for such an oddball game as Metroid 2, this remake absolutely succeeds at preserving the original’s charm while making it generally more fun and polished. what’s really admirable, though, is how AM2R still has an identity all its own. the graphical shaders, sprites, music, and all-around vibe find themselves rooted in the GBA Metroid titles but ultimately leaning towards something more like Terraria, an angle that you’d likely never get from an official Nintendo product. Metroid Prime-style logs are added, slotting the game into the existing lore of the series even better, there are tons of options from difficulty to aesthetic, endings have several unique pieces of art depending on your performance like the GBA games before them… in terms of flaws, yes, it does introduce some slightly irritating darkness sections and Metroid fights can become repetitive as in the Game Boy game, but it really is such a meticulously crafted fan work, and one that deserves to be celebrated.

AM2R was one of the first incredibly impressive fan projects to come out of a Nintendo property. Because of that, it was one of the first to get absolutely shredded into oblivion by C&D orders. It's only because of that happening that I ever heard of it to begin with. AM2R builds tension better than some of the actual games. The planet is more lively than that of Samus Returns, and it helps them stand apart as two different but equal experiences. All Metroid 2 really needed was Zero Mission controls and this did that and so much more.

I just recently played the original game for the first time and I gotta say I think this is a wonderful remake, keeps the same atmosphere, stays faithful to the story and design for the most part, while adding really sick new content, music is also great and visually it looks stunning. Mechanically it's the best feeling Metroid game ever made, Samus has never felt this smooth to control, it's fast paced, flashy, and fun.

However, I have a big gripe, that permeates through the whole game, and that is the actual Metroids, I think overall, they're an improvement on the original, I like the fact that they have new moves and attacks, new designs, and there's some cool new encounters I enjoyed, but my problem lies in the fact that they also changed their hitbox, you can now only damage them by hitting them in a weak spot that is very small, and hidden behind their legs, this doesn't sound bad and overall, it isn't, but the problem is that you encounter these enemies a lot, 40 times to be exact, and they move around a lot, so you'll find yourself just kinda waiting around for them to be in the right position so you can hit them, it slows down the gameplay a lot, and I honestly think if their hitboxes worked just like in the original it would've been much better. This game's original bosses however, are incredible, so at least it balances itself out a bit.

Outside of that though, this is an incredible game and the fact that it's a fan project makes it all the more impressive, it has nothing to envy from any other Metroid games made by Nintendo which is saying a lot because I think most developers nowadays have a lot to envy from Nintendo, really incredible job.

In my opinion, the best Metroid game. The game excellently captures the sensations of wonder brought down by the feeling of a true threat. It moves absolutely beautifully, every item is super fun, the planet is insanely fun to explore, so much so even that I 100%'d it on my very first playthrough simply because by the time I was near the end, I already had 80% or so because exploring was THAT fun.

The game manages tone excellently, using it to forward the game's narrative of Samus being a badass, one who happens to be committing mass genocide. A fierce fighter, and a heartless killer. The world is colourful and wonderous, but also dark and eerie. Its a game where the nature of its setting fully runs through the veins of the entire game, appearing everywhere.

And of course, it still maintains the story of Metroid 2, the beauty of the parallel between Ridley and Samus, showing that Samus is a hero at the end of the day, willing to spare young innocent life. That ending sequence is genuinely so beautiful that it convinced me fairly easily that its one of my favourite games of all time.

This game is to Metroid like how Project Wingman is to Ace Combat.

For those unfamiliar with the comparison, basically, this fangame is about as close as you can get to an official original formula Metroid game that isn't Metroid Dread (back then, Dread didn't exist so this basically was the only thing you could play that would scratch the itch, barring replaying Super Metroid again and again).

It takes the considerably linear Metroid 2 and turns it into a Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission-esque experience with its own twists and inspirations from Super.

Interestingly, the actual official Metroid 2 Remake: Metroid Samus Returns was developed in parallel to this fangame. Both games have some conceptual overlap, including the part where there are story logs of a recent expedition in the setting, and the prominence of Chozo ruins properly tying the game to the series' mythology.

While Samus Returns is... considerably experimental, including an emphasis on melee counters which I found rather droll to deal with, AM2R capitalizes on the things that made side-scrolling Metroid games work: the run and gunplay and the secrets/puzzles.

Seriously, the quality of said puzzles including the mandatory Shinespark Gauntlet is something you would find in an official Metroid game.

Finding the game given the fact that Nintendo DMCA'd it is a bit of a trouble, but it's still out there if you know the right keywords to put in.

This is a game I highly recommend Metroid fans to take, but then again if you're reading this review, you likely already know and played this game to begin with.

I took a long break from 2D Metroid after beating Dread, and I want to replay the 5 mainline titles again, but I've been waiting for Zero Mission to get on NSO so I can use the rewind if needed to get all the best speedrun times needed to get every image reward in the game. So while I waited around for Nintendo to stop twiddling their thumbs on stupidly slow GBA game re-releases, I decided to play AM2R finally as I'd heard many good things about it.

I think the game from a technological standpoint of non-Nintendo devs is incredible! The sprite work is really top notch for the environments and it looks very beautiful, though I do feel like the Metroids themselves have a very uncanny valley look to them. I wish they would've based their designs more off the Metroid 2 manual than the chunky archaic GameBoy sprites specifically. Still, the hard work the creators put into this to make the game look as good as it is should not be undercut all the same, I really appreciate it.

The gameplay is also pretty great too. It's very much taking a lot of cues from Zero Mission and succeeds very well there, I do like the snappy pacing of the gameplay and combat as I did in ZM. The hidden items and power up progression are typical Metroid fare as you'd expect, pretty well designed and fun to seek out.

