A Response to Extra Credits "Learning from Other M."

[Nackl of Gilmed]

I never played Other M. I'm guessing this whole thing where Samus doesn't use certain powers till the army guy orders her to is just a way of making the Metroid formula not look exactly the same as every previous game, but what was the storyline reason for him doing that? I mean, does he tell her to power down all non-essential functions at the start for some possibly-valid reason, or is it just that you can't use anything till he goes "this corridor is all on fire and stuff Samus. Maybe switch on that heat-resistant armour you've had on you this entire time."

If it's the second option, and there is a sequence where you're burning to death because the Varia suit is just locked out for no reason, then that's really clumsy writing.

 

[DocBalance]

(1) What facts? Did you get this from manga or some other fan-fiction source? Unless Sakamoto-san has said that all the other Ridleys were cybernetically enhanced based on "the pieces she left of him" but somehow were yet not Ridley, up until the Other M one, there is no reason to believe this other than it helps to defend a game you like and the design choices involved. The Ridley at the end of Prime 1 has a mechanical look to it; the rest do not. The Prime games themselves state more than once that Ridley has "recovered" from your last attack.

(2) The only parts of the video involving speculation were about what went wrong at Nintendo and did not pertain to the story. Also, you seemed to miss out on the statements that I bolded and to have forgotten the claim you just made. They haven't told us anything up until this game? Well, not except that the pirates like to take a leftover Ridley-leg and build a robot around it every so often.

(3) Re-read the text you quoted. That's not the statement I made (I bolded it for you, above). Samus walked away from the military after a fellow soldier was left to die, and expected to sacrifice himself for everyone else - and this all from Other M's cinematics. That doesn't gel with the notion that she'd be subservient and sacrifice herself for her former commander. You should face facts - Other M was poorly organized, and in poor taste. Also, in what numerous other occasions did Samus work with the military? Are you referring to the two segments in Prime 3 as "several occasions?"

1. My information comes straight from the games. Especially in the Prime Series, where he primarily appears, Ridley is Meta-Ridley for every appearance save his last, where he has been enhanced to Omega Ridley by Phazon corruption, and is still technically more machine than man. If you've played the games, you should know this, it's a major plot point and it's how all his data entries read when you scan him.

2. Again, you misconstrue what I've said. Nintendo has given us plenty of clues as to who Samus is and how she operates, but we've mis-interpreted them because we want our heroes to be unstoppable stoic space marine badasses instead of actual people who are just trying to hold it together for one more day.

3. She worked with them in Prime 3, and I believe in "Hunters", and I believe at their behest in Super Metroid, as well as Fusion. I not 100% about Super Metroid and Hunters, since I didn't play the latter and it was roughly the Cretaceous Era when I played Super Metroid, but she has collaborated with the Military more than once.

You are assuming someone suffering from psychological disorders is going to act as a rational, consistent being? That's a new twist on how psychology works. Yes, that's made clear from Samus's point of view . As we've already established though, waaaaay back in the original post, I believe Sakamoto is employing the trope of Unreliable Narrator with Samus. What she says and does doesn't add up because it's not supposed to add up. We aren't supposed to understand or relate with her. The reaction you are having is exactly what he was going for, right up until the point where you decided the game just must be bad because your beloved heroine (whom you know less about than we know about the average celebrity) isn't a strong, independent woman, but an emotionally flawed wreck whose life is just paradox after paradox. That's the only outcome that makes sense when you consider what we do know of Samus. I mean, being trained to be a killing machine, set to what is basically genocide, by a race of professed pacifists? That's not something that's easy to rationalize in one's mind.

 

[Aiddon_v1legacy]

I never played Other M. I'm guessing this whole thing where Samus doesn't use certain powers till the army guy orders her to is just a way of making the Metroid formula not look exactly the same as every previous game, but what was the storyline reason for him doing that? I mean, does he tell her to power down all non-essential functions at the start for some possibly-valid reason, or is it just that you can't use anything till he goes "this corridor is all on fire and stuff Samus. Maybe switch on that heat-resistant armour you've had on you this entire time."

If it's the second option, and there is a sequence where you're burning to death because the Varia suit is just locked out for no reason, then that's really clumsy writing.

Her weapons could possibly kill people were a stray shot fired and her power bombs are powerful enough to vaporize things. The Varia Suit is clumsy writing, but unfortunately this is the thing about games: gameplay and story are segregated. That's literally the explanation for the Varia Suit, "because the GAMEPLAY said so"

 

[funguy2121]

1. My information comes straight from the games. Especially in the Prime Series, where he primarily appears, Ridley is Meta-Ridley for every appearance save his last, where he has been enhanced to Omega Ridley by Phazon corruption, and is still technically more machine than man. If you've played the games, you should know this, it's a major plot point and it's how all his data entries read when you scan him.

2. Again, you misconstrue what I've said. Nintendo has given us plenty of clues as to who Samus is and how she operates, but we've mis-interpreted them because we want our heroes to be unstoppable stoic space marine badasses instead of actual people who are just trying to hold it together for one more day.

3. She worked with them in Prime 3, and I believe in "Hunters", and I believe at their behest in Super Metroid, as well as Fusion. I not 100% about Super Metroid and Hunters, since I didn't play the latter and it was roughly the Cretaceous Era when I played Super Metroid, but she has collaborated with the Military more than once.

You are assuming someone suffering from psychological disorders is going to act as a rational, consistent being? That's a new twist on how psychology works. Yes, that's made clear from Samus's point of view . As we've already established though, waaaaay back in the original post, I believe Sakamoto is employing the trope of Unreliable Narrator with Samus. What she says and does doesn't add up because it's not supposed to add up. We aren't supposed to understand or relate with her. The reaction you are having is exactly what he was going for, right up until the point where you decided the game just must be bad because your beloved heroine (whom you know less about than we know about the average celebrity) isn't a strong, independent woman, but an emotionally flawed wreck whose life is just paradox after paradox. That's the only outcome that makes sense when you consider what we do know of Samus. I mean, being trained to be a killing machine, set to what is basically genocide, by a race of professed pacifists? That's not something that's easy to rationalize in one's mind.

