I have decided to classify Metroid: Other M as fanfiction.

[Midnight Crossroads]

Samus comes across as weak, dumb, incompetent, and overall pathetic in Other: M. It would take a lot of good writing to make this work as characterization for Samus Aran, as nothing in any Metroid game suggests that she is anything like this. Though Sakamoto can't write to save his life, so Samus just comes off as a horrible character. Seriously, there's a difference between "having issues" and "being out of your fucking mind". Samus falls into the later, given that she somehow has a mental breakdown when she sees the enemy she has killed two times now. 4 times if you count the Prime game, and considering the amount of praise they have gotten means you really should.

I didn't want Samus to be turned into another generic badass, but I didn't want her to be a brainless doormat either. Other M is a horribly written game all around, but the fact that it butchers an iconic character in the process just magnifies its flaws.

Really, if you don't understand why Other M pisses so many people off, read this [http://moonbase.rydia.net/mental/blog/gaming/metroid-other-m-the-elephant/article.html]. It effectively summarizes just how much Sakamoto fucked with the story.

Exactly, Samus is fucked up in the head.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

I don't play much Metroid games(or Nintendo games in general, save Kirby), but I admire Team Ninja for having the balls to give a nearly one dimensional character some depth.

That doesn't change the fact that the dialogue and voice acting in that game was just horrendous.

The character that was given to Samus in Other M was about as far from admirable as it is possible to get.

I got the same feeling. I think the breakdown is a lot of people wanted Samus to be just another generic badass, only this one has tits so she's a "strong female character."

The woman has issues, omaigawd. It actually makes her more interesting.

Samus doesn't just have "issues" in Other M, she's just a broken bird character, she doesn't progress as a character over the course of the story, the issues aren't addressed in any way, they're just there to break down the character because apparently we're not allowed strong female characters in Nintendo games, just princesses that need rescuing.

Contrast Samus in Other M with Ripley in Aliens (because we all know that Samus is basically Ripley), Ripley starts off traumatised, she has issues, not only with the experiences she had in the first film but also (which is only seen in the Special Edition) with the fact that she's outlived her own daughter (that's why she's so firmly attached to Newt as a surrogate daughter, she's not just Being A Woman, she's actually got personal motivation for that instant depth of attachment), but Ripley grows throughout the film, her drive to protect Newt strengthens her, even though it was originally caused by one of her underlying issues, and that leads her to confront not only the nightmare she faced in the first movie but also her hatred of androids and the trust issues she had with the Marines at the start.

Samus in Other M gets none of that. She is prodded by the player from breakdown to breakdown, loses her sense of agency because she signs it over to Adam. Hell, Samus isn't really even a character with depth in Other M because Samus isn't in Other M, the homunculus of Adam that lives in her brain is.

Other M is an unhealthy story [http://moonbase.rydia.net/mental/blog/gaming/metroid-other-m-the-elephant/article.html], and the comparisons to Twilight on the first page are more apt than you know.

http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-40-Heavens-to-Metroid

Yeah, let's take our stances on gender politics from a guy who posts pictures of Scarlett Johanssen in her underwear in his reviews whenever he runs out of content.

Oh, wait, let's not.

I read the article, I agreed with it. That was about what I was getting at. Samus is a deeply disturbed character. I understood this. The article even admits the story is clear. Whether you like the implications or not doesn't matter.

 

[Internet Kraken]

Exactly, Samus is fucked up in the head.

And that's a really shitty way to characterize Samus, or any protagonist for that matter. It's one thing to make a character have psychological issues, but it's quite another to make them so crazy that they are completley unappealing. Furthermore, Samus shows no progression as a character in this state. She starts out crazy and ends crazy. This is not good writing. Even if this wasn't Samus Aran, this would still be a horrible character.

You're basically justifying Sakamoto's horrible writing with the excuse "it's supposed to be bad". Everything he tried to do could have been done better, and he might have been able to make such a story without butchering Samus as a character. But he didn't. He fucked up. There is nothing interesting or appealing about Samus in Other M, or the game in general. My opinion would not change even if this was some random franchise I had no opinion about prior to playing.

Eww. Does this mean he was always completely unaware of how society perceived the character?

More likely he just didn't realize the kind of story he was making because he's a bad writer.

 

[Stormz]

Goodonya

Whenever a series I like creates something I don't like, I declare it non-cannon and move on. If everyone did this there'd be far fewer threads on this site though. hehe.

Some people minds don't work like that though. To them I say: "its clearly implied that this story is a dream that is having and in no way impacts the universe of "

This is what I do as well, people don't have to agree with me, but if I hated the story of a sequel to a great game series I'll just declare it non-cannon. Doesn't matter whats official or what other people think. In my head it never happened.

