Editor's note: This article discusses an audio-based character moment near the end of Metroid Dread. If you're sensitive to spoilers, you may want to finish the game and come back to this article later...
For 15 years, Metroid Dread was just a rumor. Now, it’s real, it’s been out for over a month, and it’s fantastic. Samus Aran’s latest adventure is packed with just about everything a Metroid fan could ask for, from wild boss fights to a massive labyrinthine map.
As the fifth and apparently final entry in the 2D 'arc' of the series, Dread is infatuated with the franchise’s history, taking plenty of inspiration from its narrative predecessor, 2002’s Metroid Fusion. But while playing Dread, we couldn’t help but spot flashes of a different Metroid game—the Wii’s eternally divisive Metroid: Other M.
If you’ve played Other M, you might see it, too. It trended on social media not too long ago, and it's experienced something of a reappraisal from some players in recent years. Dread’s brutal melee combat and cinematic camera instantly bring to mind the much-maligned 2010 spinoff title. Look closer and you’ll notice how Dread continues Other M’s preoccupation with Samus’s life and relationships, as well as its attention to series lore in cutscenes and dialogue.
Of course, Dread also ditches Other M’s worst ideas—and there were plenty. The famously silent protagonist utters just a single line in Dread, in stark contrast to the reams of rambling monologues that gummed up Other M’s script. Players follow their own curiosity through the tunnels and towers of planet ZDR, rather than waiting for directions from a brusque commanding officer.
It’s been 11 years, but for Metroid, Other M left a lasting impression. Metroid Dread, whether it’s intended to or not, stands in 2021 as a response to its Wii predecessor. It’s the result of Nintendo carefully paring down Other M to its best elements, while quietly cutting away what made it so controversial.
It may seem like a strange comparison, but both games share DNA. Though Other M and Dread were developed by different studios (Team Ninja and MercurySteam, respectively), the clear throughline between them is series lead Yoshio Sakamoto, who produced the latest title.
Nintendo gave Sakamoto carte blanche to make a big, loud AAA Metroid game for the red hot Wii. It would be the last Metroid game for six years
Sakamoto’s one of Nintendo’s oldest staff members, with credits dating back to the company’s earliest days in the video game industry. And since 1994’s Super Metroid, he’s been the mother brain behind the series. While Sakamoto stepped aside for the popular first-person spin-off Metroid Prime and its sequels, he was instrumental to the franchise’s 2D games in the 2000s. With the series at its height in the 2000s—with an online multiplayer shooter and a pinball game to its name—Nintendo gave Sakamoto carte blanche to make a big, loud AAA Metroid game for the red hot Wii. It would be the last Metroid game for six years.
Sakamoto positioned Metroid: Other M as a game about big ideas. In it, Samus would speak at length for the first time. It would blend the styles of 2D Metroid and Metroid Prime together, fill in some of the series’ vast empty universe, and use a groundbreaking control scheme. He gathered a huge team to accomplish this, bringing in staff from Nintendo, action game specialists Team Ninja, and CG studio D-Rockets to breathe life into a script he’d written that comprised nearly two hours of cutscenes.
The finished product was a spectacular mess in many players' estimations. The controls asked you to use a lone Wii remote held sideways, requiring them to navigate in 3D with a D-pad and turn the remote to point at the screen to use missiles. The cinematics dragged and the dialogue was monotonous. Critics eviscerated Other M for its portrayal of Samus as naïve, sentimental, frightened—unfit for her own job.
Even worse, Metroid’s famous non-linear upgrade system was now tied to the whims of Samus’s former military C.O. Adam Malkovich. Instead of discovering the heat-resistant Varia Suit yourself, you had to sprint through a dangerous lava land that burns away Samus’s health before Adam deigns to “authorize” the use of her suit. Why she’s willing to harm herself to respect Adam’s authority isn’t well justified.
It’s difficult to see through all that gunk to catch a glimpse of the truly great ideas at the heart of Other M.
Other M turned out to be the inverse of what many fans love about Metroid—taking the player-driven discovery away and replacing it with scripted plot beats. Samus’s persona was no longer up for interpretation; she was now a rigid, defined character that many found hard to accept.
It’s difficult to see through all that gunk to catch a glimpse of the truly great ideas at the heart of Other M. Team Ninja clearly approached the gameplay with a deep appreciation for the series. They brought their signature brand of action to its combat, injecting Metroid’s once-fleeting monster encounters into tense duels with slo-mo dodges and parry moves. Samus tears off creatures’ tails and freezes their legs to the floor, leaping on their backs to fire lasers straight into their face. The camera relishes the jump to full third-person 3D—sweeping from room to room, pulling tight on Samus for finishing blows and drawing back for wide shots in those bright burning lava zones and murky swamps.
It’s funny to see how so many of Other M’s ideas are exactly what fans are head-over-heels for in Metroid Dread. The intense, protracted boss fights, that dynamic camera, even the lore-soaked narrative—it all goes back to Other M.
