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

[Kouen]

Eff you, Team Ninja. It's bad enough that you're unable to handle strong female characters in your own games, you had to go and get your dirty mitts on Samus, the protype strong female gaming character, and turn her into a whiny little girl with daddy issues who happens to have a high powered alien suit. What's next, having her play volleyball with your DOA girls?

I mean, we're talking about SAMUS ARAN. Ass-kicker extraordinaire. The thing that was so amazing about her to begin with was that her gender was a legitimate surprise. Sure, later games showed her to be attractive, but she was an alien-ass kicker first.

Now all the sudden, she needs a man to tell her what to do and what weapon to use? Malkovich was a bit grating in Metroid: Fusion but Samus had to deal with him, rather than simper around trying to earn his freaking approval. This is NOT the character I have played all these years. I don't need her to be silent and stoic, and having maternal feelings for a Metroid could have been made to work well, but this? Absolute travesty.

Then it occurred to me: A story involving familiar character names yet seem to bear only a cosmetic relationship to the characters? Awkward execution (gorram first person missiles) and questionable plot? This, my friends, is fan-fiction. I won't hear otherwise, not even from Nintendo.

Relax yourself, Breath in... then out... In.... and out. Feel better?

I Think you should probably turn your hate towards Nintendo since it was them who commissioned it full well knowing Team Ninja and Techmo's history. Nintendo hasn't handled there own Metroid IP in so long they might as well sell it off.

But look on the bright side maybe Nintendo will learn from this and hand it back to Retro Studios who did Metroid in 3D right.

 

[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.

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.

Except she does act like the bounty hunter everyone knows and loves. The only exception is when Adam is involved. He makes her lose her nerve, he turns one of the most ruthless bounty hunters into a sobbing child with a few words. All the demons in her mind come up because of him. And the worst part is that he's a complete slime ball to her throughout the entire game. I'm not saying it's a flattering character or one that needs to be looked up to or even a better character, but that's what she is. Fortunately for everyone that loves Samus, the man dies in the end. She'll probably go on idolizing him, but at least he's, for now, too dead to mess with her head any more than he has.

Well written, Adam might make one hell of a villain.

 

[Arehexes]

I don't know about you guys, but if a giant dragon thing I try to be friends with ended up killing my pirates and almost me I would have problems to .

 

[Arehexes]

Now all the sudden, she needs a man to tell her what to do and what weapon to use?

She was in the army right? In the army you have to listen to your superiors. Hell in any job you have to listen to your boss. When you don't it's called insubordination.

True, I hate being bossed around in a normal setting, but at work I say yes sir and do what I'm told on the spot.

 

[Dr. Paine]

Now all the sudden, she needs a man to tell her what to do and what weapon to use?

She was in the army right? In the army you have to listen to your superiors. Hell in any job you have to listen to your boss. When you don't it's called insubordination.

True, I hate being bossed around in a normal setting, but at work I say yes sir and do what I'm told on the spot.

While that's a decent argument, I think you're allowed to be somewhat insubordinate if you're being sent into a highly dangerous situation and not given the authority to use the equipment you have that will keep you safe.

There's having to dig up the Varia suit from god knows where, then there's ignoring all survival instinct for the sake of obedience, and this just does not feel like something a seasoned bounty hunter would be doing.

 

[Internet Kraken]

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 ^^

Samus has wiped out dozens of species, slaughtered hundreds, and caused massive amounts of destruction. Regardless of whether or not this is all justified, it still would have a massive psychological impact on a person. So Samus not being right in the head is completely understandable. What doesn't make sense is how she comes off has so weak and pathetic. How could she have done all those things given her pathetic nature? It just doesn't make sense to characterize a bounty hunter that has basically committed genocide as a psychological train wreck dependent upon her commanding officer for emotional validation and support. I'm not saying Samus was necessarily as big a badass as everyone assumed, but you have to have a significant amount of independence and strength to do the things she has done. Which is why her characterization is bad.

But even if you do think that is good characterization, it still doesn't change the fact that the game is poorly written overall. So it fails either way.

I don't know about you guys, but if a giant dragon thing I try to be friends with ended up killing my pirates and almost me I would have problems to .

I don't know what you mean by Ridley killing her pirates. I'm going to assume you mean parents, and somehow got those two words mixed up.