OPs view is perfectly valid in my opinion.

 

[GloatingSwine]

I read the article, I agreed with it. That was about what I was getting at. Samus is a deeply disturbed character. I understood this. The article even admits the story is clear. Whether you like the implications or not doesn't matter.

Actually, yes it does matter, because videogaming is already a medium which is criticised for it's presentation and view of women. Taking a female character who has, up to this point, been percieved as a strong character and a positive female role model and then breaking that character by revealing that she's so laden with "issues" that she becomes nonfunctional and has to have a big strong man come and save her (when she's not deferring her entire sense of agency to another man) is a fundamental error for videogaming as a narrative medium.

TL; DR - Other M is Highlander 2. And there was no Highlander 2.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

Exactly, Samus is fucked up in the head.

And that's a really shitty way to characterize Samus, or any protagonist for that matter. It's one thing to make a character have psychological issues, but it's quite another to make them so crazy that they are completley unappealing. Furthermore, Samus shows no progression as a character in this state. She starts out crazy and ends crazy. This is not good writing. Even if this wasn't Samus Aran, this would still be a horrible character.

You're basically justifying Sakamoto's horrible writing with the excuse "it's supposed to be bad". Everything he tried to do could have been done better, and he might have been able to make such a story without butchering Samus as a character. But he didn't. He fucked up. There is nothing interesting or appealing about Samus in Other M, or the game in general. My opinion would not change even if this was some random franchise I had no opinion about prior to playing.

I'm sorry if your opinion is so set in stone.

And, no, I'm not justifying anything -especially concerning the quality of writing-. In fact, I've never said anything about the quality of writing. You seem to be thrusting that assumption upon me. Whether someone likes the story or how it was written doesn't matter to me.

 

[Internet Kraken]

I'm sorry if your opinion is so set in stone.

And, no, I'm not justifying anything -especially concerning the quality of writing-. In fact, I've never said anything about the quality of writing. You seem to be thrusting that assumption upon me. Whether someone likes the story or how it was written doesn't matter to me.

Then I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Forgive me for misinterpreting your post, but I got the impression that you were suggesting that Sakamoto's terrible characterization of Samus was welldone.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

I'm sorry if your opinion is so set in stone.

And, no, I'm not justifying anything -especially concerning the quality of writing-. In fact, I've never said anything about the quality of writing. You seem to be thrusting that assumption upon me. Whether someone likes the story or how it was written doesn't matter to me.

Then I'm not sure what point you're trying to make here. Forgive me for misinterpreting your post, but I got the impression that you were suggesting that Sakamoto's terrible characterization of Samus was welldone.

Not really, but it made sense to me. I'm saying I'm not surprised. Ever since I began playing, I figured she was insane. The woman never spoke to anyone except herself in monologues, spent all her time in a space ship, alone, or killing things, alone. She was fixated on a man she served under and idolized him. She was a human that spent her entire life killing.

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

I read the article, I agreed with it. That was about what I was getting at. Samus is a deeply disturbed character. I understood this. The article even admits the story is clear. Whether you like the implications or not doesn't matter.

Actually, yes it does matter, because videogaming is already a medium which is criticised for it's presentation and view of women. Taking a female character who has, up to this point, been percieved as a strong character and a positive female role model and then breaking that character by revealing that she's so laden with "issues" that she becomes nonfunctional and has to have a big strong man come and save her (when she's not deferring her entire sense of agency to another man) is a fundamental error for videogaming as a narrative medium.

TL; DR - Other M is Highlander 2. And there was no Highlander 2.

Samus was never a strong female character. She was a tincan that just happened to have tits. All she ever did was kill things. If that's enough to warrant a strong female character for you, then I can see how you were disappointed with Samus. And a woman that spends all her time alone in space ships or exterminating the local fauna of whichever unfortunate planet she happens upon is not a positive role model.

Freya of FFIX was a strong female character, and one of the best in the series.

 

[The Madman]

Not really, but it made sense to me. I'm saying I'm not surprised. Ever since I began playing, I figured she was insane. The woman never spoke to anyone except herself in monologues, spent all her time in a space ship, alone, or killing things, alone. She was fixated on a man she served under and idolized him. She was a human that spent her entire life killing.

I hate to interject but I'm sorry, but I just can't agree with that at all! Other M turned a previously 'strong silent' female lead into a simpering little child unable to do anything without the approval of her would-be abusive boyfriend/father. You can idolize someone without being their ***** after all! Hell, the whole plot of Other M seems intent to paint Samus as some sort of sadomasochist that gets her jollies by obeying Mr. dismissive asshole!

