This is the first time I actually dropped a game of my own fruition

I want to like this game, I really do. I enjoyed the first game and was excited to get into the sequel. While I was optimistic for the first 2 hours, the next 5 were just filled with apathy and indifference. I really do want to continue and find out what happens next in the story, but I just don’t care about it anymore.

The combat is definitely more layered and complicated than the previous game and I do actually like the gameplay quite a bit. My problem with the gameplay is a combination of 3 things: complexity, pacing and exp distribution. Individually, these things wouldn’t be a problem, but because all 3 of these things are an issue simultaneously, it becomes a major issue for me. I like the increased complexity, and I don’t mind the slower paced combat or the splitting of exp among party members…but…there are times in this game where I had to grind. The increased complexity led to a much slower paced game, plus, if you got 1000 exp, it would split that 4-ways to 250 exp each. It takes ages to level up. Because of this, I got annoyed and bored really quickly.

Now…I’m not sure if I missed an area or anything like that, but there were a few times where I was suddenly going up against mooks that were way more powerful than anything I was previously going up against. To put this into perspective, I went from doing roughly 80-90 damage to about 20-30, and on some characters, I’m doing less than 10 damage. Honestly, was I missing something?

If my issue wasn’t necessarily my levels, but equipment, that just means I needed to grind for money and items to sell…which also takes a bit of time. Speaking of equipment, the way you get skills in this game is pretty dumb if you ask me. If you played something like Final Fantasy 9, think of that, but more convoluted; you need to equip certain pieces of equipment and then do a bunch of killing to get those skills. In FF9, you just needed to equip one piece and then do a bunch of quick killing and you got your skill or spell. In Valkyrie Profile 2, not only do you need to make sure that the correct runes in your equipment slots are placed next to each other, but you also need to make sure it’s the correct color as well, making you fiddle with your inventory way more than you should.

The short version is this: If you want any of the good stuff, or if you want to get anywhere in this game, you need to do some serious (and tedious) slow-paced grinding. Unnecessary complexity is what killed my enjoyment of this game.

Just because something is more complex doesn’t make it better.

No. I’m not even gonna waste my time giving a 5 page thesis about this game.

Here’s the short version: “Crap story. Dropped sub-plots. Forgettable characters. Lifeless voice acting from Samus. Retroactively hurts Fusion. Gameplay has a lot of potential, but came out with lackluster execution. You’re moving in a 3D space with a D-pad (wrap your head around that for a sec). Getting power ups is retarded in this game. No Metroid soul. No real sense of exploration. Even more linear than Fusion. Dodge roll + Charge Beam = OP. Looks and sounds great. Worst soundtrack in the entire franchise.”

I’m not mad; I’m disappointed.

With the release of the Nintendo Wii and with how Prime 2 took the standard Prime gameplay and pushed it to its limits, this was the perfect opportunity for the 3rd Prime game to be even better while also improving on certain aspects from Prime 2. To those who have played the game, you probably understand to a certain extent that Prime 3 represents “The Price of Accessibility.” Whether or not the accessibility ends up being a net positive or a net negative or neutral depends on you and you alone.

For me, I still had a fun time with this game, but I enjoyed playing Prime 2 more. The changes Prime 3 brought to the table for the most part ended up being a net neutral for me.

To start…somewhere, the game is pretty damn easy, and there are multiple reasons for that. Hyper Mode, the ease of finding energy tanks, Hyper Mode, enemies being less intelligent and annoying than previously on top of getting a damage nerf between Prime 2 and Prime 3, Hyper Mode, the higher emphasis on shooting things and Hyper Mode.

I might be crazy, but I found it super easy to find energy tanks throughout the game. I think there were about 2 or 3 I really had to go out of my way and actually search for, unlike the first two Prime games where there was more of a balance between ones you found along the way and ones you had to search for. On top of that, the enemies are nowhere near as hard to deal with as the enemies from Prime 2 with the sole exception being the enemies who enter Hyper Mode (more on that later). Since that really doesn’t happen often, they might as well be non-existent. Even the non-Hyper Mode enemies don’t deal that much damage to Samus and I’m guessing that’s to accommodate the higher emphasis on shooting on top of getting no suit upgrades for the entire game. I don’t think it really works because of the existence of Hyper Mode.

Ok…so Hyper Mode…is the absolute reason this game is pathetically easy. What Hyper Mode does is dramatically increase your firepower on top of making you invincible for a short period of time. If you stay in Hyper Mode too long, you end up dying from corruption, but that can easily be circumvented by just shooting the phazon out of you. Bosses? Just use Hyper Mode. Mooks that can take a hit? Hyper Mode? The last few bosses of the game. Maybe you use X-ray Visor…and then use Hyper Mode. I tried my best to not abuse Hyper Mode, but because enemies themselves could also use Hyper Mode, you are essentially forced to use Hyper Mode yourself if you want to get it over with quickly. It’s almost as if Hyper Mode was some kind of last second inclusion for the sake of accessibility.

To continue, the worlds you explore are nowhere near as interesting or exciting at Tallon IV or Aether. Norion is…the prologue/tutorial planet, so it’s not big in the slightest. Bryyo is too segmented for my liking until you get the grapple hook for your ship about ⅔ into the game, but by that time, you’re likely never visiting that planet again. Elysia is the most aesthetically and visually pleasing planet to look at, but actually traveling through that place can get really tiring and tedious really fast with the amount of back and forth you have to do. The Space Pirate Homeworld is mainly a bunch of shooting with some stealth sequences here and there.

This is probably the easiest game in the entire franchise to 100% and that is not an exaggeration. On Elysia (I think), there is some kind of machine or something like that which shows you where all the collectables are on every planet…which makes getting 100% incredibly easy. The Energy Cells (this game’s Chozo Artifacts/Sky Temple Keys) are needed as usual, but you only need 5 out of the 9 in order to get to the end of the game. I have no idea why it took them until the 3rd game to do this, but I’m glad I don’t have to meticulously hunt through every single room on a planet just to get to the end of the game.