There were hints of this direction in MercurySteam’s criminally underplayed Metroid: Samus Returns in 2017. That game, which Sakamoto also produced, featured a new melee counter for Samus—similar in effect to the dodge parry in Other M—and some of the most adrenaline-pumping boss fights in the series. Even on the small screen of the Nintendo 3DS, the camera pulls close when Samus steps into save stations or counters a Metroid at just the right time.
With Dread, MercurySteam and Sakamoto pulled those elements together into an elegant package. Samus is zippier than ever, gaining new slide moves and air dodges. The HD visuals of the Nintendo Switch allow the camera to really zoom out, offering even wider shots of the game’s massive hallways, rain-slick rail terminals, and superheated caverns. It carries on Samus Returns’ interactive boss fight cutscenes, where you can hammer missiles into a space monster’s gullet if you land a melee counter just right.
For all the sci-fi action excess of MercurySteam’s Metroid games, Samus herself is written with remarkable restraint. The bounty hunter isn’t totally stoic; her eyes and body language quietly convey a whole range of emotions. And when she does speak in a climactic scene, it’s in her adoptive Chozo language. Players are once again invited to imagine what Samus is thinking rather than being told through narration.
Nintendo is well-aware that Other M would be on people’s minds leading up to Dread’s release. During a live demo of Dread after its E3 reveal, Nintendo staffer Theresa Apolinario was careful to point out that Samus’s ship A.I. ADAM, based on the overbearing Adam Malkovich, would play a much smaller role in this new game: “He doesn’t give any direction to Samus. It’s up to the player where they want to navigate and explore.” And in a September episode of the Nintendo Power Podcast, Chris Slate explicitly excluded Other M from the story arc that leads up to Dread.
While Nintendo likely didn’t want fans whose enthusiasm was soured by Other M to dismiss Dread, it’s clear to see that Sakamoto still thinks there’s gold left to mine in that hybrid entry. Metroid Dread won’t rehabilitate Other M’s reputation—but it doesn’t really need to. For some, Other M will always be a disappointment. For others, it’ll remain a misunderstood classic. No matter how people feel about it today, its legacy has shaped the future of the Metroid series.
Just don’t hold your breath for a remake.
- Further reading: Best Metroid Games Of All Time
Comments 98
Shh. Please don't taint this for me.
It's the best Metroid game to date, and that's not an overstatement. Sequence breaks are mind-blowing in Dread.
Only thing I hated in Other M were the controls. and those stupid pixel-finding moments. I kinda forgot about the whole "ability authorization" bs as well. lol
Other than that, it was alright to me...if it ever comes to Switch....FIX the stupid controls at least, please Nintendo. lol
...Oh right, final boss/main antagonist was stupid as well. But at least the secret final boss made up for it...
Other M being as divisive as it is means Nintendo may likely never develop a 3rd person 3D Metroid game ever again, which really sucks because I think a 3rd person 3D Metroid could work quite well.
Imagine if 2D Metroid, 3rd person 3D Metroid, and 1st person Metroid all coexisted, and they were all good...
Had issues with Adam and the Varia Suit-like situations, but other than that loved it. Especially liked Samus her voice acting in it.
I knew the rewriting of history and game journalists suddenly becoming Other M apologists would start happening a few months ago.
Like when the Star Wars prequels started getting all these weird revisionist articles about how um, actually, they're like, really good (they're not), right before the recent trilogy came out.
Except Dread is good.
I love other M
Other M, is not great but not terrible. They experimented and tried to do a story first and work in the game mechanics around it. Also since it was on the Wii they needed to dumb the controls as much as possible. I would love to see a directors cut of this game with modern hardware.
Yeah makes sense.
Even a bad game from a competent developer will have some ideas worth using. I never really like when black sheep entries in a series are treat with such repulsion that kind of association with them needs to be avoided.
The two Metroid games that I have actually finished! The others are on my list with about a million other games. Just waiting on that 20 million dollar windfall and a life of luxury to find the time.....
Spoiler warning, if you don't want Dread spoilers, keep scrolling.
One of my favorite moments in Dread was when Samus meets Silent Robe. After it becomes apparent that he isn't hostile, Samus lowers her gun and just sits there, exhausted. I've lived through her struggles as the player thus far, so I feel that exhaustion too. It's a much appreciated moment of calm where you finally get to kick back and listen to some exposition, unless you want to skip that lol. To have Samus speak one line of dialogue, and in Chozo was simply incredible. I wouldn't be opposed to Samus having more dialogue in the future, like she does in Fusion, but at least give her something interesting to talk about, rather than giving us robotic internal monologuing about the baby.
Other M had some big ambitions, I'm personally just glad that Sakamoto took another swing at it. His post other M interviews had a very disheartened tone. It's hard enough to get a team to produce something close to your creative vision (and incorporate any changes that they made to it for the better) but even more so when you are producing something for public consumption. At the end of the day the public doesn't care about a creator's vision.
Love Dread and all games Metroid but Other M is still the GOAT for me
@BeefSanta To be fair anything looks higher quality standing next to the sequel trilogy
Metroid other m would’ve fared better if nintendo didn’t forced the horrible sideways wiimote control scheme on developers. Heck the wii had access to gamecube controllers and no wii game ever made use of the best controller made by nintendo
Yeah, when a game goes bad in a beloved series, sometimes they'll throw out the baby with the bathwater as it were. Though it would be fitting if it had, considering how some Other M defenders tell people they only hate it for what it tried to do because they don't understand the difference between "in theory" and "in execution".
