Board 8 > Metroid: Other M Playthrough Topic 2 - Adam authorized a second thread

(+) Yeah! (+)

My previous thread unfortunately purged just after Samus made it through the "hell run" section of Other M. We left off with 8 writeups completed so far up to Sector 2, and so I'll continue here for anyone interested.

Part 9 - Cryosphere

I forgot how much I hated the loading screen for when you start up. I swear this game takes about a full two minutes to even start playing when you select your file. I run down a long, snowy corridor (I also forgot how many linear corridors there are in this game) and after finding a missile tank underneath some ice I encounter the next set of minbosses.

evil mountain goats

alright then metroid, if you say so

The...goats (why) are quite fast, but shooting them with the ice beam causes their hooves to get frozen to the ground, allowing you to missile them with extreme prejudice. Nothing overly difficult about these things, just incredibly silly.

The next room has a tentacled plant stuck to the ceiling with floating allies that occasionally fire purple homing shots at you, along with a missile tank underwater. Could I have my gravity suit authorized yet please Adam? Just to make underwater Metroid less obnoxious than Sonic's underwater sections? After raising some platforms I head to the next room which is just another linear corridor full of enemies (I can think of no amusing way to describe about half the rooms in this game, ugh) and exit further north.

Samus automatically walks onto the ice bridge to the north, which collapses and drops me into a pit with a strange biped that has a helmet on it. It attacks much like every boss in Mega Man X3 (charging around the room mindlessly) and obviously the helmet deflects your beam. When it moves by you, charge beam its ass and it will eventually fall over and you can overblast it, only to have it deflected still by his helmet. I'm guessing you can actually missile the thing off but I didn't care to try, just killed it the old-fashioned way. I head north again to a save room.

After killing a few more generic enemies, I find the way through the corridor blocked by ice that requires super missiles. There is a vent that lets you go around it though in morph ball mode. You end up in an outside frozen area after this, and get attacked by another miniboss.

Its first attack is dodged by a QTE sensemove. It looks like a space pirate with four arms or something. I really wish we had Metroid Prime's scan feature back so I could find out about the enemies in more detail! He jumps around really quickly and after some time will turn orange, whereupon he'll only be vulnerable to missiles. Two lethal strikes after stunning him will take him out.

The next room has more evil goats followed by the helmet biped. I do test out some missiles and it seems to create a hole in his helm which allows for an easy instant lethal strike. You find an ice wall after this that cracks after firing a missile at it, allowing you to go inside it and bomb it, causing it to shatter and collapse all on top of Samus. I think that by all means that should probably hurt, but alas, it's not like logic and this game have met many times.

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Geologists will date anything.

After some morph ball tunnels and elevators, I arrive in a room with another of those quick space-pirate-ish enemies, who retreats backwards and fires shots at the ceiling to dislodge stalactites and cause them to fall into the water, making platforms for you. Some you have to dislodge yourself, but otherwise this could probably be considered the most helpful enemy in the game. Sadly, I can't proceed without delivering him a quick death. You were a true bro, four-armed space pirate blasty man. A save point in the next room symbolically allows us to save after such a tragic event.

After nabbing an annoying missile tank in the previous room involving Samus gripping a ledge before she can plunge into the god-forsaken water, I head into the next area which is yet another generic corridor filled with enemies and proceed.

Samus finds the remains of a large creature inside the next room, which looks like it was killed by a metroid. She remarks that metroids can't survive in this environment and, more importantly, that they're extinct. The baby metroid was the last of its kind, wasn't it?

I freeze some vents in the room and acquire another missile tank, then run down more long, linear corridors with no enemies. I end up in an area with another helmet biped which is a little more annoying due to the closed quarters and the flying bugs that shoot icicles at you. After dealing with everyone you get to ride a lift to open the door nearby. The next room is pretty much uneventful as well, you just missile an ice block then bomb it and platform your way to the next area, called the Water Tank.

After jumping into the aforementioned water and killing the fishes, you can missile open a drainage pipe and jump in in morph ball mode. I have no idea how Samus even begins to consider this safe, as she seemingly clings for life as the water drains her into the previous room. I backtrack to the water tank and fight two space-pirate-goonbros then climb up the right side of the room to find a missile tank.

More. Linear. Corridors. With. Nothing. In. Them. At the end is a barrier requiring the Speed Booster. Well, time to head back, can't do anything! Thanks for sending me here Adam! As I start to go back though, Samus has her speed booster authorized by Adam along with the Shinespark. Whoo-hoo! I wonder if this upgrade works well in a 3D environment?

Samus looks pretty awesome when speed boosting. Good upgrade overall I'd say. E-recovery tank found after charging through barriers and sounding oddly like a train. This item lets me recover more energy with Concentration when I'm nearly dead. Yay. I run along the way back and shinespark up to a missile tank. There were a few long corridors in previous rooms, so I begin to finally treat this like an actual Metroid game and see if I can backtrack.

I return to the confined corridor with the armored biped and let off a speed boost, allowing me to shoot straight up to find a pesky missile tank I was wondering about earlier. Before dropping back down I lay down a bomb, back up, and ram into it as it explodes to propel me to the other side of the pipe and roll down it just to see if anything is there. Turns out there's a missile tank, excellent. I explore around the areas a bit more but find nothing, so I decide to continue with the mission. The area I decided to backtrack from is actually the area I first met the evil goats in, so I continue from that point.

After the plant room again (what is with that thing anyway) I speed boost to the north and shinespark to get across a chasm. You know Adam, authorizing that earlier would have saved us a lot of pointless travel! I drop down a nearby hole and find an energy tank. After bomb slotting my way back up (it's good the scientists on the Bottle Ship accounted for ball-sized objects that wanted to propel themselves upwards) I find a save room and decide to stop the area for awhile.

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Geologists will date anything.

Missiles: 39
Energy Tanks: 4
E-Recovery Tanks: 1
Energy Parts: 5
Accel Charge: 2

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Geologists will date anything.

Part 10 - Why is Sector 2 so boring

Notably the recap loading screen for this part has absolutely nothing different from the previous part, accentuating just how little happened while searching for survivors. I really appreciate pointless filler!

After another linear corridor full of enemies (I have not seen such riveting level design since Metroid NES!) I arrive at the Sector Generator Room. This is a pretty neat area, requiring you to wall jump between turbines and cling onto rails to get higher. I find a missile tank at the top and continue. After two more linear corridors with little in them I find an area filled with creatures in tubes!

TUBES!? *Space Pirate eyes*

Down in the room are some grates which are bombable, revealing an energy peart/heart piece. I head back up and speed boost/shine spark across the gap, where I get ambushed by the space pirate four-armed miniboss thing again. After defeating it another one shows up, because if there's one thing this game loves it's combat over exploration. Another linear corridor leads to a save point. This leads me to an outside area (Experiment Floor) with another miniboss, this being the one that walks around slowly and fires projectiles at you that you can just missile to death from afar with no worry. It still takes ages to kill unfortunately.

A pile of snow collapses onto the monster's corpse allowing me to climb up. I find the corpse of Maurice frozen up at the top, and Samus catches a glimpse of a scientist in a nearby tower window, and I engage in a first-person search mode again. Unlike a lot of previous ones this is fairly obvious and I find the scientist in about 20 seconds. The scientist runs away (as Samus does look fairly scary standing next to a dead soldier) and I find an accel charge pack located in a snowbank nearby and head into the Materials Storehouse facility.

I descend some stairs and catch a glimpse of the scientist from earlier, and Samus enters her ridiculous Resident Evil 4 view where she walks really slowly for no reason. The scientist yells not to come near her. Samus mentions she's here to rescue her, but the scientist argues that the Federation wants to silence all those that know about the cloning being performed here. Gasp, what a twist.

After wandering through what I swear is a Mass Effect sidequest room for a few more minutes, the scientist remarks that one of our soldiers killed Maurice! Oh noes! Samus fails a diplomacy check and gets attacked by a Galactic Federation Power Suit (which looks a lot like the machine used in the climax of Aliens) piloted by the traitor soldier, whose face is conveniently hidden from view.

This isn't too bad of a boss fight. It tries to continuously charge into Samus and grab her with its pincers, and can fire a laser at her. Your goal early on is to freeze the pincers as they do a lot of damage if they grab you and then missile them to destroy them. Hey, wait a minute, why does this boss sound so familiar?

Oh right. I already fought it 14 years ago on the Playstation:



After you eliminate its pincers it deploys some spiked wheels in front of it but these rarely have the opportunity to actually hit you. Samus freezes the Power Suit into place and blows up the system on its back that it uses to try and defrost itself, and after doing this twice the machine spins out of control and crashes into some boxes nearby.

