You know what time it is. Time for..
Let's Play: Metroid Other M, Part 5!
When we last left off, I had cleared Sectors 2 and 3 out of all easily accessible power-ups, and had watched Adam heroically sacrifice himself in order to deal with the cold-proof metroids that the Galactic Federation had foolishly created. Our next mission was to head to room MW in the Bioweapon Research Center and find one remaining survivor - oh, and stop this thing from crashing into GF HQ.
So I enter Sector 1, and it's wide open to me - guess what that means!
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... so after killing about an hour in Sector 1 trekking around and picking up power-ups, I finally decide to get on with the plot. Into the Bioweapon Research Center I go. The player sees a cutscene where Ridley, looking badly damaged, is attacked by something that sees in purple. We don't see what it is, but I'm guessing whatever it is, we're going to be fighting it later. Meanwhile, Samus arrives back in the room where we previously told Madeline Bergman to wait. If you'll recall, we saw someone in GF armor come up to Madeline while we were leaving the area, and heard a gunshot. Well, we now return to find a dead body - that of James Pierce, presumably the traitor in question. Called it. That said, this is never actually confirmed - this is the last we see of the whole traitor storyline. At this point, all of the red shirt brigade is dead - Lyle in Sector 1 outside the Exam Center, Maurice in Sector 2 outside the Materials Storehouse, Anthony in Sector 3 at the hands - or rather, talons - of Ridley, KG also in Sector 3, where the viewer (but again, not Samus) saw him dumped into the lava, Adam in his heroic sacrifice in Sector 0, and now finally James, the traitor himself.
In any case, as she's examining the body, Samus hears a noise down a hallway and proceeds to investigate. Eventually we get to a large open room with several doors coming out of it where we discover... Ridley's corpse. Apparently, whatever attacked Ridley earlier killed him, but left his corpse more or less intact. Hmm, what creature do we know of that does that on a regular basis?
In the next hallway, we hit a switch which unlocks the next door, but also causes the walls to start shooting big yellow rings of energy at Samus - reminiscent of the energy bubbles from the fight with Mother Brain in the original Metroid. Not really very hard to dodge or blow up, but the fact that you have to unlock Seeker Missile doors while dealing with them makes them kind of annoying.
Eventually we get to room MW, where the survivor is supposed to be hiding. It's a big open room, and the door I come in through locks behind me. Looks like there's going to be a boss fight. Through a window in a hatch we can see a red-headed woman curled up in the fetal position on the ground. When Samus taps on the glass to get her attention, she panics and presses some switch, opening one of the walls, revealing... nothing. That is, until Samus walks in and finds hatched metroid eggs. Then the queen responsible for those eggs charges Samus and forces her back into room MW, and it's time for a boss fight.
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The evolution baffles me - though I know it's in more stages as shown in Metroid 2: the Return of Samus.
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The queen starts by spitting out a normal metroid - and then a little bit later, two more metroids, and then a bit after that three more metroids. Fortunately she stops at six, because these little buggers are damn fast and can dodge like crazy - it may only take a single charged shot to freeze them, but it can be hard to hit them with such a shot. I died three times during this part trying to freeze them and missile them to kill 'em while avoiding getting hit. They also thaw really damn quickly, and unless you manage to freeze them all, it's really hard to hit one with a missile while the others are attacking.
Finally I kill all six, meaning the queen is now pissed and looking to go head to head with me - she sprouts crystals along her neck which seem to be the source of her power. Fortunately, she moves slowly enough that she's pretty easy to take out - just fire missiles at the crystals until they've all shattered. She collapses, and...
... a recorded voice tells us that there's 30 seconds until we intercept Galactic Federation HQ orbit. Oops, we probably should have taken care of that first. And to top it off, the queen metroid gets back up and regrows her neck crystals. Well, fuck. Samus goes into heroic berserker mode thinking of the deaths of Anthony and Adam, and is about to launch a super missile down the throat of the queen metroid, when someone hits the emergency brakes, stopping the Bottle Ship in its path. The queen flips over, leaving Samus an opportunity to shoot it in the gut...
