My absolute favorite story about this game is how Sakamoto tried to appeal to the Japanese demographic by making Samus more submissive, but instead just left her Japanese fans disappointed about how she was made "too normal."
I think it's more a story about director arrogance and what happens when someone is given unlimited control with no one to stop them. Which might make Yoshio the George Lucas of gaming.
@@Elonyx.studios Yeah that's kind of what I meant. Sometimes what the director wants isn't what the game needs. I mean just look at all the shit David Cage wants to do that people have to hold him back from doing.
@Kevin Jackson All else being equal, I think it's _usually_ better when the original creator/auteur wins the fights, or at least most of them. Series creators certainly aren't infallible though. In video games, the best example of "the suits" making a game better might be the original X:Com. Julian Gollop just wanted to make a sequel to his turn-based SF squad-tactics game _Laser Squad_ . Microprose said "we love it, but can you make it more on-brand for us as a publisher? More like our big hit _Civilization_ . Give it a world map and an in-game encyclopedia. Also, can you make it about fighting UFOs?" And it worked! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-COM:_UFO_Defense#Development OTOH it doesn't seem that Gollop was ever unhappy with Microprose's suggested direction for the game.
@@1Hol1Tiger While your logic is sound, that begs the philosophical question: would you rather have a rerelease of a good movie or a new but terrible movie?
Dread ended up being a really great response to the insane characterization of Other M. Very subtle with how it characterized her and actually made her likeable and strong. They pulled it off.
Sorry, Matt, I REALLY wanna thumbs-up this episode of Wha Happun? (especially with how long I've been waiting for you to cover Other M), but I'm afraid Adam hasn't authorized the use of the Like button yet.
@@PathBeyondTheDark Uh, maybe I'm just not picking up on the sarcasm, but I hope you're not accusing me of that? 'Cause I was just making a joke reference to the game itself with the whole "Adam must authorize everything" thing.
> "One of my goals is to present Samus as am appealing human character" >Proceeds to make Samus Aran, one if not the first female videogame protagonist and badass bounty hunter, into a whiny, senpai-driven girl. Good job!
"Adam Malkovich" is my favorite Nintendo franchise. I hate that it lags behind Mario and Zelda. I can't wait for "Adam Prime (Rare, 2022)" to come out, where all we get is a 5-minute cutscene of Samus crying and saying "the baby..."
Samus, use of tears authorized. Samus, use of big girl pants was not authorized. Samus, use of legs was not authorized. Samus, use of words was not authorized. Yes, there we go. A crying flailing baby. Perfect. Ship it. Use of game script authorized.
"We have this really cool, strong, silent protagonist lady who, in several games has demonstrated almost 0 fear in over a decade of games. What should we do?" "Well... we could have her break down in tears at the sight of the enemy she has canonically fought without flinching 2 or 3 times by now, need permission from a man to use her abilities that she already has and be mega baby crazy." "Hm. Yes. Yes, that will do nicely."
The "baby crazy" and "authorization" aspect would probably be redeemable if it wasn't for the massive departure from her stoic nature. The whole "breaking down in tears" aspect though frames everything in such a way that she becomes of completely different character than the rest of the series. I can see her limiting some of her more dangerous weapons given her nature as a bounty hunter; the Federation wouldn't exactly want her causing all sorts of collateral damage and certainly wouldn't compensate her for her assistance if an excessive amount occurred. The degree to which it goes though, combined with the "emotionally weak" character we see, is just too much.
@@ArtumTsumia True. The real death blow was turning one of the most stoic, unphasable characters in all of video games into a blubbering damsel in distress when she sees Ridley. The trauma caused by losing... sigh... the baby and Adam needing to authorize her most destructive equipment is dumb, but not unsalvageably so. It isn't a betrayal of everything Samus is. Samus flew into a rage and got the super rainbow beam when... sigh... the baby got blasted by Mother Brain, so it obviously affected her and, like you said, Adam and the Federation being exceedingly cautious with Samus' destructive gear when it came to operating on the ship are believable story elements. Samus crumbling into tears at the sight of Ridley was the unforgiveable part. And it sucks, because they could have made that scene pretty cool with a minor tweak. When Ridley shows up, show Samus crying under her visor and flashback to the trauma from everything Ridley has done to her. But then, instead of having Mr. Macguffin "remember me princess?" come in to save the damsel, calling badass intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran god damn "princess." Have Samus steel herself, overcome it and fight Ridley the same as ever. Then you still show that, yeah, she has emotions, but she's strong and she beats her demons. She doesn't need some dude to save her. She'll kick that fucking space dragon's teeth in herself, no matter how many times it takes.
@@Mike14264 If it were a prequel or origin story it would have been more acceptable within the story. However, outside of the flashback scenes where it's trying to cover her origins, it's placed after multiple games. It's like they tried to do both ideas at once but forgot to take certain chronological events into consideration.
@@ArtumTsumia oh, I see. If she was only paralyzed and crying when seeing Ridley before all of her adventures, it would explain why she was so stoic now that she has bested him, and faced her fears.
It's so weird because seeing Dread today, which has the same director, the tree house team even talked about how cool Samus was and how she was unflinching.
@@ElvenRaptor Did you not see any of the gameplay shown at E3? Samus doesn’t even talk or even look helpless at all. Give the man credit for making the Metroid game people wanted.
I have mixed feelings about Other M, but one segment I'll never defend were the moments the game forced you into first-person mode, to look around one screen until you found one teeny-tiny thing you needed to scan... for me, it was finding a drop of GREEN BLOOD IN A GRASS FIELD!
Yeah, it felt like the Prime’s Scan system, only it was inbred, missing half its bones, and kept staying in your face. The scan system in Prime was brilliant. You only NEEDED it to activate switches and the like, but it was also there to add flavor text to an environment for the curious. It was also COMPLETELY OPTIONAL. If you didn’t care for the lore, story, etc. you could ignore it completely. It helped that the scan logs were well-written: “Science Team believes Metroids can be domesticated...I think Science Team has vapor for brains! I’ve already lost 5 troopers to the miserable little parasites!!” Prime’s lore scans made me love the Space Pirates like I did the Decepticons in Transformers.
This was the primary reason I barely got anywhere in this game. Nothing like walking into a room, having Sammy’s spider sense go off and spending half an hour waggling the wiimote around in an attempt to locate the three pixels out of place that triggered her. For fucks sake, even after looking up an LP and scrolling through to the point where they find what they’re after, it still took multiple attempts for me to actually get the game to recognise I was pointing at the thing it wanted me to point at!
Yea. I can see the potential Other M had, the 3rd person perspective was more engaging and accessible then the terrible FPS Prime had going on. But then the story, characterization and certain gameplay elements really shot Other M in the head.. several times... repeatedly T_T. If only Rare was allowed to provide the story and lore elements while team ninja was allowed to work on the gameplay... then we really could have an amazing 3D Metroid where you can search and do actiony things T_T. I also wish someone mad a 3rd person mod for the Prime games so i can actually play them... but seems like while Prime was missing some key elements of the Metroid franchise it did enough things well thankfully.
@@luvlybaluga I can't imagine that a third person mod for Prime could ever possibly work. Save for the morph ball, everything about those games was designed for 1st person, so even if you did manage to change the perspective, UI, controls, and everything linked to the game's visors you'd still have to wrestle with the level and enemy design not being built for it.
I've always been of the belief that they never needed to use Adam to restrict Samus' abilities. They had a ready-made story explanation from the end of Super Metroid. All they had to do was say, "Hey Samus? Your previous encounter with Mother Brain compromised some of your abilities, and now you're back to square-one." There, I just fixed half the problems with Other M with ONE sentence.
And before people poke holes of that idea and say question how she could even get some of these abilities back, here's the solution to the solution: Data Rooms, or some sort of automated repair station different from the Save Stations. The Feds repaired her armor, but they need to send data and materials to her because she was sent out to the Bottle Ship with less weapons than what she left Zebes with.
@@TheEmperorHyperionThe data room thing makes sense, I think they did something like that in Fusion, Where Samus loses a lot of her abilities after most of her suit parts are taken off to save her from a fatal accident, and then the parts get infected with X parasite into SA-X, then she gains replacements for some of her previous equipment through data rooms (most abilities are recovered through hunting down X parasite bosses but some are gained through Data rooms)
So, funny thing to unpack here. Years before Other M, there was a prequel manga that supposedly led up to the game. If I recall correctly, Samus was barely stopped from murdering an alien slaver. When Adam talked to her later, he said, “You’re one of the greatest warriors I’ve ever seen. But never forget you’re also a lady.” In THAT context, the use of “Lady” as a nickname was a reminder to Samus to keep a cool head in the worst situations.
That's irritating, now I want to see how that game would have been written and not the one we got. Samus leaving behind a record of the one man who was a match for her, and the mission where the guy who was worth breaking her legendary silence over, in fact, the closest all-rounder match to the mighty Hunter in personality. "This is for the record," before leaving a log. ...I can also only picture it delivered by a prospective Hale take.
I've been thinking after Dread, how instead of being frozen in fear, she could just have unabated rage towards Ridey. Raw emotion is normal, he killed the parent and abducted "the baby"; they just picked the wrong one. I'm mentionning this because in this scenario, Higgs falling in the lava could be more directly her fault: instead of his decision to save Samus, he would get knocked over by her brash fighting. This would make a plot point that Samus does need to keep her cool, and act with discipline if she doesn't want to be a liability for others.
It's almost scary to think that this game was in development for like 3 years, and not one person pointed out that literally everything is a bizarre baffling decision.
Everyone was. Metroid coming back from an 8 year hiatus after the death of Yokoi and doing the impossible task of getting a revival by a Western studio only to become bigger then ever before was practically a Cinderella Story at the time, and made critics always excited for a new release. To see how underwhelming Other M was for them really hit deep for many.
I remember one of the first critics (who was a woman) on a video game website calling out the blatant sexism in this game and droves of people called her a "SJW Feminazi" among other stuff. Some things never change.
@@wambotime6047 I despise SJWs, but man does this game reflect the Mysoginistic Culture some Japanese men have. Sorry to hear she was insulted, she didn't deserve it.
@@bluecaptainIT This game’s plot sucks monkey dick, but sexism isn’t why. Not saying the game isn’t sexist, more that people make too big a deal out of it as if that was the main thing wrong with the plot. If you want to push things, you can claim that backlash to stuff like Other M and Twilight led to all those stupid heroines with like no flaws.
Other M stands as perfect proof that when it comes to character writing, sometimes less can be more. Prime never had Samus talk and kept cinematics to a minimum, but Samus' body language gave alot of small insight into her thought process. It's little things like holding her gun on someone for the entire time he meets the Luminoth and in the same game, that non-chalant wave back to them when the job was done. What's more tragic is that Sakamoto's team did actually treat the character respectfully with spoken writing in Fusion. They were generally very smart about it. She was portrayed as you'd expect. Very direct, very no-nonsense, it wasn't shakespear, but it translated her stoic silence we'd gotten for the longest time (barring some narration in Super) to a spoken format in a way that you can understand. Other M makes the mistake of assuming that Samus is a blank canvas when she wasn't. While minimal, her identity was very much defined by the little undertones. Besides her body language, we knew that she was; - Trained by Chozos as a warrior, meaning a strict and diciplined childhood. - Seems to consistently pursue both the killer of her parents and the legacy of her fostering Chozos, implying she values those families. - Ex-Federation, currently bounty-hunter. A loose cannon that doesn't like doing things by the books and maybe has issues with the government. - Above all else, *solitary.* This "baby" she rambles about in OM is something she was willing to sell to get disected in a lab for the convenience and probably meaty paycheck. Even in all of her monologuing in Fusion, she never feels lonely or discontent by the isolation in her life, when an AI she doesn't even know is sentient until the very end is enough to fill that void. These were the recipe they had to go with for Samus' character and while some of that they follow up on select elements of those, go about it in the most myopic and simplistic method available. It shows Sakamoto as more of a game designer over writer.
Samus wasn't quite a blank slate but she almost was, what little characterization she had was consistent with everything you'd just assume of someone with her job and accomplishments. What the game tried to do could have worked if the actual writing wasn't so absurdly terrible.
