Metroid: Other M's Story is TRASH! - Characters In-Depth

[Music] e3 2009 metroid other m is revealed after the satisfying finale of the prime series this was metroid's next big budget title and the trailer was sick so the game's director yoshio sakamoto promised a closer look into samus as a character since he felt the prime trilogy was too vague in that department i'll get to that later when the game came out i read the not so complimentary reviews so i decided to wait this out for a while i played it in full a few years after i watched the cutscenes which i really didn't like and after playing it for myself it's even worse other m was sakamoto's exact vision and he doesn't believe any changes should have been made before i start dissecting other m's story i have nothing against nakamoto he was a core part of the classic games and the game boy advance installments we've been through those episodes where our favorite video game director stumbled once or twice and stumble he did at launch other em was criticized for the cumbersome gameplay slow pacing of the narrative and the authorization mechanic you could call this the star fox command of metroid facepalm inducing stories fueled by exaggerated drama gimmicky gameplay and both franchises have been dormant until 2016. for those of you who enjoy this game i don't think that you're stupid or you're not true metroid fans or any of that this game has its audience and i get that i want to express how i feel about other m to this day it's the final metroid game released on a console with metroid prime 4 still a long ways away but after 10 years is the story bad or were we overreacting back in 2010 how does metroid other ram story hold up today oh and if you're wondering what i think about the gameplay that's fine just just fine i'd rather have a nunchuck for 3d movement than a d-pad that lets you move in only eight directions but for the most part samus controls well and combat is exhilarating with the cinematic finishers and the post game that lets you roam around with all your power ups yes please gameplay is mixed at best story and characters do i need to say it now let's dive in and see why other m story is trash the plot starts where super metroid ended the final battle against mother brain where the baby metroid samus took at the end of metroid 2 revitalizes her before the cycloptic giant destroys it with samus watching what's the time time not gonna lie this is a really cool intro the 16-bit cutscene upgraded with pre-rendered models and mother brain looks fiercer than ever the major difference here is that in super metroid this moment was triumphant with samus's theme playing as she obtains the hyper beam [Music] another ram is said as disheartening with samus watching in horror as the baby metroid is obliterated after escaping from planet zebes she recovers in a quarantine room run by the galactic federation and the inner monologues begin these are the main reason why the story feels longer than it is samus has intermonologued in metroid zero mission fusion and super metroid in those games she seemed honorable stalwart and straight to the point she talked like the admirable action hero she is another rem she pads them out by saying what she's feeling as slowly as possible pointing everything out and sounding pretentiously dramatic code name babies cry a common sos with the urgency of a baby crying the nickname comes from the fact that the purpose of the signal is to draw attention the word he so obviously chose outsider pierced my heart i felt that if i let my guard down i would easily be broken and beyond that i was scared you can't just have your characters announce how they feel that makes me feel angry and the baby metroid the baby the baby and the baby with the baby the baby the baby the baby the baby but the baby why is samus obsessed with the baby metroid sure in fusion she thought highly of it but that's it she never saw it as her own child it was a freaking metroid the alien jellyfish monsters that sucked the life out of you that's why she brought it to the galactic federation in super metroid so they could study it to whip up vaccines and medicine and junk to her it was a tool for the good of the galaxy other m over glorifies it to the extreme samus here is written as a mother who's dealing with the loss of her kid this drama isn't earned so she relays a report about the end of mother brain ridley and the metroids to the higher-ups of the galactic federation while soaring through space she gets a distress signal must be tuesday she answers the call and heads towards the bottle ship equipped with all her weapons and abilities from super metroid this should be a breeze she lands in the hangar bay and notices a galactic federation ship nearby and wouldn't you know it she finds platoon seven sent by the federation and comes across a familiar face fans be meeting you here friends the mystery man from the trailer is anthony higgs he's samus's old combat buddy from her federation days before she left and samus's former commanding officer adam malkovich is there too i hate adam him and his stingy punchable face he immediately acts dismissive towards samus glaring at her and calling her an outsider even when samus opens the door for them with her missiles he still looks pissed at her his reason for being mean-spirited at samus is that when she left the federation he felt betrayed by her despite samus accomplishing leagues more than what was expected of a single person he gives the impression that he has nothing