This one feels like a game I should have played so long ago. I mean, I'd like to say I'm a fan of the Metroid games and I've been aware of Fusion since it first came out so I really don't have any excuses for waiting over 20 years before I finally played through it. Honestly, having now played it I sort of regret having waited for so long. Not because Fusion is this incredible game, but because later games sort of just improved upon most of its USPs, and I unfortunately played those before this.
Metroid Fusion is certainly a good game, definitely above average, but it also feels stuck between two different schools of Metroid; the more exploratory of the past, and the more action focused of the future, and while it does both fairly well, it feels very much like a first experiment in trying to move the series beyond Super Metroid's large shadow and lacks the refinement of something like a Dread that feels so much more confident in what it wants to be.
But I really do like Metroid Fusion! It looks great and has a killer atmosphere and soundtrack that feel more horror than anything the series has ever done before or after. The space station is a fun locale that offers mostly familiar, but slightly different habitats for Samus to traverse through, and the linearity of the game lets the developers really change up locations for revisits to show how everything is just falling apart more and more as the X Parasites keep multiplying and replicating monsters. The Metroids, as dangerous as they could be, never really seemed to pose much of a threat to anything other than Samus, but I really buy these new creatures as a threat to everything and everyone they come close to, despite them looking like some sort of candy.
Samus hunted creatures before, but now she's the one being hunted, which is really felt throughout the game not only because the X's aforementioned station demolishing, but also because she's so weak in Fusion, which is a good thing. It can definitely be annoying how much damage enemies will do throughout the entire game, but it really sells how Samus has been severely weakened by her Power Suit being removed from her, and having to sort of re-learn how to be Samus Aran over the course of the game. It's not exactly survival horror, but creates some tension with every new enemy since it takes so little to die. In previous Metroid games, you could plow through a lot of enemies and not really care too much about how much damage they do for quite a while, so this is completely different from what either we or Samus are used to, and I really appreciate how the gameplay puts us in her shoes in a way. I guess there's also some kind of irony in Samus now being hunted ("hunted." It really doesn't show up more than a handful of times throughout the game and those sequences are very scripted) by SA-X, the parasite that copied her at her strongest so now she gets a taste of her own medicine.
At the same time, I feel like Fusion plays a bit too much like an old Metroid for all of it to really work. There is something quite loose about how older games in the series feel, and I personally would have preferred something a bit heavier for Samus here since the game is so much about combat and being careful of what's ahead. The combat in, for example, Super Metroid was always that game's biggest flaw, being a bit too flimsy for my tastes and making a lot of boss fights just feel like spamming missiles before they can kill you, but that game was more about exploration and bosses were more of a "you're going the right way!" than anything else, and fairly rare occurrences, while enemies were mostly very weak and just there to give some friction here and there.
Fusion is a very linear game with barely any exploration, with a lot of boss fights, a lot of mandatory combat with regular enemies, and I just feel like for what it is, it sticks too close to Super Metroid. With this much fighting, the combat really needed to have felt better than this Super Metroid tier that it sits at. I mean, this game has so many boss fights, and most of them just amount to shooting about a million missiles at them since they all have either way too much health or are invulnerable a good while before exposing their weak point for a second. These fights are not interesting, they're not particularly hard (I think my only death in the game came against Ridley), and for a game that is so focused on Samus being told "go fight this thing" over and over again, I wouldn't have minded if they were given more interesting patterns, less HP but doing more damage. Fights that stand out in my memory for more reasons than "wow, that sure took a while." You know, like the amazing boss fights of Metroid Dread.
I don't really mind the linearity of Fusion all that much, though. It doesn't make for the most stimulating experience at all times and traversal can be a bit annoying since there are Naughty Dog levels of "oh shit, guess this path is closed down/destroyed, better take an even longer route there" at times, but like I said before, the game is very good at creating a sense of tension and despite me always knowing where the room I'm supposed to get to is, the way there isn't always as obvious as one might think. This does unfortunately result in a lot of invisible walls during the second half of the game which is a bit annoying, but the level design as a whole feels much more fair than previous games could at times be, without completely letting go of the series staple of just shooting wildly at blocks and hoping one of them will blow up and lead you down a new path.
I don't know where I would put Metroid Fusion in a ranking of the 2D games (probably above Samus Returns, but below Super Metroid), but despite my issues with some of its aspects, I did enjoy my very short time with it. It's not some fantastic game that I'll always cherish or probably even the best Metroid on the GBA, but it certainly does a lot of interesting things and does those things very well. It's just let down by some of its gameplay and not being able to let go of the past while trying to step into the future, which creates kind of a funky experience that I wish I could have enjoyed just a bit more than I do.
