Pushed on by beating Sonic 1 SMS Remake, I was itching to try another 2D game on the Retroid Pocket and discovered this famous fan remake of Metroid II had gotten an Android port at some point. I've actually played this one a couple times, but I'd never beaten it. I even got to the final boss but gave up after dying since I hadn't saved in a while and couldn't be bothered redoing all of that.

I was more cautious this time around, making sure to go back and save after any particularly challenging scrapes against the many Metroids you're meant to hunt down and kill. This remake sticks with the more linear structure of the original Metroid II, but adds in abilities and powers from later games and massively expands on the temples to make them feel more unique. It's a very impressive fan game, one that's since been held alongside the main titles in how effectively it pulls off the Metroid style mechanically and tonally.

Still, while I enjoyed myself a good bit, I don't really plan on giving this a revisit. I found it quite challenging, even on the easiest difficulty, and the overall linearity means there isn't anything out of the ordinary I can try to keep things interesting (I'm certainly not skilled or knowledgeable enough to pull off any sequence breaks). That's fine, though. Sometimes you only fancy playing through a game once, whether that's only once in a while or once in general, and this is a good time if you're into Metroid no matter what.

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.

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.

The best feeling Metroid I've played so far, with also featuring some great bosses (the unique fights). Calling this fangame "impressive" leaves it short, but I'm not rating it as high as Super just by the fact that this is still a Metroid 2 remake. Inherently the story, repeat bosses (even more here actually), and level progression are still untouched from the original, so that brings it down a little. But if you enjoyed Zero Mission, you'll probably like AM2R even more, at least the gameplay side of it.

I still feel that the hurtboxes for the Alpha and Gamma metroids should be slightly tweaked to be more forgiving. They still feel slightly more punishing than in the original 1991 version. Currently blasting the metroids with missiles can feel like trying to snipe an arbitrary game object with a bullet rather than impacting a metroid nucleus with splash damage.
The omega metroid nest is also teeming with enemies, which is weird to me. Especially since the final stretch towards the queen is barren similar to the original. The original Metroid II lurches in pace after area 3, and AM2R thankfully remedies this by heavily reworking the game past said point.
Overall a truly excellent remake that mostly does justice to the tone of the original, marred only slightly by metroid encounters that feel slightly finicky-er than their original incarnations. Ice Beam is rather hidden too tbh. Still found it on the second sweep though. Oh yeah AM2R also employs pixel-rotations. Absolutely disgusting.
Great game. I recommend.

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%.

Metroid 2, But Buffed to the Max.

That's where things starting to get Interesting.

I haven't played the original one nor the 3ds one, so It's hard for me to judge fairly of this game on it's own. But if I passed that and look at it with my own feelings I would say you will find a valuable journey here that still worth experiencing.

If I summarize shortly of this game's background story of it is... It's a fan remake of metroid 2 and just like Metroid Zero Mission, aims to remake the game with super and fusion's powers included inside.

And it does this better than Zero Mission ten fold.... Mostly.

Before getting into why of that, I want to explain why I choose to play this one rather than og or the 3ds one. That's because it looked the most captivating to me compared to the others. I have a thing for beatiful pixel art and this game just gives you more and more setpieces.

I can't give my general thoughts at other remake or the og but I can say this, sometimes doing a big game on the underpowered and black and white console with ending up looking incomprehensible(at least to me) or having the same game on a more powered but a bland cliche 3d art direction(for me) was enough to getting put off playing it and choose to go on the 3rd party different fan solution. Tbh I had a nice experience so I don't have any sadness choosing this route. But I wouldn't be against to anyone prefering other routes.

Back to the topic on hand, why I said I had more fun time than Zero Mission? That's because this game uses it's power ups and tools to the Max. You have to:
Be careful, Be agile, Be observant.

Because your journey is even more dangerous even more complicated than ever before, be it strong bosses (that can kill you in 5 seconds), be it traps, be it special moments deep in the metroid areas/zones.

While making the adventure more dangerous was enough to make it enjoyable, this game also have one thing more. Setpiece moments that intertwined with the zones itself to pull you into it's atmosphere more.

Without getting into details, imagine that there is a zone that you need to use power cells to start ancient powered special robots, imagine that there is a zone with a nuke ready to explode in it or even a place that your powers does not work or even more and more.

While this setpieces itself isn't something super unique, what makes them great is making the metroid zones like earth, ice, fire feel even more unique and manages to give you their atmosphere to you ten fold with it and greatly pull you into it's atmosphere.

So, because of that I had lots of fun with the journey, It was enough to make awesome. It really felt like a "Adventure". But unfortunately I had some gripes with the game, I assume most of the faults I will say here comes with the premise of original but I find them a little bit dissappointing nonetheless.

