Metroid: Other M Revisited

Let's revisit another Metroid, before Samus Returns gets released... After playing various 2D Metroids on the Wii U Virtual Console, I was in the mood for another round of Metroid: Other M. Or two rounds, to be exact, because I did both a 100% run and a Hard Mode run. With that I've beaten the game now six times in total - four 100% runs and two Hard Mode runs. And more runs might follow in the future. I've already beaten Hard Mode once two years ago and at that point I felt like I was completely done with the game, only to be drawn back in now.

Next to Super Metroid it has been for me THE Metroid game with the highest replay value. Yes, the game's story was badly written and doesn't shine a good light on Samus' character. Yes, the level design is too linear and the authorization feature was so wrongly executed that nothing made much sense whatsoever. I mean, why would Samus deactivate her life supporting Varia and Gravity Suits to begin with? All of this angers me every time, when I replay the game, because the game could have been so much better. But it never stopped me from enjoying, how the game feels and plays.

I thoroughly enjoy the hybrid 2,5D Metroid style with its simplistic controls, its auto aim, the Sense Moves, the Lethal Strike and the Concentration. It's even what makes this game work in Hard Mode to begin with. I couldn't imagine beating any other Metroid game with just one Energy Tank and no Missile Expansions (even though Zero Mission encourages you to do so with its different unlockable endings). But here it can be quite a lot of fun.

It's still challenging, so it's not that the game is just really easy. You have to master the mechanics and know when to dodge and when to shoot. The enemies are all very versatile and it can be quite tough at times. Even so that playing Normal Mode partly can feel like Hard Mode, sometimes when you simply try to get to the next Navigation Room alive and you have lots of strong enemies in your way. Getting to the Speed Booster in Sector 2 would be a good example for this. Concentration only gives one Energy Tank at first (you can upgrade this later) and you can't find any pickups like health orbs, so you're basically stuck in Hard Mode for a while.

Groups of Zebesians can be quite troublesome, especially if they shoot those green grenades around. And the Griptians (those spiked armadillos) also gave me more trouble than they probably should. Hardest parts are of course the bosses, but here at least the game is very forgiving, because it lets you restart right at the beginning of the boss fights.

Best boss fight certainly is Ridley and he can take a while in Hard Mode, because he can easily kill you with a single hit. But despite this it never gets frustrating, it never stops being fun, so I keep going, until I finally beat him. It's like learning a dance, with the right move in every step of the fight. And it's super satisfying to finally best him.

The Metroid Queen on the other hand is a little bit more frustrating, because you can't dodge her ridiculous fire breath (that she probably stole from Ridley) with Sense Moves, despite Samus doing the exact thing in the sequence before the second phase. At least the game is even more forgiving here and puts you at the beginning of the 2nd phase, if you die. If you had to beat all the Metroids again and again, I probably would have lost motivation.

But beating the Metroid Queen in Hard Mode is certainly a nice finale for my tour through the classic Metroid series, before Samus Returns gets released in less than a week, where we will meet the Queen again.

Hard Mode doesn't have the Phantoon fight, but the whole epilogue part of the game is about backtracking and getting all the expansions that you might have missed on the Bottleship, where it would miss the point in Hard Mode... Still, it would have been interesting to phase this as well.

In general I enjoy traversing the Bottleship quite a lot, because it has such a nice atmosphere. It feels quite eerie at times. And while the music isn't all that melodic, it certainly creates a fitting ambience. Downside is that the whole level "design" is based on long tunnels, which gets boring fast.

Overall I would really like to experience another Metroid game in a similar 2,5D style on the Nintendo Switch. There are things to improve like the usage of the first person perspective, which in itself is done fluidly, but the way it was integrated and forced in the game for Missile usage and those weird pixel hunts wasn't very good. It should be mainly used for looking around and scanning things like in Metroid Prime. You can compare this to the motion controls in Skyward Sword. In itself they worked quite well, but what the game made of them with all the "slash in the right direction" puzzles and fights wasn't all that enjoyable and sometimes even frustrating... With a new game on the Switch they could put Missiles on a button and implement the first person view differently.

But for now let's see, how Samus Returns will fare next weekend! Maybe this will become my new Metroid game with the highest replay value.

