Metroid: Other M Review

Kanadwen — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 02:46:00 GMT

Spoiler Information + Readme

Spoilers will be below...but will be kept to a minimum. Almost no story spoilers will be given, but game play spoilers will be frequent.

This is also a pretty negative review...and although I knock a lot of shit I really enjoyed this game and would recommend it to anyone.

When I first saw the preview for Metroid: Other M during E309 I was shocked. A new Metroid game that seemed to go back to it's roots.

This video really excited me, seeing the lush environments, the awesome combat, and even more awesome cutscenes. I couldn't wait, but now I have finally beaten the game and 100%'d it.

In a total of 11 hours of play time.

Yes, 11 hours.

And the last 5 hours of the game just felt like torture. So where do I start? Let's talk about the gameplay.

My main beef so far is that when Samus starts out, she has everything she acquired from Super Metroid. Missiles, Super Missiles, SJ/SA, Ice Beam, Plasma Beam, Wave Beam, Power Bombs, the Varia Suit, and a form of the Gravity suit (more below) and other things I might have missed. Energy tanks are the only thing she has not kept (for obvious gameplay issues).

The game starts you out in a tutorial room, getting you familiar with the controls and combat, so once the action starts you are pretty familiar with how everything works.

However...

when you are done with the tutorial and actually start playing, all of your normal abilities are stripped from you. Not because you were in an explosion, not because you were swallowed by a giant Torizo (which Chozos and the alike are COMPLETELY absent from this game) and pooped out, but because you were told you cannot use them.

You are not allowed to use anything until you are told to by a certain story character. Now this is where things start to piss me off...

*some minor storyline spoilers below which are only from the intro cutscene*

During the tutorial, you've been told that after your mission in Super Metroid your suit was polished, cleaned, examined (lol) and what not, so I assumed that the abilities that you don't use in the tutorial were just simply missing. This would be all the beams, the space jump and screw attack, your different suits, and the super missile.

Short story short, there is no true item progression in this game. When a situation calls for it, the game makes you wait it out for a few hours, and then when you absolutely cannot pass an area you are "authorized" to use it.

For example...

there is a lava portion in this game similar to Norfair. Where the area around you just slowly drains your energy. The effect isn't as dramatic as previous Metroid titles, but it is still a pain. And with the new combat system, you really need all the energy you can get it.

As you proceed through the lava area, you encounter the boss. Before the actual battle begins, you are "authorized" to use your Varia suit. That's right, BEFORE the boss. In a normal Metroid game, you would receive a new upgrade or the Varia suit after a boss, and you would clearly not get it for being IN the area that you NEED the Varia suit for.

This is not the only situation where you're crudely given an item. There is an event in the game where you have to reach a certain area in a short amount of time before someone gets killed. However, it is not explained how you're suppose to get there. Assuming I had to kill the monster before they kill said person, I kept failing because I wasn't killing him at all and I would run out of time. Game Over each time, and the sequence would restart. I finally just stopped and looked around and saw that you had to use the Grapple Beam to reach the area. Now that I have physically looked at it, I receive orders that I can use the Grapple Beam now.

This way Metroid: Other M introduces you to new weapons and abilities is pathetic. It completely shits on the way old Metroid titles rewarded you.

Let's talk about the battle system a bit...mainly the 1st person mode. What the fuck was Team Ninja thinking with this bull shit? FPS mode is the most shitastic idea ever....it worked in Metroid Prime, but this game it is a COMPLETE failure.

In order to use your missiles, you have to point the Wiimote towards the sensor, and physically lock on to your enemy with the point and pressing B to fire. This isn't that bad when you have to take down a wall or something similar, but when it is required in battle, which it is required A LOT, it is just annoying.

An example of how this works is certain enemies cannot be killed by just your beam, they must be taken out by missiles. However, most of these enemies, especially the "mini" bosses, are only able to get hit by these missiles in a certain sequence. Like when a snake lifts up his belly to reveal his weak point. If you're surrounded by other creatures while fighting a monster like this, you have to quickly fire off this missile before you're hit and take damage. The Super Missile is used by charging your beam in 1st person mode and then firing. If other enemies are in the room, and you're hit, you take damage AND the charging stops.