True, but knowledge about a characters origins doesn't imply personality. At the time they made this game her personality could have been depicted in literally any way. I agree though with what you're saying about a more no nonsense version of the character. Personally, I would have depicted her as a deeply emotional human under the surface but who portrays herself to others as very to the job and methodical, without trying to come across as a "tough" woman. That's how I picture Samus anyway.
@@joshuaweston4489 I don't necessarily think you need a very defined personality to be a defined character. I actually believe in the contrary. I think that sometimes a character can be defined by how little they show of their true selves or the lack of such. That's always been the appeal of Samus to me. Her generally stoic demeanour, even in parts where she has spoken like during Super and Fusion, paints the image of the ideal professional. Somebody truly ready to put their emotions to the side for the sake of her work, whether that be out of an effort to keep her head in the game so to speak or cope with the horrors she has to face in her line of work day-to-day. Sometimes trying to forcefully inject personality into a character too aggressively can lead to issues (See: All of Josh Wheaton's filmography).
I get that Samus being traumatized by Ridley was a thing in the manga, and it makes sense...if the game was the first chronological game. It makes much LESS sense when she's killed Ridley several times over, and then suddenly just curls up into a useless ball of PTSD over Fake Ridley.
I'll never forget how a local gaming magazine in my country did a review of this game that gave it the highest score possible, claiming "we finally have a Metroid entry where Samus is human and independent, instead of previous entries where she was nothing more than a generic heroine who depends on men to save her". Every few months, I remember that article and wonder if the author just spent two pages on a joke. I hope that's what it was and he wasn't this much of an idiot.
That had to have been a joke. Either that or he literally knew nothing about the game an just assumed Samus was like Peach or Zelda. What magazine was this?
That has to be a joke, or the author never saw any of the endings of the OG games, at least the ones with Samus without her suit, or even without the helmet. The very assumption that Samus depended on men in the early days makes me think... HOW?! She literally soloed entire planet worth of monsters, giants, dragons, vampiric jellyfishes and a brain in a jar, with no person, let alone men, involved, not just once, but _twice_ maybe even *_thrice_*
Oh man. So, my knowledge at the time (Well, a little while after the fact) was that almost everything in the game was more or less Yoshio Sakamoto's fault in a rare case where you actually can point at one person, since they had something of an iron fist approach to the game's development - even down to dictating that Samus' voice actor ignore her own training and experience with English voice acting, which resulted in Samus being so robotic and monotone, and constantly rejecting various ideas from the games' composer which led to them more or less giving up and saying "I don't know what you want me to do." I wonder if that really was the case or if that was mostly internet hearsay accepted as fact. Edit: Yeah, that's pretty much true.
Yup, and the result of a man who speaks only rudimentary English trying to coach someone in her English voice acting. While stoicism is highly valued in Japanese media, there’s a method to it, that can’t be replicated 1-1 from Japanese to English.
@@rubiesncreme I was about to say something similar. Japan, especially older generations, have a rather... dated view on women. And that detail shines brightly through in Other M.
@@ArcadianLegend I couldn't say with total certainty, but it seems likely. What I do know is that Metroid isn't all that popular in Japan, and Other M didn't really change that.
Sakamoto must've learned quite a bit from Other M's consumer reaction, because Metroid Dread ended up being one of the best 2D Metroid games since Super Metroid. Fusion and Zero Mission were good too, don't misunderstand.
They say time heals all wounds. But You look at me and you look at Trish Jones and you know that statement is not true! See, normally if you go one-on-one with another wrestler you got a fifty/fifty chance of winning. But I'm a genetic freak, and I'm not normal! So you got a 25 percent at best at beat me! And then you add Samus Aran to the mix? Your the chances of winning drasticly go down. See, the 3-Way at Other M, you got a 33 and a third chance of winning. But I! I got a 66 and two thirds chance of winning, cuz Samus KNOOOWS she can't beat me, and she's not even gonna try. So, Trish Jones, you take your thirty three and a third chance minus my twenty five percent chance (if we was to go one on one) and you got an eight and a third chance of winning at Sacrifice. But then you take my 75 perchance-chance of winning (if we was to go one on one), and then add 66 and two thirds…percents, I got a 141 2/3 chance of winning at Other M! Señor Jones? The numbers don't lie, and they spell disaster for you at Other M!"
It makes me more mad that the game actually looks pretty damn good graphically. This isn't some random spinoff like Federation force, this is something they probably spent a lot of time and money on and yet have so many screw ups.
@@plasmaoctopus1728 The graphics amd gameplay both look like there's some good in the game, but then you play it and it's like "What? I have all my abilities and I'm just nof allowed to use them unless some dude gives Samus, the most capable person on the ship permission? What? Samus is having a mental breakdown looking at Ridley, who she's fought several times before and after this without incident? What? She needed some made up man who's never neen mentioned anywhere else before to save her? What? The final boss of the game is fucking Phantoon? The second boss of Super Metroid? What? Samus is actually just some baby crazy waifu, not a silent badass who stares down giant monsters without flinching on a daily basis and then fucking kills them? Why? Why? Why? Why?"
@@nooneinparticular5273 You Wanna know why? Because Sakamoto had no chance, but he had a chance, is you could run lickety-split! But they couldn't run, 'cuz you got some FAAAT ASSES
Time only heals all wounds when you're able to move on. Metroid is still essentially dead and I won't stop believing otherwise until either Prime 4 or an actual new Metroid game comes out.
Still find it hilarious that they were so focused on telling a story, and ended up making something with so many retcons that it contradicts every other Metroid game in the series. Its not even just a bad script in this game, its a bad script that makes every other Metroid game worse!
I've always suspected this game was intended to be a prequel originally, but then for some reason they decided it should fit between Super and Fusion instead, and modified the story accordingly (adding the cutscenes of young Samus as flashbacks instead) I mean, it would make a lot more sense. Like why Samus is with a federation team, taking orders from Adam to begin with.
"There are some bad games that are bad because they fail in what they set out to do, and then there are those that are bad because they succeed." - Yahtzee Croshaw
Samus here is basically your typical Anime waifu trope character. Submissive, hot and waiting for approval of a male figure to feel empowered. It's kinda sad, it's like turning Doomguy into a cry baby.
The worst part of Other M was that Anthony Higgs only got 30 minutes max of screentime. I mean, come on, Anthony is the best character in the game and deserved better than that.
Anthony Higgs was, to me, the ONLY good thing that came out of Other M. Sadly, we won’t be seeing him again because we’ll be thinking of this game every time we see him.
A What Happened of Metroid Prime would definitely be an enjoyable one because EVERYONE thought it was going to be shit. Leading up to it, everyone thought it was capitalizing on Halo, and wouldn't have any traditional exploration elements and would just be a linear FPS. It was about as controversial as Wind Waker's art style reveal.
Its so funny. Sometimes its Developers thinking their revolutionary idea for the franchise becoming a masterpiece but fans criticizing that creative vision (& being right about their criticism) & it turning out to be a piece of sh!t instead and sometimes Fans criticizing certain aspects of the game after stuff like preview, trailers & details about the game being revealed but after launch the game being a BIG HIT Personal note: I personally love Wind Waker but didn`t finish it because I can only play the gamecube version & I HATE the sailing being so slow (Yea I`m supposed to explore the sea by myself in the game but I prefer using guides like zeldadungeon & 100%ing the game on 1st time... in a game like this doing that can be just really confusing) The game is great... but just not my type.
@@2Scribble yeah, in prior games it was more like: "Oh God, I'm burning/freezing to death! Better get going!!! If only I could find the Varia- There it is! Now we're rocking!" Other M: "Daddy didn't authorize me, so I'm not using it. Nope, I don't care about dying, Daddy's approval is top priority!!"
@@bluecaptainIT That was only in English, btw. Refer to "The Other M That Never Was" analysis video of the English vs. Japanese scripts of the game: ua-cam.com/video/KTuMfsWwd0E/v-deo.html
Something that I think a lot of people either don't know or keep forgetting is that Gunpei Yoko was heavily involved in the development of the first three Metroid games. The series has never been the same since he parted.
@@hfc2x I believe he wouldn't have wanted to go back to even if he could - Yokoi was the main brainchild behind the Virtual Boy, and left the company because of the product's failure
Perfect missed opportunity to talk about the complete throwaway character in this game named Ian who existed for maybe 2 minutes in a cutscene that comes out of nowhere, that serves no purpose except to characterize Samus and Adam. And also dies.
@@hoodedman6579 I think a few of the scientists that didn't get murderized never technically died. Or maybe some soldiers in the end cutscene. That should be it. Unless The Deleter somehow escaped the station after the script forgot he exists...
No, I'm mistaken. Samus, Anthony, and a scientist who made a new Mother Brain all left the station after some Federation dude and his soldiers shot up said Mother Brain reincarnation. Then Samus goes back to the station to get Adam's helmet and peaces out when everything blows up for no reason.
Honestly, what hurts the most is that this whole mess COULD have worked if they just, ya know, made it a prequel and explore Samus's past like he said he wanted to. Then things like the authorization, her character, the whole Ridley shit, and just everything is at least a lot easier to stomach. But no, instead we get this trainwreck that is constantly shoved in our face like "This is your Metroid now"
All because they wanted to add pointless, meaningless fanservice like the Super Metroid mother brain fight, and Metroid Queen. All done in a way that goes completely counter to the way metroid usually does fanservice - It usually makes some sense, ties it into what's happening.
The thing is that the Prime games did develop Samus. Subtetly, yes, but it was there. A lot of the scans have comments from her, showing more of her character and how she's processing everything that is happening during the game. Which is honestly a lot better since it's not shoved in your face with awkward, poorly delivered cutscenes.
okagron True. It’s just when one of the main heads of the franchise expresses a desire to give the main character development, you have some faith that this idea could work. Bit of a expectation vs reality situation here.
@@steel5897 It's not a guarantee that the idea will fail. Jak & Daxter was able to give the silent protagonist development. All you need are the proper writers, voice actors, and talent to pull it off.
It could have been good, it just needed some heavy tweaking and also probably just shouldn't have applied to non-weapons at all. Maybe have things like the Varia Suit be found still, but make it so you can't use the Wave Beam in areas where you're likely to hit your allies with it.
"Sticking to your guns despite many, many opinions to the contrary" I dunno, I'd much rather hear something that sounded like honest reflection. Like, okay, I get it - you saw your "vision" through to the end, I totally believe that. But maybe a bit of reflection on why it was so poorly received would be in order?
In 4chan's words, what he said is cope. Instead of admitting that he fucked up, he started believing that he did nothing wrong and that it's everyone else that's bad and misguided.
Hey, remember the sweet-ass, quasi-military deep lore of both the Galactic Federation Marine Corps and the Space Pirates? Remember all the awesome established technologies and hierarchies and histories lovingly hand-crafted by Retro Studios? Well guess what, we threw that all away just to make Samus the most cliché, boring, predictable and unsatisfying character ever. The agonizing thing is, the prime games had a thousand times more story and lore than Other M. It's just that most of it was optional, requiring the use of the scan visor. The scan visor in itself was sorta revolutionary, it allowed the player to take in all the huge amount of info in the game at their own time, and also served the function of providing guidance to the player. In my opinion, metroid prime was doing "environmental storytelling" far earlier than the Souls games, and in an arguably even larger scale. So much of the world can be scanned for little tidbits of information. For people who love diving deep into lore and details, it was paradise.
Every story element is a plot device in the non-prime games. Chozos are super advanced so Samus has an edge over everyone by using their magi-tech, they're gone so it's down to her to fix everything, everything is always mysterious (how the pirates works, where the chozo went, where metroid came from) so that plot holes and inconsistencies become hard to make or spot... the whole world is one big mystery box that fans just inhabited with their speculations. Prime worked from a fan's point of view and crafted something very cool and respectful. Other M showed that Sakamoto cannot write, and the second he stops being mysterious and actually commits to explain things, he creates 50 plots holes that clash with the logic and events of the other canon games. The clearly can make great 2D metroidvania games, but clearly he grossly overestimated how good a story teller he is. And that's a shame when you make a game that really focuses on the story to the point where it's hard to ignore even if you want to on a second run.
