Pros:
+ Some of the best visual fidelity out of any Wii game
+ Concept is interesting, following Samus directly after Super Metroid but before Fusion. I think there is a story to be told there. Same with the 3D platformer perspective as opposed to the Prime games' FPA approach.
+ Combat is idiotically simplistic, but admittedly still kind of fun
+ The origin/evolutionary line the game gives for Ridley's species is absolutely excellent. I love the idea that the huge, spiky space pirate we know and love from the other games was originally a tiny, white-colored and furry Little Birdie. This minor factoid is literally the single best thing about this entire godforsaken game, and that's saying something.
Cons:
- Level and world design is repulsively bad. I'm no stranger to linear hallways in 3D Metroid games, Prime 3's my favorite Prime game after all, but the way Other M does it is especially horrid. Environments are rarely - if ever - interesting-looking, with seemingly all depth and detail having been sucked out of them. Each area in the game is basically just a circular road (with little to no crossroads) you shoot through rather than an interconnected world. It doesn't even make sense in the context of being inside a Federation research vessel. Why are all of the doors decorative instead of actual shortcuts? At least Fusion's linear areas still had interesting theming, and Prime 3 especially so. Prime 3's linearity was also alleviated with the fact that you could call your gunship to different parts of the world and cut on the backtracking. Other M's seemingly infinitely generating hallways are so bland, that you couldn't describe or discern any different traits about them without looking at the map.
- I'll mention the core upgrades later as part of the story breakdown, but the rest of the item progression is also very bad for seemingly non-story-related reasons. The specific location of Energy Tanks and Missile Upgrades are directly shown on the map so the linear hallways don't even have the benefit of fleshing them out by housing secret upgrades in interesting spots. There is almost zero reason to backtrack, ever. It's effectively not even really a metroidvania other than by name.
- For some reason, the game's director decided it would be a good idea to design the game to be played with a single horizontal Wii Remote. The outcome is as you'd expect: a game focused on fast-paced combat and precise three-dimensional movement makes you use a tiny D-Pad and three other main buttons on the controller. Yoshio Sakamoto claimed this would improve the developers' creativity in designing around the controller's limitations, but what it actually did is force the developers to make the rooms so narrow and dimensionally straightforward that you basically just keep running forwards and occasionally turning left or right. Perhaps the most hilarious part of the controls, however, is the fact that to increase your missile ammo you have to lift up your Wiimote, and to precisely aim those missiles you have to start aiming the usually horizontal Wiimote at your screen. Absolutely bafflng.
- While the combat feels fun, it's also moronically easy. You can just spam dodge moves that automatically charge your beam to full, so you're never in a bad situation except when against specific bosses with huge attacks or multiple unreachable enemies shooting projectiles.
- I mentioned earlier that the game's graphical fidelity is high. I chose those specific words, because its actual designs are dog water. The lighting and polygon count looks impressive, sure, but there is no inspiration or detail in any of the characters, environments or backgrounds. Samus' suit is one of - if not the worst - in the entire franchise, with its smooth edges, minimalistic depths and lack of any striking elements (aside from its color) making it look like a generic mecha suit from a B-tier anime from the early oughts.
- Following the uninteresting visual designs, Other M's music is also either forgettable at best or offensively bad at worst. It's so bad that Smash Ultimate didn't even bring any of its music over from Smash 4, where it was used for the Pyrosphere stage inspired by Other M.
- Other M is extremely derivative (light-to-medium spoilers incoming). It's full of fanservice, got barely any ideas of its own and even when it does, they are executed horribly. The game has a fake Ridley that fails to explain Neo Ridley's existence in Fusion (because lore accuracy was never the point, the developers just thought that they need a Ridley in the game). It has a Queen Metroid, a "Mother Brain" and even a Phantoon, just because they're bosses that people would recognize from previous Metroid games. The game even has a sequence referencing the Zero Suit Samus section from Zero Mission's ending, because the developers didn't know how to properly finish up the story. The entire game incoherently mashes up uninspired retreads of previous elements like this, trying to fill up the holes left open by its embarrassingly unengaging narrative and gameplay.
- Next are some story spoilers, which you don't have to read through, but rest assured, you would not have fun with the core gameplay of this game even if you completely ignored the horrible narrative tying it all together.
(FULL STORY SPOILERS are next, please don't scroll lower if you want to experience it for yourself, for some reason. I don't usually do this for games I review as I like to keep them spoiler-free, but so much of why Other M doesn't work is directly tied to its lore that I can't not talk about it.)
Cons regarding story:
- As mentioned above, Other M fails to create a story that follows any logic or canon, even contradicting itself during the course of the game. I'm not a person who usually cares for a deep story, but Other M fails in its narrative so incredibly badly that it - for once - actively hurts the experience of the game, and even the entire Metroid franchise in general. It's so indescribably bad, that I needed to write this entire separate section of my review.
