Metroid: Other M "In Retrospect" - Part One

[theegad]

The transcript...more or less:

I recently looked up the article on Samus Aran on Wikitroid and discovered something that really bugged me and has me both confused and concerned.  It might have been nothing, I could be making a big deal out of nothing, after all, but here it is.  At the top of the article, there was a box that read:

“This in-

Comments

[arremmmdee]

it's not a postmodern entertainment medium

it's video games

[theegad]

Video-games are not a constant within themselves--they evolve just as movies have evolved. Therefore, they *are* a form of post-modern entertainment as they continue to reflect the ever-changing culture that continues to develop and interact with them.

[arremmmdee]

it's just video games, bro

[theegad]

What does that even mean?

[arremmmdee]

It means stop overthinking these things.

I honestly can relate to you 110%, and even though I think (albeit think and not know, I haven't played it and I'm not in that deep with Metroid games) Other M's been misunderstood on some level, the fact is that it had very little chance of doing very well. Video games aren't succeeding as a 'post-modern entertainment medium' because they're trying to blend interactivity and narrative story, something that probably won't work on a higher level. It worked on a subtler level with more nuanced things, but it's still not translating well on a higher level.

I'm kind of losing track of thoughts and this is the sort of discussion I try to stay out of entirely (I have never enjoyed video games less than when I tried to hold them to some standard of quality; once I realized even my favorite games in narrative have turned out to be flukes and the ones I did legitimately enjoy tended to be objected to by video game nerds et al., I switched back to mindlessly playing straight-forward shmups and arcade

[arremmmdee]

OH MY GOD
OH MY GOD

LOOK HOW MUCH I JUST TYPED
LOOK WHAT YOU'VE MADE ME DO

IT'S JUST VIDEO GAMES

[theegad]

Whether you know it or not, you've kind of just edified my stance on this medium by actually taking seriously. In fact, you seem to take this just as seriously as I do, if not more seriously, simply based on that big block of text you so expertly typed out there.

I'm merely thinking about these critically, rather than "over-thinking" about them. I care about the status of the medium and I want to see it improved.

[arremmmdee]

[arremmmdee]

[arremmmdee]

[arremmmdee]

[arremmmdee]

When has Sakamoto ever asked what the fans have wanted? He's made what he wants to make, past limitations have constricted him such that he ended up making a game people liked. His concept of the series is not noticably different, it's just being put through a different filter that allows him to make the Metroid plot more explicit and do character development, not as a response to Prime, but because he always wanted to do those things

[theegad]

When has Sakamoto ever asked what the fans have wanted?

Did you listen/read the interview I put in my video? He stated the question quite clearly.

He's made what he wants to make...

And what he made sucks. Hence, my review.

If you don't like the way Sakamoto handled Other M, you don't just not like the way he handled Other M, you don't like the way he handled any of the prior games he made...

What makes you think I've liked or disliked *any* of his games? What makes you think I've even played all his games?

Sakamoto never made good games,

Fusion was a good game. Sakamoto made that.

Other M is symptomatic of the fact he is a terrible video game designer rather than an effect of a sudden change, so Metroid was never a good series...

So, because one game in a series is bad, therefore the rest are bad?

And by extension, the fact so many video game franchises have taken a turn for the worse isn't just that they are now bad, but rather they were always bad. And it's a terrible post-modern medium, hence...it's just video games, bro