Yeah. I’m out of ideas this time. The game itself is solid and fun, but a large portion of that “Metroid feel” was missing the further I got into the game. On top of the missed opportunities involving the ok story, underdeveloped characters and somewhat interesting lore (that I stopped reading about 3 hours into my playthrough), this game is extremely easy thanks to Hyper Mode, the straightforward nature of exploration and easy puzzles, Hyper Mode, a perpetual hint system you can never turn off, Hyper Mode, you yourself being more powerful from the start and Hyper Mode. Despite all of this, I really enjoyed my time here because…you know…Metroid.

I’m kinda outta gas chief. The short version is, “The game is really easy and therefore, easy to get into for those who haven’t played Metroid yet. For veterans, you may or may not like this compared to the previous 2 games.”

When the game you’re following up is Prime 1, how do you go about creating a worthy sequel? Not only do you have to make a worthy follow-up to one of the most praised and critically acclaimed games of all time, but you also have to make sure that it's able to have its own identity compared to the game preceding it. This sounds very familiar, right? I’m not crazy, right? This sounds like the same position Metroid Fusion was in with that game following up on Super Metroid as the next 2D game. While Prime 2 doesn’t make radical changes on the level of Fusion, it does enough to have its own identity compared to the other Metroid games.

So here’s what I think about Prime 2. While I think this is more than a worthy follow-up to Prime 1, I didn’t find the adventure as enjoyable as Prime 1.

The world itself, while more streamlined, cohesive and less backtrack-heavy compared to the previous game, feels more…boring. Other than the Sanctuary Fortress, the other 3 areas feel like 5 shades of the same color which makes these areas blend in with one another. I was pulling up that map like a crack addict with a 5-second memory; I had a hard time remembering the layout of this game compared to Prime 1. I couldn’t remember which rooms lead to where and whether or not I even needed to go this way. I know I played Prime 1 way more than Prime 2, but I found the map layout more interesting and easy to keep in my head, even during my first playthrough.

I didn’t know exactly how to fit this in here, but there’s actually some things about the difficulty of this game that I’m not really the biggest fan of. The spacing of save points, to start off, felt a bit far apart, especially when you get to the Sanctuary Fortress. If you die (more like when you die), then you’ll have to make a tedious trek back to the place you were just at just to get another shot at it (a la Dark Souls). Not only that, the bosses at basically every point in the game hits pretty damn hard; even worse with the fights that take place in the Dark world because of the atmosphere constantly draining your health. They don’t hit obnoxiously hard (like 60-100 units of energy), but it is very possible that you can get hit for 20-30 units of health multiple times in the span of 2 seconds. Do not be surprised if you die to a number of bosses during your first playthrough. I myself wiped to the Boost Guardian twice during my 2nd playthrough of this game (mainly because I sucked at the fight).

Those 2 things individually are something I can deal with, but when they’re combined on top of having to do way more jumping, room traversal and potentially dangerous encounters that can end you really quickly, it becomes a bit of a problem. I’m more than willing to admit that this is just a “me problem”, but after looking at the room layouts of every area in Prime 1 and 2 on top of difficulty consideration, I consider this an issue. Not a deal breaker, not even a major issue, but an issue regardless.

On the topic of room traversal, I had the roughest time going through Torvus Bog and Sanctuary Fortress. The latter because of all the jumping, rift hopping, grappling and Spider balling you have to do just to get from Point A to Point B. The former because of the rift hopping and the existence of the Dark Pirate Commandos. They’re like the Chozo Ghosts, only more annoying. Not only were they buffed in total health and damage output (I think?), but when they materialize in certain rooms in Torvus Bog, the doors are locked, meaning you are forced to either hide in a corner and wait for them to disappear, or fight them off using the Light Beam and hope to god they don’t dimension hop too much. This won’t become an issue after you get the Dark Visor, but until then, yikes. This ain’t it chief.

Then there’s the oh-so infamous Sky Temple Key hunt. Remember the Chozo Artifacts from the first game? It’s exactly like that, yet they somehow managed to make it worse. To start off, you can’t start collecting them until you get the Dark Visor, which is about 2/3rds into the game. That already is a massive downgrade, but on top of that, you can’t get around half of them until you get the Light Suit, which is basically the endgame at that point. I don’t need to explain how god awful this change is…so I won’t. It speaks for itself.

I also didn’t know how to put this in, but the soundtrack is not on the same level as Prime 1. At the time of me writing 4 pages of utter trash, the soundtrack has grown on me quite a bit, but I feel this contributes to the areas feeling so homogenous with one another and not being as memorable overall. I actually like the music used for the various bosses and enemy encounters a lot, but other than that (not counting the subterranean area of Torvus Bog), it’s not that memorable to me.

I sincerely love Metroid Prime 2 and everything it tries to do and accomplish. It just leaves me conflicted when I start thinking about my pantheon of Metroid games. The bosses, backtracking and even the lore are a complete step up from Prime 1. What this game gains in world cohesion and atmosphere in addition to the Light/Dark world concept, it loses in the fun factor and memorability. The beam ammo management on top of some questionable difficulty aspects makes it so I cannot place this above Prime 1. The game in a lot of areas is a definite fundamental improvement over the first game, but as I was playing through the game, something in the back of my mind kept nagging at me and I couldn’t figure out what that nagging feeling was to save my life. I’m willing to bet that that nagging feeling was my subconscious telling me that I really don’t find this as fun to play as the first game, even though the difference in fun factor between Prime 1 and Prime 2 is about as different as a pair of twins who are 99% similar.

Good lord. Why do I do this to myself? I need to stop this. I’ll experience Metroid burnout at this rate.

It seems that not being able to talk about Metroid for most of my life is coming back to haunt me with these long-ass rambles. I try to stick to the stuff that matters most in this case, but that certainly didn’t happen. I guess being able to finally speak my mind about Metroid is a bit alien to me still.

Hopefully, it’s just me…

Wow…this is my longest one yet…god help me. I need to not do this, but I couldn’t help myself when talking about one of my favorite games of all time. Short version: Prime is amazing. Go play it for yourself. If you hate yourself, go ahead and read all the nonsense I’ve spewed below.