but resentment for her wouldn't he be proud of her saving the galaxy numerous times but we'll get back to him soon past the door the seven find a dead scientist and are under attack by the accumulation of insects brag moss the combined efforts of samus and platoon 7 bring it down this is the only boss fight where they work together and it's the one time where adam talks like someone with a functioning brain as he tells them to use their freeze guns to keep it still with grug moss defeated adam talking out his ass demands samus to follow his orders and restricting use of 90 percent of her power-ups looks like i'm gonna need to ask for your cooperation on this mission but i'm also gonna have to ask that you follow my commands you don't move unless i say so and you don't fire until i say so are you high or just incredibly stupid disabling power bombs makes sense since they're basically nukes and she could accidentally kill someone nearby but the grapple beam screw attack and defensive variant gravity suits call me crazy but i don't think wearing a bulletproof vest would make someone else spontaneously combust he never explains why she shouldn't use these only the powerbomb is mentioned to access these power-ups you have to progress through the story until adam authorizes them this is a sub-version of metroid's staple mechanic in building yourself up through finding abilities super weapons and armor here's my solution samus should not have started with their power-ups from super metroid if we can't use them from the get-go then why have them in the first place and if platoon 7's mission is to look for survivors then why incapacitate samus like this wouldn't it make more sense to let her search the area with every power up available just tell her to ease up on the power bombs i'm sure she'd understand after adam's totally reasonable order we get a flashback to her life at the galactic federation she always gave the thumbs down during every briefing and adam used to say any objections lady she liked it when he said that since it made her feel delicate and the thumbs down gesture meant she hated being called lady and being treated like a child by the other trooper since she's a woman okay in metroid fusion it stated that he said that to her because they trusted each other so well samus monologues about her life being hard after her parents died and adam being a father figure to this naive young woman this isn't believable you can't just say that visually back it up peppy hare is fox's father figure and we see this in action pepe gave fox advice and piloting he told him how proud he is and he was willing to sacrifice himself to give him the chance to stop the apparoys in star fox assault pepe is caring warm and recognizes vox as a hero who has surpassed his mentor adam isn't like that throughout the story including flashbacks adam is always looking down on samus like she's an imputed child who will always be a screw-up and could never measure up to a high and mighty decorated general like him we don't see any genuine chemistry between these two samus is telling us to care about adam but we don't just because the protagonist has respect for someone that doesn't mean we automatically will give us a solid reason to like adam and i like to add that she doesn't say how her parents died this will be important soon adam commands the platoon to find and escort survivors to safety this is where the names of the remaining troopers are established lyle maurice james and kg adam orders them to do one of the most exasperating horror movie cliches splitting up all right we've got a lot of ground to cover please don't say what i think you're gonna say we should probably here it comes stick together for safety oh thank our great god in the lookout i don't know probably cover more ground if we split up you shut your mouth they had to work together to kill bruggemas you expect them to do that individually so samus cooperates with the federation for the first time since you left oh yeah the prime trilogy is not kanan here it was the first joint mission i've been a part of since becoming a freelance bounty hunter fighting the forces of faison led by dark samus and metroid prime 3 never happened other rem is set in a timeline where only the original game 2 super this and fusion are canon with the order given samus heads to one of the multiple sectors in the ship like in metroid fusion if you thought she and adam would chat with each other over comms showcasing their friendship like in metal gear solid think again he only talks to her when he needs her to do something oh adam you're too much in sector 1 she finds another dead scientist and a cute energetic little bird creature nearby i love you in the exam center the platoon safer lyle regroups as maurice hacks into the computer anthony suggests the rest of the squad investigate the building this is where samus discovers an inactive cyborg space pirate with the federation insignia on it maurice digs up some info on the center's computer turns out the battleship was meant to facilitate the engineering of bioweapons they find the name madeleine bergman on screen and anthony recommends looking for her to find some answers outside the center a feathery purple creature attacks the platoon samus rushes to the raid and the monster gets to jump on her with sam is cornered anthony gets the beast off with his plasma beam and it scurries away the platoon finds lyle's corpse and samus spots the little birdie's hollow body with its back split open as if