Nintendo sure has taken some chances with the venerated Metroid series in recent years. When it was announced that Metroid Prime would be bringing the series into 3D — and that it was going to be developed by an American studio nobody had ever heard of — people went on full fanboy alert. Of course, in hindsight, we can see that Nintendo made the right decision, risky though it seemed at the time.

Fast-forward to nearly a decade later, and Nintendo has once again entrusted the good name of the Metroid franchise to a controversial studio — this time, infamous Dead or Alive developer Team Ninja. And following the announcement of Metroid: Other M, fans have been wondering if gambling on the series’ reputation would again pay off for Nintendo.

As a disgruntled “hardcore gamer” with a Wii, I find myself buying one new game for the system per year, and as I literally dusted off the Wii and started the requisite battery of system updates, it was hard not to reflect on the fact that one of the last titles I had actually played on my all-but-forgotten console was Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. It might seem perfectly natural to compare Other M to the Prime series, but for better or for worse, Team Ninja went out of their way to blaze their own trail quite apart from that of Retro Studios’, and the games have surprisingly little in common with each other.

In fact, Other M bears a much stronger resemblance to Metroid Fusion, the GBA follow-up to the universally acclaimed Super Metroid. That’s not surprising, considering that Other M takes place in the time between the two games. Remember back in Fusion when Samus kept talking to her computer boyfriend and saying that the AI’s personality reminded her of some guy who had never been mentioned to date in a Metroid game? Well, that’s the focus of Other M‘s story; this game sets out to fill in the blanks between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion, in addition to providing a little more backstory on the silent femme fatale known as Samus Aran.

At least, she used to be silent. Or very shy, anyway. In Other M, Samus finally finds her speaking voice, and boy does she try to make up for lost time. Not only is her trademark expository narration now fully voiced, she also actually encounters other living humans in the game and talks to them. As exciting as it is that the poor girl has finally overcome her crippling social anxieties (you don’t see a lot of normal, well-adjusted folks becoming bounty hunters), years of solitude in the cold recesses of space have clearly taken their toll, and Samus is not the most eloquent conversationalist. While it would be interesting to hear how the dialog and voice acting sound in the Japanese version of the game, I can tell you that the writing and acting in the English version are bad enough to make even the most forgiving of fanboys rage.

Perhaps the best example of Other M‘s narrative failings comes early in the game, after Samus has encountered some of her old squadmates from her military days. After being told by Adam, her old commanding officer, that as an “outsider” she was not privy to the details of the team’s mission, Samus stops in mid-conversation to narrate the conversation. The dialog literally pauses as she spends several sentences explaining that what Adam had said made her feel sad. That’s a cardinal sin for storytelling: never use voice-over to tell the audience how a character is feeling — show them. Sadly, Samus’ overzealous narration is further troubled by voice acting that’s flatter than a preteen girl’s chest. Samus’ emotionless voice is supposed to make her sound cold and detached, but instead she just sounds…off. Like, not even human.

And speaking of preteen girls, the thematic elements of Other M‘s story have more in common with a family channel television drama than a typical Metroid game. Through the magic of lavish pre-rendered cutscenes and poor writing, Team Ninja transforms Samus from a stoic, solitary bounty hunter into an insufferable teenager, and even a helpless child at times. To their credit, relatively little is done to sexualize Samus — a fear many had after hearing that the studio responsible for Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball was handling the new Metroid game. Instead, they’re too busy undermining Samus’ image as a strong and independent female protagonist by repeatedly having her rely on her male friends to save her. Other M‘s story fails, not because Team Ninja attempted to tell a complicated and involved narrative in a series that’s not known for having convoluted plotlines, but because they decided to re-imagine Samus’ character in a way that is almost completely at odds with her portrayal to date — at times to the point of being embarrassing to watch.