Taking a 2D game and transitioning it into 3D is a tremendous undertaking. With a series heavily reliant on the world and exploration such as Metroid, that’s not an easy thing to do. Thinking about the games that came before that, which at this point would be Metroid 1, Metroid 2 and Super Metroid (with Super Metroid being the pinnacle of 2D Metroid at this point), how exactly do you take Super Metroid and transition it into the 3rd dimension without completely messing it up? When the first trailers came out for Prime, everybody was up in arms and scared that Metroid was going to become a first-person shooter with emphasis on shooting. Honestly, I don’t blame them for thinking like that; I would be scared about the transition too. Nobody was expecting anything to come from Metroid Prime after that trailer. When the game finally came out, all that fear and skepticism died down and in its place lies what many consider to be one of the greatest Metroid games ever made. This is a case where we were all proven wrong.

I don’t need to tell you why this game is hailed as a masterpiece of gaming. I don’t need to tell you why I love this game. I don’t need to tell you why other people love this game. All that stuff has been said a million times over and those points cannot be spun or twisted in any sense. There are too many good things to list off and very few negatives…so let’s start with those, shall we?

Certain backtracks are brought into the forefront when on the topic of this game and too often it’s either the Boost Ball → Space Jump → Wave Beam, the Sunken Frigate → Phendrana Drifts for Gravity Suit or the infamous Chozo Artifact hunting.

To be fair to the Chozo Artifacts, you can start collecting them as soon as you begin the game, so if you go to the Impact Crater early on and keep the scan hints in mind as you proceed through the game, the only ones you realistically have to make a ridiculous backtrack for are the ones in Phendrana Drifts. Other than those 3, it really isn’t all that bad since you can collect the other 9 as you proceed through the game.

If you’ve played any kind of Metroidvania, then backtracking is an inevitability. There’s a certain benefit to backtracking through multiple areas versus backtracking within the same area. Assuming that you’re going to go for any item/collectible that you can get your hands on (which should be the standard mindset when playing these games), then I would argue that one long backtrack is more beneficial than several smaller backtracks or, godforbid, the endgame backtracking. Of course, it depends on the upgrade you get, but something like Space Jump and Gravity Suit are among some of the best upgrades in the entire franchise, so if you ask me, that should automatically mitigate any sourness of the backtrack. Say you have to trek through 3 areas to get to where the hint system is telling you to go. Normally, any items you want to get from these passing areas would be really out of the way if you were to have a smaller sized backtrack akin to Prime 2. Having these longer backtracks would allow you to get items that would normally be really out of the way, and for all you know, it could be something like an Energy Tank or maybe a Chozo Artifact or one of the many Missile expansions. Missiles might not sound like much, but you will definitely be using a lot of them in this game, so more missiles are always welcome.

Considering that none of the Metroid games except for Samus Returns has a fast travel system and none of them have been heavily criticized for being “too big” or “having too much backtracking” or “no fast travel system” is a sheer testament to how well-crafted the worlds are in the Metroid series.

The bosses are another point of contention in this game and I’m more inclined to agree, but only for 2 bosses in particular. Meta Ridley absolutely loves chillin’ in the background while you’re on the ground. You could cook a feast for 200 people before Ridley decides to attack you. You can travel to the other side of the world and Ridley would still be in the background preparing to dive bomb you. The 2nd half of the fight is a bit finicky as trying to hit Ridley in his mouth is more challenging than it really should be. Most of the time, Ridley will probably charge at you while doing a claw swipe. Meanwhile, you’re trying to figure out the timing so you won’t get hit by that attack, but you end up getting hit anyway.

The entirety of the Metroid Prime fight is also extremely long and drawn out, though I do like the idea of both forms. In the exoskeleton portion, Prime will constantly change colors, forcing you to switch beams on the fly in order to damage him. It’s pretty fun and tense; he just has a shit ton of HP. Using Super Missiles and the Wavebuster will help in this fight. The core essence of Metroid Prime is completely RNG whether or not the fight will be 4 minutes or 20 minutes. Most of the time, he just spams his shockwave attack and moves around the area and this shit takes forever jesus christ. I’ll defend the concept of these fights, but the execution, ugh. I realistically can’t.

The other boss fights are nowhere near as annoying as those 2. With the others, there’s at least a way to make the fight go by extremely quickly. Thardus…use Morph Ball bombs to completely bypass the Thermal Visor part. Flaahgra…that fight isn’t long to begin with. Either you’re decent, or you suck. Omega Pirate…that fight can be long, but that boss can be 1 or 2 cycled depending on how fast you are. I think the Omega Pirate is on the cusp of being in the same camp as Meta Ridley and Metroid Prime, but the Omega Pirate doesn’t even remotely have the same HP values as those two.

On the topic of enemies, certain enemies can be a hassle. Elite Pirates can be a hassle, but they only take 2 Super Missiles to take down. Pirates that are weak to a single beam can be a clusterfuck if there are more than 2 types in the same room…yet they also go down with ease. Chozo Ghosts are the bane of my existence in this game. Only weak to your normal beam and Super Missiles, they can turn invisible, making the task of killing them even more annoying and because they are only weak to your default beam, they can take ages to kill. Thankfully, there aren’t many points in the game where it’s mandatory to fight them. Most of the time, you can just run past them and continue your exploration.

The controls…oh boy. So if you’ve played any first-person shooter that came out since Halo, then there is going to be a learning curve at first. However, if you are experienced with games like Resident Evil 4 (or classic RE in general) or those types of games that have this thing called “tank control,” then it shouldn’t be a massive shift for you. What I mean by tank control is that forward moves you forward, backward moves you backward and left/right just rotates you. The only way you can move the camera is by holding down the right trigger and from there you can look around. However, you can’t move, which can be incredibly jarring. The right stick is used for switching beams and the D-pad is used for switching visors. The left trigger is used to lock onto enemies and from there you can strafe left/right. This might sound terrible for a game that has an emphasis on shooting things…but…this is Metroid Prime. Shooting things are secondary while exploration is primary. Calling this game a “first person shooter with exploration” is a little misleading; rather, it is a “first person adventure game with shooting.” It’s all in the nuance, I swear.

