Unfortunately Metroid is kind of out of our league as it’s Nintendo’s game, but we’re still in close touch with co-creator Sakamoto-san, so we want to do something with him moving forward definitely. It really depends on what he wants to do with the game first.
...
The following question comes to mind: "Would Nintendo really be that stupid?" It's safe to say that Other M was both a critical and sales failure to Nintendo, in addition to destroying the image of character of Samus Aran for almost everyone, and destroying any coherent lore there was about Metroid because of it. While the majority of people blame Team Ninja for it, others blame series Creative Director Yoshio Sakamoto of Nintendo for many of the games' poorer elements. The reality of the fact is that all parties involved with the project share part of the blame.
Yoshio Sakamoto bares the blame for his depiction of the Series Protagonist Samus Aran, as well as the Metroid universe, since it was him, after all, that wrote Other M's story. He is also to blame for Jessica Martin, Samus' English Voice Actress, who he picked out himself, despite not being a native English speaker. He also decided that the game's story must be literally localized for all languages. Outside of the story, Sakamoto forced Team Ninja to use the Wii Remote only for the game, and adding the first person element via threat of shutting the project down. He also decided that the series staple, the Gravity Suit, would be depicted by a "serious-natured" purple aura instead of the standard purple suit with blue visor. In the music department, Sakamoto insisted upon ambiance for the standard fare of music instead of a more traditional and expected Metroid soundtrack.
These decisions, by and large, made fans upset, and a backlash ensued. This, in tandem with scathing reviews by journalists and fans alike led most gamers to stay away from the title until the game received gashing price cuts, or outright refusing to buy it altogether due to the story, and the controversy about how sexist against women the game was, particularly with a female protagonist, that was at the time, and maybe still is, highly respected and loved among gamers.
Then there comes Team Ninja's contributions for the game. Their CG team, D-Rockets, helped put together the story in Other M in movie form. Team Ninja also produced several gameplay mechanics are at fundamental odds with the core structure of Metroid games, finding items, and exploring new paths to find shortcuts for speedruns. The game mechanics introduced Other M vehemently discourage players from doing these things, including fighting enemies later on since they are basically a chore at that point. You can't even get 100% item completion before the game's final boss, which is ultimately a story-based unlock.
The quote from Hayashi is troubling to Metroid fans, as well as Nintendo fans who have been desperately hoping for a new Metroid game to be announced, hopefully paired with the retconning of it due to its' terrible story and complete mediocrity in almost every other area. It shows that Team Ninja doesn't realize that their mechanics are not what's best for Metroid, nor does it give the indication that Yoshio Sakamoto believes he did any wrong with Other M. While it was his dream game, he made it a nightmare. Giving it back to Team Ninja, especially after Other M, would be more fuel to the fire to killing the series, if it isn't already dead.
No comments:
Post a Comment