1. The title "Meta-ridley" alone doesn't have any meaning beyond what you and I assign it. Ridley was not scan-able in her first appearances in Prime and Prime 3, when he looked just as he did in the original, in Super, and in Other M. As you said, with Super you're assuming. If you were writing Other M or a sequel, you could use that to take the plot in the direction you want, because it's really not defined either way. But, you'd have to blur some lines since in most of his reappearances he looks the same as the original, and you'd still have the hole in that logic created by the fact that the Ridley that triggers the freak-out episode is not the same Ridley that Samus first fought. - you see it as an infant earlier in Other M.

2. I'm confused as to what you're trying to argue. Did Nintendo leave it all up for conjecture, as you stated in your last post, or have they given us plenty of clues? Again, you may look to the bolded text above for my opinion, or re-watch the video for more specifics. While it is true that certain details, especially superficial ones, will be projected onto any silent protagonist by the player, both my point of view and the one presented by Extra Credits focus on what we know for sure based on past games. If you've been watching Extra Credits for a while or have spoken to me about movies or comics before, you know that we both like our characters flawed. Not everyone is a post-Halo adolescent who interprets the silent hero the way you described. The "betrayal" that so many people have discussed regarding Other M, that of Samus' character, hasn't been discussed because of misinterpretations on the part of gamers and reviewers. It has been discussed because the way that Samus was portrayed in Other M contradicts what we know about Samus, without extrapolation, based on previous games. Most of the big, dramatic moments in the game involve Samus having to get her ass saved or submitting in a way that defies the same logic that got her to leave the military in the first place. You said that you strongly believe Sakimoto was intentionally using Unreliable Narration as a literary device. I think it would have been obvious, in clearly definable ways, if the writers didn't want us to take the narration at face value. Narration itself is, in almost all cases, a means of exposition and nothing more. If we are told not to accept the sole means of story progression in the game, I think it would be only at specific points and it would be glaringly obvious (again, in clearly definable terms). There is no reason to believe that a story is analogous to fallen angels if there are no familiar archetypes or motifs specific to them, and no other indicators. This would seem like projection.

3. As I said, Samus did work with the military in Prime 3. And she was commissioned by the federation to do what she did in the NES and SNES games, and probably all of them. That's not the same as being under the military's employ, and since she's not an outlaw, it doesn't make sense for her to go around blowing up planets and killing sentient beings without legal sanction.

PTSD is an argument that has come about only because of the need Other M's proponents feel to defend the Ridley freak-out scene. At the very least, you have to admit that it's left-field. I believe it was done for dramatic effect alone, and was done without much consideration for all that came before it. In the narration in Fusion, emotional problems resulting from the deaths of her parents were never described as anything manifested in endangering herself while fighting a creature she had killed four times. It is inevitable that such bad writing will beg the questions: Why hasn't this happened before? Why have we never even heard of this?

I'm curious as to why we are not supposed to understand or relate to Samus, as you stated. Is this not supposed to be an empathetic character?

You're still assigning far too much of your own meaning in interpreting this story. I wouldn't call Samus my beloved heroine. I don't even think about her when she's not here! But if you're going to delve into a character, why not make it interesting? When talking about the "genocide" of the pirates, I think you forget that Metroid was very influenced by Alien and its sequel; Hell, the reason Samus is a woman is the character of Ripley (though Ridley was much more likely named for the director of the first film, Ridley Scott). Ripley's goal throughout the entire series is to exterminate the aliens, and it's never seen as genocide (though the Xenomorphs aren't sentient, the Pirates are just as dangerous as they are).

It's interesting that you think of Samus as a "wreck." Why can't she be flawed without being a wreck? And, if she is indeed a wreck, how has she pulled off all of the things she has done, without being saved as she was in Other M, or ever having a freakout episode which nearly got her killed? This is not rational. It's like stating "paradox after paradox" without really naming any. So, looking at this epistemologically, in the absence of absolute truth, we must proceed with what the strongest evidence suggests. Even though it is art and every detail has not been clearly spelled out, there are things that we can reasonably infer and there are assumptions that really don't make any sense. If the Chozo were ever presented as pacifists, it was only in the scan-narrative of Prime 1, and you could reasonably state that either they lived apart from other Chozo colonies, both in location and in lifestyle, or that although they were pacifist they didn't think their selves above defending their lives against enemies. And no one ever said that Samus was trained to be a killing machine. We never see her even attack another sentient life form other than the pirates (except maybe rival bounty hunters in Prime Hunters, maybe?).

 

[funguy2121]

A bunch of stuff

Nintendo hasn't used the comic in a game yet, because we've never had an origin story game for Samus.

Reason why the comic is canon and Other M is not now: Nintendo wrote the comic, stands by it, and approves of it. Nintendo did NOT write Other M, it was mostly collaborative between the cutscene makers and handled by Team Ninja. Nintendo may have provided the base, but they were the producers, not the writers. And Nintendo rejects the product now.

The fact that Nintendo says, "Comics are cannon, game is crap" is proof enough against you. They don't have to use it in a game, that's why it's a comic. It's not a Halo novel where it's handled by someone completely different. It was BY Nintendo. Simply ignoring it condenses your argument to petty whining on what you want it to be.

Samus doesn't appear badass, she is shown time and again to be so. Ridley died many times, so many in fact that any trauma she suffered from him would be pushed to the back of her mind. She had conquered all he had done to her, on many occasions. Psychologically, she would have to confront him many times, but would know she is strong enough to be beat him every time. Not piss her pants and have Nam flashbacks every time he popped up. If anything the fact that he is here unscathed and knowing that he is a clone would disassociate him to the trauma. There is no cruel intent that there would have been before. Ridley is just Ridley now, she's no longer facing the great pirate and murderer. She's torn him a new one so bad that they couldn't rebuild him a 45th time. Now it's just a clueless monster that looks like him.

"Nintendo rejects it now." Pleeeeease source. If that's true it can only mean good news, esp. with higher ups at Retro saying last year that they'd be happy to do another Prime.

 

[Worgen]

But... But...!

She took orders from a man! Rabble rabble rabble!

/joking

Yeah, I fall into the MovieBob camp of Other M. While I don't disagree that her portrayal was not good, it wasn't the fucking betrayal that almost everyone said it was.

I rolled my eyes when I saw the title of the new Extra Credits. This would have been topical and noteworthy September of last year, but now it's just plain silly. Using it as a throw-away example mid-video is fine, but basing an entire episode around it? Like it hasn't already been analysed to death?

it would be like if you finally see masterchief outside his armor and it turns out hes totaly emo and into cutting himself and crying

 

[water_bearer]

I don't think this argument floats.