something came out of it adam ordered samus to chase the creature in sector 3. even with her various suit deactivated samus has to run through the lava crater adam hasn't authorized her to use it and samus won't turn it on as she is dying there's no defending this it isn't until samus advances to goliagama where adam tells her to activate it i don't know who's dumber adam for not authorizing it sooner or samus for going along with this there are moments when samus enables to screw his hacking gravity suit of her own volition just use the various suit screw adam in sector 2 she notices corpses of creatures that have likely been fed to metroids but samus remarks that it would be impossible since metroids can't stand the harsh cold further down she finds maurice dead in the snow and a lone woman in the facility inside she runs away from samus fearing for her life samus tries to ease her anxiety and i do like this part she's being gentle to this frightened person and lets her know that she needs to get her out safely listen to me we're here to rescue you this woman isn't buying it upon her exclamation that the federation wants to silence all the scientists in the battleship and that one of the platoon 7 troopers is killing the others said trooper attempts to assassinate the woman and samus with the rb176 pharaoh crusher it goes as expected with the woman and trooper out of her sight adam ordered samus to catch the creature in sector 3 on the way there samus names the traitorous trooper as the deleter simultaneously the leader has murdered another trooper another reason why the team should not have split up the deleter would have been stopped earlier after saving anthony from a raidogen the two reminisced about the breaking point that led to samus leaving the federation adam's younger brother ian was piloting a drive unit connected to a ship containing 300 people due to a malfunction the units on the verge of a meltdown adam calmly orders the unit to be dispatched with ian still inside adam is the only person who isn't bothered by this samus requested the command to save ian but adam doesn't budge there's still time i can make it please let me go i mean that's ian that's your little brother out there we're out of time sir um please let me go you have to trust me just give me a chance commence drive unit disposal immediately that's an order so ian's unit is unhooked from the ship and he dies in the explosion i know being a leader means making tough choices but you don't have to look so heartless about it we could have had a moment where adam cries alone in his office to show us that he's human but being human isn't how adam rolls deeper in the pyrosphere she sees the creature's husk confirming that he has evolved from little birdie with anthony's laser pointing at her she aims at him thinking he's the deleter but he tells her to move as he's trying to shoot something else allah who framed roger rabbit samus blows a hole in the wall releasing the lava flow to illuminate the room and out of the shadows is oh it's ridley nothing we can't handle right samus uh samus samus it's just ridley right so in the manga it's revealed that really kills samus's parents and now she's suffering post-traumatic stress disorder the sight of ridley has brought her back to that moment that scarred her for life rendering her as that scared defenseless little girl this doesn't make sense for one the game didn't establish that ridley killed her parents so new players are going to be confused about samus being a kid for a minute keep in mind that other rem was meant to be newcomer friendly and why is she paralyzed with fear now she encountered ridley three times already and beat him twice three if you want to count samus returns i've heard people defending this by stating that she thought ridley was dead and him coming back caught her off guard she thought he was dead in the original game and him coming back in super metroid didn't phase her another defense is that the loss of the baby metroid and her reunion with adam has made her more vulnerable even then after defeating ridley numerous times i think it's safe to say that she conquered her fear long before other rem this part is meant to be scary but making a well-known confident woman easily frightened all of a sudden paints the scene as jarring more than scary imagine if batman was terrified of bats again in the dark knight rises it's like that her being afraid of ridley could only work if this was a prequel seeing her parents kill her for the first time since childhood other rem is the penultimate game in the timeline so really takes samus and disables her power suit now it's up to anthony to free her from the dragon's grip [Music] hey [Music] with ridley provoked he takes a swing at anthony with his tail pushing him off the platform ridley's vicious fighting style echoes the cutscene from super smash brothers brawl where he drags samus along the wall it is good to see that in an official metroid game as ridley sustains enough damage he flies off and samus lost contact with adam before the battle so win-win samus stumbles across the blonde woman who is still afraid of her i'm not a member of the galactic federation i came here because i intercepted the distress call i'm the bounty hunter and i know that something is after you please you must believe me thank you after introducing herself the woman calls herself madeleine bergman bergman phil samuelson and what the scientists were doing on the battleship cloning space pirates and metroids to build