The only JRPG from the last 10 years that I like – Persona 4 – got a 4/5.
Then you obviously have a different taste from me, and if the GT review is anything to go by then that critic doesn’t know what the fuck she’s talking about.
How would you know that, though? Have you already played through the game?
Sounds to me like she has a lot of legitimate points about the story being lame and the weapon permission stuff being stupid as hell. Which we already knew.
The weapon thing actually gets clarified in a scene that was shown in that review, besides, Adam is a high ranking motherfucker.
http://www.metacritic.com/game/wii/metroid-other-m
An 80/100 is still pretty good. Read the reviews as well to see where the reviewers were coming from when they gave it a 63/100 or whatever.
I’m thinking probably a 3.5/5.
The story’s freaking awesome so far in my opinion, actually. Lots of twists I didn’t see coming. And the level design and challenge and nonlinearity all feel perfectly fine.
My biggest beef with the game is one I haven’t seen raised elsewhere–enemy health. They just take too damn long to kill. There are a lot of minibosses and super-strong enemies like dessgeegas that just don’t fucking DIE. Missile after missile after fully charged beam while never getting hit and… come on, seriously, just… die already. I’m bored of fighting them.
Overblasts help, but the detection on it is finicky and one time I somehow got Samus stuck in an infinite loop of jumping on its head, jumping off and shooting at a wall, and landing back on its head. Seven or eight jumps later she finally actually HIT it.
Didn’t kill it, of course. Took two more overblasts for that. Christ.
Also, there’s no goddamned music. The battle themes are great but come on, atmospheric stuff only works when there are catchy tunes to balance it out, like in the other Metroids.
Underwater physics are as annoying as ever, and there is a fairly lengthy undersea puzzle segment that’s just frustrating because one misstep means backtracking underwater for a while. Can’t wait to get the gravity…uh… aura…thing.
Speed booster is fun as HELL though. Shinespark is just… amazingly well-done.
I mean, honestly, this game is freaking amazing in almost every way, but so many fights are tedious and it’s aurally boring. It REALLY detracts a lot. I actually find the cutscenes a welcome break because there’s actual sound, and it means I won’t have to spend half an hour pumping missiles into an enemy only to have two more spawn in its place.
The music in and around cutscenes however… amazing. There are some incredible Resident Evil-type moments where Samus starts walking slowly while creepy-as-hell songs play and you wander corridors scared of what the hell’s gonna pop out next. It’s great.
Then there are annoying moments where it locks you into Search View until you find the one tiny pixel that triggers the next scene. Sometimes I’ll scan the same spot four times, fire a beam at it and suddenly get the scene even though it has nothing to do with shooting it (scanning a badge, for instance–it wouldn’t let me progress until I shot the badge on a corpse’s chest, which led to a scene of Samus investigating the badge. What the hell?)
I dunno… it’s a mixed bag in the weirdest way. Everything I was afraid of is just fine, and the biggest problems are things I never imagined.
Not to mention it’s for the Wii and I much prefer computer gaming 
But that’s a minor note–every other Metroid has been for a Nintendo console or hand-held so why not this one?
My biggest problem with the new Metroids is that I don’t have a Wii and I don’t care to get one.
why not? its $200 now and they’re really easy to softmod, plus there are plenty of awesome 3rd party games now…granted most of them are from Sega and Capcom (like Tatsunoko vs Capcom, so much win)
Ho. Ly. Shit.
I just spoiled things for myself. I watched a lot of videos.
Safely assuming everyone here is a Metroid fan, if you don’t consider getting this, reconsider. From what I saw, if I didn’t have a Wii, I would go get a job, earn enough money, and get them both. But that is me, psychotic about Metroid. I watched some awesome cutscenes, and three boss battles. Not being what I thought they were until I got a closer look.
All of these boss battles looked amazing, two of them being final boss worthy. One I was extremely suprised to see. I would never seriously think he/she/it would be here like this. My heart aches. I’ve never been so in love with an inanimate object before…
Get it, from aaaalll the videos I have seen, and all the gameplay I have watched, all the reviews I have heard, I can safely assume this game is EPIC.
