Topic: Prime or Other M?

that's kind of my feeling too. it's like other m shows you a whole side of metroid that the prime games were missing, even if they were perfect in their own way.

Amen to that, brother. I'm playing through Prime now and I'm just always astonished at how quality that game is. Prime 3 is my favorite but the first is still mindblowing.

I hate how everybody is hating on Other M! But I can't change you.

I really liked Other M, but Prime was great too. But hands down, Other M.

-BF98

Prime is my favorite game ever so obviously that. Surprisingly though, Metroid M did some things better (or at least from what I've played (first save after speed booster)) though. Like the way items were hidden just feels more subtle in Other M. The way the story is told is a great change of pace. And in general, it feels more like the 2D games than even Prime did. Also, I've died a lot so far but it never felt cheap.

However, Prime didn't feel the need to have miniboss battles every other room. It also had far better music and SCANNING (I'm sad they got rid of Prime's awesome scanning system) so Prime wins by default imo.

i agree that items were much more challenging to find in other m. the prime games kind of allowed you to scan your way to all of them, but other m takes the same no-handholding approach as super metroid where you can usually see an item out in the open but have no idea how to get to it. it's so satisfying to finally get them, but it's too bad that they're all missiles...

it's also great for the classic items. no matter what game you prefer, everyone can agree that the speedbooster in 3D is glorious. the space jump is also great, but it doesn't translate into 3D quite as well. they at least did it a little more justice than the trilogy did.

also, wall jumping! how i missed it..

I think we can all agree the Screw Attack in Other M is pretty much the greatest thing ever. The Prime games could never really nail that. Unless, you know, you wanted to go forward a little.

All things considered, Prime 1 and 3 are better games, but I prefer the play style of Other M.

Not only that, but the shinespark was hilariously useful. That bit with the avalanche where you dash through the door and escape was epic!

I like both, and i would love to see more Prime games and more Other M-like games.

Other M has potential but they failed to port Super Metroid to 3D. The biggest issue is difficulty: in a game where you don't have to aim to hit a target, they should work on making many different enemies with different abilities and strong/weak points. They should also improve close combat, which was a nice addition but far from perfect.

it would have been even more epic if it didn't kill me on the first try every time. grrrr....

Other M - I really felt hampered by the first-person perspective in the Prime games and there was way more action. Honestly they're all too much of the same thing. The endless repetition of elemental worlds and regaining special abilities was all too apparent so I couldn't bring myself to finish it.

Screw the "proper" Metroid games. The best Metroid game is Metroid Prime Pinball!

Some numbers to compare both of them:
Metascores:
Metroid Other M: 79
Metroid Prime 3: 90

User Scores:
Metroid Other M: 7.7
Metroid Prime 3: 9.1

Sales (first two critical weeks for each game):
Metroid Other M: 378,014 (for 73,973,632 Wii consoles worldwide by 01-Sep-2010)
Metroid Prime 3: 517,481 (for 13,333,436 Wii consoles worldwide by 27-Oct-2007)

See, I actually thought they did that really well. Despite the auto-aim I found the combat to be just as challenging as past games.

Prime.

Other M.

I agree, the close combat was far more intense and the auto-aim for more distant enemies never felt autonomous. How ridiculously hard would it have been to do without an auto-aim? How would that even work?

The overblast/lethal strike thing was fantastically violent, I loved it!

Definitely Other M for me. I just could never really get into the Prime series. Enjoyed the first one, grew tired quickly of the second, and never got through the third. Good games i suppose, but just didn't do it for me. I'll perhaps revisit them one day.

Im really liking Other M. Prime was amazing at times, but if you stopped paying attention for one moment, its open game world would easily get you lost.

When you say combat you mean boss fights or regular enemies? I should have specified i meant that fighting regular enemies is way too easy. All in all you just have to run and shoot. Anyways now that you mention it i reckon that many great games, let's say Zelda, didn't had challenghing regular enemies.
Probably another issue could be the lack of exploration? Puzzles too easy to solve? I mean, there is something i didn't liked, and i'm not taking into account game lenght, the over abundance of cinematic sequences, or the irritating first person pixel hunting moments which are problems that could be easily fixed in future games.

^that's odd, because most metroid games are specifically designed not to have dangerous enemies outside of boss battles, to encourage you to explore more freely. i thought other m had ratcheted up the difficulty massively all over, and for the first time i found myself near death fighting outside of bosses. i don't know how you came through thinking it was easy, especially not when those green burrowing lizards show up.

i think the puzzles are simpler, but that doesn't mean easier. they were less fantasy based, so instead of solving some completely impractical puzzle way out of place on a space station to gain an item you instead just have to be observant and inspect your surroundings to find a way in. some of those items are extremely tough to locate and the challenge is still there.