Rater's Ridiculously Rambunctious Random Ranter #229

[BisectedBrioche]

This is a good joke!

As someone who actually likes Other M and feels the hate it gets is mostly unwarranted it bugs me, but eh.

As a game it's OK.

As a story within the Metroid universe, it's a character assassination (there's a right way and a wrong way to tell a PTSD story).

And as a Metroid game it's...what everyone was terrified Retro were going to do when it was announced that Metroid Prime was an FPS.

[Rater202]

I'd like to clarify that I'm not defending the story of Other M as being good, I'm just saying it makes sense.

We do need a new mainline Metroid game though.

...Though now I'm imagining a hypothetical post-Fusion game having a scene that's just an extended conversation between Samus and AI Adam poking fun at the inconsistencies between how Samus thinks of him in Fusion and how he acted in Other M as a prelude for dismissing Other M's story with a handwave.

[LaZodiac]

As a game it's OK.

As a story within the Metroid universe, it's a character assassination (there's a right way and a wrong way to tell a PTSD story).

And as a Metroid game it's...what everyone was terrified Retro were going to do when it was announced that Metroid Prime was an FPS.

I'm just going to outright disagree on it being a character assassination.

She is a bounty hunter who has found herself walking into a room full of soldiers on business, and she would like to help them. She does... NEED to do what they say, otherwise they would require her leave. Samus following orders to not use her super death weapons when they could hurt people is reasonable.

Samus not putting on her varia suit is bad, but in the context of that scenario and the way the lines are written and voice acted compared to other lines, I feel like it is 100% a case of the writers just not knowing what the context of the scene would be. I believe the scene was written before the gameplay of "run through this melty zone without your suit" was created. And, importantly, I feel like this scene has a couple of easy fixes that a second pass over the story would fix. Other M's story is not GREAT, but it's not TERRIBLE, and sure as hell isn't character assassination, in my opinion.

Gameplay wise it is honestly REALLY fun. I like it way more than Super Metroid. This is not a common opinion.

I don't really think there are inconsistencies with her thoughts on Adam in Fusion, by the way. It's been awhile so I don't remember everything, but from personal experience I can tell you that your thoughts on someone do change after they die.

[sktarq]

An alternative fantasy is being a dragon.

Or like, a centaur but with an ATV instead of a horse.

You see I like these ideas more, because it would be far easier to make tea, and scritch kitties just behind the ears.

[BisectedBrioche]

I'm just going to outright disagree on it being a character assassination.

She is a bounty hunter who has found herself walking into a room full of soldiers on business, and she would like to help them. She does... NEED to do what they say, otherwise they would require her leave. Samus following orders to not use her super death weapons when they could hurt people is reasonable.

Samus not putting on her varia suit is bad, but in the context of that scenario and the way the lines are written and voice acted compared to other lines, I feel like it is 100% a case of the writers just not knowing what the context of the scene would be. I believe the scene was written before the gameplay of "run through this melty zone without your suit" was created. And, importantly, I feel like this scene has a couple of easy fixes that a second pass over the story would fix. Other M's story is not GREAT, but it's not TERRIBLE, and sure as hell isn't character assassination, in my opinion.

Gameplay wise it is honestly REALLY fun. I like it way more than Super Metroid. This is not a common opinion.

I don't really think there are inconsistencies with her thoughts on Adam in Fusion, by the way. It's been awhile so I don't remember everything, but from personal experience I can tell you that your thoughts on someone do change after they die.

Yes, that, in isolation, is not logically inconsistent. Yes, it makes sense she's following orders. Yes, it makes sense she'd have a breakdown when confronted with the very monster who killed her parents (twice) and bragged about it.

The problem is the way they portrayed it. She didn't come across as a badass space mercenary reluctantly following orders and having a breakdown in the face of overwhelming horror; she came across as a woman framed in the male gaze, who needs to right the wrongs of her past by doing everything the man (father figure) she was more than justified being angry with tells her to. To the point of absurdity (the Varia suit situation). No amount of Thermian arguments changes the fact that the Ridley scene makes no sense without context a lot of fans of the series (let alone casual players) won't have, and just comes across as her being a fragile flower in the face of her nemesis.

And yes, I said it was OK gameplay-wise. But it doesn't play like a Metroid game. There's no exploration, barely any hidden bonuses. It's basically a Metroid themed 3D brawler. If you like that, fair enough, but it's not what I'd expect from a mainline Metroid game.

