All right, we've been avoiding talking about this game for too long. I think it's time
We just discussed it and got it over with
We've come close to talking about Metroid other M
Several times since we started the show we were actually planning to do it during our first batch of episodes
But by the time we got around to it pretty much everything had already been said besides
We are to review show, and we don't really do rants
And we don't plan to change that now
Rather this episode is going to be about what we can learn from other m going forward there are a lot of other beloved silent
Protagonists out there, so if the industry ever decides to fill those empty vessels the way they did samus
How can they do it [better] before we get to the game itself?
We have to begin by looking at the developer chosen to breathe personality into Samus
[team] Ninja is best known for bringing Ninja Gaiden to the 21st century and for [giving] us [Dead]
Or [Alive] Beach volleyball the game that popularized the term [breasts] physics made all the more memorable by that famous decision to run their physics
Simulation on each breast independently that made for some creepy imagery all told
Probably not the best team to take on the job [of] delivering a character like Samus
They've never made a serious attempt at storytelling in their games before and the inexperience shows another end now obviously that
observations already been made a thousand times across the internet, but if it's so clear to the rest of us
I guess the big [question] is why did it happen in the first place who at Nintendo decided?
You know we really need to bring in to tell Samus a story to the world the Jiggle physics guys
They get women who actually thought that to tell you the truth
I'm not sure anyone actually did I'm not so sure it was a conscious choice
So Yoshio Sakamoto approached team Ninja because he loved Ninja Gaiden
Understandably and plans to write the story himself a decent plan in theory Sakamoto handles the story and lets team Ninja
Do what they do best fast-Paced action Gameplay and awesome visuals now
Here's where the problem comes in you've probably noticed over the years that team Ninjas games usually feature some pretty nice-looking cutscenes
This is because team Ninja regularly works with an animation
Group called D rocket who focus exclusively on cutscene work obviously the weeds real-time rendering capacity is a bit limited
So to achieve the level of fidelity they wanted they were gonna have to rely on pre-rendered cutscenes
But D rockets is a company with a cinematic background firmly rooted in the language of cinema and movie ask a narrative delivery
So even though Sakamoto had writing duties
D rockets was largely in charge of actually presenting that story to the player and with over a hundred hands on the project between team?
Ninja D. Rockets and Nintendo internal political pressures were almost guaranteed to change the plan suddenly
What was once just going to be a fun spin off by team Ninja?
With a Sparse story simply meant to tie Super Metroid and [fusion] together had bloated into a massive multi [hour] epic and the first attempt
At a deep exploration of samus [as] a character now
This is all just supposition on James's part we weren't there to see what actually happened
but it does seem a lot more plausible to me than the idea that everybody got together in a meeting room and one of the
brand managers from Nintendo said hey Beach volleyball guys
Why don't you take a crack [at] redefining the female Central character to one of our most beloved franchises?
So I guess lesson one use caution when setting up your team structure and establishing project goals
you don't want to get yourself stuck in a scenario that forces you to attempt things this medium is it particularly strong at
This brings us to the actual delivery of the narrative
There's an old adage in film and literature show don't tell and there's a parallel adage in games do don't show
Unfortunately other [em] fail spectacularly at both of these delivering almost the entire narrative through Cutscenes
And then going one further by delivering the narrative in those cutscenes almost entirely through Samus's wooden monologue narration
there's a big problem with using Monologues to do this job it only allows for the
Exploration of a single character much of how we come to understand the person is based on how they interact [with] other people in other
M we get a lot of long
expository often redundant monologuing from Samus but since there's so little
Dialogue with the rest of the cast samus ends up surrounding [herself] with a bunch of uninteresting disposable characters it also severely limits Tamás's
Characterization and the meaning we can Impart to elements like her relationship with Adam
This would have been easy to overcome with something as simple as calm chatter
They already established that samus is in Radio contact [with] Adam
So why not use [that] rather than having [Samus] stand there in your?
Monologuing each plot point to us have them talk to each other you know let him do a snake and [otto] [Kahn] kind of thing
He's the intel she's the firepower [xamot] spends a lot of time just moving from point a to point B
That's a lot of time. You could use to flesh out their relationship exchanging intel cooperating to overcome obstacles
Maybe some occasional idle conversation let us actually see and hear the connection they have think of how many games you've played
Where you got to know your squad mates better just by hearing what they shout during the action
This is a huge missed opportunity when you're trying to deliver a complex narrative about a well-established character, not just [for] some of us
but for Adam, maybe even more so for Adam
this is supposed to be the person samus values most probably the only man she would voluntarily take orders from
but maybe with the exception of one scene near the end
[I] never look at these two and gabe
And think wow they really mean a lot to each other so lesson two when characterizing a well-known character
You must use all of the tools available to deliver your narrative a few cutscene Monologues are not going to cut it
Next let's do a little talking about the actual story itself
The weird thing is when you strip the plot down to its most [basic] elements
it actually sounds pretty awesome on the broadest level it's a story about dealing with Trauma Loss and
Consequences that are far Beyond the scope of what the human mind can address in space sounds like a game. I want to play
Unfortunately the execution of that story falls far short and what we actually end up seeing is a tale about
Samus's desperate need [for] approval from a male authority figure
coupled with an hour and a half of exposition intended to catch new players up to speed on the series and tie Super Metroid and
Fusion together
this desire [to] tie games in a series together for new players is often a trap the developers fall into it's ruined more than a
few games
New players and [veterans] alike are better served by delivering a good story with accessible characters that doesn't require the player to understand the rest
of the series
trying to deliver a compact version of the entire series story to date with each game is just going to be a handicap to your
story so Lesson 3
Focus less on bringing us all up to speed and instead focus on delivering a solid accessible story that doesn't clash [with] your previous titles
But can still stand on its own
Then there's also the fact that we almost never see any narrative created out [of] the actual gameplay itself and the only time we do
It doesn't make much sense another end
We see samus refused to use
Life-saving equipment until she's arbitrarily [authorised] by her commanding officer who doesn't technically have any organizational authority over her?