• Firstly and worstly, Samus' characterization. It's all over the place, and definitely not consistent to this or previous games. She is written to be way more submissive, dependent on outside (male) help and generally being nothing like the silent badass she appeared as in previous or later games. Even her suit reflects this deep misunderstanding of her character: it's sleeker, presents more feminine, and is stripped of any of the general and menacing androgynous efficiency that her previous iterations exhibited. The most egregious example of the butchering of Samus' character undoubtedly comes in the form of her having a PTSD trigger attack when she sees Ridley again at roughly the midpoint of the game. This makes zero sense, and proves the developers did not care to follow any logical consistency.
Even if you only account for the 2D Metroids that occur prior to this game's story, she has met and defeated Ridley three times already. If you also want to include the more canonical Metroid Manga as well as the Prime saga that had released at the time (as you should), she's fought Ridley at least 7 times. And seen him without fighting him even more often. It makes less than zero sense that she is having a PTSD attack right now, in Other M.
• Adam isn't how he is in Fusion, either. Fusion's AI Adam is cold-hearted, calculative and logical, sure, but it's implied that's just because he's a computer. He softens at the end of that game and Samus also describes him as a caring commander when she still worked for him directly. But not in Other M.
The Adam players see in Other M is not the same person. He's rude, commanding, unimpressive as a role model and even genuinely stupid. He exhibits none of the traits Samus gushed over in Fusion. I wouldn't even have a problem with Samus idolizing Adam in this game if he actually reflected the description that Samus gave of him, but he's just not a likeable character. Not even in a flawed, Tony Stark-like way.
• The biggest issue about Adam also relates to one of the biggest issues with the entire game: the upgrade authorization system. With respect to the developers, they actually tried to explain why Samus loses all of his upgrades at the beginning of every game. Too bad their explanation is horrible, and the lore is genuinely better off without it. Samus apparently has all of her upgrades already downloaded onto her suit or something, but she chooses not to use them. When we meet her at the beginning of the game, she's using her Power Suit for some reason. This makes zero sense if she was just flying around alone, then being summoned to the Federation's ship. When Samus meets Adam, she's ordered not to use her upgrades, for... vague, incomprehensible non-reasons. Adam says he'll only "authorize" certain upgrades if Samus seems to need them and he feels like being nice. My three favorite, worst examples of this authorization system in action go as follows:
1: Samus is in Pyrosphere, an area of the huge ship with a dangerously hot climate. She's been in the insulated areas for now, so it hasn't been a problem, but she could've already received her Varia Suit earlier to protect her from possible heat attacks, but isn't given it earlier for whatever reason. The point where she's "authorized" to use a life-saving suit modification is when a monster destroys the tube she's running through and she's already in a molten environment. Adam sees Samus' health already getting drained by the elements and at that point chooses to allow Samus use the Varia Suit.
2: In another part, in Cryosphere, Samus is trapped in a glass box by her enemies. These enemies can shoot her through the box's walls, but Samus can't shoot back to disable the trap. Only after multiple seconds of evading attacks does Samus finally get authorization to use the Wave Beam so she can shoot the enemies through walls. Amazing.
3: Finally, close to the end of the game, Samus is about to fly out of a vacuum hatch in the ship, literally being meters away from getting sucked out into outer space. Adam is unresponsive in her pleas to authorize the Gravity Suit, so she activates the suit upgrade herself. Samus has had the ability to authorize the upgrades herself all this time, but chose to threaten her own life to enable Adam's weird and idiotic power fantasy.
• The main villain of the game is Mother Brain, or Melissa Bergman, or "MB". She's the titular "Other M" in the title, as in another M, another Mother Brain. I know, very clever. Apparently the Galactic Federation preserved a version of the original Mother Brain as a human scientist, who then went rogue on the Bottle Ship and employed all of the different enemies to attack the Federation so MB could take escape and take control of the Metroids once again. To accomplish this, she changed her name to Melissa Bergman (maintaining her initials for whatever reason) and blended in with the scientists so she could enact her plan. Unfortunately for her, she was caught. Now, if this plan and character sounds idiotic to you, rest assured, it is.
• All of the supporting side characters are also mostly very bland and uninteresting. The game has no real deep themes to be had, despite seeing itself as a serious piece of media. For whatever reason, the developers actually thought this material was good enough to warrant a "Movie Mode" in the game, which just plays all of the game's cutscenes in order.
• Most of the dialogue is simplistic, thesaurus-filled fluff. The director doesn't know how to write believable characters, so half the time Samus is just monologuing about how the baby Metroid saved her at the end of Super Metroid.
TL;DR, don't play this game. Trust others when they tell you it's bad. Sometimes your psychological wellbeing has to go above the principle of playing a game before criticizing it.