Yet Another M

I just finished Metroid: Other M for the third time. Considering the fact that quite some people including myself gave this game a not so good review, this might actually be surprising. And most of the flaws are still present and an issue, the game is still very linear and still focuses on a bad story. And you still get annoyed by the stupid idea of authorizing items, it just doesn't make sense why Samus doesn't use Varia or Gravity Suite from the start for example. And that all the free exploring and item collecting basically happens at the very end of the game, where nothing much is left to do, doesn't really work either.

But some of the earlier issues are basically gone. The confusing scanning sequences are not a problem anymore, because you know what to look for. The story doesn't bother you as much, because you can skip all cutscenes, which really adds to the replay value. And if you mastered how to efficiently use the Sense Moves and Lethal Strike, the game gets rather easy actually. Not even Ridley could give me a fight this time around, because I finished him with a Lethal Strike (didn't know you could do that). So, the game actually gets a little bit more enjoyable, when you play it for a second or third time.

But this alone isn't a good reason to replay the game. I replayed the game two times now simply because I wanted to. For once I enjoy how the game is played. I really like the controls and the fast and fluid action. It just feels great to play this game, I enjoy how the beams feel, how the Missiles blast and how the Screw Attack saws through things. How you fluidly can switch between First and Third Person modes. And I enjoy using Sense Moves and Lethal Strikes. The fights in the game are fun. And this is the main reason, why I enjoy replaying this game.



The Metroid Prime Trilogy games were certainly awesome, but they could also be quite slow and low to the ground. And some things from the earlier Metroid games like the Speed Booster just wouldn't work with the first person view. Metroid: Other M really offers a great, fast and fluid hybrid of both playing styles and I really would like to see another Metroid game using this style.

I also really like the atmosphere inside the Bottle Ship. Originally I stated that the lack of music is quite disappointing, but by now I really appreciate the atmosphere created by the simple ambient sounds orchestra. This space station really gives you a great feeling of isolation, it's so huge and empty and just thinking about the gigantic simulated outdoor areas can be overwhelming.

Well, that's it, for a game which I originally didn't hold in high esteem it's surprisingly fun to replay. It's certainly not the best Metroid game, but it's also not the worst. And if you know what to do, the game can be finished rather quickly, it took me less than eight hours to finish the game this time. It's perfect for two evenings of fun and fast Metroid gameplay.

Metroid Stage in Dead or Alive: Dimensions

I recently talked about how an awesome cameo looks like with Link starring in SoulCalibur II. Now it seems that Dead or Alive: Dimensions is trying something similar. As you may recall Team Ninja worked on Metroid: Other M and they were smart enough to reserve some rights for a Metroid cameo in their 3DS outing of their popular fighting franchise. There will be a stage based on Other M's Ridley battle. Ridley will fly in the background, shoot fireballs and grab players, who get tossed out of the arena. Also, there's an appearance of Samus, where she goes into Morphball mode and drops a Powerbomb. According to Eurogamer she will not be playable, but she may support you in the fight. Find a video of the Ridley stage and more info at Kotaku.


I'd say Zero Suit Samus as a fighter would have been an awesome addition to this game, but Team Ninja says they rather want to focus on making the best version of Dead or Alive. I guess Samus would have simply stolen the show from Kasumi, Helena and the other girls. The game would be all about her appearance, much like Link is the star in SoulCalibur II. But they should reconsider it, the competition in the form of Super Street Fighter IV 3D Edition is very strong and a Metroid cameo like that would really boost the game. All the talk about the "best version of DOA" is bullshit anyway, since when are fighting games best on handhelds? The stage is still nice, though. However, if Team Ninja also makes a 3DS version of Dead or Alive Extreme / Paradise, they should use the chance then and add a Zero Bikini Samus. Just kidding.

Metroid: Other M (Review)

NOTE: This post was later added and is based on my German review for the game, which I've written in my forums, when the game came out. You can read the German review here. Now I decided to add an English version of the review to my blog for the sake of completion. But this version has the Zelda series stronger in mind and offers some new points, while others are ignored.



With the amazing Metroid Prime Trilogy and two great Metroid classics on the Virtual Console the Wii became a platform that should make every Metroid fan more than happy. However, Nintendo didn't stop there and created yet another Metroid game for the Wii and all this while a Zelda game exclusively made for the Wii still has to be released. The title is named "Other M" and is a matter of controversity among the community with its storyheavy and linear design.

This game was not made by Retro, instead Sakamoto, the director of all the previous 2D Metroids and the author of the Metroid Mangas, assembled a team to continue his vision. They worked in cooperation with Team Ninja, known for the Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive series, who did some beautiful work with the cutscenes. So much about the origins of the game.

