This game surprised me! I think you need to sit with Fusion for a while to like what the game has to offer. It's a very different take on Metroid, with Samus fragile and having to claw her way through encounters that would be trivial in almost any other game (start of NES Metroid notwithstanding). But it makes for a very natural pivot into survival horror, with the SA-X having perhaps the strongest presence of any Metroid enemy to date, between its actual encounters and the various run-ins with its destruction. Exposition and retrospection also feel very natural from Samus, paced out and varied across the different sectors. I like how the game presents itself in an obvious linear fashion, then proceeds to subvert that linearity (at least a little).

The "point of no return" is a bit abrupt, and digging for 100% completion doesn't seem like a great time. Not big concerns for a casual run, though.