That shit is so fucking annoying.

End Game Spoilers - Final Boss + More 1st Person Troubles

During the final boss, there are Metroids that are flying around you and you have to kill them. Seems simple, knowing that us Metroid fans know that we just freeze them and pop a few missiles or a Super Missile in them. However, with 1st person mode, this isn't an easy task. During this fight, you can have a maximum of 7 Metroids attacking you AND the actual final boss, who is a Metroid Queen from Samus 2: Return of Samus.

In order to freeze the Metroids, you need a fully charged shot. This can easily be gained, but it is very hard to hit the Metroids and not get hit. If you do manage to hit a Metroid, your beam should freeze one or two others. This is where you have to quickly switch to 1st person, and fire your missiles. However, by the time you even switch to 1st person, one of the other Metroids attach to you, wasting time that you could of been putting missiles in the frozen Metroids. By the time you get the Metroid off you (morph ball + bomb), the Metroids are unfrozen and you have to start the process all over again. If you don't have any Accell Charges (which can easily be missed during the game), this is one hell of a challenge.

Let's talk about exploration. To me, exploring Zebes in Super Metroid is one of my best memories in my life. I would sit there all night...cuddled up exploring the unknown in this weird ass world. Metroid: Other M fails to deliver exploring and providing a good world in general.

The entire game is played on a space station. Think Metroid Fusion. By now you've seen plenty of screenshots and maybe videos of lush environments...but let me tell you, these are a lie. They are simple a program in "biospheres". The environment is fucking fake. The lava area for example. It seems like you're in an ocean of FIRE, but really you're not. It's a lazy way to provide something else rather than just the boring o space ship environment.

About 4 hours into the game...I started to question it. I assumed I was gonna be on board this space station and have it explode and me escaping in an ode to previous Metroid games...but nope. Knowing that I would spend the entire game on this station was a major buzz kill...I was hoping to explore another planet.

Another thing about Metroid games was finding secrets...and in Other M this tradition is smashed into the ground. All the secrets in the game are simply given to you by just clearing out the enemies in the room you're in. A blue dot will appear on your map, showing you exactly where the item is at.

This is a damn handicap compared to other Metroid titles...I don't want the game to simply show me where to find the item. I want to figure it out myself. Granted, some items can be a bit tricky to find even with this, but that's mainly due to the secret being revealed to you but you not knowing that you cannot even achieve getting this until your authorized to.

Yup.

Shadow Complex had a much better way in doing this...if a room had a secret, a simple question mark was displayed to let you know that somewhere in that area, there is an item. However...there is an option to turn this off, which I did to increase the Metroid experience even more.

With all this disappointment...I decided to just hurry and finish the game. I was heart broken...the Metroid game that I know and love has been transformed into a Ninja Gaiden mod. The game that I was hyped up about for so long just took a giant shit in my corn flakes...and I am a sad panda.

But this game also has some good things about it. I really enjoyed the story and all the cutscenes. A lot of fans see this as another disappointment, but I enjoy seeing one of my childhood heroes come to life. Sure, she isn't exactly how I pictured her in my mind, but it's still good enough. The theater mode that comes with beating the game is also a very nice treat...you can play them all back to back, and even some cutscenes have game play added which feels like you're just watching a movie.

After beating the game, you're allowed to roam around in the station to collect any secrets you might have missed and allows you to reach 100%. This is really cool, but really dumb as well. It was nice going back to other areas with all the new, err I mean authorized equipment, but this is also a flaw.

With all your upgraded equipment...the combat system is broken. Almost all monsters can be simply killed with your plasma beam, and any monster that isn't instantly killed by the plasma beam can be killed with your Screw Attack. There is NO challenge. This also occurs when you get the Screw Attack, so this was also a problem before you even beat the game.

There is only one enemy that that serves as a threat...and they are very seldom. They appear when you use a Powerbomb to unlock a new area. They are very simple to kill if you're paying attention, but other than that they can drop your energy very quick. When you encounter this enemy, it is only this enemy. There are no other foes in the room, so once again, there is no challenge.

