Metroid: Other M - In-depth Discussion

[Ver-go-a-go-go]

I thought the voice acting might have been a bigger issue, but here's my thoughts.

I thought Corruption did a pretty good job with it. I don't remember any of the voices being particularly bad, and some of them were even pretty good. So kudos to an earlier game not doing a terrible job.

I thought Other M did a good job as well. Addressing Samus later, I found that the voice acting of Adam and Anthony was great, and the rest of the supporting cast was strong enough. I'm still rather confused about what Ashley Martin was going for with Samus though. When she's talking to other characters, it's actually quite believable that it is, indeed, the voice of Samus Aran. Unfortunately, a lot of the dialogue is her talking to herself, and, for some reason, the voice gets super weird when that happens. It sounds like she's off in a trance, with a really strange feeling to it. I'd actually like to look up and see if they were going for something different when she was in monologue, because it was so bizarre.

 

[Salem]

I'm still rather confused about what Ashley Martin was going for with Samus though. When she's talking to other characters, it's actually quite believable that it is, indeed, the voice of Samus Aran. Unfortunately, a lot of the dialogue is her talking to herself, and, for some reason, the voice gets super weird when that happens. It sounds like she's off in a trance, with a really strange feeling to it. I'd actually like to look up and see if they were going for something different when she was in monologue, because it was so bizarre.

Here's a video that talks about Samus' voice at around the 2:04 minute mark. It's more of localisation issue.

Spoiler

[video=youtube;p-lTtf3cOh8]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-lTtf3cOh8[/video]

 

[Sir Quaffler]

A little late to the discussion, but I thought I would drop my two cents' worth in. Note that while I haven't actually played the game myself, I HAVE seen an LP of the game.

My overall opinion: Meh. I don't think it was a particularly good game, but I don't have any real vitrol for the game either. It's the worst Metroid game, considering they are usually stellar in quality, but objectively it's not a bad game either. It's just kinda okay.

I can't speak much for the gameplay itself, but it looks... decent enough. Taken on its own accord it actually looks to be a pretty fun action-packed game. Lots of fast-paced shooting, melee attacks being the new cool thing. Not a fan of the fact that you can't move around while shooting missiles, but whatever. It looks like a pretty faithful adaptation of the way 2D Metroid games work, and I like those. However, I personally much prefer the way the Prime games played, so I'm going to be a bit biased. Don't get me wrong, the way you traverse the terrain and get powerups in 2D Metroids is pretty fun in its own right, and it seems Other M has gotten at least the traversing-terrain part down good. But the big draw for Metroid games has always been the exploration (something the Prime games perfected) and Other M is a big disappointment in that regard.

The story is rather lackluster to me. Not saying it was a heaping pile of dung like so many seem to think, but that it's just sorta unsubstantial. There's a certain scaling down of scope in the story. I mean at the end of the day, what has Samus herself actually accomplished? With every other story it's Samus herself who propels the story forward. It's Samus who kills all the Metroids on SR388 save for the infant. Samus who blows up Mother Brain, several times. Samus who defeats the Prime Metroid on Tallon IV and its reincarnation Dark Samus later on. Kills off the Ing and saves an entire race. Prevents the X from escaping the research station and conquering the universe. And so on and so forth. What did she accomplish in Other M?

That's not a rhetorical question, I'm literally asking what impact she had on the story, because for the life of me I can't think of anything.

Then there are the usual complaints: she unquestionable follows Adam's orders for no discernible reason, she freaks out at the sight of Ridley even though she's already killed the beast several times before now, she doesn't activate her Varia Suit while she's burning alive, and so on. Now, I think these things COULD have worked pretty well. If they had more researchers on the ship that could have popped out at any minute, I can really understand why Adam would want to contain Samus' firepower to alleviate collateral damage. If there was some interference with her equipment, or Adam had trouble contacting Samus while she was in the fire pits, I can understand why the "Hell Run" would have really worked. But as it stands, it just doesn't. I'm not sure how they could have gotten the freakout scene with Ridley to work, though. To be fair, there were always moments where Samus hesitated or was shocked before fighting Ridley, so it's not entirely out of character. I just don't think it worked here.

As far as Samus' character herself goes: Not a big fan. It just doesn't seem to sync up with who she seemed to be in every other Metroid game. I'll direct you to this video where the guy explains what I'm talking about. (Yes I'm aware I'm kinda aping off this guy, but whatever.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX4mhp-8sOc

 

[nsanesk8er16]

Other m in my opinion is god awful. For one they completely ruined Samus who was up to this point supposed to be a badass bounty hunter. It makes no sense why she would suddenly ptsd over Ridley considering she has defeated him countless times before. The narrative does not do this game any justice at all, the game is linear as all hell, hardly any exploration, and the voice acting oh my god I can't stand it. I mean sure it's not the worst voice acting but the way Jessica Martin voices Samus is just awful. The authorization system is also complete bs. It makes no sense why you would have to go through a lava area without use of the varia suit when Samus already has access to it, why would she have to wait for authorization on that or any other one of her powerups? She's a bounty hunter not a soldier. You could argue that the gameplay was good but in reality it was nothing special. Sure the controls worked but the sense move and concentration made this game way too easy. Another thing the gameplay does wrong is that it is filled with quicktime events which personally I don't enjoy. I don't judge you if you like it, but in my opinion I absolutely despise this game and hope that nintendo NEVER makes another metroid game like this, and I am not the only one who thinks this. There is not a single thing that this game does that any other metroid game doesn't do better. If nintendo wants to know how to make a good 3D metroid game or just metroid game in general they should look back to the prime games as an example because those games were phenomenal and felt very metroid.