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... assuming the player actually figures that out fast enough. Then the thing rears up and charges up plasma breath, allowing Samus the chance to... grapple down its throat? What the hell? Does anyone want to explain to me why on earth this is a good idea?
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Unsurprisingly, this quickly results in Samus' death. The fifth time, though, I finally manage to drop a Power Bomb - which they did not inform me I could suddenly use - and blow the thing up from the inside. Victory! Also, the room is in pretty bad shape, too. That said, the survivor, somehow still intact even though its stated that the Power Bomb could easily incinerate a human being, runs away again. Samus finally manages to track her down at a dead end and talk her down - at which point she reveals herself to be the real Madeline Bergman. DUN DUN DUNNNNNNNNNNNN!
So then we finally find out exactly what happened on this ship: The person we previously thought was Madeline Bergman is actually MB - i.e., the Mother Brain duplicate. They gave MB human form in order to give the newly cloned infant metroid someone to connect to as a mother figure, and therefore have the best kind of control over the cloned metroids. The original cloned metroid was not genetically enhanced to be cold-proof in order to serve as a control for their experiments - meaning that's the one we fought, hence why we could freeze its spawn. MB, in android form, took the name Melissa Bergman - essentially acting as Madeline Bergman's daughter. Eventually Melissa developed emotions and self-awareness, which made her dangerous. They were going to reprogram her, and when she figured it out, she went berserk, using her telepathic powers to order everything on the ship to attack. Madeline was the one who sent out the distress signal. Other than that, the plot as previously revealed still stands.
Eventually, MB shows up herself with a freeze gun - presumably James'. If giant metroids and crash courses don't work, just shoot them! But before she can go completely berserk, a new team of nameless, faceless red shirts bursts in, freezing MB in her tracks and then focusing their attention on Samus, as the only other armed person in the room. This turns out to be a mistake as MB thaws very quickly, and then throws the gun aside and goes completely ape-shit, using her telepathy to command things to attack - including the lights on the walls which turn out to be super-fast, super-strong, giant bug monsters, which come down and attack Samus and the red shirts.
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After dying to them a couple of times, I realize that I can't kill them - I just need to clear them out of the way long enough to lock on to MB on the other side of the room, and then...
... ending cut scene. No, really. It's kind of long and involved, but at the end of the cutscene, the credits roll. Just out of nowhere, with no real final boss or anything. Just poof, conglaturations, a winner is you!
... oh, I suppose you actually want to know what happened in the last cutscene. Well, Madeline manages to freeze MB with the discarded freeze gun from previously, at which point a big wig GF guy gives the order to fire, and a bunch more soldiers pop up from the balcony and shoot down MB for good. Madeline screams in agony, as though seeing her daughter shot down. Samus is prevented from comforting Madeline by the big wig - since there's no one left from the original team, and she is officially an outsider. He has one of the soldiers nearby escort her out, who begins to do so, saying "Time to go, Princess." Yep, turns out Anthony is alive. He sets the record straight with the officier, and reveals it was him that applied the emergency brakes and stopped the space station. Then he called for back-up. After that Samus and Anthony leave with Madeline on Samus' ship, with Anthony reflecting on how he used his freeze gun to freeze a lava monster that was about to eat him, then use the frozen monster to escape. Then Samus reflects on the Aesop of this little tale, about how MB wasn't crazy, just the people who made her, about how she misses Adam, blah blah blah. There's a little scene back at HQ with Samus giving a thumbs up to the sky for Adam, and Anthony teasing her for it, and that's it. Roll credits!
... after the credits, Samus narrates (goddamn, does she ever shut up?) that they're going to blow up the space station in a day or two, but she's heading back to get something irreplacable back. When we arrive, we're informed that now we can use power bombs - yes, that's right, a weapon that we learned to use in the goddamn tutorial can't be used until after the credits. That is not how video games work, people. That said, now we can go blow up all those power bomb doors and get all of the power-ups we couldn't before.
