STARING AT DEATH, I TAKE A BREATH, THERE'S NOTHING LEFT
NOW CLOSE MY EYES, FOR ONE LAST TIME, AND SAY GOODBYE
LYING NAKED WHILE THE SNOW FALLS ALL AROUND ME
DRIFTING CLOSER TO THE EDGE BUT SHE WON'T HAVE ME
WAKE UP IN SWEAT, FULL OF REGRET, TRY TO FORGET
THESE MEMORIES, LURKING BENEATH, LOST IN A DREAM
UNCHOSEN PATHS, A BROKEN PAST, FORESPOKEN WRATH
THE PAIN WON'T CEASE, I'LL FIND NO PEACE, NO SWEET RELEASE
FRAGILE CREATURES, WE ARE TAUGHT TO FEAR THE REAPER
EVER RUNNING, WE ARE DEAD BEFORE WE MEET HER
THESE VOICES TELLING ME LET IT GO (LET IT ALL GO)
I TRY AND TRY BUT I CAN'T SAY NO (TRY AND SAY NO)
THIS ENDLESS NIGHTMARE HAS JUST BEGUN (NOWHERE TO RUN)
MY HEART IS DRAGGING ME DOWN INTO OBLIVION
THE ENDLESS LIES, I'VE CAST ASIDE, LOCKED THEM IN ICE
STEELED IS MY SOUL, MY BLOOD GROWN COLD, I'VE GAINED CONTROL
FEARLESS CREATURES, WE ALL LEARN TO FIGHT THE REAPER
CAN'T DEFEAT HER, SO INSTEAD I'LL HAVE TO BE HER
THESE VOICES SCREAMING TO LET IT GO (NEVER LET GO)
THIS TIME I'M SCREAMING BACK NO NO NO (GO ON SAY NO)
MY MIND'S MADE UP, YEAH MY FEAR IS GONE (WHERE HAVE YOU GONE?)
OPEN MY EYES NOW HERE I COME, OBLIVION
FOR THE LAST TIME (I WON'T SAY GOODBYE)
FOR THE LAST TIME (I WON'T SAY GOODBYE)
FOR THE LAST TIME (I WON'T SAY GOODBYE)
FOR THE LAST TIME

JONATHAN
CHARLOTTE
JONATHAN
CHARLOTTE
JONATHAN
CHARLOTTE
JONATHAN
CHARLOTTE

Anyway, with that out of the way, Portrait of Ruin is goated

A lot of people love the shit out of Mega Man 2 and say it's some kind of massive improvement to the first, it's true to an extent but at the same time it's full of so much nonsense that I really don't think it's that much better. I played the Famicom version because I didn't feel like getting insulted by the "normal mode" that's easy mode in disguise.

I seriously think they designed this game around Metal Blade, they give you such a massive ammo capacity for it and throw so much shit coming at you from odd angles that it feels like you need to use it especially since you don't have a slide yet to give you more mobility. I'm really not sure how to feel about it being so OP, it's bad to unbalance weapons to this degree and again it feels like the stage design actively encourages it's use sometimes. It's fun, but still.

I guess their answer to that was to make the Sniper Armors immune to it. By the way, remember the Big Eyes from the last game? Thought they were terrible? Well get a load of the fucking Sniper Armors in this game who take it's place. Now you get all the absurd tankiness and collision damage of Big Eye combined with a ranged attack and the ability to drop a Sniper Joe upon defeat. These guys are complete horse shit for one reason, because of this game's still hideous respawn rate. I absolutely guarantee that there will be a time where you back away to kill one of these chicken walker assholes only to have another respawn right behind the Joe that the last one dropped. It's fucking despicable. It makes Wily Stage 4 even more of a horrendous dumpster fire in the event you're left to farm these guys before the fucking trash heap Boobeam Trap fight that demands Crash Bombs.

I seriously cannot fathom the sheer stupidity of Wily Stage 4 and Boobeam Trap, it's so horrendous and leaves such a bad taste in my mouth even after beating the game that it makes me forget this game's high points prior to it. It's such a goddamn shame, made even worse by me using a pause trick to avoid the Boobeam bullets.

And Wily Stage 4 really isn't the only bad stage in the game either. I seriously cannot even begin to care about Quick Man and Heat Man's stage's ability to lock the player out of beating them without either obtaining Time Stopper/Item-2 or pure memorization and trial-and-error. Ice Man did it too kinda in the last game, but at least there was solid ground underneath the disappearing blocks in his stage.

Back on the topic of the Wily Stages, I really wanna meet the person who came up with the Mecha Dragon fight. I really do. I wanna shake their hand and then rip off their arm and beat them with it. Not only can this oversized dipshit instantly kill you with very little warning upon entering the autoscroller section, but he flashes every time you hit him. At least Mystery of Convoy had the common courtesy to wait until I actually killed the boss before assaulting my eyes, but here they decided it was pure comedy to let the Mecha Dragon throw visual cheap shots at me during the fight to go along with the massive amounts of lag this fucker produces. It takes a serious amount of work to one up the Yellow Devil from the last game, but at least I can still kill this guy without a glitch or wasting minutes of my time. By the way shout outs to the Doki Doki Panic-esque waterfalls in Bubble Man's stage.

Don't get me wrong, MM2 improves upon the first but the low points of this game are so damn bad that I struggle to rate it higher than the original game. I feel like the easy mode that we ended up getting helped people like it more probably. It's a shame cause something like that should've been in the later games albeit with less "lol westerners suck" reasoning behind it, but when something's fucked up, something's fuck up. I will go to my fucking grave shouting "Wily Stage 4 Boobeam Trap" at every person who decrees this game the best.

Favorite Enemy Name: Fly Boy, though "Robbit" obviously being a nod to future PS1 classic Jumping Flash is pretty close.
Favorite Music: Crash Man

A very easy contender for my GOTY. It was an absolute blast all the way through and extremely hard to put down. One of those games that I really want to learn the speedrun for just because it's so good.

I didn't seem to have as hard of a time with it as a lot of people apparently were, but there were some difficulty spikes here and there. Some of the recurring mid-bosses gave me the most trouble, but didn't hamper my enjoyment at all. The E.M.M.I. were great; while I didn't find them frightening or scary at all, they added a lot of tension every time I had to enter one of their patrol areas (also the blue EMMI was bullshit, throw that one in the trash).

I think the only real complaint I have with this game is the complete absence of accessibility options. You can't change the controls or even audio at all - the "options" menu just shows some trivial things and a controller map. This is something Nintendo is terrible with in most of their games and an issue I continue to wish they would address.

Overall though, Metroid's first new game in over a decade was a triumphant return to claim the throne of the genre. Like my other 5 star reviews, it's still not a perfect game, but it doesn't fall far from that bar. Super happy to say that Metroid is back, and I hope it finally gets the love it deserves. I'm over the moon.