So in order to get 100%, you simply Screw Attack to an area where there is a blue dot, figure out how to reach said item, and move on to the next dot. It literally takes about a hour or two. Finding all the items was a bit more fun that I expected, but it is very short lived.

100% Spoilers

When you reach 100%, all you unlock is more media in the Gallery mode, and Hard Mode.

So that's pretty much it...my first so called "review" on TSR. It's a pretty shitty review, but I had to get this off my chest. Metroid is one of my favorite series ever...and Super Metroid is literally one of my favorite games of all time. I was hoping this game would deliver...considering it's been more than a decade....but it has been a major disappointment.

Gameinformer 2007 April Fools' Joke

If you're a Metroid fan...get this game. It's fun to see Samus so alive...and it really adds to the story, but it has a lot of disappointments and seems more like a spin-off rather than a true establishment.

SEE U NEXT MISSION LOL

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Review

Kaneda — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 21:05:07 GMT

I'm not the biggest fighting game fan. Most of the time I'm getting blisters and getting my ass handed to and the other time I am having to deal with some of the worst assholes in gaming but let it be known, I fucking love Guilty Gear. The sheer madness, the fact pace gameplay, the awesome characters, and the music. Oh god the music! It might just be the greatest music in any game! So when the spiritual successor of Guilty Gear came out last year, I did what most fans do; get the fuck hyped! And it did not disappoint! Everything I loved about Guilty Gear passed over to BlazBlue and now the second Chapter is here, is it any good?

It's a 2D fighter just like the Guilty Gear series but what makes BlazBlue unique is it's Drive Attacks that are used for combos and special attacks. No character has the same two drives meaning no two characters are the same. It might have a small roster compared to most fighters of today but each character is so detailed in it's design, that one character from BlazBlue has more detail than 3 characters from Street Fighter put together. Also through out the game are Rapid cancels and counter assaults.

The Changes in gameplay from the first BlazBlue are very little. The one major change is the removel of using the right analog stick to pull off special attacks and in it's place is the beginner's mode. What that is is that it's allows the player to pull off the special attacks by holding certain buttons but it's removes the ability to pull off certain attacks meaning the game is easier for the player but they won't be advancing their skill. The other changes are so small that only the hardcore of the first game would notice.

Every mode from the first game returns with the inclusion of three new modes; tutorial mode is which you are taught the basics of the game, challenge mode which is very similar to the same mode of Street Fighter 4 and Legion Mode, a quasi-strategy-arcade mode. In that you are given a map to conquer by going to points, defeating the fighters in the points, and picking fighters in those points to join your side to beat the other points.

The roster only adds 5 new characters; Hazuma, Tsubaki, Λ -No. 11 (Lambda), μ -No. 12- (Mu), and Makoto, but Lambda is the same as Nu and replaces her, Mu has to be unlocked through story mode and Makoto has to be bought through DLC.

The Story is a bit all over the place. There are multiple ending and paths for each character. This is both a bad thing and a good thing. It's bad because you have to grind for the true story but it's good because you get more replay value out of the story mode which for a fighting game is not only good, but also amazing!

What Was Good:
Don't fix what's not broken. The Gameplay is the same meaning I and only players can jump right into the game and it's simple enough for new players to join and have fun.
The Story. No other fighting game can even compare to the story. There's character development, great voice acting (for a anime so you might hate it), and a plot line that not only puts most fighting games to shame but most other games as well!
The modes, there's a a lot of them! If I get bored with story mode, I can go into Legion, Arcade, Challenge, Score Attack, or fight someone online in either a ranked match or player matches in which six players can enter a room together and play with each other.
The graphics. The game uses beautiful hand drawn game sprites for the characters that light up the match! The background stages are meh.
The price. Thankfully we don't have to pay full price! The game is priced at $39.99.

What was Bad:
Seems cashed in. Don't know how to describe it but it seems cashed in.

Final Verdict:
Buy it! 2D fighters don't get as good as this and for $39.99 it just makes the game sweeter!

The Social Revolution - Game Reviews

Metroid: Other M Review

BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Review