an army yeah there's a good idea in here somewhere no no no there isn't after super metroid the federation took cells from her sioux where they could use them to create clones of space pirates metroids and ridley his process was unique to say the least he started out as little birdie then he evolved into the quadrupedal monster and finally the pterodactyl we're familiar with so ridley is a proto-shin godzilla berkman tells samus that shin really influenced the pirate clones to rebel and to control the metroids they created an ai modeled after mother brain the ai turned against his creators and set the metroids into a frenzy who saw that coming burke made it for him samus that the metroids and the ai named mb are in sector zero samus is focused on destroying them she informs bergman that her commanding officer will bring her to safety bergman asks if it's adam malkovich and updates her that he's in charge of all this on her way to sector zero the battleship begins moving at the entrance of sector 0 she sees an infant metroid hovering before her remembering the baby metroid at the end of metroid 2 she struggles with what to do for a moment at first i thought she was going to hold her hand out to it but instead she takes aim but before she could shoot she's blasted in the back nullifying her power suit the metroid swoops into eater but a freeze gun kills it so who shot samus and froze the metroid it was adam this is by far the worst moment in the story why did adam shoot her because she can't destroy the modified metroids in sector zero he could have yelled samus wait but that would require common sense which adam doesn't have the metroids in that sector are immune to low temperatures he could freeze the metroid that was about to devour samus because it was in its larva stage and adam wasn't sure if it would work he guessed if he was able to freeze the metroid after he endangers samus's life adam could have been wrong and samus would be dead and get this he knew about the cloning of space pirates and metroid's the whole time kill him the only way to destroy the metroids is to disengage the sector from the bottleship and set it to self-destruct from the inside adam chooses to do it himself i would question why the battleship doesn't let you do that from the outside but with adam at dusk door no big deal adam notifies samus that the ball ship is on a collision course right to federation headquarters he tells her to stop the crash find the other survivor and kill ridley this seemingly builds up to a second boss fight with ridley but it doesn't happen yeah thanks adam walks into the sector with samus protesting to let her go in and destroy the metroids on her own just like when ian died adam refuses her plea still seeing her as a whiny brat who doesn't know her place adam's authority is legitimate and final anyone who objects to that is out of their element this guy adam malkovich is one of my most hated characters ever he's a certain kind of hated there are unlikable characters who were meant to be despised we were supposed to hate characters like moneybags porky minch peggy hill and there are unlikable characters we were meant to love we were supposed to feel for bella swan the transformers movies wanted us to see sam witwicky as a relatable upstanding young lad other ram intended us to view adam as the metroid equivalent of the boss from metal gear solid 3 the famous icon's insurmountable mentor the thing about the boss is she's selfless intelligent and heroic to the bone it was thanks to her quick thinking and dedication to prevent nuclear war she prepares her disciple naked snake to assassinate the statistic colonel vogen and herself she saw snake as her true successor passing her skills knowledge and philosophy down to him she was willing to be branded as a war criminal ruining her legacy as long as it meant everyone could live in peace adam not so much each of his medals is more important to him than anybody even his own brother adam doesn't think with logic his plans are asinine and backwards adam will order you to go through a spaceship full of monsters alone adam will order you to run through a room at 200 degrees without any heat resistant gear as he sits on his cozy chair adam will stab you in the back because he underestimates you and assume if he can save you after putting your life in danger that's who adam malkovich is a privileged emotionally detached unreliable high-ranking official with ice in his veins if he was here during the covet pandemic chances are he'd be one of the self-entitled anti-master karens he does call samus a galactic savior and he apologizes for being a little rough with her but it's too little too late adam and other m doesn't hold a candle to how samus described him in metroid fusion adam malkovich in this class of unlikable characters is the worst screw you adam in his last moments adam walks into sector 0 in his suicide mission with samus pleading him to stop [Music] no objections right lady [Music] the sector is ejected from the ship and explodes bye adam holby and punches your smug face in the afterlife elsewhere the mortally wounded shin ridley watches a mysterious behemoth approaching him samus finds james's corpse by the way he was the deleter the story never does a dun dun dun reveal it sort of loses interest near the end she also finds ridley dead he was killed off screen yeah that's much more satisfying than still something bigger than ridley is close samus sees the survivor but before she could properly reach her ridley's