Is Other M THAT bad?

[Zero Kirby]

I'll just let Zero Kirby take this one lol

Alrighty then. *cracks knuckles*

Yeah it pretty much is that bad. Story-wise it's complete garbage. Not only is Samus' character pretty much assassinated, taking what was once an interesting and badass character and turning her into a weak-willed, submissive milquetoast, but she has no presence in the story. Every single major accomplishment over the course of the game is done by another character. She's not the one who uncovers the Federation Conspiracy. She's not the one who stops the Deleter (and in fact, you don't find out who the Deleter is until they've already died). She's not the one who destroys the Metroids. She's not the one who kills Ridley. She's not the one who stops the BOTTLE SHIP from crashing into the Federation HQ. And she's not even the one who stops the main villain of the game. Hell, she doesn't even save the real Madeline Bergman. She does nothing of import, and nothing of import actually happens anyway. Metroids destroyed - but there's still a Federation-funded Metroid program in Fusion. Hell, that same Metroid program actualls saves Samus' life, and yet she's treated like a criminal by the Federation for... handing the baby Metroid to the Federation... huh? They don't even mention making them immune to cold in Fusion. She finds out "hey there's a really big section of the Federation doing illegal things and they have some of the top brass!" and yet she's still working for them in Fusion.

The story exists to kill Adam Malkovich. That's it! The Deleter exists to kill everyone else on the ship. As soon as they've done that, the plot is completely dropped and they themselves die! Well, I tell a lie - they're also there to get you to maybe not trust Adam since whoa he could be the Deleter but the ONLY REASON that flies is that Samus and Adam never talk about it. Even after Samus spends a good deal of time fighting the Deleter, Adam never says, "Whoa Samus there was a traitor on my team what the heck!?" and Samus never says "Hey Adam one of your team members is an assassin" it's just never brought up even though Adam has complete audio-visual contact with Samus until someone - implied to be the Deleter but how is that even possible since Adam doesn't kill them nor does he comment on them when he runs into Samus later - removes that contact. And then the game tries to make you think "whoa Adam might be the Deleter" but we know he isn't because Samus still fondly remembers him in Fusion to the point of naming her computer AI after him.

Also derpy doo Deleter is a stupid name. And the symbolism in the game is so heavy-handed you'd think a gorilla was writing the story. BABIES. BOTTLE SHIP. BABY'S CRY. MOTHERS. WHOA NELLY. Samus relays everything though an incessantly dull inner monologue that sounds like she's half-asleep (and it's not because the actress is bad, because when she actually emotes she's pretty good), and pretty much tells the player everything without letting the player infer anything, quite unlike the much better written and more well-handled monologues in Fusion. And like I said, the story pretty much doesn't need her to be there, so it's pretty boring and only raises more questions than it supposedly answers! It also interrupts the gameplay irritatingly often!

How about the gameplay? Well it's bad! Colossally bad! "Let's have the player control a 3D action game with an NES controller!" Because of this, the controls and whatnot need to be incredibly dumbed down. As stated above, you pretty much just need to spam the D-Pad during combat in order to become invincible, and oh hey charging your beam during the dodge roll instantly charges your beam! Jumping on top of enemies gives you a cinematic attack that does a lot of damage, running into an enemy while they're downed gives you an instant-kill move, and oh wait you want to use missiles? Get ready to grapple - literally - with the first-person mode! Flip your Wiimote to point it at the screen, get super-disoriented for a bit, and realise the incredible decision to make the lock-on button and the free-look button the same button. Oh hey, guess how you dodge in first-person mode? Point the Wiimote off-screen. "But wait, doesn't that put me in third-person mode and make me get punched?" Yeah well it sucks to be you, unless you get lucky! And in case you didn't have enough carpal tunnel, point the Wiimote straight up to enter Concentration which lets you recharge your missiles as long as you don't get punched. What about health? Well, not unless you're running really low and we only recover a little bit of it. "But wait, can't I recover it outside of combat, since it's like the game is just assuming I will farm pickups after combat and therefore cutting out the middleman?" Nahhhhhhh, you can only fully recover at a save station! Isn't that fun?!

"Well, at least I can explore, right?" HAH! No. Doors will lock behind you constantly! The maps are extremely linear! I hope you enjoy that. Got a new ability and want to go back for some powerups? Well, too bad, that's not where the almighty story-teller wants you to go so you don't get to go there! The camera angles are consistent, you can't look around in third-person, which makes for some cumbersome platforming that is a thousand-times worse than the first-person platforming Metroid Prime made you do, because at least in Metroid Prime you could control your speed and direction much better! And how about the abilities. Instead of being rewards for exploring or beating a difficult boss, now it's "Oh dang this is a difficult boss, better get out my ability that can kill them!" It's so bad that Samus has the Varia Suit and yet gleefully runs through a lava-zone without activating it, constantly bleeding health, and only activating it once she's fighting a lava-monster and dear sweet Adam says "oh dang wait maybe you should wear the Varia Suit Samus" which makes Samus look like an idiot! Keep in mind also this is the first time in the series you're forced to run through high-temperature zones without the Varia Suit ever! The only other game which forced you through harmful areas was Metroid Prime 2 and that game actually had a story-reason, a design-reason, and also Samus didn't just have the "protect from Evil Dark World suit" with her from the beginning of the game.

Oh wait! Except there's one boss where you kill them using a technique that the game has:
- Locked up until this point
- Unlocked without telling you
- Expects you to magically know to use it even though when you fought said boss in a previous game you didn't actually have this technique
- Would let you charge said technique up to 99% even though you couldn't use it up to this point so it's not even like you can accidentally start charging it and realise you can use it

And then you beat the final boss by staring at it for a couple seconds! Fun gameplay! You can't even get every item in the game until the "New Game Plus" mode and then you fight a boss which is yet another recycled boss monster and then you do an escape sequence and it sucks! Then you unlock the movie of the game - which really shows where the priorities were - and Hard Mode, which completely removes all exploration by removing every pickup in the game and therefore also not letting you fight the bonus boss because the game sucks.

And Samus' Zero Suit in this game has high-heels on it which is the worst and I hate it!

In summation, yes, Other M really is that bad.

Wow, I even did all that without mentioning the scene where Samus breaks down in front of Ridley being symbolized as her literally turning into a baby on-screen! Wait, DANGIT

Falcon Punch is the result of the Sun heating fists. It drives the Blue Falcon. Heating causes destruction of water into the pain, where it then hurts, creating rain. Rain creates flowing water in tears, which can then be converted into other forms through more pain.



This fight has only just begun...