Yep, this was fun. Like the first game it is one big area. But due to the lava, the areas were divided into suitable morsels. I didn't like the first one that much so I am happy that this game takes a step foreward. Now I'm curious bout Super Metroid
Tons more fun than the NES original, almost feels like an actual metroid game! Kept crashing right near the final level for me though, and it's not quite worth another 5 hours to get back to the ending
You know what? Overwriting my previous review, as I was completely wrong. AM2R and Samus Returns are great, but they don't necessarily replace this. Metroid II is still a solid game, it just needs a map! Since the Game Boy original didn't include one, I kept one open while playing and had a lovely time! Better than the first game by far.
...but I do really want to go finish AM2R now...
...but I do really want to go finish AM2R now...
metroid is never bad
Hella good for a Gameboy game
A slight improvement on the first Metroid, thanks to save stations and more reliance on exploration (compared to Metroid 1 which more preferred to fill rooms with swarms of enemies). It is unfortunate that the black-and-white graphics make it pretty easy to get lost (still no map sigh) and the Metroids themselves are annoying and repetitive bosses to fight.
I definitely respect this one for doing unique things with the series. All the problems I have with it stem from its hardware: environments are all samey, you can't see anything, and it's too linear. I will say it doesn't have a bad soundtrack for the Game Boy. There's definitely multiple other better ways to play this now.
An overall disappointing Metroid game, only when taken in context of the overwhelming greatness of the series. If this game had a built in map system it would be great, without it I got a frustrating experience with numerous innovating and interesting ideas. Tracking down Metroids and exterminating them is a great premise, the Spider-ball is a fun addition to the formula that I haven't seen in most of the other games. I'm not sure whether I like the non-stacking beam upgrades but it was an interesting experiment. Overall not as bad as it's reputation suggests.
This review contains spoilers
Shadow of the Colossus (2005) was found dead in a ditch
A surprising jump in quality over the first game, for being on a system not much more advanced than the NES itself, and lacking one thing the NES had, color. I found myself being led fairly easily through this game, and I didn't get stuck unlike how I got stuck several times with the original.
But little did players at the time know that this was just the chrysalis stage of Metroid, a prelude to the beautiful butterfly that would emerge just a few years later...
But little did players at the time know that this was just the chrysalis stage of Metroid, a prelude to the beautiful butterfly that would emerge just a few years later...
It was nice to learn about Hiroji Kiyotake, one of the directors of Metroid II, and probably a leading force in the sheer personality and fun that a run of good GB platformers have - Metroid II, Super Mario Land 2, the Wario Lands...
Despite having played most Metroid games I'd never played Metroid 2. I bounced off of it a few times, but after roughing it through Metroid 1 (another brilliant game), I went ahead and played through 2.
At first I was hesitant about the structure of the game - seeming to move away from the chaotic maze of Metroid 1 for a more linear experience. But I think the structure of Metroid 2 - that of burrowing into an ant farm, exploring smaller labyrinths budding from a main path - works well. It enforces the narrative of Samus as this bounty hunter, cold bringer of death, her triumphant "overworld medley" song being replaced by the quiet nature and sounds of Metroids merely living at home.
The black and white graphics look amazing at times - especially level 3 with its mechanical sand maze and the vertical, overgrown shafts. At its best there's a real sense of encroaching into disturbing territory, the way it feels to peer from a safe path into a deep patch of forest. The variety of 'nests' the game manages to convey is inspiring! The game fully understands its visual format and how to exploit it. Metroid fights remain tricky to cheese, with the metroid becoming invincible offscreen, always feeling claustrophobic and chaotic, thrilling.
There are a handful of rough edges (the lack of save points, occasional missile/energy grinding) but I think the rest of the game makes up for it. I love the setpieces with the Metroid counter resetting in the lair, or the omega metroid attacking you after killing the alpha, or the lair of the omegas. I do think that the art could have been a bit more interesting at parts, especially with all of the vine background layers in level 3 - some later levels feel a bit empty .
That being said, the atmosphere never feels overexplained. It was fun to stumble upon the massive Chozo compounds, with dangerous robots, butted right up against Metroid caves and lush caverns.
Shoutout to the ambient music, which works really well! Unsettling, dark stuff, really understanding the 'texture' of the game boy sound palette.
--
Overall, it's a very strong game, but I can't give it the "5 stars'... I think it might be related to the economy of ammo and energy and how they inevitably shift way in your favor as you progress through the game - enemy encounters always feel a little less exciting once you have the screw attack, plasma beam, etc. It feels a bit counter to the narrative they're setting up with you diving into more dangerous lairs. The Omega metroid may look spooky, but it's not much of a threat with my 150 missiles, varia suit, and 500 energy.
Despite having played most Metroid games I'd never played Metroid 2. I bounced off of it a few times, but after roughing it through Metroid 1 (another brilliant game), I went ahead and played through 2.
