We all knew you were working on that. 
I’ve been getting into the Konami Rebirth series again. I was surprised to see M2 were behind them. That explains why they play so well.
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Let me know if you need a beta tester on that. I’ll happily lend my services 
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Metroid Other M : easy in my top 10 of all time.
My love letter in three words:
Polarity
- the feminine in the spotlight, in a game designed by a big pair of balls.
- a hell of a gameplay rhythm, like the first NES episode, in a cinematic video game experience.
- the mother theme, sewn into many layers of the game, reflects a paternal relationship in the story. I’m sure the character of Officer Adam Malkovich was inspired by the character in the movie The Sound of Music:
Genius
- its NES controls of the future, showing that you don’t have to follow Super Mario 64 for every game. Almost only two buttons for the action phases, plus the third big A button next to the cross to be operated with the left thumb, which replaces “down” of the 2D episodes to morph into ball, genius.
- The 3D evolution of the 2D Metroid that only its main creator Sakamoto sensei could conceive. The camera that follows the curves of the scenery to replace the roundness of an analog stick, avoiding the need to change direction with the D-pad when moving.
- the Team Ninja which gives birth to a nervous gameplay with 3D beat them up accents: dodging in the center of the fight mechanic (even during the static phases in first person), jumping on the head of some enemies which triggers a punitive attack (sometimes you have to wait for a moment of vulnerability, or provoke it), finish him (very phallic) to be placed/found at the right time, a good mechanic which binds everything together and a hard mode with only one life bar to test all this.
- it’s not a conformist game (even if it is inspired by many things in touches), it’s not smooth (it even trolls the player a bit at times), it’s more subtle than the average video game.
Immersion
- a space station instead of a planet, no totally free exploration during the majority of the game and yet this same feeling of clostro solitude proper to the metrophobic android series.
- the switch to the first person view with an elegant gesture of the wrist, at any moment of a gameplay, and this impression to enter inside a real an old video game.
- splendid orchestral music focused on the atmosphere, avoiding caricature:
This one is very reminiscent of Shadow of the Beast 3:
Metroid: Other M Music - The Biological Experiment Floor - YouTube
Best Ridley/auto destruction theme ever:
Metroid: Other M Music - Ridley Boss Theme - YouTube
Another boss fight for example:
Metroid: Other M Music - Mystery Creature Boss Theme - YouTube
Brilliant:
Metroid: Other M Music - Anthony's Cover Fire - YouTube
Credit music, Spielberg and Maurice Ravel in the Wii:
Metroid: Other M Music - Staff Credits - YouTube
Once the game is over, the home screen has this music, the end point of the mother theme (for a son like Sakamoto, it’s also Samus’ paternal relationship with Adam):
Metroid: Other M Music - Piano Medley - YouTube - High quality cinematics with a beautiful SF jap visual style, always integrated to the game phases with class. No equivalent in other Nintendo games.
The game starts with a cinematic featuring the end of Super: (WiiU on CRT Trinitron 14" with RGB)
Then the continuation and flashbacks on the youth of Samus:
The japanese box, I need it:
5 Likes
Finally, the other Other M enjoyer has logged on!
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Okay I definitely don’t rate the game that much but good for you.
The Japanese packaging is indeed fantastic. And it is the best version of the game, as you can play with Japanese audio and English subtitles.
I found the silly melodrama vastly more acceptable in Japanese, as it just feels like anime. Really contextualises the over the top drama, and you are not subjected to the over-serious but extremely awkward English VA.
I just got something kind of stupid, a Wii copy of No More Heroes 2.
I sold my copy ages ago as part of a fund raising plan, and in the meantime have grabbed the Switch version. I’ll literally never play the Wii version again, but have as a pure collection item as a kind of reminder of history.
Oh well.
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Light gun shooters on Wii:
Umbrella Chronicles, The House of the Dead Overkill, I don’t like.
Ghost Squad, as a big fan of Virtua Cop, I’m in heaven. Its 16 levels system is brilliant, it keeps the arcade shortness of the run and adds a lot of content.
I want Gunblade NY/LA Machineguns too, it looks awesome.
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Yeah slow an annoying and doesn’t feel great.
It’s janky but has pretty authentic Rodriguez-esque exploitation vibes.
It can get fun when you get into massacre mode or whatever it’s called (no shots missed)
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Yeah, Ghost Squad is really fun. It’s exactly how I like my games: short, sweet and highly replayable thanks to multiple paths and difficulty levels.