Dose anyone know where you can go to just read the lore I own all three games but havent been bothered to actully go and find the lore would love to read it
@@TheGustave03 you know what could have been a lot more interesting than Samus' past? The fact that she is infused with chozo dna. She's effectively not entirely human. We know already that this accounts for part of her physical prowess, but I'd really love it if Samus was designed so that she looked a little less than human as well. Let her be beautiful but give her slightly narrower, more piercing eyes, slightly longer limbs, small subtle stuff to show that she isnt just a regular girl. Her gaze should be like that of a hawk who has spotted prey
Apparently, Sakamoto is a genius when it comes to designing a game with little to no story that relies almost entirely on gameplay to draw in and satisfy the player. I mean, I love the Wario Wares, the Rhythm Heavens, and Tomodachi Life, but "story" is not in any way a draw for any of those games (See also: Super Metroid). The mechanics and gameplay of those games is just pure fun and satisfaction. I can understand that it probably feels like some sort of cheat or scam to him as an "Artist" to have failed so mightily at his attempts at telling Metroid's deeper story, but some people's artistry isn't meant for or bolstered by traditional storytelling means. Most long-time gamers know: An amazing story can be told entirely through game mechanics; someone just needs to tell Sakamoto that.
You could probably do a Wha Happun of Traveller's Tales in general, and how, despite amazing programming talent and good ideas, they kept being held back at every single point year after year by all sorts of unlucky orders and such.
The thing is, the Prime games had a pretty good way of implementing its story, setting details, and background lore. Being able to scan items in the environment such as computers or ruins to get mostly-optional info tidbits let you learn all sorts of things without the games having to rely on clunky dialog or lengthy exposition. It's the same style of story-via-journals style that had become popular in some other games, but with the added benefit that it actually made sense and didn't rely on people recording diary entries as they're being ripped apart by monsters.
(Inhales) The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby
@@Cousinbiddy1 I mean from what I've seen gameplay seems kinda meh too. I mean high-octane character action with only a wii remote seems... bold at best. And the enemies look like damage sponges. But I haven't played it so idk
Preddy much. The cynic in me feels like they were caught off guard when the funny joke at the end of the game that Samus was a hot chick got misinterpreted as more than a quick funny joke they were expected to follow up on in the future.
@@maallos334mi8 Pretty sure literally every single of those games was ported over, and the soulsborne, DD, MH and RE franchises are huge in the west lol.
Other M would have been less of a problem if it was the first game in the timeline. That way, Samus' regression as a character would be wayyyy more tolerable, as it wouldn't be regression, it would be *progression* in a timeline sense. As she goes from being a scared, moody newbie who needs permission to do anything, to the fearless bounty hunter we see in her other appearances.
It's kind of incredible how many of Other M's problems can be so easily solved, especially if they just adjusted it's place in the timeline to become an Origin Story for Samus instead. But alas, they really needed to shoehorn the Super Metroid fanservice that barely makes any sense.
I think that’s why I liked it as a kid. It was the first Metroid game I’d ever played, so I didn’t have any other point of reference for Samus other than the Subspace Emissary, which isn’t exactly dense on characterization for her, so kid me was fully invested in the story
that random shot of Zach Braff reminded me of the golden era of inviting random celebrities to tech events and making them give some of the most painful interviews of all time
I feel like a middle-aged mother towards Other M. I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed. So many cool ideas on expanding the Metroid lord and Samus as a character were mired in contradiction and insanity. For every neat idea, there were two others that tarnished what Metroid was at its core.
@@mesogot The irony with that being, that Super Metroid was the ultimate Metroid experience and certainly a better game than the quite linear Fusion. Retro also did something magical, they captured the essence of Metroid and transported it to an FPS enviroment. A story driven Metroid could work, but Sakamoto forgot that many players liked the free exploration and that you're not handheld (the best of which is shown in reverse boss order speedruns of SM). You can build a story around that, by having certain areas show a story or show progress by changing the environment and do it with little text. Fusion was only little exploration, as was Other M. The game just pointed you, where you needed to go and that was it. It was just sad and that is before you get into the story aspects of especially Other M.
@@themasterladisaster4336 Kind of, he was incredibly humbled by the experience of working with MecurySteam. Sakamoto was really adamant that Metroid be like a movie, which is what led him to make Other M. The sheer backlash against this approach made me go silent for years because it was pretty clear the reception to Other M was humiliating to his ego. What brought him back was when MercurySteam pitched an idea for a Metroid game to him and how much their reverence for the Metroid franchise and to him was, so he came back because MercurySteam wanted his oversight over the creation of Samus Returns. When asked during the promotion for Metroid: Samus Returns about the possibility of Metroid being a TV show akin to Castlevania on Netflix, he said he was not the right person to ask. You can really see he learned a lot from his experience with Other M and I honestly think, given an opportunity, he should be given another chance.
What Happened? Earthbound series: a poor marketing campain in the 90s lead Nintendo to not releasing the rest of the series in the US, even with fan praise
My theory is they tried to make a 3d game, but abandoned the idea when they realized 3d was hard to get right and they didn't want to release the Mother/ Earthbound equivalent of Castlevania 64 or Earthworm Jim 3d. So they shelved the idea until the Gameboy Advanced came out.
I can't think of any other game where the story actively harms the gameplay so much. Having to go through heat zones without the Varia Suit because daddy Adam didn't say it was okay, getting upgrades right when you need them instead of being able to learn how they work first in an item room or something, fights where you just flub about until it's said that you can actually use the boss' weakness...It's bizarre. Worst of all, Samus. It's not shown in this video, but Samus literally has a mental breakdown when Ridley shows up, despite having blown him to bits multiple times by now, let alone blowing apart multiple other things. What? Why? Every scene has her either being extremely whiny, or extremely emotionless. Up to the point where Daddy Adam has to save her from a Metroid. Y'know, THE THINGS SHE HAS BEEN KILLING COUNTLESS NUMBERS OF. Even now, I don't think the Metroid franchise will ever recover.
Flustered that’s why when I played this game, I used a mod called Maximum Edition which make Samus mute for most of the cutscenes and instead of authorizations, it’s explained that Samus suit was damaged after Super Metroid and is slowly auto rebuilding itself(not perfect I know but a mile better). Also the gravity suit is actually purple instead of this purple aura. I honestly had fun playing it that way with an Xbox controller.
If you count the origin story manga as canon, Other M is the fifth time Samus has fought and killed Ridley, so she shouldn't be shocked that he came back again. Furthermore, there's a huge disconnect between the story and gameplay because once the cutscene ends, Samus instantly recovers from her crippling PTSD and calmly demolishes her arch-nemesis, only to go back to cowering in the next scene. I'm open to the idea of Samus having thoughts and emotions, but these aren't the thoughts and emotions she would be having in that moment.
@Flustered One thing I did like about that scene was how much of a threat they made Ridley. This question is off topic, but does anyone know why Adam shot Samus near the end of game?
Ridley's trailer for Smash Bros. does a FAR better job characterizing Samus than every single thing in Other M. She goes from a deep "oh here we go..." breath as she readies for an ambush, to "oh shit, it's him!" with visible shock in her eyes when Ridley pops up, to throwing herself foot first at him with intense rage even after he just destroyed her ship and suit. THAT'S Samus.
@@MHurley21 Story could work if this version of Ridley did something new like gave himself the voice of Samus' father thus triggering a "Dude fuck you" response that makes her a bit irrational. Story could work if said irrational actions got Samus put on lock down and forced into a job as a sentence, with Adam overseeing her tech and approving its uses but Samus still going "Fuck you and that volcano" at a halfway mark giving her all her major upgrades back with more to find in the world. Story could work
Sakamoto: I want to give Samus a deep character. We're going to spend all the time in her head and go over every nitty gritty detail that will end up making you dislike her by the end. She is going to obsess over a baby metroid and Adam's going to be a dick to her, yet despite me saying she speaks out against him, she sure as hell doesn't act like it Fans: Understandably upset that this is not in character to how they've imagined Samus Sakurai, a God writing SSE: Samus saves a Pikachu after seeing him used as a battery. The develop a bond, and without arguing with him, they fight together through the research facility and later Pikachu saves her from Ridley. Fans: This is literally so in character we're still going to make art of Samus owning a Pikachu in vague Smash-related content to this day
Classic case of the creator not understanding what people liked about their creation. It's extra sad when you realize that this man invented a genre, that he doesnt understand...
@@mesogot I realize that this comment is pretty old, but Sakamoto was in charge of Super Metroid (AKA the first real Metroidvania game), so I would still say that he is at least one of the creators of an entire genre.
As it turns out, when you take a character that's largely viewed as a strong badass, it's *probably* a bad idea to turn him/her into an emotional trainwreck that depends on someone else for everything. Shocking, I know!
@@VLikaru I watched the Geek Critique video a few months ago. Damn, it was long, but it made this Wha Happun almost feel disappointing and shallow in comparison.
@@effrumtheretardo Geek Critique tends to take his time and isn't tied on deadlines. Channels like these need a new video every week but hey, its something.
I find it hilarious that they want to develop Samus as a character, while Samus has already been developed pretty well through atmosphere and subtle storytelling
Oh goodness, knowing that Sakimoto was completely behind everything in this game just feels so wrong. He's alright with Samus going into shock after seeing Ridley for the 6th time in her life. He's alright with Samus being bossed around by some guy for the whole game. He's alright with these long and droning cutscenes. Bleugh.
@@isauldron4337 Other M completely ruined Metroid's reputation and gave us a void of zero Metroid content for years upon years. It's okay to be pissed off about an older game.
@@isauldron4337 BRUH anyone can hate a movie or game forever and ever. Fucking M Night Shyamalan's Last Airbender movie was absolute dog shit and people still hate it to this day. There is no reason to let something go if it comes up again, the video talks about Other M and as such I can get to COMMENT about Other M under this video. I don't think of this game 24/7.
Basically: He added that "little bit" of what was going on inside Samus's head into Fusion, which is why Fusion is an amazing game. He then added a metric shitload more into Other M, which is why that game is a steaming pile of horse manure. He was trying to do the things that he thought was the selling point of 2D games in 3D, in the first such game he made. And that almost never works.
I’m so glad Metroid wasn’t killed at Other M. We now have Metroid Dread in October, and Prime 4 on the way as well. Just, no more character destruction, please Sakamoto
Coming back here after Metroid Dread is such a trip because the Dread team absolutely nailed Samus in dread all they had to do was create the textbook definition of a Stone Cold Badass
Sakamoto was never a good writer IMO, yes the story of Super Metroid is effective but it’s extremely simple, most of the atmospheric work wasn’t done by him. Sakamoto finally got a chance to create an in-depth story and he fumbled it so badly that he should never be allowed touch the series again or he’ll kill it completely.
車食べたい it’s a simple story that doesn’t take itself seriously which is pretty much the antithesis of what Other M is. Sakamoto tried to add poorly developed layers to the universe of Metroid and in the process assassinated a character built up to be fierce and independent to advance his idea of a deeper world.
Oh I agree with that, I just disagree with the he was never a good writer part. He isn't good at writing deep stuff, but he can write pretty funny stuff while staying true to the game's world/story like in Bell Frog & Card Hero. Thinking about this made me wonder how Famicom Tantei Club holds up, haven't played that one
Ah, the George Lucas syndrome. Actually not completely fair, Lucas has some pretty good ideas that he executes terribly when left to his own devicds. Sakamoto has fucking terrible ideas but he can at least make a mediocre game out of them
I recently heard someone's tinfoil hat conspiracy fan theory that this Samus is actually a clone created by the Federation and this is one big test run to gauge her abilities. If someone in the Federation is willing to experiment with bioweapons, what's stopping them from playing with the DNA of a woman whose genetic makeup is partly that of a forgotten alien race? It'd explain the contradicting lore (artificially implanted memories), her lack of emotional maturity, why she can't do anything without authorization, and why she's so damn short. Seriously, Samus is canonically 6'3" and here she's about 5'2".