At first I was hesitant about the structure of the game - seeming to move away from the chaotic maze of Metroid 1 for a more linear experience. But I think the structure of Metroid 2 - that of burrowing into an ant farm, exploring smaller labyrinths budding from a main path - works well. It enforces the narrative of Samus as this bounty hunter, cold bringer of death, her triumphant "overworld medley" song being replaced by the quiet nature and sounds of Metroids merely living at home.
The black and white graphics look amazing at times - especially level 3 with its mechanical sand maze and the vertical, overgrown shafts. At its best there's a real sense of encroaching into disturbing territory, the way it feels to peer from a safe path into a deep patch of forest. The variety of 'nests' the game manages to convey is inspiring! The game fully understands its visual format and how to exploit it. Metroid fights remain tricky to cheese, with the metroid becoming invincible offscreen, always feeling claustrophobic and chaotic, thrilling.
There are a handful of rough edges (the lack of save points, occasional missile/energy grinding) but I think the rest of the game makes up for it. I love the setpieces with the Metroid counter resetting in the lair, or the omega metroid attacking you after killing the alpha, or the lair of the omegas. I do think that the art could have been a bit more interesting at parts, especially with all of the vine background layers in level 3 - some later levels feel a bit empty .
That being said, the atmosphere never feels overexplained. It was fun to stumble upon the massive Chozo compounds, with dangerous robots, butted right up against Metroid caves and lush caverns.
Shoutout to the ambient music, which works really well! Unsettling, dark stuff, really understanding the 'texture' of the game boy sound palette.
--
Overall, it's a very strong game, but I can't give it the "5 stars'... I think it might be related to the economy of ammo and energy and how they inevitably shift way in your favor as you progress through the game - enemy encounters always feel a little less exciting once you have the screw attack, plasma beam, etc. It feels a bit counter to the narrative they're setting up with you diving into more dangerous lairs. The Omega metroid may look spooky, but it's not much of a threat with my 150 missiles, varia suit, and 500 energy.
Wonderful atmosphere and environmental storytelling, especially given hardware limitations
Um legal com uma ótima atmosfera.
This is one of the primary games where my memories severely blind my perception. The atmosphere in this game genuinely goes crazy, mostly near the end. The final area and ending are boundary breaking for subtextual storytelling on the Gameboy and those moments are always the ones I remember the most. However every time I've tried to go back to this game I realize that I forgot... literally everything else about it. It's just obscenely annoying to play. It deserves a proper replay from me, but it'll probably be my last.
It's fun but god is it difficult!
Samus' controls are improved from the first game and a number of series mainstays would make their first appearances here (this game is not given the credit it deserves by Metroid fans)
Biggest problem is the lack of visual variety which can make backtracking confusing. I played it with only the official GBC palette for authenticity, but there's a colorization romhack out there that looks good and gives it different color palettes for different areas. Highly recommended, in hindsight I wish I used it.
Biggest problem is the lack of visual variety which can make backtracking confusing. I played it with only the official GBC palette for authenticity, but there's a colorization romhack out there that looks good and gives it different color palettes for different areas. Highly recommended, in hindsight I wish I used it.
Um pesadelo, por conta da limitação de um portátil como o Game Boy, consegue ser mais intankavel que o primeiro de NES, level design confuso e controles travados que não respondem corretamente, vou ficar devendo esse.
I played AMTR and it was fun!
I’ve always been surprised at how much I don’t dislike this game. It’s a surprisingly okay game, all told, and a colossal improvement over the series’ first outing. Having said that, it’s not a game that really does anything impressive in the gameplay department; its combat is very shallow, shallower than the first game’s, and its traversal isn’t anything to write home about either. Still, it’s not bad, and it does a few things really well when we put gameplay aside; it’s got a great atmosphere, especially for a GBC game, and the game’s ending is incredibly memorable - one of the strongest moments in the whole series.
The weakest aspect of this game is the metroid fights. The Omegas are approaching something vaguely resembling a decent enemy, but they still have an annoying move where they can just decide to charge you in a seemingly unavoidable pattern. All the other fights feel like a struggle against the AI RNG to let you hit the enemy without taking too much damage. Other enemies, with a couple exceptions, are a walk in the park to dispatch, so the combat mostly boils down to backtracking to a recharge station or farming an enemy for health, spamming missiles, and hoping for the best. You can certainly play better or worse to mitigate the damage you take, but it doesn’t have much of an effect, and this makes the combat on the whole kind of a letdown.
Exploration here is kind of decent, though. Coming directly off of Metroid 1, 90% of rooms not being a copy and paste job feels way more relieving than it should. The spider ball is a nice tool in that if you spider ball up a wall with a hidden passage, you’ll enter the passage. This was always weirdly satisfying to do while playing, and as a result, I found myself actually kind of enjoying finding these hidden passages, in a way that I mostly didn’t in the first game. The space jump is introduced here, and it’s bizarre how irritating it is to use. Missing a single input with poor feedback locks you out of restarting the space jump until you land somewhere, and it mostly just feels awful.