A character having issues is fine. As pointed out earlier in this topic: Ripley from Aliens had issues aplenty and at the beginning of the movie is a physical and mental wreck, and it's been stated before one of the inspirations for Metroid was the Alien movies. The thing is that Ripley in Aliens grows as a character and surpasses those issues in order to do the right thing, she becomes an admirable protagonist and one of the biggest baddass in cinematic history. That's called character growth and its one of the hallmarks of proper story-telling regardless of medium or genre.

And you're right, it would make sense for Samus to be a little messed up in the head after all, as you point out, she's been through a lot. Other M had huge potential to portray this stoic protagonist in a human light, highlighting her more human features and making her a more sympathetic character which we grow attached to throughout the gaming experience. That would have been amazing, to see Samus as a genuine believable character overcoming those issues to continue to do the badassery we all know she's capable of.

Other M however does none of that, instead seeming to glorify those problems. It's like the game is saying "See what a nice, submissive woman Samus is under all that armour? Isn't that nice?"...

So either Other M is just piss poor writing or a deliberate attempt to turn Samus in a simpering unlikable twit!

Well Fuck that! This ain't what I signed up for with the Metroid series.

 

[Flying-Emu]

Sad thing is, because Sakamoto wrote Other M, it is canon. Meanwhile, the Metroid Prime games are the ones that may or may not be canon, as he didn't play a large part in the plot of those games.

This is the worst part of the situation.

Sakamoto... why did you do this to my first love?

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

Not really, but it made sense to me. I'm saying I'm not surprised. Ever since I began playing, I figured she was insane. The woman never spoke to anyone except herself in monologues, spent all her time in a space ship, alone, or killing things, alone. She was fixated on a man she served under and idolized him. She was a human that spent her entire life killing.

I hate to interject but I'm sorry, but I just can't agree with that at all! Other M turned a previously 'strong silent' female lead into a simpering little child unable to do anything without the approval of her would-be abusive boyfriend/father. You can idolize someone without being their ***** after all! Hell, the whole plot of Other M seems intent to paint Samus as some sort of sadomasochist that gets her jollies by obeying Mr. dismissive asshole!

A character having issues is fine. As pointed out earlier in this topic: Ripley from Aliens had issues aplenty and at the beginning of the movie is a physical and mental wreck, and it's been stated before one of the inspirations for Metroid was the Alien movies. The thing is that Ripley in Aliens grows as a character and surpasses those issues in order to do the right thing, she becomes an admirable protagonist and one of the biggest baddass in cinematic history. That's called character growth and its one of the hallmarks of proper story-telling regardless of medium or genre.

And you're right, it would make sense for Samus to be a little messed up in the head after all, as you point out, she's been through a lot. Other M had huge potential to portray this stoic protagonist in a human light, highlighting her more human features and making her a more sympathetic character which we grow attached to throughout the gaming experience. That would have been amazing, to see Samus as a genuine believable character overcoming those issues to continue to do the badassery we all know she's capable of.

Other M however does none of that, instead seeming to glorify those problems. It's like the game is saying "See what a nice, submissive woman Samus is under all that armour? Isn't that nice?"...

So either Other M is just piss poor writing or a deliberate attempt to turn Samus in a simpering unlikable twit!

Well Fuck that! This ain't what I signed up for with the Metroid series.

Yes, I'm understand and am fully aware of everything you've posted. In fact, welcome to the conversation, I'm the guy repeating his point patiently over and over and over. It's getting repetitive.

Samus is a nutjob. Her voice, her actions, everything fiber of her being attests to this in Other M. Whether its bad writing or not, I don't care. It's the beast that's been produced.

Samus was never a strong character. To be a strong character, one must first have character. What trait does Samus have besides "kills things"?

 

[The Madman]

Yes, I'm understand and am fully aware of everything you've posted. In fact, welcome to the conversation, I'm the guy repeating his point patiently over and over and over. It's getting repetitive.

Samus is a nutjob. Her voice, her actions, everything fiber of her being attests to this in Other M. Whether its bad writing or not, I don't care. It's the beast that's been produced.

Samus was never a strong character. To be a strong character, one must first have character. What trait does Samus have besides "kills things"?

She didn't have much of a character before aside from what people were forced to either assume or gather from the journal entires. We assumed she's a strong character because, bluntly put, only a strong character would be capable of doing the things she's done. Only a strong character would willingly go the places she's gone. Thus the moniker of her being a strong female lead!

That said, there was never much actual characterization towards the character which is why Other M had a lot of potential as more narrative approach towards the series, something which I naively thought would be a good idea at the time.