She just likes the guy it's not that trying to give a plausible story reason for why samus doesn't have access to all of our
equipment from the start as a bad idea
[I] mean, I actually like that idea, but you can't decide you're going to give story reasons, and then do it half-assed
We're never given a good reason that makes sense for samus to nearly kill herself
following arbitrary orders and this flawed
execution leaves us with a character that doesn't [quite] match the same as we've come to understand over the years more on that later and
The execution probably wasn't helped much during the game's
Localization whenever you hear phrases like a certain blank popping up a lot in the game
It's often an artifact from a language where the subject of a sentence is often dropped or implicit
Phrases like that [and] terms like a deleter are pretty big clues to me that other [m] needed a little more work in the transition
from one language to another
Suffice it to say lesson 4 if you're going to give a backstory to a beloved character
work very hard to get it right and make sure it's
Localized for any market that you're going to bring it into I know it's not always feasible cost wise but I'm going to say it
Anyway, it's really not a place you want to cut corners on a brand or this much
Now Samus's general demeanor and other end has been discussed to death all over the internet
And we'd be here all day if we try to get into that here
Really if you saw our true female characters episode you can probably guess our stance anyway
So let's just save everyone some time go Google other [em] Story
and you'll find a wealth of arguments for both sides all I'm gonna say is this at the end of the day I have a
Hard time believing that the [sanest] we're shown in this game is the same woman who has until now
Completely wrecked the space pirates shit on a regular basis
I'm not saying samus should just be a total badass ice queen all the time and never show weakness or emotion because that would be
Silly [a] character without human flaws is a bad character
But the specific weaknesses she's given here and their place in the story don't sync up with the rest of her character now
That's reason enough to complain
But why all the hue and cry around this game when as an industry we regularly fall short with our female characters
Well because it's Samus
Often I hear the argument defending other m's portrayal of samus that samus was a blank slate before this
Everybody keeps saying she was such a great character before, but she was barely even a character
How is that better this samus has personality emotions flaws?
How can other him not be true to [Samus's] character when she was hardly a character to begin with I have two problems with that?
line of reasoning
First just because samus hasn't always had a voice or a detailed backstory doesn't mean she was a completely blank slate as we've said before
actions Define a character
We don't know a lot about sentence
But we can make a few reasonable guesses just by looking at the meager story details and game events
Here's what we know we know she's chosen a career in bounty hunting dangerous work and that she prefers to operate alone
We know she's got access [to] and working knowledge of enormous firepower
And whoever she is she's proven herself capable of single-handedly storming and toppling heavily defended bases and installations on
multiple occasions
And we've also seen that she has a softer side through her interactions with the baby Metroid
[infusion] even hinted at a close personal connection she once had yes, it's all very vague and Sparse, but there's a character in there
But those arguments I quoted earlier also suggest something else that any backstory or characterization is inherently better than none
And I don't buy that let me ask you two questions first
Can you deliver a good story without giving a backstory for the main character?
And yes II remember how interesting anakin Skywalker in the clone wars used to be back when we knew only vague details about them
I mean, are you happier?
Now that all the blanks have been filled in for you badly
Kind of makes you miss those days before we knew back when they had the potential to be something [interesting] and great
Or heck I got a better example. Let's shift our gaze
Just slightly to look at another popular Nintendo character Silent protagonist hero. Just like Samus
We don't actually know much about him, [but] we've spent enough time with him over the years to see that
He's a brave determined little guy and guided by destiny to defend the land of hyrule time and again some games give him more
Personality but never much, but some of you may remember that there was that one time when link was fleshed out?
Characterized given loads of personality, [I] remember that
Well excuse me
princess
Excuse me princess well excuse
me excuse
[we] don't like that guy do we that guy is an idiot nothing like the link we pictured all these years
He's not the link. We've come to know more personality is not inherently superior to less now
That's not to say you shouldn't ever try and add depth to characters like these
But a character fleshed out badly can be far worse than a character
That's barely been fleshed out at all so final lessons for bringing narrative to a long-standing series
Just because you want to add narrative to the series doesn't mean you have [to] shoehorn in a bunch of backstory for the main character
And keep in mind everything you've established about the character before even the little stuff
Just because the character hasn't spoken doesn't make them a blank slate I
Think that's everything oh
Sweet closure, thanks for letting me get that out of my system
Hopefully [this] will help to get everyone thinking for when somebody decides to tell the star-crossed [tale] of how mario and peach first met
See you next week
you