This game's premise is, obliterating Metroids. ALL OF THEM. While it's premise does not look bad, there is one caveat to this. You are required to kill all of Metroids in an area to be able to move forward because killing Metroids somehow destroy the lava that stops you from going to the next area. Because of this, everytime you find the necessary power up to move forward feels a bit less satisfactory when you know in the end of the day, you have to find Metroids to kill and "then" you can move on. Also killing all those Metroids however different variations there are, still becomes kinda monotonous and boring at the end.

Also this gatekeeping kinda results with game to end up a bit linear and less Metroidvania. It's not as bad as the situation of the Fusion but it still kinda is. You can choose to tackle which order of Metroid to get of course, but still... Every area/zone isn't, with getting seperated with the main cave road with lava seperating it from your area. So only way to go forward is, you descend to next area kill metroids, go to the main cave and descend again to the next area...

Also when I say descend, you really "descend". So, going back to previous zone requires you to use same way to "ascend". There is no shorcuts to go between areas like Super or even the original one. It's not required for main game and you can negate this a little bit with a teleport room you find in the end of the game but I got full completion in this game so I can say this, it's really not fun when you want to "complete" with going all the way to back.

But while I didn't find it a great metroidvania, I find it a great Adventure so I still left with lots of enjoyment. Also it's good balance of power and difficulty made it more rememberable as a result. Maybe it's not that great when it comes to exploration as much as Super. But when it comes to Surprise, That's what you will find tons of here with lots of engaging moments.

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.

this is like top 3 nintendo and its not even by nintendo! OMG! the movement is so freeing, the dash and the screw attack make me (samus) feel in complete mastery of my domain. The dash is easier to use and better implemented here than it was in zero mission, and much better than in prime (it wasnt in prime) backtracking here isn't a problem because you could be across the map in 20 seconds. But there really is not much backtracking here at all. You COULD backtrack, but every area feels very separate and distinct. Once you're done with one, you go onto the next. All the times i was lost and decided to backtrack, every single locked door that i now had access to just led to missile upgrades or something, not much progression or whatever. Progression in this game goes like this: u go into an area, this area has a set amount of metroids. You kill them all, then an earthquake happens and it drains some lava so you can go there and go to the next area to kill the next area's metroids. On the one hand, the metroid killing objective always gives u some kind of direction, it feels cooler than just being there “to kill the space pirates” cus your goal being destroying an invasive species before it inevitably consumes every ecosystem in the galaxy is cold as fuck. On the other, it makes everything feel segmented and further disincentivizes backtracking. Which could be a plus? I mean, I really enjoyed this setup. It felt a little linear, I guess, but I liked it. I understand both sides but i'm leaning more towards cool. If you read my zero mission review you know how much I loved fighting the metroids in that game. Each one needing the specific method to be defeated and how relentless they were in both movement and numbers made them such fun enemies. In this, there's "evolved" metroids which.. yeah, took another approach which I didn't appreciate nearly as much. But hey, at least zero mission metroids are still in this game. Doesn't excuse the boring and monotonous bullet sponge evolved metroid fights in this. Oh well. In other news, the rest of the bosses in this game are beautiful. Gone are the giant stationary dudes with one weakness!!! these bosses take full advantage of your mobility, they don't just test your ability to measure how short of a jump you need to shoot your missile at their weak point, you gotta do other cool stuff too that I don't wanna spoil. The final boss? boom? u guys know what im talking about. this guy gets it. Now, I was really close to giving this a 5/5. And the hesitation is what took it down to a 4 and a half. I just thought you guys should know I considered it. I'm really excited to play super metroid next, because apparently that's the videogame to end all videogames. So far i've been very impressed with the metroid series. And to all my vampire the masquerade bloodline awaiters, I will finish that game too. Give me time! Im doing malkavian so it takes me 20 minutes to respond to each dialogue choice.

AM2R is much better than the original, but in a lot of ways feels like a half step. The combat with the Metroids might even be worse than the Gameboy game, and the control, while improved, still isn't perfect. The save feature is the same, and can often lead to loss of large amounts of progress. Area 3 still sucks too. Any game with darkness as a gameplay mechanic automatically loses points in my book. Anything else I didn't mention is a genuine improvement. The new music is great, and the new areas added in tend to be fun additions. It is a better experience than the original game, and a fine take on the Metroid series, but it's ultimately easy to tell that this was made by one person, however impressive that work may be.

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 generally do not play hacks or fangames, but I made an exception for this. Really the only thing that holds this back from being as good as Zero Mission for me is a few aesthetic things like the higher-level Metroids being a bit too detailed compared to other assets. This is leagues better than the official Return of Samus on 3DS, which I have a pretty strong dislike for. I can't stand how much that game really wants to make Samus a flashy badass action game hero as opposed to the the traditional, more subdued style of previous Metroid games.