On Metroid Other M, part 2 – Super Metroid’s legacy

Originally this was intended to be only one post, but wall of text critted for 25k hp, so I broke it up for your – and my – sanity: part 1 • part 2  • part 3

(Attention, Spoilers ahead.
I know Super Metroid’s been out for 16 years, but don’t say I haven’t warned you.)

One of the most memorable events in Metroid’s history, the one that actually made me such a fan of this series, has been the final boss in Super Metroid and a very emotionally charged moment.  Honestly, the video’s nice, but doesn’t do it justice.  Simple because ingame you’ve spent HOURS building up to this boss, running around on a hostile planet and trying to save/get back that annoying not-so-little-anymore floating jellyfish, which had imprinted on you, ‘coz you were the first thing it saw after it hatched.  And then, it dies, because that friggin boss kicked your ass and the ‘lil bugger was to busy saving your life to defend itself – despite the fact that you’re the walking one-man army.

Yeah.

I remember my first time beating that boss pretty well. In less then ten seconds, I went from “Oh fuck, oh fuck, I’m going-to-die-die-die” over “YAY! METROID! YAY, YAY, YAaaaa…. WHAT?! NOOOOOOOOO!” to “BURN BITCH, BUUUUUUUURN! EAT MY WRATH”. I think it was the first (and only) time I actually screamed at the tv. I remotely remember that my mother came running into the living room, checking up on me. Heck, I was so upset, I failed at the following timed-escape scene and Samus died on me. I was fourteen back then. Or maybe fifteen. And man, I’ve been upset at that boss (stomping it felt so good!), the space pirates and the death of a bunch of pixels.

And yet, apart from the wonderfully creepy opening narration, Samus never uttered a word or has shown any facial expression (16bit sprite, remember?), all was done just with the flow of the game itself.  That huge emotional payoff on that boss? All the result of good and fascinating gameplay. They’ve set never set out to humanize the woman in the powersuit. They’ve never hit us over the head with her emotions or past. It just wasn’t necessary – the short opening recap set the tone and the rest was gameplay. You’ve beat the game, had fun while doing so and they sneaked the story right past you, directly into your brain.

And as small as this story was, it stuck.

For many of the older Metroid fans (including me) Super’s the game every other Metroid has to measure up to. The Metroid series consistently delivers high quality, true, but how good a single game is, that’s determined by the comparison to Super Metroid. It’s the holy grail. It’s been that good, that there wasn’t another Metroid for more than eight years despite the good sales, simply because no sequel would’ve been able to live up to it.

Will Other M manage to do what Super Metroid has done for me all those years ago? I don’t know.

Other M defintivly won’t be Super Metroid. Super’s a thing of the past. It’s a classic, yes, and it’s been very influental in it’s time, too -  But even I have to admit that there are parts of it that feel a bit… dusty. Time marched on and today’s audience expects different thing of a video game. A modern Metroid has to look differently. Other M has to come into its own if Nintendo wants it to be a commercial success.

And so they set out to show Samus Aran’s human side. Oy.

Super worked so well for me because the story got out of the way, but I know some people missed the fact that Super’s had a story at all. They’re going to try and fix that in Other M – but I’m afraid they go to far into the other directions. That their attempts at provoking emotion will turn out heavy handed and clumsy and will get into the way of good gameplay. That’s what usually happen when you try to focus on those things.

But I’m a cynic and I react agressive to drama for drama’s sake – the poor souls who tried to watch Buffy with me can attest to that. Maybe they do their job great, and it’ll be a true enrichment of the Metroid series. Maybe lots of people will like the game and it will still disappoint me – I cannot know.

Only way to find out is to buy and play it – and at least that I am looking forward to.

Fact is, Other M has to step out of Super’s shadow, especially because it’s a direct sequel  – something that never happened before ¹. And I hope it does, because if Other M manages to finally outshine that sixteen year old game it will reunivate the  series itself.

That alone is a reason I’m so exited for it. Besides the basic “wee! more Samus!” reaction. ;)

My fetish for muscled girls is alone Super Metroid Samus' fault...

Still, there’s one thing that might cause me to have some problems with Other M.  It’s personal and has nothing to do with Nintendo, and I’ll talk about that in the next part of this series.