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Geologists will date anything.

Samus can't find the traitor in the Galactic Federation Power Suit. Adam tells her that the monster who pinned her down and tried to eat her earlier has unleashed a cry causing every creature to become more aggressive in the bottle ship. He says that I "have to use the plasma beam to take it down" but doesn't actually authorize it. Thanks for that Adam, and thank you Samus for taking "authorization" so damn literally. Samus takes an elevator shaft up to the next area and we get a cutscene as she goes down a lift.

Samus remarks that the Bottle Ship is now a replica of Zebus and that the Federation's secret plan was going to be unveiled, so that the Federation sent in an assassin to deal with the survivors and with our soldiers. Samus decides to call the traitor "the Deleter" (what the hell?). Samus wonders if the scientist from before is Madeline Bergman, "MB", and decides to protect her either way. The game cuts to the Deleter killing another soldier and throwing him into the lava in Sector 3 before walking away.

I'm going to call it now - the Deleter is probably the guy who is really really good with communications and computers, James Pierce. So basically, The JP is going around killing all of our guys if I'm right. Astounding. Other clues that make me think of this would be the Exam Center exploding for absolutely no reason and was in Sector 1 before Lyle was, the guy who was actually assigned there, to kill him and take his explosives. Even further, he said the computer there had "self-destructed", so that's a perfect cover up, along with the fact that communications have been so haywire.

After a lovely save point I head into a room with two choices as to where to go - actual choice in this game is always nice. I pick up an easy missile tank and head west, killing three evil goats inside, then doing a shinespark to pick up an obvious missile tank. I perform another shinespark to reach the top of a large tower, where I morph ball bomb to end up in a small maze. The maze has electrified panels that spark before they zap you and some basic enemies but the way through is quite easy. Upon completing the second maze I come across I find another energy tank. Samus slides down the slope to the south as I can't shoot the switch nearby due to the glass and gets to avoid objects while she slides, similar to certain flash minigames.

I head back to the previous warehouse room with two choices on where to go, but glass doors slide up and trap Samus among some Zebesians standing outside the glass. Due to the glass, you can't hurt them, but they can shoot through it with their attacks. After dodging for about 30 seconds, Adam authorizes the use of the Wave Beam. Hooray for Samus continuing to be hopelessly suicidal and not doing anything to survive unless she's told to. The Wave Beam lets me pierce through materials that are transparent or semitransparent, allowing me to kick the crap out of the pirates with ease.

--
Geologists will date anything.

Now that I can shoot the switch behind the glass I decide to backtrack there. The mazes take on a different layout in terms of electrical floor panels this time but it's nothing serious. Shooting the switch makes a lift arrive. After taking the door out again, I slide down the slope, only this time an avalanche chases me! I decide to take its approach and turn into a morph ball to roll down significantly faster than it. As I fall to the bottom of the slope I unmorph and make a mad dash south to speed boost, and Samus, being quite generous, automatically shinesparks back to the two-way area.

I finally head north this time and have to do some enraging platforming involving climbing a slope, breaking some ice with missiles along the way. At the top is a save point and I enter into the Materials Transfer Lift. I kill about 7 Zebesians on the way up which is pretty awesome, and then fight a flying miniboss with several tentacles and an eyeball. It's good to know science has gone to proper use in this facility. It shoots a wave of missiles to begin with, but SenseMove is broken so you can dodge them easily. When it lands it flails around and you can freeze its tentacles up to stop that, but it'll also open its eye and begin firing beams at you. Some of these can be dodged, but eventually it opens up its eye and charges up one on you, turning in every direction you face to ensure it homes in. Not wanting to take massive damage I go first-person and missile its eyeball, and after another shot or two the creature takes off and flies back down the elevator shaft I just came up.

The next room is a dead end with a power bomb door, but I look around closely and notice a leaking pipe. I roll inside and bomb some switches which causes the tubes nearby to drain of fluid. I go to the other side of the tubes and see a switch that I can fire at with my Wave Beam, unlocking the longest morph ball shaft ever and rolling me back to the elevator to the Main Sector. I take it and then head down to Sector 3 again. The announcer warns me that all staff should evacuate immediately, as if this wasn't apparent before. I take the left door as the right one doesn't work and after climbing up from the volcano interior I save my game.

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Geologists will date anything.

Evil goats. This game suddenly got a lot better.

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You laugh at my Celtic Guardian, until I use my Scapegoat, and then United We Stand, Mage Power, and 3 Axe Of Despairs, with Gaia Power out.
11900/7800

A friend suddenly asks why I didn't comment on the Deleter suddenly being in Sector 2 moments after we defeated the Carry Armor he was using. The solution is quite simple. We were in what looks like a warehouse from Mass Effect, so obviously the elevator nearby was a Mass Effect elevator. Samus just took a few hours to contemplate things.

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Geologists will date anything.

tag again

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Everyone has a right to sarcasm. It's like murder, except legal. - MYC

excellent

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Geologists will date anything.

I'll continue tomorrow, busy day today.

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Geologists will date anything.

Part 11 - Samus is ridiculous

The corridor to the south that previously spat molten rocks at me is now a ruined bridge, and I do a shinespark across a broken section of it, failing to reach the other side and enduring a nice hot lava bath for...about 8 damage. Varia Suit you are the best. The next corridor has Zebesians as regular enemies which is pretty neat (they are still the best part of this game so far), and back in the room with the armored bug miniboss, I am attacked by...the armored bug miniboss again. His surprise attack completely fails to knock me off guard and I obliterate it with ease, though when it turns into its 'worm' form it wraps around Samus and explodes for a measly 20 damage. Whatever. The computer in this room unlocks the eastern door from the start of the sector, so I backtrack there.

The eastern section has a room with a grapple beam point. As I arrive there, the flying tentacle creature from before has just managed to grab onto Anthony (how Anthony got up there is beyond me), and so I switch into first-person view and have a look up at the chaos and see if I can help with missiles. Samus however catches sight of the grapple beam point, which causes Adam to authorize the use of the grapple beam. I use it to swing over and save Anthony from being dropped into the lava, and begin my rematch with the tentacle creature.

There's not much different about the monster now except that it can use its Macross Missile Massacre attack while on the ground now. Anthony also helps out in this fight but I try to keep the monster away from him to avoid any silly situations. After doing enough damage to it, it starts to fly away and then...dives into the lava to escape. Well that's one way to lose your pursuers.

Anthony is of course quite glad to be saved. Anthony says they were called to move as a unit to open up the geothermal spot inside Sector 3. Anthony wonders how Samus feels about Adam, and Samus thinks back a bit...

Suddenly she has a flashback about someone named Ian, who is a soldier on a rescue mission. Okay. He gets into some trouble and Adam gives the order to let Ian basically die, even though Samus says she can rescue him. Samus mentions Ian is Adam's little brother (!!!) and begs for a chance to save Ian, but Adam will have none of it and allows Ian to die to save everyone else. Anthony mentions the commander was scared of losing someone like Samus, and we get to see Ian's portrait explode.

"All I could do was question his authority and make things more difficult."

Oh, so that's why you need to put yourself in suicidal situations. Except no, that's dumb Samus and I hate you.

Anthony wondered if Samus could do the same thing if it happened again. She mentions she would try to rescue whoever was in danger if the same situation happened. So basically, if Anthony is ever put into a situation where his life is in jeopardy Samus is going to wait and ask Adam if she can pretty-please-save-his-life-really-Adam-I-can-do-it and not do a thing if he says no. Which is pretty much exactly what happened this time (note that Samus didn't even use the grapple beam until Adam told her to use it. Samus is being quite truthful when she says she'll do the exact same thing again!

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Geologists will date anything.

After a bit more travel and a save point I arrive back in the large room full of magma where I was told to turn back earlier. I use the grapple beam to swing by and notice a small gap in the lava underneath. I roll down and find an energy part, then head back and arrive in Blast Furnace Observation. Samus grapples into a morph ball slot and has to bomb specific parts to release Grapple Beam nodules. One of them gets eaten by that lava dragon from earlier, which probably means it's going to be bothering me very soon. At the end of the pipe I operate a terminal which opens the door to that room. I head in, and confront the lava dragon thing at last.