Honestly I do wish a legit good writer had worked on a Metroid game, to tell a lengthy, dialogue heavy, introspective story about Samus. The potential of that could be fantastic. For example, maybe she could be distraught or have a single thought over the planet destruction that happened immediately after the baby Metroid saved her. That'd be a good start.
Been only for 1 hour into that game so far. As a huge Metroid fan, it didn't blow me away.
And 2 friends already said, they don't like it as much as they thought it would be.
I recently emulated Other M on PC with the Pro controller.
It was a really fun game, I liked it a lot.
As for its linearity, I think Fusion was also linear . Maybe even more.
I hope they remaster Other M with proper controls.
@Moonlessky Nintendos best controller yet is the the Switch Pro Controller.
I don't get it, why people always hold up the Gamecube Controller like a trophy.
It was comfortable, yes. But it sucked for several genres. The D Pad was a pain, when playing Resident Evil, my thumb was hurting. The C stick was just a cheap right stick which wasn't good for 1 person shooters.
Those L and R buttons were useless besides Mario Sunshine. It lacked buttons compared to PS2 and XBox. And the face button layout was a pain for beat em ups. I think Nintendo just tried hard not to fully imitate Sony and XBox
I've actually just started playing Other M. I was put off by the bad reviews back in the day.
Let me say, as a big fan of the series, it's really bad so far. It looks great, but there are significant issues.
-The storytelling is so heavy handed. Samus's inner monologue is particularly bad. She makes Squall' s inner monologue in FFVIII look good.
-Combat is flashy but feels like it lacks substance.
-Backtracking is annoying and confusing, but not in a good way. I quite like backtracking, but having doors open randomly because you triggered a cutscene in another area, is just bad game design.
Other M suffers from pedigree standard.
Had it been some quirky, new IP made by some random company people would be calling it a hidden gem.
But because it had to live up to the insanely high standards of the metroid franchise, it was doomed.
I liked the Other M. Its certainly not the best metroid game, but for what it was it was fine.
@Diogmites
New direction? At least in regards to Dread and Samus Returns, they are very much by-the-numbers if we're talking about the standard Metroid formula
@Wargoose
"-Combat is flashy but feels like it lacks substance." I don't see how how combat in any other Metroid had been more substantial than Other M. I'd advise more playing time with the game
I enjoy seeing the link to the previous article where I likewise said at the top "Can't just let a dead horse lie in its grave, huh?". Because ditto.
This really is a stretch. You're going for how the fact Other M had a story, thus because Dread had an unrelated story, one that actually relates to the whole Chozo thing that Other M went out of its way to ignore, never mind the quality differences.....they're one and same. The "lore soaked narrative" is liked because it's picking up on the actual lore people care about that Other M tarnished. Giving Other M credit for boss fights just outright ignores, like, the whole rest of the series. Hell the camera angles are from freaking Super Smash Bros.
It's a shame it didn't go well. There were reasons people disliked Other M but none of them effect the game too negatively.
To be honest Other M never bothered me, I actually enjoyed it for what it was. But obviously it has major flaws
@Diogmites Those are some unusual grievances to have. Especially as Super and Fusion had cutscenes, no more constant than Samus Returns or Dread, Fusion had different camera angles during them, and I guess you could argue Metroid II had cutscenes if you stretch the definition. Also 2.5 graphics are an odd thing to be against. Unless you have poor eyesight where they get too blurry in which case certainly no offense intended.
Still slowly playing through the series for the first time in timeline order (sans Prime for now), and I'd honestly like to include Other M in the mix after Super and before Fusion. I'll make it to Dread eventually! Uploaded my Zero Mission playthrough to YouTube, that was such a stellar introduction to the franchise and a fun experience to share with others.
@Nintendo4Sonic not gonna lie, nostalgia is a big factor here. That is Im still gonna try and give my two cents. First coming off the n64 controller the gamecube one was like a godsend, second nintendo has a habit of making their games centered around the controller so every action assigned feels meticulously calculated which is why first party gamecube games just feel soooo right when playing with that controller (I mean theres a reason why people still play smash with it 3 gens later) and finally ergonomics. Yes its comfortable like you yourself said but its more than that, something about the way the controller just molds into your hands feels so good, to this day I think thats the only controller thats never given me hand cramps from long play sessions
@Clod
My thoughts exactly.
@Diogmites
No, that's okay - I can't take you at just your word. The aspects of the games you mentioned not liking don't have anything to do with actual gameplay. I've played more than enough of the older games and newer 2D (2.5D games) to know that the core Metroid experience is sold across them all. But if graphical enhancements and cinematic visual flare are too offensive to implement in your 2D game playing experiences, you may want to stick to retro styled indie games or perhaps old school NSO offerings.
Other M is another case such as Star Fox Zero. They forced wonky controls that on paper are sometimes cool ideas for a match, but in the end frustates the player.
A port to Switch or any future console for these two, fixing the controls like they did in Skyward is just... a must for justice.
