Buried under the cutscenes, the embarrassing & sexist recharacterisation of Samus, the controls and perspective, the horrible artificial progression... underneath it all, believe it or not, is a decent Metroid game. But to get to it, you have to dig.
Let's get it out of the way - the cutscenes suck. They're long, with little substance. Samus' voiceover is flat, yet also absent-minded and dreamy, as if the VA was talking in their sleep. And she's short now. 0/10 bad game. These are just a few of the changes that, in accordance with the woeful script, recharacterise Samus as a helpless and naïve child in need of authority. It's completely nonsensical.
But, when the narrative gets out of the game's way, things are a little better. Other M wants you to feel like a ninja, not a tank, and when you learn to play along, it can feel great. Can. Regular enemies hit pretty hard, since the game expects you to be using 'Sensemove' to dodge attacks and 'Overblast' to kill enemies quickly - good luck trying to play the game without these, because you'll be heavily punished for running/jumping away from attacks and you'll run out of missiles pretty quick. But, when you start using these, it's pretty hard to stop, since they're pretty overpowered. Spamming directions on the d-pad will make you nearly invulnerable in most combat situations.
Another issue that myself and most others had with the game was the artificial progression. Samus' abilities aren't discovered or augmented during the game, but are instead authorised for use by Adam - or worse, they're completely arbitrarily enabled for a setpiece sequence. Most will point to the Varia Suit cutscene, which is plenty ridiculous already, but I think the most egregious case is the fact that the Gravity Suit is clearly accessible to Samus for the whole game, but she doesn't use it until a setpiece very late in the game (after, by the way, multiple rooms of water that made her immobile and the boss fight against gravity-warping Nightmare).
Metroid gets shtick for how Samus starts every mission with nothing, but Other M pushes this to the extreme, and it really hurts the experience. That said, I'm not sure how else they could've worked in this facet of Metroidvania design - perhaps by taking inspiration from Prime 3 and leaning into the laboratory aspect of the Bottle Ship to frame Samus' upgrades as Federation Army tech created by studying the creatures in the ship's habitats?
All of this bad added up, and I nearly left the game to gather dust. But, I stuck with it, and over the course of the last 30-40% of the game, it somehow redeemed itself. The high point of my playthrough was the fight against Nightmare.
I'm a huge fan of Metroid Fusion, and I love the buildup to the Nightmare fight in that game (at the time, its first appearance) and, to an extent, the fight itself (even if it's a little phoned in). But - and I didn't think I'd be saying this - Other M beats this hands-down, and it's honestly one of the standout sequences & fights in the 3D Metroid series as a whole. The buildup consists of platforming and fighting enemies while gravity flips and warps from room to room, and the fight itself is frantic and dynamic, requiring you to repeatedly freeze Nightmare's gravity manipulator and then pummel its faceplate with missiles Fusion-style, all while Sensemove-dodging attacks and jumping out of the way when it goes on the offensive to sweep you off the platforms. Finally, you whittle its healthbar down and cause its gravity manipulator to malfunction, which smashes the monstrosity against the walls of the arena before it crashes to the ground, destroying its faceplate and revealing the six-eyed creature encased within... a hard-won victory.
...Until 20 minutes later, whereupon backtracking through this room, Nightmare's corpse is absent... until it descends upon you once again as you try to leave, more violent than ever. It goes down easier this time, but it puts up even more of a fight, creating gravity wells that linger in the arena and misdirect your missiles even after freezing its gravity manipulator. What a fight.
The rest of the game up to the credits was a little up and down - the final boss in particular is quite underwhelming. It's a somewhat disappointing end, but then: an epilogue! You're set free on the Bottle Ship once more, with all your abilties to boot. You're back here to retrieve Adam's helmet, but to get there, you have to reveal new paths through the ship using power bombs (finally...) and battling the ferocious Desbrachians that reveal themselves upon detonation. These enemies will put your Sensemove skills to the test, and you'll need to Overblast them at the right time to finish them off. Working my way through the station and collecting the items I missed was honestly quite fun with all my abilities.
And then, one final bonus boss: Phantoon. This one's definitely more of a setpiece than a challenge, especially if you have all the items, but it's amazing nonetheless. And, to top it all off, what we've all been waiting for: a classic Metroid countdown sequence to escape the ship.
What a rollercoaster. Other M started pretty poorly, and took a while to get up to reasonable speed. Had the game ended halfway through, I'd have rated it a 2/5, maybe a 2.5/5 if I was being nice. But the latter half felt like a Metroid game, and significantly redeemed the game. Honestly? I'll probably play it again someday!
