Prior to his work on Other M, Otsuka had assumed that Metroid was merely a shooting game. It was the first game Otsuka developed with a protagonist "who uses a beam projectile weapon", compared to Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden. He said that his responsibility on the project was to deliver an experience comparable to Super Metroid and Metroid: Zero Mission, with Yoshio Sakamoto's story. Otsuka felt that some of his exchanges with Sakamoto made a "deep" impression on him.