Metroid is probably one of the biggest and most influential franchises in gaming. The original game introduced exploration to a genre that was usually just about going from point A to point B. And the exploration element was amplified by the fact that you had to find various power-ups to get to new areas.

Now that Retro Studios are done with the Metroid franchise, it’s time for a new developer to take a shot at it, and this time, strangely enough, Team Ninja is behind the game.

So read on and see if they made Metroid: Other M into a satisfactory experience!

Developer: Team Ninja
Publisher: Nintendo
Date of Release: August 31th 2010
Platforms: Nintendo Wii

Genre: Action game
Rated T for Teen

Presentation
For a Wii game, this is very nice. The models are good, there’s a nice amount of detail in every room, and the textures are very nice as long as you don’t zoom in on them. The characters look okay, especially Samus. Though the Galactic Federation soldiers look the same though, just with different heads behing their visors, they still look cool. And I’m really loving the enemy design here… mostly because a lot of the enemies are classic Metroid enemies remade in 3D, and those were really cool-looking enemies. The new enemies look great too. The environments look good too, since they’re surprisingly varied. The ship the game takes place on is actually made to have areas that mimic various areas on Planet Zebes, so it’s more than just bland gray space station graphics all the time, it has a lot of color.

I think the most impressive part of the game, graphically at least, is the cinematics. They look fantastic. Even on the stronger current-gen systems, I’ve rarely seen such high-quality cinematics. The cinematography is great, the effects are fantastic, and it’s all really entertaining to look at.

The audio design is very nice. The game uses familiar sounds from older games for various things, such as monster screams and attacks. The music is also really good. Lots of atmospheric stuff, but there’s a lot of classic Metroid tunes, which are slightly remixed, and always very well used. The voice acting isn’t perfect, some of Samus’ lines aren’t delivered very well, or kind of emotionless, but otherwise it’s quite good. No big complaints on this side.

Story
After the events of Super Metroid, Samus takes a bit of time to recover. After she’s all okay, she leaves with her ship, and intercepts a distress signal from a nearby ship, called the Bottle Ship, so she goes to investigate. On the Bottle Ship, she comes across multiple Galactic Federation soldiers, some that she knows from back when she worked for them. They’re here for basically the same reason as her, so she follows the orders of Adam, the leader of the group.

This actually gives you the excuse in this game for not having all the power-ups from the previous games. Rather than finding power-ups through the game, Adam restricts Samus from using certain weaponry. It kinda doesn’t make sense for him to restrict use of, say, the Gravity and Varia suits, but it makes sense when you see that this is a military operation.

So, through the game, you find out various things. About the Space Station: what it is, what it’s for, what’s the purpose of its existence, who is in charge, etc. There’s a lot of references to older Metroid games, though mainly Super Metroid.

One interesting thing is that the game gives a LOT on insight on Metroid history. Mostly on Samus’ past. Speaking of which, Samus talks in this game. A lot. That gives here a lot of personality, something we didn’t see much in any other Metroid games really. It makes her a lot more “human” than previous games give the impression of. She not JUST a badass emotionless super soldier that might as well be a robot anymore, she’s a person, with fears and emotions, like all of us, in addition to being a badass savior of worlds.

Then there’s the ending. WTF. You go through the game mostly wondering what is going on. And then, suddenly, you get a whole lot of exposition, showing who the story’s actual antagonist is, and… the game ends. No boss battle, nothing. It just ends. And it’s a shame really, since the antagonist is probably the most interesting bad guy in the history of Metroid other than Ridley, and its motivations are clear and understandable. The ending was so sudden it even took me by surprise. It feels like the game should be a lot longer. You just got your last power-up, and you could only use it once before the game ended. It should have been longer.

Another minor complaint about the story is that some parts of progression are really forced. You’ll get stuck in first-person mode, and you’ll HAVE to lock-on on something in particular around you, or the game doesn’t progress. That’s just way too forced, they could have shown it in a cinematic rather than force you to point at it…

Oh, and just a small thing I’d like to mention… I was scared as to what would happen to Samus if we let Team Ninja handle her. I mean, they made Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive, they’re pretty much “all eye-candy” when it comes to female characters. But I’m happy to say that they treated Samus with the respect she deserves. Sure, they show off her body a bit, but Nintendo themselves did that before them, and, most of the time, Samus is in her badass space armor, and she feels a lot more human than her usual silent self.

Gameplay
Basic controls
Some people say a game with 3D gameplay can’t be played with an NES controller. They’re wrong, and this game proves it. The controls for this are great. Very simple. The D-pad moves in any direction in 3 dimensions. The 1 button shoots. The 2 button jumps. Pressing A turns you in a morph ball. Pointing the Wii Remote at the screen puts you in first-person perspective, where you can’t move. Here you can move your view around and lock-on targets with the B button, and shoot with the A button. Generally, you shoot missiles if you’re locked-on to something, unless it’s something you need to shoot with the normal canon.