Let's get it out of the way - the cutscenes suck. They're long, with little substance. Samus' voiceover is flat, yet also absent-minded and dreamy, as if the VA was talking in their sleep. And she's short now. 0/10 bad game. These are just a few of the changes that, in accordance with the woeful script, recharacterise Samus as a helpless and naïve child in need of authority. It's completely nonsensical.
But, when the narrative gets out of the game's way, things are a little better. Other M wants you to feel like a ninja, not a tank, and when you learn to play along, it can feel great. Can. Regular enemies hit pretty hard, since the game expects you to be using 'Sensemove' to dodge attacks and 'Overblast' to kill enemies quickly - good luck trying to play the game without these, because you'll be heavily punished for running/jumping away from attacks and you'll run out of missiles pretty quick. But, when you start using these, it's pretty hard to stop, since they're pretty overpowered. Spamming directions on the d-pad will make you nearly invulnerable in most combat situations.
Another issue that myself and most others had with the game was the artificial progression. Samus' abilities aren't discovered or augmented during the game, but are instead authorised for use by Adam - or worse, they're completely arbitrarily enabled for a setpiece sequence. Most will point to the Varia Suit cutscene, which is plenty ridiculous already, but I think the most egregious case is the fact that the Gravity Suit is clearly accessible to Samus for the whole game, but she doesn't use it until a setpiece very late in the game (after, by the way, multiple rooms of water that made her immobile and the boss fight against gravity-warping Nightmare).
Metroid gets shtick for how Samus starts every mission with nothing, but Other M pushes this to the extreme, and it really hurts the experience. That said, I'm not sure how else they could've worked in this facet of Metroidvania design - perhaps by taking inspiration from Prime 3 and leaning into the laboratory aspect of the Bottle Ship to frame Samus' upgrades as Federation Army tech created by studying the creatures in the ship's habitats?
All of this bad added up, and I nearly left the game to gather dust. But, I stuck with it, and over the course of the last 30-40% of the game, it somehow redeemed itself. The high point of my playthrough was the fight against Nightmare.
I'm a huge fan of Metroid Fusion, and I love the buildup to the Nightmare fight in that game (at the time, its first appearance) and, to an extent, the fight itself (even if it's a little phoned in). But - and I didn't think I'd be saying this - Other M beats this hands-down, and it's honestly one of the standout sequences & fights in the 3D Metroid series as a whole. The buildup consists of platforming and fighting enemies while gravity flips and warps from room to room, and the fight itself is frantic and dynamic, requiring you to repeatedly freeze Nightmare's gravity manipulator and then pummel its faceplate with missiles Fusion-style, all while Sensemove-dodging attacks and jumping out of the way when it goes on the offensive to sweep you off the platforms. Finally, you whittle its healthbar down and cause its gravity manipulator to malfunction, which smashes the monstrosity against the walls of the arena before it crashes to the ground, destroying its faceplate and revealing the six-eyed creature encased within... a hard-won victory.
...Until 20 minutes later, whereupon backtracking through this room, Nightmare's corpse is absent... until it descends upon you once again as you try to leave, more violent than ever. It goes down easier this time, but it puts up even more of a fight, creating gravity wells that linger in the arena and misdirect your missiles even after freezing its gravity manipulator. What a fight.
The rest of the game up to the credits was a little up and down - the final boss in particular is quite underwhelming. It's a somewhat disappointing end, but then: an epilogue! You're set free on the Bottle Ship once more, with all your abilties to boot. You're back here to retrieve Adam's helmet, but to get there, you have to reveal new paths through the ship using power bombs (finally...) and battling the ferocious Desbrachians that reveal themselves upon detonation. These enemies will put your Sensemove skills to the test, and you'll need to Overblast them at the right time to finish them off. Working my way through the station and collecting the items I missed was honestly quite fun with all my abilities.
And then, one final bonus boss: Phantoon. This one's definitely more of a setpiece than a challenge, especially if you have all the items, but it's amazing nonetheless. And, to top it all off, what we've all been waiting for: a classic Metroid countdown sequence to escape the ship.
What a rollercoaster. Other M started pretty poorly, and took a while to get up to reasonable speed. Had the game ended halfway through, I'd have rated it a 2/5, maybe a 2.5/5 if I was being nice. But the latter half felt like a Metroid game, and significantly redeemed the game. Honestly? I'll probably play it again someday!