Metroid Fusion is certainly a good game, definitely above average, but it also feels stuck between two different schools of Metroid; the more exploratory of the past, and the more action focused of the future, and while it does both fairly well, it feels very much like a first experiment in trying to move the series beyond Super Metroid's large shadow and lacks the refinement of something like a Dread that feels so much more confident in what it wants to be.
But I really do like Metroid Fusion! It looks great and has a killer atmosphere and soundtrack that feel more horror than anything the series has ever done before or after. The space station is a fun locale that offers mostly familiar, but slightly different habitats for Samus to traverse through, and the linearity of the game lets the developers really change up locations for revisits to show how everything is just falling apart more and more as the X Parasites keep multiplying and replicating monsters. The Metroids, as dangerous as they could be, never really seemed to pose much of a threat to anything other than Samus, but I really buy these new creatures as a threat to everything and everyone they come close to, despite them looking like some sort of candy.
Samus hunted creatures before, but now she's the one being hunted, which is really felt throughout the game not only because the X's aforementioned station demolishing, but also because she's so weak in Fusion, which is a good thing. It can definitely be annoying how much damage enemies will do throughout the entire game, but it really sells how Samus has been severely weakened by her Power Suit being removed from her, and having to sort of re-learn how to be Samus Aran over the course of the game. It's not exactly survival horror, but creates some tension with every new enemy since it takes so little to die. In previous Metroid games, you could plow through a lot of enemies and not really care too much about how much damage they do for quite a while, so this is completely different from what either we or Samus are used to, and I really appreciate how the gameplay puts us in her shoes in a way. I guess there's also some kind of irony in Samus now being hunted ("hunted." It really doesn't show up more than a handful of times throughout the game and those sequences are very scripted) by SA-X, the parasite that copied her at her strongest so now she gets a taste of her own medicine.
At the same time, I feel like Fusion plays a bit too much like an old Metroid for all of it to really work. There is something quite loose about how older games in the series feel, and I personally would have preferred something a bit heavier for Samus here since the game is so much about combat and being careful of what's ahead. The combat in, for example, Super Metroid was always that game's biggest flaw, being a bit too flimsy for my tastes and making a lot of boss fights just feel like spamming missiles before they can kill you, but that game was more about exploration and bosses were more of a "you're going the right way!" than anything else, and fairly rare occurrences, while enemies were mostly very weak and just there to give some friction here and there.
Fusion is a very linear game with barely any exploration, with a lot of boss fights, a lot of mandatory combat with regular enemies, and I just feel like for what it is, it sticks too close to Super Metroid. With this much fighting, the combat really needed to have felt better than this Super Metroid tier that it sits at. I mean, this game has so many boss fights, and most of them just amount to shooting about a million missiles at them since they all have either way too much health or are invulnerable a good while before exposing their weak point for a second. These fights are not interesting, they're not particularly hard (I think my only death in the game came against Ridley), and for a game that is so focused on Samus being told "go fight this thing" over and over again, I wouldn't have minded if they were given more interesting patterns, less HP but doing more damage. Fights that stand out in my memory for more reasons than "wow, that sure took a while." You know, like the amazing boss fights of Metroid Dread.
I don't really mind the linearity of Fusion all that much, though. It doesn't make for the most stimulating experience at all times and traversal can be a bit annoying since there are Naughty Dog levels of "oh shit, guess this path is closed down/destroyed, better take an even longer route there" at times, but like I said before, the game is very good at creating a sense of tension and despite me always knowing where the room I'm supposed to get to is, the way there isn't always as obvious as one might think. This does unfortunately result in a lot of invisible walls during the second half of the game which is a bit annoying, but the level design as a whole feels much more fair than previous games could at times be, without completely letting go of the series staple of just shooting wildly at blocks and hoping one of them will blow up and lead you down a new path.
I don't know where I would put Metroid Fusion in a ranking of the 2D games (probably above Samus Returns, but below Super Metroid), but despite my issues with some of its aspects, I did enjoy my very short time with it. It's not some fantastic game that I'll always cherish or probably even the best Metroid on the GBA, but it certainly does a lot of interesting things and does those things very well. It's just let down by some of its gameplay and not being able to let go of the past while trying to step into the future, which creates kind of a funky experience that I wish I could have enjoyed just a bit more than I do.