Cover and Boxart

First of all I want to express my disappointment again about the European (and US) cover, it looks like a bad design for a Star Wars/Trek novel, but not like a good cover for Metroid game. The Japanese version with the red helmet slip cover is much cooler.

Graphics

This game is quite good looking, maybe one of the best looking Wii games yet. Some of the environments could have used some polishing, but overall the visuals are very solid. Especially the cutscenes made by Team Ninja are simply beautiful and the transition from cutscenes into gameplay is flawless.



Story

The Metroid series so far had a much more consistent and better story than the Zelda universe, at least in my opinion, but the story was always completely secondary to the games with the exception of Metroid Fusion and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. The story was told over booklets or scans. But not in Other M, this is probably the most story-heavy Metroid game so far with a story told in many cutscenes over the course of the game. The main problem is that the story isn't that good. Actually it's really uninspired, because it's too similar to Metroid Fusion. Use the exact same setting and conspiricy plot, remove the X and the SA-X, replace computer Adam with still living Adam, add more cloned creatures from Zebes as fanservice and voila, there's your Other M. The Bottle Ship is very similar to the B.S.L.-Station from Metroid Fusion and that the Federation is actually performing experiments on Metroids isn't a big shocker anymore. In fact it doesn't even fit the story of Metroid Fusion, which takes place after Other M and where this revelation still was supposed to be a shocking plot twist. Now Samus' reaction in the GBA game should have been more like "uhh, again?".

Talking about Samus' reaction, that's a critical point to many fans. Because she normally doesn't have any. But in this game she's having monologues all the time telling the player about her memories and feelings, about her relationship with Adam, her past and everything. While this can be interesting, not everyone likes how Samus is portrayed. Samus, like Link, used to be more like an avatar for the player. In the original Metroid most players didn't even know that Samus actually was a girl. And it didn't really matter. In later games it was simply nice to play a strong female warrior. Since Samus was a silent protagonist and you weren't told much about her, her personality was left to the player's imagination. Now everything is set in stone and it's very likely that Sakamoto's vision doesn't meet yours. For the same reason I somehow disliked the Link in Twilight Princess - he expressed too many weird emotions with his face, I didn't share his devotion to Ilia, while her character didn't care about Link and I didn't care about her. I am Link, you're Link, everyone who's playing Zelda is Link at that moment, so each time Link does something without the player's command he fails in his role as an avatar. Of course in Other M it's much more extreme. Samus talks to you like you're an outsider. You're not Samus, you're basically just watching a movie, where you take control over the action. Most modern games are exactly like that, but usually not good Nintendo games.

Funny enough, there's a gallery in the game, where you can watch the game as "Metroid Other M - The Movie"... it's pathetic.

World Design and Exploration

The whole story heaviness comes with another big downside: linearity. The game is extremely linear, you'll follow a straight line on your course through the Bottle Ship and closed doors constantly prevent you from free exploring and even back tracking. And all this just for the sake of telling a story. You can't freely explore the Bottle Ship until the end of the game, where all the optional upgrades to find don't matter anymore.

The world itself is very similar to the one from Metroid Fusion, just with only three larger sections instead of six smaller ones. There's Jungle, Ice/Water and Fire/Sand, the typical uninspired elemental themes present in most Nintendo games today. Just because it was awesome back in Ocarina of Time, doesn't mean you should use this in every single game, Nintendo. However, I liked the Holodeck effect and those gigantic outdoor areas inside of a even more gigantic space station really had a crazy overwhelming feeling to them.

Controls and Action

What I really like about Other M, is how the game is played. The controls with the sideways Wiimote are supereasy and supersmooth, it just feels great. And I like how you go into the first person mode by pointing the Wiimote at the screen. I don't know, it's just a very simple control system, yet very effective for this game. I love it.

Some might say, that the auto-aiming, the dodging via "sense moves" and finishing moves are cheap, but it adds to the smoothness and stronger enemies like the door bugs can still be very tough, probably impossible to beat with "normal" controls. And overall the fighting is very cool. I had so much fun with the smooth controls and stylish fights, that I shortly replayed the whole game after finishing it once, despite all the linearity and bad story factors.



The stationary first person view is mostly used to explore the environment, however it's also the only way to shoot missiles. But you can still dodge in this view and the game usually gives opportunity windows to switch into first person and fire missiles if it's really required for beating a boss or enemy.