And the point I think myself and most other people are getting at is that frankly, now that Other M is out, we wish it'd never happened because what's revealed about Samus as a character is so unlikable, so unsympathetic, so simpering, whimpering, pathetic and wretched we can't bear to see the previously well loved if silent character reduced to such a hollow shell of what she was once held up as.

I don't care if it's intentional or not whether she's a nutjob, she's just plain annoying now is what she is. And no one save the masochistic or the delusional like Samus herself (Or those who just ignore the plot entirely... mind you that's hard to do when the bloody cutscenes are UNSKIPPABLE!!!) want to play as such a character. It's just... demeaning. Not only to our memory of the character, but to the players as well!

 

[Midnight Crossroads]

Yes, I'm understand and am fully aware of everything you've posted. In fact, welcome to the conversation, I'm the guy repeating his point patiently over and over and over. It's getting repetitive.

Samus is a nutjob. Her voice, her actions, everything fiber of her being attests to this in Other M. Whether its bad writing or not, I don't care. It's the beast that's been produced.

Samus was never a strong character. To be a strong character, one must first have character. What trait does Samus have besides "kills things"?

She didn't have much of a character before aside from what people were forced to either assume or gather from the journal entires. We assumed she's a strong character because, bluntly put, only a strong character would be capable of doing the things she's done. Only a strong character would willingly go the places she's gone. Thus the moniker of her being a strong female lead!

That said, there was never much actual characterization towards the character which is why Other M had a lot of potential as more narrative approach towards the series, something which I naively thought would be a good idea at the time.

And the point I think myself and most other people are getting at is that frankly, now that Other M is out, we wish it'd never happened because what's revealed about Samus as a character is so unlikable, so unsympathetic, so simpering, whimpering, pathetic and wretched we can't bear to see the previously well loved if silent character reduced to such a hollow shell of what she was once held up as.

I don't care if it's intentional or not whether she's a nutjob, she's just plain annoying now is what she is. And no one save the masochistic or the delusional like Samus herself (Or those who just ignore the plot entirely... mind you that's hard to do when the bloody cutscenes are UNSKIPPABLE!!!) want to play as such a character. It's just... demeaning. Not only to our memory of the character, but to the players as well!

Strong, or, in the case of Miss Aran, a cold, detached human being with no regard for her life and no remorse for her own actions who thankfully channeled that clarity and resolve into stopping pirates rather than being a pirate. She wasn't the person we thought she was. Big deal. This isn't something new to human experience.

 

['Record Stops.']

Heaven's to Betsy! We all agree here, Samus is a fucked up woman. And what's funny to me, is that Prime painted her as being awesome, and if we take her out of context and take her from Super Smash Brother's Brawl, she's a really likeable character, with a love for small fluffy overly cute creatures, with a voice actress that sounds sexy as hell and WAYY better then Miss I'm a robot whatever her name was. Imagine dear fellows, a world in which Samus had a great voice actress, of the kind that many of our favorite animated sexy female characters have, one that could feel, could have actual emotions, and sounded so hot that you'd bone her given the chance...

Then! We'd have a whole other list of issues that'd occur. We might as well ignore what Nintendo says, put our hands to our ears, and ignore what they say is Canon.

Canon will always be Prime, and the actual creater can just suck his thumb and realize that a bunch of Western developers did everyting better then him.

That's why he tried to pull a hand-wave and say," But it's not Canon!" because other people, Westerners especially, did his job at story telling better then he ever did. Period. As far I care? I'll just mute my TV when the cutscenes come up, ignore the subtitles, read some Metroid fanfic's and look at artwork showing Adam getting brutally killed by a pissed off Samus, and enjoy some good gameplay.

 

['Record Stops.']

OT: I agree with the OP, just so that's clear.

 

[Clunks]

@RatheMcGrath - Well I haven't read any of the responses to your post yet, but we have we got to the part where a slew of people you don't even know go out of their way to tell you that it is canon and that your opinion doesn't matter? Yeah, thought so. Happens every time a franchise goes wrong. Fans decide it doesn't count - which is their right, maybe even their duty to do so, they are the fans after all - and they'll express this opinion on a forum or a social networking websit, because the internet is the rightful home of nerdrage. And then a bunch of contrary dickweeds with nothing invested in the argument, save maybe for a carefully nurtured love of pedantic argument and a misplaced belief that it's their job to go round correcting everybody about everything, show up to give you shit for having the audacity to make up your own mind about things.

To quote a great man: you're right. Not those fuckers who wanna tell you how to think. You're right.