Prime 1 and Prime 2 are the slowest paced Metroid games in the entire franchise, surpassing Super Metroid, which was already somewhat slow-paced to begin with. Honestly, the pacing adds to the immersion and sense of exploration. If it was paced as fast as Super Metroid, then it would lean in the direction of Prime 3.

The scan visor and log entries are a big part as to why the game is much more slower paced than the 2D games. Scanning has become an integral part of the game in which there will be time where you do need to scan things to progress through the game. The log entries are also the only way you’re going to get more information about what happened on Tallon IV. This approach to world-building is pretty ingenious and something that should be praised until Earth blows up. If you want to read through that stuff, you can. If you just want to go through the game, that’s fine. The best of both worlds. You don’t have to read them with the sole exception of the Impact Crater ones because those are your Chozo Artifact hints.

Another obvious contributing factor to this slower pace is the transition into 3D alongside Samus’s default walking speed. With the key point being exploration, it’s very easy to miss something if your default speed is fast. If you want to increase your default speed, then the level design needs to accommodate for the increase in movement speed which is something that the Ori games do wonderfully.

Transitioning into the third dimension is never easy. Mario, despite having a wonderful 3D debut, had plenty of aspects surrounding control, level design and camera that didn’t age well. The same goes with Zelda and the large desolate field of Hyrule, not accommodating for Link’s slow movement speed. The only thing I can say that has aged “badly” is the control, but the game is so masterfully crafted around the controls that it’s not even an issue.

Honestly the whole pacing thing varies from person to person. 2D Metroid is more fast paced than the Prime games while also not being as fast paced as the Ori games. 3D Metroid is for those who like a slower, more methodical approach to their Metroid games.

I don’t even know what the hell I’m talking about anymore.

Whenever I try to communicate everything I love about some of my favorite games of all time, I end up not actually doing that since I think saying, “This is one of my favorite games of all time,” is more than enough to communicate how much I enjoy the game. I suck at communicating all the positive things I like about a game since I think there are a million other people that can do a better job than I ever could. I just think talking about all the positives and the million and one reasons why this game is great just gets really old really fast. For some reason, I’m more inclined to address the negatives and explain why they do/don’t bother me.

I had one of these “rambles” posted for this game specifically, but ended up taking it down because I felt as if I was letting the extremely stupid criticism get to my head and that translated into the stuff I wrote…so I deleted it. I might link it if anybody has that morbid curiosity.

There is one last thing I forgot to mention…and that Prime 1 and Fusion released the same day. I say this because I will be bringing up Fusion when I eventually release my “5 page thesis” on Prime 2.

“What Prime 2 is to Prime 1, Fusion is to Super Metroid.”

Not too long after Nintendo inexplicably took down AM2R (but not really), they announced that a Metroid II remake was in the works. In any other scenario, everybody would be excited about this announcement. However, since they only released Metroid Prime: Federation Force and took down AM2R, this left a horrendous taste in everybody’s mouth, myself included. On one hand I’m glad that the remake even exists at all. On the other hand, Nintendo were acting like complete assholes and made it seem like they weren’t gonna do anything with Metroid for years to come. To put it bluntly…nobody was exactly happy with what they were doing, but that’s a talk for another day.

In my mind there are 3 types of remakes: Those that replace the original, those that stand side-to-side with the original, and those that are inferior to the original. Samus Returns is in a complicated spot since AM2R exists as a direct competitor. As a remake it completely surpasses the original…for the most part; I do have some slight issues with this as a remake. When you also factor in AM2R and when you start to compare them as remakes, it…doesn’t really look good for Samus Returns if you ask me.

To be fair, several of my issues with Samus Returns as a game were addressed in Dread, so I’m not going to be a…complete meathead…for now.

Samus Returns brings some big gameplay changes that we haven’t seen in the series yet. For starters, the melee counter was introduced in this game alongside the Free-Aim system which allows for full 360 degree movement that a certain God of War director forgot even existed after the 10 second tutorial. These two changes were probably the best changes, but at the same time, they contribute to the biggest problem I have with this game…mainly the melee counter.

The biggest issue I have with Samus Returns is the game’s overall pacing and flow. The areas being much larger than before also adds to this, but the melee counter and the strength of your weapons (or lack of strength) add to this issue. Unlike Dread, when you use the melee counter, you stop dead in your tracks which kills much of the flow and momentum you could have when traveling through SR388. Since the melee counter halts your movement, I would just resort to shooting them…but for a good 50-60% of the game, enemies take too many hits to kill with just your beam on top of the enemies actively trying to hit you. I guess this is a way to encourage the use of the melee counter? No, just…no. This just makes everything feel spongy for practically no reason.

Well…I can definitely see that the team over at MercurySteam wanted to do a remake of Fusion, because this world design feels more suited for that game, but because of the linear layout of the world, it feels a bit…ummm…how do I put it…

The way everything is designed feels more evocative of Fusion, but the areas are arranged in the format of a straight line. Imagine the sectors from Fusion, but instead of laying them out all side by side, make it so you can only go in a straight line. That’s how traveling through SR388 feels in this game. Am I wrong on that? I probably am.

It makes going for 100% a complete pain in the ass. Speaking of that, you can’t technically 100% the game until you encounter the baby Metroid…when you’re about 15 minutes away from finishing the game which is immensely retarded if you ask me. The existence of fast travel stations only serves as a Band-Aid to this issue. If the game was more in line with what came after it (Dread), then this wouldn’t be a remake; they have to make sure that the foundation remains intact so that this remake is actually a remake instead of a game that looks like Metroid II but actually isn’t.

Love the varied environments, the addition of aeion abilities, all the upgrades, all the things I normally do in a Metroid game, I can do here. Most of the things I love about the previous games are present here; I don’t think certain aspects of the game accommodated the changes in gameplay. No, that’s not right; it’s closer to an overcorrection.

