Post by Astaroth on Apr 2, 2016 14:33:47 GMT -6
i know this horse has been resurrected just to be beaten to death again so many times im probably not actually bringing anything new to the table, but a few things in the video got me thinking again, i think the biggest problem with this game isnt its lackluster writing, contrived mutation of the mandatory depowering, or reliance on a piece of canon most people dont know about, its the timeline placement of the game (yes hindsight but bear with me)
as it stands other m is the next to last game in the 'timeline', and placing it there with its references back to metroid 2 and super metroid was its 1st major mistake, the 2nd was its overreliance on cutscene monologues to bulldoze the narrative forward over ingame radio chatter with the plethora of characters that could provide way more exposition than a cutscene ever could (agree with ec on that one), and 3rd is its failure to adequately seperate the angry at the world teen samus from the badass bounty hunter she is known as at that point
first off, i would put other m at the beginning, just before m1/0m as a leadup to it, set between trust and tooth and nail in the comic, on her way to zebes (initially i wanted to put it in the time gap after phoenix iii, but unless the ending changed adam appears later in the comic so yeah >.>) where she recieves a distress signal from a federation station that has been taken over by space pirates (this necessitates the removal of the m2/sm baby references, this could be replaced with a condensed version of hunter and trust establishing the attack on keaton and taking of 0 mission), and alters course to intercept
once there, she runs into her old unit as usual, but gives a bit of pushback against adams requests because shes still angry with him at this point, but reluctantly agrees because adam points out that while hes no longer her CO and she is a bounty hunter, she is on a federation sanctioned mission to zebes and while he would welcome her help in eliminating the space pirates here he cannot conscionably allow the introduction of an extremely powerful and destructive rogue element into what he sees as a rescue mission (which could also irk her for reasons related to their falling out), so she agrees and deactivates her suit functions
at this point weve accomplished the mandatory depower, introduced the characters, and shown a good portion of the character personalities up front, now its time to slowly expand on that during the game with as few cutscenes as possible, through radio chatter, character interaction, and her occasionally pushing back against adam, requesting access to things to get past doors/debris/etc but adam explaining that hes getting reports of structural damage past there or inconsistent life signs, or signals that could indicate there may be survivors in there but taking that particular door could be a bad idea and an alternate route is safer (this does several things, it allows for shortcuts later in the game to make backtracking minimal and gives story reason for taking unusual paths, and it also builds on personalities and character interaction, it could also set up questions once certain story things happen), and the game progresses fairly normally, with the initial foray into varia suit territory being something unplanned and either the suit gets damaged and it takes time for the varia function to work again or big monster shows up in the room before that while samus and adam are talking about possible survivors in there and she doesnt have the chance beforehand to activate it (thus keeping the initial mad dash through that section intact but giving it a less stupid reason for existing), or she simply didnt have varia before this game and she acquires some varialike ability when x happens
from there game progresses as normal but with less cutscenes but more radio chatter and slow buildup to the point where samus begins wondering about the true purpose of the mission (THIS is where the 'inner monologue' part of samus should begin to really show, but with much more pointed questions that she asks herself with the radio off, similar to a person coming to a fork in the road and asking themself which direction should i go, she is subtly steering you to ask the right questions about what is going on, but in a way that leaves actually finding the answer to you), more questions pop up about the mission and the deleter and madeline and the fuzzy critter and the space pirates, and then you get to the first big reveal and samus suffers her breakdown, in its current placement this seems immensly out of character, but if its early in the timeline this can be a powerful moment of character development, showing that shes still scarred from the destruction of her colony, and it takes a great sacrifice to allow her to put that part of her past behind her and defeat it, making her a stronger character, from there she continues on with the story as normal, until she finds out the true purpose behind what happened with this facility
this could largely follow the established storyline, but with a couple changes like a chance finding by salvagers/feds of a partially destroyed space pirate vessel containing the egg/dna of a queen being the impetus behind the establishment of the station and sector zero and the mb project as well as adams report on the metroids, and when the space pirates found out about the feds attempts to replicate the metroids and a mother brain clone they showed up to destroy/take over and ended up causing the breakdown of mb and the release of the metroids which lead up to the distress call being sent
at this point we continue on wondering whos left, why the radios silent, and what the info we just learned means until the third big reveal happens, and...
this is where im torn on the way the game unfolds, on one hand the sacrifice of adam while hamfisted gives samus a very good moment to come to terms with why shes been angry with him all this time and realise that he did not simply throw his brothers life away and ignore her pleas to go after him, but had to make an absolutely horrible decision in a split second as a commander with many peoples lives at stake, and he has had to live with making that decision and sees this as his sort of redemption since samus still has a job to do and imparts that sense of duty even in the face of great loss to her before he goes off to destroy sector 0
on the flip side, i think that could be done in a way that leads to both of them entering sector 0 and combatting their way to the self destruct as a team for what could be an act of mutual understanding and growth after putting both their pasts behind them, and samus is forced to fight off a very tough 0 metroid while keeping it off adam as he sets the self destruct, ending with a timed escape back to the main ship, but he gets hurt at some point during that and she has to take him back to the ships to rest (if this is done, the narrative could change slightly with the game being set in the couple years between phoenix iii and hunter, instead of references directly to her accepted mission on zebes they could be references to her status as a rising bounty hunter and the feeling that samus will go on to do great things foreshadowing the later games in the timeline), in this ending the exposition of meeting adam and keaton to accept 0 mission and destroy the space pirates would happen at the end of the game instead of the beginning
either ending would have her stopping back by the station to retrieve adams helmet before the self destruct sequence occurs and in her escape she gets caught in an explosion that heavily damages her suit and disables her powerups 'permanently', which sets up the depowered version of samus on zebes, but also serves to show that even when hurt and heavily depowered, shes grown as a person from the petty, rebellious teen into the badass bounty hunter we all love whos willing to fight on no matter what she faces
on the flip side, i think that could be done in a way that leads to both of them entering sector 0 and combatting their way to the self destruct as a team for what could be an act of mutual understanding and growth after putting both their pasts behind them, and samus is forced to fight off a very tough 0 metroid while keeping it off adam as he sets the self destruct, ending with a timed escape back to the main ship, but he gets hurt at some point during that and she has to take him back to the ships to rest (if this is done, the narrative could change slightly with the game being set in the couple years between phoenix iii and hunter, instead of references directly to her accepted mission on zebes they could be references to her status as a rising bounty hunter and the feeling that samus will go on to do great things foreshadowing the later games in the timeline), in this ending the exposition of meeting adam and keaton to accept 0 mission and destroy the space pirates would happen at the end of the game instead of the beginning
either ending would have her stopping back by the station to retrieve adams helmet before the self destruct sequence occurs and in her escape she gets caught in an explosion that heavily damages her suit and disables her powerups 'permanently', which sets up the depowered version of samus on zebes, but also serves to show that even when hurt and heavily depowered, shes grown as a person from the petty, rebellious teen into the badass bounty hunter we all love whos willing to fight on no matter what she faces
so what do yall think? i know its long but i think a few edits to an overall weak storyline set in the wrong place of an established character couldve been salvaged into something great, plus it was something interesting to flesh out during a slow day >P
quack
yey