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So I come across the first power bomb door that I couldn't get through previously, and use my power bomb, and guess what? It turns out its one of the super bugs from the last fight - you know, the ones that move damn fast and hit damn hard and now aren't distracted by GF soldiers and actually have to be killed instead of shoved aside? Yeah, those. Unfortunately, the only way out is through it, so I have to fight it. Then, new area: Residential Quarters!
... guys, I don't think you understand how games work. You don't put new areas and power ups and more fights and quests after the end credits.
Working my way through the new area, I get to another power bomb door - and fight another super-bug. Then I appear in... Sector 2? Okay, I'm taking the round-about way, apparently. It's worth noting that Nightmare's remains are gone - probably collected by the Galactic Federation, which explains how they end up in the Biological Space Laboratory in Metroid: Fusion, given that it's not an SR388 native. Anyways, time to fight a few more super-bugs and get more power ups in this sector.
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SECTOR 2 100%
On to Sector 1...
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Slight detour through the Bioweapon Research Facility, since I didn't pick up any powerups in there the first time through. Ridley's corpse is also gone, with probably the same fate as Nightmare's.
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BIOWEAPON RESEARCH CENTER 100%
Back to Sector 1...
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SECTOR 1 100%
Since I'm apparently not allowed to take the direct passage from Sector 1 to Sector 3 that adolescent Ridley took previously in the game, I'm forced to backtrack to the main elevator.
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SECTOR 3 100%
Okay, getting back to the plot (which is odd, considering the end credits have rolled). Approaching the Main Sector from the Main Elevator leads to another Power Bomb door into an unexplored area. I'm hoping we'll get back to the Residential Quarters at some point, since that's where the last power up is. Get to a large semi-circular hallway - get attacked by spiny armadillo monsters to start. No kill like overkill - Power Bombs a-go-go! Several rooms of large numbers of enemies - including fighting that annoying recurring boss from earlier, twice. Power Bomb it to death, twice, since I really don't feel like playing fair.
... and then suddenly, in the next room, bizzare giant alien out of nowhere. Outside of the Command Bridge. Boss fight? Yeah, it's apparently Phantoon, who appeared in Super Metroid - they're all about bringing back old bosses in this game, aren't they? Phantoon, Nightmare, Queen Metroid, Ridley (though he doesn't really count, as he's in most of the games).
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Shoot it in the eye a bunch until it dies - still, it's one of the hardest bosses in the game if only because it never stops firing. Seriously, it's constantly throwing little blue flames at you from every direction, while also attacking with tentacles, lasers, and hand-shaped minions.
... I kill it, and realize I've passed the point of no return. Reset, go back, fetch the last power-up
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MAIN SECTOR 100%
ITEM COLLECTION 100%
Go kill Phantoon again - he's easier the second time. Then continue onward.
... all of that was so that I could get to an area I've already been to before - except this time, the door to the command center where Adam spent most of the game is actually open. Walk in, and Samus unmorphs to pick up (and hug) Adam's helmet - apparently the irreplaceable item she came to find. Dear Samus: standard issue GF gear is not irreplaceable. And then, with impeccable timing, the station's self-destruct sequence activates, and Samus has five minutes to get back to her ship. Unmorphed. And there are Cyborg Space Pirates in the Main Sector suddenly. So why the hell didn't you morph back? We haul ass to get back to the ship and she gets the hell out of dodge - and the game is now truly over.
So that's Metroid: Other M. Now, you've caught bits and pieces of my thoughts on the game, but mostly it's been limited to snarky commentary. I'm going to do one more post where I summarize my thoughts on the game, what I think worked, what I think didn't work, etc. So stay tuned for that, and thank you for reading Let's Play! Metroid: Other M.
Status:
Energy Tanks: 5
Energy Parts: 16
Energy Recovery Tanks: 3
Accel Charges: 6
Missile Tanks: 70 (80/80)
Power Ups:
- Ice Beam
- Diffusion Beam
- Varia Suit
- Speed Booster
- Shine Spark
- Wave Beam
- Plasma Beam
- Grapple Beam
- Super Missile
- Seeker Missile
- Space Jump
- Screw Attack
- Gravity Suit
- Power Bombs
Death Count: 13/28
Play Time: 14:23:33
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