The only game that should not lose their unique features is Xenoblade Chronicles X. That game really suceeded in his uniqueness, tought I could drop the Miiverse mesages link, because of stupid user ussage xd
@Diogmites You seem unnecessarily pent up. I mean no aggression to you and you're jumping for the jugular. Respectfully? Chillax. Because saying it's just your opinion was more than enough. Jumping at Turbo's confusion or attempting to insult over my clarification is silly.
As you wish though, the matter is "gotten over". Just rein it in a bit, yeah?
I haven’t read the article because of the spoiler alert at the beginning for Dread, and I am on the fence as to whether to take the plunge yet. Here’s my dilemma: I’m a long term Nintendo fan who loves all Mario and Zelda games, but didn’t try Metroid until Super on the Wii VC. I couldn’t finish it. Then I tried Fusion, got stuck halfway through and gave up. I tried the Prime trilogy on Wii and couldn’t get past a few hours into 1. But I absolutely loved Other M! So will I like Dread? I want to get into this franchise so badly.
Other M is a great action game, just not a great Metroid game. And besides...it did age extremely, comparing to classics like Super Metroid.
@westman98 I don't think there was anything substantially different enough about 3D third person Metroid to differentiate it from 2D Metroid. The few moments of extra freedom aren't anything too special or different from Prime, either.
Remember when NLife gave Other M a 9/10?
Now they won’t stop about how “controversial” or “bad” it was.
Personally I enjoyed Other M.
All the Other M treebarkers, including the passive derogation from NL themselves, have ever managed to do with their pseudolegitimate complaints is make me looking forward to this game more than pretty much any other Metroid entry - and that says a lot. So it is indeed reassuring to see observations suggesting that the game's legacy wasn't completely given up on even after all the crap the fan asylum gave it. "The inverse of what fans love about Metroid" (like fans are even capable of loving anything but themselves and their hedonistic drug fixes)? Well, good thing (or bad thing, depending on perspective) that I'm not exactly above wiping my feet against what "fans love about" fiction works in favour of what these fiction works can actually offer when approached seriously. And yes, my own "fan loves" will always deserve just as much.
@westman98
To be honest I think nintendo will have to take another crack at another 3D 3rd person Metroid eventually. Dread is very much the pinnacle of 2D Metroid design. I can't really think of any meaningful way to improve on that traditional formula and too be honest - the formula is getting a little worn. I hope Prime 4 has a 3rd person mode/viewpoint but if it doesn't I hope for another game in the vein of Other M.
I am so glad that we had to wait 15 years for Dread ...it was worth waiting
Other M is alright. I was playing for a bit the other week, The visuals are surprisingly nice for the wii, and the combat can be fun. I just hate using the wiimote on its side.
Other-M was a prime example of someone continuing a story without understanding what made any of it work in the first place.
The game was pretty OK, but the characterization was astonishingly bad, even if you see it as a standalone product.
Now, Dread nailed Samus as a character (especially through body language) but i still don't have a clue who thought the villains plan made even a lick of sense.
Overall, i thought that both were rather lukewarm experiences at best.
@Picola-Wicola
I highly doubt it, if you didn't like Super or Fusion. I personally loved Dread, fantastic game, but it's very much in line with the other mainline Metroids.
I would never refer to Metroid Other M as a classic. But I also don't HATE the game. It had long, monotonous, and often awkard dialog. It had somewhat awkward controls (for a 3D game), and it had meaningless bursts of "spot the hidden object" first person sections. It was very linear, and had none of the exploration-based gameplay of previous entries. yet somehow, the beautiful graphics and mostly engaging world led me to play to the end. I'd say it's worth a playthrough, if only to experience what is probably the worst mainline Metroid game. But overall the quality of production values IS there. It just never had that strong of a vision in regards to the Metroid universe overall. But I don't hate it. Just doesn't exactly FEEL like a Metroid game. If that makes sense.
I loved Other M. It deserved Nintendolife's review score of 9/10. It was one of my favourite games on Wii.
They're both canon, right? That's like saying Breath of the Wild has plenty of Zelda LttP DNA. Uhmmm, duh?
@Turbo857 I think it's the auto aim feeling a bit iffy, jumping on enemies being a bit hard to judge, and the dodge being on the dpad rather than a button, plus aiming at the screen taking a little too long to register.
The combination of all these elements, makes the combat feel a bit loose to me. It feels like I'm brute forcing my way through enemies, rather than picking them off in a elegant way.
I might get used to it, I've only been playing for a couple of hours.
Metroid Dread didn't have terrible voice acting and dialogue. It was quite the opposite. Nintendo has learned.
Never played Other M but I watched a bit of a playthrough - there were a lot of cutscenes.
I understand the game's story beats and Samus' characterization were envisioned entirely by Sakamoto. I thought both were pretty juvenile and just didn't gel with the stoic appearance of the silent but deadly bounty hunter. No wonder fan reception was mixed.
I said it once, I said it 6 times: I loved Metroid Other M. Enough to beat it twice — years apart, support it, and buy it and beat it yet again if it comes out.
How it’ll hold up with Dread now under my belt, no one knows, but I’d get and play it again for certain.
