Metroid: Other M Review for the Wii

     I was once on a Metroid binge not too long ago. It all began with Metroid: Zero Mission on the GBA. After that, I'd gone through Fusion, Prime, Super, I was a fan. I was really excited for Other M but found that I was beyond disappointed when I finally got my hands on it. I thought the same as most other disheartened players, that Samus didn't need a voice, the story got in the way of what Metroid's always been, the design was too linear and some design choices left me utterly dumbfounded. In fact, it was due to the game's design that I wasn't able to progress after a certain point and couldn't beat the game- nor did I want to. It's been a few years since I've last played it and I found myself wanting to be able to specify what I liked or disliked about it in a way that I could debate, at length, my position. So I sat down, booted it up, and gave it another go. Who knows, maybe this time would be different.
     If I look at Other M from the perspective of what remains from the Metroid series overall, I am a bit disappointed. There wasn't much in the way of exploration and it's the first Metroid game I've ever played where I never had to pay much attention to my map or think too hard about where power-ups lay about. And in that sense, there's an intimacy and familiarity with the environment that's lost which is one of Metroid's largest draws for me, a draw that also applies to Castlevania, another series that I'm rather fond of.
     Freedom of exploration and finding tricks for traversal are also gone. Other M is designed in such a meticulous way, there's purpose to every crevice and corner and that purpose is to keep you where the developer wants you to be. Nothing makes this notion more clear than the imposed height limit for consecutive bomb-jumping and other natural barriers that hinder any exploitation you could gain from future abilities. *For those not in the know: Bomb-jumping is a traditional technique for morph-ball mode where you can use the lift you get from a bomb explosion to jump higher. If you have some very careful timing, you can utilize multiple bombs to elevate yourself to indefinite heights which leads to sequence breaking, getting to places before you were intended to reach them*
     Light resource management and dexterity were also required in the older Metroid games in order to make your way around but in Other M, if you're low on health or missiles, you can simply charge yourself back to capacity without locating any item drops. Other M is no longer an exploration-based adventure game, the goal is clearly to create a linear, story-driven experience with an emphasis on action gameplay to move the story forward at a break-neck pace.

      I think what really throws off long-time fans is how much attention Other M gives to its narrative. This is a story about Samus, her past and her development as a person, and the game utilizes Metroid's conventions of gameplay to serve that story. Where most Nintendo titles favor gameplay, Other M takes a chance at implementing story in a fashion similar to Uncharted or God of War. It's easy to see why fans might not receive these changes so warmly, one of the most immediately irking experiences is hearing Samus speak. Not only is it jarring being that Samus has a reputation for being the strong-silent type but the sound of her voice can easily be written off as dead-pan delivery at first. Other M deserves a chance however, what lies within is an empowering story and an action experience that moves at a quick and at times brutal pace.
     Firstly, I'm playing on my Wii U now and the game looks stunning right off the bat. Every fold of Samus' suit stands out to me and my eyes are drawn to pick out every detail I can. The two thoughts constantly swirling through my mind are, "Is this really a Wii game?" and, "How can the Wii make a game as great as this look so drab and lifeless?" I'm in shock that the same exact game went from visuals that pushed me away from the experience to pulling me in. If the Wii U can do this for Other M, I want to go back and play every Wii game I own again so I can visually enjoy it as much as I should have the first time around.
     The first bit of play you're exposed to is a training room where you go through a tutorial of everything Samus is capable of. You get a feel of how she controls and reacts to things and it feels incredible. Samus has a large presence in this world, you see it in her fluid animations, how her armor clunks around on the metal floor, her changes in momentum, her lightning fast dodges paired with righteous, surgical aim and accuracy, she's heavy, agile, and deadly. Her confidence exudes her metallic exterior and you can't help but feel it wash over you as she dispatches her first target with charge shot up-close and personal.
     To sell this, combat is much more kinetic and physical. You don't just shoot aliens from afar, you get in their faces, tackle them, jump atop their backs, shove your beam-arm down their throats and unload. You can make last second dodges which sets up an instant beam charge for you to let fly. And if you wound an enemy with a stong enough attack at the right moment, you can close in on them for a killing charge shot where Samus will perform a specialized melee attack and position her target for a killing blow. I'm a fan of action, I can get behind this change.
     There is a first-person mode as well which is used both contextually to scan areas and in combat to shoot enemies and switches. The switch from third to first-person view is seamless and offers a lot of utility. To access this, you simply turn the Wii remote so it's pointed at the TV (Otherwise, Other M is controlled by the Wii remote being held horizontally in both hands) and it's wise to keep it in mind as it's always available to use.