Samus is a character in a narrative, but not just any narrative, she's a video game character.
The Extra Credit folks are awesome but they kind of missed this too: Samus is better when she's not fleshed out because then the player feels like they ARE Samus. This kind of immersion is really unique to games and for other mediums, it's usually really hard to create.

Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics hits this point well too. The less specific a character is, the easier it is for the audience to relate to them. When I am really enjoying a gaming experience, I never feel like I'm watching or observing like I do when I go to the movies, I always feel like I am doing whatever it is I'm doing in the game; whether it be taking apart Ridley, solving dungeons in Zelda, or driving like a madman in F-Zero, I'm the one all up in that sh@t, not "Samus", "Link", or "Falcon".

This past year's best example: Batman AA.

I think all of the great game icons work because they lend themselves so well to being "taken over" by the player. It's too bad we keep calling them silent protagonists like it's a bad thing, because it really isn't.

 

[Manji187]

Fair warning folks, this is gonna get long.

WALL OF TEXT

In the end, Other: M is a passable game that gives us valuable information about Samus. We don't like that information, but it's truth. It's a hell of a lot more plausible than the opposing characterization I've heard from Other: M's detractors, and far more human. I think the biggest lesson we can learn from Other: M is that sometimes, our characters aren't as unshakable or heroic as we'd like to think, and that's a reality we're going to have to live with if this medium is ever going to advance. Sometimes the good guys really are just flawed people with good reasons and strong resolve, but most of the time every good guy is one breakdown from becoming a victim. It's the acknowledgement of that fact that prepares us to deal with it and prevent that breakdown from coming, rather than ignore it and pretend we're bullet-proof. Just my two cents, though, and I welcome any further thoughts/debate.

Here's the other side of the story (equally plausible):

http://moonbase.rydia.net/mental/blog/gaming/metroid-other-m-the-elephant/article.html

In the end, everybody chooses what he/ she wants to believe.

In this case it seems that, depending on what material somebody uses in what manner (emphasis/ comparative analysis), anybody can twist it any way they like.

I, personally, don't care whether or not Other M is canon...I choose to believe that this is an alternative continuity in which Samus Aran is an overly emotional character with daddy issues. I also don't care if I'm wrong on this.

Also: if you kill it once (Ridley) and verify it (scanning for life signs), and it comes back...you make sure to destroy every single cell (antimatter, acid bath, torch it to ashes...whatever). If it still comes back...someone is apparently operating a cloning facility that needs to be shut down immediately. But that's just my piece of overanalysis.

Of course, it is possible that Samus simply isn't all that bright and relies more on her tech (infused with the knowledge of the Chozo) for guidance . But I choose not to believe this either.

 

[DocBalance]

1. The title "Meta-ridley" alone doesn't have any meaning beyond what you and I assign it. Ridley was not scan-able in her first appearances in Prime and Prime 3, when he looked just as he did in the original, in Super, and in Other M. As you said, with Super you're assuming. If you were writing Other M or a sequel, you could use that to take the plot in the direction you want, because it's really not defined either way. But, you'd have to blur some lines since in most of his reappearances he looks the same as the original, and you'd still have the hole in that logic created by the fact that the Ridley that triggers the freak-out episode is not the same Ridley that Samus first fought. - you see it as an infant earlier in Other M.

In Prime 3, Ridley is Metallic with see-through laser-wings in his first appearance, at least as I remember it, and the screenshots I'm looking at back me up on this. In Prime 1, he has pieces of metal infused to his flesh.

It doesn't have to be the exact same Ridley, as long as it is Ridley. Soldiers who go through PTSD don't have to see the enemy combatants or even the same officers or location that were present for their respective episodes. Small things can remind them easily.

2. I'm confused as to what you're trying to argue. Did Nintendo leave it all up for conjecture, as you stated in your last post, or have they given us plenty of clues? Again, you may look to the bolded text above for my opinion, or re-watch the video for more specifics. While it is true that certain details, especially superficial ones, will be projected onto any silent protagonist by the player, both my point of view and the one presented by Extra Credits focus on what we know for sure based on past games. If you've been watching Extra Credits for a while or have spoken to me about movies or comics before, you know that we both like our characters flawed. Not everyone is a post-Halo adolescent who interprets the silent hero the way you described. The "betrayal" that so many people have discussed regarding Other M, that of Samus' character, hasn't been discussed because of misinterpretations on the part of gamers and reviewers. It has been discussed because the way that Samus was portrayed in Other M contradicts what we know about Samus, without extrapolation, based on previous games. Most of the big, dramatic moments in the game involve Samus having to get her ass saved or submitting in a way that defies the same logic that got her to leave the military in the first place. You said that you strongly believe Sakimoto was intentionally using Unreliable Narration as a literary device. I think it would have been obvious, in clearly definable ways, if the writers didn't want us to take the narration at face value. Narration itself is, in almost all cases, a means of exposition and nothing more. If we are told not to accept the sole means of story progression in the game, I think it would be only at specific points and it would be glaringly obvious (again, in clearly definable terms). There is no reason to believe that a story is analogous to fallen angels if there are no familiar archetypes or motifs specific to them, and no other indicators. This would seem like projection.

This is a lot more abstract than you are making it. We don't know anything for sure from past games other than Samus is a female bounty Hunter with military training, raised by the Chozo. Her planet was exterminated by the Space Pirates, and she is supposed to exterminate them in return. Now, we've assumed that she does this with dispassionate, cold efficiency and has no qualms with the situation. We've assumed she's an ultra-badass who does this kind of thing with ease because that's how she APPEARS. Other: M is one of the first games to delve into how her mind works.

You need a clear reason that Unreliable Narrator is being used? How about nearly everyone who plays the game saying the narration is out of place and doesn't make sense? To me, that's a clear sign that Unreliable narrator is being used. Metroid is not a expository series, we know relatively little about it's universe given the grand scheme of things. There's been little to no exposition in the other Metroid games, so I see no reason to believe that suddenly they want us to know everything, rather than trying to keep us solely focused on the viewpoint Samus has, with no outside factors. The game-play may be third person, but the narrative has remained strictly third-person.

