Metroid Other M Second Impressions
I beat the North American version of this game years ago, but on a whim, I checked out Samus's Japanese voice on YouTube. I delightfully discovered that her Japanese voice is really good - much better than the English rendition. Looking at the footage, I took an intuitive leap and assumed that the Japanese version included options for English with Japanese voice-overs (the Japanese version of Super Metroid also had an in-game option for English). There was no definitive answer out there on the internet, so I took a gamble, and I was right.
My newly-acquired Japanese Wii struggled to play the game because of the game's dual-layer nature. Back in the day, I had to send my Wii in for repairs because it stopped being able to read Super Smash Bros. Brawl, another dual-layer DVD-game. After some heartbreak, I decided to try to use the Homebrew Channel to play this game on my North American Wii. After some trouble, I got it to work!
Playing this game for the second time, I remembered its strengths and weaknesses. Although Tomonobu Itagaki and his team had left Team Ninja and Tecmo by the time this entered development, the Team Ninja that remained was still highly skilled and talented at creating good-looking, and fast-running games; this game was no different. The CG cutscenes look fantastic, and even the in-game real-time graphics hold up very well because the game doesn't go for a very realistic, gritty look. It instead goes for a smooth, shiny look that ages well. I'm also playing this on a CRT, which is the way Wii was meant to be seen, and not blown up on a 1080p monitor.
One of the weaknesses of the North American release was the voice-acting - in particular, Samus's voice. It was very hollow, emotionless, robotic, and doll-like, but that weakness is gone from the Japanese version.
Although it was later made more difficult and into more of a true Metroid-game, Metroid Other M was initially designed with the casual Wii-audience in mind, and it shows. With the exception of the first-person mode, the game auto-aims for you, taking control away from the player, which also takes away from the immersion. I hope Metroid Prime 4 allows the player to aim once again.
The game is also too fast. The game is still very moody, atmospheric, and creepy, but the speed at which Samus traverses through the areas counters that sense of moodiness. If Samus moved a lot slower, the player would be able to appreciate the moody atmosphere a lot more.
Enemies also don't drop any health-balls or missiles. The only way to regain health is at Navigation Rooms or holding A while holding the Wii Remote vertically when in a critical state. Of course, this can be seen as a good thing. Reducing elements that make it more like a videogame could be seen as good, but it almost makes killing them almost meaningless. Clearing a room will expose where a hidden item is, but once you have found that item and are backtracking through it, there's no reason to engage the respawning enemies again. For Metroid Prime 4, I hope they get rid of respawning enemies. There's nothing more annoying and immersion-breaking than clearing a room full of enemies, leaving, coming back, and seeing them all back as if nothing happened.
One of the things this game does more successfully than any other game in the franchise is expanding the universe that Samus lives in. In most Metroid-games, she is alone, but in some games like Metroid Fusion and Metroid Prime 3, the developers tried to tell us that she lives in a bigger universe full of people. Metroid Other M conveys that sense better than any other game.
While not the best game in the series, it gets more hate than it deserves. Although all of its experiments did not pay off, the developers should get a lot of credit for trying new things, and taking the franchise in a new direction.
My newly-acquired Japanese Wii struggled to play the game because of the game's dual-layer nature. Back in the day, I had to send my Wii in for repairs because it stopped being able to read Super Smash Bros. Brawl, another dual-layer DVD-game. After some heartbreak, I decided to try to use the Homebrew Channel to play this game on my North American Wii. After some trouble, I got it to work!
Playing this game for the second time, I remembered its strengths and weaknesses. Although Tomonobu Itagaki and his team had left Team Ninja and Tecmo by the time this entered development, the Team Ninja that remained was still highly skilled and talented at creating good-looking, and fast-running games; this game was no different. The CG cutscenes look fantastic, and even the in-game real-time graphics hold up very well because the game doesn't go for a very realistic, gritty look. It instead goes for a smooth, shiny look that ages well. I'm also playing this on a CRT, which is the way Wii was meant to be seen, and not blown up on a 1080p monitor.
One of the weaknesses of the North American release was the voice-acting - in particular, Samus's voice. It was very hollow, emotionless, robotic, and doll-like, but that weakness is gone from the Japanese version.
Although it was later made more difficult and into more of a true Metroid-game, Metroid Other M was initially designed with the casual Wii-audience in mind, and it shows. With the exception of the first-person mode, the game auto-aims for you, taking control away from the player, which also takes away from the immersion. I hope Metroid Prime 4 allows the player to aim once again.
The game is also too fast. The game is still very moody, atmospheric, and creepy, but the speed at which Samus traverses through the areas counters that sense of moodiness. If Samus moved a lot slower, the player would be able to appreciate the moody atmosphere a lot more.
Enemies also don't drop any health-balls or missiles. The only way to regain health is at Navigation Rooms or holding A while holding the Wii Remote vertically when in a critical state. Of course, this can be seen as a good thing. Reducing elements that make it more like a videogame could be seen as good, but it almost makes killing them almost meaningless. Clearing a room will expose where a hidden item is, but once you have found that item and are backtracking through it, there's no reason to engage the respawning enemies again. For Metroid Prime 4, I hope they get rid of respawning enemies. There's nothing more annoying and immersion-breaking than clearing a room full of enemies, leaving, coming back, and seeing them all back as if nothing happened.
One of the things this game does more successfully than any other game in the franchise is expanding the universe that Samus lives in. In most Metroid-games, she is alone, but in some games like Metroid Fusion and Metroid Prime 3, the developers tried to tell us that she lives in a bigger universe full of people. Metroid Other M conveys that sense better than any other game.
While not the best game in the series, it gets more hate than it deserves. Although all of its experiments did not pay off, the developers should get a lot of credit for trying new things, and taking the franchise in a new direction.
Comments
Post a Comment