+ Some of the best visual fidelity out of any Wii game
+ Concept is interesting, following Samus directly after Super Metroid but before Fusion. I think there is a story to be told there. Same with the 3D platformer perspective as opposed to the Prime games' FPA approach.
+ Combat is idiotically simplistic, but admittedly still kind of fun
+ The origin/evolutionary line the game gives for Ridley's species is absolutely excellent. I love the idea that the huge, spiky space pirate we know and love from the other games was originally a tiny, white-colored and furry Little Birdie. This minor factoid is literally the single best thing about this entire godforsaken game, and that's saying something.
Cons:
- Level and world design is repulsively bad. I'm no stranger to linear hallways in 3D Metroid games, Prime 3's my favorite Prime game after all, but the way Other M does it is especially horrid. Environments are rarely - if ever - interesting-looking, with seemingly all depth and detail having been sucked out of them. Each area in the game is basically just a circular road (with little to no crossroads) you shoot through rather than an interconnected world. It doesn't even make sense in the context of being inside a Federation research vessel. Why are all of the doors decorative instead of actual shortcuts? At least Fusion's linear areas still had interesting theming, and Prime 3 especially so. Prime 3's linearity was also alleviated with the fact that you could call your gunship to different parts of the world and cut on the backtracking. Other M's seemingly infinitely generating hallways are so bland, that you couldn't describe or discern any different traits about them without looking at the map.
- I'll mention the core upgrades later as part of the story breakdown, but the rest of the item progression is also very bad for seemingly non-story-related reasons. The specific location of Energy Tanks and Missile Upgrades are directly shown on the map so the linear hallways don't even have the benefit of fleshing them out by housing secret upgrades in interesting spots. There is almost zero reason to backtrack, ever. It's effectively not even really a metroidvania other than by name.
- For some reason, the game's director decided it would be a good idea to design the game to be played with a single horizontal Wii Remote. The outcome is as you'd expect: a game focused on fast-paced combat and precise three-dimensional movement makes you use a tiny D-Pad and three other main buttons on the controller. Yoshio Sakamoto claimed this would improve the developers' creativity in designing around the controller's limitations, but what it actually did is force the developers to make the rooms so narrow and dimensionally straightforward that you basically just keep running forwards and occasionally turning left or right. Perhaps the most hilarious part of the controls, however, is the fact that to increase your missile ammo you have to lift up your Wiimote, and to precisely aim those missiles you have to start aiming the usually horizontal Wiimote at your screen. Absolutely bafflng.
- While the combat feels fun, it's also moronically easy. You can just spam dodge moves that automatically charge your beam to full, so you're never in a bad situation except when against specific bosses with huge attacks or multiple unreachable enemies shooting projectiles.
- I mentioned earlier that the game's graphical fidelity is high. I chose those specific words, because its actual designs are dog water. The lighting and polygon count looks impressive, sure, but there is no inspiration or detail in any of the characters, environments or backgrounds. Samus' suit is one of - if not the worst - in the entire franchise, with its smooth edges, minimalistic depths and lack of any striking elements (aside from its color) making it look like a generic mecha suit from a B-tier anime from the early oughts.
- Following the uninteresting visual designs, Other M's music is also either forgettable at best or offensively bad at worst. It's so bad that Smash Ultimate didn't even bring any of its music over from Smash 4, where it was used for the Pyrosphere stage inspired by Other M.
- Other M is extremely derivative (light-to-medium spoilers incoming). It's full of fanservice, got barely any ideas of its own and even when it does, they are executed horribly. The game has a fake Ridley that fails to explain Neo Ridley's existence in Fusion (because lore accuracy was never the point, the developers just thought that they need a Ridley in the game). It has a Queen Metroid, a "Mother Brain" and even a Phantoon, just because they're bosses that people would recognize from previous Metroid games. The game even has a sequence referencing the Zero Suit Samus section from Zero Mission's ending, because the developers didn't know how to properly finish up the story. The entire game incoherently mashes up uninspired retreads of previous elements like this, trying to fill up the holes left open by its embarrassingly unengaging narrative and gameplay.
- Next are some story spoilers, which you don't have to read through, but rest assured, you would not have fun with the core gameplay of this game even if you completely ignored the horrible narrative tying it all together.
(FULL STORY SPOILERS are next, please don't scroll lower if you want to experience it for yourself, for some reason. I don't usually do this for games I review as I like to keep them spoiler-free, but so much of why Other M doesn't work is directly tied to its lore that I can't not talk about it.)
Cons regarding story:
- As mentioned above, Other M fails to create a story that follows any logic or canon, even contradicting itself during the course of the game. I'm not a person who usually cares for a deep story, but Other M fails in its narrative so incredibly badly that it - for once - actively hurts the experience of the game, and even the entire Metroid franchise in general. It's so indescribably bad, that I needed to write this entire separate section of my review.
