I just finished my second playthrough of this game, which has been coming for a while, and ohhh man. I appreciated it so much more. I used a romhack that makes it control like the GBA games, but I honestly feel it didn't improve my experience to that large of a degree, plus it was still somewhat floaty.
Up to Lower Norfair, I was actually very low on power-ups (while in my first playthrough, I got a serviceable 60 something percent). Maybe like 5 energy tanks. But things were manageable. Then Ridley kicked my ass. I went back to the previous areas, fully powered up, and was honestly amazed by how fun it was just to plow through it all with my upgrades and figure out where things were. I wasn't even planning to get as much as I did. I didn't 100% it, but I got all the Energy Tanks, reaching like 85%. I always imagined that you needed to get things as you went along in order to not make the ending a pain to complete. But I had no issue. Either works.
The other thing I appreciated was the world design and openness, dare I say unmatched by any other Metroid game or otherwise Metroidvania that I've played. For a while, I messed around in Maridia without even having the Grapple Beam or Gravity Suit. I had to wall jump to make my way through (still suck at bomb jumping, though), and I ended exploring much of it. There are speedrunners who skip the Grapple Beam entirely. There are speedrunners who beat the 4 main bosses in reverse order. And Hell, I've only scratched the surface of what I could do; I didn't sequence break very meaningful power-ups for the most part. Because of all of its free design, the game lends itself to multiple playthroughs very well. Some day, I'm gonna have to beat Ridley with less health.
I want to try Randomizers of this game. I want to replay it more. I want to master it. I would even like to speedrun it. There are tons of reasons to appreciate and love this game, and I am very truly glad that I have found them for myself. I need to replay the others too and let this one sink to decide on my favourite and how I would rank them.
Up to Lower Norfair, I was actually very low on power-ups (while in my first playthrough, I got a serviceable 60 something percent). Maybe like 5 energy tanks. But things were manageable. Then Ridley kicked my ass. I went back to the previous areas, fully powered up, and was honestly amazed by how fun it was just to plow through it all with my upgrades and figure out where things were. I wasn't even planning to get as much as I did. I didn't 100% it, but I got all the Energy Tanks, reaching like 85%. I always imagined that you needed to get things as you went along in order to not make the ending a pain to complete. But I had no issue. Either works.
The other thing I appreciated was the world design and openness, dare I say unmatched by any other Metroid game or otherwise Metroidvania that I've played. For a while, I messed around in Maridia without even having the Grapple Beam or Gravity Suit. I had to wall jump to make my way through (still suck at bomb jumping, though), and I ended exploring much of it. There are speedrunners who skip the Grapple Beam entirely. There are speedrunners who beat the 4 main bosses in reverse order. And Hell, I've only scratched the surface of what I could do; I didn't sequence break very meaningful power-ups for the most part. Because of all of its free design, the game lends itself to multiple playthroughs very well. Some day, I'm gonna have to beat Ridley with less health.
I want to try Randomizers of this game. I want to replay it more. I want to master it. I would even like to speedrun it. There are tons of reasons to appreciate and love this game, and I am very truly glad that I have found them for myself. I need to replay the others too and let this one sink to decide on my favourite and how I would rank them.