New is also the Concentration move by pointing your Wiimote upward and pressing A. Unlike in all other Metroid games there are no health or missile pick ups dropped by enemies and this move is the only way to regenerate your health and refill your missiles outside of save stations. However, the healing can only be used once you're low on health and is very slow. So, once you're down on health, you will be constantly on the edge until you reach the next save station (luckily there are many save stations). Refilling your missiles on the other hand is a much cheaper process, you can perform it all the time and it's really fast. So you'll practically never run out of missiles in the entire game, not that you'll use many missiles anyway... however, I'm the kind of guy who always wants a full inventory all the time in games like Zelda or Metroid. "Uhh, five arrows are missing... I... need... to... find... arrows...." - so, this refill move was very enjoyable for me.

Items

Another part of the game negatively influenced by the story telling is collecting the main items, which are used for progressing through the game. You can't actually call this "collecting" anyway, Samus still has all her items from Super Metroid in her inventory, but she isn't allowed to use them. She has to wait until Adam authorizes the use, since her weapons can be a threat to other team members or survivors. Makes sense first, but why she has to deactivate completely harmless items like the Varia Suit and then run through super heated areas taking damage doesn't make any sense at all. Adam should've authorized it long before sending her into Sector 3 or Samus should've activated it on her own. Where was Adam during all that time, taking a dump? And it's not until communication with Adam is lost until Samus decides to use her own brain...

This again takes away control from the player. What if I don't want to comply these commands? What if I want to use that Plasma Beam whenever I want? What if my Samus is a rebel, who doesn't take orders from anyone? Also, this takes away the great feeling when finally discovering a new item. In Super Metroid, if you'll find a new item you're excited and happy, here you're just frustrated and yell "was about time, you cretins!!" at the TV, because they really wait until the very last second before a new item can be activated. This was a very bad choice of game design.

Most items from Super Metroid are in the game, only High Jump Boots and X-Ray Visor got cut and the Spazer, which was originally incompatible with the Plasma Beam anyway, got replaced by the Diffusion Beam. This one only works when you use the Charge Beam, so no constant zone fire for you this time. And the Seeker Missiles upgrade from the Metroid Prime games got added to the list of items. Seeker Missiles and Diffusion Beam are luckily two items that can be traditionally found and don't have to be authorized for some reason. And that's it. No Boost Ball, Spider Ball, Ice Missiles or any new additions to the franchise.

Difficulty

If you master the controls with the Sense Moves, the game isn't all too hard. At first I tried to dodge manually using jumps and I didn't care about using any finishing blows, but that was punished with some heavy damage and quite some deaths. If you play this game like your traditional Metroid, you won't come far. In this game, there are many strong enemies in your way, it does make Metroid Prime 2: Echoes look like a walk in the park and it wasn't until I started to use the Sense Moves that the game got less frustrating for me. But if you make good use of the Sense Moves and Lethal Strikes, this game can be very easy. On my second playthrough only Ridley could kill me, but that again was simply because I didn't use a Lethal Strike on him...

However, there are also some cheap scripted kills in the game, probably patented by Team Ninja. If you don't know what's coming, it can be a shocking Game Over. Just watch this video and see for yourself.

Metroid Confusion

One of the most weird parts in the game were the scanning sequences. There you're stuck in first person view and you have to scan an object. Unlike in the Metroid Prime games there's no hint on what is actually scanable. You have to find it for yourself and often it's just some pixels. One time you had to scan some green blood on grass, it took me forever to realize what I should do here. And this stands in extreme contrast to the rest of the game, where you're constantly guided, but now you suddenly have no clue what's going on...

Music and Voice Acting

Bland. No, really, the voice acting is mediocre and the music is mostly just some collection of ambient sounds. The music fits the overall depressing and dark atmosphere of the space station, but compared to Kenji Yamamoto's great soundtrack for the Metroid Prime Trilogy this is really nothing.

Collectibles

One of my favorite things in games like Zelda or Metroid are collectible items. I can't just get enough of those Gold Skulltulas or Missile Packs. And this game has enough. 70 Missile Expansions (giving you one additional missile each), 5 Energy Tanks, 16 Energy Parts (they work exactly like the Pieces of Heart in Zelda), 6 Accel Chargers (makes you charge your beam or Hyper Run faster) and 3 E-Recovery Tanks (for the Concentration Move). 100 items alltogether. However, since the locations of the items are all displayed on the map you don't have to try all too hard to find them. And it's not until the Epilogue part of the game, where you can finally move around freely and collect everything.