[Qwertystop]

Other M makes more sense when you take some things into account.

1: Samus is emotionally compromised at the time: This is like, two months tops after the events of Super Metroid. Depending on how fast Federation Cloning Tech works and some other details, it could be as little as a few weaks.

Which means that Samus hasn't had any time to rest and recover from her failed attempt to save the Baby, who she had an emotional bond with comparable to a mother and child.

This, combined with the fact that Samus is like, 19? Maybe twenty at the time? It makes sense that she would defer to a familiar authority figure, even in situations where she is under no obligation to, if only to try and draw some comfort or stability.

(Samus is a Child Soldier. AFAIK she is never canonically depicted at an age where she could legally consume alcohol in the modern united states. She's a strong, beautiful badass young woman who kicks all kind of ass, but she can't be that all the time, right? Trying to be that 24/7 in all circumstances would drive even the strongest willed people insane. For all of her augmentations, all the mutagens she's been exposed to, and so on, Samus is still psychologically human.)

2: There's a manga that establishes that Ridley is a huge PTSD trigger for Samus. Presumably, she's only able to stay composed when fighting him becuase she knows he's out there and is prepared for the possibility of running into him on any given encounter with Space Pirates. She froze up in panic when she ran into him for the first time, and he taunted her with the knowledge that he probably ate her mother's corpse, and Samus panic attack in Other M is a deliberate reference to that.

And this is anywhere from a few days to a few months after she freaking killed his ass.

Every other encounter with Ridley, she can maim him, she can drive him off, but she'd never been able to do something that would last. At worst she forces him to rely on prosthetics for a little bit. She goes months or years without encountering him, too.

In Super Metroid, she killed him, confirmed the kill, destroyed his body, and then the planet he was on blew up without any way of getting the pieces of his body off to bring him back in any way before the kaboom.

If you had 100% definitively killed the person who murdered everyone you know and loves when you were three or four, some of them right in front of you and haunted your nightmares ever since and then a little later there the freak he is again with no explanation? You'd be terrified too, no matter how strong you are.

I've got no explanation for why she continues to follow orders when it makes things unreasonably harder for her but...

Spoiler: wall of text

Show

Samus' full interactions with the Baby Metroid go as follows: Be there when it hatches. Lead it to her ship. Put it in a sample tube. Hand it off to scientists to be researched and experimented on. Leave. Later rediscover it, at which point it nearly kills her before recognizing her and leaving. Then it helps her kill Mother Brain and dies in the process. While it might be "comparable to a mother and child", that's an extremely cold mother and significantly abused child. It apparently cares about her, but I have trouble buying the idea that she cares about it.

Where did you get anything about her age? Genuine question, I don't recall seeing that information.

The manga that establishes Ridley as a PTSD trigger for Samus also establishes, as a major final character-development moment, her overcoming that trauma and killing Ridley (I am aware that overcoming PTSD doesn't work like that in real life, but according to the narrative arc of the source that establishes Ridley as a trigger, it apparently does). Also, by the time of Other M, she's re-killed him another four or five times (including only games that existed at the time Other M was published). And it's not like he flew off and escaped, any of those other times. Original, he vanishes like any other killed enemy, Zero Mission he very definitely explodes and disintegrates. Prime, we don't see the body, but it certainly appears that all his prosthetics exploded at once after quite a lot of lasers and falling off a very large cliff. Prime 3, first he gets dropped into a reactor core, then corrupted and co-opted by Phazon, then disintegrated again, this time into ambient Phazon glow. Super, another round of exploding disintegration (with unusually clear animation of the disintegration, instead of just flickering out) before the whole planet-explosion thing. It would have been pretty clear to Samus that Ridley would not, as a general rule, stay dead, regardless of how absurdly he's overkilled.

(Also the manga in question was only published in Japan and was not included in any of the three officially-published timelines I could find and view, those being this transcript of the bonus disc from Prime 2, this Nintendo Power article, and this (admittedly highly-abbreviated) one from the Samus Returns website. And it's never otherwise been referred to in official media with the exception of some context-free no-dialogue images in Zero Mission, and a couple of lines in Smash Bros trophy descriptions. But sure, even if those are still canon, doesn't change the rest of the point.)

