My Metroid is Tarnished.

I bought it the day it came out. I got the special art pack for pre-ordering the game. I beat it in one week, 100% item collection rate. I traded it in before it was out for a month. I am so disappointed to the point I have to write about it.

Metroid: Other M is supposed to be a good game. This is an utterly biased statement, but I have good reason for making it. Every Metroid game I have ever played, ever, and I have played them all (haven’t beaten all of them, but most of them) has been an excellent experience [CORRECTION; Metroid Corruption was only OK to me, and Hunters was passable, and I refuse to acknowledge Pinball as a true Metroid game]. Either way, the term Metroid is synonymous with “good game”. That tradition is now broken. Enough patter, I will know elaborate.

Other M (OM) is the first Metroid game made by Team Ninja, the guys behind Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive. I guaranteed this is the last time they will touch a Metroid game, too. So they tried to make it very similar to Ninja Gaiden with a very fast paced Metroid game as opposed to being an explorative one like every other Metroid. This seems like an awesome idea, it really gives Samus a reason to use that gun attached to her arm. All is not well, though, as the Wii’s controls don’t allow for a very accurate movement in a 3-D environment using only a D-Pad. So it uses auto-aiming, which is somewhat accurate. Here’s my problem with the combat though, it is degraded down to room around the room while charging your gun, aim in the general direction of the enemy, fire. Occasionally, you have to fire your missiles, which involve s aim the Wiimote at the screen. This seems like an interesting mechanic, except you can’t move while doing this. This also would have been an ok mechanic, had this been completely different from EVERY METROID GAME EVER MADE. In literally EVERY METROID GAME EVER MADE you can fire your missiles while moving, as if you were using your arm cannon, just a more powerful and slower version of it. In this game you must lock on to your target, while standing still, and fire a missile from there. In a high action game this title wants to be, this is not a good thing at all. It’s a complete break in the action that is just not necessary.
Enough of the shooting, let’s just get to why so many people hate the story of this game. It’s sexist. My wife calls me sexist all of the time; I just might be a little bit. This game though, basically says that women are inferior, especially as soldiers, they are whiney brats as teenagers, and are intolerably irrational. Had I said any of those things to my wife she would slap me. OM says it throughout the entire game. I think the thing that pisses me off the most, is that Samus enters this mission FULLY F**KING POWERED UP, the same way she was back at the end of Super Metroid. But she chooses to restrict her powers because her former commander from WHO CARES how long ago says she can’t. At the beginning of the game, some soldiers you meet can’t progress because they can’t open the damn door. Samus blasts it open with a missile like only she can, and they STILL choose to restrict her powers. Why she agrees to this is beyond me, since she could have easily said “No”, or rather “Perhaps you have forgotten I can destroy you all by turning into a little ball and laying a Power Bomb?” This pisses me off to no end, because Samus enters this area with an active volcano (on a damn space station?) and chooses not to save her own skin by activating her Varia suit until her commander says “Hey, go ahead and equip you Varia suit.”
This is just a tacked on plot device and I hate every bit of it. I also hated the whole “Concentration thing, where Samus thinks hard and regains all of her missiles (that part I actually didn’t mind) and her health (this I hated). The only way to gain health in this game is to hit up a save point or if you are about to die, concentrate. No health orbs, no rockets scattered, no…..wait a minute. There is also the thing about collected Energy Tanks and Energy parts, which is only 1/4th of an energy tank….and accel charge tanks….

THIS ISN”T A METROID GAME!!!

What we have here a disappointing game created by Team Ninja, it attempts so hard to be a Metroid game. This is the direct sequel to Super Metroid, on of the best game ever created?

Nintendo, listen: Metroid games in 2D are gold. Every 2D Metroid game has sold millions and is top rated. Metroid, Metroid 2, Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, Metroid: Zero Mission, these games are absolutely worth every penny to make them. I would gladly drop $50 to play a good, side scrolling Metroid game on the DS. Here is you mission, should you choose to accept it: Make a good 2D Metroid game, and please, abandon all 3D attempts. Retro Studios has already written the book on 3D Metroid and no other company is going to make one as good. Go back to your roots.