If you’re a fan of Metroid, then you should probably play this game. It’s a good game that a lot of people will enjoy (even though I’ve been primarily negative about this game).

It’s not that I don’t have anything positive to say. I just don’t want to regurgitate the same stuff that everybody else has already said about 70 times over. The issue of the melee counter has been brought up over and over again, yeah, but in my case, it’s necessary to talk about.

I’m just not really feeling it this time. I still like the game. It’s just that more issues pop up the more I start to think about the entire series and its direct competitor in AM2R. I would compare the 2 games, but that’s a topic for a different time and place. In other words…I don’t want to do it right now.

This is probably even worse than my Fusion ramble.

Actually, this is probably my worst, most bland, incoherent ramble yet.

I don’t really play fan games/ROM hacks at all. I’ve seen some in action and they didn’t appear to be something that appeals to me personally. Up to this point, the only thing close to that I’ve played is Majora’s Mask Randomizer because optimization and time management is the key to doing well and getting all the stuff in that game. MMR tested me in ways the original game never could, but that’s for another day.

In my mind there are 3 types of remakes: Those that replace the original, those that stand side-to-side with the original, and those that are inferior to the original. Zero Mission, in my eyes, is a remake that completely replaces the original, but given that the original Metroid was an NES game from the ‘80s vs a early-mid 2000s GBA game, it was destined to replace it if you ask me. It’s a similar story for Metroid II, except we got AM2R, the unofficial remake, and Metroid: Samus Returns, the official remake. I’ll get to Metroid: Samus Returns later…oh boy…I’ll get to that later. For now, AM2R.

Milton Guasti/DoctorM64…heard of him? Neither did I until I played this game. I know he’ll likely never read this ramble, but he gets all the respect in the world for seeing this project through to the end and giving us, in my opinion, the only other 2D Metroid game to match up with the likes of Super Metroid. He also did some work on the level design on Ori and the Will of the Wisps (which is another fantastic game you should play). Milton Guasti, thank you so much. You are out here doing god’s work and I hope you continue doing what you love. Mad love and respect to you!

AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake) takes the Metroid: Zero Mission engine and somehow makes it even better (also a jump to 60 fps). It’s not quite as snappy and sharp as Zero Mission if you ask me, but I think that’s for the better. Try wall jumping off of a single wall and you’ll see what I mean. You can enter Morph Ball with the push of a single button and THANK GOD THIS IS A THING! Toughest thing about playing the 2D games is that you need to press down twice to enter Morph Ball. It’s not instant unless you have the reflexes of a speedrunner (I try and succeed about half the time). We also have the most responsive iteration of the Space Jump which is basically spammable, but tapping in rhythm is still preferred. You can also turn on and off the upgrades you don’t want just like Super Metroid and I am surprised that this isn’t a thing in other games. For the sake of convenience, I understand the stacking of upgrades, but I like being able to choose which beams I want on or off and whether or not I want to equip the Hi-Jump Boots. Most of the changes going from the original Metroid to Zero Mission is roughly the same when going from Metroid II to AM2R; I’m not gonna beat a dead horse saying all that again.

With my recent playthrough of Metroid II, I was a bit surprised to see how faithful to the original AM2R’s map is. There are some new areas to be sure, yes…but the basic map layout of Metroid II is here and that…kinda shocked me. I thought it would be in a similar vein to Zero Mission, and it is to a certain extent. Unlike the original Metroid, which had the horrendous copy & paste hallways, Metroid II doesn’t have that many instances of clear copy & paste design. Even then, those parts are still in AM2R, but they’re slightly altered to not make it too dull and uninteresting to travel through.

The world of AM2R, as mentioned before, is pretty faithful to the original map. Things like the Geothermal Plant, the half-submerged research station (I’m blanking on the area name) and the Galactic Federation ship are new and great additions. Everything else is pretty close to the original with some new rooms and mini-areas here and there. The way you travel the world is pretty much the same as the original; you need to kill “X number of Metroids” so the lava levels will lower and you can travel to the next area.

This is a foundational part of Metroid II’s design and that has been translated here, meaning there’s no real feeling of “open”...but at the same time, there is that feeling of being “open” on a smaller scale. With the addition of power-ups from previous games appearing here, you still have to kill all the Metroid before moving on, but the order in which you collect power-ups does vary from playthrough to playthrough (before you properly optimize of course). While it’s not what I personally want for a Metroid experience, I can’t really fault the remake for this since changing this very foundation would result in a completely different game, not a remake.

Three things that hold back Zero Mission as a remake for me is its length, difficulty and the absence of atmosphere when compared to the original. When you’ve played the original and Zero Mission, you see the improvements, but many things weren’t scaled alongside those improvements such as length and difficulty. As a result, you can breeze through the game so fast; a bit too fast. This is not the case with AM2R in the slightest. The expanded areas and additions add more to the overall playtime and the new bosses (some of them) will give you a run for your money even for Metroid veterans.

The Metroids themselves got tweaked, especially Zeta Metroids. Alpha and Gamma Metroids are an actual threat and they can be disgustingly hard to hit thanks to their core being the only area you can cause damage instead of their whole body like the original. There will be times where you swear that you hit them, but it was just a few pixels too high. That along with their rather erratic movement makes every encounter tense if you ask me. The Omega Metroids are still a threat, but I don’t really find them as threatening as the Alphas and Gammas since you’ll be completely pimped out by the time you get to them.

Ok. I need to talk about Zeta Metroids for a bit. They were already aggressive in the original Metroid II, but god damn, they are the single most difficult enemy to fight in the entire game. Queen Metroid? Weak. Omega Metroids? Pathetic. The added bosses? Nonexistent. It’s awkward to evade them even with the help of the Space Jump because the room layouts they’re in does everything in their power to make it hard to jump past them. After you hit them enough, they will start deflecting Missiles and Super Missiles making the fight even longer. They hit like trucks and can easily wipe you out if you don’t have enough health. When you see a Zeta Metroid, prepare yourself. The fact that they can block Missiles and Super Missiles is the sole reason I find them to be the hardest encounters in the game. I find them a complete pain in the ass to fight, but at the same time, I like fighting them. Omega Metroids can also block Missiles and Super Missiles, but Zetas block them as more of a defensive mechanism while the Omegas use it as an attack.

