The final section will draw parallels between successful imperative storytelling and the processes of cognitive mapping that are felt to be integral to subjectivity in theories of postmodernism. I will go on to explain the successes of the Metroid series in the second section, and to analyze the problems associated with Other M in the third section, in both cases using an imperative storytelling approach. In the first section, I will situate this analysis with certain recent examinations of “narrativity” and space in games, specifically those outlined by Marie-Laure Ryan and Steffen Walz in particular, I will use a theory of “imperative storytelling” as an interpretative framework that, working within these and other examinations, can be particularly instructive for the analysis of certain video game genres.
Understanding how that system’s affordances are constructed in different Metroid installments is central to understanding how each game approaches storytelling. Metroid ’s mapping system, this paper will argue, is the key. But if Metroid: Other M appeared to stumble on the narrative level, an analysis of why – and in what specific ways – it did so might better help us to understand why earlier Metroid games were seen as great successes. Many fans saw this as a betrayal of the character, especially since Samus – in earlier games an autonomous bounty hunter – was now taking orders from a patronizing new character, Adam Malkovich. More significantly, the player-avatar protagonist, Samus Aran, was made to speak for the first time since her appearance in the original Metroid (Nintendo R&D1, 1986). Other M diverged from the first-person gameplay that had distinguished the Metroid series for much of the 2000s, returning to the third-person perspective of earlier games with a more “arcade” feel. When Metroid: Other M (Team Ninja, 2010) was released on the Nintendo Wii, it got mixed reactions from fans and critics.
A revised version of this was published in Games and Culture in January 2017.
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