However, now we get to the story... and I have to be brutally honest, I don't really like the way they tackled it. I will preface this saying that there wasn't a lot else the dev team could try to do story wise given the limited context of the original game and how little they had to work with, but even so, compared to Samus Returns, the official remake's take, I find this one lacking honestly.

For starters, I get that they wanted to break up the monotony of the gameplay loop of doing the same 4 types of boss fights for 90% of the game, and so they took a Zero Mission approach of adding a ton of new bosses and trying to tie it into the lore. However, I think it doesn't really fit here in this game, at all. In any other Metroid game, it would, definitely. But not here specifically.

See, the whole point of the original game's story is Samus goes on a genocide quest that is later proven in the series to have been the wrong decision that screws over Samus multiple times and nearly jeopardizes the entire universe because she killed the X-Parasite's natural predator. The whole monotony of the original game's quest and how the atmosphere being so haunting, forboding, and isolationist was placed there to show and prove that you were doing a very bad thing. Samus Returns, while adding 2 new bosses still maintains that same sentiment, as the retained monotony of the quest and how much they really show in their cinematic cutscenes the pure pain and suffering of these living creatures as they die from Samus's attacks really do carry over that same impact from the original game. Meanwhile that AM2R completely erases that in the service of making the statement, "Oooo, look at Samus! She's so cool and badass fighting off all these powerful machines and robots!" It completely loses the message the original game and official remake went for, as it wasn't supposed to be inherently fun systematically destroying an entire race one member of the species at a time. It's a grueling, taxing endeavor that wears away at one's soul should they have a heart, which Samus is shown in many of the games to be very compassionate, such as when she saved the Etecoon and Dachora at the end of Super despite the fact it nearly got her killed. The fact she spares the baby at all is a sign of the regret of doing what she had to, and that she probably wishes things could've been different.

Speaking of, I also was very disappointed with the end where Samus finds the baby being too 1:1 with Super's prologue, where it doesn't show anything about her hesitation to kill the baby due to limitations of the time the game was made. Samus Returns fixes that and shows her regret, as well as further builds up her bond with the baby through their fight with Ridley which pays off hard in Super. But here in AM2R they just don't bother to do anything with it even though they easily could've. Of all the places to take a liberty with reimagining the original game, they chose not to here when it really would've benefitted the game story wise. Bad move.

Anyway, long story short, these added boss fights just make the game seem like another usual bounty hunt Samus goes on to stop some great evil and look cool doing it, when the story of the game really isn't that at all. Narratively I just feel like AM2R misses the mark on nailing what the point of the game story wise really was in the first place, and I don't like that.

I also don't really like how said new bosses tie into the lore of SR388 either. By the time AM2R was made it was known that the Chozo were the ones who populated the planet and made the Metroids there in general Metroid lore, but the lore makes them seem like this more normal colony alien race and such than the highly advanced, prosperous, and far beyond "menial race squabbles" they're known for being. It doesn't fit them at all, the lore logs make it sound like some other alien race colonized SR388 before the Metroids populated it. It feels like something Metroid Prime would do rather than what 2D Metroid would in terms of characterizing the Chozo and their history and civilization.

The music is good enough, I will say it's better than Dread's soundtrack, but that's the lowest bar in the series so... I don't really think the OST really stands out when compared to Zero Mission or Super though.

Overall I think the game is a solid fan-game, but misses the mark narratively on what this game is supposed to signify in Samus's journey, and the way said changes are tied to the gameplay also hold much less weight as a result and don't really fit. They took me out of the experience personally, and I'm probably going to be one of the only people who will say Samus Returns is a better game and die on that hill. I also just prefer how Samus Returns was a beta-Dread and had a lot of cool stuff like the new lore connections that flesh out the Chozo in-character, the cinematic cutscenes, and stuff like the counter and more precise aiming. It all fits the Metroid world and lore so much better, and adds to Samus's character and her bond with the baby all the better too.

I respect this game and am glad it came out at a time when the Metroid community was in dire need of something when Nintendo forced Metroid into a dormant state, but it's not a game I plan to ever return to. I am glad I checked it out and judged it on its own merits though.

Final playtime: 7 hours, 0 minutes, 9 seconds.
Item Collection: 84%.

When it comes to Metroid games, I always go in with innate fear of getting lost because I am absolutely terrible with direction, so you can imagine my shock when I realized that AM2R was so on point with at least leading me in the right general direction. Very rarely did I actually get lost, and that's only the beginning of the compliments this game receives from me. The music and atmosphere are well done, visually its such a lovely game to look at, Samus feels weighty yet still perfect to control, and so on. My only real complaints come from the enemy design, but even then they were still pretty fun to fight. I'm very glad I picked AM2R as my way to experience Metroid II.

Digno trabajo de revisitar la idea original con ideas aún más originales.

La ambientación del juego es muy buena, con salas completamente a oscuras con metroides acechando en las esquinas que puedes hacerte dar un pequeño salto del susto.

El pixel art es muy bueno y el movimiento de Samus y los enemigos se siente muy bien, algunos metroides me recuerdan a marionetas de cartón por sus movimientos, pero eso le da un toque curioso.
Eso sí, algunos jefes son un tanto largos o se hacen molestos de pelear, obligándote a moverte mucho, por suerte con los repetidos combates contra los metroides se las ingeniaron para que esto no fuese así, en la mayoría al menos, haciendo que las áreas donde los peleemos sean diferentes para ingeniartelas de maneras diferentes a la hora de combatirlos.


Agrega más sobre los chozo y lo que hacía la federación en el planeta además de cazar metroides.