Unlike Zero Mission, AM2R ambiance and atmosphere became fully realized and accentuated thanks to the wonderful visuals and music. In addition, there are also log entries similar to the Prime games, and you bet that I read every last one of them. It’s all really interesting and cool and it makes me wish it was like this in the official 2D Metroid games.

Usually when it comes to fan games/ROM hacks, I never looked their way and typically stuck with the games that were officially made, published and released. When I saw that Nintendo essentially took this down in about 24-48 hours, I was confused…really confused. During 2016, they were doing essentially nothing with the franchise, especially after the highly mixed reception of Other M. They have every right to protect their IP, but at the same time, why only this? Well I think we know the answer several weeks after this initial takedown…

Fan games/ROM hacks don’t typically get placed the same way as the officially released games, but AM2R is…special. This level of quality and attention to detail completely surpasses most of the games that I’ve played between then and now.

I could go on and on for another 4 pages of me wanking this game, but I won’t bore myself with what I already know.

Another Metroid 2 Remake, Cave Story, Undertale and Dust: An Elysian Tail represents what a individual/team can build and accomplish. The passion of an individual or a small team are able to steal the hearts of many without a large backing to their name. It’s very well possible that AM2R singlehandedly revitalized the energy and passion within the Metroid community and fans of Metroidvanias before Hollow Knight took over, though that’s largely a guess on my part.

Regardless of what you think of the game itself, AM2R is special to me and every Metroid fan that has been waiting patiently for many many years. If you ask me, this deserves to be in the pantheon of “One of the greatest games ever made.” If that’s too much, which is very understandable, then it should be a top contender for, “One of the greatest remakes ever made.”

The first Metroid game is…extremely dated. Nobody is really going to argue that it isn’t unless you’re some kind of omega boomer that thinks Pong is the greatest game to ever be conceived; up there with the likes of Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Pitfall. Games that were released around 1-2 console generations prior to the current one receive some sort of remake or reimagining. There are remakes that don’t exactly replace the original, but has its place as the superior version of the game (which to me is Resident Evil 2). There are remakes that are clearly inferior to the original and can easily be seen as a quick cash grab (Resident Evil 3); then there are remakes that make the original version of the game completely obsolete.

Metroid: Zero Mission released in 2004 and is a shining example of a remake that completely replaces the original 1986 game. This should be considered one of the gold standards of what a remake should strive to be when going from a pre-existing product to a second take.

To be perfectly honest, all you need to do is watch the first 2 minutes of the original Metroid and Zero Mission and you will easily understand the massive mechanical improvements between the two. There is absolutely no point in explaining why Zero Mission is mechanically better than the original, but to explain on what exactly has changed between the two, here’s a short list:

You can aim and shoot in 8 directions, movements are snappy, you can wall jump (even off of a single wall), power-ups from previous games show up here like Space Jump, Super Missiles, Wide Beam, Gravity Suit, Plasma Beam, Speed Booster, everything minus the X-Ray Scope and Spider Ball. You have an in-game map, water and acid doesn’t hurt you if you have the Varia Suit, beams stack like in Fusion, but you have to toggle between normal Missiles and Super Missiles. Crateria has been added for the sake of continuity (I think) and there’s an entire new area added after the Mother Brain fight.

And the best thing…the game is not a pain in the ass to play at any point unlike the original.

Remakes are something that you would either be excited or nervous about depending on the game. If, say, Super Metroid were to be getting a remake, I would personally be nervous af since there would probably be many fundamental changes to the world, the progression in said world and the movement that allowed for some really cool, yet unintentional, sequence breaking. Games on that caliber like Final Fantasy 7 (for most people), Resident Evil 4 and Metal Gear Solid (to a somewhat lesser extent) would raise a lot of eyebrows when going for a remake. Whenever a remake gets announced, there’s always a thought in my head that the remake, in transition, would lose a lot of what made the original good/special.

By itself, it’s a fantastic 2D Metroid game that anybody can jump into with little to no problems and get through it just fine. As a remake, this is where things get a bit tricky.

This game is short…like…really short. If you are competent in these types of games, it’ll take you about 4-5 hours max. An experienced player (not a speedrunner) could probably 100% this game in about 90 minutes. On top of that, the game is extremely easy. There is almost nothing in this game that’ll give you a run for your money except for one segment in particular where you’re bereft of all your stuff. Other than that, nothing in this game should give you any trouble (in theory).

In the original Metroid, it was hard to navigate due to the copy & paste hallway design, controls weren’t bad, but rather dated, Wave Beam was worthless, Kraid is a pain in the ass, Ridley is too easy to cheese; the overall game was hard for the wrong reasons and extended the play time by a few hours. Zero Mission is on the other end of the spectrum where everything is basically too easy and nothing will ever give you trouble on the level of Kraid from the original Metroid. As a consequence of streamlining the experience (even with the addition of a new area), this game can get really easy and can be beaten in a very short amount of time.

It’s with this game that the devs began to put in “intended” sequence breaks into the actual level design. You can fight Ridley first, get Hi-Jump Boots and Wave Beam before Speed Booster and other stuff like that. This is neat, but something feels a bit off for me when it comes to this inclusion. When it comes to sequence breaks, I feel as if the magic of Super Metroid’s sequence breaking can’t be replicated. To explain:

In Super Metroid, you had a wall jump, and you were able to shift your momentum back to the wall you jumped from due to Samus’s somewhat floaty jump. Basically…you can wall jump using a single wall. The wall jump is a fully intended mechanic that little creatures show you and if you end up in a certain room, then you have to wall jump to continue the game. Because you can wall jump off of a single wall, you can do some unbelievable things that you won’t be able to do in any other Metroid game.