This is a few days to a few months after she took him down again, just like the last three times he got revived, and without anything remotely like that sort of reaction from Samus on seeing him. And as regards knowing-he's-out-there: Prime 3, if "well maybe he survived falling into that reactor, he survived everything else" is enough of a justification for why she's okay seeing him on an entirely different planet guarding a Leviathan without any warning... then really I'd have expected "well maybe he survived Zebes, could turn up at any moment" to be just as true in Other M.

Samus has a characterization in all the other games. It's mostly just context and environment plus a few scan logs and background in manuals, so there's gaps, but what you can glean is consistent. She is a person entirely comfortable with going on solo missions in hostile territory, in situations that have killed entire squads of troops or even small armies (Metroid 2 manual, "Egenoid Star Marines"), despite being entirely capable of leaving to get backup (ship is usually there and working fine), for weeks at a time (original Metroid, in Japanese, had an end-screen claiming your time in hours as how many days it took Samus).

And then Other M has her immediately submitting to the chain-of-command of this guy who was, by all indications, generally awful to her – specifically making a point of picking her out to snub, in a military environment – despite this established history of superb and extremely-solitary competence.

EDIT: Ah, ninjaed.

I don't really think there are inconsistencies with her thoughts on Adam in Fusion, by the way. It's been awhile so I don't remember everything, but from personal experience I can tell you that your thoughts on someone do change after they die.

Opening of Fusion has her explicitly not liking the idea of taking orders from anyone and only going along with it because if she didn't the Federation wouldn't have given her the ship she's using in that game.

Yes, that, in isolation, is not logically inconsistent. Yes, it makes sense she's following orders. Yes, it makes sense she'd have a breakdown when confronted with the very monster who killed her parents (twice) and bragged about it.

The problem is the way they portrayed it. She didn't come across as a badass space mercenary reluctantly following orders and having a breakdown in the face of overwhelming horror; she came across as a woman framed in the male gaze, who needs to right the wrongs of her past by doing everything the man (father figure) she was more than justified being angry with tells her to. To the point of absurdity (the Varia suit situation). No amount of Thermian arguments changes the fact that the Ridley scene makes no sense without context a lot of fans of the series (let alone casual players) won't have, and just comes across as her being a fragile flower in the face of her nemesis.

And yes, I said it was OK gameplay-wise. But it doesn't play like a Metroid game. There's no exploration, barely any hidden bonuses. It's basically a Metroid themed 3D brawler. If you like that, fair enough, but it's not what I'd expect from a mainline Metroid game.

Yes, this.

[Rater202]

Again, I just want a game that covers Samus's time in the federation military under Adam just to have it explained why she puts up with him.

On Samus's age: She was 15 when she was in the federation military and 17 in the first Metroid. Everything else is guessing based on timeline.

Samus Returns is roughly a year after the first Metroid, so she'd be 18, and Super Metroid is a year after that, so she's 19.

Other M makes it very clear that this is almost literally right after Super Metroid.

I can't find info on how long after Super Metroid/Other M that Fusion takes place, only that it's the latest game in the timeline: However: The Prime trilogy, Hunters, and Federation Force all take place between the first two Metroid Games and until otherwise stated I would assume that Prime 4 also take place at this time, while, as noted, other M takes place a few months tops after Super Metroid, with the longest known point of time between major incidents in Samus's career as an independent military person* is a year, so I would assume that it's not more than a year.

*Apparently "bounty hunter" was a translation error that just never got fixed. There were plans to include bounty hunting sidequests in one of the Prime Games but the Japanese creative team nixed it as being out of character. I don't know what she actually is, but since she kicks pirate ass for money she's clearly some kind of mercenary... Since the Space Pirates are basically a hostile foreign Government, she might even be considered a Privateer.

[BisectedBrioche]

Again, I just want a game that covers Samus's time in the federation military under Adam just to have it explained why she puts up with him.

On Samus's age: She was 15 when she was in the federation military and 17 in the first Metroid. Everything else is guessing based on timeline.

Samus Returns is roughly a year after the first Metroid, so she'd be 18, and Super Metroid is a year after that, so she's 19.

Other M makes it very clear that this is almost literally right after Super Metroid.

I can't find info on how long after Super Metroid/Other M that Fusion takes place, only that it's the latest game in the timeline: However: The Prime trilogy, Hunters, and Federation Force all take place between the first two Metroid Games and until otherwise stated I would assume that Prime 4 also take place at this time, while, as noted, other M takes place a few months tops after Super Metroid, with the longest known point of time between major incidents in Samus's career as an independent military person* is a year, so I would assume that it's not more than a year.