@@princeblackelf4265 So it's just going to be a rethread of the events that led to what we have here like Metroid Other M? As far as I know Miyamoto basically fucked up royally in the eyes of fans, critics and all by just trying to do away with a formula that actually works. Like our little producer here for Metroid. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Just for fun, I'm gonna try my hand at scripting an exchange between Samus and that "remember me?" space marine that makes Samus more appealing and natural-sounding than Other M, without straying from how other games in the series portray her. Indulge me for a moment. (Arriving in a new area of the game after defeating a boss, Samus takes a moment to sit on some wreckage and remove her helmet, having confirmed the air to be breathable. She spots something in the environment that shows her reflection. She takes a moment to look at herself, her eyebrows raising in what appears to be surprise, before a content smile forms on her face. At that moment, the marine catches up with her.) Marine: "...Huh. I didn't peg you for the type to care all that much about your appearance." Samus: (a look of irritation crosses her face for a brief moment before returning to a neutral expression) "I'll ignore the implied insult. Normally, you'd be right, anyway. Being that these missions typically see me spending several hours encased in a metal suit, I usually have neither a reason nor time to put much effort into my physical appearance." Marine: "Sorry, sorry. So why the sudden interest now?" Samus: "It's less out of a sense of vanity and more out of a sense of...discomfort. To put it colloquially, my reflection weirds me out." Marine: "...I don't see anything wrong with it." Samus: "That's the problem. Despite my aforementioned lack of reason and time to care for my appearance, I--" (She turns to look at the Marine, then toward the ground, looking unsure of herself as she hesitates. The marine waits for her to continue, and soon enough her eyes meet his once more) "...Disregarding your own taste in women, you would consider me _conventionally_ attractive. True or false?" Marine: "...I get the feeling this question only has one right answer." Samus: "Heh...Maybe so. I haven't tried asking this before. Answer me, true or false?" Marine: (He stays silent for a moment, eyes avoiding Samus' to show his discomfort with being put on the spot) "...Fine, true." Samus: "I agree. I'd say I'm...at least an eigh--" Marine: "Ten." Samus: "...Thank you. Very well, I'm a ten. My point is, I'm not sure why that is. I've just spent the last several hours performing physically strenuous activities in high-risk situations. I should be soaked in sweat, hair matted to my face, and have bags under my eyes, at minimum. And yet, when I look at my reflection, I appear, if I may say so, downright immaculate. All I've done today and shower and tie my ponytail to keep my hair out of the way in the suit." Marine: "...Alright, now that you mention it, that _is_ pretty weird. Although, come to think of it, you're not 100% human, right?" Samus: "Correct, I--" (She pauses and gives the marine a disapproving look) "I'm beginning to notice a consistent lack of tact on your part. Try to work on that." Marine: "Ooh! RIght, sorry..." Samus: "The only conclusion I can derive is that the Chozo DNA in my genes provides me with some comparatively mundane health benefits, in addition to the physical capabilities the Federation valued me so much for." Marine: "Maybe. I'd say you should try to get the science boys to run some tests, but good luck getting them to care about anything about you that doesn't have to do with winning fights." Samus: (She stays silent for a moment, then puts her helmet back on and stands up.) Marine: "...Guess I said something insensitive again. Sorry." Samus: "It's alright. I need that reminder sometimes. That people in the Federation see me as a weapon first and a woman second...if at all."
Now I've got a "Can't Unhear It" of Jennifer Hale (voiced Samus's grunts in the Prime Trilogy) and Phil LaMarr (voiced Green Lantern John Stewart in DCAU Justice League) as those two voicing Samus Aran and Anthony Higgs respectively through that dialogue.
Let's say that killing a certain enemy multiple times to a point in previous games a certain awesome lady shrugs in a way of saying "Not this again" all of a sudden freeze up and can't do anything therefore becomes a damsel in distress which is the complete antithesis of this series.
>Passion project game doesn't sell well >ends up no longer involved in any more games he helped create... Ouch...that seems kinda har- >feels they did NOTHING wrong Keep an eye on this guy...
The thing is, he has been critical to the creation of Samus Returns and Dread, which only exists because it’s an idea he wanted to make a reality for 15 years. So he’s basically the single person trying to keep the 2D Metroid series alive.
I think the best way to get Metroid back on track is to make a truly awesome, heavily stylized Doom-like FPS on Switch but still keep the aspect of finding new gadgets to pass through different areas with. It would be sick.
Honestly any time I stopped and wondered what was going on inside Samus' head I imagined it was similar to what was going on inside my head. "Okay, where am I? How do I get here? Time to kick butt" It's kinda immersive like that. She's discovering and understanding this world at the same rate I am
But honestly if I had joined the fandom much earlier, I would genuinely be interested in finding out more about her as a character. I know how it really turned out but conceptually I'd be on board. But that might just be me
DM: You're tasked with making a new Metroid game for the Wii U. What do you do? Sakamoto: I focus on the story in addition to the gameplay and bring on help from Team Ninja. I want to present Samus as an appealing human character. DM: Okay, sounds fine. Sakomoto, go ahead and roll for success. _Sakamoto rolls a 4_ DM: Not great; reception on the story isn't great but otherwise pretty decent game. Hiyashi: Can I roll to assist? DM: Sure, what're you rolling to fix? Hiyashi: To make Samus an appealing, ultimate female hero in the game universe. DM: Roll. _Hiyashi rolls a 1_ DM: Okay. You instead present Samus as constantly needing the authorization from a man, incessantly talking about the baby Metroid, traumatized by Ridley in spite of the previous games where she had no trouble fighting him, and all around just nowhere close to a bad-ass.
If you need evidence as to why the story in this game is like mouldy cheese, let me point you to the end of Metroid 2 on the game boy. The last Metroid hatched from an egg and doesn’t immediately latch onto Samus like other Metroids, but rather sees her like a mother - And flies around her. Together they exit planet sr388, the infant chewing at crystals in their way to help who it believed to be its mother get to the surface. This is incredible visual storytelling... Now compare it to other m... eww.
Ok so this is an embarrassing revelation but uh, I was given Metroid Other M with no instruction manual. So I had NO IDEA I was supposed to turn the wiimote sideways, and never figured out how to open the very first door of the game. Considering I was given the game by a friend, I just assumed "I guess this disc doesn't work or it doesn't want to load" as it was scratched a little bit. Now knowing I was supposed to turn the controller sideways... big oof.
Do you know why Mario and Link were silent during their recent games? Because it’s extremely difficult to transition a silent protagonist to a speaking one.
The fact that Samus has more personality in Metroid Prime, a game where she doesn't speak and relies entirely on body language and the rare facial cue, says something. If you ignore the storyline aspects of Other M, it isn't completely horrible, but oof, what we got out of the writing was absolutely abysmal.
My absolute favorite story about this game is how Sakamoto tried to appeal to the Japanese demographic by making Samus more submissive, but instead just left her Japanese fans disappointed about how she was made "too normal."
That was actually a thing?
@@MasterSwo Legend has it, he’s still waiting for an answer
See Japan? This is why your marriage rates are so low. The women are sick of your shit
@@DanGalarzaCyber That's rascist.
@@DanGalarzaCyber their marriage rate is crap because of work and well, philosophy doesn’t exactly promote marriage
"From Adam's stern expression, constant swearing, and repeated kicks to my face and stomach, I had a feeling he was upset about something."
--Yahtzee Croshaw
@@MadSociety-uy6zg Zero Punctuation - Metroid Other M review
Ahahahahahah XD
**Insert meme** I understood that reference
Is that an actual line
@@jankfloyd158 yup
So everything went absolutely according to plan.
It was just a bad plan.
"Not a great plan"
Exactly. 😙👌
“It was a calculated risk. But boy, am I bad at math.”
Yup it's just like Megaman X6 and X7.
@Charmiskit Not even badly made. Everything works exactly as it should, the 'should' is just super awkward. Badly planned, but not badly made.
Other: M is a kind of sobering story for this show. "sometimes the game is just bad even when everything goes right."
I think it's more a story about director arrogance and what happens when someone is given unlimited control with no one to stop them.
Which might make Yoshio the George Lucas of gaming.
@@Elonyx.studios Yeah that's kind of what I meant. Sometimes what the director wants isn't what the game needs.
I mean just look at all the shit David Cage wants to do that people have to hold him back from doing.
@Kevin Jackson All else being equal, I think it's _usually_ better when the original creator/auteur wins the fights, or at least most of them. Series creators certainly aren't infallible though.
In video games, the best example of "the suits" making a game better might be the original X:Com. Julian Gollop just wanted to make a sequel to his turn-based SF squad-tactics game _Laser Squad_ . Microprose said "we love it, but can you make it more on-brand for us as a publisher? More like our big hit _Civilization_ . Give it a world map and an in-game encyclopedia. Also, can you make it about fighting UFOs?" And it worked! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-COM:_UFO_Defense#Development OTOH it doesn't seem that Gollop was ever unhappy with Microprose's suggested direction for the game.
@@1Hol1Tiger Oh boy, Star Wars is better under Disney you say?
@@1Hol1Tiger While your logic is sound, that begs the philosophical question: would you rather have a rerelease of a good movie or a new but terrible movie?
Happy the release of the new What Happened was authorized.
Clever.
I like it.
Protective suit against raging fanboys, NOT AUTHORIZED!
Woot.
Moni 💚
You win today. But I’ll get you next time!
Dread ended up being a really great response to the insane characterization of Other M. Very subtle with how it characterized her and actually made her likeable and strong. They pulled it off.
Sorry, Matt, I REALLY wanna thumbs-up this episode of Wha Happun? (especially with how long I've been waiting for you to cover Other M), but I'm afraid Adam hasn't authorized the use of the Like button yet.
Fuck Adam. *I'm* authorizing it.
But, aren't you the one known for giving 'thumbs down' during briefing?
@@PathBeyondTheDark Uh, maybe I'm just not picking up on the sarcasm, but I hope you're not accusing me of that? 'Cause I was just making a joke reference to the game itself with the whole "Adam must authorize everything" thing.
@@tonystank3091 Oh shiiiiiiiit.
@@StoicForce Well, you got me there. This sure is a conundrum I'm in right now, better stop and have a long internal monologue about it.
> "One of my goals is to present Samus as am appealing human character"
>Proceeds to make Samus Aran, one if not the first female videogame protagonist and badass bounty hunter, into a whiny, senpai-driven girl.
Good job!
Samus Simulator: Other M
Metroid Other M is the single best depiction of Samus, according to Ridley.
@@aprinnyonbreak1290 You had me at the first half ngl
Maybe by appealing they meant "appealing for people who compulsively jack off to submissive anime girls"
"Adam Malkovich" is my favorite Nintendo franchise. I hate that it lags behind Mario and Zelda. I can't wait for "Adam Prime (Rare, 2022)" to come out, where all we get is a 5-minute cutscene of Samus crying and saying "the baby..."
Samus, use of tears authorized.
Samus, use of big girl pants was not authorized.
Samus, use of legs was not authorized.
Samus, use of words was not authorized.
Yes, there we go. A crying flailing baby. Perfect. Ship it.
Use of game script authorized.
and don't forget the hit movie tie-in, Being ̶J̶o̶h̶n̶ Adam Malkovich
Y cant Adam Malkovich crawl?
"We have this really cool, strong, silent protagonist lady who, in several games has demonstrated almost 0 fear in over a decade of games. What should we do?"
"Well... we could have her break down in tears at the sight of the enemy she has canonically fought without flinching 2 or 3 times by now, need permission from a man to use her abilities that she already has and be mega baby crazy."
"Hm. Yes. Yes, that will do nicely."
The "baby crazy" and "authorization" aspect would probably be redeemable if it wasn't for the massive departure from her stoic nature. The whole "breaking down in tears" aspect though frames everything in such a way that she becomes of completely different character than the rest of the series. I can see her limiting some of her more dangerous weapons given her nature as a bounty hunter; the Federation wouldn't exactly want her causing all sorts of collateral damage and certainly wouldn't compensate her for her assistance if an excessive amount occurred. The degree to which it goes though, combined with the "emotionally weak" character we see, is just too much.
@@ArtumTsumia True. The real death blow was turning one of the most stoic, unphasable characters in all of video games into a blubbering damsel in distress when she sees Ridley.
The trauma caused by losing... sigh... the baby and Adam needing to authorize her most destructive equipment is dumb, but not unsalvageably so. It isn't a betrayal of everything Samus is. Samus flew into a rage and got the super rainbow beam when... sigh... the baby got blasted by Mother Brain, so it obviously affected her and, like you said, Adam and the Federation being exceedingly cautious with Samus' destructive gear when it came to operating on the ship are believable story elements. Samus crumbling into tears at the sight of Ridley was the unforgiveable part.