 

[Daedalus1942]

Exactly, Samus is fucked up in the head.

And that's a really shitty way to characterize Samus, or any protagonist for that matter. It's one thing to make a character have psychological issues, but it's quite another to make them so crazy that they are completley unappealing. Furthermore, Samus shows no progression as a character in this state. She starts out crazy and ends crazy. This is not good writing. Even if this wasn't Samus Aran, this would still be a horrible character.

You're basically justifying Sakamoto's horrible writing with the excuse "it's supposed to be bad". Everything he tried to do could have been done better, and he might have been able to make such a story without butchering Samus as a character. But he didn't. He fucked up. There is nothing interesting or appealing about Samus in Other M, or the game in general. My opinion would not change even if this was some random franchise I had no opinion about prior to playing.

Eww. Does this mean he was always completely unaware of how society perceived the character?

More likely he just didn't realize the kind of story he was making because he's a bad writer.

Why is it a shiit characterisation of a character?
It worked for MOST of Alan Wake...
-Tabs<3-
-edit- Also I ove that no-one has bothered to comment on my opinion about her not being as tough as we all thought. It's like everyone's ignored me completely ^^

 

[Veylon]

I read the article, I agreed with it. That was about what I was getting at. Samus is a deeply disturbed character. I understood this. The article even admits the story is clear. Whether you like the implications or not doesn't matter.

Actually, yes it does matter, because videogaming is already a medium which is criticised for it's presentation and view of women. Taking a female character who has, up to this point, been percieved as a strong character and a positive female role model and then breaking that character by revealing that she's so laden with "issues" that she becomes nonfunctional and has to have a big strong man come and save her (when she's not deferring her entire sense of agency to another man) is a fundamental error for videogaming as a narrative medium.

TL; DR - Other M is Highlander 2. And there was no Highlander 2.

Samus was never a strong female character. She was a tincan that just happened to have tits. All she ever did was kill things. If that's enough to warrant a strong female character for you, then I can see how you were disappointed with Samus. And a woman that spends all her time alone in space ships or exterminating the local fauna of whichever unfortunate planet she happens upon is not a positive role model.

Freya of FFIX was a strong female character, and one of the best in the series.

You're right about Freya. But did Freya cling helplessly to some other character to make all of her decisions for her? Of course not.

If they'd wanted to give Samus depth and character, they could've given her a sense of humor. The comparison is often to Boba Fett, but why not Han Solo? Or Leia? They

Besides, the timeline has it that Samus had been bounty hunting for years. Given that Bounty Hunting is a job that centers around murder, kidnapping, and espionage for money, it simply doesn't make sense for a character as uncertain and unconfident as Samus is portrayed to desire to enter this kind of business at all, let alone excel at it. People viewed her as cold-bloodedly stoic for a reason: that's the kind of person who can keep their cool in the kind of cruel, selfish, and desperate circumstances that bounty hunting entails. She should be the kind of person who is comfortable in the criminal underworld, not frightened of her own shadow. We should at least expect her to be confident and assertive.

 

[Dr. Paine]

Heaven's to Betsy! We all agree here, Samus is a fucked up woman. And what's funny to me, is that Prime painted her as being awesome, and if we take her out of context and take her from Super Smash Brother's Brawl, she's a really likeable character, with a love for small fluffy overly cute creatures, with a voice actress that sounds sexy as hell and WAYY better then Miss I'm a robot whatever her name was. Imagine dear fellows, a world in which Samus had a great voice actress, of the kind that many of our favorite animated sexy female characters have, one that could feel, could have actual emotions, and sounded so hot that you'd bone her given the chance...

Then! We'd have a whole other list of issues that'd occur. We might as well ignore what Nintendo says, put our hands to our ears, and ignore what they say is Canon.

Canon will always be Prime, and the actual creater can just suck his thumb and realize that a bunch of Western developers did everyting better then him.

That's why he tried to pull a hand-wave and say," But it's not Canon!" because other people, Westerners especially, did his job at story telling better then he ever did. Period. As far I care? I'll just mute my TV when the cutscenes come up, ignore the subtitles, read some Metroid fanfic's and look at artwork showing Adam getting brutally killed by a pissed off Samus, and enjoy some good gameplay.

Nice plan ._. I'm just sticking to the Prime games, and will get Other M when I am completely out of games and get bored of my current ones- which will be a while.

Also, is the voice actress in Brawl really that good? xD (Fun fact: The Brawl actress was also the model for Chell.)

It's sad to think that the Prime games had, at at least one point, Jennifer Hale on to do grunts of pain, but got a complete failure for the ACTUAL SPEAKING. The world just isn't fair.