Email: Metroid Other M E3 2010

Hi Mr Malstrom,

As I am not a native English speaker, this e-mail might get tedious to get through, sorry.

I’m reading with great interest your recent posts about Metroid : Other M and how narrative might wreck it all.

One thing that puzzles me is that you keep insisting that we haven’t seen any gamepley at all.

Yet the recent screenshots you posted and the unveiled trailer clearly show what the gameplay is going to be : 2D gameplay à la Super Mario 5 with a mix of 3rd person perspective when exploring and first person perspective when meeting some bosses (maybe other enemies as well, that isn’t clear from the trailer).

My theory is that NOA was very scared to unveil two 2D games during the same E3 press conference (what with the silly 4D they spun when introducing Super Mario 5) and they clearly asked Nintendo Japan that this would not be communicated at that time. Now that Super Mario 5 is a resounding success in the US, they have more faith in the game and should be considering unveiling it properly (re. Sakamoto at GDC 2010).

Making Metroid Other M a 2D game without any 3D really makes sense when you consider what little success Galaxy has had in Japan.

I’m also thinking that Other M owes much more to Zero Mission than Fusion, due to the Team Ninja involvement : witness the Japanese commercial for the game:

You just know that Team Ninja would get all hot and bothered from seeing that ad!

What you saw at E3 2009 was a teaser video, not a gameplay video. You say it shows gameplay. It flashed different things, but there was no gameplay video shown.

A gameplay video would just be someone playing the game. That would give us an idea of what the game is like. Teaser videos don’t really do this.

Since Sakamoto-the-Divine-God ™ is doing a GDC appearance, we will likely see more video of the game. E3 2010 might be packed for Nintendo since they have to show off Galaxy 2 and Zelda Wii (which is supposed to come out in 2010 and nothing has been shown!). Perhaps they are going to let Metroid Other M show itself off at GDC and use E3 for Zelda, Galaxy 2, and other games? Nintendo has a very heavy sided core game release schedule this year. And they also have to spend significant time on Vitality Sensor.