Once you get past the fact that this game is... not a very good sequel to the first AITSF, it still has the same strengths at its core. The characters are extremely entertaining, the dialogue is funny, and of course the mystery part is always thrilling. AINI takes its concepts further than the first game at the cost of, at least for me, being a whole lot more difficult to follow as well, but once it finally clicks it goes BALLISTIC. I still prefer the first AITSF for being an overall more digestible narrative but considering I have both at 5 stars it's not by a significant margin.

I struggle to think as to why there was a period of time people hated this game, considering just how good in general this is in most aspects.
This is easily the Metroid game with the best atmosphere and its not even close, thanks to the music, area design and the like, absolutely insane how they pulled it.
While the sub bosses are a crime against nature, the main ones are incredible, and Quadraxis in particular is on a league of its own for boss fights, genuinely insane.
Its not better than Prime 1, but personally I can count the games that are with only 1 hand, and this is more than a worth follow up to that game, which is all that it needed to be.
Absolutely phenomenal experience.

I see this as FromSoftware's Greatest Hits game. It's every Soulsborne rolled into a single work.

...which is also precisely why for me, it's the most decidedly flawed work they have done in this series of games. So many different design ideas pulled from every past game worked into one core game and so much of that ends up in conflict with itself. The general design philosophy that FromSoftware is known for and then breaking open into an open-world game is itself in conflict with how they design levels and their encounters.

It's the same issue I have with the new God of War games but I still think Elden Ring manages its goal a far bit better overall and the experience outweighs the issues overall that I have. It's in equal measure a game of breathtaking experiences moment to moment; frustrating and messy and bloated in others.

This game fucks.
Pretty intuitive for exploration except for one part.
The chozo statues telling you where to go helps a ton for my linearity and easy to get lost brain, while not detracting from the exploration sense, adding power ups like the speed boost to it and making it fit so well with the level design is awesome.
While bosses are a thing that shall not be mentioned, the rest of it is so good, and the OST also is very good.
Slightly prefer Fusion, but omg, this game's so awesome.