3. As I said, Samus did work with the military in Prime 3. And she was commissioned by the federation to do what she did in the NES and SNES games, and probably all of them. That's not the same as being under the military's employ, and since she's not an outlaw, it doesn't make sense for her to go around blowing up planets and killing sentient beings without legal sanction.

PTSD is an argument that has come about only because of the need Other M's proponents feel to defend the Ridley freak-out scene. At the very least, you have to admit that it's left-field. I believe it was done for dramatic effect alone, and was done without much consideration for all that came before it. In the narration in Fusion, emotional problems resulting from the deaths of her parents were never described as anything manifested in endangering herself while fighting a creature she had killed four times. It is inevitable that such bad writing will beg the questions: Why hasn't this happened before? Why have we never even heard of this?

I'm curious as to why we are not supposed to understand or relate to Samus, as you stated. Is this not supposed to be an empathetic character?

You're still assigning far too much of your own meaning in interpreting this story. I wouldn't call Samus my beloved heroine. I don't even think about her when she's not here! But if you're going to delve into a character, why not make it interesting? When talking about the "genocide" of the pirates, I think you forget that Metroid was very influenced by Alien and its sequel; Hell, the reason Samus is a woman is the character of Ripley (though Ridley was much more likely named for the director of the first film, Ridley Scott). Ripley's goal throughout the entire series is to exterminate the aliens, and it's never seen as genocide (though the Xenomorphs aren't sentient, the Pirates are just as dangerous as they are).

It's interesting that you think of Samus as a "wreck." Why can't she be flawed without being a wreck? And, if she is indeed a wreck, how has she pulled off all of the things she has done, without being saved as she was in Other M, or ever having a freakout episode which nearly got her killed? This is not rational. It's like stating "paradox after paradox" without really naming any. So, looking at this epistemologically, in the absence of absolute truth, we must proceed with what the strongest evidence suggests. Even though it is art and every detail has not been clearly spelled out, there are things that we can reasonably infer and there are assumptions that really don't make any sense. If the Chozo were ever presented as pacifists, it was only in the scan-narrative of Prime 1, and you could reasonably state that either they lived apart from other Chozo colonies, both in location and in lifestyle, or that although they were pacifist they didn't think their selves above defending their lives against enemies. And no one ever said that Samus was trained to be a killing machine. We never see her even attack another sentient life form other than the pirates (except maybe rival bounty hunters in Prime Hunters, maybe?).

Being hired by someone and working at their behest are the very definition of being in their employ. It may not be a permanent position, but Samus in each of the games works for the military. That's just simple fact.

First off, Fusion is a whole different ball-park. Other: M comes before it in the time-line, but more on that in a moment. First, in Fusion, it's not Ridley that she sees. It's not a clone either, strictly speaking. It's an alien virus that shapeshifts into him. She doesn't freak-out because it's not him in any sense: Everything that terrified her about Ridley isn't there. Besides that, this same virus is already inside her, though she's mostly spared by being bonded to Metroid DNA. I think her psychological make-up for Fusion would be significantly different than in Other: M.

Secondly, once you have had a serious episode, it's easier to keep them from happening if you have the training. We can assume that Samus is at least trained by experience to deal with her disorders, just as I am to deal with mine. That training failed her in Other: M, and that failing nearly killed her. That to me is the strongest reason for the lack of a repeat in Fusion: She knows that if she freaks out, she will die, and he will win. More than that, in Fusion, there's a chance to end all of it, forever. Ridley is now part of the virus, and if she can kill the virus, she can kill him, and there won't be anything left to clone, re-build, or stuff. In Other: M, what's the point of killing him? He's just going to get cloned again. When your whole life's purpose is ending that creature, and you know you can never end it permanently, the sheer hopelessness of that situation would bring a normal person to their knees, let alone one suffering from at least two psychological disorders.

There is no such thing as assigning too much personal meaning to a story, as long as that personal meaning doesn't conflict with authorial intent, and I haven't seen any evidence of that. As an example of the paradoxes, I would point you back to the post you quoted: She was picked up by an ancient race of bird-like who espouse the glories of pacifism while training her to be a genocidal killing machine. You don't see a paradox there? That would be like Joseph Stalin clamoring for racial tolerance while his men executed anyone with a Polish-sounding name(I know it's not the best example of this, but I will NOT Godwin my own thread ).

Just because she's a very specific killing machine doesn't mean she's not a killing machine. That isn't a stun-gun on her arm, and those Space Pirates aren't fainting from sheer terror. They're dead. She kills them by the hundreds every game, and that is her whole life's purpose. As you've noted, we've never seen her due anything except hunt these pirates. It's her prime directive, the reason for her existence. If your only reason for existing is to kill, you are a killing machine. If it is to kill a certain race or group, that doesn't absolve you, it just adds the descriptor "genocidal" to your title.

 

[The Madman]

In the end, Other: M is a passable game that gives us valuable information about Samus. We don't like that information, but it's truth. It's a hell of a lot more plausible than the opposing characterization I've heard from Other: M's detractors, and far more human. I think the biggest lesson we can learn from Other: M is that sometimes, our characters aren't as unshakable or heroic as we'd like to think, and that's a reality we're going to have to live with if this medium is ever going to advance. Sometimes the good guys really are just flawed people with good reasons and strong resolve, but most of the time every good guy is one breakdown from becoming a victim. It's the acknowledgement of that fact that prepares us to deal with it and prevent that breakdown from coming, rather than ignore it and pretend we're bullet-proof. Just my two cents, though, and I welcome any further thoughts/debate.

So what you're saying is that turning Samus into an unlikable childish little child seemingly incapable of half the actions taking place on the screen is alright because there are people like that in real life so we should be okay with a well loved gaming character being changed into that sort of stereotypical, grating, obnoxious sort of personality as well?

Sure, fine. I just don't want to play as that sort of person. I don't want to hear their story. I hope she 'dies' in so far as a fictional character can.

And when I'm hoping the main character dies, that's a fundamental flaw right there. Realistic and well characterized by your thought process? Sure. Doesn't make me want to play as her any more.

Besides, other much, much better games have tackled that sort of subject matter much better. The Longest Journey and its sequel Dreamfall for example, in which April Ryan deals with an abusive fathers, crushing depression, insecurities, and just about every other thing you can think of while still remaining a compelling protagonist which I genuinely wanted to see succeed. Something which Other M failed to do on every level conceivable.