The dragon will leap out of the lava and shoot fireballs at you, but it has a big glowing weak point that you can shoot at with the wave beam. After doing this a few times, it will sometimes open its mouth, revealing a large green weak point. You can use the grapple beam here to actually wrangle it out of the lava and drop it onto the floor with you, whereupon you can blast it a lot easier. Grapple it one more time and do that and it will remove its own grapple point (well okay then). Now it will sometimes leap onto the surface with you and scurry along trying to eat you. I SenseMove behind it and blast its weak point and after doing this twice it finally dies, draining the lava (what? why did that happen?) and makes the grapple beam points reappear in the room. A nice, if somewhat nonsensical boss. I grapple beam over to the next room and head up to a save point. While wall jumping up, the screen decides to transition with a "loading" part, which causes me to mistime my ascent. Very nice of you game.

"Samus, it looks like that monster is headed to the Geothermal electric-power generator. Track it and put an end to it."

The worst part about this line is that with such a vague description at first I thought it might have meant the lava dragon before realizing he must have meant the bird monster that pinned Samus down. This game.

Heading north, I arrive in a desert area. I see a grapple point in the corridor and decide to swing across to avoid whatever nonsense might be lurking in the sand, and I find myself in the Environmental Test Floor. There are some pits in the sand here which I swear remind me of the sarlaccs from Star Wars. I can only hope that Samus and Adam both get to experience a thousand years of digestion. Worms will pop up out of the holes that you can fairly easily eliminate. There is a crane in the northwest section that requires you to spin it around with missiles so that the grapple beam point faces a terminal which unlocks the way out. Unfortunately every time you missile it you have to wait about 5-10 seconds before you can do so again, making this 'puzzle' take longer than it needs to. From here I go to the Desert Refinery.

This area is not very noteworthy, you just climb some stairs and kill enemies along the way. After a speed boost/shinespark to get onto a vent, I find a missile tank and a save point. Another hallway of enemies awaits me, and then I find a room with an elevator. Samus runs to it but the flying tentacle monster jumps out and breaks it, making me SenseMove to dodge its attack.

Gary Oak The Flying Tentacle Creature is basically the same fight as the previous two times. When you hurt it enough it will fly around and only do its Macross Missile Massacre attack, but it will open its big red eye as well. If you shoot a missile at it, it falls out of the air and plummets to its presumed death. I take the longest elevator trip ever and go through more grapple beam sections and end up in a far earlier area of Sector 3. Now that I have the grapple beam though I can definitely find more.

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Geologists will date anything.

I go back to an area filled with lava where I originally couldn't use my varia suit and after exploring for about 10 minutes find the grapple beams I need to take me to a higher elevation. With another save point and Samus taking a few non-lethal lava baths, I come across the remains of the creature that pinned her down before, with its skin now molted. I have to do a first-person search but this is an obvious one, just glance at the skin of the creature. ...It looks a little familiar. But no, the game could not possibly be this stupid, right? Let's just hope.

The next corridor has a few enemies producing a laser between themselves. You can freeze one and it'll stop the lasers, so this corridor is entirely pointless and with no challenge (which describes about every corridor in this entire game pretty well). I come to the Geothermal Power Plant at last.

There's an easy energy tank here which probably means I'll be fighting a boss very, very soon! The grapple hook lets me find an accel charge. The next room has Samus walk along very slowly before a red beam appears on her. Sniper Wolf? Nope, it's Anthony, who you think is the traitor for about half a second before he tells Samus to duck, firing a shot at...Ridley.

Of course it's Ridley. How could I have not seen that this:



Would evolve into



and then turn into



How foolish of me to be fooled by a plot-twist seemingly inspired by POKEMON of all things. This "Evil-Bunny-Digivolved-to-Giant-Bird-Lizard-Which-Is-Actually-Ridley" is probably a clone of the real Ridley. Why would anyone want to clone Ridley at all? Good lord.

In any case, I'm forced into a first-person view to look around. I eventually see the exit and lock onto it, but Ridley flies by and destroys the bridge to it. Anthony says he'll take Ridley out, but Samus says to Leave Bond To Me and not fire. After running around dodging some fire, Adam tells me to "blast the eruption port to get the magma flowing". It would help, Adam, if I knew what the hell an eruption port -was-. After I look around I lock onto a target and Adam says to "use your super missiles". Whoo-hoo, finally! I blast the eruption port.

Samus looks around frantically and sees Ridley dive out of the lava onto the platform with her. She backs up in fear from him, and remembers in her childhood how Ridley threatened her. Samus seems to break down at this point, and Adam wonders wtf is going on. He tries to tell her to use her Plasma Beam, but Samus is too freaked out to do anything. Meanwhile, the Deleter seems to shoot Adam. Samus is grabbed by Ridley and loses her suit, but Anthony shoots Ridley and Samus activates her suit just in time to save herself. Anthony tells Ridley he has no style (what the hell?) but runs out of power for his gun. Ridley uses his tail to knock Anthony off of the platform to his seeming death and confronts Samus again, who now has the resolve to face Ridley, and she now activates her Plasma Beam.

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Geologists will date anything.

Alright, what the -HELL- is wrong with this scene? Where do I even start? This is such a throwaway reference, to begin with. In the Metroid e-manga, Samus's parents were killed by Ridley, which caused her to experience post-traumatic stress disorder about him. When she confronted him later in the manga as a bounty hunter, she experienced this exact same kind of fear and could do nothing. Thankfully, she overcame it in time to destroy Ridley and Mother Brain.

Keyword: she -overcame- her fear already. This isn't even the same Ridley who killed her parents! To date, it hasn't killed -anything- or spoken a word! Why is she scared of it!? Let's count the number of times Samus has fought Ridley, for that matter:

-Metroid (scared out of her mind but overcame her fear)
-Metroid Prime she fought Meta Ridley (no PTSD stuff)
-Metroid Prime 3 she fought Meta Ridley (no PTSD stuff)
-Metroid Prime 3 she fought Omega Ridley (no PTSD stuff)
-Super Metroid she fought Ridley (no PTSD stuff though 'canonically' one could say she's defeated him)
-Super Metroid she fought Ridley again (no PTSD stuff)

She has killed this guy 5 times (and possibly defeated him 6 times) along with a robotic version of him in Metroid Zero Mission. Nothing about this scene has any sense to it and my brain is now completely fried.

The boss fight itself isn't very difficult at all. It is literally "SenseMove, the game". Ridley has a variety of attacks, none of which are any threat at all as long as you mash the Dpad. He will sometimes shoot a fireball in the center of the arena and make you have to jump over the shockwave, but this is not difficult either. Nonetheless he still did take off a whole energy tank. After damaging him a little bit, he will turn black and you can't hurt him, a sure sign that I need to super missile him. There's a bit of a trick you can do with super missiles in this to save time - if you fully charge while in normal view, then go first-person while holding the 1 button, hold B to lock on to Ridley, and then let go of 1, you'll fire a super missile and skip having to stand around waiting for it to charge in first-person. With this in mind, Ridley is not much of a threat. After I defeat him, he flies back up from the lava with damaged wings and tries to grab Samus again, but I fire a missile in first-person view (I'm not sure if this is automatic but if it is then I acted entirely like Samus did) which misses, but then Ridley flies off after Samus shoots the plasma beam at him again. He burns a hole through a wall and bursts through it. Samus pities herself for thinking that Anthony might have been the Deleter for a moment.

I grapple beam my way south into the hole that was made and then have to blast open a super missile door. This lets me go to an elevator shaft where I shoot a charge beam to open the way through. If you slide down further you can nab a missile tank as well. After a morph ball tunnel, I end up back at the Sector 3 elevator. I decide to head east to the room where I saved Anthony, blowing open a super missile door which lets me access a terminal that opens a gate nearby. Inside of it is an energy part which I have 4 of now, so I've gained another energy tank. I explore around a bit and find nothing important (not to mention at this point I'm getting incredibly bored of Sector 3), so I head back to the Sector 3 elevator and head up. Samus mentions that something is "gnawing" at her, which is that Adam might be targeted by the Deleter. She wonders why she can't reach him and thinks that Adam wouldn't go down easily.

Samus at the top of the elevator sees a soldier walking by. I follow him and he goes onto the Sector 1 elevator. Of course. I follow him down and head east to a save point.

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Geologists will date anything.

Part 12 - Any objections, GameFAQs?

Samus proceeds through Sector 1 again, dealing with trash mobs until she arrives at a room with two new minibosses. They look somewhat like insects, and can roll up into spiky balls and roll around, or dig underground and attack you. After someone like Ridley, these enemies are kind of a joke, though performing lethal strikes on them was a little difficult.