Epilogue

Best part of the entire game. After you've beaten the story mode and its final boss, you can return to the Bottle Ship and explore it freely with all your items. You'll unlock some new areas with the Power Bombs, collect all items and there's even an additional boss fight after a long passageway filled with the strongest enemies from the game. And like this isn't awesome enough, they added a Zero Suit escape sequence. I hated the Zero Suit part of Zero Mission, but this one was done very well.

Conclusion

Metroid: Other M is very linear and too focused on a bad story, it tries to be a movie more than a game and this results in damaging the overall experience. Bland voice acting and music, as well as the stupid unlocking of items didn't help either. However, the smooth controls and action, the many collectible items and the enjoyable epilogue part prevented the game from becoming a complete failure. It's by far not as good as the Metroid Prime Trilogy or Super Metroid, but in my opinion it's on par with Zero Mission and Fusion.

Metroid: Other M Preorder Bonus

I got the game today but also the preorder box. Since nobody actually preordered the game, the preorder boxes were still available and sold for the low price of 50 cent, so I couldn't resist. It's basically the same DVD box again with a Metroid: Other M keychain inside. Here's a photo:



I'm currently playing the game right now and I really like the controls, expect a review as soon as I'm finished.

NOTE: This was a previously unreleased blog post, which now got released just to fill some gaps, so don't be confused. I hadn't release the full post until later because my digital camera was broken at that time and I couldn't take the picture.

Metroid: Other M Boxarts

Remember the nice red New Super Mario Bros. Wii boxart? Yeah, that was a cool one. "Must buy the red box." Well, Japan now brings out quite a cover for Metroid: Other M:



DO WANT!
This is a great cover. Simplistic and striking. Even if the game turns out to be bad, at least the cover looks awesome. UPDATE: It's also a slip cover, we got a younger Samus under the red helmet. Nice effect. Now, let's take a look at the US/European cover:



Duh... boring, duh. What's this? The cover of a boring Star Wars novel? Who came up with that? Metroid is about the exploration of an isolated Sci-Fi world, but this cover tells me, the only thing, that I'm going to explore in this game, will be Samus' feelings. I will probably call the game "Metroid Mother" from now on. Not only because "Other M" is an anagram for "mother", but because Samus' maternal feelings for the Baby Metroid will probably more important than anything.

Other M Gameplay Video

This looks better than I thought it would. It actually looks like a cool mix between Super Metroid and Metroid Prime, Other M could turn out to be the "Best of Metroid"-game. Or it could be total junk, I will only know for sure when I play it myself.

I was actually surprised by the open jungle area. I thought the game would take entirely place on this spaceship and that all the "2D" sequences would be like on rails, but I guess I was mistaken. Even better then. And it seems like there's auto aim in the classic gameplay, because hitting those flying insects so smoothly while running would be impossible with the D-Pad alone.

Voice acting could screw things up if done badly. Samus calling Mother Brain actually "Mother" is quite lame...

Metroid: Other M Release Date and Screenshots

The Nintendo Media Summit is currently happening and there are some news about upcoming titles for this summer. One of them is Metroid: Other M, which will be released on June 27 in the United States. There is also a demo playable at the summit and there are some new screenshots, like those three:



There are also news about the controls and I'm somehow skeptical. The game is played with the Wiimote only. You hold it sideways for the 2D parts and you use the pointer for the first person perspective, which you can always activate by just pointing at the screen. However, this sounds like you can't move during the first person gameplay (like in the 3D Zeldas for example) and like you only can shoot in eight directions in the 2D gameplay sections. I was more hoping for a Nunchuk control scheme, where you always use the pointer to aim.

UPDATE: Looks like I understood it right, you can always switch into first person mode, but it will be stationary. The rest will classic Metroid gameplay. It sounds like an interesting hybrid, but I'm not sure if it works well. I guess you have to try it out for yourself.

The game will take place on a giant space ship and there's more word on how deep the story will be. This sounds a lot like Metroid Fusion, which isn't exactly my favorite Metroid game. It was too linear and exploring the space station wasn't much fun. It's nowhere as good as Super Metroid was. And since Other M looks more like the successor of Fusion I remain very skeptical.

Nintendo also releases Super Mario Galaxy 2 in May. This makes perfectly sense considering that both of those games are not MotionPlus titles and that Nintendo really should focus on MotionPlus from now on. A lot of people bought MotionPlus, but all they got so far from Nintendo was Wii Sports Resort. Zelda Wii, which uses MotionPlus, is anticipated and a Christmas 2010 release looks even more likely after today. But I'm also expecting some nice surprise titles this E3.