• Firstly and worstly, Samus' characterization. It's all over the place, and definitely not consistent to this or previous games. She is written to be way more submissive, dependent on outside (male) help and generally being nothing like the silent badass she appeared as in previous or later games. Even her suit reflects this deep misunderstanding of her character: it's sleeker, presents more feminine, and is stripped of any of the general and menacing androgynous efficiency that her previous iterations exhibited. The most egregious example of the butchering of Samus' character undoubtedly comes in the form of her having a PTSD trigger attack when she sees Ridley again at roughly the midpoint of the game. This makes zero sense, and proves the developers did not care to follow any logical consistency.
Even if you only account for the 2D Metroids that occur prior to this game's story, she has met and defeated Ridley three times already. If you also want to include the more canonical Metroid Manga as well as the Prime saga that had released at the time (as you should), she's fought Ridley at least 7 times. And seen him without fighting him even more often. It makes less than zero sense that she is having a PTSD attack right now, in Other M.
• Adam isn't how he is in Fusion, either. Fusion's AI Adam is cold-hearted, calculative and logical, sure, but it's implied that's just because he's a computer. He softens at the end of that game and Samus also describes him as a caring commander when she still worked for him directly. But not in Other M.
The Adam players see in Other M is not the same person. He's rude, commanding, unimpressive as a role model and even genuinely stupid. He exhibits none of the traits Samus gushed over in Fusion. I wouldn't even have a problem with Samus idolizing Adam in this game if he actually reflected the description that Samus gave of him, but he's just not a likeable character. Not even in a flawed, Tony Stark-like way.
• The biggest issue about Adam also relates to one of the biggest issues with the entire game: the upgrade authorization system. With respect to the developers, they actually tried to explain why Samus loses all of his upgrades at the beginning of every game. Too bad their explanation is horrible, and the lore is genuinely better off without it. Samus apparently has all of her upgrades already downloaded onto her suit or something, but she chooses not to use them. When we meet her at the beginning of the game, she's using her Power Suit for some reason. This makes zero sense if she was just flying around alone, then being summoned to the Federation's ship. When Samus meets Adam, she's ordered not to use her upgrades, for... vague, incomprehensible non-reasons. Adam says he'll only "authorize" certain upgrades if Samus seems to need them and he feels like being nice. My three favorite, worst examples of this authorization system in action go as follows:
1: Samus is in Pyrosphere, an area of the huge ship with a dangerously hot climate. She's been in the insulated areas for now, so it hasn't been a problem, but she could've already received her Varia Suit earlier to protect her from possible heat attacks, but isn't given it earlier for whatever reason. The point where she's "authorized" to use a life-saving suit modification is when a monster destroys the tube she's running through and she's already in a molten environment. Adam sees Samus' health already getting drained by the elements and at that point chooses to allow Samus use the Varia Suit.
2: In another part, in Cryosphere, Samus is trapped in a glass box by her enemies. These enemies can shoot her through the box's walls, but Samus can't shoot back to disable the trap. Only after multiple seconds of evading attacks does Samus finally get authorization to use the Wave Beam so she can shoot the enemies through walls. Amazing.
3: Finally, close to the end of the game, Samus is about to fly out of a vacuum hatch in the ship, literally being meters away from getting sucked out into outer space. Adam is unresponsive in her pleas to authorize the Gravity Suit, so she activates the suit upgrade herself. Samus has had the ability to authorize the upgrades herself all this time, but chose to threaten her own life to enable Adam's weird and idiotic power fantasy.
• The main villain of the game is Mother Brain, or Melissa Bergman, or "MB". She's the titular "Other M" in the title, as in another M, another Mother Brain. I know, very clever. Apparently the Galactic Federation preserved a version of the original Mother Brain as a human scientist, who then went rogue on the Bottle Ship and employed all of the different enemies to attack the Federation so MB could take escape and take control of the Metroids once again. To accomplish this, she changed her name to Melissa Bergman (maintaining her initials for whatever reason) and blended in with the scientists so she could enact her plan. Unfortunately for her, she was caught. Now, if this plan and character sounds idiotic to you, rest assured, it is.
• All of the supporting side characters are also mostly very bland and uninteresting. The game has no real deep themes to be had, despite seeing itself as a serious piece of media. For whatever reason, the developers actually thought this material was good enough to warrant a "Movie Mode" in the game, which just plays all of the game's cutscenes in order.
• Most of the dialogue is simplistic, thesaurus-filled fluff. The director doesn't know how to write believable characters, so half the time Samus is just monologuing about how the baby Metroid saved her at the end of Super Metroid.
TL;DR, don't play this game. Trust others when they tell you it's bad. Sometimes your psychological wellbeing has to go above the principle of playing a game before criticizing it.