A mod for Super Metroid
Samus Aran has been contracted to investigate an installation on Planet Auriga.
Reviews View More
A gorgeous must-play Metroid romhack, crippled by questionable design choices.
Wrongfully labelled as a "vanilla" difficulty hack. Don't go in expecting an experience even nearly as gentle as the basegame. Visual clarity for platforming also tends to suffer for the sake of creating beautiful rooms.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Hiding the area save station when the locals can two tap you is a dick move.
Vitality's ammo stingyness coupled with a low health pool at first was a welcome spice of difficulty, but when said ammo is required to actually open the way forwards and enemies that can rip you apart in an instant can be hidden behind the confusing layered tilesets, I'm inclined to save-state until I can actually find the proper ingame checkpoint rather than suffer through hours of trial and error time-wasting bullshit.
- - -
Ah, actually as it turns out Vitality lets you wander off into lategame areas to snag gear if you're really careful. Andavald is working as intended and I now have a semi-undeserved [Redacted] in my inventory.
This still doesn't excuse the fact that Vitality does a very poor job at signposting that you shouldn't have entered an area yet, as it previously sets up player expectations by blockading progress until you run past enemies that are invulnerable to your current loadout.
- - -
Am I supposed to fight Draygon without getting hit a single time? Vitality is labelled as "vanilla". This is not "vanilla" this is masochism.
- - -
I gave up trying to beat draygon after an hour to scrounge for more powerups only to spend another half hour trapped in a set of one-way-locked heat rooms before giving up and resetting. I genuinely can't tell what is a softlock and what the path forwards is supposed to be.
Rather than memorably gating progression with spots to use powerups, vitality is proving to be a slog of locked grey-doors that give no indication on whether I'm supposed to try and navigate around them or turn back and find an arbitrary trigger.
- - -
If you try to collect the additional missile after the Tchornobog speedbooster rocket, you get softlocked if you can't perform a TightShortCharge.
- - -
Vitality is definitely a looker, but man is it irritating at a design level.
- - -
Oh great the place I thought was a softlock oversight is where the varia suit has been the whole time.
- - -
The varia suit being so hidden made playing this a miserable experience.
Vitality sets up expectations and then violates those expectations, making it very hard to figure out what the fuck you're actually supposed to do.
Sometimes grey doors require you to defeat all the enemies. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes you think you've defeated all the enemies but see the door hasn't opened yet and give up thinking it must be a one way from the other side.
The entrance to Andavald is super memorable and is loudly powerbomb-coded with two separate powerbomb-locks locking your two paths. Naturally this was my first destination upon acquiring powerbombs.
This is not where you're supposed to go after acquiring powerbombs.
The area is teeming with enemies that will two-tap you and send you to a previous save ages back. 10/10 game design right here folks.
- - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
Absolutely stellar sense of tone. Great environmental details.
I wish I didn't hate most of my playtime because Vitality is definitely something special and is otherwise a worthy Metroid fan-game. I'll likely enjoy it far more on a replay. Vitality's progression for a first-time player can be obtuse and the map layout is occasionally open, with rooms that will utterly body an unprepared Samus.
Wrongfully labelled as a "vanilla" difficulty hack. Don't go in expecting an experience even nearly as gentle as the basegame. Visual clarity for platforming also tends to suffer for the sake of creating beautiful rooms.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Hiding the area save station when the locals can two tap you is a dick move.
Vitality's ammo stingyness coupled with a low health pool at first was a welcome spice of difficulty, but when said ammo is required to actually open the way forwards and enemies that can rip you apart in an instant can be hidden behind the confusing layered tilesets, I'm inclined to save-state until I can actually find the proper ingame checkpoint rather than suffer through hours of trial and error time-wasting bullshit.
- - -
Ah, actually as it turns out Vitality lets you wander off into lategame areas to snag gear if you're really careful. Andavald is working as intended and I now have a semi-undeserved [Redacted] in my inventory.
This still doesn't excuse the fact that Vitality does a very poor job at signposting that you shouldn't have entered an area yet, as it previously sets up player expectations by blockading progress until you run past enemies that are invulnerable to your current loadout.
- - -
Am I supposed to fight Draygon without getting hit a single time? Vitality is labelled as "vanilla". This is not "vanilla" this is masochism.
- - -
I gave up trying to beat draygon after an hour to scrounge for more powerups only to spend another half hour trapped in a set of one-way-locked heat rooms before giving up and resetting. I genuinely can't tell what is a softlock and what the path forwards is supposed to be.
Rather than memorably gating progression with spots to use powerups, vitality is proving to be a slog of locked grey-doors that give no indication on whether I'm supposed to try and navigate around them or turn back and find an arbitrary trigger.
- - -
If you try to collect the additional missile after the Tchornobog speedbooster rocket, you get softlocked if you can't perform a TightShortCharge.
- - -
Vitality is definitely a looker, but man is it irritating at a design level.
- - -
Oh great the place I thought was a softlock oversight is where the varia suit has been the whole time.
- - -
The varia suit being so hidden made playing this a miserable experience.
Vitality sets up expectations and then violates those expectations, making it very hard to figure out what the fuck you're actually supposed to do.
Sometimes grey doors require you to defeat all the enemies. Sometimes they don't. Sometimes you think you've defeated all the enemies but see the door hasn't opened yet and give up thinking it must be a one way from the other side.
The entrance to Andavald is super memorable and is loudly powerbomb-coded with two separate powerbomb-locks locking your two paths. Naturally this was my first destination upon acquiring powerbombs.
This is not where you're supposed to go after acquiring powerbombs.
The area is teeming with enemies that will two-tap you and send you to a previous save ages back. 10/10 game design right here folks.
- - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - -
Absolutely stellar sense of tone. Great environmental details.
I wish I didn't hate most of my playtime because Vitality is definitely something special and is otherwise a worthy Metroid fan-game. I'll likely enjoy it far more on a replay. Vitality's progression for a first-time player can be obtuse and the map layout is occasionally open, with rooms that will utterly body an unprepared Samus.