@Hinade That was the only thing that bugged me in Other M. One why did Samus turn off the Varia suit. 2 why the heck did Adam wait so long to tell her to activate it. Really dumb moment
I loved Other M. But apparently people hated Samus in it cause she had actual emotions and PTSD. Can't have a silent badass having none of that
BOTW had a solid two to three years of reminding people what Zelda could be before narrative control was attempted to derail it back to 3D Zelda trope hell, Dread hasn’t been out even two months before the Other M defense force started their spinning. Sakamoto supports your cheerleading and narrative spinning he wants Other M HD and for their to never be another 2D Metroid.
@SalvorHardin Ok, bait or not, I've seen this kind of post go around on the YouTube side of Other M Defenders as of late a few times and it befuddles me so I'll bite out of annoyance.
WHY are we assuming Sakamoto would never want another 2D Metroid? The guy helped make the genre he loves. The whole point of Other M was to get his movie fetish out of his system with gameplay more skewed to being done by someone else who could do something in 3D space that he does not have experience in nor has shown to want to, example being him keeping his distance from the Prime series.
If you were vouching for him to make more Metroid Melodramas, then that I get, that's the thorn in everyone's side about Sakamoto that makes sense because that's explicitly what he won't back down from. How 100% right he is about Other M and nothing at all in any regard was done wrong about his story or could be outperformed. But all that he cared for gameplay-wise was he wanted to replicate his NES feelings. If anything, I'd imagine he's want to scrap 2.5 Metroidvanias in lieu of straight 2D pixel art games. Where he excels at.
@Einherjar The plan made sense until the part where he's suddenly too incompetent to pull it off, and I guess the real point was to awaken Samus as a Metroid, then use her. The rest was all pretense to make that happen. But it's just really bad, cheap, tropey sci fi in the worst way .
I just played through Other M again last week and enjoyed it.
I guess this website requires everyone to state their opinion of Other M every few weeks? sigh
Chocobo_Shepherd. Serial number 456-987. Huge fan of Other M.
In fact I love every canon Metroid game. .... except for Prime Hunters. That's the real black sheep of the franchise. Why do we not have a hundred articles about that debacle?
I'll join with thoes who actually liked Other M. It has some flaws and the controls could have been better - if they had jsut used the Nunchuk they could have switched to first paerson and STILL MOVIED - but I still liked it. The story didn't bother me either. It's clear that the combat system did inspire Samus Returns/Dread in many ways.
I really enjoyed Other M. God awful story (cut scenes were beautiful though so at least it was nice to watch) and it completely missed the mark on so much of what makes the series what it is but as an action game with a Metroid coat of paint it was a good time.
Though, while I don’t share the same vitriol to Other M as many do, I’m kind of glad that the overall reception towards it was so frosty. I’d much rather have a game like Dread than Other M and I don’t think Dread would have ever happened if Other M had its desired effect- at least not in the way it ended up.
"Lore-soaked narrative" is a pretty huge stretch for other m
I really like the character designs in Other M, and the suit design, I prefer it to Dread. I do like Dread, but I have more issues with it than Other M. Just small things like all the EMMI being too similar and too many humanoid (mini)bosses. Dread's ending was nonsense but, I was actually quite fine with that. Other M had secret bosses, more returning bosses. I do think Other M had issues, with the deleter narrative going nowhere, not much option to sequence break either. I found the arm cannon pointer controls difficult but I also found the simple sideways Wii remote a dream to play with, much easier than the massive combinations of buttons in Dread. In Dread im always having to try all the shoulder buttons to find the grapple beam. I love both games but neither are perfect.
In terms of character, Dread is like the anti-Other M. Samus acts the polar opposite.
Top 5 Metroid game and Dread did elevate my opinion of Other M, as I continue to remember the gameplay fondly after both Returns and Dread. I haven't replayed the game in years, probably since before Federation Force's release, but I've been having a growing urge to revisit this game. Tonight might just be the night to get reacquainted.
@Chocobo_Shepherd I wish they would. It would give me more opportunities to express how great Metroid Prime Hunters is.
🧡other M, more than Dread actually... Not sorry, at all. Btw other M’s music is amazing and Dread feels too repetitive and honestly…boring.
Some people think Other M being a good game is something new. They just must not know. I shake my head.
The game got great reviews ON LAUNCH.
And there are plenty of people like myself who played it and loved it not knowing or not caring about a few haters pretending everyone agrees with them.
No man.
And I shouldn't even comment cause it's just nerd BS. But I just can't stand to see people hate on good things and think everyone agrees with them. Sucks.
And I saw someone mention the Star Wars prequels. Same goes for them. Y'all are just hating!
@nhSnork
GREAT comment.
Wow. Seeing things for what they are. Fan asylum. Lol.
@I-U
Way back in the day when I used to post on this site, I remember a few of your posts about other M and Prime Hunters. Those are 2 of my top Metroid games as well, so I always remembered your posts.
