A lot of eyebrows were raised (some quizzically, I might add) at E3 last year when Nintendo surprised everyone with the announcement of Metroid: Other M. Not only was this new entry in the Metroid franchise one of the few announcements at E3 from any company that didn’t get spoiled on internet forums before the show, but the real surprise was the revelation that Nintendo was teaming up with Tecmo’s Team Ninja to develop the title. No one saw this combination coming; even Koei, who had recently merged with Tecmo, had no idea this was happening.
In typical Nintendo style, immediately after making that jaw dropping announcement their PR department went completely dark. Almost nothing has been heard on Metroid: Other M since its original announcement; but in their latest issue, Famitsu magazine managed to get co-creator Yoshio Sakamoto to sit down and give them an interview about the game. A fairly vague one page interview, but an interview nonetheless.
Sakamoto addressed several topics during the short interview, including the working relationship of the multiple companies involved in development, the release date (sometime this year!), and Metroid’s lack of popularity in Japan when compared to North America, but the only new piece of information revealed during the interview was that Nintendo and Team Ninja plan on using Other M to focus on developing series heroine, Samus Aran’s “human side”.
“However, different from the rest of the series, this time we’re strongly depicting the human side of Samus through such things as movies. She’s a strong woman, but she also has a fragile side. We want to make a game whose charms can be felt from the story areas and these human touches as well. It’s an action game, but it’s capable of having a clear emotional side.”
It was clear from the announcement trailer released at E3 that Other M would focus far more heavily on story than the other Japanese entries in the series (i.e. the Metroid games that don’t have “Prime” in the title); the trailer even included rare footage of Samus out of her trademark Power Suit. Team Ninja has a reputation of making some of the best action games in the genre, but their games are not necessarily well known for telling great, cohesive stories, or for their strong, realistic female characters and Nintendo’s franchises don’t usually involve deep character development either; so it’s anyone’s guess whether the two companies can pull off a strong story for Other M. But Metroid has never really been about the story anyway, so the game should definitely be on any Nintendo-phile’s most wanted list this year regardless.
Here’s to hoping we get some real details on Metroid: Other M real soon.
[Via: andriasang]