But you're right. Seeing Ridley kill (and possible devour) my parents right in front of me would definitely cause some major psychological trauma. No doubt confronting this menace again would be horrifying. The thing is, Samus has already killed Ridley multiple times. She's already had her little meltdown. Supposedly there's some obscure Metroid prequel manga that Sakamoto considers to be cannon. In this, Samus freaks out at the sight of Ridley, but eventually overcomes her fear. So she already had her psychological confrontation with Ridley prior to any of the Metroid games. Which is why her freaking out in Other M over the sight of Ridley makes no sense. She's dealt with this numerous times before.

 

[Manji187]

Well, if <a href=http://moonbase.rydia.net/mental/blog/gaming/metroid-other-m-the-elephant/article.html>this fine article is even one-fourth accurate then you, sir, are completely correct.

"If Other M represents what Metroid?s creators had intended all along but hadn?t made clear until now, then I was never really a Metroid fan to begin with."

Damn straight. What a shameful, pitiful disgrace...

 

[fluffybunny937]

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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfAajZ0259w

 

[Souplex]

I don't regard Other M as fanfiction, I just drink whenever I think aboot it until I forget it exists. *Chugs a bottle of rubbing alcohol* Not strong enough damn it!

 

[RJ Dalton]

Then it occurred to me: A story involving familiar character names yet seem to bear only a cosmetic relationship to the characters? Awkward execution (gorram first person missiles) and questionable plot? This, my friends, is fan-fiction. I won't hear otherwise, not even from Nintendo.

I'd almost agree with you, except no fan of Samus Aran would ever write a story like this. It's more like a Hollywood version of a videogame story.

 

[RatRace123]

I'm tempted to agree with you, it's not like people are upset that they gave Samus a personality and voice... they're upset because they gave her a shitty personality and an emotionless voice actress.

It really doesn't match up with her previous apperances, especially her whole breakdown with seeing Ridley a foe she's killed at least twice at that point, if they had her freeze in fear of him then she would've done that in Super Metroid. At this point it's assumed that she can just jump on in and kill him.

She doesn't need to be a frosty fem-bot, even though portraying her as such in other M (or at least having her try to appear as such) and having her actually develop back into a human being who does have emotions and fears would've been a better character arc.

 

[RatheMcGrath]

Now all the sudden, she needs a man to tell her what to do and what weapon to use?

She was in the army right? In the army you have to listen to your superiors. Hell in any job you have to listen to your boss. When you don't it's called insubordination.

She'd already left the military. She was following his orders to... does anyone remember why she was following his orders, again?

 

[RatheMcGrath]

Ah, plenty of responses. (Cracks knuckles)

To those of you who say my opinion doesn't count: Well done, and you're right. It really doesn't. Hell, I bought the game, so I actually encouraged the making of such crap. Thank you for reminding me of my insignificance.

To those calling Samus pre-Other M one dimensional, I suppose you could be correct. Not a lot of room for character development in a Metroid Game, what with the being alone and only having aliens and space pirates to converse with. That said, the mere fact that Samus usually works alone, tends to come to the rescue (she often answers SOS signals in the games) and is more or less fearless tells you a lot about what lies behind the mask. You may as well call Gordon Freeman one dimensional. At least Samus flies to her targets. The last time Gordon Freeman made a choice was when he got out of bed the morning of the Black Mesa event.

 

[Lem0nade Inlay]

I still haven't played it.


....I don't know if I want to...

 

[FightThePower]

I don't think you can just class it as non-canon, as much as I'd like to.

I have to say, MovieBob's opinion on Other M is the best counter-argument I've heard, and I see where he's coming from but I still disagree. I can't be bothered to write a big-arse reply but basically he underestimates the character development of Samus in the previous Metroid titles (e.g. in Metroid Fusion she explicitly says she 'dislikes taking orders' yet in Other M she aggressively follows orders to the point she has no free will) and whilst I see his point about Samus being three-dimensional in the sense she has flaws and fears like everyone else, it's the fact it's so overdone in Metroid Other M that gets me. Also the fact he described Metroid Prime as 'yet another First-Person Shooter' I find quite ignorant, considering its fundamentally different to things like Halo, CoD or Killzone (and also the fact Nintendo officially classified it as a First-Person Adventure).

Let's not forget that the game had quite a few flaws in the gameplay and design department as well, what with the rehashed bosses from previous games, monotonous combat, tedious detective sections and the tendancy to throw a random instant-death moment for no good reason.

 

['Record Stops.']

Let us put it like this. With only grunt's of pain, attacking yells, and three line's of ACTUAL talking. The voice actress from Brawl sounds more like an actual human being than the voice actress in Metroid: Other M does with an entire list of dialogue.