And it sucks, because they could have made that scene pretty cool with a minor tweak. When Ridley shows up, show Samus crying under her visor and flashback to the trauma from everything Ridley has done to her. But then, instead of having Mr. Macguffin "remember me princess?" come in to save the damsel, calling badass intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran god damn "princess." Have Samus steel herself, overcome it and fight Ridley the same as ever. Then you still show that, yeah, she has emotions, but she's strong and she beats her demons. She doesn't need some dude to save her. She'll kick that fucking space dragon's teeth in herself, no matter how many times it takes.
There's one thing I don't understand, all that stuff of her breaking into tears and what-not, was it a prequel to the series, a sequel, what was it?
@@Mike14264 If it were a prequel or origin story it would have been more acceptable within the story. However, outside of the flashback scenes where it's trying to cover her origins, it's placed after multiple games. It's like they tried to do both ideas at once but forgot to take certain chronological events into consideration.
@@ArtumTsumia oh, I see. If she was only paralyzed and crying when seeing Ridley before all of her adventures, it would explain why she was so stoic now that she has bested him, and faced her fears.
Imagine one day miyamoto wakes up and says: "I want to give mario a backstory"
We sort of got one with Super Mario World: Yoshi's Island
he already did with yoshi's island
I thought Miyamoto was more known to oversimplify stories in games if anything.
Probably wouldn't happen. Miyamoto was against the story book segments in Super Mario Galaxy, cause it was "too much backstory"
Watch the Mario movie and you can imagine what could have been.
It's so weird because seeing Dread today, which has the same director, the tree house team even talked about how cool Samus was and how she was unflinching.
@@ElvenRaptor Did you not see any of the gameplay shown at E3? Samus doesn’t even talk or even look helpless at all. Give the man credit for making the Metroid game people wanted.
He definitely learned his lesson about fucking with Samus's character
@@ElvenRaptor so what now
I have mixed feelings about Other M, but one segment I'll never defend were the moments the game forced you into first-person mode, to look around one screen until you found one teeny-tiny thing you needed to scan... for me, it was finding a drop of GREEN BLOOD IN A GRASS FIELD!
Yeah, it felt like the Prime’s Scan system, only it was inbred, missing half its bones, and kept staying in your face.
The scan system in Prime was brilliant. You only NEEDED it to activate switches and the like, but it was also there to add flavor text to an environment for the curious. It was also COMPLETELY OPTIONAL. If you didn’t care for the lore, story, etc. you could ignore it completely.
It helped that the scan logs were well-written:
“Science Team believes Metroids can be domesticated...I think Science Team has vapor for brains! I’ve already lost 5 troopers to the miserable little parasites!!”
Prime’s lore scans made me love the Space Pirates like I did the Decepticons in Transformers.
This was the primary reason I barely got anywhere in this game. Nothing like walking into a room, having Sammy’s spider sense go off and spending half an hour waggling the wiimote around in an attempt to locate the three pixels out of place that triggered her. For fucks sake, even after looking up an LP and scrolling through to the point where they find what they’re after, it still took multiple attempts for me to actually get the game to recognise I was pointing at the thing it wanted me to point at!
@@narutardkyuubi TUUUUUUUUUUUBES
Yea. I can see the potential Other M had, the 3rd person perspective was more engaging and accessible then the terrible FPS Prime had going on. But then the story, characterization and certain gameplay elements really shot Other M in the head.. several times... repeatedly T_T. If only Rare was allowed to provide the story and lore elements while team ninja was allowed to work on the gameplay... then we really could have an amazing 3D Metroid where you can search and do actiony things T_T.
I also wish someone mad a 3rd person mod for the Prime games so i can actually play them... but seems like while Prime was missing some key elements of the Metroid franchise it did enough things well thankfully.
@@luvlybaluga I can't imagine that a third person mod for Prime could ever possibly work. Save for the morph ball, everything about those games was designed for 1st person, so even if you did manage to change the perspective, UI, controls, and everything linked to the game's visors you'd still have to wrestle with the level and enemy design not being built for it.
I've always been of the belief that they never needed to use Adam to restrict Samus' abilities. They had a ready-made story explanation from the end of Super Metroid. All they had to do was say, "Hey Samus? Your previous encounter with Mother Brain compromised some of your abilities, and now you're back to square-one." There, I just fixed half the problems with Other M with ONE sentence.
And before people poke holes of that idea and say question how she could even get some of these abilities back, here's the solution to the solution: Data Rooms, or some sort of automated repair station different from the Save Stations. The Feds repaired her armor, but they need to send data and materials to her because she was sent out to the Bottle Ship with less weapons than what she left Zebes with.
@@TheEmperorHyperion The fusion approach? Would be a good explanation to the not being able to use her full power.
@@TheEmperorHyperionThe data room thing makes sense, I think they did something like that in Fusion,
Where Samus loses a lot of her abilities after most of her suit parts are taken off to save her from a fatal accident, and then the parts get infected with X parasite into SA-X, then she gains replacements for some of her previous equipment through data rooms (most abilities are recovered through hunting down X parasite bosses but some are gained through Data rooms)
So, funny thing to unpack here. Years before Other M, there was a prequel manga that supposedly led up to the game. If I recall correctly, Samus was barely stopped from murdering an alien slaver. When Adam talked to her later, he said, “You’re one of the greatest warriors I’ve ever seen. But never forget you’re also a lady.”
In THAT context, the use of “Lady” as a nickname was a reminder to Samus to keep a cool head in the worst situations.
It's...sad that that's so much better than anything in Other M.
That's irritating, now I want to see how that game would have been written and not the one we got.
Samus leaving behind a record of the one man who was a match for her, and the mission where the guy who was worth breaking her legendary silence over, in fact, the closest all-rounder match to the mighty Hunter in personality.
"This is for the record," before leaving a log.
...I can also only picture it delivered by a prospective Hale take.
@@1Hol1Tiger Oh man.
I've been thinking after Dread, how instead of being frozen in fear, she could just have unabated rage towards Ridey. Raw emotion is normal, he killed the parent and abducted "the baby"; they just picked the wrong one.
I'm mentionning this because in this scenario, Higgs falling in the lava could be more directly her fault: instead of his decision to save Samus, he would get knocked over by her brash fighting. This would make a plot point that Samus does need to keep her cool, and act with discipline if she doesn't want to be a liability for others.
I think that sounds worse personally. Like more directly sexist.
It's almost scary to think that this game was in development for like 3 years, and not one person pointed out that literally everything is a bizarre baffling decision.
Well I guess when Mr. Metroid says jump you say how high. The Lucas Effect
Oh no they did they were just ignored. People on team ninja brought up the controls a lot and wanted to use the nunchuck but we’re not allowed.
I remember when this came out. Reviewers seemed so heartbroken or angry when they talked about the story. It was fascinating to watch.
Everyone was. Metroid coming back from an 8 year hiatus after the death of Yokoi and doing the impossible task of getting a revival by a Western studio only to become bigger then ever before was practically a Cinderella Story at the time, and made critics always excited for a new release. To see how underwhelming Other M was for them really hit deep for many.
I remember one of the first critics (who was a woman) on a video game website calling out the blatant sexism in this game and droves of people called her a "SJW Feminazi" among other stuff. Some things never change.
@@wambotime6047 I despise SJWs, but man does this game reflect the Mysoginistic Culture some Japanese men have.
Sorry to hear she was insulted, she didn't deserve it.
@@bluecaptainIT This game’s plot sucks monkey dick, but sexism isn’t why. Not saying the game isn’t sexist, more that people make too big a deal out of it as if that was the main thing wrong with the plot. If you want to push things, you can claim that backlash to stuff like Other M and Twilight led to all those stupid heroines with like no flaws.
@@LinkMarioSamus no flaws and they’re just as douchey and obnoxious as their male counterparts
Other M stands as perfect proof that when it comes to character writing, sometimes less can be more. Prime never had Samus talk and kept cinematics to a minimum, but Samus' body language gave alot of small insight into her thought process. It's little things like holding her gun on someone for the entire time he meets the Luminoth and in the same game, that non-chalant wave back to them when the job was done.
What's more tragic is that Sakamoto's team did actually treat the character respectfully with spoken writing in Fusion. They were generally very smart about it. She was portrayed as you'd expect. Very direct, very no-nonsense, it wasn't shakespear, but it translated her stoic silence we'd gotten for the longest time (barring some narration in Super) to a spoken format in a way that you can understand.
Other M makes the mistake of assuming that Samus is a blank canvas when she wasn't. While minimal, her identity was very much defined by the little undertones. Besides her body language, we knew that she was;
- Trained by Chozos as a warrior, meaning a strict and diciplined childhood.
- Seems to consistently pursue both the killer of her parents and the legacy of her fostering Chozos, implying she values those families.
- Ex-Federation, currently bounty-hunter. A loose cannon that doesn't like doing things by the books and maybe has issues with the government.
- Above all else, *solitary.* This "baby" she rambles about in OM is something she was willing to sell to get disected in a lab for the convenience and probably meaty paycheck. Even in all of her monologuing in Fusion, she never feels lonely or discontent by the isolation in her life, when an AI she doesn't even know is sentient until the very end is enough to fill that void.
These were the recipe they had to go with for Samus' character and while some of that they follow up on select elements of those, go about it in the most myopic and simplistic method available. It shows Sakamoto as more of a game designer over writer.
Samus wasn't quite a blank slate but she almost was, what little characterization she had was consistent with everything you'd just assume of someone with her job and accomplishments. What the game tried to do could have worked if the actual writing wasn't so absurdly terrible.
What's wrong with just being doomgal?
i dont thinnk samus talking is wrong just the script was bad
True, but knowledge about a characters origins doesn't imply personality. At the time they made this game her personality could have been depicted in literally any way. I agree though with what you're saying about a more no nonsense version of the character. Personally, I would have depicted her as a deeply emotional human under the surface but who portrays herself to others as very to the job and methodical, without trying to come across as a "tough" woman. That's how I picture Samus anyway.
@@joshuaweston4489
I don't necessarily think you need a very defined personality to be a defined character. I actually believe in the contrary. I think that sometimes a character can be defined by how little they show of their true selves or the lack of such. That's always been the appeal of Samus to me. Her generally stoic demeanour, even in parts where she has spoken like during Super and Fusion, paints the image of the ideal professional. Somebody truly ready to put their emotions to the side for the sake of her work, whether that be out of an effort to keep her head in the game so to speak or cope with the horrors she has to face in her line of work day-to-day. Sometimes trying to forcefully inject personality into a character too aggressively can lead to issues (See: All of Josh Wheaton's filmography).
Surprised that Samus' face while she was scared by Ridley wasn't used for the thumbnail.
Adam didn't authorize that.
This shit actually killed me when I played the game tbh
She gets her redemption in the Smash Ridley trailer.
I get that Samus being traumatized by Ridley was a thing in the manga, and it makes sense...if the game was the first chronological game. It makes much LESS sense when she's killed Ridley several times over, and then suddenly just curls up into a useless ball of PTSD over Fake Ridley.
@@SuperLlama42 Exactly! This game would've worked better as a prequel!
I'll never forget how a local gaming magazine in my country did a review of this game that gave it the highest score possible, claiming "we finally have a Metroid entry where Samus is human and independent, instead of previous entries where she was nothing more than a generic heroine who depends on men to save her". Every few months, I remember that article and wonder if the author just spent two pages on a joke. I hope that's what it was and he wasn't this much of an idiot.
That had to have been a joke. Either that or he literally knew nothing about the game an just assumed Samus was like Peach or Zelda. What magazine was this?
Did that guy get Samus confused with Princess Peach? Lol
That absolutely sounds like a Onion-style punchline
That's why we claim game journalists don't play games.
That has to be a joke, or the author never saw any of the endings of the OG games, at least the ones with Samus without her suit, or even without the helmet.
The very assumption that Samus depended on men in the early days makes me think... HOW?! She literally soloed entire planet worth of monsters, giants, dragons, vampiric jellyfishes and a brain in a jar, with no person, let alone men, involved, not just once, but _twice_ maybe even *_thrice_*
The fact that Matt says ‘appealing human character’ while almost bursting out laughing says it all really.
Metroid Dread came along last year, and it's just BEAUTIFUL.
It was a Metroid game everyone really wanted for YEARS
From now on, any time I Google something, I will be exclaiming SEARCH ACTION!