*Apparently "bounty hunter" was a translation error that just never got fixed. There were plans to include bounty hunting sidequests in one of the Prime Games but the Japanese creative team nixed it as being out of character. I don't know what she actually is, but since she kicks pirate ass for money she's clearly some kind of mercenary... Since the Space Pirates are basically a hostile foreign Government, she might even be considered a Privateer.

IIRC there's some lore that Bounty Hunters are basically a pillar of the Federation's military. Sort of like elite freelance agents who get hired on a per-job basis for situations when sending in a bunch of doods won't work.

[Rater202]

Yeah, it's something like that.

Weird Trivia: Captain America was once turned into a giant spider that was then impregnated and gave birth to thousands of mutant spiders that each carried a virus that gives stronger versions of Spider-Man's powers to anyone infected with it but then turns you into a Man-Spider.

The fate of these offspring is unknown to me.

More weird trivia: I don't drink coffee with milk. By the time there's enough milk and sugar to neutralize the bitter taste it's more accurate that I've put coffee in sweetened milk.

I think one of those people that's super sensitive to tannins.

[Peelee]

Spider-Man

I respect those who respect the hyphen.

More weird trivia: I don't drink coffee with milk. By the time there's enough milk and sugar to neutralize the bitter taste it's more accurate that I've put coffee in sweetened milk.

I think one of those people that's super sensitive to tannins.

It could also be that you recognize that coffee tastes terrible.

[Rater202]

It could also be that you recognize that coffee tastes terrible.

Nah, cause it also happens with wine: Red wine, white wine, no matter the type or vintage, it tastes exactly the same, and that's "like someone pissed in a glass of spoiled grape juice."

Which is why I don't drink wine, I only used small amounts of it in soups and sauces that neutralize the astringent taste of the tannins.

Coffee tastes fine if you can get rid of the bitterness.

[Anonymouswizard]

I don't like American comics because the nature of the eyeball storyline leads to things like that.


Also coffee tastes nice. Well to be more accurate some coffee tastes nice, but not if you use too much of it in your hot water, and freeze drying it makes it the worst taste on the planet. In general tea tastes better, but the best tea and best coffee are on the same level.

In general the rule is the same: good beans/leaves are lovely without milk or sugar, the bad stuff needs it.

[Peelee]

In general the rule is the same: good beans/leaves are lovely without milk or sugar, the bad stuff needs it.

That's an interesting approach to food, which can backfire spectacularly:

In general the rule is the same: good beans/leaves are lovely without being boiled in water and discarded, the bad stuff needs it.

[Anonymouswizard]

True, you can reuse decent tea leaves.

[factotum]

Coffee tastes fine if you can get rid of the bitterness.

That sounds really like "Coffee tastes fine if you can make it not taste like coffee" to me.

[Peelee]

That sounds really like "Coffee tastes fine if you can make it not taste like coffee" to me.

I can get behind that idea.

[Mystic Muse]

I take my coffee iced, with a little appropriately flavored creamer, no sugar.

There's a coffee place I want to go to again after this pandemic ends, if it's still around. It's called Coat Check Coffee and they literally turned an old coat check into a coffee shop, it's adorable.

[Rater202]

That sounds really like "Coffee tastes fine if you can make it not taste like coffee" to me.

The bitterness is an aftertaste that taints the whole experience, as opposed to the actual flavor and aroma of the coffee which I can't really describe...

Have you ever eaten coffee-flavored icecream? Or coffee-flavored anything that isn't actual coffee? That. A little bit goes a long way.

Also, another problem with coffee is that some people don't use enough coffee in their machines. If you don't use enough, then the hot water will overdraw from the beans and you'll get a higher concentration of the bad stuff.

[LaZodiac]

I think it's a good thing I got distracted hanging out with friends and the conversation about Metroid petered out because I'm honestly just tired of defending a point no one but me even cares about. Sorry if you expected responses but since conversation has moved on I don't really feel like responding, beyond just bringing up "hey I'm not intentionally avoiding discussing it I just feel like the time is passed".

No hard feelings on my part. I don't want to come off like I'm some grumpus or anything.

Anyway I'm weird because I find coffee disgusting, but coffee cake, those coffee chocolate bars, and coffee ice cream taste pretty solid to me.

[tyckspoon]

Anyway I'm weird because I find coffee disgusting, but coffee cake, those coffee chocolate bars, and coffee ice cream taste pretty solid to me.