killer shows up the queen metroid from metroid 2. during the battle the battleship is seconds away from crashing to federation's headquarters samus's memories flash before her eyes this is a good moment it got me thinking oh how is she going to get out of this one with 10 seconds left samus goes out fighting charging her beam at the metroid but the emergency brakes kick in stopping the crash and samus blows the queen to oblivion with a good old power bomb with the area safe samus reasons with the scientists to talk to her easy i won't come any closer until you say so my name is samus i'm an independent bounty hunter i know the situation here and i know how you must feel i'm here to secure your safety may i come closer the woman's name is madeleine bergman the real madeleine bergman the imposter samus met earlier is an android named melissa bergman who was programmed with mother brains ai melissa is mb melissa grew too ambitious and betrayed the scientists in addition she saw madeleine as her mother figure when madeline stood by as the scientist tried to control her melissa grew vengeful she set the clones against everyone prompting madeline to send the distress signal and speak of the devil melissa shows up to kill madeleine but a bunch of gf troopers shoot freeze-rays at her and take aim at samus and madeleine melissa unleashes a swarm of dysprachians at the troopers samus while defending madeleine choose the monsters and melissa in one epic there's no final boss there is a secret boss but a final battle before the end credits nope geez phantom pain much you know this game reminds me a lot of metal gear solid 5 the phantom pain other ram is a big budgeted pseudo rehash of metroid fusion not too different from the phantom pain following the same beats as peacewalker you build an independent army of freelance soldiers otakon's father huey emmerich designs a metal gear that you battle and the structure of the plot is episodic in metroid fusion the entire game is set in a multi-section facility owned by the galactic federation where metroid clones are being propagated samus is more vocal than usual intermodal locking and often talking to an ai modeled after adam malkovich who isn't a d-bag here he's actually likable and unlike metroid fusion other m doesn't have a final boss melissa goes out general scale style as this unnamed colonel barges in for real he has no name he is so over the top snooty and bender done that always close to doing an evil laugh unfortunate what happened to commander malkovich and to think that his entire unit was annihilated truly a tragic day would you agree aaron spectacular stunt my friends but all for naught oh and he states that transporting metroids is illegal didn't seem problematic in super metroid anyway the colonel tells samus to piss off and one trooper volunteers to escort her and madeline out time for us to go come on princess what stop right there who are you anthony hicks sir galactic federation platoon seven yeah anthony's back when he fell he used his freeze gun to turn a lava monster into a platform not only that he's the one who hit the emergency brakes saving thousands i'm gonna say it anthony higgs is the best character in the game he saved samus multiple times more than this dumbass did he's ballsy enough to stand against ridley and he's the only one who treats samus like a friend there's something between these two i wouldn't mind him coming back for future games anthony higgs we'll definitely remember him samus drives anthony and madeline out of the battleship as she inner monologues even more but the story isn't done yet the federation demanded the entire ship to be destroyed but samus does it a day early to get something first in the control bridge samus faces off against fan tune that's gotta be the most random boss fight from super metroid but it's an extra boss fight so i'll let it pass samus goes back to the control room and retrieves adam's helmet [Music] the entire facility begins to self-destruct and samus runs through her ship she flies off as the entire battleship explodes making adam sacrifice pointless sector zero would have blown up with the rest of the battleship and so the arduously padded out story is over after 10 years metroid other m story is still a chore to sit through it has the same problems as star fox command a heavy push for drama that influences everyone to make stupid as hell decisions that are out of character it's hard to say which is worse other m does have a straightforward story while command has a jumbled narrative but it also has a number of moments that make me cringe i'd say other rem is slightly better thanks to anthony higgs he did get a smile or two out of me but not even anthony can save this this game taking place before fusion tempers the latter's twist about the galactic federation cloning metroids it failed miserably in the battleship what makes him think bsl will suffer the same fate and if they need an ai that matches mother brain to control the metroids then why didn't they infusion and why clone the space pirates yeah they scrapped that idea but cloning them in the first place is just dumb the federation is already the biggest army in the galaxy metroids have practical value but why the space pirates and why send a deleter to kill the scientists it's not like a journalist or someone else on the outside found out what they were doing only those involved in the project are aware of it what egotistical arrogant dollar orchestrated this sir samus aaron reported that planet zebes