I've been playing though Metroid Other M again. It was, truly, the Metroid series' darkest moment, and the more I look at it the less I like it. So, I've created this- the Metroid: Other M Hall Of Shame, built to showcase the worst aspects of one of those games you can't unplay. I welcome anyone else to name your own categories and submissions. But remember: everything here is a very subjective matter of taste, without a clear factual answer. You have every right to dissent from my selections and those of others, but by the Light of Aether please keep it civil.
The Metroid: Other M Hall Of Shame[]
LAMEST CUTSCENE: Adam's Sacrifice. Runner up is the Bottle Ship Arrival scene. That stupid Baby's Cry business.... ugh. But Adam's death was by far the most absolutely horrible bit of overemotional, male-gaze cinematography I've EVER seen, Transformers II included.
WORST MUSIC: Nightmare's Theme. All of the boss music has that “Psycho done badly” quality to it, and all of it's pretty much indistinguishable. But Nightmare had such a distinctive, haunting theme in Fusion, I could not find more of an opposite.
DUMBEST BOSS: Rhedogian. I know, I know, Phantoon had no business being there at all, but fighting her was reasonably well done, and her actual appearance wasn't bad. The Rhedogian, in addition to being impossible to spell, simply looked ridiculous- the outsized, cartoony-red hands were what sealed it for me. Gameplay-wise, not only was the thing just bloody impossible, but it also forced me to make way too much use of the sense move to dodge its attacks, when I usually prefer to simply run around enemies.
STUPIDEST REGULAR ENEMY: Geemer There are a number of runners-up here, including the horribly-portrayed Magdollite, the undodgeable Gigafraug, and the Snomer, which actually shares the award with the Geemer because they should never have been made separate species in the first place. Always there when you didn't want 'em, whether that was in a morph ball tunnel, standing right on top of the ledge you are hanging from, or dropping onto your head, and yet somehow never leaving a usable item behind to mark its passage, the Other M excuse for a Geemer is ironically the closest aesthetically to a real Metroid enemy.
MOST OBNOXIOUS SECONDARY CHARACTER: Anthony Higgs. In addition to looking silly out of his armor and probably being some kind of racial caricature, his jocular, patronizing, too-tough-for-his-own-good antics really, really, really got on my nerves. The first time Isaw him suspended over the lava, I just shot at him until he fell in in the mistaken belief that the game would continue without him.
MOST POORLY-ABANDONED PLOT POINT: Adam's Oder To Move As A Unit. The Most Obnoxious Secondary Character makes such a big deal of it after being saved from me and the Dumbest Boss, then it is NEVER touched on ever again. Was it really Adam who sent the order? What was the motive behind it? Was it just the work of the Spooky Atmosphere Fairy?
LOUSIEST ENVIRONMENTAL MECHANIC: Sector 2 Avalanche. Not only was it unfeasibly hard, but it also defied common sense- the force of a terrestrial avalanche (much LARGER than the little one there) is easily survivable by a regular person, much less an armored, shielded, genetically-enhanced bounty hunter.
MOST UNFEASIBLE MERGER OF CUTSCENE AND GAMEPLAY: The Arm-Up Walking Sequences. Good God, sooooooooooooooooooo slow!!!!! Some of the look-for-a-spot parts were tedious and difficult to figure out, but a strategy guide can't help you with leaving the bathrooms in a timely fashion.
UGLIEST AESTHETIC CHANGE: The High Heels. I didn't like the look of the new suit in general- it was too shiny by half, didn't really look like armor or for that matter particularly advanced technology, had an overstated color scheme that did not change with upgrades, and the front chest section looked like a cardboard box because it was well... you know, “overexpanded”. Now, all of that could be chalked up to the Chozo being a little bird-brained when it came to Human aesthetics. But what kind of paramilitary bounty hunter anywhere in the universe wears FREAKING HIGH HEELS!?!?!?!!!?!??
MOST INFURIATING ABILITY: Concentration. There were a number of runners-up here. I mentioned before that the sense move always annoyed me because of a mechanic that did not trigger when it was wanted and vice versa, and I thought that the spin jump here made Samus look too light- in the Primes AND 2-D games, it was obvious that that suit was a big heavy machine with a lot of muscle inside of it, requiring a lot of power to propel. The tendency of enemies to pick her up and throw her around did not help matters in the slightest. But concentration really ruined a lot of things for me. It made the game seem a LOT like a fighting game for some reason, removed the time-honored Metroid tradition of hunting pickups and farming minor enemies, was impossible to actually use in a (mini/)boss battle, and no matter how far in the game you progressed it always remained usable only in that miniscule 20-point sliver.