It’s at this point that I have to admit that I almost didn’t finish the game this time around. I realized while fighting the final boss and dying alarmingly quickly that I had missed the Varia suit. On realizing I was going to have to spend upwards of 15 minutes backtracking just for one item, I almost quit, though I came back after a couple hours and ultimately killed the Queen. The fact that such a critical powerup is so easily missable is something that bothers me more than it probably should. The screw attack is similarly missable (I naturally missed it), though hardly as important, as most of the actually threatening enemies are metroids, which are immune to it.
Despite my lukewarm feelings towards the game mechanically, I have to give it credit for setting a really excellent tone and atmosphere. This is somewhat helped by the cramped screen space on the GBC, but the pitch black background, threatening, dissonant, and somewhat sparse soundtrack, and subtle details like the fading number of enemies as you progress deeper into the planet, all do a great job of instilling an atmosphere of foreboding and hostility. The ending, between the moment with the egg where the metroid counter increases to 9, the battle with the queen, backed into a corner, and of course the final “escape” with the baby metroid in tow, with calming, contemplative music playing in the background, all hit exactly the right notes, and make the game worth playing almost on their own.
This game does end up getting a recommendation from me. I think it’s a game worth experiencing, if for no other reason than its atmosphere, subtle themes, and finale sequence. It’s a pretty middling ride until that point, but it’s not actively off putting for the most part, outside of a couple repetitive shafts in some of the metroid nesting grounds. It’s a hesitant recommendation, and a rather lukewarm one, but it’s enough of a net positive to earn one. It’s not the greatest metroid game, by a long shot, but it’s not a bad game, and I think that’s what I find most surprising about it.
The weakest aspect of this game is the metroid fights. The Omegas are approaching something vaguely resembling a decent enemy, but they still have an annoying move where they can just decide to charge you in a seemingly unavoidable pattern. All the other fights feel like a struggle against the AI RNG to let you hit the enemy without taking too much damage. Other enemies, with a couple exceptions, are a walk in the park to dispatch, so the combat mostly boils down to backtracking to a recharge station or farming an enemy for health, spamming missiles, and hoping for the best. You can certainly play better or worse to mitigate the damage you take, but it doesn’t have much of an effect, and this makes the combat on the whole kind of a letdown.
Exploration here is kind of decent, though. Coming directly off of Metroid 1, 90% of rooms not being a copy and paste job feels way more relieving than it should. The spider ball is a nice tool in that if you spider ball up a wall with a hidden passage, you’ll enter the passage. This was always weirdly satisfying to do while playing, and as a result, I found myself actually kind of enjoying finding these hidden passages, in a way that I mostly didn’t in the first game. The space jump is introduced here, and it’s bizarre how irritating it is to use. Missing a single input with poor feedback locks you out of restarting the space jump until you land somewhere, and it mostly just feels awful.
It’s at this point that I have to admit that I almost didn’t finish the game this time around. I realized while fighting the final boss and dying alarmingly quickly that I had missed the Varia suit. On realizing I was going to have to spend upwards of 15 minutes backtracking just for one item, I almost quit, though I came back after a couple hours and ultimately killed the Queen. The fact that such a critical powerup is so easily missable is something that bothers me more than it probably should. The screw attack is similarly missable (I naturally missed it), though hardly as important, as most of the actually threatening enemies are metroids, which are immune to it.
Despite my lukewarm feelings towards the game mechanically, I have to give it credit for setting a really excellent tone and atmosphere. This is somewhat helped by the cramped screen space on the GBC, but the pitch black background, threatening, dissonant, and somewhat sparse soundtrack, and subtle details like the fading number of enemies as you progress deeper into the planet, all do a great job of instilling an atmosphere of foreboding and hostility. The ending, between the moment with the egg where the metroid counter increases to 9, the battle with the queen, backed into a corner, and of course the final “escape” with the baby metroid in tow, with calming, contemplative music playing in the background, all hit exactly the right notes, and make the game worth playing almost on their own.
This game does end up getting a recommendation from me. I think it’s a game worth experiencing, if for no other reason than its atmosphere, subtle themes, and finale sequence. It’s a pretty middling ride until that point, but it’s not actively off putting for the most part, outside of a couple repetitive shafts in some of the metroid nesting grounds. It’s a hesitant recommendation, and a rather lukewarm one, but it’s enough of a net positive to earn one. It’s not the greatest metroid game, by a long shot, but it’s not a bad game, and I think that’s what I find most surprising about it.
backloggd community be like oh yeah this game super good even if has no redeeming qualities outside its music
There are now multiple better ways to play this. Definitely better than NES metroid, but I still wouldn't recommend it.
