I've been trying to play every Metroid game in order of release because the only one I ever beat was, ironically, this game's remake, Samus Returns, and I'll replay that and review it eventually, but because I had already played that game and my friends wanted me to play Super, I was advised to skip this one here, and I did, I played Super first, really enjoyed it, but then I decided to go back to this anyway, I just felt wrong skipping it, and I'm so glad I did.

Metroid II is very different from the rest I've played, including it's own remake, you're not trying to escape the planet, you're there with a purpose, kill every Metroid, it's pretty fucked up and the game is clearly trying to tell you (especially at the end) that maybe what you're doing here is at least morally dubious, and I absolutely love that. Is the gameplay a little rough? yeah, for sure, but outside of that I think pretty much every technical "limitation" of the gameboy ends up working in it's favor. The screen being so small makes the game feel really claustrophobic the whole way through, the music could barely even be considered music sometimes, it's mostly composed of... weird, creepy sounds, the atmosphere is honestly as good as it got in Super, maybe even better at points. The reason it's not equally rated however, is the bosses, there's 40 Metroids to defeat, and they're all pretty uninspired fights, most of them die in 5 missiles, non of them have any interesting patterns to learn, and I understand that this is also probably due to the gameboy's limitations but I can't justify it in this case because it's such a huge part of the game.

Overall, I highly recommend everyone reading to at least give this game a chance, especially if you skipped it for how it looks or for it having so many remakes out there, this is a completely unique experience that I think every Metroid fan would appreciate.

In my opinion, Return of Samus, despite being on the GB, is significantly better then the first game in everyway. As with the first game, I felt as if they where trying to do too much with the game when they couldn't on NES hardware. But here, Nintendo was able to completely translate the concepts of the first game and make something that feels much better for the GB hardware. I am not going to finish it however, as I will instead play the remake; but understand through my good amount of playtime here, that it is quite a good game.

I bought Metroid II at a garage sale a long time ago. Child Me was never able to get into it. The small screen of the GameBoy and the lack of a map made it a challenge I wasn't willing to overcome. Now, with a map (thanks internet) and a larger screen (thanks emulation), I played through the whole game. And I'm glad I did it, at least for the satisfaction of conquering a childhood foe. It's a decent Metroid game, especially for how old it is and the hardware it was running on, but it lacks much of what made later entries to the series such good games. Even more, the game is about committing Metroid genocide, but the titular enemies are disappointing. The early ones present almost no challenge, and any challenges presented by the later ones is because they've been programed with cheezy unfair advantages over the player. It's not a bad game, but it isn't a standout in the Metroid series either.

Definently underrated. I came into this game as a fairly experienced Metroid player and didn't really have any problems with navigation, but an in-game map still would have been appreciated. The secrets all feel great to find. The fights with later stages of the Metroids get a little annoying, but I love the way that less creatures are able to survive the closer you get to the Metroid nest, and just love the games themes overall. The game didn't feel too unforgiving either, plenty of save states, I didn't even worry about having to resort to save scumming (played on 3ds). The game hasn't aged perfectly, but I still had a really good time with this one.