The Game OverThinker - Episode 40 "Heavens to Metroid!"

Here is my understanding of Samus: She is a Bounty Hunter who is commonly hired by the Galactic Federation. Her previous missions from the GF were "Go here and destroy the Space Pirates. Doing research is a bonus." Pretty much that's all she's ever had to do looking at Metroid, II, Super, Prime, Prime 2, Fusion. I didn't play Hunters and I've been on hiatus from Prime 3, so I'll probably have to start over to figure out what has been going on.

Other M showed us another aspect of Samus as an intergalactic traveler: Someone who responds to distress calls. This is one of the few times she just happens to be somewhere. Adam being there was just a matter of chance. Adam is a ranking official for the Galactic federation so he is by proxy the Galactic Federation so she'll take his orders as to not piss of her main employer. Samus likes her job, so following Adam's orders was just wise job security. Samus also has respect for the man as he was her main father figure. It also makes sense that not all of her weaponry would be appropriate for the mission at hand. Her weaponry is a mobile arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Much of it possibly modified GF equipment to be compatible. Not suited for a rescue mission.

Overall I kinda liked Other M, but it isn't without her flaws.

The emotionless delivery of Samus' lines came off as if they were trying to make her stoic. They really could not have made her more monotone. Couldn't they have gotten the same voice who did Brawl? We all liked that voice. She was kinda snarky. I like snarky . That's how real people are.

Okay, as I said, I understand why Adam wanted to restrict the use of Samus' weaponry, but why her armor? It would have made much more sense to say her Hyper Beam from Super Metroid overloaded her Power Suit systems and many of the functions had been lost like the armor and weapons storage. They could re-install all of the functions but she would have to remain on the base for some time, or she can leave without everything and she decided she's fine with the basic armor system. THEN when she finds herself in the lava filled room where Samus is taking heavy damage from heat Adam directs Samus to the room where she can get the heat protective upgrade. Just saying, "Don't use your armor" is pretty stupid.

Adam's character could have been handled better. He comes off as a douchebag, and even though he gets better (kinda, not really), I didn't like him as much as I think the developers wanted me to. I still felt he was an asshat and I wanted to punch him in the face.

These problems for me were what made me want to hit my head into the wall. For me the faults of the game were not the characterization because I liked the characters. It wasn't the gameplay because the gameplay was pretty awesome. The sound was good. Lots of good stuff. But the writing was rather weak and the delivery was pretty bad from Samus.

Granted both Nintendo and Team Ninja are terrible with character development. What did you expect? Also, Goddamn overthinker. We have the internet. If we need to know the definition of a fucking word, we'll search for it ourselves. Also the gameplay sucks too. Ppl say It would of been best without the concentration recovery. I agree, though I really wanted gone is that dodge bullshit. So yeah, there's a reason this game gotten cheap so quickly. Also, your straw hat shit serves no purpose whats so ever.

"Instead of rushing through, say, the fire level looking for the point at which you'll happen upon the fire proof suit, you're rushing through the fire level looking for the point at which Mr. Voice authorizes you to turn on the fire proof suit. In other words, it's a completely superficial, fundamentally unimportant narrative switch, one which shouldn't matter one bit more than, say, when an RPG decides that the obligatory house of worship save points are going to be called temples instead of churches this time."

There are some glaring issues with this analysis.

First, in the previous games, you never had to run THROUGH the superheated areas to get the protective suit. Maybe you could push through if you were fast enough and had enough energy, but once you got to an area that started causing damage because it was too hot, you were supposed to turn back and locate the protective suit to get through. In Other M, you're FORCED to progress forward through superheated areas that cause damage.

Second, "Mr. Voice" isn't just some omniscient being that authorizes equipment on a whim. It's Adam Malkovich, a military general. The fact that he's unauthorized defensive equipment at all is both completely asinine and a danger to his troops. I can totally accept disabling weapons because of rules of engagement, use of necessary force, etc., but there is absolutely NO reason to disable defensive equipment. That's like saying, "We're entering hostile territory, but you're too well protected. Make yourself more vulnerable to the enemy."

Third, they explain in the beginning that Samus is the only one with a constant communications link with Adam. He can see everything she's experiencing. So why does he force her to run through a number of superheated chambers, causing her damage each time, when all it would take is a quick call in to say she can use the Varia suit? That's like an officer walking through an infirmary, seeing a wounded soldier and saying, "Hey soldier, I see you got shot in the chest. I'm now authorizing you to use a flak vest."

And if that wasn't bad enough, this is the person that Samus thinks so highly of. He sounds great during Samus' flashback narrations, but when we actually get to see the real Adam, he comes across as an incompetent military leader who is not at all deserving of the high praise Samus gives him. Hell, at one point he even SHOOTS HER IN THE BACK, which disables her suit and leaves her defenseless as a metroid hovers overhead. He then proceeds to SHOOT IT WITH AN ICE BEAM, when the whole purpose of the research on the ship was to genetically remove their weakness to cold. It worked, sure, but he could only offer speculation as to why. The fact that it froze was pure luck.

So that's my issue. It's not that she has "feelings of attachment and respect to a man" and takes orders from him. It's that she has feelings of attachment and respect to a person who causes her harm, endangers her well-being, and seems fairly incompetent. Unless Samus is a masochist (oh shit, more projection), I really don't get what she sees in him.

Interesting. As a long time Metroid fan I really quite strongly disagree with a lot of what you've said here, and I think the failing of your argument is that you go on tangents after making a point which isn't properly backed up to begin with. I'm interested to see what your retrospective will be like next week.

Watched the new episode that just went up, so I came back to watch this. I pretty much agree with what's said here. My problem with the narrative is that it just took itself far too seriously. No comic relief anywhere.

But really, when it comes down to it, Other M was a great platform action game. If someone couldn't enjoy the game because of it's perceived storyline faults, then he/she must have a very tenuous relationship with the series to begin with. It's easy to forgive a great series a minor fault, unless you didn't think it was a good series to begin with.