Thanks, you made my day, hahaha
not a bad idea
Metroidvanias are now Search Action and Roguelikes are now Die-'Em-Ups
LOVE THIS
XD
RPGs are now Stat-Go-Ups
Lootboxes are now surprise mechanics
OOF
Puzzle games are now solve-em-ups
Oh man. So, my knowledge at the time (Well, a little while after the fact) was that almost everything in the game was more or less Yoshio Sakamoto's fault in a rare case where you actually can point at one person, since they had something of an iron fist approach to the game's development - even down to dictating that Samus' voice actor ignore her own training and experience with English voice acting, which resulted in Samus being so robotic and monotone, and constantly rejecting various ideas from the games' composer which led to them more or less giving up and saying "I don't know what you want me to do." I wonder if that really was the case or if that was mostly internet hearsay accepted as fact.
Edit: Yeah, that's pretty much true.
The reason why Samus is so robotic is because in japanese culture stoicism and lack of emotion is seen as heroic.
@@timrosswood4259 I could see that being the case.
Yup, and the result of a man who speaks only rudimentary English trying to coach someone in her English voice acting.
While stoicism is highly valued in Japanese media, there’s a method to it, that can’t be replicated 1-1 from Japanese to English.
@@rubiesncreme I was about to say something similar. Japan, especially older generations, have a rather... dated view on women. And that detail shines brightly through in Other M.
@@ArcadianLegend I couldn't say with total certainty, but it seems likely.
What I do know is that Metroid isn't all that popular in Japan, and Other M didn't really change that.
Sakamoto must've learned quite a bit from Other M's consumer reaction, because Metroid Dread ended up being one of the best 2D Metroid games since Super Metroid. Fusion and Zero Mission were good too, don't misunderstand.
@@ElvenRaptor gave +1 like your comment, lol
Where you said about jaffe
They say time heals all wounds.
They lied. I still get just as angry when I think about what this game did to Samus as when I first experienced it.
They say time heals all wounds. But You look at me and you look at Trish Jones and you know that statement is not true!
See, normally if you go one-on-one with another wrestler you got a fifty/fifty chance of winning. But I'm a genetic freak, and I'm not normal! So you got a 25 percent at best at beat me! And then you add Samus Aran to the mix? Your the chances of winning drasticly go down. See, the 3-Way at Other M, you got a 33 and a third chance of winning. But I! I got a 66 and two thirds chance of winning, cuz Samus KNOOOWS she can't beat me, and she's not even gonna try. So, Trish Jones, you take your thirty three and a third chance minus my twenty five percent chance (if we was to go one on one) and you got an eight and a third chance of winning at Sacrifice. But then you take my 75 perchance-chance of winning (if we was to go one on one), and then add 66 and two thirds…percents, I got a 141 2/3 chance of winning at Other M! Señor Jones? The numbers don't lie, and they spell disaster for you at Other M!"
It makes me more mad that the game actually looks pretty damn good graphically. This isn't some random spinoff like Federation force, this is something they probably spent a lot of time and money on and yet have so many screw ups.
@@plasmaoctopus1728 The graphics amd gameplay both look like there's some good in the game, but then you play it and it's like "What? I have all my abilities and I'm just nof allowed to use them unless some dude gives Samus, the most capable person on the ship permission? What? Samus is having a mental breakdown looking at Ridley, who she's fought several times before and after this without incident? What? She needed some made up man who's never neen mentioned anywhere else before to save her? What? The final boss of the game is fucking Phantoon? The second boss of Super Metroid? What? Samus is actually just some baby crazy waifu, not a silent badass who stares down giant monsters without flinching on a daily basis and then fucking kills them? Why? Why? Why? Why?"
@@nooneinparticular5273 You Wanna know why? Because Sakamoto had no chance, but he had a chance, is you could run lickety-split! But they couldn't run, 'cuz you got some FAAAT ASSES
Time only heals all wounds when you're able to move on.
Metroid is still essentially dead and I won't stop believing otherwise until either Prime 4 or an actual new Metroid game comes out.
Still find it hilarious that they were so focused on telling a story, and ended up making something with so many retcons that it contradicts every other Metroid game in the series. Its not even just a bad script in this game, its a bad script that makes every other Metroid game worse!
I've always suspected this game was intended to be a prequel originally, but then for some reason they decided it should fit between Super and Fusion instead, and modified the story accordingly (adding the cutscenes of young Samus as flashbacks instead) I mean, it would make a lot more sense. Like why Samus is with a federation team, taking orders from Adam to begin with.
"There are some bad games that are bad because they fail in what they set out to do, and then there are those that are bad because they succeed." - Yahtzee Croshaw
Samus here is basically your typical Anime waifu trope character. Submissive, hot and waiting for approval of a male figure to feel empowered. It's kinda sad, it's like turning Doomguy into a cry baby.
it's beyond sad, it's actively revolting.
The worst part of Other M was that Anthony Higgs only got 30 minutes max of screentime. I mean, come on, Anthony is the best character in the game and deserved better than that.
@@dracorex426 But we'd get more memes!
I'm just surprised that the tough but sensitive black guy character archetype transcends national borders.
Anthony Higgs was, to me, the ONLY good thing that came out of Other M. Sadly, we won’t be seeing him again because we’ll be thinking of this game every time we see him.
@@SWAnimus01 He should get his own game. I even have a title for it: Federation Force 2: Remember Me?
We all remember him, that's for sure
A What Happened of Metroid Prime would definitely be an enjoyable one because EVERYONE thought it was going to be shit. Leading up to it, everyone thought it was capitalizing on Halo, and wouldn't have any traditional exploration elements and would just be a linear FPS. It was about as controversial as Wind Waker's art style reveal.
Yeah, now everyone loves Wind Wakers cel shaded gorgeousness!
Yeah, now everyone loves Wind Wakers cel shaded gorgeousness!
Its so funny. Sometimes its Developers thinking their revolutionary idea for the franchise becoming a masterpiece but fans criticizing that creative vision (& being right about their criticism) & it turning out to be a piece of sh!t instead and sometimes Fans criticizing certain aspects of the game after stuff like preview, trailers & details about the game being revealed but after launch the game being a BIG HIT
Personal note: I personally love Wind Waker but didn`t finish it because I can only play the gamecube version & I HATE the sailing being so slow (Yea I`m supposed to explore the sea by myself in the game but I prefer using guides like zeldadungeon & 100%ing the game on 1st time... in a game like this doing that can be just really confusing) The game is great... but just not my type.
In a brutal turn of fate, that “Remember me?” triggered a flurry of my own nostalgic memories of SomethingAwful and /v/ not remembering that guy
I didn't remember back then, but since I have never not remembered "Remember me?" guy.
"Mysterious Black Dude"
I need to see this or hear about it. Please tell this story.
dandragon01 lots of gifs, that’s about it
And then he ended up being the best character in the game somehow.
"I'm burning alive! I need to activate the suit that keeps me from dying."
"Nah. You haven't progressed in the story enough."
Yeah that isn't unique to Other M. That's in literally every other single Metroid.
@@2Scribble yeah, in prior games it was more like: "Oh God, I'm burning/freezing to death! Better get going!!! If only I could find the Varia- There it is! Now we're rocking!"
Other M: "Daddy didn't authorize me, so I'm not using it. Nope, I don't care about dying, Daddy's approval is top priority!!"
@@bluecaptainIT That was only in English, btw. Refer to "The Other M That Never Was" analysis video of the English vs. Japanese scripts of the game:
ua-cam.com/video/KTuMfsWwd0E/v-deo.html
@@AICW going to check it out, thanks!
Something that I think a lot of people either don't know or keep forgetting is that Gunpei Yoko was heavily involved in the development of the first three Metroid games. The series has never been the same since he parted.
Both producers didnt worked on posterior Metroids.
@@hfc2x I thought it was somewhat common knowledge that he passed away
@@hfc2x I believe he wouldn't have wanted to go back to even if he could - Yokoi was the main brainchild behind the Virtual Boy, and left the company because of the product's failure
For once, the publisher didn’t interfere
But this time, they probably should have
Perfect missed opportunity to talk about the complete throwaway character in this game named Ian who existed for maybe 2 minutes in a cutscene that comes out of nowhere, that serves no purpose except to characterize Samus and Adam.
And also dies.
Doesn't everyone but Samus die in this game?
@@hoodedman6579 I think a few of the scientists that didn't get murderized never technically died. Or maybe some soldiers in the end cutscene. That should be it.
Unless The Deleter somehow escaped the station after the script forgot he exists...
No, I'm mistaken. Samus, Anthony, and a scientist who made a new Mother Brain all left the station after some Federation dude and his soldiers shot up said Mother Brain reincarnation. Then Samus goes back to the station to get Adam's helmet and peaces out when everything blows up for no reason.
Another red shirt!
Honestly, what hurts the most is that this whole mess COULD have worked if they just, ya know, made it a prequel and explore Samus's past like he said he wanted to. Then things like the authorization, her character, the whole Ridley shit, and just everything is at least a lot easier to stomach.
But no, instead we get this trainwreck that is constantly shoved in our face like "This is your Metroid now"
All because they wanted to add pointless, meaningless fanservice like the Super Metroid mother brain fight, and Metroid Queen. All done in a way that goes completely counter to the way metroid usually does fanservice - It usually makes some sense, ties it into what's happening.
Yoshio Sakamoto: I want to develop Samus as a character.
Me: That’s good.
Yoshi: (Introduces authorizations)
Me: That’s bad.
The thing is that the Prime games did develop Samus. Subtetly, yes, but it was there. A lot of the scans have comments from her, showing more of her character and how she's processing everything that is happening during the game. Which is honestly a lot better since it's not shoved in your face with awkward, poorly delivered cutscenes.
okagron True. It’s just when one of the main heads of the franchise expresses a desire to give the main character development, you have some faith that this idea could work. Bit of a expectation vs reality situation here.
@@steel5897 It's not a guarantee that the idea will fail. Jak & Daxter was able to give the silent protagonist development. All you need are the proper writers, voice actors, and talent to pull it off.
@@steel5897 Wut, wanting Samus to be developed is not the same as wanting her to have breast cancer, the fuck are you on about
It could have been good, it just needed some heavy tweaking and also probably just shouldn't have applied to non-weapons at all. Maybe have things like the Varia Suit be found still, but make it so you can't use the Wave Beam in areas where you're likely to hit your allies with it.
"Sticking to your guns despite many, many opinions to the contrary"
I dunno, I'd much rather hear something that sounded like honest reflection. Like, okay, I get it - you saw your "vision" through to the end, I totally believe that. But maybe a bit of reflection on why it was so poorly received would be in order?
In 4chan's words, what he said is cope. Instead of admitting that he fucked up, he started believing that he did nothing wrong and that it's everyone else that's bad and misguided.
I dunno, lack of a single creative vision can lead to a messy plot...
I dunno, lack of a single creative vision can lead to a messy plot...
@@anothga
Kind of a stupid term since it ties objectivity to majority.
Hey, remember the sweet-ass, quasi-military deep lore of both the Galactic Federation Marine Corps and the Space Pirates? Remember all the awesome established technologies and hierarchies and histories lovingly hand-crafted by Retro Studios? Well guess what, we threw that all away just to make Samus the most cliché, boring, predictable and unsatisfying character ever.
The agonizing thing is, the prime games had a thousand times more story and lore than Other M. It's just that most of it was optional, requiring the use of the scan visor. The scan visor in itself was sorta revolutionary, it allowed the player to take in all the huge amount of info in the game at their own time, and also served the function of providing guidance to the player. In my opinion, metroid prime was doing "environmental storytelling" far earlier than the Souls games, and in an arguably even larger scale. So much of the world can be scanned for little tidbits of information. For people who love diving deep into lore and details, it was paradise.
Even Samus who was just a silent protagonist had more emotion by just her physical gestures and some grunting.
Every story element is a plot device in the non-prime games.
Chozos are super advanced so Samus has an edge over everyone by using their magi-tech, they're gone so it's down to her to fix everything, everything is always mysterious (how the pirates works, where the chozo went, where metroid came from) so that plot holes and inconsistencies become hard to make or spot... the whole world is one big mystery box that fans just inhabited with their speculations.
Prime worked from a fan's point of view and crafted something very cool and respectful.
Other M showed that Sakamoto cannot write, and the second he stops being mysterious and actually commits to explain things, he creates 50 plots holes that clash with the logic and events of the other canon games.
