Doesn’t seem that bad to me so far. Lyle freaking out about the bug was a little awkward, but most of it seemed decent-to-good in my opinion.
And by the way, I don’t have blind optimism. I’m fucking pissed about the healing ability, and to be honest, I am worried about the GF troopers. When they were just in the intro boss battle it was nothing big, but I’ve seen scenes with them throughout the game, and they had a big named introduction scene and everything. I’d love to have a supporting cast for once, but I worry they’ll be in on too many battles.
However, I also noticed that often they’d disappear right before the fights–Samus was standing by a few troopers, the pirates fall in from above, and Samus fought them off on her own. Not sure where they went, but it seems the troopers weren’t actually helping out there.
I figure at worst it’ll be like Corruption, with occasional radio’d transmissions and one or two “escort”-type scenes. I hate escort quests, but the demo trooper segment was one of the more exhilarating parts of the game I felt, even if it was a bit different from the usual.
But yes, I do worry they’ll have too much of a presence. And I’m not a big fan of the “authorized” system, even if it’s functionally not that different from the standard upgrades. It feels like that might cheapen the “explore-and-power-up” feeling, if they just conveniently power you up when you need it.
One last thing–while I’m pleased they say veterans will have trouble finding more than 30% of the items, that worries me like hell at the same time. If the game can be beaten with just 30%, what’s the point of that many other items? Won’t that just cheapen things and make it ridiculously easy by getting all of them? Maybe a final boss that powers up by your percent like ZM would work, but still.
As far as the story goes, I’m concerned about a lack of a central threat. We all started out with just a mysterious new organism that was a deadly threat. Then we had a planetfull of them. Then they were all gone, but oh shit wait the bad guys got a few more! Then yay, they’re completely gone, we’re good to go-- OH GOD NEW MORE DANGEROUS THREAT BECAUSE WE KILLED THE LAST ONE HELP. And Phazon, let’s not even get started on that. It was such a powerful corrupting influence. Say what you will of the third game, but it definitely gave a good sense of just how influential and devastating Phazon can be, as it even started taking over the pirates instead of the other way around. It managed to feel like a horrible threat without being overly Mary Sue.
A great progression of villains. But what can they possibly do here? We can’t just keep introducing new and more dangerous species. And if it’s just fighting the pirates again that’ll be rather dull, as much as I love them. If this was post-Fusion we could have the Federation as an interesting villain.
But what the hell can we have here? As much as I loved Corruption, and the Bryyonians’ designs and their lore, they felt out of place. They were just another random new race to serve as an enemy for one world and then never seen again. I get the same feeling from these chameleons, for instance. A cool sentient race serving as tough enemies or minibosses, but nothing big.
I just… can’t see the story really wowing us as far as villainy and threats go. Much like Starcraft II, it’ll focus on character development and standard military skirmishes, which is good in its own right – but SC2 felt like it was lacking the “intergalactic war” feeling, and I fear MOM might lack the “terrifying centralized threat” feeling. I love the story in this series, but I love it because it gives a motivation to save the world, not to just participate in yet another battle in a long series of other ones. That works for Modern Warfare, but not Metroid.
Blind optimism my ass. I just try to have reasonable concerns, rather than “there might be too many cutscenes.”
