Team Ninja put on the spot, calls "not it"

[Cosmonautical]

Don’t Blame Team Ninja For Metroid: Other M’s Story | Kotaku Australia

The latest Metroid game, Other M, took some… liberties with the universe’s story, and what it did to hero Samus in particular didn’t go down too well. Many people blame the game’s developers, Team Ninja for this, but that’s not very fair.

You need to blame someone from Nintendo instead. Something Team Ninja is only too happy to do.

In an interview with G4TV, Team Ninja’s Yosuke Hayashi makes it very clear the game’s story was Nintendo’s job, not his own studio’s.

“The story for Other M was definitely the product of Mr Sakamoto at Nintendo”, he said. “We definitely worked with them on the project, but that was all him.”

Way to keep it subtle, Hayashi! For reference, and as die-hard fans of the series will already know, that’s Yoshio Sakamoto, the co-creator of Metroid itself and director of games like Super Metroid. So as far out as the story seemed, it’s coming from the guy who has had a hand in every Metroid game ever made, so… make of that what you will.

I thought this was a pretty funny one. Of course the writer/director is responsible for the story. Not that they would've done anything better with it.

My biggest complaint about the game would still probably be for the lack of aiming in combat, and how engineered the environment felt (which isn't surprising, considering they set the game on a space station).

[Antisocial]

They're only saying this now?

Or is Kotaku being as "punctual" as ever again?

[Marilink]

I really haven't given Other M a shot. I haven't heard much good. Is it worth it?

[Leinad]

Originally Posted by Marilink

I really haven't given Other M a shot. I haven't heard much good. Is it worth it?

Only if you can ignore the story. And put up with the parts where it stops the flow for like ten minutes whilst you hunt for a clue that may as well be invisible. And if you can put up with the fact that you have basically no ability to explore. And that you may as well not have missiles, as the only way to fire them is to stand perfectly still whilst going into a first person view, which makes you a sitting duck in combat.

I'm pretty sure there's more issues with this game, but having not played it for several months, my rage has subsided somewhat.

[Valigarmander]

^^ The game itself is good. Let's just leave it at that.

[Cosmonautical]

Yeah, it's entertaining and the gameplay mostly isn't bad (still don't like the close combat too much), although you really miss being able to aim shots yourself, especially in side scroller sections. The missile thing isn't as awkward as it sounds once you're a few hours into it. I found the main appeal to be looking for ways to get powerups, although they were mostly hidden in very obvious places.

The visuals of the game are typically above-par for a Wii game, although I can remember a few textures that looked more on-par with a later N64 game. Most of the time it's more than you'd need, though.

The outro/final rally of the game is probably the best part, with its boss illustrating pretty well what the rest of the game was lacking.

The cutscene's the only particularily awful about it. It's boring, but it makes more sense and seems a bit more interesting if you consider Samus to probably be an unreliable narrator. It sounds more like the shallow lies she tells herself about the whole experience, to avoid dealing with her more serious issues. Plus, it helps illustrate the differences between Metroid and Metroid: Zero Mission.