The clearly can make great 2D metroidvania games, but clearly he grossly overestimated how good a story teller he is.
And that's a shame when you make a game that really focuses on the story to the point where it's hard to ignore even if you want to on a second run.
Dose anyone know where you can go to just read the lore I own all three games but havent been bothered to actully go and find the lore would love to read it
@@TheGustave03 you know what could have been a lot more interesting than Samus' past? The fact that she is infused with chozo dna. She's effectively not entirely human. We know already that this accounts for part of her physical prowess, but I'd really love it if Samus was designed so that she looked a little less than human as well. Let her be beautiful but give her slightly narrower, more piercing eyes, slightly longer limbs, small subtle stuff to show that she isnt just a regular girl. Her gaze should be like that of a hawk who has spotted prey
It's a good thing the Prime games are cannon again, and Other M by elimination isn't.
Apparently, Sakamoto is a genius when it comes to designing a game with little to no story that relies almost entirely on gameplay to draw in and satisfy the player. I mean, I love the Wario Wares, the Rhythm Heavens, and Tomodachi Life, but "story" is not in any way a draw for any of those games (See also: Super Metroid). The mechanics and gameplay of those games is just pure fun and satisfaction.
I can understand that it probably feels like some sort of cheat or scam to him as an "Artist" to have failed so mightily at his attempts at telling Metroid's deeper story, but some people's artistry isn't meant for or bolstered by traditional storytelling means. Most long-time gamers know: An amazing story can be told entirely through game mechanics; someone just needs to tell Sakamoto that.
You, a smooth brain: "Search action"
Me, an intellectual: "Backtracktion"
Backtrack
Backtrack
Fucking backtrack
Gotta do this shit again
i could get behind metroidvanias being called "search action" games.
Broke: Search Action
Woke: Find'em Jump Arounds
@@KuroNoTenno You mean how we still call all first person shooters Doom-clones?
@@KuroNoTenno there should be a way to label it without referencing other games. its how genres work 99 percent of the time.
This is the timeline split. If you save the animals, Metroid: Fusion happens. If you don't save the animals, Metroid: Other M happens.
You should cover Crash Twinsanity for a Wha Happun, it has all the ingredients for an episode
Yeah! Probably the only old Crash game that deserves a full-blown remake.
@@JP_Crimson Yeah, a full restart that restores cut content and adds more. And hopefully fixes all those damn bugs.
Oh god i actually forgot about that game
He may need Caddicarus help whit that video
You could probably do a Wha Happun of Traveller's Tales in general, and how, despite amazing programming talent and good ideas, they kept being held back at every single point year after year by all sorts of unlucky orders and such.
The thing is, the Prime games had a pretty good way of implementing its story, setting details, and background lore. Being able to scan items in the environment such as computers or ruins to get mostly-optional info tidbits let you learn all sorts of things without the games having to rely on clunky dialog or lengthy exposition. It's the same style of story-via-journals style that had become popular in some other games, but with the added benefit that it actually made sense and didn't rely on people recording diary entries as they're being ripped apart by monsters.
(Inhales)
The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby The Baby
Persona 3 battle theme?
ThePaintingBanjo underated joke alert.
*T H E B A B Y*
DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE DELETE
BURN BURN BURN BURN BURN TO THE GROUND BURN TO THE GBURN BURN BURN BURN
I have never played a bad Metroid game. Then again I've never played Other M.
dont....i really tried to finish it, and i just couldnt keep playing, and im sadistic enough to love Ghosts n Goblins
@@Luminousplayer Metroid other m is a fun game but the story was just mediocre
@@Cousinbiddy1 I mean from what I've seen gameplay seems kinda meh too. I mean high-octane character action with only a wii remote seems... bold at best. And the enemies look like damage sponges. But I haven't played it so idk
@@homestuck_official Metroid other m was easier at least since the other Metroid games were difficult and can easily get lost
it's kind of sad to think that other m is just how sakamoto sees and intends us to see samus.
@@marianoclerici3986
No wonder I haven't played any Japanese games since Silent Hill 2.
Preddy much.
The cynic in me feels like they were caught off guard when the funny joke at the end of the game that Samus was a hot chick got misinterpreted as more than a quick funny joke they were expected to follow up on in the future.
@@wallacesousuke1433 how many of those games get ported over to the west?
@@maallos334mi8 Pretty sure literally every single of those games was ported over, and the soulsborne, DD, MH and RE franchises are huge in the west lol.
@@youtube-kit9450 exactly. It’s not a coincidence
Other M would have been less of a problem if it was the first game in the timeline.
That way, Samus' regression as a character would be wayyyy more tolerable, as it wouldn't be regression, it would be *progression* in a timeline sense. As she goes from being a scared, moody newbie who needs permission to do anything, to the fearless bounty hunter we see in her other appearances.
It's kind of incredible how many of Other M's problems can be so easily solved, especially if they just adjusted it's place in the timeline to become an Origin Story for Samus instead. But alas, they really needed to shoehorn the Super Metroid fanservice that barely makes any sense.
I think that’s why I liked it as a kid. It was the first Metroid game I’d ever played, so I didn’t have any other point of reference for Samus other than the Subspace Emissary, which isn’t exactly dense on characterization for her, so kid me was fully invested in the story
that random shot of Zach Braff reminded me of the golden era of inviting random celebrities to tech events and making them give some of the most painful interviews of all time
Oh good, I wasn't hallucinating the Zach Braff image. If I'm hallucinating I want something more interesting than a former Scrubs actor.
I feel like a middle-aged mother towards Other M. I'm not angry, I'm just disappointed. So many cool ideas on expanding the Metroid lord and Samus as a character were mired in contradiction and insanity. For every neat idea, there were two others that tarnished what Metroid was at its core.
IIRC, Yoshio Sakamoto got burthurt that some studio in Texas made a good Metroid game and demanded he be allowed to make one. It was bad.
@@mesogot The irony with that being, that Super Metroid was the ultimate Metroid experience and certainly a better game than the quite linear Fusion. Retro also did something magical, they captured the essence of Metroid and transported it to an FPS enviroment.
A story driven Metroid could work, but Sakamoto forgot that many players liked the free exploration and that you're not handheld (the best of which is shown in reverse boss order speedruns of SM). You can build a story around that, by having certain areas show a story or show progress by changing the environment and do it with little text. Fusion was only little exploration, as was Other M. The game just pointed you, where you needed to go and that was it. It was just sad and that is before you get into the story aspects of especially Other M.
@@shukterhousejive I don't know how that would work with a Metroidvania game.
You are now creating a false narrative.
What are you basing this on? I've heard rumors of this but never seen any hard evidence.
@@isauldron4337 it wasn't their success; it was that they did things he didn't like to the series.
The fact that around 1 year later from this video we’d get one of the best Metroid games to date announced is amazing.
Great video. But I won't lie, learning that the creator of my most hated game is completely blind to how awful it is is rather soul crushing.
And Metroid Dread is his redemption arc
@@SEiMEi_EXiSTS Amen
@@SEiMEi_EXiSTS well not really. Like i do think he had a minimum role in ots developent and mercury did most of the heavy lifting
@@themasterladisaster4336 Kind of, he was incredibly humbled by the experience of working with MecurySteam. Sakamoto was really adamant that Metroid be like a movie, which is what led him to make Other M. The sheer backlash against this approach made me go silent for years because it was pretty clear the reception to Other M was humiliating to his ego.
What brought him back was when MercurySteam pitched an idea for a Metroid game to him and how much their reverence for the Metroid franchise and to him was, so he came back because MercurySteam wanted his oversight over the creation of Samus Returns.
When asked during the promotion for Metroid: Samus Returns about the possibility of Metroid being a TV show akin to Castlevania on Netflix, he said he was not the right person to ask. You can really see he learned a lot from his experience with Other M and I honestly think, given an opportunity, he should be given another chance.
And now we have DREAD...All hail the return of the Queen!
What Happened: Earthbound 64
What Happened? Earthbound series: a poor marketing campain in the 90s lead Nintendo to not releasing the rest of the series in the US, even with fan praise
My theory is they tried to make a 3d game, but abandoned the idea when they realized 3d was hard to get right and they didn't want to release the Mother/ Earthbound equivalent of Castlevania 64 or Earthworm Jim 3d. So they shelved the idea until the Gameboy Advanced came out.
You have got to be one of the hardest working people on UA-cam. I have no idea how you manage to put out a quality video every day. Keep it up!
I can't think of any other game where the story actively harms the gameplay so much. Having to go through heat zones without the Varia Suit because daddy Adam didn't say it was okay, getting upgrades right when you need them instead of being able to learn how they work first in an item room or something, fights where you just flub about until it's said that you can actually use the boss' weakness...It's bizarre.
Worst of all, Samus. It's not shown in this video, but Samus literally has a mental breakdown when Ridley shows up, despite having blown him to bits multiple times by now, let alone blowing apart multiple other things. What? Why? Every scene has her either being extremely whiny, or extremely emotionless. Up to the point where Daddy Adam has to save her from a Metroid. Y'know, THE THINGS SHE HAS BEEN KILLING COUNTLESS NUMBERS OF.
Even now, I don't think the Metroid franchise will ever recover.
Flustered that’s why when I played this game, I used a mod called Maximum Edition which make Samus mute for most of the cutscenes and instead of authorizations, it’s explained that Samus suit was damaged after Super Metroid and is slowly auto rebuilding itself(not perfect I know but a mile better). Also the gravity suit is actually purple instead of this purple aura. I honestly had fun playing it that way with an Xbox controller.
If you count the origin story manga as canon, Other M is the fifth time Samus has fought and killed Ridley, so she shouldn't be shocked that he came back again. Furthermore, there's a huge disconnect between the story and gameplay because once the cutscene ends, Samus instantly recovers from her crippling PTSD and calmly demolishes her arch-nemesis, only to go back to cowering in the next scene. I'm open to the idea of Samus having thoughts and emotions, but these aren't the thoughts and emotions she would be having in that moment.
@Flustered One thing I did like about that scene was how much of a threat they made Ridley. This question is off topic, but does anyone know why Adam shot Samus near the end of game?
Ridley's trailer for Smash Bros. does a FAR better job characterizing Samus than every single thing in Other M. She goes from a deep "oh here we go..." breath as she readies for an ambush, to "oh shit, it's him!" with visible shock in her eyes when Ridley pops up, to throwing herself foot first at him with intense rage even after he just destroyed her ship and suit. THAT'S Samus.
@@MHurley21 Story could work if this version of Ridley did something new like gave himself the voice of Samus' father thus triggering a "Dude fuck you" response that makes her a bit irrational. Story could work if said irrational actions got Samus put on lock down and forced into a job as a sentence, with Adam overseeing her tech and approving its uses but Samus still going "Fuck you and that volcano" at a halfway mark giving her all her major upgrades back with more to find in the world. Story could work
Sakamoto: I want to give Samus a deep character. We're going to spend all the time in her head and go over every nitty gritty detail that will end up making you dislike her by the end. She is going to obsess over a baby metroid and Adam's going to be a dick to her, yet despite me saying she speaks out against him, she sure as hell doesn't act like it
Fans: Understandably upset that this is not in character to how they've imagined Samus
Sakurai, a God writing SSE: Samus saves a Pikachu after seeing him used as a battery. The develop a bond, and without arguing with him, they fight together through the research facility and later Pikachu saves her from Ridley.
Fans: This is literally so in character we're still going to make art of Samus owning a Pikachu in vague Smash-related content to this day
Sakurai for the next metroid game please
Classic case of the creator not understanding what people liked about their creation. It's extra sad when you realize that this man invented a genre, that he doesnt understand...
@@mesogot I realize that this comment is pretty old, but Sakamoto was in charge of Super Metroid (AKA the first real Metroidvania game), so I would still say that he is at least one of the creators of an entire genre.
As it turns out, when you take a character that's largely viewed as a strong badass, it's *probably* a bad idea to turn him/her into an emotional trainwreck that depends on someone else for everything. Shocking, I know!
This was one of those times I saw the thumbnail and instinctively went, out loud: “oh yeah what *did* happen with that?!?!”
The geek critique goes into more detail about this shitfest.......granted if you have an hour to spare XD
@@VLikaru I watched the Geek Critique video a few months ago. Damn, it was long, but it made this Wha Happun almost feel disappointing and shallow in comparison.