Other M just felt like a bad game, a bad game rife with poor voice acting droning seemingly endless lines of terrible dialogue interjected with the most cheesy cinematics this side of Final Fantasy. All of which felt completely out of place in a series known primarily for its exploration and platforming elements in which you took control of a solitary figure in a hostile environment and steered her into victory against anything that stood against her.

And even all that aside I think you're wrong. Wrong in that you're over-analyzing and doing mental gymnastics to find a subtlety that isn't really there! Maybe you're optimistic enough to think this is all part of some grander intentions towards Samus, but me? I say it's just piss poor storytelling. There are no underlying tricks, it's not a clever use of perspective, and bluntly put everything 'is' exactly how it seems. It's just bad! No unreliable narrator trick here, it's just horribly delivered and stilted dialogue through and through.

Maybe you're right, maybe there is more to it, maybe I'm just a cynic. But whatever the case they've made Samus into someone I don't like. In fact I hate her. And that's pretty damned hard to forgive. Never did finish the game, glad I only rented it!

 

[Link_to_Future]

I'm going to start this by saying I have no interest in arguing about a psycho-analysis of a fictional character. I didn't even plan on posting here until I saw this.

I'd like to point you to the Ctrl-Alt-Delete comic on this topic: The customer is NOT always right. Most of the time the customer is a clueless moron, and if this upsets you, you are that moron. http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20090313

That isn't an entirely bad point, but you do realize that this is coming from Ethan, right?

Perhaps not the best source to cite on life lessons. ^_^

 

[DocBalance]

I'm going to start this by saying I have no interest in arguing about a psycho-analysis of a fictional character. I didn't even plan on posting here until I saw this.

I'd like to point you to the Ctrl-Alt-Delete comic on this topic: The customer is NOT always right. Most of the time the customer is a clueless moron, and if this upsets you, you are that moron. http://www.cad-comic.com/cad/20090313

That isn't an entirely bad point, but you do realize that this is coming from Ethan, right?

Perhaps not the best source to cite on life lessons. ^_^

Ethan Macmanus is a genius and we would all do well to learn from his lessons

So what you're saying is that turning Samus into an unlikable childish little child seemingly incapable of half the actions taking place on the screen is alright because there are people like that in real life so we should be okay with a well loved gaming character being changed into that sort of stereotypical, grating, obnoxious sort of personality as well?

Sure, fine. I just don't want to play as that sort of person. I don't want to hear their story. I hope she 'dies' in so far as a fictional character can.

And when I'm hoping the main character dies, that's a fundamental flaw right there. Realistic and well characterized by your thought process? Sure. Doesn't make me want to play as her any more.

May I make a suggestion? Don't play it then. If you are hoping the main character dies, that's not a flaw when that's what the main character is hoping for too.

Metroid up until now has had no depth and no purpose. I've finished most of the games through Let's Play series, because I honestly could not get into the character. Other: M continues to intrigue me though, even with all it's flaws, and I'd rather play another series of games like it than go back to the old like-a-space-marine-but-she's-a-chick Samus.

 

[The Madman]

May I make a suggestion? Don't play it then. If you are hoping the main character dies, that's not a flaw when that's what the main character is hoping for too.

Metroid up until now has had no depth and no purpose. I've finished most of the games through Let's Play series, because I honestly could not get into the character. Other: M continues to intrigue me though, even with all it's flaws, and I'd rather play another series of games like it than go back to the old like-a-space-marine-but-she's-a-chick Samus.

If the direction the series is heading in doesn't change, I wont. No worries there! But you wrote an opinion piece and asked for feedback, these are my thoughts on the subject.

And frankly if you're looking for compelling narrative and characters I can suggest so many better games out there. I just don't see why the developers and publishers felt the need to ruin what for I and, if the games reception is anything to judge by, the majority of players felt was a damned good thing. No, the 'original' Samus wasn't a particularly compelling protagonist, but that was fine, it was the world that shone through. In Metroid Prime my favourite aspect of the game was the quantity and quality of efforts that went into filling every niche with subtle details that helped drive home the impression that this was an interesting and in its own way real place. That's what drove me to explore and seek out those details.

In the originals the games strength was a mix of platforming and exploration. Solid controls and entertaining level design conspiring together to once again make a world you wanted to explore while the interesting power-ups gave the player an extra added incentive.

In Other M we've a flat and frankly uninteresting setting populated by unlikable gits and a suddenly grating protagonist, extremely limited exploration elements, and absolutely no sense of wonder or awe over the exotic settings and creatures you encountered. Gameplay was alright, but in my mind 'alright' isn't enough to make up for the games other glaring faults. It's like the developers and publishers did a 360 from what I enjoyed throughout the series to do something else... and to do it very, very badly at that.

Eug. So no, I won't be playing the series if this continues, you needn't worry. I'm no masochist!

 

[funguy2121]

Yay! Bin Ladin is dead, Wisconsin citizens have occupied the Capital in protest over shit legislation, and I get to come home from a road trip to further a nerd-off over whether Other M's creators totally intended things that they gave us no evidence that they intended.

First off, study some epistemology. In the absence of absolutes, we have to go with what the most, best evidence suggests.

Very well then, shall we get started?

1. The title "Meta-ridley" alone doesn't have any meaning beyond what you and I assign it. Ridley was not scan-able in her first appearances in Prime and Prime 3, when he looked just as he did in the original, in Super, and in Other M. As you said, with Super you're assuming. If you were writing Other M or a sequel, you could use that to take the plot in the direction you want, because it's really not defined either way. But, you'd have to blur some lines since in most of his reappearances he looks the same as the original, and you'd still have the hole in that logic created by the fact that the Ridley that triggers the freak-out episode is not the same Ridley that Samus first fought - you see it as an infant earlier in Other M.

In Prime 3, Ridley is Metallic with see-through laser-wings in his first appearance, at least as I remember it, and the screenshots I'm looking at back me up on this. In Prime 1, he has pieces of metal infused to his flesh.

Prime 1, first appearance: orbital platform. Prime 3, first appearance: surface of Norion at the beginning of the game. Both cases: purple, no indication that he's metallic or has metallic components, and if you've seen anything here that I haven't, the meaning behind it is, again, defined exclusively by fans which means that it has all the weight of fan fiction.

