Samus curls into fetal position when she sees Riley... a pirate she has killed at least two times before.
I'm all for Other M having sweet tight-ass gameplay, but the story and character development is fucking atrocious. A+ for effort for trying to give her one, sure, they just went the most awful way about it.
This right here. On the same page. If you count the Prime games, she's killed him more than that.
But she's been petrified of Ridley and Mother Brain, as well as being haunted by Metroids/Baby Metroid/SA-X in the story. Makes total sense to me. Very similar to Ripley in Alien. Even though she's beaten them numerous times, shes still afraid of them.
And she'd be right to be afraid, Like Ripley is of the Aliens. But part of her deal is never letting her fear
control her, like Ripley was never paralyzed, weeping at the foot of the Queen until Hicks heroically charged in to save her. Also Metroid Fusion. Clearly and rightfully terrified of SA-X, but enough sense to run till correctly equipped. As a story, If she was gonna have that kind of reaction to Ridley, it would have 100% worked in 1/Zero Mission, the first time she's seen him since he ate her parents. She's whooped him -several- times since then, fear or not. Once while being driven by pure mommy rage, not unlike Ripley barreling into the nest looking for Newt (Super Metroid). There's no logical fear after that. It just doesn't add up.
Even with the Other M stuff, it's really unimportant, I don't understand why fanboys take it to heart. Just let it be and play the damn game for what matters the most, gameplay.
Because the story was sold as one of the biggest parts of the game. The story was supposed to drive the game. But since you're addressing the gameplay itself and not the story, I 100% agree. If Other M had a mode a la Mega Man Xtreme's 'Extreme' mode, which gives you the option of an uninterrupted campaign (No story/cutscenes, no filler, just pure gameplay and nothing else from the moment you hit start till credits roll) I'd be back on board! Because the gameplay itself was sweet, and so were the boss battles. But even that's not without its thorns. The missiles were just -awkward- to use, and those mandatory scan segments broke the flow more than any of those cutscenes. Stuff also wasn't really well hidden at all. I followed the linear path, and got near 100% on my playthrough. That shouldn't be. The other major problem is..
I would say the story got in the way of the gameplay.
Exactly that. Constantly that. As another example, Prime had a rich story, if you bothered to find it. If you wanted to just play the game and enjoy, you could! Other M's flow was -constantly- being broken with godawful cutscenes, awkward forced scanning, and nonsense characterization. Or your gear 'authorization' I get that... to a point. But burning to death in heat sectors before you're -allowed- to turn your Varia on was hard to swallow. I can buy Samus following orders if she needs to, it's not the first time it happened. But I can't buy her being that stupid, if we're giving her more character.
Metroid Prime 3 also tried to get away with an adventure driven by story, and to me, ended up being the worst of the 3 because of it. Great controls though. Loved getting those on Prime 1 when they re-released the Prime trilogy for Wii. Either way, to me, Metroid always works better with no forced story.