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House of the Dead Overkill is so off the chain with its characters and story that I can’t imagine not enjoying it! The soundtrack is incredible too. Absolutely one of those games you can’t imagine Sega greenlit but they did!
“You ever gonna tell us what the fucking G stands for?”
“No.”
—-
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I agree. Its a really good game and the grind house look and vibe only make it more awesome.
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I understand the intention for Overkill but it’s not working for me, I find it globally too rough in the execution (animations, visual, the way it wants to be Grindhouse LOUDLY, I don’t dig the humour and forced vulgarity…) except the good feeling of the shooting and a decent pace.
1 Like
Some thoughts on Ghost Squad, and some description for those who may not have played it:
Not only is Ghost Squad the top of the arcade laser-gun shooter of the Virtua Cop school (forces of authority vs terrorists with hostages/civilians that cost you life when you hit them, sights and sounds that signal the next enemy shot to come, atmosphere, style and quality of those jap arcade games from the 90’s, even if 2004 for this one), with its level design, its gameplay ideas and their execution that shine at every moment, but on top of that it offers a unique distillation formula of the game content. Without betraying the arcade spirit and its intrinsic qualities of unequalled gameplay density, with runs of max ~20-30mn depending on if you skip the cutscenes.
Of course I don’t think that the traditional arcade game, when it’s well done, lacks content, but the idea of offering “more” as the post 2000 era allows it, is understandable. The magic is when the miracle of squaring the circle takes place: a true arcade game with no concessions but which distills some data through its gameplay.
And it doesn’t make it a high volume post CD game either, otherwise it’s not an arcade game anymore, and modern players won’t understand it, as we can see in the game’s reviews and in the reviews of any good arcade game.
The power of the proposed system is its calibration in levels.
The game has three stages, that’s all, to be done the first time in level 1, with the basic weapon (assault rifle with three interchangeable shots at any time: the burst of three bullets by default, the bullet by bullet for the moments of precision, or the continuous burst with a very limited number of bullets for each stage). The stages offer several branches, full of destructible and dynamic stuff with all kinds of nice bonuses to pick up.
Each time you beat a stage boss (during the confrontation there is a particular objective, you only have one try), the stage will be proposed to the next game at the higher level. If you miss during this phase, you go to the next stage (less points, phase not validated, mission failure), but you will start again at the same level at the next run.
At each new level the difficulty increases (at a certain place there are new enemies, or a more complex task to perform: for example, a certain number of hostages to handcuff/secure in addition to not hurting them, or more enemies shooting, faster, etc.) and in addition, at certain levels, new branches are unlocked, and therefore new game phases. All more excellent than the others, and more and more tense.
There are 16 levels <3
It also unlocks new weapons, there are 25 of them. Each weapon is selectable before each game and you keep it until the end. They have of course very different properties and will give an advantage in such situation and vice versa, like the shotgun that cleans up close, very inefficient from afar and very dangerous with hostages. You can then play with the choices of branches to adapt to your weaponry. With two players it can be fun to play the complementarity of weapons and divide the tasks. There are a lot of different properties, secondary shooting functions that can be selected or not, weapons that pierce certain elements, a sulphate gun without reloading but with a heating gauge etc.
And so we go from one game to the next like there’s no tomorrow. You progress, the game delivers new challenges by touches, without knowing when it will happen, it grows, offers new sequences over the top, then you come back to an old sequence not done for a while and there are lots of additions due to the extra levels etc.
The way the stage changes, interact with your choice and perfomance is marvelous, unique.
The two outdoor stages also sometimes offer different times of day depending on the level.
I play it 1cc only. Past level 5 I tried hard mode which was a lot of fun. Now I’m level 9 to 11 and the normal mode keep me busy!
4 Likes
Great summary! What a gem of a game.
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Edit : I corrected some language errors, I obviously don’t speak or write english often.
I was thinking of a way to describe and discuss games, taking in account the things that I appreciate in video game. So I wrote that for DKC Returns Wii, which I played last week, I loved it:
Feeling and emotional response:
On wiimote only, the controls are very pleasant. A straight NES style pad connected to detailed animations for a pleasant sense of weight on sharp digital inputs. Clever implementation of the motion control with the simple use of the two-handed shaking that feels primaterily good, and responsive enough if cautious.