OG Other M fan✌️
I hate this game so much i took it back the next day and got my money back.. Worse than Other M..I kept the collector part of it but the game reeked and no lost love here trust me
Id rather play other M again than that mess called Dread.. Zero Mission,Super Metroid and Fusion are the other cares i care about besides the prime games.. Fusion was the best ending to the 2d games i just act as if this dread mess never happened and go right into prime 4 and the next game
@NWC Why didn’t you like it?
@larryisaman Boring and felt nothing like a metroid game.. So i got my money back
@NEStalgia Now i DO know how Spoiler tags work
"awaken Samus as a Metroid, then use her"
That's exactly the point. He is of the Mawkin tribe.
Metroids have been genetically primed to attack Mawkin on sight. And then we're dealing with Samus, lone wolf, not taking orders from anyone Samus.
That being he awakened consisted entirely of components that would never obey him and would just attack him outright.
So why didn't he just take Samus' DNA at the beginning, off her and clone a new Metroid subspecies without the Mawkin coding? Keeping Samus around, let alone toying with her was a plot so insanely stupid, Dragon Ball Z would have rejected it.
@I-U lol that's fine I'm glad you enjoy it!! this stuff is all subjective.
@Lyricana
IMO the difference in combat alone should make a 3D 3rd person Metroid a worthwhile endeavor.
It's like saying Super Mario 3D World and New Super Mario Bros U are too similar, and therefore only one for hair should exist.
Personally, I disliked Metroid: Other M for it is too short and there's not enough substance while I enjoyed Metroid Dread immensely. I hope Nintendo have learned their lesson and would not make a mistake like Metroid: Other M ever again.
Said it before and I'll say it again, love other M, and Dread has many aspects to it. Hope Retro studios adopt some of the ideas, especially the third person view.
I came to the comments to collect the tears. Other m is a fantastic game, if you spent your time crying about it and not enjoying it, then that is your own fault.
@Einherjar To use spoiler tags you put (spoiler)(/spoiler) around the text (but with [] brackets instead of () parenthesis.) Probably want to edit that prior post to not ruin it for anyone! (lets be honest, who plays Metroid for the story? That's kind of the whole problem with Other M to begin with, isn't it? )
Yeah, it doesn't make sense. The whole thing seems designed for the purpose of having a "person" as a villain with "motives", which is weird for a series that began with "Mother Brain, the giant brain floating in a jar" and "Ridley the pterodactyl thing" along with "air-jellyfish" as villains.
I agree, nothing about it makes sense. Even if we can accept that sparing her was to let the Metroid transformation take place and the whole thing was staged to activate the transformation, and even if we can accept that believing he could control Samus AND believing he could control a metroid was the arrogance and hubris of a megalomaniac in denial of facts, and even if we could accept that killing the only scientist he spared that could do anything about the above was the same hubris of a megalomaniac. We're then left with the problem of why would he release the X at all, other than fanservice, Why was Kraid chained in the basement when the Space Pirates aren't even involved on ZDR (fanfic tells us that's not THE Kraid, that's just A Kraid??), and what was the point of the EMMI at ALL if the point wasn't to havest metroid DNA but to supercharge Samus? I guess it's because if she can't handle a few little EMMI she's not worthy of being useful anyway? I can make sense of sparing her if the goal was to use her final form, but then X and EMMI make no sense.
Our takeaway here is that Sakamoto is a lot better at puzzles and mazes than he is at narrative....
Personally I loved Other M. It’s was innovative and fun. I preferred it to the prime sequels. If the rumours are true and it’s just Prime 1 getting remade I’d actually be happier with that than a remastered trilogy.
@NEStalgia Thanks for the hint with the spoiler tags ^^
I took Kraid was simply fanservice, like Other-M had Phantoon. Kraid made little sense, but also had little plot bearing and gave us one of Samus' most ruthless cutscenes, so i'll take it
Raven Beak's whole schtick would have made more sense if his plan was to use and control the X instead of the Metroid.
He could have tried to awaken Samus to test his X on a real Metroid, see if they have overcome their natural enemy.
As for the EMMI, they were nothing but marketing fodder. All in all, they were completely irrelevant to both plot and game.
Their role in the plot, being going to the planet and losing contact, could have been any old strike team as well.
Even the spook of "How could anything overpower them?!" never happened...
The first one was damaged but still active, and the others were simply programmed. Nothing ever truly overpowered them but Samus and only with a temporary McGuffin powerup that also played no deeper role other than being a nod towards the ending of Super Metroid as it was portrayed that her awakening wasn't due to absorbing the brains but by fighting the Mawkin Chozo.
But i have to admit, i rather take a bad story with great characterizations than the other way around. ^^
Other M is so much fun. I couldn’t believe the hate it got. Dread is an excellent game but IMO the gba era was metroids peak. Zero Mission and Fusion are so much better than any others I’ve played.
@Einherjar Yeah, it's really the worst kind of cheap sci-fi. The ending alone doesn't really even make sense. How does a human even become a Metroid, there's nothing about that in the series canon to date, all metroids were simply metroids, jellyfish of different sizes, now suddenly metroids behave like X's and convert people into themselves but still human? And an X helps? Did they get Neil Druckman to write this stuff?