So, where does that leave us? The gameplay, I suppose, and luckily for Other M, it’s pretty damned good overall. Team Ninja might not be very adept at crafting immersive tales, but they sure can make a mean combat system (just look at Ninja Gaiden for example). On paper, the fixed perspective and D-pad controls sound like a recipe for disaster, but Other M somehow cobbles this bizarre control scheme into gameplay that looks and feels fluid and responsive — most of the time. The most awkward part comes into play when the game forces you into first-person perspective in order to either shoot a missile or scan an area for clues. Story aside, these sections are some of the game’s biggest weaknesses. Having to physically flip the controller around (and not being able to move) in order to shoot missiles is an unwieldy mechanic that interrupts the otherwise frenetic pace of combat, and though you get used to gauging when it’s safe to take a few seconds to let a missile loose, I found myself avoiding using them whenever possible.

Much worse, though, are the sections where the game sits you down and forces you to look around in first-person mode until you find whatever it wants you to look at. They add nothing to the game, and some of the clues you’re supposed to find are so small and obscure that you could easily spend five minutes scanning the same damn room until you happen across the correct pixel. There are also a few sections wherein Samus is inexplicably glued to one spot and you’re forced to engage in a first-person shooting gallery in order to defend yourself. As much as I enjoyed lightgun shooters as a kid, these bits (brief though they were) really left a bad taste in my mouth. Basically, the gameplay is at its weakest when you’re in first-person mode.

Conversely, the third-person combat controls are surprisingly solid. The new “Sense Move” feature, which allows Samus to intuitively avoid incoming attacks by simply tapping a direction on the D-pad, might make evading the vast majority of enemy assaults a little too easy, but it’s so well-executed that it’s hard to complain. Other context-sensitive actions, like jumping onto an opponents head and unleashing a charged up blast at point-blank range, also add some visual flourish and help spice up the combat. Boss battles in particular are a blast and do a good job of utilizing the game’s unique controls to make for some truly memorable encounters.

Unfortunately, the platforming doesn’t quite take to the new control scheme as well as combat does, and the fixed perspective occasionally makes navigating terrain more of a chore than an adventure. The game tries to make up for its control inadequacies by including a generous amount of assist when making jumps, but this has the adverse effect of making most of the platforming paradoxically both laughably easy (when the game is holding your hand) and frustratingly difficult (when the game seems to have no idea what the hell you’re trying to do).

It wouldn’t be a true Metroid game without including plenty of exploration and item hunting, and Other M thankfully pays due respect to these important series hallmarks. That said, the game still falls a little short in this department when compared to other entries in the series. Yes, there are lots of hidden items and power-ups for you to find, but all of the important ones are virtually handed to you before boss fights or unlocked after Adam gives you “permission” to use them. Not allowing Samus to use most of her suit’s abilities until Adam gives her explicit permission to do so is Team Ninja’s way of avoiding having to come up with an excuse for why Samus would have to reacquire all of her iconic power-ups throughout the game, but instead it just makes her look that much more of a weak-willed character, incapable of thinking for herself or acting on her own.

In case you couldn’t tell from what I’ve said thus far, Metroid: Other M is a deeply flawed game. If you can get past the melodramatic story and occasionally frustrating gameplay sections, though, you’ll find a game with a satisfying combat system and epic boss encounters. It ultimately falls short of the craftsmanship of the other Metroid games, but it succeeds in its own way by offering the most visceral and engaging combat in the series. At its best, Other M delivers battles that are on par with any of the best action games out there — Metroid or otherwise — and that, if nothing else, makes it worth the hassle.

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Things We Liked: Combat looks and feels fluid and intense. Epic boss fights. An expanded moveset lets Samus get physical with enemies and helps maintain a high level of action.

Things We Disliked: Uninspired platforming. Switching between first and third person perspectives feels like a misguided attempt to throw a bone to scorned Prime fans. I think I’ve read Samus fanfics that were better (and hotter) than Other M‘s story.

Target Audience: Metroid Fusion fans. Third person action-adventure junkies. People who watch shows on the CW and/or ABC Family.

(Metroid: Other M – Developer: Project M (Nintendo, Team Ninja, D-Rockets). Publisher: Nintendo. Available for Wii. Unfamiliar with CFD!’s review system? Read our newly revised explanation here.)