UPDATE2: Apparently the European release date is "third quarter". I really hope, it's the early third quarter, somewhen in July. But I guess the European version will take its time because of the localization.

Source: Kotaku.com

Metroid: Other M Website online

The official Japanese Metroid site changed it's layout from the Metroid Prime Trilogy layout to a simple teaser site for Metroid: Other M with some sad piano music in the background. The image was already shown in the offical trailer.



I don't know. I despise movie like games and I didn't like Metroid Fusion too much, Metroid is about exploration and action. Discovering alien worlds all alone and blasting all alien lifeforms away on the progress. Collecting hidden Energy Tanks and Missile Packs. That's Metroid. Metroid: Other M looks more like some schmaltzy movie. Team Ninja's cutscenes will be absolutely beautiful, no doubt about that, but there's much doubt about if the game will be as satisfying as any game of the amazing Metroid Prime Trilogy. The gameplay isn't even defined yet. Is it 2D or 3D, 3rd person or 1st person? It looks like it's all of it. But how will that work out? And with all the focus on story, will it be as terribly linear as Fusion was? Because that would be disappointing.

Well, I'm very skeptical about this game. But I'll definitely give it a chance, when it comes out. It's Metroid after all. It's reported that the game is scheduled to be released in summer. (Source).

About the site. What happened to the "Another side story coming soon, from the perspective of the Space Pirates" teaser? Remember? That was a year ago. They just can't tease us like that and then give us nothing at all.

Metroid: Other M announced

Well... the Nintendo E3 press conference. I don't really know what to say. First of all, I'm disappointed (again) about the lack of Zelda Wii, I really hope, this game isn't taking them too long and there's a good reason, why they haven't showed us anything (again). I mean, on the conference they announced like four new Mario games, but not a single new Zelda game? Well, my hopes for a Virtual Handheld on the DSi was also disappointed, but at least not my hopes about a new Metroid game.

But what the hell? Team Ninja? I really like Team Ninja, I really do... for their animations of wiggling tits in Dead or Alive. Combine this with Metroid and you get a sexy Samus wrestling with Ridley. I'm not so sure, if this is the right way. For me the 3D Metroids were pretty much defined by the Metroid Prime Trilogy, now to change the gameplay, style, controls and obviously everything else again is a very radical move, or is it? But on the other hand it definitely looks better than a simple rip off like Super Mario Galaxy 2, it's something very new and hot for the franchise. So, let's wait for more information about this one. Storywise this game looks like the latest part of the series, while it shows us some of Samus' backstory, it has Adam Malkovich in it and we can see something, that resembles the final scene of Super Metroid. Well, I would say, it takes place after Fusion and shows us Samus' past with cinematics. I think, the only cutscene that took place in the actual events of the game was the last one with the blonde, pale girl in the ice station. One important question is now, how much exploration, puzzling and collecting items will become an important part of the game. All of this defines Metroid next to the action, while "Other M" looks right now like a fighting game with some beautiful cinematics. Actually, I'm worried, becaus it reminds me on the "Hardcore" trend of games on the XBox360 and PS3, which focus too much on cinematics, story and graphics, more like they're movies than a game. But I don't play a game for story or cinematics, I play games for gameplay and fun.

Update: A recent interview with the developers confirmed, that the game will take place between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion and will explain what happened in this time, e.g. what happened to Adam Malkovich. So, the scene where Samus is fighting Mother Brain takes place at the beginning of the game. It's part of the R&D1 games' storyline and will show more of Samus' backstory. Also, exploration will still be an important part of the game despite the impression of the action oriented trailer and it definitely won't be just Ninja Gaiden with Metroid skins. With more than a hundred people working on this game, this will be the largest Metroid project so far. All members of the old Nintendo R&D1 team are working on this game, so they're alive and well, which is great news. They still have the idea of "Metroid Dread" in their mind, which might turn into a future project. So far so good!

But what happened to Retro Studios? It's as silent about them as about the Wii Zelda, we haven't heard anything about Retro for years now (well, except for the Metroid Prime Trilogy compilation), which makes me very curious, what their newest project will turn out to be. Obviously not a new Metroid game. That both the Wii Zelda and Retro's new project are kept secret, gives me still hopes, that they might be involved in the new Zelda game.

Links: 1Up Interview