You can also wall jump off of a single wall here, but because of how fast and snappy Samus is, it’s definitely harder to utilize. Plus, the level design doesn’t really accommodate the wall jump that well. Ever since Super Metroid, sequence breaking became one of the more fun things to do which Metroid sort-of pioneered in a way. Whenever I sequence break in Zero Mission or Dread, the sequence breaking route feels “thought out” instead of “unintentional” if this makes any sense at all. It doesn’t feel like I carved a new route; it felt like I was going on a path that was laid out, but hidden. These paths do take some dexterity to get through, but actually finding the route was where I found the most joy and satisfaction. I know this is some 1/1000 nitpicky stuff, but it kept gnawing at me the more I played this and Dread.

I completely forgot to include this in both this and my Fusion ramble but the music in both games are great. Fusion is more atmospheric and ambient compared to the energetic, upbeat Zero Mission, but due to Fusion’s style and the GBA sound font in general, they are on a similar tier for me. Definitely worth a listen.

I think…this is enough for now…well…what do I say?

Game’s great. I play it once or twice a year on average. I enjoy sequence breaking in these games. I have so much fun playing this game. I love talking about them. I love this series to hell and back and that probably won’t change for a very long time. Go play this if you’re not familiar with Metroid. It’s a great time.

Well now...how do you follow up a masterpiece such as Super Metroid? There are 2 ways to do this: You don’t follow it up at all, or you do something completely different compared to the previous entry and everything before it. Metroid Fusion, obviously, falls under the latter considering it’s the next 2D Metroid game. If you ask me, change is necessary, but not all change can be considered good. Without change, there can be no evolution; only stagnation would exist moving forward. To say that Fusion is a little different from the previous games would be the understatement of the decade.

When it comes to the changes between this and Super Metroid, ummmm...it’s pretty obvious just after 10 minutes of playing, but I’ll explain.

The world design has seen major alterations compared to the previous games. There’s the main sector and 6 additional sectors each containing their own environments, hazards and layouts. Because you’re at a space station, everything feels particularly segmented and isolated with nothing connecting them barring the inconspicuous sector shortcuts and the typical elevator. This kind of segmented world design has existed since the first Metroid and that design has stayed true in its remake, Zero Mission as well as the Prime games. In those games, it was segmented, but still had a sense of organic connection (this mainly applies to Metroid II and Super Metroid where elevators are less common). When it comes to world design, Fusion is an antithesis to the world design of Metroid II and Super Metroid; more artificial, less organic (in both a literal and figurative sense).

The other major change is the form of progression. This game is really linear. Like…REALLY linear. This game will always tell you what to do and where you should go to accomplish it. There are times where your marker will be in the middle of a damn void or you don’t have an objective marker at all, making the trek infinitely more interesting, but those are rare occurrences. This is all for the sake of putting more emphasis on the story, which is…actually not bad. In fact, I think it’s quite good. It’s not great, but I certainly don’t think it’s mediocre either. However, that’s me speaking as a person who has been following this series since the early 2000s, so take that with a grain of salt.

There’s also the story of Fusion which is really the first time a story is being directly told to us with dialogue and text in the Metroid franchise. While it is really simple, easy to follow and pretty predictable, it still has an air of mystery surrounding the involved characters and connects a lot of the environmental story-telling that’s been on display and established in previous games. Long-time fans would probably appreciate this story more than those who are jumping into the series with this game. For many others, it will definitely appear standard and nothing out of the ordinary.

Some smaller things: Beams and missiles permanently stack, so there’s no beam switching like the first 2 games or enabling/disabling beams like in Super Metroid. Samus feels faster in this game compared to what came before it, and you can no longer wall jump off of a single wall. Throughout my years of playing Fusion, I’ve never had problems with the Space Jump in this game, but apparently the rhythm for properly utilizing the Space Jump is tricky and some find it unresponsive? I think this is something you just gotta figure out through experimentation and practice. Spazer is now called the Wide Beam (which is an inferior name if you ask me), and that pretty much covers most of the changes going from the previous game to now.

Metroid is usually known for having this large world to explore and it’s primarily up to you to figure out how to progress. Fusion is the antithesis of what the Metroid series is normally about; you’re railroaded, you have a marker on your map telling you where you need to go (most of the time), and you rarely have the leeway to explore the entire sector at your leisure. Even if you could, there are various security locks that you can’t bypass until a certain point in the game (which is often in the last 1/4th of the game). While I personally prefer the Super Metroid/Metroid Prime style of world and progression, this is still a great game from beginning to end and does not disappoint in the slightest. Despite the lack of the standard Metroid exploration, it’s still a great game that captures the Metroid feel that’s been established in previous games.

I would include an entire section about the SA-X (Samus Aran - X) and how cool and frightening it is, but I don’t need to write a college dissertation to tell you that the segments with the SA-X, while scripted, give off a horror feeling that we haven’t seen in the series up to this point. You know about the SA-X; you know how terrifying it is as a concept. Just play the first 10-20 minutes of the game and you’ll understand the magic behind the SA-X.

Yeah, uhhhhhhh…even though I grew up with this game, there really isn’t much that I can say that hasn’t already been said. I grew up with this game, I’ve played this game front to back countless times and I never got tired of it. If you ask me, the best place to start in the series is with this and Metroid: Zero Mission even though Zero Mission is at the beginning and Fusion is towards the back half. Fusion is kinda like this ramble I spewed out; somewhat artificial and mechanical (bullet points on a list), but still worth giving a look and considering…except you really should ignore this and go play the game.

I didn’t really have to write this. I mean…the game kinda speaks for itself if you ask me. All this stuff I typed looked like a bunch of nothing to me since I’m incapable of explaining anything in my opinion. Just jump into this and Zero Mission; they’re really good and both are well worth your time even if you’ve played Dread beforehand.

It’s rather interesting that Dread mainly followed in the footsteps of Fusion, don’t you think?