Get it, you fuckers.
Update: Got the Wave Beam. Shit dies FAST now. Kinda bad balancing there. The first two beams barely power your attacks at all…hell, maybe they don’t at all besides charge shots. Stuff takes forever. Then you get the Wave Beam and things start dying in one charged hit that used to take 5 missiles and two charge shots to the face plus an overblast. >_>
Yeah. It’s a lot more fun now, but god that was bad design for a while.
Plot continues to impress.
Pre-ordered it three months ago.
@Daz: but the real question is does it faze through walls?
It does indeed, at least through some walls. There are some cool puzzles with things like tanks filled with liquid that waves can’t pass through that need to be drained so you can shoot through them.
Also, just fought Ridley. Wow. Just…wow. He fights just like in Super, tail-stabs and all. And he’s hard as balls.
Four hours in, by the way, but I have far more playtime than that from constant reloading and deaths and such. Also I haven’t spent any time at all looking for expansions since I left Sector 1. So it definitely seems to be lengthy by Metroid standards, though it does not compare to Metroid PRIME standards in that respect. Well, I assume. I’m not at the end yet. But come on… Ridley.
Also, finally some backstory on the bastard. Crazy stuff.
But yeah. Spent the last hour and a half trying to beat Ridley and finally took him out only to have my game crash on the way back to the save room. Goddammit.
Also, this:
http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/3347/morphsamus.png
Makes me laugh. It’s like Ridley thinks he’s a chozo statue presenting a tiny little Samus item. And he looks so goddamned pleased about it.
Also, yes, his proportions look wacky there. Don’t hate. It WORKS in-battle. He looks freaking awesome when he’s flying around and fighting and stuff. He just doesn’t take good pictures.
Edit: Finally got my wish for a giant boss you have to grapple around to fight. I’ve been wanting one of those since the first Prime. It was certainly not who I expected, though.
Game Trailers said it takes about 9-10 to play through the game. Not sure if they got every expansion though.
Oh wow. I did NOT see that final boss coming. Amazing, nostalgic and WHAT.
Sadly, the “true” final boss after that only takes one missile to “kill,” which was pretty disappointing after the epic-as-hell buildup.
I was actually pretty pleased with the ending though! And you know how Samus is getting a lot of flack for being too “whiny”?
Uh… yeah, no. There’s been exactly one scene where she acted whiny at all and it was completely warranted.
But yeah. We finally get the answers to all the weird questions Fusion left us with,
Far as time goes… um, I don’t know. I waited til the credits rolled to post this, and…um… it sent me back to a second mission. Not sure if that was only part of the game or if this is just for endgame item collection or what, but that was a neat feature.
It’s supposed to be a 30 minute long extra that’s funner than the actual game. 
I dunno about “funner.” The main game was fun as hell. >_> Plus half of these doors spawn the most annoying and difficult enemy in series history and I’m fucking tired of them spawning every time I figure out where to go ;_;
But it does seem to be free-roam explore-and-upgrade just like “what stubborn purists believe Metroid should be,” so whatever.
Beat it at 30%, by the way. Yeesh.
Daz, you have been pm’d
Final time is 6:48, but I have yet to beat He-Who-No-One-Expected-And-Shall-Not-Be-Named. Dunno if there’s any more gameplay after you beat him, but I already unlocked a bunch of stuff so I guess this bit is just optional bonus material.
Also, wtf. No Kraid. Several random completely unexpected nostalgic bosses, and no Kraid. Are they TRYING to piss us off? Hell, he even had a perfectly valid story reason to be in for once.
Art gallery in this one is pretty cool. None of that nonsense sketchy crap from Prime that didn’t look like anything interspersed with occasional full awesome pictures.
http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb2010…/b/bb/Kiart.png
Check that out. 
There’s also the typical developer’s sketches for the human characters of course, but it’s altogether much better put together than Prime’s were IMO. Even if the art itself isn’t as good… it’s a nice gallery.
Edit: Yep, there was a bit more after him. Game’s actually completely over for real this time: 6:59, 32%. Hard Mode scares me.
So, overall opinion? It seems like it got a lot better from when you gave it 3.5/5.