The EMMI seemed like a good idea without a good way to implement them. Story-wise, they kind of go nowhere. Gameplay-wise, I know the idea was to create the titular sense of dread. An enemy you MUST hide from and can't defeat. And they do create the tension they're meant to. But it also just doesn't work as a mechanic. Interrupting the metroidvania exploration with these weird trial and error escape sequences is just pace-breaking, mostly consisting of RNG deaths that are unavoidable just isn't fun. And it becomes more apparent on the second playthrough, which the games are meant for, where what was at least tension creating the first time is just irritating and out of place the second time. And the McGuffin powerup was silly. Kind of fun when you'd get it and finally take out the EMMI, but it was just a silly repeated pointless activity. The game is otherwise great, except for the EMMI, story, and the excessive boss battles in the last third of the game.
@NEStalgia Well, Samus got experimented on to survive her X infection. So they spliced her with Metroid DNA.
I can see this as a twist of her mutating. That genuinely was the least of my issues with it
And the thing with the EMMI is...i never even felt the need to hide. The game offers you so many fluent movement tools that you can simply outpace them, even the speedbooster one.
And when you manage to corner yourself, their AI is stupid as a brick. They simply pathfind to the last ping you created. Set one off, cloak behind it and it will go there, see nothing, turn around.
If you ask me, making direct confrontation with them an instant death QTE was the final nail in the coffin.
There is no "Dread" if the result of an encounter is a binary.
For instance, what made Resident Evil's "Nemesis" enemies (Both Mr. X and the Nemesis T-Type) much more frightening was that they damaged you.
They were an unbeatable source of hurt in a game where resources to recover are scarce.
Encounters weren't inherently deadly, but they threatened your progress in general.
You dread dealing with them because they take up precious resources.
With the EMMI's, you either avoid them completely or you reload the room. There is no repercussion whatsoever.
Imagine the EMMI causing permanent damage to you. Their hits reduce your max HP until you get to a refill station.
THIS would make them infinitely more scary, because the encounter has consequences.
@Einherjar Mutation maybe. "Becoming" a metroid without looking like a metroid and still acting like a sentient human instead of a metroid with no prior precedent of a metroid ever being anything but a metroid is a bit harder to swallow. X has that precident by it's nature.... but metroids aren't viruses, they're complex organisms.
EMMIs, I found too easy to die to, just because you don't know the room layout or the destination the first time through, so you're trial and error exploring, and you're bound to get cornered, and because the EMMI location is basically RNG so you stumble into them. Plus you don't know the first time where they do or don't climb do so you try to hide and end up in their walking path. It's just silly because you can't react. But yeah, the OHKO with a QTE that might as well not be there was just not a good idea.
That's a good point about the design, and I like that idea. Except i think that would also necessitate having more refill stations, which is problematic in other ways for the game design. It all comes back to the Emmi design just didn't really work as a gameplay mechanic.
@Offolsense Hunters, Other M and Federation Force are three Metroid games I will likely never get tired of talking about. They've been so underrated by a majority of the fanbase, and I think they all have a lot to offer to positively discuss. Super and Dread are also within my Top 5, but the attitude around them seems to be that they're great games so let's leave it at that. It would be nice to discuss the lore and story more in depth beyond the divisive entries. The series is great for more than just its gameplay in my opinion.
@I-U
Outside of the games storylines, I've never got too deep into the lore of the series.
Maybe a bit of the Prime games.
I did love Hunters story, and the way each Hunter had a backstory. I'd love to see that explored more!
And If they ever revisit that style of Multiplayer on a modern console, count me in!
Probably one of the best and most unique fps that was stuck on a system not many took seriously.🥲
@I-U Other M has been dissected, organized and thoroughly analyzed, for better or worse. The other two...just don't have much to offer to talk about? There's more to Federation Force than Hunters, but it mostly serves as a lead-in to the next game following that plot beat, which we now know to be the never-updated Prime 4. Otherwise it's about as essential to know as....I dunno, Kingdom Hearts Coded was to the KH series. The flip phone game that was delisted and just redone in a watchable cutscene mode on consoles only to be summarized ever more concisely in the 3DS title.
All you really need to know out of them is Hunters lets you know Samus isn't the only bounter hunter in the universe, which isn't really a surprise. And Federation Force implies Sylux from Hunters has more to deliver in the plot going forward. Which will likely be summarized in Prime 4 for all the people who didn't get FF on the 3DS.
I guess you can say FF added how much the Metroid universe loves soccer...?
@Offolsense I really hope that each hunter has their time to be explored further in future entries or even spin-offs. Sylux should be explored further in Prime 4, and I'm hoping Sylux's backstory becomes much darker with regard to its hatred toward the Galactic Federation. Hunters gives Sylux an origin, Cylosis, but leaves the species unknown. I want that to tie in somewhere during the events of Prime 4. I like to think that Sylux is the lone survivor of a problematic alien race that the Federation quietly committed genocide against in order to expand military operations and development, likely on Cylosis. The other interpretation I have is that Sylux is a former member of the Federation's military and witnessed a genocide take place that was kept quiet. That event motivates Sylux to betray the Federation, and Sylux hates Samus as she has been used by the Federation to commit genocide against Zebes' inhabitants and for her trail of murder beyond. I do believe Sylux's character is meant to create doubt in the Metroid Series' "good guys."