has been destroyed with a space pirate in the last metroid along with it she is currently being treated in the quarantine center destroyed huh that's what they want us to think they've surprised us before but not if we beat them to the punch kif i have a plan oh no we'll take cells of the space pirates and metroids from samus's suit and make clones of them a mother brain ai would also be made if there's a chance they'll turn against us we'll blast them to the far reaches of space with the volunteer initiating the self-destruct sequence inside the sector be sure to send in an assassin to kill everyone affiliated and bring in our best man the general i promoted what's his name adam malkovich yes him this will all come boiling down to a thrilling day no meant but sir that plan makes no sense and there's samus i've been saving this for the end other m's main goal was to flesh samus out more make her more three dimensional this is the title that's going to make her a real character that was the intent of the story but as movie bob said intent and execution are two different things the context of the story needs to reinforce what the plot was going for what does other m say about samus aaron that the earlier games don't well let's see she'll blindly follow orders no matter how doltish they are she's timid enough to be frozen in fear and she's often distracted to be fair i do like it when she talked to the two bergmans she's being gallon and polite and thanks to these cutscenes this game passed the bechtel test we have female characters talking to each other about things not related to men as for the rest of the story she's intolerable an overly melodramatic shell of samus aaron that frequently narrates her emotions with body language that doesn't correlate with a dialogue because she just stands there show us what she's feeling don't lazily tell us this doesn't make her more three-dimensional the theme of motherhood is forcefully prevalent throughout the story samus is the supposed mother figure up against an ai copied from mother brain other m can be rearranged to mother the initial spell out mom you get the idea we don't see samus as an actual mother figure the 1986 movie aliens excelled at this after being in suspended animation for 57 years ripley learns that her daughter died an old woman samus lost a savage parasite that almost killed her not quite the same in hedley's hope ripley finds the young newt the only survivor of the xenomorph attack and defends her as a mother figure i mean it's on the poster instead of samus lamenting about the baby metroid a thousand times she could have had a child to watch over the two would talk to each other and convey attributes about themselves go all last of us or god of war 2018 in this at the end of the day other m has a baseless motif a motherhood that's preachy more than it is meaningful babies cry it was as though it was crying specifically for me message and if this game wanted to dig deep into samus's past then where are the chozo the bird sages that raised and trained samus after her parents died they gave her some of their dna which lets her turn into a ball a third of her size and they don't get a single acknowledgement adam is my father figure yeah i'm sure these guys wouldn't be hurt by that samus is at her worst here she's one of my favorite heroes in fiction and it was painful to watch her this way wasakimoto overlooked is that samus was already a fleshed out character before other rem each of these games in showing us what kind of person she is she may be a silent protagonist most of the time but quiet doesn't equal empty in metroid prime 2 she mourned the deaths of federation troopers after they were ambushed by the ing and she later saves the luminoth from the ink all because she's a good samaritan she went out of her way going through all that trouble because she wanted to help people in metroid prime 3 her body was infused with faison and she fought off its manipulative powers where other bounty hunters have succumbed to it her iron will is that durable just the ending of metroid prime 1 where she feels remorse for the dead chozo has done a better job in fleshing her out than other m could do with its paragraphs of inner monologuing if you want to chattier samus then play fusion in fact what other m aims to tackle fusion does in spades and fusion has a lot more interesting stuff going on in his story if you're curious to play other m i would recommend fusion instead you're better off skipping other m i hate other m but that's not to say wouldn't want to see nintendo try another metroid game that's heavily story driven it can work i mean the manga is pretty wordy we can still get the classic inspired games where samus is isolated but a plot heavy epic that gets samus and expands the lore of metroid to awe-inspiring heights i'll be waiting until the next mission thanks for watching feel free to comment what you think about other m story or what you would want to see in a future metroid narrative and please like and subscribe thanks for watching till next time [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Characters In-Depth

Views: 21,686

Keywords: metroid other m's story is trash, characters in-depth, samus aran, baby metroid, adam malkovich, anthony higgs, ridley, yoshio sakamoto, metroid prime, prime 2, prime 3, super metroid, metroid 2, samus returns, metroid fusion, zero mission, return of samus

Id: q5GbyFaNdUo

Length: 35min 6sec (2106 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 20 2020