Not that weird, I think? Sugars and fats do a wonderful job of mitigating the unpleasant aspects of coffee flavor and allowing the more pleasant parts of it to be highlighted, it's why so many people take it with sweeteners and creamers. Plain black coffee is something of an acquired taste (or requires fairly specific preparations and a high quality starting coffee to be good, depending on your level of snobbery) but coffee as a flavor ingredient is a pretty different thing.

[Sermil]

More weird trivia: I don't drink coffee with milk. By the time there's enough milk and sugar to neutralize the bitter taste it's more accurate that I've put coffee in sweetened milk.

I think one of those people that's super sensitive to tannins.

I love coffee, I love the taste, but I drink it with milk and lots of sugar.

My grandmother used to say that I liked syrup with a little pancake under it. So I get where Rater202 is coming from.

factotum: I like garlic too, that doesn't mean I eat it raw or by itself! Garlic has a great flavor and makes other things taste better, but it's too overpowering straight.

[Tvtyrant]

Not that weird, I think? Sugars and fats do a wonderful job of mitigating the unpleasant aspects of coffee flavor and allowing the more pleasant parts of it to be highlighted, it's why so many people take it with sweeteners and creamers. Plain black coffee is something of an acquired taste (or requires fairly specific preparations and a high quality starting coffee to be good, depending on your level of snobbery) but coffee as a flavor ingredient is a pretty different thing.

Acquired by nature of "becoming a caffeine addict"

I am one of those people who started out with basically milkshakes and slowly weened off ingredients down to black coffee, then added Almond Milk back in because life is too short for black coffee.

[Rater202]

Acquired by nature of "becoming a caffeine addict"

No, that's not it: I get bad headaches, feel unbearably warm, and become very irritable in general if I go three days without getting enough caffeine but I can't stand black coffee.

[Tvtyrant]

No, that's not it: I get bad headaches, feel unbearably warm, and become very irritable in general if I go three days without getting enough caffeine but I can't stand black coffee.

Sure, but would you drink coffee at all if not for the drug?

Black coffee is IMO something you become inured to as situations dictate; you need coffee more often and you are not getting any wealthier. I know no people who started out liking coffee, every kid hates it.

[Rater202]

Sure, but would you drink coffee at all if not for the drug?

I get my caffeine from soda usually, so...

[Peelee]

factotum: I like garlic too, that doesn't mean I eat it raw or by itself! Garlic has a great flavor and makes other things taste better, but it's too overpowering straight.

Crack open a garlic bulb, take out all the cloves, and fry 'em up. Dang tasty. It's a common thing when my MIL makes her bulgogi, the entire outer rim of the Korean grill is garlic while the inner parts are bulgogi. She also does this for pork belly, too, though I can't remember what that's called. Anyway, it's not raw, but it is garlic by itself, and it's amazing.

I am one of those people who started out with basically milkshakes and slowly weened off ingredients down to black coffee, then added Almond Milk back in because life is too short for black coffee.

Or coffee in general.

[tyckspoon]

I get my caffeine from soda usually, so...

Reminds me of how my parents described getting into coffee. When they were in college, the cafeteria/student union sold a coffee cup cheap and would let you refill it. Coca-cola or similar caffeinated soft drinks, on the other hand, were sold by the bottle or charged to refill off a fountain. So if you had to pull an all-nighter or otherwise needed a hit of caffeine, you learned to drink coffee.

[Peelee]

Reminds me of how my parents described getting into coffee. When they were in college, the cafeteria/student union sold a coffee cup cheap and would let you refill it. Coca-cola or similar caffeinated soft drinks, on the other hand, were sold by the bottle or charged to refill off a fountain. So if you had to pull an all-nighter or otherwise needed a hit of caffeine, you learned to drink coffee.

I think I remember my cousins telling me that in Austrian restaurants, beer prices are artificially inflated over the price of cokes so as to not encourage teenagers to drink alcohol over soft drinks.

[Anonymouswizard]

I love coffee, I love the taste, but I drink it with milk and lots of sugar.

Bah! That's not the taste of coffee!

I quickly learnt to like black coffee, but that's due to growing up with people who know how to make it. Even then it has to be decent quality beans or I'll reach for some kind of milk.

The main downside of my caffeine addiction seems to be that it increases my temper, but going without it makes me irritable.

[Peelee]

I quickly learnt to like black coffee

Yeah, but the British people also quickly learnt to like British food, so that's not a terribly convincing argument.