Back in the area with the giant tree, we get an awkward transition showing the soldier running away, and a spiky armadillo insect rolls down the path to me. I send it into another dimension with a well-placed super missile and move on, speed boosting up the path and shinesparking to a missile tank. I drop down and take the north exit. A grapple point leads to a missile and then I exit to the next room. As I go in, I see the soldier running to a save point! No way I'll let him take advantage of magical reloading powers! I chase after him and don't find him in the save room. I run through and north to an area I hadn't been in before, and see the soldier on the other side of a bridge which has been withdrawn. To my right, I see a broken terminal and examine it in a forced first-person view.

"Any objections, Adam?" Samus asks as she activates her Space Jump and Screw Attack without being authorized to do so. Wow Samus, it must have took a lot of nerve to do that! Except, oh wait, currently Adam isn't communicating with you and likely has no idea what you're doing. It would have been really cool if she had told Adam to go screw himself and do this over the comm, but instead Samus's act of rebellion goes unnoticed by everyone, especially with the train of thought in mind that Adam could be the Deleter or whatever. It sure was brave of Samus to only activate her best abilities when no one was looking and when she had no other choice to.

In any case, the screw attack is as usual amazing. I don't think there's been a single Metroid game that's had a badly-implemented Screw Attack and it shows here. I explore the ground area and find a vent with a missile tank, and then I jump across and reactive the bridge, proceeding to the next room and boarding the elevator down to the Bioweapon Research Center, finding a save point and proceeding through some halls to a cutscene.

Samus looks around the room and walks in slowly, but finds the computers in the room activating seemingly on their own. Samus unlocks a door and sees the scientist from earlier, who runs away again and locks the door. Samus again tells her she wants to rescue her. Samus rolls a natural 20 on her diplomacy check and the scientist finally trusts her. The scientist introduces herself as Madeline Bergman.

The Federation was trying to make a special-forces unit composed of bioweapons. They wanted to make an organization modeled after the pirates with Zebesians at the center. The life forms became ferocious due to Ridley and they couldn't control them any longer. Madeline sent out the distress signal as she felt that the Zebesians would evolve into real space pirates. Samus wonders if she set the facility to self-destruct and notes that her argument has some holes. Without a force to lead them, wouldn't they just follow their instincts and become feral? It's clear either way that the Federation wants to clean up their mess using the Deleter. Samus also realizes that the Federation's actions are strange - why not just blow the facility up to begin with and use the Deleter at all?

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Geologists will date anything.

Madeline says there's an even more dangerous plan and asks Samus to follow her. Madeline logs on and sees there's a Metroid Militarization Plan. Samus comes to the realization that metroid remnants were attached to her suit from her last mission, and the Federation decided to clone them. The tutorial scientist from the start polished her suit and took the cell cultures of the metroids and Ridley. They raised the Ridley clone like a pet called "Little Birdie" for awhile, but then it attacked a researcher and got away. To control Metroids, you need a Mother Brain to use telepathy though, so the Federation made an AI that would reproduce Mother's thought processes. Madeline calls it MB and says that it became self-aware just like the original Mother Brain.

Samus notes that the story is not so inconsistent now. She asks where MB and the metroids are, and Madeline tells her it's in Sector 0, a place similar to Tourian from Zebes. This could certainly spell disaster for everyone if MB went out of control, and the Federation leaders want to avoid that but still capture the metroids in Sector 0 and kill all who knew the secret, including Ridley. Adam, however, showed up and might have suspected that something was wrong, so the ringleaders could no longer act recklessly with a Federation CO on board, hence the need for a Deleter. Samus being there must have disrupted the Federation's plans though. She resolves to destroy the metroids and MB. Samus tells Madeline to remain hidden and that Adam will help keep her safe. Madeline asks if the commanding officer is Adam Malkovich.

Samus is now on an elevator and flashes back to her conversation with Madeline, who can't believe that Adam is the CO here. A soldier comes down as Samus leaves and confronts Madeline, and a shot is heard. Samus steps off the elevator back to Sector One.

So why did Nintendo ever make Metroid Fusion again?

No, really, Metroid Fusion's plot has now gone completely out the window because Samus continues to work with the Federation in Fusion and it does basically this -exact same thing- but without the advanced AI to control the metroids. It could be argued that this incident is the fault of a rogue section of the Federation and it was dealt with after this game, but then did the same faction arise again in Fusion? Wouldn't laws about cloning be made more strict now? Why would Samus continue to work with an organization that tried to literally "Delete" her? I'm hoping the game clears up this seeming inconsistency.

--
Geologists will date anything.

On the way back, I grab an energy part by using the space jump and take note of how annoying of a noise the Super Cazadores make when they die. I jump by more spiky armadillos through the giant tree room and run south. Samus runs into the room automatically, and gets attacked by Jr. Troopa With Tentacles once again. I don't even take any damage this time as I just nail him mercilessly. He seems to only want to fly around shooting missiles which makes him even easier. This time he actually dies and I pick up a powerup - the Seeker Missile! The first powerup I've ever collected in this entire game! Holy crap! I head south and west to a save point, then board the elevator to the Main Sector, and from there head back to Sector 2.

I take the east route here and find a super missile plate, blowing it up to find another missile. I do some more backtracking, deciding it'd be a good idea to start my search for Sector Zero in the spot where I found the creature that died from a Metroid attack. As I head back, I get attacked by the helmeted biped miniboss from way back and I kill it completely by accident with one screw attack, 'whoops'. Sure enough near the dead creature is a seeker missile door that I recalled, and I blast it open.

I run down the next hallway and suddenly, Samus gets her gravity reversed and she's now on the ceiling. Could this be the work of Gravity Man? A Glabrezu from Dungeons and Dragons? Something far more stupid? Who knows. Either way my controls are now very strange, and after platforming a bit with this I find a missile tank in a vent. I fall back to my normal state but now Samus is training in a 100x gravity hallway, which makes her jumping quite useless. After dealing with more tentacle-pirate-bro-things (that also now die in one screw attack) I see a tantalizing energy tank above but can't reach it due to the interface screw. I perform some annoying platforming and finally arrive at a save point outside of the gravity area.

This next room just screams "boss fight". I climb to the top and am attacked by a television set with arms. This is probably Nightmare from Metroid Fusion which makes me wonder why he's in that game. This fight is definitely harder than the one with Ridley, but still not that bad. You start by shooting the plate over his face while he screws around with gravity. Eventually you need to super missile him, with the insta-super-missile trick making this a lot easier. He can sweep around the area with lasers that you need to jump over, fire purple blasts at you that you can SenseMove, and eventually can jump onto the platform with you and charge at you, which you avoid by just jumping down a pit. After you defeat it, its face plate blasts off, revealing that it is indeed Nightmare with its horribly disfigured face, and it crashes around the room and dies.

Samus heads back to the top and exits south, and we cut to a scene of a weapon firing or an explosion happening. The Bottle Ship appears to be in some trouble! I board the elevator to the north to Sector Zero at last. When I get off, I find a save point nearby.

Sector Zero is quite nice-looking, it lights up as you run through it which is a neat effect. I run down an empty corridor for a really, really long time and arrive at a room where Samus walks with a dutch angle camera. The hell? Is this Battlefield Earth? A creature seems to be stalking Samus as she walks along at a slow pace. I get a first-person view and see a Metroid to my left! So cute! Samus remembers when she found the hatchling from Metroid 2, and this Metroid does not seem intent on killing her. Despite that, she tries to destroy it, but gets shot in the back as she aims at it, losing her power suit. What? Could it be the Deleter? The metroid hovers over her, ready to strike, but the attacker kills it too. It couldn't be the Deleter then.

--
Geologists will date anything.

She thanks Adam for this and says to leave the rest to her. Did you expect any less from her? She's shown no initiative so far other than when she thought Adam wasn't looking. Does it really surprise you that this game treats Adam like some sort of hero when he's acted like a total monster?

I run south to the "heroic music" played for an abusive father figure, screw attacking any pirate in my way. As I go along, the vacuum of space almost sucks Samus into it as the Bottle Ship starts to deteriorate. Samus decides to activate her gravity suit instantly. Now that Adam is gone, it's not like he can object. She does it to preserve herself without a second thought in this kind of situation, which is exactly what she should have done from the beginning. Now with the ability to defy the gravitational pressures, Samus runs south and ignores the pirates, desperately trying to escape the final life-threatening gift that Adam left for her. She makes a made dive through the door and barely manages to get out.

I save my game, disgusted.

--
Geologists will date anything.