@@effrumtheretardo Geek Critique tends to take his time and isn't tied on deadlines. Channels like these need a new video every week but hey, its something.
I find it hilarious that they want to develop Samus as a character, while Samus has already been developed pretty well through atmosphere and subtle storytelling
5:19 "A rare gap" *zooms into DK's cheeks* was enough to make even Matt laugh 😂
Oh goodness, knowing that Sakimoto was completely behind everything in this game just feels so wrong. He's alright with Samus going into shock after seeing Ridley for the 6th time in her life. He's alright with Samus being bossed around by some guy for the whole game. He's alright with these long and droning cutscenes.
Bleugh.
@@isauldron4337 Other M completely ruined Metroid's reputation and gave us a void of zero Metroid content for years upon years. It's okay to be pissed off about an older game.
@@isauldron4337 BRUH anyone can hate a movie or game forever and ever. Fucking M Night Shyamalan's Last Airbender movie was absolute dog shit and people still hate it to this day. There is no reason to let something go if it comes up again, the video talks about Other M and as such I can get to COMMENT about Other M under this video. I don't think of this game 24/7.
Basically: He added that "little bit" of what was going on inside Samus's head into Fusion, which is why Fusion is an amazing game. He then added a metric shitload more into Other M, which is why that game is a steaming pile of horse manure. He was trying to do the things that he thought was the selling point of 2D games in 3D, in the first such game he made. And that almost never works.
I’m so glad Metroid wasn’t killed at Other M. We now have Metroid Dread in October, and Prime 4 on the way as well.
Just, no more character destruction, please Sakamoto
So basically, complete director-to-audience disconnect.
Also director-to-source-material and director-to-common-sense.
Coming back here after Metroid Dread is such a trip because the Dread team absolutely nailed Samus in dread
all they had to do was create the textbook definition of a Stone Cold Badass
Sakamoto was never a good writer IMO, yes the story of Super Metroid is effective but it’s extremely simple, most of the atmospheric work wasn’t done by him. Sakamoto finally got a chance to create an in-depth story and he fumbled it so badly that he should never be allowed touch the series again or he’ll kill it completely.
The Japan exclusive The Frog For Whom the Bell Tolls had a pretty good story
@@車食べたい He'd probably does better with simpler more humorous stories.
車食べたい it’s a simple story that doesn’t take itself seriously which is pretty much the antithesis of what Other M is. Sakamoto tried to add poorly developed layers to the universe of Metroid and in the process assassinated a character built up to be fierce and independent to advance his idea of a deeper world.
Oh I agree with that, I just disagree with the he was never a good writer part. He isn't good at writing deep stuff, but he can write pretty funny stuff while staying true to the game's world/story like in Bell Frog & Card Hero.
Thinking about this made me wonder how Famicom Tantei Club holds up, haven't played that one
Ah, the George Lucas syndrome.
Actually not completely fair, Lucas has some pretty good ideas that he executes terribly when left to his own devicds. Sakamoto has fucking terrible ideas but he can at least make a mediocre game out of them
Matt im loving the new intro, im glad youve kept pushing wha happun to bigger and better heights.
Greasy Tommy Wiseau hair is some kind of curse for creatives apparently.
I recently heard someone's tinfoil hat conspiracy fan theory that this Samus is actually a clone created by the Federation and this is one big test run to gauge her abilities. If someone in the Federation is willing to experiment with bioweapons, what's stopping them from playing with the DNA of a woman whose genetic makeup is partly that of a forgotten alien race? It'd explain the contradicting lore (artificially implanted memories), her lack of emotional maturity, why she can't do anything without authorization, and why she's so damn short. Seriously, Samus is canonically 6'3" and here she's about 5'2".
I think Paper Mario sticker star would be a great episode in what happened.
@@princeblackelf4265 So it's just going to be a rethread of the events that led to what we have here like Metroid Other M? As far as I know Miyamoto basically fucked up royally in the eyes of fans, critics and all by just trying to do away with a formula that actually works. Like our little producer here for Metroid. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
Just for fun, I'm gonna try my hand at scripting an exchange between Samus and that "remember me?" space marine that makes Samus more appealing and natural-sounding than Other M, without straying from how other games in the series portray her. Indulge me for a moment.
(Arriving in a new area of the game after defeating a boss, Samus takes a moment to sit on some wreckage and remove her helmet, having confirmed the air to be breathable. She spots something in the environment that shows her reflection. She takes a moment to look at herself, her eyebrows raising in what appears to be surprise, before a content smile forms on her face. At that moment, the marine catches up with her.)
Marine: "...Huh. I didn't peg you for the type to care all that much about your appearance."
Samus: (a look of irritation crosses her face for a brief moment before returning to a neutral expression) "I'll ignore the implied insult. Normally, you'd be right, anyway. Being that these missions typically see me spending several hours encased in a metal suit, I usually have neither a reason nor time to put much effort into my physical appearance."
Marine: "Sorry, sorry. So why the sudden interest now?"
Samus: "It's less out of a sense of vanity and more out of a sense of...discomfort. To put it colloquially, my reflection weirds me out."
Marine: "...I don't see anything wrong with it."
Samus: "That's the problem. Despite my aforementioned lack of reason and time to care for my appearance, I--" (She turns to look at the Marine, then toward the ground, looking unsure of herself as she hesitates. The marine waits for her to continue, and soon enough her eyes meet his once more) "...Disregarding your own taste in women, you would consider me _conventionally_ attractive. True or false?"
Marine: "...I get the feeling this question only has one right answer."
Samus: "Heh...Maybe so. I haven't tried asking this before. Answer me, true or false?"
Marine: (He stays silent for a moment, eyes avoiding Samus' to show his discomfort with being put on the spot) "...Fine, true."
Samus: "I agree. I'd say I'm...at least an eigh--"
Marine: "Ten."
Samus: "...Thank you. Very well, I'm a ten. My point is, I'm not sure why that is. I've just spent the last several hours performing physically strenuous activities in high-risk situations. I should be soaked in sweat, hair matted to my face, and have bags under my eyes, at minimum. And yet, when I look at my reflection, I appear, if I may say so, downright immaculate. All I've done today and shower and tie my ponytail to keep my hair out of the way in the suit."
Marine: "...Alright, now that you mention it, that _is_ pretty weird. Although, come to think of it, you're not 100% human, right?"
Samus: "Correct, I--" (She pauses and gives the marine a disapproving look) "I'm beginning to notice a consistent lack of tact on your part. Try to work on that."
Marine: "Ooh! RIght, sorry..."
Samus: "The only conclusion I can derive is that the Chozo DNA in my genes provides me with some comparatively mundane health benefits, in addition to the physical capabilities the Federation valued me so much for."
Marine: "Maybe. I'd say you should try to get the science boys to run some tests, but good luck getting them to care about anything about you that doesn't have to do with winning fights."
Samus: (She stays silent for a moment, then puts her helmet back on and stands up.)
Marine: "...Guess I said something insensitive again. Sorry."
Samus: "It's alright. I need that reminder sometimes. That people in the Federation see me as a weapon first and a woman second...if at all."
Damn that was good
Also the marine's name is anthony
Now I've got a "Can't Unhear It" of Jennifer Hale (voiced Samus's grunts in the Prime Trilogy) and Phil LaMarr (voiced Green Lantern John Stewart in DCAU Justice League) as those two voicing Samus Aran and Anthony Higgs respectively through that dialogue.
That "SCENE" in this game still angers me to this day.
There are three of those, and I'm angry at those.
what scene?
Let's say that killing a certain enemy multiple times to a point in previous games a certain awesome lady shrugs in a way of saying "Not this again" all of a sudden freeze up and can't do anything therefore becomes a damsel in distress which is the complete antithesis of this series.
@@songohan3321 what about getting shot in the back by the guy who was her commander.
@@EduardoFlores-bt4fo Sorry. I had completely suppressed that scene in my subconscious.
>Passion project game doesn't sell well
>ends up no longer involved in any more games he helped create...
Ouch...that seems kinda har-
>feels they did NOTHING wrong
Keep an eye on this guy...
The thing is, he has been critical to the creation of Samus Returns and Dread, which only exists because it’s an idea he wanted to make a reality for 15 years. So he’s basically the single person trying to keep the 2D Metroid series alive.
This was my first Metroid game, and I liked it back then. Now, after playing much more of the series, I understand the issues in it
I think the best way to get Metroid back on track is to make a truly awesome, heavily stylized Doom-like FPS on Switch but still keep the aspect of finding new gadgets to pass through different areas with. It would be sick.
So Metroid Prime 4 then.
@@MattMcMuscles...now that I think about it, yes, exactly that. This is why I'm not in the industry, lol.
Bring in Isabelle to teach her how to "Rip and Tear,"
Hooray for Dread, since this game is no longer the most recent original game that wasn’t in the main series.
Nintendo: WhAt HaPpEn?
Sakamoto: I mAdE iT pErFeCt!
Samus: "The baby."
Me: "Less goooo."
Who's coming back to this video after Sakamoto's redemption arc with Dread?
@@wallacesousuke1433 lol, get good
“The baby is the key to all of this, if we can just get the baby working, cuz it’s a funnier character than we’ve ever had before.”
Well, at least we have Metroid Dread now. Which is a 10/10.
Samus Aran ft. DA BABY - Other M's (Millions)
Sakamoto was producer on Samus Returns and the upcoming Dread....he is still involved.
This shows that he learn from his mistakes
Top of Drake meme: Nintendo Direct Mini
Bottom of Drake meme: Metroid: Other M Wha Happun?
I 100% agree
Honestly any time I stopped and wondered what was going on inside Samus' head I imagined it was similar to what was going on inside my head. "Okay, where am I? How do I get here? Time to kick butt" It's kinda immersive like that. She's discovering and understanding this world at the same rate I am
But honestly if I had joined the fandom much earlier, I would genuinely be interested in finding out more about her as a character. I know how it really turned out but conceptually I'd be on board. But that might just be me
DM: You're tasked with making a new Metroid game for the Wii U. What do you do?
Sakamoto: I focus on the story in addition to the gameplay and bring on help from Team Ninja. I want to present Samus as an appealing human character.
DM: Okay, sounds fine. Sakomoto, go ahead and roll for success.
_Sakamoto rolls a 4_
DM: Not great; reception on the story isn't great but otherwise pretty decent game.
Hiyashi: Can I roll to assist?
DM: Sure, what're you rolling to fix?
Hiyashi: To make Samus an appealing, ultimate female hero in the game universe.
DM: Roll.
_Hiyashi rolls a 1_
DM: Okay. You instead present Samus as constantly needing the authorization from a man, incessantly talking about the baby Metroid, traumatized by Ridley in spite of the previous games where she had no trouble fighting him, and all around just nowhere close to a bad-ass.
If you need evidence as to why the story in this game is like mouldy cheese, let me point you to the end of Metroid 2 on the game boy. The last Metroid hatched from an egg and doesn’t immediately latch onto Samus like other Metroids, but rather sees her like a mother - And flies around her. Together they exit planet sr388, the infant chewing at crystals in their way to help who it believed to be its mother get to the surface. This is incredible visual storytelling...
Now compare it to other m... eww.
Ok so this is an embarrassing revelation but uh, I was given Metroid Other M with no instruction manual. So I had NO IDEA I was supposed to turn the wiimote sideways, and never figured out how to open the very first door of the game.
Considering I was given the game by a friend, I just assumed "I guess this disc doesn't work or it doesn't want to load" as it was scratched a little bit. Now knowing I was supposed to turn the controller sideways... big oof.
Nobody:
Samus: T H E B A B Y 👁👄👁
Anyone watching this video post Metroid Dread, cause that was a hell of a comeback for the franchise imo.
Do you know why Mario and Link were silent during their recent games? Because it’s extremely difficult to transition a silent protagonist to a speaking one.
PlayStation AllStars Battle Royale or that DC Comics MOBA called Infinite Crisis would both make for great episodes.
Experiment Status Report Update: Metroid Project "Dread" is Completed
I saw this in my notifications and my immediate thought was “oh god..”
The fact that Samus has more personality in Metroid Prime, a game where she doesn't speak and relies entirely on body language and the rare facial cue, says something.
If you ignore the storyline aspects of Other M, it isn't completely horrible, but oof, what we got out of the writing was absolutely abysmal.