      As you progress from the tutorial, you find yourself aboard a ship transmitting with a distress signal, a signal that has also caught the attention of the Galactic Federation Army. Turns out they have tasked Adam Malkovich, Samus' commanding officer from when she served in the GFA, with investigating the ship and Samus has found herself in the way. Adam permits her assistance though as long as she adheres to his orders during her time there. What this essentially means for the player is that now all of Samus' abilities and tools have been locked away, save for the basics, until Adam grants her permission to use them. It's the same song and dance Metroid's always done but now it's been given context through the story. I think it's much more clever than introducing a sequel and all of Samus' abilities and weapons are gone and they're apparently hidden all over the current world your on. It also serves to give an impression of how strongly Samus respects Adam, let alone her colleagues in Adam's unit and the GFA. It pretty much sets the expectation for how the game blends its signature gameplay with a narrative.
     And the narrative is good overall. I think the story of what's going on within the ship isn't all too great, it's got plot-holes and shifts focus onto other plot points a bit much, but Samus' character is fleshed out to a fantastic degree. No longer is she a character that kicks ass simply because she can kill things and flirtatiously strips her armor off when she dies in such a way that demonstrates her last breath contains so much sexy and glitter that her suit can't contain it, she's a strong female character now because she's endured enough to build up a resistance to emotion and as she reflects on her past actions, she sees how she's grown and how she needs to be to continue forward. Samus is a character of intense courage and Other M hits that point home. I would expand more but it would involve a number of spoilers so I'll save it for another time. To that end though, I feel closer to Samus than ever and I greatly sympathize with the pain she's been through and admire her courage to be as strong as she is. I also feel like a have a better reason to like her as a character in the first place.
     But with all the good comes the bad. Other M is filled with limitations and sometimes those limitations become a bit exhausting. Other M has a very strict way that it needs to be played and and creativity on the player's part isn't always appreciated. One last example, aside from the issues I've stated before, there are switches you power up with your beam in first-person mode. Not only is powering them up exclusively in first-person mode a limitation within itself, but even if you could see and shoot one of these switches from a distance, you can't actually activate it unless you're within a specific proximity to that switch. At times you feel that you're only allowed to play as intended and that can be a bit demeaning when you're participating in something you perceive as skill-based or a combined effort of the player and creator.
     There was a shift, it seems, to break Other M out of such observed linearity through other methods, methods consisting of rather vague means. Sometimes it's a wall, just like any other, that can only be broken by means you'd least expect to even be possible, sometimes it's a port hole that escapes your view just because it looks like everything else, and sometimes it's something much more sinister.
     There's a singular mechanic in the game that is so terribly executed and utilized to such a mystifyingly pervasive degree that you have to wonder why it remained in the game at all. To compare, let's use an example from Metroid Prime: In the very beginning of the game, you need to use your visor to scan a console to unlock a door in order to proceed forward. You know you can scan the console because it's shown through the scan visor with a bright, orange icon, the icon is locked upon and there's a visual cue to convey that a scanning action is occurring, and the console itself sticks out as something pertinant against its surroundings. There are a number of times this scenario pops up in Other M but imagine that you didn't know what you're intended to be doing, you're locked in place and your controls are disabled. All you can do is move the cursor on the screen and look around. Furthermore, let's say you do know you're supposed to scan something, you don't know what it is and it almost never calls any attention to itself. In fact, in most cases what you're supposed to scan is hidden to absurd degrees. The topper of the whole thing is that you have to prove to the game you know what you're looking for by hovering over whatever you think it is for a whole second or two and the cursor has to be over just the right spot before the game goes "YAY! YOU FOUND IT!" It's because of this that my first play of the game ended so prematurely. I was stuck in one area for thirty minutes, reloading saves and trying everything I could before I assumed my file was straight-up broken and I didn't have more time to give it to investigate a solution later on. It unfortunately killed my run and any enjoyment I'd had with the game up to that point. It's also used at the end of the game in such a way that I actually beat the game on accident after almost twenty minutes of flailing and failing and believing I was trying for the impossible. Maddening.

     While popular opinion is certainly divisive, Other M does have good qualities that rise above what weighs it down. What you have with Other M is a very decent narrative with a focus on character building and addictive, melee-focused combat. It looks nice, sounds great, and plays tight. While it might not be the best Metroid title created to date, it's certainly a worthy edition to the series and deserves a chance to break away from the hate damning it into obscurity. I know I wasn't disappointed going back for a reluctant try. In my mind it's worth a buy.
     Metroid: Other M was developed by a partnership between Nintendo, Team Ninja, and D-Rockets and published by Nintendo. Played over 15 hours, beat Normal mode with 100% completion and Hard mode.