Direct design obstacles vs AI type design:
A shiny and pure direct design with enemies who have one clear course. Evident physics in the dynamic of the obstacles and scenary for a good reading.
Rhythm and gameplay density:
Such a great consistance to deliver visual obstacles reading, the design quality flows like a nice rain. With the diversity of mecanics and geometry that piques our curiosity, avoids boredom, and just the good amount of gameplay density to chill while being stimulated.
Art and space perspective:
Very effective art, not distracting, not loudly arty and however so warm, without being too formulaic. It’s perfect on a gameplay perspective, it’s very alive, it’s sweet. Visuals and sounds/music.
Kind of the same balance with the perspective which is used just enough, cleverly, to build a fun and sucking 3D world for this 2D gameplay.
In the zone:
The solid alchemy between visual/audio story-telling and gameplay drains us easely in the zone where the perspective of the space of play is as large as expected for a good 2D platformer. And nothing wrong comes to distract us from this place of game.
With collectibles well implemented and not troublesome enough to get us out of this zone.
From primary completion of stages to more advance acrobatic runs, for what I can do.
Production:
A great amont of strong works in all departments delivers a massive, dense, coherent platformer.
The final boss is a bit disappointing on the form, it’s just another Andross (Star Fox) clone.
Interactions by jumping on the edge of the top of an ennemy are a bit coercive and demand a special treatment not very smooth.
Personal estimation:
Fantastic game, a rare case of blended western and eastern design qualities, one of the best plateformer ever, above the rest of the Country series.
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I’ve inserted the DKC Returns thoughts in a video, filming the Trinitron 14":
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awesome! looks so good, and I agree with your analysis
how’d you get the game to display in 4:3? I would love to play it on my CRT, but it’s one of the few wide-screen only Wii games unfortunately. also couldn’t find any 4:3 Gecko codes
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Thank you !
Not really sir, natively the image is 16/9, lettreboxed in the 4:3 image of the Trinitron, which has a fonction on the remote to press the deformed 16/9 image to the good ratio (my WiiU is set on 16/9 for better pixels density, unless I want to play a 4:3 Wii game).
But that’s not all, I found that the Wii (and not only with WiiU system) cuts the image on the left and right sides a bit when displayed on a CRT, 4:3 for what I’ve tested (I’m curious to see the result on an analog 16/9). It’s easy to see when displayed at the same time on the WiiU gamepad which shows the entire digital image.
At first I was disappointed to not have the correct image. But my perspective changed.
I remembered some N64 games whose image largely exceed the TV screen and was not supposed to be seen (OoT, Star Fox 64). And that the Wii is also an analog display for CRT.
I even set my TV just for the Wii and suprise, my TV doesn’t have/receive/can display the entire image anyway !
So after having well observed my games it seems to me that it’s intended, maybe just for some games other not… ?
Here’s some shots, look how on Metroid Other M it misses a big part of the left screen but the digital image isn’t centered:
I might be wrong, but I definitively prefer the framing on my CRT (whose setting is good for all other 4:3 systems, I just had to adjust the specific set for how the image is pressed to have the good 16/9 ratio, I think it’s called vertical zoom in the service menu). The fact that I largely prefer 4:3 image for games might be for something (better use of the 4:3 format for gameplay reading, not so nice 3D perpective on the sides of a 16/9 image…)
And finally the comparaison for DKCR, so yes my image isn’t exatly 16/9 indeed:
Edit: also 16/9 image pressed on a 4:3 display has the benefit to hide the interlaced image artefact when scrolling horizontally. WiiU games on a little 4:3 screen looks awesome in RGB, there’s not many HD visual (useless and unpleasant 
) details to loose with this games.
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My og Wii overscans on my PVM 20L5 as well. I haven’t tried my Wii U on my CRT in a very long time though.
N64 scans perfectly.
Most other retro systems slightly underscan so you see a small border.
Of course, I can access the service menu and adjust to a perfect scan for each system if I really wanted to get crazy with it. But the whole point of playing on a multi format CRT for me is that it works without needing to adjust much other than selecting a source. I really wish I could use presets for each console but I’m not aware of how to do that.
In fact, on some consoles, individual games scan to different widths, or the “center” of the image changes slightly. I’ve just made peace with “good enough” a long time ago when it comes to this particular thing. I think NES via a standard composite connection is particularly inconsistent.
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