Baby's Cry...

So last night I gave in and purchased Metroid: Other M for the Wii. It actually came out at 12:01 AM today, so I had to go back out to Meijer to get... I love 24 hour Meijers. Before I begin on said game, I should at least discuss the lesser interesting details of my gaming. Since my last blog post, I finished Castlevania: Harmony of Despair. Great game, loved playing through it, and playing online with a friend was a blast. I'm really looking forward to download content, though I hope it's more than just one level and two characters (which is what it is rumored to be at the moment). As I said in that post, HD got me in the mood for other Castlevania games, so I'm still slowly working my way through Symphony of the Night. Maybe when I finish a few more games I'll put some serious time and effort into that game.

Also since my last blog post, I started playing and entirely beat 100%, with all achievements (ugh, did not like the grinding though), Lego Indiana Jones: The Original Adventures. I don't know why I love the Lego games (made by Traveler's Tales, I haven't played any of the many other Lego games), but they're just fun for me. Maybe it's because they're pretty easy and relaxing to play. It's fun for me to collect stuff in games. And on the topic of collecting items in games, I found Banjo-Kazooie: Grunty's Revenge for $4.50 at a GameStop last week, so I snatched that up. Not really a rare game, but definitely hard to find on store shelves. I remember it received so-so reviews when it came out, but I'm enjoying it so far. I haven't looked at any old reviews, but I can say that my biggest complaint is with the camera. It's a fixed position (which leads to pretty nice graphics for a GBA, without a moving camera), so it can be very difficult to determine where a platform is in comparison with Banjo. Other than that I wasn't expecting much, so I'm happier than I thought I was going to be. Great music, a funny, lovable, typical Banjo-Kazooie story, and otherwise great play mechanics make for a decent game. A little short, but that's not surprising. I need 7 more Jiggies, 14 more Notes, one more Jinjo and one more Honeycomb and I'll have collected every item in the game, and will then move on to defeat Grunty.

Finally, I'm playing Pure on the side, and I'm loving it! It feels like a mix between Excitebike 64 and SSX Tricky, which is a good thing. I'm not normally a fan of racing games, but this one is pretty fun. I'll blog more on it later as I put more time into it.

Okay, Metroid time. I actually bought it partially because it received mixed reviews. That piqued my curiosity further than what I originally felt about the game. What I got was actually pretty close to what many reviewers have already stated. And for those worried, I will avoid spoilers as much as possible. Anything stated in here is either a) in the manual or b) obvious.

I'll start with the story. Other M takes place directly after Super Metroid, with Samus recovering from the events that had just taken place. She receives a distress call from a space station and goes to investigate...surprise! But seriously, I actually don't mind that cliche plotline, it's what makes a Metroid game. The Galactic Federation has already mysteriously arrived, and Samus runs into a platoon of familiar faces. Supposedly Samus was part of the Federation as a soldier before she became a bounty hunter of her own free will. I don't know, I'm okay with that story so far... Anyways, most of the faces are random people who get fleshed out a little as the story progresses, but two stand out. One is a friend of Samus's from when she was still a part of the Federation, and the other is her old commanding officer, Adam.

Adam plays a HUGE role in this game, and at times it really, really pisses me off at Nintendo for letting Tecmo/Team Ninja change common Metroid traits. First off is that Adam was like a father figure to Samus after her parents passed away...wait, after her parents passed away?! I'm sorry, I thought Samus was born with and raised by the Chozo? Whatever, maybe Samus did have parents that she was raised by at some point. I mean, Nintendo DID leave some plot holes in the series about Samus's past, specifically during the Metroid Prime stories. As long as the Chozo get mentioned, or Tecmo/Team Ninja leave more plot holes in her past, then I'll be okay. The other qualm I have with the story is that Samus is portrayed as weak and fragile, and almost confused on life. That Adam was once there for her, and now he's around again, and she's not sure how to feel? Once again, whatever, I still have plenty of story to go through, so I'll see what happens. Oh, and the cinematics during the cutscenes are pretty sweet. Those were well done, especially the opening cutscene.

But once again, we come back to Adam...oh it's all about Adam. Samus actually arrives at the space station with her full arsenal. Every weapon and upgrade that she could acquire (we're talking almost every upgrade found in the Metroid series), she already has equipped and primed to go. Sounds pretty cool and a little different for a Metroid game, huh? Oh, but of course, being a Metroid game, she has to lose all of those abilities. No surprise, finding them again makes the games interesting. It's how she loses them, that pisses off a TON of people out there, and I can't blame them. She...wait for it...wait for it...just wait for it a little longer... ... ... isn't allowed to use them. I'll let that sink in for a moment. Has it sunk in yet? No? Okay I'll repeat that again - Samus can't use all of her abilities and upgrades because she's not allowed to. And who told her that she can't? Oh right, Adam of course. *Sigh* Adam basically rules the plot of this game. Now here's the thing. Part of that plotline actually makes sense. Samus lands on a volatile ship that's basically falling apart, and self-destructing in some sectors (ha, sectors in a Metroid game, typical). Adam explains that missiles are not allowed, too powerful and could tear the station apart. Power bombs cause extreme heat and explosions to a wide radius, and could easily obliterate any humans within range - way to dangerous for a recon mission. The writing for that plot piece was actually brilliant. I started to wonder why Samus was allowed to do whatever she wanted on other planets and space stations, even for being a bounty hunter.

