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The way that Team Ninja leader Yosuke Hayashi puts it, Metroid: Other M -- the Wii action game his group's developing under the watchful eye of Yoshio Sakamoto, father of the Metroid series -- kicked off with the idea that it'd be a truly Wii-ready action game. "Sakamoto wanted to make a 3D action game that could be played with a single Wii remote," he told Famitsu magazine in an interview published this week. "The concept was 'the latest in gameplay with the simplest of controls.'" "We had decided how many buttons to use from the planning stages," Sakamoto added, "and I think Team Ninja went through a lot of trial-and-error with the controls, getting them right without increasing the number of buttons."
Other M offers a mix of third- and first-person gameplay, allowing you to go into first-person mode to search your surroundings and fire missiles and such at enemies. "There were a lot of things that couldn't be done here without the first-person view that Metroid Prime used," Sakamoto explained. "That's why we have the search view that lets you examine your surroundings from a first-person perspective and fire missiles. I think it provides the sort of gameplay that's only possible with the Wii remote. If you come across something that seems suspicious, that's your cue to try switching perspectives. We intended to have a lot of that searching aspect because that's what Metroid is known for -- Metroid games have unique map structures and lots of hidden corridors, and I was worried that Team Ninja would have trouble grasping the concept at first, but the know-how involved went over loud and clear and I'm impressed with the results."
Hayashi certainly seems to get it, at least. "I think Metroid is all about having suspicious-looking hiding places and finding items there," he told Famitsu. "There's nothing unfair about how we hide them -- they're hidden in places you can spot once you think it through a little, and that's what makes finding items fun in this game." (How many items are there to find in Other M, by the way? "As many as there are in any other Metroid game," Hayashi said. "I think you'll only find about 30% of the pickups in a normal playthrough.")
Another aspect Sakamoto and Hayashi concentrated on was Other M's storytelling, which was constructed to be as smooth and seamless as possible. "We're making this game so there's no obvious seam between the cutscenes and action parts, ensuring the player isn't cut off from the scene and can get into the story," Sakamoto said. "Doing that required us to keep that concept in mind all through the motion capture process; you can't tell if it's working until you actually make everything. We couldn't re-do the motion capture afterward, so I was really anxious after it wrapped up."
"We set it up so that there are as few 'now loading' displays as possible," Hayashi added. "We want the player to get into the story and not feel cut off from it emotionally, so we were careful with that aspect of it. I think we've been able to set up the game so that players can forget that loading is taking place entirely. Even saving the game is a seamless process here, which I think makes it a very comfortable and addictive experience."
The storytelling aspect of Other M continues to play a major role even after you beat the game, the way Sakamoto puts it. "There's a 'theater mode' that lets you view all of the cutscenes linked together seamlessly as a single movie," he explained. "We placed just as much weight on enjoying the story as we did on the action aspects of this game, but it's hard to fully communicate a storyline in a video game with just one playthrough. At the same time, though, it's asking a lot of players to beat the game twice to get it all, so that's where the idea for that mode came from. It lets you make a lot of discoveries, things you missed or dialogue that makes more sense in retrospect. I hope it helps people understand the story better."
This theater-mode movie is about two hours in length and divided into chapters like a DVD film. It's not just the movie cutscenes straight from the game, though -- there's some pre-recorded gameplay bits to it as well, although those sections aren't recorded off your own moves as you beat the game. "I wanted to do that," Sakamoto said, "but we're using our own sample play data instead because that's also a way of giving the player hints -- like, you can beat this particular boss this way too, and so forth."
Were there any differences of opinion between Nintendo and Team Ninja as development on Other M unfolded? "Samus has not been portrayed externally in 3D all that much, so there weren't many previous examples of how her movements and attack stance should look," Hayashi recalled. "As a result, we had a trial-and-error process for figuring out how to show off her assorted actions in 3D. We originally had scenes with Samus getting blown away in flashy fashion by enemy attacks. Nintendo didn't want that to be emphasized, but if Samus isn't 'selling it' that way, then that'll make the enemy's attacks have less impact -- it won't mean as much when Samus defeats the enemy. Eventually Nintendo saw it our way, and we had the freedom to do what we wanted there."
Other M is due out August 31 in America and September 2 in Japan. Hayashi, for his part, sees it as a full-fledged Team Ninja title, not just another game in the Metroid series. "In making this game, I wanted to tell action-game fans that this is Team Ninja's newest game without feeling embarrassed to do so," he said. "At the same time, I also think that people who've drifted away from the genre can get a taste of what makes action games fun once again, so I'd love everyone to try it out."
All About Metroid: Other M's Gameplay
At least, Team Ninja is respecting the Metroid series by adding secrets to the game
According to them, the average player will only find 30% of the content on their first playthrough.
HOWEVER, the cat hopes that this doesn't mean that u can't go back to previous areas to look for them. Otherwise, it would be linear and you have to start a new file to try to get them all again
This screenshot has more emotion than Other M will ever have
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