that's how Metroid was intended.

And to poke my face in another conversation: D-Pad rules, analog stick drools. The analog stick would add absolutely nothing. It would be really frustrating to speed boost with the stick for one thing. If I hold it in one direction for awhile, it will slip, and the speed boost would be broken. Even if you had analog in other situations, it'd add nothing. Some suggest being able to point at the screen to shoot always, but you'd still be on auto-aim because the enemies are in foreground or background and IR doesn't know the difference (see S&P2 for more information). You'd be able to move in first-person, but why? Go play Prime if that's what you want. This is clearly a game designed for third-person.

Why not go into any details? This thread has spoilers. It says so right in the title.

That's what I meant, thanks for clarifying. Of course, there are ways to break the sequence in Super Metroid, so that's not entirely true. It's possible that Other M will be opened up that way, but I kindly doubt it. The sequence is too important to the plot, and the only way to do that -- as far as I see -- would be some insanely difficult bomb jumping across horizontal gaps, if it's possible to maintain that infinitely (only seen it used to cross small gaps so far).

Regarding theater mode, I very much disagree. You're losing out on the item hunting, which is perhaps the game's greatest strength. I, too, grew dissatisfied with the ridiculously overpowered sense move, but for a single playthrough the game does give you at least an impression of danger, which you don't get from theater mode, I don't think -- not that I've watched it. I just assume the replay doesn't include a bunch of mistakes. Could well be wrong about that if I had any interest in it whatsoever.

The power-ups are a huge let down, but finding them is fun. As the saying goes, it's not where you're going but how you get there that's the worthier part. I personally don't need a reward to do something fun.

I started to watch theater mode the night I beat it. It was really boring to me, and watching the game play seemed goofy. I don't notice how awkward it is for Samus to always be at a run when I control her, but take away that control, and it looks comical.

Just got the speed booster. Yeah, I'm taking my sweet time with this one.

@SilentJ
I'm really mad at myself for not doing the same thing. With most Metroid games, like Prime and Super, I usually tackle a little bit of the game every time I play, but with this game, I just shot through the whole think in like 3 days. I guess I wanted to find out who the Deleter was.

I also don't like that almost every single item I get is a missle tank. There is by far more missle tanks than any other Metroid game (I think), and getting them is just not as rewarding as Prime. Nontheless its still an amazing game.

Zero Mission would be perfect if it had Super Metroid's incredible atmosphere, music, and level design. Honestly, the only thing I really like about ZM is its platformer physics. Super Metroid surpasses it in all other categories.

Zero Mission surpasses Super in challenge. Normal mode may be comparable, I don't remember, but it has a hard mode that makes the game much more fun.

Bless you for saying this. The people who complain about not being able to move in first person mode have completely missed the point of the game. The game wasn't meant to be experienced in first person. It's a 2D action game in a 3D environment. And even if it was full 3D, are you guys really telling me that Metroid is the only game where you can't move in first person? That exists in pretty much every 3D action game/platformer ever! Think Mario for a second--can't you go into first person in every 3D Mario game? Yes. Can you move in this mode? No. Why? Because it's just to get a better look at the environment. That's all Metroid Other M is doing; it just adds the ability to shoot as well (which, btw, has actually been done before. In Banjo Tooie).

if we're talking about linearity i think fusion ranks first. you're given clear objectives that usually involve making it to a download station that's marked on your map even though it's just a few rooms away. other m is similar, but you often don't know what your objective is and to be honest i never checked the map to see where it was located. the layout of the rooms is linear enough that if you just wander through them you'll end up where you need to be, but when you don't keep track of where you're supposed to be going it still feels like you're exploring freely to me.

it's also the case that you're moving so fast that a more straightforward layout feels right. most of the hallways allow you to keep running unbroken through door after door without having to stop and choose a path to take. i didn't mind the more linear gameplay because it fit with the feel of the game really well.

it's important to realize though that there's no one right way to make a metroid game; if you make it too open like super metroid, people will complain about not knowing where to go and say that it's boring, then you make it more straightforward and linear and people complain that it's not open enough. i think other m's balanced enough between the two to be satisfying.

What charge screw attack?
And boosting, stopping (by crouching in Super Metroid or hitting 2 in Other M), then jumping super high or super far has always been shinespark. You automatically had access to it when you got the Speed Booster in SM, and I believe you automatically had access to it when you got the Speed Booster in this game.

when you charged up your beam and flipped in super metroid you would glow and do damage to enemies. it's not very powerful and lasts for only one hit, but it was basically a cool little version of the screw attack that allowed you to just run and jump through most common enemies. it was really helpful when trying to walljump with bugs flying around that might otherwise hit you.

I think you really hit the nail on the head here. The linear structure really worked for me here because the game just felt so satisfying to play--running full speed through narrow corridors while screw attacking enemies with the camera pulling back to a cinematic view just feels good. And when you think about it, the game really isn't that much more linear than Prime or Zero Mission. Prime always told you where to go next, as did Zero Mission. That's really all Other M is doing, but it feels slightly more linear simply because there's a lot more running left-to-right.

I never said it was the most linear. It and Fusion are about the same.

I don't see why being able to quickly backtrack should make exploration less optimal. On the contrary, Prime drew so many complaints about having to backtrack because it was so slow.

I do believe everyone knows there isn't one right way to make the games. I think I've been on record enough saying that I like Other M and Fusion a lot. There's only one Metroid game I didn't like, and most of you should know what it is by now, not that it was even that bad.

But Metroid's roots are in a much more free-form approach than Sakamoto's group's last three Metroid offerings. All I was saying is that the ideal Metroid in my opinion would harken back to the original trilogy's sense of having no direction.

Also, anyone who complains about not knowing where to go is an irrelevant voice in a Metroid discussion. That's like someone complaining in a Mario discussion that jumping is too difficult and you shouldn't have to jump. Not an invalid opinion, but an irrelevant one.

Edit: To take in account Kid A's comments: Again, I wasn't saying Other M was bad because it's linear. That quote keeps getting taken out of context as if I were criticizing Other M. I was describing my "ideal Metroid," so to speak. I know other games have done this objective thing before. And I liked Fusion, too, and Prime 1 kind of. And Zero Mission was good, though I hated being told where to go (not exactly a remake if you're going to undo one of the game's most defining features).

Anyway, I was just saying that if I could combine the strengths of all the series into one perfect Metroid game, the non-linearity of the first trilogy would definitely make the cut. I certainly would not call for an end to linear Metroid games, as they are now just as many as the non-linear ones, and nearly as good, though Super still sits at top for me.