Because there's so much that Metroid: Other M gets right, it disappoints more than it should in the areas that it fumbles.
Let's start with what it gets right. You get a strong sense that this game was made by big fans of the Metroid series, especially Super Metroid: the green text recaps of your progress when you load a saved game; the return of several creatures from the classic Metroid bestiary like geemers, skrees, and wavers; the revisit of numerous musical cues, sound effects, and generally nostalgic audio texture; the reuse of familiar level designs (Sector 1 is the spitting image of Brinstar from Super Metroid, and Sector 3 is a more industrial take on Norfair, with its more mechanical sections reminding me of the Phazon Mines of Metroid Prime); and the return to a more "linear" level design that (usually) makes backtracking a little less confusing.
Obviously, the third person perspective gameplay is a return to the series' roots and away from the first-person reimaging of Metroid exploration that we saw in the Prime trilogy. The nostalgic change is further emphasized by the way you control Samus... you hold the Wiimote sideways like an old NES controller and use the plus button to move her around, button 1 for firing, button 2 for jumping, etc. It doesn't completely shrug off the 1st person innovations though, because the game rather sublimely blends the best parts of the first person gameplay from Prime into this game, and allows you to shift to first person perspective on demand for more precise targeting. The method of switching to first person mode, accomplished by shifting the remote in your hands to point at the screen like a traditional Wii game, is intuitive and genius in its simplicity. Also, the morph ball sequences and puzzles, while nowhere near on par with the virtuoso morph ball puzzles from Prime, definitely pay homage to them and make for some satisfyingly quirky gameplay that never ceases to amuse. By doing this, the game creators simultaneously acknowledge the greatness of the Metroid Prime contributions, and give chance for us to see Samus herself in action while you play (probably the part I missed the most when I was playing the Prime games).
While the levels definitely look and sound the part of a Metroid map, they're all a bit on the short side and a little disappointing in scope and creativity. It's hard to top Retro Studios's work in designing the levels in Prime, but even in comparison to the levels in Super Metroid these seem to fizzle. It seems like each level has maybe one or two interesting sequences and gameplay mechanics but the rest is a samey corridor crawl that doesn't quite cut it by today's standards. In context with the story I guess it makes sense... the premise is the whole game takes place on a giant spaceship with three artificial habitats created, a la Metroid Fusion, so each one isn't vast and sprawling like the Prime levels, or even the levels in Super Metroid. But nonetheless it still gives you more of a sense of playing a GameBoy or DS game instead of a full-sized Wii game. The labyrinthian levels of the previous metroid games were a halmark of the series, but in this game they feel pint-sized, like you're playing "Metroid Lite". The boss battles are also a little disappointing.. they used to be huge, set-piece type events in previous games that required skill, precision, imagination, and preseverence to finish. Here they're simplistic and very few and far between. The Ridley fight, especially, is disappointing in both difficulty and design, which is unfortunate because it was one of the many highlights of Metroid Prime.
So if it looks like Metroid and sounds like Metroid, and even plays like Metroid, what's not to like? Basically, everything that Team Ninja took liberties with. Front and center is the story, which is woefully bad and poorly written. It's chock full of schmaltzy flashbacks to Samus's early days and tiresome soliloquies about Samus's relationship to Adam Malkovich, her former superior officer, with whom she has a curious and disturbing father-daughter type relationship. There's also a lot of business with the Galactic Federation developing bio-weapons, creating artificial intelligence to control them, and a massive coverup when things go haywire.. it's stuff that would have made more sense in a Metal Gear Solid game but is just perplexing and needlessly complex here.
The disappointing story and plot filler gets presented in a series of protracted cutscenes, which are very nicely animated and tastefully directed, but the voice acting is so poor that it ruins them. Samus's voice acting is especially stilted and awkward; the first time we get to hear Samus speak is a huge disappointment. Adam's voice acting isn't much better, and is mostly void of any emotion or emphasis. It's the same problem that the Star Wars prequels had, in which the story is taken too reverentially and seriously, and it's hard for the player to empathize with any character in the game.
Samus's strange subservient relationship to Adam leads into probably the dumbest mechanic in the game, that of "approving" Samus's various weapons and abilities. The story goes that Samus is following Adam's orders and he has to authorize the use of various weapons in interest of preserving the ship's systems. But it stops making any sort of sense very quickly, when Samus has to quickly run through a lava-filled cavern without the Varia suit enabled (a sequence that resulted in several of deaths as I played through), only to have Adam tell me I could have my Varia suit back while I was fighting a couple firebats. To think that he would have allowed Samus to die in the lava cavern simply because he didn't approve of her using any kind of heat protection is preposterous. There are numerous other examples of this throughout the game, where having a particular upgrade would have had little or no impact on the environment, but it serves as an artificial barrier that requires you to backtrack later in the game to advance the story or pick up items. The game takes one of the great touchstones of the series, searching for items and using them to explore deeper areas of the game, and turns it into a demeaning obstacle course while your superior sits and watches, approving bite-sized upgrades if you do well.
It all leads up to a confusing and lackluster finale (including a frustrating final boss fight that doesn't tell you when you are allowed to use a power bomb to finish the enemy off) that leaves you a little empty-feeling by the time the credits start rolling. Thankfully, once the game is finished, you are allowed to return to the ship to retrieve "one last thing that was left behind", and this is where the game slips back into very familiar territory, and feels like a sweet little bit of fanservice. You are allowed to go back into every part of the ship and retrieve any missile and energy tank upgrades that you might have missed before (indeed, even some of the upgrades were not even reachable without power bombs, which you don't receive till the last boss fight). One particular upgrade is an eye-wink to diehard fans... the last possible pickup you can get before you leave is a missle tank, which takes you up to a full count of 80, but you receive it after you fight the last enemy of the game. Plus, the last sequence in the game even gives you a percentage count per area on your item collection rate, so purists can keep track of how much left there is to go before you get the full 100%. This, combined with one last, terrific boss fight from a surprise returning enemy in a previous game, gives Metroid fans a nice warm fuzzy feeling before you set the game down.
That last post-game wrapup section is a relief, because a lot of what comes before it is jarring, disappointing, and just lame in general. Great game mechanics, beautiful art direction and sound design, and solid but stunted level design round out the good parts of Metroid: Other M. Campy and groan-inducing dialog, silly plot developments, and that darned weapon approval system unfortunately drags the whole lot down a few notches. Then, the game rebounds with a brilliant post-credit curtain call that left me mostly satisfied with this latest Metroid outing, but more than anything I want to go back and replay the universally superior Metroid Prime games. And wait to see what, if anything, Team Ninja might do in the next game to make up for all their mistakes here. In the end, you really need to play this game if you're a Metroid die-hard, but just about everyone else can probably give it a pass.
