New Metroid came out last week. I spent a few days playing it. In that time, I completed the main story, and then got all the items, and then cleared the bonus story. I have yet to touch hard mode, but only for my sanity.
Yes, for those who don't care much for a second run through straight away, Other M is a shortish game. I blasted through the whole thing in about 10 hours. But then Metroid games have always been about clearing them quickly. Only the fastest got to find out about Samus' gender in the first game. And there are those who may take the game at their own pace. I tend to feel better when I'm doing things faster.
Which is why Metroid Other M is so entertaining for me. In other Metroid games, it was a perfectly good strategy to stand far away from what might try and kill you and shoot it first. Here, more often than not, the enemies are more likely to ambush you or run straight into you as soon as you enter the room rather then follow a set pattern. Making contact hard to avoid. But the combat style calls for it. Your beam is weak. But the charge shot is much more powerful. But that takes time. However, if you dodge enemy attacks by tapping the d-pad and holding 1, you get a boost to your charge, making it fill almost instantly. This is the way to kill almost anything. Dodge, shoot, dodge, shoot. In later parts of the game, you have to dodge a lot more.
It's also a lot more physical. Samus has a few heavy damage moves up her sleeve when she gets the chance. If the opponent has a back that;s safe to land on, you can jump on it and fire a nice ball of plasma down it's spine. Or for the quick kill, stun it, then run towards it while again charging your beam. Samus will shove her arm cannon into the nearest available orifice and fill it with PAIN. The last bit of power you have in your arsenal is your trusty missiles.
Now, for most of the game, you're in 3rd person. This works better than you'd expect. Most of the map layout is built for d-pad navigation, and it never gets in the way of things. However, point you remote at the screen and you go into 1st person mode. Used for two things. Looking for points of interest, and blowing stuff up with missiles. In combat, this becomes a slight issue. The movement is fluid enough, but I found it tricky to dodge attacks. So I found it best to use it on stunned or far away enemies.
Now the main point of Other M is that it has an actual plot. With voice acting and emotion and all that. And this is delivered brilliantly. It starts where Super Metroid ended. The death of Mother Brain. After her report at the Galactic Federation, the people who hired her and law enforcers of the Galaxy, she gets a distress signal from a ship. Heading there, she finds the place deserted apart from a GF squad, who had arrived before her. She decides to join them and get to the bottom of what happened on the ship. Included in the squadron are two characters of note. The first, is Anthony Higgs. He's the first to recognise Samus, and the first to greet her. And old friend, he calls her princess as a jibe. He's also the token black guy. You know the one in every space adventure with marines. He also has a big gun. It shoots lasers.
The second guy is the more important one. Adam Malkovich. The plot is mostly about the relation between Samus and Adam and Samus' past. However, he instantly comes across as a dick to the player, because he's also the guy who get's to decide what weapons you use and when you get to use them. Most of the time, it's pretty reasonable. But one example stands out as pure stupidity on his part. As par with the course, there's and area with high temperatures. You have the Varia Suit, you just haven't been authorised to use it yet. So you run through three lava filled rooms, and up the inside a volcano before Adam tells you to turn it on. I'm not sure who's at fault here. Adam, who's only reason to prevent you from using some weapons is for the others safety, (which is confusing, because the Varia suit can't hurt a thing) or Samus, for taking Adams orders too seriously. It's annoying, but it's at least a change from losing all your items at the start of the game plot.
One final main change to the game is that the enemies don't drop health or missiles any more. Missiles and health are both restored at save points, or by holding the remote up and holding A. Missiles can be refiled at any time and takes about a second to do so, while health can only be restored while it's "critical" and only back up to a certain amount. While you may think this makes the game easy, you;re a sitting duck while recharging, health taking about three second to restore. More than enough time for something to hit you, cancelling the whole process. It all encourages you to not get hit in the first place. As for hard mode, this removes all expansions in the game, leaving you with only 5 missile and 99 health throughout. Best practice that dodging.
The voice acting works really well. At first, I thought Samus voice was wooden, and monotone. A sure sign of bad acting. But it soon dawned on me that the whole thing was intentional. It all adds to who she is and what kind of person Samus has become. This is one of the few good games, that also has good voice acting. The emotions really come through, and you find yourself feeling for the characters.
So, team ninja made a great Metroid game. And without the use of "jiggle physics" either. And I recommend you get it.
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