Castle Magus

"In Angry Video Game Nerd episode 225, The Nerd takes a look back at the Metroid series' early beginnings with the original Metroid for NES, Metroid II: Return of Samus on Game Boy, and Super Metroid on SNES!"

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He's not wrong.

The first Metroid game I ever played was Metroid II: Return of Samus (which I bought for $15 from one of my friends in middle school) on my gray brick Game Boy. Unlike the AVGN here, I did not have a Nintendo Power map, yet I somehow managed to legit finish it. Then, my next one was Super Metroid, and pretty much everything that the AVGN says about it here (almost entirely good) is all true. It wasn't until years later, after I discovered the ability to play old NES games on my computer via emulation, that I ever played the original Metroid. I'll just say this much: thank goodness for emulator save states, because I otherwise probably would have never finished that game otherwise. ¬_¬

I've played every game in the Metroid series up through Metroid: Other M (not counting the offbeat spinoffs like Pinball or Hunters). The only reason I haven't played the later ones, like Samus Returns (a remake of the Game Boy game) or Metroid Dread is simply because I didn't/don't/possibly won't ever own the consoles/handhelds on which they were released.

(Weird that I didn't have a "metroid" tag before now. Guess I'll have to go and do some backtagging later. *shrug*)

(The previous post.) (EDIT) Yeah... this is as far as I got before I just completely bailed. (/EDIT) (EDIT 2) Over two years after this here post, I finally got around to watching the rest of it. (/EDIT 2)

( Read more... )

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Huh... I guess I'll just make this a double post and watch the next episode as well, since they're a two-parter. (Apparently the only one in the series, oddly enough.)

( Read more... )

(The previous post. The next post.)

Just going to go right into it.

( Notes behind cut )

(Man, these posts are going to go to [even more] shit if those Youtube videos ever get taken down.)

Speaking of those Captain N: The Game Master Valiant comics... here they are, on archive.org. Samus shows up in the first issue (EDIT Or, at least, in the top-most issue in that list there, anyway, because I'm not sure that was the first one that was actually published. /EDIT) The rest of the Nintendo Valiant comics are there too. Or, at least, I'm assuming that's all of them, anyway.

What I recall having as a kid was, I guess, some kind of trade hardcover thing? I remember it had the Captain N meets Samus comic in it, but it also had this weird story about a guy who liked to play Mario games (specifically, in this case, Super Mario Land) all the way up to the end, but then intentionally get Mario killed, apparently because he hated Mario. And then Tatanga (the final boss of Super Mario Land) somehow comes out into the real world and forces this guy to help him take over. Then some kids bring Mario out of a Game Boy to stop Tatanga. Like I said, weird. I'm fairly sure this book had some of those other things in it, too, but I don't really recall which ones they were now. The only ones I remember for sure were the one with Captain N meeting Samus and the weird Game Boy thing.

"Yoshio Sakamoto, the co-creator behind the popular Metroid franchise has stated that he may make some significant changes to the next entry in the well received series if the fans demand it."

Well, if he does what some fans seem to demand, then he'll simply have to remake Super Metroid exactly. Not even new graphics or levels or anything, otherwise RUINED FOREVER. Samus will have to be incredibly butch and incredibly mute, otherwise RUINED FOREVER.

Personally, as I've already made pretty clear, I had no real problems with Other M, and wouldn't mind it if it stayed similar to that (story and all). On the other hand, I also wouldn't mind a more traditional game, like Super or Fusion or whatever, either. Nor would I mind another FPS like the Prime series. I'm not hard to please. (Just don't make it a dating sim or a sports game or something. ¬_¬)

While I'm still in rant mode here and all...

People seem to be getting hung up over this whole "Samus doesn't use her weapons unless Adam authorizes them" thing. They make this out to be like Samus is being all subservient and a boot lick to Adam, as if she needs a big strong man to tell her when she can play with her toys or whatever other complete BS as that.

No, Samus is in essence saying, "Nah, I don't sweat this. Sure, I could use all my super powered gear from the get go if I wanted to, but I don't really need it. I can still kick ass and take names without it. I'm going to let Adam call the shots just to show him that I'm not the same stupid teenager I was when I last saw him."

It's like an exercise to herself. She wants to see if she can work together with a team and take orders precisely because she's been working mostly solo missions up to this point.

Also, compare this to a real life military exercise.

Private Grunt: "The bad guys are over there!"

Commander: "Good, let's go in and take them out."

Private Grunt: "But... but we got nukes, sir! Why can't we use our power bombsnukes on them?"

