The Metroid series should need no introduction. Nintendo just announced that Metroid: Other M will be out on June 27. Pretty surprising, since it appeared to be a fall/winter 2010 game... but hey, 2.5D Metroid? I'll take it.

IGN has a writeup based on the demo and footage Nintendo is showing off in conjunction with the release date announcement. Informative stuff, including its place in the Metroid timeline and basic gameplay.

I think we've got the game of the summer on our hands. Then again, Dragon Quest IX is also coming out in the summer... coincidentally, Nintendo is publishing that, too.

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No prob, guys. I'm excited for this one too; I totally skipped the Prime series because it seemed too much of a departure for me. Other M looks like the true successor to Super Metroid. Fun fact: Team Ninja (Dead or Alive, Ninja Gaiden) is doing the development on this one, with Nintendo supervising. Same formula that produced the Prime series.

As for Castlevania, Hideo Kojima's Lords of Shadow looks like a worthy entry in that series.

 

There'll definitely be a story, but it won't be the usual Metal Gear zaniness. If you've ever played Zone of the Enders you'll probably have a good idea of what to expect. Besides, the Castlevania backstory is already pretty crazy: Igarashi has turned it into basically a thousand year family feud. Speaking of Igarashi, the only way to get a new 2D Castlevania is through him and the DS.

Back on topic, Other M seems to significantly fill out Samus' backstory. Knowledge of all of the Metroid games seems to be recommended.

 

You can turn in place, that's it. It's a 2D game, would be strange if you could move in first person view.

I don't feel like I'm missing out. :shifty:

I might give the Wii compilation a go one day.

 

Careful what you wish for. Nintendo's idea of a Star Fox game now involves jungle planets and third person action. Alternatively, outsourcing the entire franchise to the Ace Combat team.

 

Note the part about outsourcing. An outfit called Q-Games made Starfox Command.

Thanks for the Youtube link, going to save that video.

 

Search for it: a bunch of people have reuploaded it.

 

Already happened. Star Fox Assault was made by the Ace Combat team. It wasn't very good.

What everyone has to keep in mind about the modern Nintendo is that they're more of a publisher and an overseer of franchises than a true game developer these days. Yeah, they still make a lot of games in-house, but they've farmed out their "alternate" IPs to third parties. Metroid? Prime was made by Retro Studios, Other M is made by Tecmo-Koei (Team Ninja specifically.) Star Fox? Namco, Q-Games. Even games like SSBB are made with significant contributions by outside groups.

Even Shigeru Miyamoto doesn't get personally involved with development these days. He's more of a project manager, directing a bunch of different development groups rather than making his own games. I don't think he's personally handled a Mario game since 64.

 

You're giving him too much credit. Retro was in constant contact with Nintendo during Prime's development. They weren't left to their own devices, only to have Miyamoto come in one day and say "Hey, this sucks, here's how to make it better."

Further, I've never heard of Miyamoto forcing development to start over from scratch. That sounds like a distortion of a quote he gave during an interview: "Actually, we've been working for about three years on this game. This is the first time we've dealt with a foreign development team to this degree in building a game from scratch."

Miyamoto had very little to do with Prime. And yes, his job as a project manager is to offer feedback to the multitude of development teams he oversees, but the fact is that Prime largely escaped his notice. EAD in general was working with Retro, not Miyamoto in specific.

And the Metroid series in general has nothing to do with Miyamoto. He didn't even create it.

Am I the only person who thought Mario Galaxy was pretty boring, and Super Paper Mario was a far better game?

 

I don't see anything cited in that article that jives with the Miyamoto interview, especially the account of Retro approaching Nintendo with a demo. Perhaps the demo was in third-person? Still makes little sense to say that Miyamoto scrapped the whole thing, especially since he says development was a 3 year affair. You don't scrap everything and put a game out in 3 years... unless you're Valve working on HL1.

Stitches is cooler than you. :up:

 

I linked it at the bottom of the last page...

Well, he likes Super Paper Mario, so that's not all bad. :lol:

 

It jives, but not in a way that makes Miyamoto the God of Metroid Quality. :lol:

Honestly, I wasn't that impressed with the Prime series, and I hope Other M lives up to Super Metroid's legacy. The thing about Metroid is that it should offer at least the illusion of free wandering despite the fact that you need to accomplish certain goals to advance in the game. Prime felt a little too structured for the series.

 

Going to have to agree to disagree on Prime, then. There was no reason why it couldn't have been as good as Super Metroid. Likewise, there's no reason for Other M to be inferior to Super Metroid.

We'll see.

 

Looks fine to me. Nothing "cartoonish" about it. That's the Metroid series style. Street Fighter IV is cartoonish.

Besides, not everything has to be hyperrealistic. In fact, realism is pretty boring, IMO. Give me a game like Dragon Quest VIII over a game like Gears of War any day.

 

Good post, I forgot all about starting this thread. :lol:

Other M looks nice and quick, just like Team Ninja's certain other epic action game. I'm expecting big things from this.

 

Probably. :lol:

I'm glad they're not using much in the way of Wiimote gimmicks for this. I want a sidescrolling Metroid game, and damnit, I got it. Super Metroid didn't need pointing, and neither does this.

 

I've been bashing the Wiimote as a useless gimmick since 2006. Just as Nintendo knocks sequels while churning out endless hordes of them, so too do they hype up their own "originality" while conveniently setting that supposed creativity aside when it suits their purposes.

The sideways Wiimote controls are much more welcome than duct taping some generic motion controls on just for the hell of it. I can understand incorporating some Prime-style elements with the first person view, but there's no need for the nunchuck configuration with this game, Nintendo's self-marketing be damned.

 

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Direct feed Other M trailer from Nintendo's E3 conference, complete with an awesome arrangement of the Super Metroid theme:

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzHMjJRETVU"]Official trailer[/ame]

Shakycam clips of the game itself are available on Other M's Gametrailers page. I'd link them but I don't think Gametrailers videos embed in the forum the way YouTube videos do.

Game comes out August 31. Can't wait. It looks amazing, the true successor to Super Metroid.

 

The camera isn't set at a fixed view. It'll shift around depending on the room and where you're at, with no user control. Samus moves on a 2D plane, and can go into first person view to look around if you point the Wiimote at the TV. (Default controls have you holding the Wiimote sideways.)