Metroid: Other Fusion. Feels like every design decision made for the purpose of breaking the game. retro>team ninja.
In its defense i guess one could also say that recurring themes in this series are usually common, so suffice it to say that storywise, this is Fusion's predecessor. Which also means chatty Samus is back (this time fully voiced) pondering on ongoing events and reminiscing past ones. Confession time: I feel this was one of the things long time fans of the series, like myself, didn't like about Fusion (though i played and enjoyed it very much, just so you know :D)
Graphics: The environments are uninspired and most of the time just plain ugly. Gone is the excellent art design of the prime series and its environments that look high tech and cool with an artsy touch, making them a joy to look at.
Technically, it should be more proficient than prime 1 & 2, and sometimes you'll notice there are more polygons here and there and the textures have better resolution, but they simply don't look better. They basically did less with more, which i guess is always possible, Prime 3 Corruption looks WAY better than this one. Samus is very well animated and modeled better and more well-proportioned here than in the prime trilogy, curvier and the limbs look better and fuller, legs look more feminine. (nice butt and breasts, which i guess is where TN's expertise comes into play) the power armor design looks better in the primes, though. Framerate's solid most of the time.
Sound: Some typical metroid sounds are still there while some are missing. the songs i've heard so far, are nothing to write home about... passable. The voice acting of npcs is cheesy at best, and samus' voice is monotone and emotionless the whole time she talks, which is a lot considering she mentions even the more obvious stuff, sometimes it's like you have someone narrating what you are already watching and figuring out by yourself. The writing isn't good, period. When Samus explains that the bottle ship's distress signal is codenamed baby's cry so that it draws attention (as opposed to regular, or "standard" distress calls, i suppose) you could be face-palming hard, like i was.
Gameplay:
The game has three modes, your regular run and gun affair of previous metroids now in 3D, this works pretty much like isometric games, holding the wii horizontal to resemble the classic NES controller, were the d-pad moves you around fire with 1, jump with 2. First person mode, activated when you point the wii at the screen, puts you inside Samus' helmet and looking through her visor, the transition is very fast. Morph Ball mode which remains the same as previous iterations in the series. I guess they wanted to please the old school fans of metroid so much that they decided to shun the nun chuck, for more conventional d-pad, A, B action, the thing is, those controls worked well in 2D metroid. In 3D? not so much. The d-pad's ill fit for movement in 3D space and analog sticks are an advancement that's been very welcomed for this type of game for three gens now, why they thought going back to the d-pad was a good thing, i don't know, perhaps nostalgia?
This is where everything falls apart for me... how they managed to break the excellent gameplay of both the 2D games, and prime's GOTY award-winning FPS action... in one sitting! let me elaborate...
The third person parts are ok, i guess, but since the d-pad's 8-way digital input is ill fit for 3D environments. most of the shooting is auto-aimed, taking the fun out of much of the action, this is broken as well as most often than not, the auto aim, picks the target far away rather than the dangerously close one.
The First Person Mode is infuriating at first, frustrating at best when you get used to it. not being able to move in this mode is really not the way to go here, i still don't understand why... you are perfectly capable of still using the d-pad here to move, yet it's blocked, even free-looking is blocked unless you press and hold B, which also activates locking and missiles which makes it a pain to look around... This alone will INFURIATE fans of the Prime Trilogy since there's no good reason lo lock looking around and moving in this mode (even without the nunchuck) than just to piss you off...
Gone are the Energy/Missile/SuperMissile/Powerbomb pickups when you defeat enemies, now you have to hold the wii remote upwards and hold A to recharge missiles and takes a little while (3 secs?). You also have to do this to recharge Energy, the kicker is you can only do it when you're about to die at 25 energy or less and when you hold the remote upwards and hold A you stand still and completely vulnerable until a blue dot reaches the end of the energy meter. then it recharges, this takes approximately 5 seconds which in metroid terms is an eternity, making it impossible to recharge when most enemies are around, besides, it only recharges the first (or last, if you will) 100 points of energy, not the tanks, these can only be recharged at the save stations. To me... this... outright sucks. It's like Mario with no mushrooms anywhere... WHAT WERE THEY THINKING? it breaks the formula too much!
It is at this point i said to myself: "This isn't Metroid anymore, Other M, indeed" (by the way, the MOM thing... *sigh*)
Conclusions:
Metroid Prime fans are gonna hate it (forsaking the nunchuck is one thing, but locking movement and even free looking in 1st person mode, just to piss you off, is too much, went too far)
The old school metroid fans are gonna hate it as well, since it has the same flaws Fusion does... (Linearity, shallow, chatty monotone Samus w/Adam issues included)