Combat
The combat is actually really fun. I was scared that it might suck because of the auto-aim, but I was pleasantly surprised. Sure, it makes the weaker enemies very easy, but battles against strong enemies will be quite interesting. The auto-aim only works when you’re pointing towards an enemy, so you still “sort of” have to aim. There are various things you can do in battle. Shooting enemies is obviously the most important thing, but there’s more. Charging your laser does more damage. You can avoid attacks by pressing a direction right before an attack hits you, which enables you to instantly charge your canon (and you can dodge even in first-person perspective). Some enemies, after taking enough damage, will fall down and will be killed in a fatal melee/close-range attack. You can also do similar attacks by jumping on top of certain enemies. And some enemies require shooting with missiles to kill, sometimes according to a pattern. Overall, combat is really fun. It’s really smooth and fast-paced. Boss battles are also interesting. You have to figure out weak points, patterns, and when to attack, with which weapon. Each of them are very fun and unique.

One thing that might be a mixed bag is the way you recover energy and missiles. Rather than picking up energy and missiles from enemies, you get them back by either going to a save point, or using “concentration”. This requires you to point the Wii Remote upwards and hold the A button for a while. This replenishes your missiles. If your energy is below a certain threshold, doing the concentration method will also replenish your energy to a certain amount. Not full though, and it takes a long time to do so, so it’s really hard to in combat situation since it takes so long. I don’t mind the system at all since it’s quite hard to pull off in the tougher battles, but some people hate it.

Exploration
The game does feature a little bit of exploration. But, like Metroid Fusion, it’s a very linear affair. There is a big map, with various areas to visit, and there are areas you can only visit once you get access to different equipment, when Adam gives you access to said equipment. So, basically, you go where you’re asked to go and that’s it. You can go off the path from time to time to find upgrades: Accel Charges (makes your canon charge faster), Energy Tanks, E Recovery Tanks (which change the how much you can recover HP with the Concentration method), Energy parts (4 of them give you one energy tank) and missile tanks (one missile each). But, generally, it’s a linear experience.

The only time you really have to explore is after finishing the game. You finally have access to the Power Bombs, which you didn’t get until the end of the game, so you can explore the ship in its entirety by using the power bombs to access areas you couldn’t before, and you might come upon items you might have missed on your first way through the ship.

Overall
I really like this game. It feels like a 2D side-scroller, despite playing in 3D, which is really interesting. And, while it is a linear game, it does really feel like a Metroid game (like Metroid Fusion). You’re given an objective, but you have to find your way to it. Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes it takes some puzzle-solving. And the combat is great, it’s smooth and incredibly fun, and it can sometimes even become hard.

I also love that there’s a lot of story here. The Metroid games are generally pretty low on story elements, and very basic, so it’s nice to have some back-story and such. And the antagonist here is awesome, I hate that it was sort of ruined by the ending.

Yeah, the game finishes very suddenly. Don’t expect a badass final battle. I hate that there’s no final battle. There is a boss just before the final gameplay scene, which is one of those “you have to scan something in first-person view” parts, but neither that last boss nor the forced first-person part FEEL like a final battle. It’s nothing like in any other Metroid game and it’s a huge deception. There’s another boss when you return to the Bottle Ship. OH, and that last boss battle expects you to know that your power bomb has been activated during the battle, despite there being no sign that it was, and it’s require to win.

But still, it’s a solid game, one that I will surely replay. There’s incentive to replay (mostly the fact that it’s really fun to play), and there’s a good amount of gameplay there if you want to find everything after finishing the story (which is required to unlock “Hard Mode”).

Pros and Cons
Pros
- Controls are great
- Combat is really fun
- Gameplay is superb
- Story is fun
- Great presentation
- There is post-game content

Cons
- Kinda short (around 7-8 hours) but the problem is that the game ends so suddenly
- The ending segment is very anti-climactic (and there’s an element or 2 that aren’t cleared up in the ending)
- Not too much exploration
- After you get the power bomb, normal battles become way too easy

The Save Factor
The game is way too expensive. 50$ in the US, 60$ in Canada… WOW… Wii games should never get this expensive. The Save Factor for this will be 35-40$ (either US or Canada). Since it’s a “love-it-or-hate-it” kind of thing, I’ll just say that you should be wary of it. Lots of people liked it, like me, and even more people hated it (a lot of the time for completely inane reasons).

jobocan Console, Games, Review, wii