This is the very first Metroid game I've played. For the majority of my life, I always just kinda wondered how Metroid really is, I never got into it because I felt a bit overwhelmed by the mere fact of getting lost somewhere in the map, or the game taking a long time to finish thus never coming back to it, but as I started playing all of those worries that have been piled up for years just kind of vanished.
Metroid: Zero Mission is a fantastic game, and even better re-imagining of the original. Adding countless details and quality of life features to an adventurer platformer in the NES that didn't even feature a map back in the day. It truly is a hard hitter to beginners of the franchise such as myself, and for a Game Boy Advance game it has superb visuals and a great atmosphere, not to mention the controls are responsive and smooth (but has its limits due to the console only have two face buttons) and it even added lore tidbits here and there with a whole new sequence at the very end, that while some people might dislike I found to be interesting and challenging enough to keep me going.
Although this is a great game, it's not without its faults. Coming from the original design philosophy, they did a great job putting everything together so when you're dropped off you're not lost instantly once you step into Zebes, you find the very first Chozo Statues and you start unlocking basic abilities, and it's all fun until you reach Kraid and having opened any hatch you could you're just left wondering aimlessly through the rooms not knowing where to go until you notice this one, singular tile that has a crack in it, that you have to bomb in order to continue on and find new rooms. And that honestly just felt kinda dumb and I personally would've liked if they did more emphasis on those from time to time but I can excuse it.
But what I can't really excuse is giving the player the language that acid = bad, only for some paths to be only accessible through fake acid that magically disappears once you step in it, that and the fact that there's actually some rooms that have things hidden in there that are actual acid and thus will damage you heavily. A minor detail but still, kinda wish they didn't do all of that in order to give the player a few laps until they actually knew what to do. Another complaint would be the bosses sometimes feeling a bit unfair due to the GBA's limited control scheme but that's a weird hybrid between a hardware limitation and just getting better at the game so I really wouldn't know.
Fun game, excited to get deeper into the franchise now.
Metroid: Zero Mission is a fantastic game, and even better re-imagining of the original. Adding countless details and quality of life features to an adventurer platformer in the NES that didn't even feature a map back in the day. It truly is a hard hitter to beginners of the franchise such as myself, and for a Game Boy Advance game it has superb visuals and a great atmosphere, not to mention the controls are responsive and smooth (but has its limits due to the console only have two face buttons) and it even added lore tidbits here and there with a whole new sequence at the very end, that while some people might dislike I found to be interesting and challenging enough to keep me going.
Although this is a great game, it's not without its faults. Coming from the original design philosophy, they did a great job putting everything together so when you're dropped off you're not lost instantly once you step into Zebes, you find the very first Chozo Statues and you start unlocking basic abilities, and it's all fun until you reach Kraid and having opened any hatch you could you're just left wondering aimlessly through the rooms not knowing where to go until you notice this one, singular tile that has a crack in it, that you have to bomb in order to continue on and find new rooms. And that honestly just felt kinda dumb and I personally would've liked if they did more emphasis on those from time to time but I can excuse it.
But what I can't really excuse is giving the player the language that acid = bad, only for some paths to be only accessible through fake acid that magically disappears once you step in it, that and the fact that there's actually some rooms that have things hidden in there that are actual acid and thus will damage you heavily. A minor detail but still, kinda wish they didn't do all of that in order to give the player a few laps until they actually knew what to do. Another complaint would be the bosses sometimes feeling a bit unfair due to the GBA's limited control scheme but that's a weird hybrid between a hardware limitation and just getting better at the game so I really wouldn't know.
Fun game, excited to get deeper into the franchise now.