It doesn't have to be the exact same Ridley, as long as it is Ridley. Soldiers who go through PTSD don't have to see the enemy combatants or even the same officers or location that were present for their respective episodes. Small things can remind them easily.

Then why was establishing that Meta-Ridley was any different from Ridley important at all? Your argument is failing. You said that the Meta's weren't as scary because they were just robots or clones and more easily desposed of, but that THIS Ridley was the real deal who killed Samus' parents and could not die.

2. I'm confused as to what you're trying to argue. Did Nintendo leave it all up for conjecture, as you stated in your last post, or have they given us plenty of clues? Again, you may look to the bolded text above for my opinion, or re-watch the video for more specifics. While it is true that certain details, especially superficial ones, will be projected onto any silent protagonist by the player, both my point of view and the one presented by Extra Credits focus on what we know for sure based on past games. If you've been watching Extra Credits for a while or have spoken to me about movies or comics before, you know that we both like our characters flawed. Not everyone is a post-Halo adolescent who interprets the silent hero the way you described. The "betrayal" that so many people have discussed regarding Other M, that of Samus' character, hasn't been discussed because of misinterpretations on the part of gamers and reviewers. It has been discussed because the way that Samus was portrayed in Other M contradicts what we know about Samus, without extrapolation, based on previous games. Most of the big, dramatic moments in the game involve Samus having to get her ass saved or submitting in a way that defies the same logic that got her to leave the military in the first place. You said that you strongly believe Sakimoto was intentionally using Unreliable Narration as a literary device. I think it would have been obvious, in clearly definable ways, if the writers didn't want us to take the narration at face value. Narration itself is, in almost all cases, a means of exposition and nothing more. If we are told not to accept the sole means of story progression in the game, I think it would be only at specific points and it would be glaringly obvious (again, in clearly definable terms). There is no reason to believe that a story is analogous to fallen angels if there are no familiar archetypes or motifs specific to them, and no other indicators. This would seem like projection.

This is a lot more abstract than you are making it. We don't know anything for sure from past games other than Samus is a female bounty Hunter with military training, raised by the Chozo. Her planet was exterminated by the Space Pirates, and she is supposed to exterminate them in return.

It seems like you aren't even sure what happened in the games, and you admit to not having played all of them or having played many of them within the last decade. Samus' colony was wiped out, her parents murdered. I don't believe they blew up the planet ala Alderaan. One more time, you may feel free to watch the video again, as they state in no uncertain terms what we can be unflinchingly sure of regarding Samus based on her earlier games. Or you can go on pretending you didn't notice it. I'll provide the time marker if you like.

Now, we've assumed that she does this with dispassionate, cold efficiency and has no qualms with the situation. We've assumed she's an ultra-badass who does this kind of thing with ease because that's how she APPEARS. Other: M is one of the first games to delve into how her mind works.

I would say you've assumed, assumed quite a bit about the game, the franchise, the players, and about those who disagree with you. No one has accused Samus of being dispassionate or her encounters being easy. And thanks for stating the obvious: we are aware that, as the first game with true narration, Other M is the first to look at Samus' thinking.

You need a clear reason that Unreliable Narrator is being used?

Yes, otherwise it's just a bullshit excuse to stick to your bullshit story.

How about nearly everyone who plays the game saying the narration is out of place and doesn't make sense? To me, that's a clear sign that Unreliable narrator is being used.

I haven't heard anyone make these claims, so I must live in a vacuum, but I'll bite. Since everyone is saying that the narration was used in the wrong parts and didn't make since, it's clear that you are really, really reaching. The video also pointed out that translation was an issue in narration. Also, I looked up unreliable narrative. Unreliable narrative is used in 1 of 3 ways: in a way that's immediately clear and frames the story, in an intentionally decietful way to mislead the audience until the very end of the story (twist ending, which Other M does not have), and in a way that at the end makes the audience question two or more possible outcomes (which, again, Other M doesn't have). THE GAME would have to make it clear that unreliable narrator is being used, just as Inception did.

3. As I said, Samus did work with the military in Prime 3. And she was commissioned by the federation to do what she did in the NES and SNES games, and probably all of them. That's not the same as being under the military's employ, and since she's not an outlaw, it doesn't make sense for her to go around blowing up planets and killing sentient beings without legal sanction.

PTSD is an argument that has come about only because of the need Other M's proponents feel to defend the Ridley freak-out scene. At the very least, you have to admit that it's left-field. I believe it was done for dramatic effect alone, and was done without much consideration for all that came before it. In the narration in Fusion, emotional problems resulting from the deaths of her parents were never described as anything manifested in endangering herself while fighting a creature she had killed four times. It is inevitable that such bad writing will beg the questions: Why hasn't this happened before? Why have we never even heard of this?

I'm curious as to why we are not supposed to understand or relate to Samus, as you stated. Is this not supposed to be an empathetic character?

You're still assigning far too much of your own meaning in interpreting this story. I wouldn't call Samus my beloved heroine. I don't even think about her when she's not here! But if you're going to delve into a character, why not make it interesting? When talking about the "genocide" of the pirates, I think you forget that Metroid was very influenced by Alien and its sequel; Hell, the reason Samus is a woman is the character of Ripley (though Ridley was much more likely named for the director of the first film, Ridley Scott). Ripley's goal throughout the entire series is to exterminate the aliens, and it's never seen as genocide (though the Xenomorphs aren't sentient, the Pirates are just as dangerous as they are).

It's interesting that you think of Samus as a "wreck." Why can't she be flawed without being a wreck? And, if she is indeed a wreck, how has she pulled off all of the things she has done, without being saved as she was in Other M, or ever having a freakout episode which nearly got her killed? This is not rational. It's like stating "paradox after paradox" without really naming any. So, looking at this epistemologically, in the absence of absolute truth, we must proceed with what the strongest evidence suggests. Even though it is art and every detail has not been clearly spelled out, there are things that we can reasonably infer and there are assumptions that really don't make any sense. If the Chozo were ever presented as pacifists, it was only in the scan-narrative of Prime 1, and you could reasonably state that either they lived apart from other Chozo colonies, both in location and in lifestyle, or that although they were pacifist they didn't think their selves above defending their lives against enemies. And no one ever said that Samus was trained to be a killing machine. We never see her even attack another sentient life form other than the pirates (except maybe rival bounty hunters in Prime Hunters, maybe?).

