Metroid: Other M — Dreadful Anticipation
An Undeserved Bad Taste?
Metroid: Other M is one of the few Metroid games that I didn’t actively seek out for a long time. I remember being excited for the trailer, about the potential for more story-based Metroid, a more introspective Samus…but I’ll be damned if the internet wouldn’t let me hope for the best. Other M was so universally panned that it took me several years (and not getting it on my dime) to seek out and try Other M. Maybe I let the internet get to my head. Or maybe it just wasn’t that great.
If I thought the exposition in Corruption was grating, there was a lot more in Other M…but I can’t remember if it truly grated at me. The control scheme was new, strange, and experimental: sidescrolling, but with the ability to shunt into first-person to fire off missiles and the like. The once-mysterious Adam from Fusion now had a face, a backstory…a character. Other M was trying a lot of different things, gameplay-wise and narratively, while simultaneously holding to the familiar elements of Metroid: exploration, upgrades, a space station (a la Fusion) to explore, and so on. I also heard there were familiar faces and enemies to make a return, but therein lies my issue: I don’t think I got past hour one of Other M when I first played it. One section in particular just kept killing me, I got frustrated, put it down, never picked it back up.
In the time since, the vitriol has faded, and I’ve heard more and more about the novel elements of Other M: the music, the gameplay elements, the storytelling (however heavy-handed it might be). I’ve been equal parts anxious and excited to try this one again. Time will tell if my gaming skills have gotten better to launch me past the space that troubled me before, or if I even appreciate how they end up telling this story. And chronologically, Other M takes place after Super Metroid. Maybe having finished that so recently will help with my outlook. Maybe.
An Alternative Gourmet
Well, I must’ve gotten past what killed me back then, because I don’t remember getting a beam upgrade the first time I played. Go future pro gamer me!
But in all truth, I spent the better part of the last two days just diving through Other M. I didn’t think I would enjoy it, let alone as much as I did, but I really enjoyed it.
Let’s address a couple elephants in the game first, namely the two hills that it seemed everyone wanted to plant a flag and die on back in the day. First, the “Authorization” mechanic: unlike other Metroid titles where Samus discovers her upgrades somewhere in the world, she waits for permission from a Commanding Officer before activating them. Everyone thought this was bogus for any number of reasons, from the power dynamic some normie held over Space Queen Samus Aran to implications of sexism. Samus even notes out of the gate that she’s making the decision out of respect, and subsequently makes decisions for herself when the time comes. She is beholden to her own parameters as long as she wants to be. But amidst all of this, nobody seemed to pitch a fit the other eight times that Samus started a new adventure from square one? Say what you will about Samus waiting for a CO to give her permission to use upgrades, but at least she came to the Bottle Ship fully armed.
Secondly, the voice acting. Whether it was subpar voice acting overall, or whether people just weren’t used to hearing Samus talk at all, let alone as much as she was, folk were mad about it. And yeah, I could see some elements where the VA seemed less-than-stellar. But remember: localization is hard. To get everything the way that would fit across two starkly different cultures as American and Japanese would probably require a bunch more resources to re/animate certain points. Additionally, for as much as Samus hadn’t said much of anything before this, who’s to say that she wouldn’t sound like she does? Where people might hear stilted, monotonous delivery, I hear an unsettling calm, someone who can’t let themselves feel too deeply for sake of her mission, someone who is good at what they do because they know exactly when to let their guard down, even internally. I can see Samus speaking like that, whether to herself as players are privy to, or to those she finds herself around (when she’s in the mood to talk, that is).
But enough about old hills and flags and rabid fans. There were a number of elements that stuck out for the better in Other M. What connects them all is this: Other M is a completely different Metroid title than any of its predecessors. It borrows familiar elements (upgrades, expansions, characters) of the formula, but right out of the gate, players are thrust into a completely new experience.
The game (post-stagesetting introduction) launches players into a tutorial. Some tutorials get a bad rap in gaming, and Metroid’s tutorials pride themselves on being wordless or simple, but this more direct approach is necessary. From the perspective, the control scheme, the actions Samus is capable of, everything is different and requires a step-by-step tour through it all. It’s simple, gets players in the new groove, shows players what Samus is capable of, and (eventually) sets up some interesting ripples in the story.
Specifically, Other M introduces Autoaim, Sensemove, Concentration and Overblast. Autoaim is basically Prime’s lock-on function, but in an action-oriented run-and-gun setting; an easy mechanic to pick up on, and appreciated with Other M’s more frenetic pacing. Regarding said pacing, Sensemove is the evolution of Prime’s side-dash, allowing Samus to (stylishly) launch herself away from harm’s way and automatically charge her beam to full power for a quick riposte.
Concentration allows Samus to regain a certain amount of energy if she is reduced to critical levels, plus regenerate her missile supply. To offset the lack of energy pickups in the game, this is a necessary change, and it compliments the constantly-moving battles, both standard and boss, beautifully. Overblast is its offensive foil: jumping onto bad guys’ heads, or otherwise finding them in a chokehold, and delivering a fully-charged beam blast into their noggin. Mechanically, it’s a powerful way to juggle multiple enemies and maintain momentum while permitting just a moment to breath. Cinematically, it just looks really cool for Samus to pull some sick wrestling armlock on a jumping monster and blast them in the head. As the kids say, if we’re going to be cinematic about things, let’s be stylish, too. Other M ensures players are prepared with these new mechanics, leans into them from start to finish, and is a better game for their inclusion.