Commander: "I'm in charge here and we will use our nukes when I authorize it, and not before. Besides, if I let you use your power bombs, you risk blowing us all to kingdom come." (Not that a military commander generally has to justify his orders to subordinates, mind you.)

Except that Samus isn't being all whiny about it like Private Grunt there. She says "Yes, sir. I won't use my power bombs. I chose to accept your authority as a commander, and I will abide by that." She's not licking his boots or anything. She's just being a good soldier.

One may wonder why she's allowing herself to take orders from this guy. Well, apparently a lot of people who played the game seem to have missed it (or else, on the other extreme, they are fixating on it to the near exclusion of anything else), but this guy is established as being an important person to her. He is a father figure to her, and she respects him, even though they last parted on less than ideal terms. She's not going all Electra Complex on the guy or anything, she's simply being respectful of him and wants him to think well of her as well. Why people have such a problem with this is beyond me.

And, most importantly of all... she still kicks ass. She doesn't need her plasma beams and super missiles and all that stuff to do so. Sure, when a situation comes up where she needs them, Adam usually says* "Hmm, this looks like a situation where you can use those things, so I will authorize them." And having that stuff afterward just makes it easier for her to be badass, but it's not like she somehow wasn't a badass before she got them. In fact, she was even more of a badass because she willingly chose to refrain from using them.

Yeah, sure, this is just a handwave. But at least I'm not treating the whole thing as though it were some crucial plot point that ruins the entire story and by extension the entire game and by extension the entire Metroid series forever and ever.

* - With the exception of not authorizing the Varia suit the instant she entered the volcanic area, which was pretty stupid. But even still, she made it through there just fine without it. That was done purely for gameplay reasons, similar to why Samus herself didn't immediately activate the Gravity suit later on, after losing contact with Adam, when she first encountered those weird gravity rooms.

Just finished the main part of the game. Haven't gone through the after credits stuff yet. Just completed the after-credits stuff. Got 100% completion. Probably will wait a while before playing it again on the unlocked Hard difficulty.

Here's what I have to say about it. To all of those out there (and there seem to be a lot of them, from what I've observed) who are bawwing about WORST GAME OF THE YEAR, METROID IS RUINED FOREVER, THE FRANCHISE WILL NEVER RECOVER, COMPLETE AND THOROUGH BETRAYAL OF THE ENTIRE SERIES and other such ludicrous nonsense, there is only one very simple thing that I have to say:

Ess Tee Eff You.

No, really. You are being utterly ridiculous. This isn't even open for debate here.

Is Other M the best Metroid game ever? No, I don't think so, since I think that honor still belongs to Super Metroid for the SNES. I'd say it's at least on par with the Prime games, though. Is Other M the WROST GAEM EVAR that has dealt a crippling death blow from which the Metroid series will never, ever recover? Of course not, don't be completely asinine.

Man, seriously, Samus opens her mouth and actually talks in this game (OH CRAP!), revealing that she is not, in fact, just Jason Voorhees with boobs or whatever it is that everyone seems to have built her up as. And people simply can't handle the fact that their preconceived notions were shattered, apparently, and they get their undies all twisted over it. She is still, by far, one of the most badass characters in the entirety of video game history. This game did absolutely nothing to change that.

( Slight Spoilers )

Also, I would recommend that anyone playing this game also take a look at this* as well, since the game apparently draws from that, at least a little (as evidenced by the spoiler content above).

* - Second link added because the first link, contrary to what I originally thought, doesn't have nearly the whole thing.

(EDIT)

Also, "the game is too short" is not a valid complaint, imo. Metroid, Metroid 2, Super Metroid, and Metroid Fusion can be beaten in, what, 2-4 hours if you just rush through it (and that's not even talking crazy speedruns). It took me around 10 or so hours to beat Super Metroid the first time, and it took about the same to beat this one. Well, I haven't actually finished it yet, as I'm still going through the post-credits stuff. Playtime, as of finishing the post-credits stuff: 13:02:52. Which is roughly the time it took me to collect all items in Super Metroid, if I recall correctly, give or take an hour or so.

(/EDIT)

Here's just a sort of stream of conscious list of stuff, in the order that it comes to mind.

(EDIT) Breaks have been added between bullet points per request. That's the only concession to coherence that I'll make, since I'm not touching that big block of crap in the first point again with a ten foot pole. That big block of crap can be summed up by the first sentence and the last sentence, which is just a restatement of the first sentence, and the rest of the big block of crap in between can safely be ignored because it's a big block of crap. (/EDIT)

( Click here for big-ass bulleted list )