Of course not. Who do you think would shoot Samus in the back like this and leave her vulnerable? Who's treated her like a child the whole game? It's Adam. Adam tells her that the metroids are up ahead. Samus asks why Adam shot her, and Adam tells her that she can't destroy these metroids. Samus naturally asks what he means, and Adam explains that the metroids can't be frozen due to genetic manipulation, so they cannot be destroyed. She points out that Adam was able to freeze the metroid from earlier, but he says that's only because it was in larval stage. Adam explains that the military would never mass-produce weapons with a weakness. Adam says that they cannot be allowed to exist. Samus wonders why Adam is credited as the creator of the Metroid Military Report. He reported that Metroids shouldn't be cloned, but that a small group within the Federation co-opted the report for its own purposes. That explains that, at least.

Adam says Samus will be fully recovered soon and that he has several missions for her. The Bottle Ship may be on a crash course against the Federation's HQ. He orders her to divert the ship and to find a survivor he's located, who will be a key witness, and to defeat Ridley. He mentions that Madeline Bergman...is no ally! Omg what a twist! Samus asks what Adam plans to do, and he mentions he'll "deal with this place". He'll self-destruct Sector Zero by causing enough damage to the area. Samus asks if she can do it instead, but Adam denies the opportunity to Samus again. Adam says he wishes he could battle Ridley, and only Samus can defeat him. He says he can save Samus for once.

"I'm sorry for getting a little rough with you."

This is the explanation given for shooting Samus in the back and leaving her vulnerable to a metroid. Note that she wasn't in the way at all, he could have shot the metroid first. He deliberately put her life into danger. What if the metroid wasn't able to be frozen even in its larval form? Then Samus would be dead right now, and thanks to who? Adam.

Samus can't even activate her suit as she walks along trying to stop Adam, who makes a "Heroic Sacrifice". "No objections, right lady?" Samus stares and realizes she can't do anything, giving a thumbs down at Adam's actions. He walks off alone further into Sector Zero. The Bottle Ship disengages Sector Zero, surely leaving Adam Malkovich to die.

Samus says her "best friend" vanished, the person who "understood her best" and the "closest thing to a father she had". She can't come to grips with this event. She notes she was the only one to witness his last moment, and that she's calmer than she usually was. She says he granted her an "eye of the storm clarity".

This is the man who denied her the ability to defend herself numerous times until he said so. The man who didn't authorize her protective gear against heat until she was about to die. The man who didn't allow Samus the ability to save a comrade until he told her to. The man who didn't want Samus to even attempt to save his little brother, causing her to leave his command. The man who shot her in the back for defying his orders!

So what does Samus do in response to all this? What do you think?

--
Geologists will date anything.

Part 13 - The End?

I head back on the elevator to Sector Three. In Nightmare's room, he comes back to life and attacks again. He is vulnerable to the plasma beam permanently and his gravity has no effect on you now, so this is a total joke. After some time it will make a black hole that draws your attacks away, but after it vanishes I finish off Nightmare with one shot. I lost 28 energy in this fight as opposed to the 5 energy tanks from the previous one, just to give an idea of how horrible Nightmare is now. He literally falls to pieces and I leave.

I'm now unaffected by the gravity area, and use a grapple beam + wall jump to nab a missile. I grab the tank I saw earlier which turns out to be an E-Recovery Tank. I speedboost through linear corridors and make my way back to the Main Sector elevator, then to the Sector 1 elevator, and backtrack some more. In the room where I obtained the Seeker Missiles from Eldtrich Abomination Robotnik, I find a pane of broken glass and use my grapple beam to swing in and nab a missile. After rolling through a tunnel I find myself in an earlier area. Wanting to head back to save, I shinespark up the passage I fall down and actually break the ceiling, leading to a missile tank. Neat.

I backtrack some more and find an energy part located by some grapple beam spots I couldn't access earlier, then head north. I find a missile tank by rolling into a vent and continue onwards. It has a grate blown off so it's easy to miss. I speed through the pesky vines from the start of the game back to the save room, heading north this time. There's another illusionary wall to deactivate followed by a super missile panel leading to a missile. I roll through a tunnel and run down an empty corridor to a large room I recall from earlier with vines.

Sadly, the screw attack cannot defeat the vines, as I discover after being slapped for one damage and knocked down a long way. How disappointing. I find another save point after going past the room with the Cazador Spawn boss where "Little Birdie" ate the boss, and travel back to the room with water from before. I charge up and speed boost through a grate to get another missile. I end up back in the room with the "weak-point switching" miniboss and find an energy part after making some platforms appear.

I nab another missile tank with space jump in the next corridor, and continue until I'm in the room with glass panes again. Noticing a switch behind one, I fire at it which causes a pane to lower nearby, revealing another missile. The next room is where I fought another "weakness switch" boss, and there's a small track of sorts that you can speed boost along to break through a lot of walls, get really annoyed at the blue crap that pops up when you speed boost, and find another missile. I explore around for awhile but find nothing else, so I take the elevator down to the Bioweapon Research Center.

We get a cutscene of Ridley, dying, and something stomping around towards Ridley. He tries to defend himself but is seemingly overtaken by the creature. I run around a bit and do a first-person view where I find the corpse of James Pierce. The game indicates the door the murderer likely travelled down, but I take an upper path and find a missile. The door locks and I confront a ton of Zebesians who are no threat with the screw attack. I take the earlier passage to an elevator, which takes me down further.

--
Geologists will date anything.

Inside the next room I find the remains of Ridley. Samus says his name more fondly than I can ever recall (seriously it's strange) and wonders what happened to him. The next corridor has a switch that causes the Evil Donuts from Metroid and Super Metroid to start to appear. Oh great. After some annoying seeker missile doors I arrive at the next save point.

The next room (Room MW) locks behind me as I enter, and as I search around I find a scientist survivor on the floor of a cell, who wants me to stay away from her. A door opens nearby and I head in, finding the remnants of Metroid eggs. Uh oh...

That's right. It's the Metroid Queen! This battle is incredibly annoying. She spawns metroids that you have to freeze and then missile. The problem is that the metroids can seemingly dodge your attacks as much as they please. After you destroy enough of them, the Queen shatters the rest and starts to attack. The Queen is really not much of a threat, she can breathe fire but she's slow in doing it. Just charge a super missile and fire it at her purple crystals and she'll be down quite quickly.

After this, the Bottle Ship has about 30 seconds before it enters Federation orbit. Samus randomly decides to think back on all the people who seemingly died for her, and the Queen gets up with new crystals after a bit. I shoot the Queen's overturned belly which causes her to get pissy and stand up, charging an attack. I lock onto her mouth to stop it, and...grapple beam? Oh god, this is Metroid 2! Samus grapples into the queen's stomach (what a great idea). I take a moment to pause and assess the situation, and notice something very amusing...

My power bombs aren't grayed out in the status screen. Oh, the Queen's going to get a much nastier surprise than she got in Metroid 2! I wish Samus at least would have said that she self-authorized her own power bombs though. I barely manage to get off the power bomb before I would have been digested as the stomach does ridiculous damage. The scientist from the cell gets out and starts to run away. I pursue her, wishing I could save my game (the game is nice enough to heal me back to 3 tanks at least though).

After pursuing the scientist more, I notice that she's trapped in the same room as me. She doesn't want me getting closer. Samus attempts a diplomacy check which causes the scientist to relax. Samus asks to come closer and asks what her role in the facility is. The scientist says she is responsible for all operations and that her name is Madeline Bergman. What the hell?

She tells me that the "Madeline" I met was MB, an android who actually has Mother Brain's AI. FFFFFFFFFFFF-

The actual Madeline reveals that MB was made to control the Pirates through telepathy. MB didn't have a human form, but took on a human form after they developed metroids. They wanted the first metroid hatchling to recognize MB as its mother, so it took on the form of a living thing. They wanted to make the metroids listen to the Federation without domination. The Metroid Queen was the first to mature fully, and they wanted to use her to propagate more metroids. The fact she turned into a queen was an anomaly, as only special ones can become Queens. MB became humanized due to her speaking with humans. She developed emotions and began to contradict the scientists working there. It's possible that came about through the metroids, but they don't know. Samus wonders if MB began to develop a soul due to the metroids (lulz).

--
Geologists will date anything.

Madeline reveals they altered her AI program to make her less than human by denying her consciousness. Samus feels sympathy for MB. Madeline watched the scientists restrain MB, but there was nothing she could do. Her presence that day caused a reaction in MB that caused her to be fixated on Madeline. Madeline had taken to calling MB "Melissa", which MB enjoyed, as it made MB think Madeline was her mother.