Ironically enough, the example I'm about to use is the exact same example that one review online gave, and damn it makes people HATE Tecmo/Team Ninja. I was moving from one sector to another, just trying to find out where to go next. I laughed at first, wondering why the reviewer had such a hard time with this scene (I had a feeling it was the same spot, which it turned out it was). The player must run through a lava filled room, jumping from platform to platform, which is very easy (it's impossible to fall off most ledges or platforms, and it makes sense and works while playing). I had 297 health total, three full bars, slowly decreasing from the heat. Of course there were enemies at every other platform, and stopping to just try to fight them is chaos, no point when I know that all I have to do is get to the other side of this long room. But then I get to another giant round room, and the lava at the bottom begins to rise! So I hurry up to the top, and what happens when I finally reach the top? A giant monster boss appears from the lava! Honestly, it could have been the brother or cousin from the lava boss in Super Mario Galaxy, I swear the scene is identical. Anyways, the battle is HARD. I mean it's TOUGH. I'll get more into the fighting and enemies in a minute, but let me tell you one has to be almost perfect to beat this boss, and this is still pretty early in the game. Mind you, health is still slowly depleating while fighting it. After about five or six long tries, I defeat him. Adam chimes in. Close to what he actually says: "Samus, I've determined that the area you're in is dangerous, so I'm allowing you to use your Varia suit." Really Adam? Really Tecmo/Team Ninja?! FUCK YOU. That makes absolutely NO FUCKING SENSE. I'll forgive the powerful weapons until it's determined it's okay and needed to use them. But SERIOUSLY?! Please developers, Samus may be confused in this story, but she should not be an ignorant idiot. If it's hot, then yes, you should use your varia suit. Oh and Samus, back in the area with the water, you should just ignore Adam and turn on your gravity suit, since I now know you have it...idiot.

The one thing drawing me back to the game is the fighting, which is awesome. I too was wondering how the hell fighting could be performed with just the Wiimote held sideways, or sometimes pointed at the screen. But wow, I'm impressed. Just like the reviewers said, it's surprisingly complex for basically just four buttons. The d-pad moves Samus around, 2 jumps, 1 shoots, and A turns her into her morphball. In morphball form 2 hops and 1 lays a bomb. While pointed at the screen, it is true that movement is disabled, but B locks onto a target or moves the screen around, and A fires her cannon, or missiles if she's locked on. A charged shot is done so by just holding the 1/A button (sideways/pointed), and the same for the morphball power bombs. It works extremely well while in combat, and it's fluent, fast, and intense. What makes things even more intense, is that all pick-ups have been removed from the game. Upgrades still exist and are hidden well just like all other Metroid games, and have even added Health bar "parts" - collect four to form an extra Health bar... Zelda anyone? But no more dropping health balls or missiles. Missiles can actually be recharged by holding the Wiimote upwards and holding A for a few seconds. Health? Good luck, because besides one small option, the health on Samus is the only health she has until she gets to another save station. That one small option exists only when her health reaches dangerously low levels, around 30 health left on her last bar. At that point the health bar blinks red, and Samus can recharge her health (back up to 99 health, so to one bar) by once again holding the Wiimote upwards and holding down the A button. This takes a few seconds, which are very tense, since getting hit by an enemy or attack interrupts the charging. Luckily, her health will never go from 10 to 0, 30 to 0, or even 50 to 0 (yes, some common enemies can do 50 damage hits, ugh). It hits 0, but flickers between 0 and 1, which basically gives the player that once last chance to charge her health back up. A nice touch, considering even the most basic enemies can be brutally difficult.

But that difficulty makes the game so much fun to play. Yes, I've gotten very frustrated at this difficulty, but it makes me try that much harder to figure out the enemies patterns. I can't even explain the fighting, but I can say that multiple ways to kill enemies exist, with just a few buttons. It can change a basic common enemy battle from 3 minutes to 10 seconds, and that comes from personal experience. The other control option I must add is dodging. Samus can dodge by either a) pressing on a direction on the d-pad just before an attack hits her, or b) switching back from pointer view to sideways view, automatically triggering a dodge. The dodge is the most important thing to learn in the game, since health is always critically low, even with full health. The one problem I have with the dodge is that during intense battles (which is often), I'm not holding down on the d-pad to move, but rather quickly pressing the d-pad in directions I want to move, to trigger a dodge if an attack gets close. With lasers flying everywhere and enemies attacking from all sides, she's dodging all the time. Just holding down on the d-pad will not trigger a dodge, one must tap the d-pad, which is much easier than it sounds. But my hand and thumb actually start getting sore during these battles, from tapping so much, and not just in one place (like tapping the 1 button repeatedly, it's in the same spot so the right hand isn't moving). It's like tapping up up up up down right left left left left right up down down... and so on, times a 1000 or so times. And there's no letdown, these enemies will not back off until Samus is dead.

But besides my issues with the game, I'm enjoying it so far. If I had to give it a score like on websites, right now I'd give it about a B+ or a 8.0, somewhere in that range. Who knows, that score might go up as I proceed through the game, but there's just a high of a chance that the score could drop.