Although I was aware of Metroid: Other M being the one main entry in the franchise that people straight-up hate, I didn't know just how polarizing Metroid Fusion was within the fanbase until I beat Super Metroid last month. Because it didn't have the highly influential and acclaimed status of its predecessor, I got very curious to see what it was about Metroid Fusion that made a sort of black sheep within the series, and seeing people compare it to a horror game only made me more eager to give the game a go. Even with my somewhat positive expectations going into it, I really wasn't expecting to love Metroid Fusion as much as I did, and while it does deviate from the formula in a number of areas and even straight up misses the mark in others, I'd still consider this to be my favorite Metroid game by far. Whenever I'd see people criticize Metroid Fusion, there's a good chance that they'd throw the word "linearity" around a lot (even if you could argue that the other Metroid games were technically linear to begin with), and while it is easily the most straightforward game in the series so far, I'd say that this choice worked for what the game was trying to accomplish.
Metroid Fusion adopts an almost mission-based approach to its levels rather than having you explore an open-ended area at your own pace, but since this game also has a much stronger emphasis on its narrative, these two elements ended up meshing together in a very interesting way. The shift towards forcing Samus Aran to take orders not only works in having some of the plot's events feel more unsettling, but it also makes for an integral part of her character arc with how she tries to make sense of this enigmatic mission, and the game ends up having some genuinely compelling things to say about what it means to be human and our own relationship with technology. Samus herself felt the best to control here, as her movement speed felt significantly faster and snappier, and the levels themselves actually favored her vertical jumps over her horizontal ones, which made platforming significantly less frustrating here than it did in both the original Metroid and in Super Metroid. Even with the increased dialogue, character interactions, and cutscenes in the form of gorgeous sprite art, the sense of isolation and powerlessness was much more prevalent here in Metroid Fusion, as the enemies and environments got significantly creepier in both their designs and uses of environmental storytelling, and the lack of control that you have over your objectives and even what powerups you get access to made me feel genuinely anxious to see what new monstrosity will try to attack me whenever I got access to a new door or path. I also really liked the use of the X parasites in terms of both gameplay and narrative, as having them replace the usual random health and ammo pickups made refilling them much more consistent and reliable (as well as making for some interesting platforming challenges by having an X turn from one enemy into another), and having the game lean towards body horror by having these highly intelligent parasites not only take over the body of its host, but also alter its genetic makeup was both fascinating and unnerving. The integration of the SA-X was a stroke of genius to me, as the moments were you had to hide and run away from this overpowered killing machine were some of the most tense scenes in the entire series.
As much as I loved Metroid Fusion, I will not act like it's a perfect game, as it featured some questionable design choices while also retaining old ones that I wasn't a fan of to begin with. For some reason, you have to defeat a Core-X after every single boss fight, and while the fight itself isn't difficult (especially towards the late game), this gets old after the second boss and only feels more unnecessary as the game progresses. Speaking of which, I liked how much faster and more chaotic the boss fights were, but the bosses often had hitboxes that were almost as big as the rooms where the battles took place, and that made avoiding them and trying to get to their weak spot boil down to luck rather than strategic positioning, and it made the fights against Nightmare and Ridley especially annoying. Thankfully, Metroid Fusion has much less backtracking than the other Metroid games I've played, but it still retained a lot of the cryptic "blow up a random block" progression that felt outdated by the time Super Metroid came out, and the lack of an X-Ray Scope made that issue just that much more annoying to deal with. Even with these flaws, I still had an absolute blast with Metroid Fusion, and while I do want to play the other 2D Metroid games by eventually giving Metroid: Samus Returns and Metroid Dread a go, I want to play through the Metroid Prime trilogy first and see what they're all about.
Metroid Fusion adopts an almost mission-based approach to its levels rather than having you explore an open-ended area at your own pace, but since this game also has a much stronger emphasis on its narrative, these two elements ended up meshing together in a very interesting way. The shift towards forcing Samus Aran to take orders not only works in having some of the plot's events feel more unsettling, but it also makes for an integral part of her character arc with how she tries to make sense of this enigmatic mission, and the game ends up having some genuinely compelling things to say about what it means to be human and our own relationship with technology. Samus herself felt the best to control here, as her movement speed felt significantly faster and snappier, and the levels themselves actually favored her vertical jumps over her horizontal ones, which made platforming significantly less frustrating here than it did in both the original Metroid and in Super Metroid. Even with the increased dialogue, character interactions, and cutscenes in the form of gorgeous sprite art, the sense of isolation and powerlessness was much more prevalent here in Metroid Fusion, as the enemies and environments got significantly creepier in both their designs and uses of environmental storytelling, and the lack of control that you have over your objectives and even what powerups you get access to made me feel genuinely anxious to see what new monstrosity will try to attack me whenever I got access to a new door or path. I also really liked the use of the X parasites in terms of both gameplay and narrative, as having them replace the usual random health and ammo pickups made refilling them much more consistent and reliable (as well as making for some interesting platforming challenges by having an X turn from one enemy into another), and having the game lean towards body horror by having these highly intelligent parasites not only take over the body of its host, but also alter its genetic makeup was both fascinating and unnerving. The integration of the SA-X was a stroke of genius to me, as the moments were you had to hide and run away from this overpowered killing machine were some of the most tense scenes in the entire series.
As much as I loved Metroid Fusion, I will not act like it's a perfect game, as it featured some questionable design choices while also retaining old ones that I wasn't a fan of to begin with. For some reason, you have to defeat a Core-X after every single boss fight, and while the fight itself isn't difficult (especially towards the late game), this gets old after the second boss and only feels more unnecessary as the game progresses. Speaking of which, I liked how much faster and more chaotic the boss fights were, but the bosses often had hitboxes that were almost as big as the rooms where the battles took place, and that made avoiding them and trying to get to their weak spot boil down to luck rather than strategic positioning, and it made the fights against Nightmare and Ridley especially annoying. Thankfully, Metroid Fusion has much less backtracking than the other Metroid games I've played, but it still retained a lot of the cryptic "blow up a random block" progression that felt outdated by the time Super Metroid came out, and the lack of an X-Ray Scope made that issue just that much more annoying to deal with. Even with these flaws, I still had an absolute blast with Metroid Fusion, and while I do want to play the other 2D Metroid games by eventually giving Metroid: Samus Returns and Metroid Dread a go, I want to play through the Metroid Prime trilogy first and see what they're all about.