MB then kung-fus some scientists in the flashback, and telepathically commanded the creatures in the Bottle Ship to revolt and spread damage for revenge. MB was able to create the Queen metroid and make the metroid clones to attack the Federation. Her plans, however, were crushed completely by Samus and Adam. Madeline remarks that her hatred is focused entirely on Samus and Madeline right now. Madeline tries to reason with MB, who is holding a gun. MB's voice is now incredibly monotone and terribly robotic-sounding. MB says she will judge all humans for this, and knocks her hairpin off, then attacks Madeline. A Federation soldier shoots at MB and a bunch of them rush into the room, cornering Samus and telling her not to move. MB, meanwhile, begins to alter herself, throwing her gun away and unleashing phenomenal cosmic powers on the soldiers in the room. A bunch of bugs begin to attack us from the walls, and MB makes all the minibosses from earlier start to attack us.

The soldiers are obviously cut down with ease by the monsters, and the game switches to first-person view for this encounter. I blow up some bugs in front of me and notice MB, so I decide to lock onto her and attack. Before I can though, some soldiers shoot at MB and tear her apart with their freeze guns. The monsters in the room are dealt with by the reinforcements, and some smarmy general person walks into the room. He tells Samus she performed admirably and that she can leave the rest to them. Madeline is taken in by the soldiers, and the general remarks that Adam's death was tragic. He calls her an outsider and says she cannot have contact with the witness.

He asks that Samus be escorted out of the Bottle Ship. The soldier escorting me is...Anthony!? Oh snap! He says he needs to secure the survivors on orders of the Galactic Federation chair. Best character. Anthony remarks that it's crazy that something good can come out of something bad, and it shows how he saved himself after being attacked by Ridley. We get off the ship with Madeline, taking her to Galactic Federation headquarters.

"Anthony sighed as he muttered to himself." ~Right after we visibly see him do so.

This game has such great writing!

Samus goes on about how MB was wronged by the Federation and that it was wrong of the scientists to do that to her. Samus notes that if Adam hadn't recognized the danger of the metroids, the galaxy could have been at risk.

"For me, I couldn't believe he was dead. For the first time, I questioned his choice."

Wow Samus, what a hardcore rebel you are, actually questioning him! She says that Adam made the correct decision in shooting her in the back and dying for everyone, and Samus gives him a thumbs up for the first time, with Anthony giving a thumbs down (what a troll). Samus lets down her hair dramatically and the camera pans out to space. Credits!

Oh, the game didn't actually resolve who the Deleter was, did they? Thing is, it pretty much had to be James Pierce. MB probably got the gun she had from him when he tried to attack her, and that's why he was the last corpse I found.

After the credits, the decision was made to destroy the Bottle Ship. Samus says she's going back there to get something that can't be replaced. Looks like I have some more to do...I've collected 71% so far, 76% in the main sector. The game now tells me I can use Power Bombs. That might have been helpful to a lot of players earlier! I go save my game and stop for a bit.

--
Geologists will date anything.

Part 14 - Post-game stuff

I won't bore you all with the details of the remaining 29% of the items. If you power bomb a door open, you make a giant bug appear that is really annoying to kill and can teleport all over the place. Don't bother jumping or it'll just appear above you and slam you to the ground. When it tucks into a green cocoon you need to finish it off before it can heal with a power bomb, and when it's red and stunned you can lethal strike it. Alternately, use the instant-super-missile trick and they go down really easily in 3 shots without ever trying to regenerate.

I go collect every item to get my completion rate at 100%, which means 80 missiles, 6 accel charges, 3 e-recovery tanks, and 9 energy tanks. I then proceed through a power bomb door along a hallway to the main sector, which leads to an elevator. This makes you run down a long hallway and refight a bunch of miniboss, most of them rendered pointless by the screw attack. At the end you fight Eldtrich Abomination With Tentacles twice in a row. Whoo-hoo, he never gets old or anything!

After a save point I arrive at the Control Bridge. I leap down and a monster attacks me. Oh god, is that...yes, it's Phantoon from Super Metroid. What the hell. There's not much to this fight. He can summon hands that you blow up with the screw attack, and then he'll continuously shoot blasts at you. When you get a chance to, aim a super missile at his eye. I actually ran out of missiles here and there's little time to concentrate so I just pelted him to death with charged plasma instead. He can also swing a tentacle at you and summon red portals beneath you that hurt you but there's no need to care much about these. After he's defeated, a magical grapple beam point appears to allow you to leave.

I take a few hallways through here and an elevator down, which gets stuck along the way. I remedy the solution the way anyone would with a stuck elevator - blow it up with a power bomb. I drop down and go down some hallways into the next annoying over-the-shoulder view. Samus finds a helmet in the next room and takes it as Zero Suit Samus. It turns out to be Adam's helmet. Oh, isn't that great, she risked her life to come back here just to get someone's HELMET. Oh, and a self-destruct sequence of 5 minutes activates! Samus doesn't bother putting her suit back on, which means I'm stuck with all of 99 health. Great.

The next part is hectic, but basically your blaster now stuns enemies for a short time and it's better to just SenseMove by them and ignore them. Some grates will close as you run to them, and you can slide under them instead of jumping which is kind of nice. If the grates close all the way on you, you can blast them open easily. This part isn't very difficult at all, just don't bother with any Zebesians unless they're right in front of you blocking your way.

I manage to get off with 1 minute and 38 seconds left. Samus apologizes for keeping Adam waiting and says it's time to go home. Samus escapes the Bottle Ship just as it explodes. Well Samus, you just couldn't help risking your life one more time for something incredibly pointless, could you?

I obtained 100% so I unlocked everything in the theatre and gallery and now have Hard mode. Oh boy...well, maybe at the end of Hard mode I'll unlock something that will make this game feel less stupid to my mind, so I will give the game its final chance and brave Hard mode. It could still be revealed that Adam was actually a mind-controlling-robot!

--
Geologists will date anything.

How on earth can you type so much?

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SuperNiceDog took my lunch money.

--
TheRock ~ Slow dramatic zoom-pan. Doesn't phase the hooded man.

Alright, what the -HELL- is wrong with this scene? Where do I even start? This is such a throwaway reference, to begin with. In the Metroid e-manga, Samus's parents were killed by Ridley, which caused her to experience post-traumatic stress disorder about him. When she confronted him later in the manga as a bounty hunter, she experienced this exact same kind of fear and could do nothing. Thankfully, she overcame it in time to destroy Ridley and Mother Brain.

Keyword: she -overcame- her fear already. This isn't even the same Ridley who killed her parents! To date, it hasn't killed -anything- or spoken a word! Why is she scared of it!? Let's count the number of times Samus has fought Ridley, for that matter:

-Metroid (scared out of her mind but overcame her fear)
-Metroid Prime she fought Meta Ridley (no PTSD stuff)
-Metroid Prime 3 she fought Meta Ridley (no PTSD stuff)
-Metroid Prime 3 she fought Omega Ridley (no PTSD stuff)
-Super Metroid she fought Ridley (no PTSD stuff though 'canonically' one could say she's defeated him)
-Super Metroid she fought Ridley again (no PTSD stuff)

LMS says this is perfectly fine story-writing.

--
TheRock ~ Slow dramatic zoom-pan. Doesn't phase the hooded man.

Big Bob
Posted 1/21/2012 4:26:53 PM
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How on earth can you type so much?

To make it even better, I typed all that -as cutscenes were going on-, and only had to rewatch two cutscenes on Youtube all in all. I'm fast with my fingers, even if I think I put far too much details about my journey through linear corridors.



That is absolutely what should have happened if the Federation's idea for a Space Pirate society had worked.

LMS says this is perfectly fine story-writing.

Oh jeez. I didn't even remark on the fact either that most people haven't even read that e-manga, since it was never officially translated, so the majority of players would see Samus break down and wonder just what the hell was going on at all.

--
Geologists will date anything.

Part 15 - Hard Mode and Final Thoughts

Started hard mode yesterday and cleared it today. Enemies do more damage in it and you cannot collect any optional powerups, so it's basically a minimalist run. The only exception is the Metroid Queen, whose stomach does much less damage than before (she would be impossible to beat otherwise).

Concentration becomes your best friend for this, and you can abuse it in surprising ways. Take Sector 3's heat areas for example - if you let it drop you to 24 energy, you can heal to full! This allows you to sneak in full health in areas where you normally couldn't.

There is also no post-game. The game ends after you lock on to MB (which, by the way, I managed to do with exactly 1 HP left) and you don't get to fight Phantoon or get Adam's helmet, which is quite disappointing. The storyline is exactly the same and you unlock nothing for beating hard mode.

