Other M - After the Storm

Okay okay okay. Metroid: Other M looked absolutely fantastic when it was shown at E3, and it was shown in an incredibly epic way as well! I mean, I know I freaked out when I heard "Any objections, lady?" from Adam! But. BUT. I now worry that Other M might actually not be quite as good as it once seemed. An unfortunate prediction, yes, but it had to be done.

First let me clarify: I am NOT going to complain about the art style or graphics or some nonsense like that. What I am worried about is the gameplay. And even then, I'm not worried that the game won't be fun. I'm SURE it'll be loads of fun! But... I'm worried that it won't be a Metroid game's style of fun. Let me elaborate:

Rewind with me, if you will, to the original NES Metroid. Now, admittedly, I didn't actually get itno the Metroid series until much later, but bear with me. So, first Metroid. You're dropped on an alien planet without any particular celebration, only knowing that you have to stop some aliens from abusing crazy creatures to take over the universe. And at that you go into the depths of the planet without so much as a line of dialogue or hint of another civilized being even existing. What was the key that made that atmosphere so effective? Isolation. And that is exactly what I fear Other M will lack.

Fast forward a bit. We've had Metroid II: Return of Samus and Super Metroid, both adding in more and more story while still leaving you stranded on a planet to figure stuff out for yourself. And then we hit the Metroid slump and the only time we see Samus is in Super Smash Bros. Fast forward a bit more and we have a BRAND NEW Metroid game on the horizon! Finally, we get a new Metroid, and it's called Metroid Prime. Now, Metroid Prime is amazing and easily the best game in the Prime trilogy. Why, you ask? Because it managed to do the following:
A) It tuned down the difficulty of the series just enough for newcomers while still keeping people on their toes,
B) It fit very well into the Metroid timeline (well, except with Ridley) and had a lot of very fun power ups spaced well within the game,
C) It wasn't Echoes, and
D) It fit in a LOT of story and even some "dialogue" through scans while still maintaining the sense of isolation.

Read that last one again. Metroid Prime did it wonderfully. Sure, your ship would occasionally pipe in with some scan data from the area telling you where to go next, but that was IT. No other humans, no "real" dialogue, just you on an alien planet fighting a terrible poison of sorts. And therein lies out problem with the direction Other M seems to be taking. Let's look at two more Metroid games, shall we?

Metroid Fusion came out simultaneously with Prime and was also rather amazing. It took place after Super Metroid and introduced a new threat to the series among other really nifty things. It really had a great story going for it, but therein lies one of the reasons a good amount of people dislike it at least somewhat: it really didn't feel like a Metroid game. Sure, it had Samus in it and it had Metroids in it and it had Space Pirates and the Galactic Federation and power ups and it was the same genre, but it felt less like Metroid than Prime did, despite the fact Prime tried a lot of new things, including a new genre. Why? Because for the most part you were being told outright what to do by your little computer buddy, Adam.

Adam really had two major effects on the game. One was that it made it harder to get stuck and made it easier to add in a compelling plotline. Two was that he basically removed the sense of isolation! You don't have isolation when you're being told what to do all the time, and that brings us into Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Currently the newest game in the series (excluding re-releases), Corruption was very very good. But it was worse than Fusion when it came to isolation!

At the start of the game you go through a well-populated command ship, talking to troopers along the way. Then you meet two other bounty hunters who are going to work alongside you. Later on you lose the other hunters but throughout the entire game you are constantly being fed objectives by another talking computer. And even then there are parts where you end up with the Federation again. See where the problem is? The most memorable part of Corruption to me was at one point where you teleport to the other side of a planet and lose communication with your computer-lady. It was short, but tremendously sweet to feel that seclusion that Corruption so desperately needed.

And finally that brings me to Other M. What have we seen? That it will delve into the story of Samus, that there are definitely new NPCs and that Samus will be beating things up outside of shooting them. I for one am tremendously worried that we will have another case of a quasi-Metroid game that ends up focusing too much on story and not enough on telling it in a way that lets the player really feel like they're stranded on a planet with little hope for survival, like the "classic" Metroids did. I sincerely hope this won't be the case, but at this point I find it hard to believe. Maybe I'm just being pessimistic?

Oh yeah, and while I'm at it I might as well warn you that I may or may not rant later about why Other M will mess stuff up by having Samus talk. I'll leave you with this for now, though, in sympathy for your own sanity!