@Clod The most talked about subject for Metroid: Other M, which is how Samus was characterized, is non-essential to understand Metroid Fusion's and later Metroid Dread's main story. This has been discussed for over a decade, and may again be revisited when talking about Samus in Metroid Prime 4 in spite of how irrelevant Samus' Other M characterization will be to Prime 4's overall plot. The dismissal of so much lore as a base for discussions because it's not essential to know for what's next is ironic to see here.
@Darknilious Except the director was the one writing the atrocious narrative and enforcing all the broken gameplay ideas. We'd probably be much better off with a no-director Team Ninja-cut.
Other M is not a spinoff.
I loved other M. Oddly, i think i feel about Metroid dread the way ppl who didn't like other M felt about it.... extremely let down. I just know 2D Metroid games aren't for me anymore. Hollow knight is my new gold standard for Metroidvania.
@Einherjar i doubt it would help, cuz i had 1 HP left on the last 2 that could stun u, because i had to sit there invisible while they ran around the room in circles while i was underwater or something. Worst design decision i have played through, personally. If i wouldn't have made the mistake of buying digital day 1, i wouldn't have tolerated that, honestly. That wasn't fun & i had no commitment to the series as a whole, i didn't play handheld games, so i missed fusion & whatever other 1 was there, so they had already screwed ppl like me. Oh well, indies will get my money from now on, at least i don't feel so burned when i buy them & they suck. Dread was a huge letdown for me. I know better now, at least.
@twztid13 While i wouldn't word it quite as strongly, i have to mostly agree.
My first run was also a 100% run (Which was easy enough with the abundance of help the ingame map offers) and i think that i won't touch Dread again in the foreseeable future, while i directly did a Super Metroid run after it as a palet cleanser xD
I'm just not sure what hit the game most:
The EMMI passages ruining its fantastic momentum provided by its fluent movement tools, grinding them to a screaching halt
Or the complete absence of any real music or sound design.
Like changing the last bars of the famous item jingle for lesser items to what can only be described as digital gurgling while there is not a single piece of music i can remember.
So much so that i couldn't confidently say that there was music.
The atmosphere just wasn't there at all.
So yeah, as ridiculously dumb Other-M's story was, it was, by far, the more memorable videogame.
Granted, i loved most of Dread's bosses, simply because they were oldschool pattern recognition bosses, but that's it really.
The rest has already left my memory completely because it was so unremarkable.
@Einherjar i understand, i was in a bad mood when i posted last night, but i agree with everything you said, also. I even tweeted about the item music (same username as here on Twitter, but i also post political things, so anyone who checks it out, beware) early on. I couldn't believe the item music wasn't there for all the items, it just barely acknowledged it. I saw some in comments say the music was great, so i decided to use headphones & i couldn't disagree more. It was average at best (but even more disappointing because we had expectations from past games in the series). I included mercury steam & Nintendo on all my tweets, tho I'm not sure if they'd ever see them. I still wanted to complain directly, especially after all the heat David jaffe took for criticism of the design. I showed clips of me sitting in the water w the emmi going in circles around me & asked, how is this fun? Very frustrating, but also to see such glowing praise, it doesn't feel good when I see something so different than 99% of the reviewers. It makes me question things, tbh but i won't get into that here.
@twztid13 I also finally got around to play their 3DS Metroid, and it's the same there. The audio design is just utter garbage. And while this one has the minor item fanfare, i had a massive laughing fit because they decided that Samus getting hit needed to sound like someone kicking an empty oil drum xD
But i have to be honest, Jaffe's ego is big enough to have its own postal code. It's not the first time that man tried to sell his own incompetence as someone else's.
I'd go so far as to say that his gameplay was comparable to Dean Takahashi not being able to clear Cuphead's tutorial.
Though Jaffe later admitted that at that time, he was high as a kite as well.
Imho, the pixel hunting, which makes a Metroid a Metroid in my book, really wasn't a big issue especially thanks to Dread's fluent control scheme.
As much as i personally hated it, but constant analog aiming helped to scout for breakable blocks without taking away too much momentum.
Review score wise, i'd say it's a solid 6-7.
I don't hated my time with it, i even enjoyed its bosses, but all in all, it's a game i finished once and don't care nearly enough to do it again.
I guess Nintendos massive PR campaign also included a couple perfect review scores...
I still say that "Other M" counts as a main series title. The only reason it's not a numbered entry is due to it releasing after "Fusion" had already been branded as "Metroid 4," but for all intents and purposes it's Metroid 3.5.
The D-Pad actually works in "Other M," because the corridors were cleverly designed around right angles, and the hybrid 1st/3rd person system was a brilliant blend of gameplay styles.
"Other M" has its faults, but the gameplay (nor the presentation) isn't one of them, especially since as you pointed out that "Samus Returns" and "Dread" both share certain aspects of it.
@Wargoose
A fair critique. No doubt a remaster would benefit from controlling Samus with an analogue (mandatory since Joy-con's do not have Dpads), adding a button for evades and movement in first person mode. I personally dig the auto aiming. The jumping on enemies will get easier with more practice I think
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