So with that over with, it's time to give my final thoughts on the game. It doesn't look pretty. This is possibly the easiest metroid game ever designed, and while that's not necessarily a bad point in itself, the reason it becomes easy is just obnoxious. Spam the D-pad in almost any direction over and over and you win the game. There are very few attacks you even need to bother jumping over. Items are also almost always easy to find, appearing as blue dots on your map. The gameplay itself gets incredibly boring, which most corridors being empty with the game having a lack of puzzles, instead preferring constant combat. Certain enemies and bosses are fun to fight, but more often than not the gameplay is terribly dull. Certain powerups are implemented nicely, but you start with your best one right off the bat anyway (SenseMove) so who cares about the rest? They just let you Win More.

That's the best part of the game, too. Merely being mediocre is this game's strong spot. The storyline represents a far different beast. This game's story is outright impossible to ignore, with cutscenes all over the place and even a theatre mode that shows the game without gameplay as a movie (kind of like Xenosaga). This story as a whole shows Samus as an extremely weak-willed protagonist working under a domineering and cold commanding officer who she technically doesn't even work for anymore. The relationship between Adam and Samus is completely insane, doing something I didn't think a video game could do up until this point: not just showing an abusive relationship, but glorifying it. Making it seem like "that is how heroic people act around each other and it's totally okay." This is to say nothing about the game's stilted voice acting and bad writing in other areas.

Sakamoto's logic for making this game shows, at best, someone who is merely a terrible writer. At worst, it shows someone who may have a mental illness. It's difficult to say one way or another.

Overall, it's difficult to recommend this game. I am glad I bought it used, as supporting the developers for it would have made me feel like dirt. Unfortunately, I can't recommend this game even if you find it used. I would dare to say I wouldn't recommend it even if you found it for free. This game is only worth playing just to see how much of a trainwreck the Metroid series has plunged into and as a minorly enjoyable action game. Unfortunately, if I wanted a good action game, I could just play Ninja Gaiden. It'd be a hell of a lot harder, too!

I think I may have to stick to Castlevania from now on if I want a good Metroid experience, as this game has cast a dark shadow over the future of the Metroid series.

Rating: 2/5

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Geologists will date anything.

Well since someone mentioned me I have no option but to post.

I was watching a YouTube LP of this game recently since both The Wind Waker and Skies of Arcadia were reminding me of it at times, and watching it, I decided that it was definitely something I'd like to replay, and that it deserves a 6/10 at worst and 9/10 at best. I should note that I never finished watching the LP (I think I stopped shortly after the Ridley battle) since it wasn't finished, I wanted more Zelda instead, and good lord the game's rooms just seemed to be getting more and more monochromatic (it was to the point where the cutscenes were the most fun things to watch).

That being said, there's no doubt that this game has some serious issues compared to an ordinary high-profile first-party Nintendo release. I wrote an entire list of my issues with the game on YouTube, and here goes:

-Story isn't as powerful as a Zelda game's - or, as ScottishDuck17 put it, is "just there".
-Level design isn't up to par with what you'd usually expect from Nintendo.
-Some horribly bland rooms.
-Superficial NPCs.
-Over-the-shoulder perspective.
-Scanning sections.
-AUTHORIZATION!!!
-By and large however, I remember this as being mostly a joy to play and watch - not SENSEMOVE THE GAME or whatever, and both the YouTube user I was watching play the game and ScottishDuck17 largely agree (although again, like I said, this game's story is "just there" and isn't nearly as meaningful as a Zelda game's plot - let alone the plot of something like an FF or an MGS!).

Since the first Metroid game I beat was Corruption, the image of a glum, melancholy Samus was more or less ingrained in my head due to that game's bonus ending (where she reflected on the death of those she killed) - this must obviously be different from the people who've been fans of the series for 20+ years or so who had the image of a "cold" Samus, who I never thought of. Even then, I've honestly played more games where male characters follow orders from female characters than the other way around, and I've played more games with "stoic" female characters than ones who are so emotional. Sarah Kerrigan and GLaDOS represent how most female characters in the video games I play are like (the stereotype of an "emotional" female seems to be most prevalent in TV and not so much in video games, especially within the walls of Nintendo), not Samus in this game.

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Currently Playing - StarCraft: Brood War

As for Samus being so submissive in this game, I never saw it as being that egregious (except from a gameplay viewpoint), mostly because, again, the first Metroid game I beat was Corruption, which also featured Samus essentially acting as a stickler for orders from a superior (and since I don't have much exposure to fiction outside of gaming, I don't see taking orders from a computer and taking orders from a man to be much different). The way I see it, she was at one time the Federation's most trusted "mercenary", then at the end of Corruption she became fed up with following her orders to the letter all the time because of being forced to kill her best friends instead of trying to get them back to the good side or something - or maybe she just doesn't like resorting to outright murder on anything more than a generic enemy. This dovetails nicely with the end of Metroid II, where Samus deliberately disobeys GF orders.

One could say that she's kicking herself for this decision during the entire course of the Bottle Ship Incident, and as a result of feeling so emotionally conflicted, she decides to return to her roots and go back to being submissive to Adam (to play devil's advocate for a second, we really did not need to know that they had a father-daughter relationship - it just introduces unnecessary extra silliness, and the fact that this is NEVER ELABORATED ON LATER just really irks me. It's as if some cutscenes were thrown out before release or something - and in all honesty, after the game, I was thinking "okay, I kinda wish there was more romance": you can imagine how upset I am upon knowing that the Samus-Adam thing was supposed to be that, and I definitely agree that this game has some awfully redundant dialogue, although it doesn't bother me as much as it does for most people apparently).

I also largely see this is as the reason why she gets crippled with fear while facing Ridley there - because this painfully reminds her of Ridley's attack on the Ceres Space Station at the beginning of Super Metroid since she has "The Baby" on her mind the whole game (yes, why they didn't flash back to that is beyond me - heck, SSBM already recreated this scene in 3D!). Also I see the fact that Samus has beaten Ridley so many times before as precisely the reason why she suffers the PTSD this time - she doesn't want to fight this guy again (and each time it gets harder, as in Prime 3 she needs Rundas's help to beat him the first time and needs to use Phazon to defeat him a second time - although to be fair, a few weeks prior to me playing through MOM I replayed Super Metroid and Ridley took me down to my last energy tank, which probably made the scene more justifiable to me)!

To me though, this game's plot is just a cheesy one that's there for amusement since nothing in it is all that meaningful to the rest of the game. First thing I think of when I think of "Metroid: Other M" is Samus using awesome combat moves (and on a side note, to me the sensemove is more or less an extension of Wind Waker's parry) on walking horseshoe crabs and Anomalocaridids, not...hold on a sec, I honestly can't remember much in the game where Samus actually shows much in the way of emotion, at least not what most talk about. I don't remember her bursting into tears or whining (aside from like one line of dialogue where she erupted into anger). Oh yeah I guess the Ridley PTSD counts for something - except like I mentioned, nothing in this game's plot is all that meaningful to the rest of the game.

What have we done?

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Currently Playing - StarCraft: Brood War

Oh god LMS why

From: Master Epyon | #109
I think I may have to stick to Castlevania from now on if I want a good Metroid experience, as this game has cast a dark shadow over the future of the Metroid series.

But I do need to comment on this: I wouldn't worry about it. I think it's pretty silly to swear off a whole series because of one bad game, especially in this case. Rest assured, Nintendo aren't going to make another Other M. The game failed kinda badly, and it's entirely due to the negative word of mouth it generated. Nintendo are ergo logically going to stay as far away from this game as possible. Not only that, but there is actual evidence for this. Staff at Retro hinted that their new project is another Metroid game. Given how successful the Prime trilogy was, I wouldn't be worried about the Metroid series as a whole.

It's a shame, as I would have liked to see a more polished Other M. The game didn't turn out as well as it could, but it had potential, and give it more time in the shop (especially for the story) and it could have been awesome.

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Something something something
^Poorly disguised anti-caps sig

I think it's pretty silly to swear off a whole series because of one bad game, especially in this case

Oh no worries, I've played all the Metroids other than Prime Pinball, I survived Hunters and this, I'd definitely play the other ones when they come out. If they went back to the Prime style of gameplay I'd be jumping for joy.

Since I'm on a roll for Wii games, I'm trying to decide next if I should go with Super Paper Mario or Skyward Sword.