A significant step up from Metroid 1. Controls feel a lot better, level design makes more sense, and the attempts at atmosphere and environmental storytelling are impressive for a Game Boy game, even if it does fall short sometimes.
The cramped claustrophobic hallways opening to vast empty voids and back again. The happy music going to tuneless beeps. The feeling that you are descending into a bleak oppressive hell as you systematically commit genocide. Amazing game.
This game is... not awful! I expected this to be the worst of all the Metroid games (except for maybe NEStroid) but with the help of the colorization ROM hack and a map it ended up being surprisingly decent.
The music (or lack thereof) helped add to the atmosphere of the areas, and the super-cramped screen made it pretty tense when you were exploring with the possibility of a Metroid suddenly appearing at any moment. This definitely isn't a traditional Metroid, though, as there is zero backtracking whatsoever. However, I think the overall difference in its formula makes it that much more charming!
As someone who's played through AM2R and Samus Returns I like to see how differently they interpreted this game. AM2R is very faithful to the original, while Samus Returns takes the ideas and makes it into its own thing.
If you're a big Metroid fan I'd suggest giving this game a play, ESPECIALLY with the colorization ROM hack.
The music (or lack thereof) helped add to the atmosphere of the areas, and the super-cramped screen made it pretty tense when you were exploring with the possibility of a Metroid suddenly appearing at any moment. This definitely isn't a traditional Metroid, though, as there is zero backtracking whatsoever. However, I think the overall difference in its formula makes it that much more charming!
As someone who's played through AM2R and Samus Returns I like to see how differently they interpreted this game. AM2R is very faithful to the original, while Samus Returns takes the ideas and makes it into its own thing.
If you're a big Metroid fan I'd suggest giving this game a play, ESPECIALLY with the colorization ROM hack.
Was doing great without a map until I missed killing one of the metroids and had to backtrack. Did not help that I was playing on black on white. Though I felt this was easier than nes metroid but def feels more janky
This was a surprising game. It was the first Game Boy game I had beaten (this was 2022) and it was a surprisingly great game with music at a quality level I didn't think the Game Boy could do.
This little Gameboy game fucks hard
Metroid se caracteriza por su énfasis en la exploración y su algo elevada dificultad, por suerte Return of Samus no es la excepción a esta regla, ofreciéndonos ambas cosas desde que iniciamos a avanzar. Aunque es un juego desarrollado para el limitado hardware de la primera consola portátil de Nintendo, Metroid II logra sumergirnos en un mundo laberíntico y peligroso, utilizando al máximo el potencial que ofrece una paleta de dos colores y sonidos monofónicos entregando un mapeado creíble y lleno de vida, si no somos tan exigentes. Desde un principio tenemos una misión, acabar con la plaga Metroid en su planeta de origen, a medida que vamos avanzando por el juego un contador nos muestra cuántos enemigos más tenemos que derrotar para llegar hasta el final, pero seguir adelante no será sencillo, ya que tenemos que inspeccionar cada recoveco para encontrar esas mejoras que necesitamos y sobrevivir a los enemigos que estarán esperándonos con el fin de hacernos ver esa molesta pantalla de game over. No es un juego que todos puedan disfrutar por igual, pero si eres de los que gustan de la exploración y los juegos no lineales, es una buena opción para comenzar, ya que de los Metroid que se encuentran en el mercado, es uno de los más accesibles para todos en términos de jugabilidad.
i think if i was transported back to 1991 as a young boy playing this game in the car my gameboy would be flung out the side of the car but i am not a young boy in 1991 im a young adult man in 2022 and with modern technology and save states this game is still kinda hard and also the final boss sucked my dick and not in the good way. its pretty fun though
one of the more encouragingly dissectible metroid games. yeah you’ve heard it everywhere; the hardware limitations enforce a more anxious atmosphere and the dull colors convey it yada yada yada. but one thing i don’t always see people highlight are the hellish soundscapes that blanket the entire experience. exacerbating your trek through rubbled caverns and cities lost to time. as you creep and crawl your way up, down and all around confusing and numbing passageways a nightmarish clusterfuck of a melody backs you up. anxiety slips its way into the foreground. a fleeting silence ensues before reaching the inevitable encounter with one of the dozens of metroid creatures. business as usual. as you escape the decayed yet entrancing ruins, the ever gratifying main theme plays, signifying your triumph and carries forth motivation to continue the monotony. one more thing to add would be the setting: ancient ruins and forgotten tunnels laid to rot in the pits of hell. how did this happen? why are these places left extinct aside from the disconnected monsters that lurk? we will never know. stuff like that gets my brain going you know? insanely impressive for a game of this caliber to invoke such boundless emotion. definitely should not be overlooked.