In terms of gameplay progression, Other M is the most radically different of the Metroid titles. From the beginning, players are effectively on a series of linear paths from one Navigation Room (save and recharge hub), occasionally running into a story element between Nav Rooms. Hitting a hurdle in this style of game means that someone is about to authorize an upgrade, or there’s a fun puzzle awaiting to subvert the hurdle. It’s not a question of “maybe I missed something,” Other M is all about momentum and maintaining it as much as possible. Gone (until the endgame) are Metroid’s exploratory roots, here in its place are acrobatics and explosions (not a bad thing).
A quick aside on that vein: upgrade and expansion parts are more visible than ever before. Helpful radar pings dot the map, once enemies are defeated or players reach the endgame. Reaching the upgrades and expansions can require a little lateral thinking that Metroid is known for, but Other M puts the emphasis on closer examination of one room at a time, not of discovering secret routes and entire hidden passages.
Back to Nav Rooms, and how they differ from Metroid’s traditional save rooms: when (and if) players are defeated, players restart at a recent checkpoint, not the last save room. Checkpoints, as Other M uses them, allow for more moment-to-moment challenge, instead of the longer gauntlets of endurance the series is traditionally known for. Additionally (in my personal experience), death was a far more frequent occurrence. Other M’s use of checkpoints allowed the developers to experiment more with cinematic elements and a range of gameplay-based challenges. Sometimes, you’d be overpowered by a room of powerful enemies. Sometimes, a lava snake would jump up and eat you out of nowhere. C’est la Other M and all that.
Between mechanics, perspectives, narrative delivery (it’s cutscenes, let’s not kid ourselves), Other M treads a lot of new ground in a well-established dynamic. For returning Metroid players, it can be weird adjusting to these new dynamics. But for the game that Other M is, the experience it’s trying to deliver, they fit in perfectly.
On the flipside, those same established dynamics are just as, if not more, effective in Other M’s adventures. Metroid players are accustomed to the element of power scaling, where difficult enemies at an earlier section are easily vanquished by an upgraded arsenal. Other M holds true to this tradition, allowing quicker and more efficient exploration the further players progress.
As long as players have controlled Samus, she has had very little to say. Other M may change the game by making players privy to more of her internal thoughts than ever before, but it’s when Samus goes quiet again that things feel the most familiar and strange. In an experience surrounding one character’s thoughts, those moments of silence, internal and external, hit just a little differently than they would in a traditional Metroid title.
Lastly, Other M perfectly realizes the endgame “opening up” that so many titles have included in some form. Where Other M stands apart from the others is by flipping the order on its head: in other games, players would scour the world for all of their upgrades and expansions, complete the story, and roll credits. Other M completes the story, rolls credits, then opens up the world in its entirety for its final act. Players who want to say they completed Other M can say they did. Players who want more can return for more. It caters to the two audiences better than any other Metroid title I’ve played so far.
Other M puts forth a valiant effort in many ways, especially with the risks it took to give players a new side and perspective of Samus.
If I may plant my own flag for a moment, I believe Other M succeeded in everywhere that Metroid Prime 3: Corruption tried to. There were alternative controls, but it wasn’t entirely reliant on the novelty of those controls. There weren’t any gimmicks, no cheap “it’s like interacting with it in reality” mechanics, none. It was pure game. The motion-based controls were focused enough to feel natural, from reloading energy and missiles, to precision-aiming in first-person perspective. And most notably to me…
AW JEEZ MORE SPOILERS. YOU BETTER AVERT YOUR EYES IF YOU DON’T WANT ANY SPOILERS FOR THE HALFWAY POINT OF THE GAME. OR SOMETHING AROUND THAT, I’M BAD AT MATH AND FRACTIONS.
…Other M actually nailed an earlier encounter with Ridley. It was littered with narrative implications, personal stakes for Samus, and an actual sense of threat and danger.
SPOILERS OVER. HAVE FUN WITH YOUR MYSTERY. ❤
Despite the rallying against it around its release, I actually found the story to be more engaging and poignant than I thought it’d be. Between the game courteously providing recaps when I started it up again, the narrative callbacks peppered throughout the experience, the interactions (voice acting critiques be damned) between characters…Other M’s story hit differently than the likes of Super Metroid or Metroid Fusion, but it hit all the same.
To see such a galactic badass as Samus Aran finally peel back the layers was a privilege. Other M gives a glimpse into a novel, introspective version of Samus as she processes the events of Super Metroid. The narrative style lends a different weight to those events, and the impact that they had on Samus, short and long-term.
Metroid: Other M is a perfect example of trying something new amidst a tried-and-true formula, and it not just working, but excelling. Mechanically, tonally, and narratively, Other M is (and was) a successful experiment in every sense of the word. Whether it was released too early to a less-open audience, or it was simply too different to catch on more, we may never know. But I can say with my subjective certainty: Metroid: Other M holds up magnificently.
Only one left before Dread. When we (and Samus) Returns…
