Metroid: Other M Is Great with the Original Japanese Voices

[RThaiRThai]

tl;dr I think most of the problems with Metroid: Other M become easy to overlook when you play it with the original Japanese voices, not the bad English voice. Also, sorry for making this so long. There's more, but that's it for the tl;dr.

Are people tired of the discussion about Other M? Well, about 2 weeks ago, Movie Bob's non-Escapist show, The Game Overthinker, revisited Other M, and now it's on *my* mind. I hope forum goers here will indulge me.

There are a lot of knocks against Metroid: Other M, but one that gets mentioned but to a lesser extent is the translation to English. Something occured to me: I watch anime with subtitles all the time! There must be a subtitled Japanese video on Youtube.

I think the main problem with Metroid: Other M is Samus's English voice acting. Seriously. Watch or play it in Japanese, and it goes from terrible to quite good. I think our judgment was clouded by bad voice acting, and the Japanese version does away with that.

I would like to concede that I have not played the game, and that I can't say at all whether the gameplay is any good. I don't think anybody argues that the gameplay was bad though. From what I can tell, everyone hates the story and loves the gameplay.

I don't blame the English voice actor either, because watching the 2 versions back to back, it's hard for me to imagine how the English version could have been improved while remaining faithful to the tone of the original. I think it could be done, but I don't think it would be easy or trivial.

From what I can tell, there are 3 main complaints. Samus has no good reason to not use all her equipment, Samus should not have needed permission to use her Varia suit, and Samus should not have freaked out when she saw Ridley.

I think it is perfectly reasonable for Samus to not immediately use all her equipment. The example of the bombs was most clear: it could injure any people left on-board. As competent as Samus is, Adam had a better high level view of the situation. Samus was not unreasonably subjecting herself to the will of someone who had no official power over her; she was being mature and voluntarily taking orders because it was a good tactical decision that would benefit everyone onboard. Adam did not command her to follow orders; he asked her, and she decided to do him the favour. It shows that she's a professional: not the hot headed rebel described in the flashbacks.

The Varia suit thing was stupid. Maybe the situation could be reframed to seem less ridiculous, but even after seeing it in Japanese it still seemed silly. I can see it working, though. Every tool had strengths and weaknesses. Maybe the Varia suit works particulalry poorly in some situations, and it was not worth the risk until the situation could be properly assesed or the desperation made the risk worth it. Maybe the suit explodes if there's a certain chemical in the air. Maybe it's just stupid, but I'm saying there are ways of framing it.

Maybe Samus's reaction to Ridley was inconsistent with the rest of the series. I've read and seen videos about the rest of the series, but I'm not a huge follower of Metroid. Maybe that means I shouldn't even be taking about it now, but I'd like to believe my opinion still has some value in the discussion. It sounds better in Japanese, but it doesn't change much. What I want to disagree with the complaint that the scene is sexist. She showed a moment of weakness. That's all. There are plenty of other times when she does not freak out; at other times she's cool, collected, and has the situation completely under he control. Male characters show weakness like this all the time. I think it's fair to say that the characterization is inconsistent, but I don't think it's fair to call it sexist.

Basically, I think it still has problems, but those problems are so much easier to look past when you play the game with better voice acting. I think it makes a world of difference.

Take a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=apD3R3YsKXs&feature=related

 

[krazykidd]

Blasphemy!

OT: Blasphemy!!

Real OT: You might be on to something, but Also maybe because you don't understand japanese . Maybe it's just as bad in japanese but better with subtitles. I personally wouldn't say terrible to good , maybe ( i will really have to try this) terrible to playable? I really couldn't stand Metroid other M and had no intention of putting it back in my wii , but you sir have done the impossible , make me want to give it one last chance . But the voices weren't what got to me , it was the controlles and the gameplay i couldn't get into, it's so counter intuitive and not very fun ( for me at least). The story was kinda meh too , but whatever i'll give it another shot , but you do raise an interesting point. But is it really the bad voice acting? Or is it what she says that makes it terrible? You talk about translation , but i can't really see how translation would be THE problem in this day and age. Would the game have been better with a different voice actor? Anyways , i will test this out for myself , BUT this is Metroid other: M last chance . Like a wise man once said : fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

Also another wise man said :" KILL IT WITH FIRE!". Which i intend to do if this game fails me one more.

 

[Nieroshai]

Personally, it made sense for Ridley's return to freak her out. After all, she dropped him into lava. Saw him melting away. And before that, she completely blew his cyborg body to bits. He's like Michael Myers, every time you do something no one should survive, he's back again. No, my annoyance was with the overdramatization of Samus's feelings towards both Adam and the hatchling. In Fusion, she revered Adam as a comrade and a hero, who she came to respect after begrudgingly having to serve under him. The Hatchling was respected and remembered somewhat lovingly because it gave its life to defeat Mother Brain, she did not see it as if it were her actual child. Everything else I found easy to overlook.

 

[NickCaligo42]

Less wooden acting doesn't make the characters less stupid, the overall storyline less boorish, or the game mechanics less clunky.

I just flat-out don't buy any of your arguments. The best one you've got is on why Samus wouldn't use her upgrades, but it's still dumb. For one, it's an artificial limitation that doesn't even pretend to present the player with a reasonable explanation to not carry over Samus's upgrades. It would have actually been better if they hadn't mentioned it AT ALL and just pretended she never got upgrades to begin with, like how every Mega Man game went for a long while.

Instead--and this is the second problem--they hung it on Samus's forced daddy issues with a character that nobody who hasn't read the manga or played the half-baked GBA spinoff knows about. It doesn't matter what language the game is in, it ends up dragging the character from being an effective, proactive, identifiable protagonist to being an angsty, panicky girl who can't make decisions for herself.

As to the overall Metroid continuity... well, there isn't that much to know. Samus has literally saved countless planets and killed Ridley countless times and has no excuse to have a panic attack, whether she's speaking Japanese or not.

 

[Something Amyss]

Did they change the plot, too? Because the plot was pretty damn awful in the English version. It might be second to the voice acting, but it was still a pretty big damn issue.

In fact, I probably could have just quoted Nick here:

Less wooden acting doesn't make the characters less stupid, the overall storyline less boorish, or the game mechanics less clunky.

Yup.