Being hired by someone and working at their behest are the very definition of being in their employ. It may not be a permanent position, but Samus in each of the games works for the military. That's just simple fact.

That's right, nit-pick the only things you can argue. I believe Samus' relationship with the Federation (not the military) has been described as "contract." She's a bounty hunter, not a soldier. This is not up for dispute.

First off, Fusion is a whole different ball-park. Other: M comes before it in the time-line, but more on that in a moment. First, in Fusion, it's not Ridley that she sees.

How is Fusion a different ball-park? Other M takes place just before...oh, I see. Relevance? Stay on subject. In Fusion, which has a narrative, PTSD isn't discussed (because the only PTSD in the Metroid-verse is fan-fiction such as your own) and neither is freaking out and freezing up at the sight of Ridley, nor is your little Meta-Ridley theory.

Secondly, once you have had a serious episode, it's easier to keep them from happening if you have the training. We can assume that Samus is at least trained by experience to deal with her disorders, just as I am to deal with mine.

No, you assume she's a wreck. Which is it?

That training failed her in Other: M, and that failing nearly killed her. That to me is the strongest reason for the lack of a repeat in Fusion...

Still missing the point. Still not what I'm arguing.

When your whole life's purpose is ending that creature, and you know you can never end it permanently, the sheer hopelessness of that situation would bring a normal person to their knees, let alone one suffering from at least two psychological disorders.

If Metroid has a literary forebearer, it would be the early Alien movies, so we could say Scott and Cameron. Most definitely not Thomas Harris. I don't know where you get this notion that Ridley is Hannibal Lector, but no character in Metroid is invincible.

There is no such thing as assigning too much personal meaning to a story, as long as that personal meaning doesn't conflict with authorial intent, and I haven't seen any evidence of that.

Then read above. There is no evidence for any of what you assume is authorial intent.

As an example of the paradoxes, I would point you back to the post you quoted: She was picked up by an ancient race of bird-like who espouse the glories of pacifism while training her to be a genocidal killing machine. You don't see a paradox there?

Your professed inability to recall what you just said, and my addressing of it, would be considered similar to a paradox. It's cool, I addressed the "pacifism" and "genocide" topics in text quoted in this very post. Maybe that will explain this to you. Further, I was overjoyed when I got the good news this morning that Mr. bin Ladin will no longer be racking up high dialysis bills, and I am a pacifist.

That would be like Joseph Stalin clamoring for racial tolerance while his men executed anyone with a Polish-sounding name(I know it's not the best example of this, but I will NOT Godwin my own thread ).

Thanks, I was about to look up the name of the 'net law that states that anyone who cannot effectively win a debate will call his opponent 'Hitler' or compare him to the Nazis. So, you've simulacrum-Godwin'd your own thread instead. Congrats.

Just because she's a very specific killing machine doesn't mean she's not a killing machine. That isn't a stun-gun on her arm, and those Space Pirates aren't fainting from sheer terror. They're dead. She kills them by the hundreds every game, and that is her whole life's purpose.[/quoted]

Seriously, kid, make up your mind. Do the games tell us lots of things that we can define as absolutes, or do they tell us nothing. Getting rid of the Pirates is all that Samus is about? How do we know this if the series is "based entirely on conjecture," as you claimed? You need a few more years of law school yet.

I'm still hoping someone will source the claim that Nintendo is officially unpleased with Other M and that it's not just Reggie saying he's not happy with the sales.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Sorry. One can't just wish away blatant contradictions and idiot-logic with weak rationalizations. I could pontificate all day about how most of these counter-arguments are incorrect in-canon, but it would ultimately accomplish nothing.

Other M was haphazardly written and badly delivered. Nothing is going to change that.

 

[Sandytimeman]

I know his much, Samus from Other M is nothing like the Samus from Fusion. I think your just trying to justify other M as Cannon, and really its just a bad example of why silent protagonists shouldn't be given a voice.

 

[DocBalance]

Prime 1, first appearance: orbital platform. Prime 3, first appearance: surface of Norion at the beginning of the game. Both cases: purple, no indication that he's metallic or has metallic components, and if you've seen anything here that I haven't, the meaning behind it is, again, defined exclusively by fans which means that it has all the weight of fan fiction.

No, it doesn't have all the weight of fan-fiction. Meta-Ridley is a well-known concept in the Metroid universe, and appears in multiple games including a cameo in Super-Smash Brothers. The fact that you do not know the difference or significance between these two incarnations and yet speak like some sort of Metroidian Scholar is utterly baffling to me.

Then why was establishing that Meta-Ridley was any different from Ridley important at all? Your argument is failing. You said that the Meta's weren't as scary because they were just robots or clones and more easily desposed of, but that THIS Ridley was the real deal who killed Samus' parents and could not die.

There is a HUGE difference between "We rebuilt him as a half-robot dude", and "We cloned him, brought him back to life as good as ever, maybe better!" In the first, every encounter is a reminder that he's the one who should be afraid in the situation. You have taken something from him each time, something he can never get back, and soon there won't be enough to rebuild. In the second, your actions are nothing but a short inconvenience which can be easily rectified with a few days recuperation. Really, it's a very basic difference, it's not as hard to understand as you are making it.

It seems like you aren't even sure what happened in the games, and you admit to not having played all of them or having played many of them within the last decade. Samus' colony was wiped out, her parents murdered. I don't believe they blew up the planet ala Alderaan. One more time, you may feel free to watch the video again, as they state in no uncertain terms what we can be unflinchingly sure of regarding Samus based on her earlier games. Or you can go on pretending you didn't notice it. I'll provide the time marker if you like.

I admitted to never playing Echoes or Hunters. That is not "many of the within the last decade", as I don't even consider them relevant to the discussion. I've never bothered with Hunters, though I have read the basic plot points and watched LPs for Echoes. No, they didn't blow up the planet ala Alderaan. They murdered everyone they could find on it. Yes, I realize that the video says that we know in no uncertain terms who Samus is, the whole point of this is that I disagree with the bloody video . Rule one: Never cite evidence that your opponent is basing his entire point around disagreeing with as a reason for him to agree with you.