Since the first Metroid game I beat was Corruption, the image of a glum, melancholy Samus was more or less ingrained in my head due to that game's bonus ending (where she reflected on the death of those she killed) - this must obviously be different from the people who've been fans of the series for 20+ years or so who had the image of a "cold" Samus, who I never thought of.

I never even pictured Samus as "cold" all that much, just as a strong, independent female protagonist, which is something the games industry rarely has. Metroid Fusion goes heavily into some of her monologues and while she does talk about Adam Malkovich in that, it seems like she actually had good reason to believe that he was a good person, it doesn't make us question her judgment all that much if at all.

As for Samus being so submissive in this game, I never saw it as being that egregious (except from a gameplay viewpoint), mostly because, again, the first Metroid game I beat was Corruption, which also featured Samus essentially acting as a stickler for orders from a superior (and since I don't have much exposure to fiction outside of gaming, I don't see taking orders from a computer and taking orders from a man to be much different).

It's not even taking orders that I specifically hate. Samus could very well have worked under Adam and not have given me too much trouble, but the difference between Other M and Corruption is that in Corruption, when Admiral Dane from Corruption gives her orders he expects that she's going to use all of the abilities at her disposal. Adam Malkovich, on the other hand, denies Samus the ability to even defend herself properly, and with truly flimsy justifications. One of the first things Adam tells Samus establishes himself as a domineering personality, "You don't move until I say you, you don't fire until I say so." Whereas Admiral Dane was hiring a few bounty hunters to stop an intergalactic threat, Adam is essentially putting her back into military duty.

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Geologists will date anything.

I'd love to see a 3D update of Super Metroid as a downloadable game, but I don't think that'll happen.

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TheRock ~ Slow dramatic zoom-pan. Doesn't phase the hooded man.

I'd love to see a 3D update of Super Metroid as a downloadable game, but I don't think that'll happen.

Crocomire? In 3D? All of my money!

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Geologists will date anything.

Shut up and take my money!

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TheRock ~ Slow dramatic zoom-pan. Doesn't phase the hooded man.

And by 3D, I mean the horribly named 2.5D that a lot of games are using. 3D graphics, moving along a 2D plane.

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TheRock ~ Slow dramatic zoom-pan. Doesn't phase the hooded man.

Master Epyon posted...
I think it's pretty silly to swear off a whole series because of one bad game, especially in this case

Oh no worries, I've played all the Metroids other than Prime Pinball, I survived Hunters and this, I'd definitely play the other ones when they come out. If they went back to the Prime style of gameplay I'd be jumping for joy.

Since I'm on a roll for Wii games, I'm trying to decide next if I should go with Super Paper Mario or Skyward Sword.

Since the first Metroid game I beat was Corruption, the image of a glum, melancholy Samus was more or less ingrained in my head due to that game's bonus ending (where she reflected on the death of those she killed) - this must obviously be different from the people who've been fans of the series for 20+ years or so who had the image of a "cold" Samus, who I never thought of.

I never even pictured Samus as "cold" all that much, just as a strong, independent female protagonist, which is something the games industry rarely has. Metroid Fusion goes heavily into some of her monologues and while she does talk about Adam Malkovich in that, it seems like she actually had good reason to believe that he was a good person, it doesn't make us question her judgment all that much if at all.

As for Samus being so submissive in this game, I never saw it as being that egregious (except from a gameplay viewpoint), mostly because, again, the first Metroid game I beat was Corruption, which also featured Samus essentially acting as a stickler for orders from a superior (and since I don't have much exposure to fiction outside of gaming, I don't see taking orders from a computer and taking orders from a man to be much different).

It's not even taking orders that I specifically hate. Samus could very well have worked under Adam and not have given me too much trouble, but the difference between Other M and Corruption is that in Corruption, when Admiral Dane from Corruption gives her orders he expects that she's going to use all of the abilities at her disposal. Adam Malkovich, on the other hand, denies Samus the ability to even defend herself properly, and with truly flimsy justifications. One of the first things Adam tells Samus establishes himself as a domineering personality, "You don't move until I say you, you don't fire until I say so." Whereas Admiral Dane was hiring a few bounty hunters to stop an intergalactic threat, Adam is essentially putting her back into military duty.

The way I see it, the events of the series from Super Metroid onwards are all the result of Samus's decision to disobey orders at the end of Metroid II, and since she knows it and she's kicking herself over it the whole game, she acts submissively because "disobeying orders is the whole reason why we're in this mess, so doing it again is not going to help". But yeah she is a mindless drone.

I also still have nightmares from back when Adam failed to authorize the Grapple Beam in time for me to save Mr. Higgs on my first playthrough (okay not really, but whenever people mention "authorization sucks", that comes to mind first thing).

The problem is that nothing in this game's plot is of much consequence, but it was clearly marketed otherwise and is clearly trying to be otherwise. ARGH!!!

Silly parallel:

Midna in Twilight Princess: "In exchange for my help, you'll have to do EXACTLY as I say."
Adam in Other M: "Don't move unless I say so, don't fire unless I say so."
Midna in TP: "You humans are obedient to a fault."

FORESHADOWING

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Currently Playing - StarCraft: Brood War

Midna in Twilight Princess: "In exchange for my help, you'll have to do EXACTLY as I say."
Adam in Other M: "Don't move unless I say so, don't fire unless I say so."
Midna in TP: "You humans are obedient to a fault."

Situations are completely different. Link was trapped in the body of a wolf and imprisoned in an entirely different world, it was a "take it or leave it" situation. Midna's initial actions aren't portrayed as being heroic at all, and Midna even feels sorry for how she treated Link later on and grows to trust humans as a whole. Adam at no point ever feels remorse for his actions beyond a nonpology for shooting her in the back, and never gives Samus the autonomy to decide anything for herself right until the moment he dies. For this, the game acts like he is a glorious hero who can do no wrong.

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Geologists will date anything.

The story, just based off what you said, makes me detest this game.

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You laugh at my Celtic Guardian, until I use my Scapegoat, and then United We Stand, Mage Power, and 3 Axe Of Despairs, with Gaia Power out.
11900/7800

Much more of my problem with the story comes from it being rather throwaway and of little consequence. It's only because this game was marketed with the idea of "finalizing Samus's personality" that people have really payed attention to this. For instance, the Ridley freakout, although now scrutinized all over the Internet, has very, very little weight on the rest of the game. Similarly, in one early cutscene, Samus states that she viewed Adam Malkovich as a surrogate father, but this is never again elaborated on so how am I supposed to care? I get the feeling that a few cutscenes were randomly thrown out prior to the game's release - the fact that a game marketed mostly for its story has large stretches of time without any plot whatsoever does not help matters there (I have serious trouble accepting that Metroid Prime and Other M star the same character, too). I do, however, feel that the plot had its heart in the right places for the most part, something which many people obviously don't agree with.

Basically, my problem with the plot is that it's not nearly as powerful as the plot in a 3D Zelda game (before you laugh, I've watched LPs of Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker, and Other M recently, and in the former two cases I was actually getting emotional during some cutscenes, whereas in Other M's case, I thought "OK, this isn't nearly as bad as most say, but this isn't particularly good either" - later on I re-watched ScottishDuck17's [positive] review of the game and there he stated that the story is "just there", and although he attributed that to "Team Ninja has never done a good story" and I know that Team Ninja wasn't responsible for MOM's plot, I have to agree wholeheartedly).

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Currently Playing - StarCraft: Brood War

Master Epyon posted...
Midna in Twilight Princess: "In exchange for my help, you'll have to do EXACTLY as I say."
Adam in Other M: "Don't move unless I say so, don't fire unless I say so."
Midna in TP: "You humans are obedient to a fault."

Situations are completely different. Link was trapped in the body of a wolf and imprisoned in an entirely different world, it was a "take it or leave it" situation. Midna's initial actions aren't portrayed as being heroic at all, and Midna even feels sorry for how she treated Link later on and grows to trust humans as a whole. Adam at no point ever feels remorse for his actions beyond a nonpology for shooting her in the back, and never gives Samus the autonomy to decide anything for herself right until the moment he dies. For this, the game acts like he is a glorious hero who can do no wrong.

I never got the vibe of Adam's actions being "heroic", and from what I've heard, only the music in his sacrifice cutscene points to such. Also, like I said, the game's plot has little weight on the game itself, even though it's clearly trying to be something more (aka the very definition of "overwrought").

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Currently Playing - StarCraft: Brood War

For anyone who missed, here's a bump.

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You laugh at my Celtic Guardian, until I use my Scapegoat, and then United We Stand, Mage Power, and 3 Axe Of Despairs, with Gaia Power out.
11900/7800