I would say you've assumed, assumed quite a bit about the game, the franchise, the players, and about those who disagree with you. No one has accused Samus of being dispassionate or her encounters being easy. And thanks for stating the obvious: we are aware that, as the first game with true narration, Other M is the first to look at Samus' thinking.

Here's the difference between my assumptions and your's: I can back mine up with scientific proof and reasoned logic. I've yet to see either from you. Please, produce something that actually contradicts my arguments, c'est vous plait. Salutatio.

Yes, otherwise it's just a bullshit excuse to stick to your bullshit story.


I haven't heard anyone make these claims, so I must live in a vacuum, but I'll bite. Since everyone is saying that the narration was used in the wrong parts and didn't make since, it's clear that you are really, really reaching. The video also pointed out that translation was an issue in narration. Also, I looked up unreliable narrative. Unreliable narrative is used in 1 of 3 ways: in a way that's immediately clear and frames the story, in an intentionally decietful way to mislead the audience until the very end of the story (twist ending, which Other M does not have), and in a way that at the end makes the audience question two or more possible outcomes (which, again, Other M doesn't have). THE GAME would have to make it clear that unreliable narrator is being used, just as Inception did.

I'm an author. Don't try to school me on Unreliable Narrator. It's one of my favorite tricks, and there are a thousand and one ways to use it. Those are the three very, VERY basic one's, but there are oh-so-many more.

Inception didn't use Unreliable narrator, because it wasn't a narrative account. It was a movie told in the Third Person. Unreliable Narrator requires a first person account, thus disqualifying Inception entirely. As I've said before, the game SHOULD be making you question two or more possible outcomes, but you are too hung up on how it contradicts what you thought you knew to notice it.

That's right, nit-pick the only things you can argue. I believe Samus' relationship with the Federation (not the military) has been described as "contract." She's a bounty hunter, not a soldier. This is not up for dispute.

That's right, quote portions of my argument out of context to look smart. Don't worry, we'll get to the rest of what you said in a minute.

How is Fusion a different ball-park? Other M takes place just before...oh, I see. Relevance? Stay on subject. In Fusion, which has a narrative, PTSD isn't discussed (because the only PTSD in the Metroid-verse is fan-fiction such as your own) and neither is freaking out and freezing up at the sight of Ridley, nor is your little Meta-Ridley theory.

You never actually played Fusion, did you? Fusion is completely different because a VIRUS ATE RIDLEY. As in, he doesn't exist anymore. What she sees is little more than crude puppetry after she straight up murders him, for good. PTSD isn't an issue in Fusion because after Other: M, Samus learns to cope with a reality where Ridley is immortal, and re-focuses to find a way to fix that. It's very, very basic psychology, and I'm beginning to suspect that your knowledge of PTSD comes entirely from TV shows and movies.

No, you assume she's a wreck. Which is it?

Did I ever say I wasn't a wreck? I don't recall mentioning that. You can be a wreck emotionally and still function by passively re-purposing those emotions. It's really quite common, but I shouldn't have assumed you would know that, since you haven't shown any other signs of possessing any sort of psychological understanding.

Still missing the point. Still not what I'm arguing.

Thank you for giving me a buzz phrase that applies to literally everything you've said!

If Metroid has a literary forebearer, it would be the early Alien movies, so we could say Scott and Cameron. Most definitely not Thomas Harris. I don't know where you get this notion that Ridley is Hannibal Lector, but no character in Metroid is invincible.

I don't know what this literary forebearer business is about, but let's just skip right to that last sentence: Cloning makes you immortal. Not Invincible, immortal, as in "I can still kill it, but it will be back." Again, this is not that hard to grasp.

Then read above. There is no evidence for any of what you assume is authorial intent.

You have quoted no authorial intent. You have not produced evidence from either of the creators of Metroid, one of whom wrote the bloody game, saying that anything I have said or Other: M did contradicts authorial intent.

Your professed inability to recall what you just said, and my addressing of it, would be considered similar to a paradox. It's cool, I addressed the "pacifism" and "genocide" topics in text quoted in this very post. Maybe that will explain this to you. Further, I was overjoyed when I got the good news this morning that Mr. bin Ladin will no longer be racking up high dialysis bills, and I am a pacifist.

You can be happy about the death of a monster, and be a pacifist. When you killed the monster with your own hands? You are no longer a pacifist. When you train someone to kill the monster for you? You are no longer a pacifist. I haven't seen anywhere where you have adequately addressed this point.

Seriously, kid, make up your mind. Do the games tell us lots of things that we can define as absolutes, or do they tell us nothing. Getting rid of the Pirates is all that Samus is about? How do we know this if the series is "based entirely on conjecture," as you claimed? You need a few more years of law school yet.

I'm still hoping someone will source the claim that Nintendo is officially unpleased with Other M and that it's not just Reggie saying he's not happy with the sales.

The games tell us a lot of things about Samus's backstory, but very little about Samus herself. The distinction MUST be made between these two things, "kid". You won't find that sourced claim, by the by, though I did provide a quote earlier from the President of Nintendo saying the exact opposite.

 

[Mr Somewhere]

What I was most upset by, was the fact that on the surface, what they were trying to do was very commendable. There was potential for the game to be great. But, it was poorly written, and poorly acted. Oh, and the offensively banal symbolism hurt the game too. It's obvious Sakamoto had nothing but the best intent with the game, he wanted to make Samus a fleshed out character with real flaws, but the purple prose is heavy handed at best.
Sakamoto needs more practice at the craft of writing. He did not intend to portray an abusive relationship, it was poor writing. It's the very same problem with Stephanie Meyer, I'm fairly certain she wanted Bella and Edward to be shining examples of human beings. It was poor writing that ruined that, I don't know how one can read/watch Twilight and not be frightened by the horrifying example of relationships portrayed through the series. The poor writing made it all too easy to read into the work(s) and find chilling portrayals of unintentionally dysfunctional human beings.
It was just a clunky delivery that made the game fall short, could have been great.
I'm sure they'll make up for it, the Metroid series is too iconic to be forgot.

Also, I've always felt that Samus has had a loose character. Look at subtle moments throughout the series, she is not a blank slate.

 

[Samechiel]

Everyone involved in the creation of Metroid: Other M should be dragged out in the street and beaten mercilessly.

The game was a failure on every level, and if I had a time machine I would go back and abort it before it had a chance to fully develop.