Oh boy...how many times have I completed this game? 3 times? 10 times? 50 times? At some point, when you play “that” game, you eventually stop counting how many times you’ve gone through it. This alongside Majora’s Mask and Resident Evil 4 sit on that pantheon of games I’ve played so many times that I can’t count them anymore. When I finish the game each time, there’s this magical feeling I feel from the game that makes me think, “I’ve just played one of the greatest games of all time.” You’ve heard this a million times from people that shill this game to no end. This ramble...shall be no different...but in a somewhat different way.

You know about the upgrades, the environmental story-telling, the amazing soundtrack, you know about this was another stepping stone to being a more cinematic experience while still being directly involved in gameplay (I might’ve made that one up lol), and about how everybody explains how this is one of the greatest games of all time with a laundry list of reasons. Yeah...you get it. I get it. So let’s take a different approach, shall we?

One of the things that you could easily criticize the Metroid series for is the reusing of many power-ups/upgrades and how there is a lack of creativity in these power-ups with only a few new ones used as a justification for the game existing. The main reason why myself and lots of others don’t get sick of the same upgrades is the feeling of progression and how they are used in traversing the world along with their secondary uses outside of going to a new area.

These upgrades in combination with Samus’s floaty control and clever use of the wall jump can make traveling Zebes a joy. Shinesparking through several rooms, wall jumping then going into Morph Ball mid-jump, Bomb-jumping to get an item much earlier than intended, making enemies that latch onto walls fall to the ground with the rumble created by a Super Missile, the list goes on. Getting some upgrades can feel euphoric like getting the Space Jump after being stuck with the Hi-Jump Boots for so long, or getting the Spring Ball after painfully using bomb jumps the entire game, or even getting the Gravity Suit once you see how gimped you are underwater. With the existence of that euphoria, you keep playing to get that next rush all the way up until the credits and you can access passageways that make traversal quick and fun. That feeling of progression can be extremely intoxicating, you know?

Some other gripes I see is that it’s extremely easy to get lost since the game doesn’t really tell you where to go and what to do, and the lack of fast travel for when you have to backtrack.

What? You’re not told what to do or where to go in a Metroidvania-type game? Gee...that’s...you know...the entire point of the damn game? Since the game directly doesn’t tell you where to go, the creators can’t use a simple text box to hint/tell the player, but at the same time, they don’t want players to be meandering across multiple areas for dozens of hours to figure out where to go next, especially in a game with no fast-travel. This aspect of guiding the player falls strictly to the world/level design of the game. Within Metroid games, there are many points where all ways to the previous area(s) are blocked off and you can only press forward. Some games do this artificially with a locked door that looks no different from any other door other than the fact that this can’t be opened. Super Metroid does this about once or twice with actual doors with every other time being organically woven into the world. True, there are gates that block you off from going back, but in that case, there’s usually another way to get back there anyway with the only exception being in Brinstar when you get to Noob Bridge for the first time. Getting lost is a part of the experience and on a 1st playthrough, that feeling is very prevalent.

The point is that the level/world design (usually) indirectly tells you the direction you should be going, and if you get lost in this particular game, it’s usually on you and that can be frustrating. Once you do find the way forward, ask yourself, “Is it the game’s fault for not giving me enough indication on where to go, or is it my fault for not keeping track of things like this?”

This is one thing I kinda glossed over, but the fact that this and almost every Metroid game has no fast-travel system and the games are not bombarded with criticisms such as “too much back-tracking” or “lack of a fast-travel system to compensate for the large world” by the general public just goes to show how wonderfully designed these games are to travel through and play. Even in the Prime games, which are way bigger than the 2D games, you usually never hear the “fast-travel” complaint pop up unless it’s by some hipster who thinks he’s figured out the secrets of the universe (except in the case of the Chozo Artifacts from Prime 1 and the Sky Temple Keys from Prime 2).

Now to address the largest elephant in the room, the controls. Samus feels very floaty and the control in general feels outdated and clunky compared to later entries and the Metroidvania contemporaries. While I do agree that the control is antiquated compared to recent Metroidvanias, I firmly believe that a player that should be willing to adjust to any kind of control scheme as long as the stages/world is thoughtfully designed around the control, the controls are dated rather than bad, and the player is willing to take the time to learn said control scheme. Classic Resident Evil’s tank controls and Metroid II’s lesser controls are dated while Shadow the Hedgehog, Sonic ‘06 and Balan Wonderworld (to a smaller extent) do not have good controls.

For me, the controls are perfectly fine and I find thrills in using the wall jump to access areas earlier than intended...but that’s only after I got acquainted with how Samus handles. I do agree to some extent that the controls are a bit dated. However, that doesn’t mean the controls are bad. The line between “archaic” and “bad” controls is a very fine line. Games like the original Legend of Zelda and Classic Resident Evil fall under the category of “archaic” or “dated” controls. Those were games with everything built around the limited controls, so while they look bad on paper, in the context of the game, they aren’t bad. Games such as Sonic ‘06, Shadow the Hedgehog and Balan Wonderworld feature what I call “bad” controls either being too slippery, too precise, or too simplistic.

Ahem...In Super Metroid, this is a case of me saying, “Just get used to it. If you can’t adapt to dated controls, then that’s your problem.” I should stress that in this case, the world is masterfully designed around these controls, so it is 100% the player’s fault if they do something they don’t want to do, unintentional or otherwise. Don’t blame the game for a mistake that you made. With proper proficiency, you can do things in this game that you can’t do in any other Metroid game. You don’t become good instantly; it takes practice.

It’s rather strange. Several Metroidvanias have come out since Super Metroid and the only ones to challenge the throne are Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Hollow Knight in the eyes of many. Others like Guacamelee and Ender Lilies are mechanically superior to Super Metroid, but they don’t elicit the same feeling as Super Metroid. When looking at it for what it is, Super Metroid is rather simplistic in pretty much...everything comparatively speaking. Seeing the game and actually playing the game are not the same thing and games like this and Symphony of the Night exemplify this.

This game is a landmark for what video games are capable of being and what amazing world design can do for the longevity of a title regardless of the popularity of the IP compared to its contemporaries. You are doing yourself a disservice by skipping out on this game. Please...experience this game at least once and try to understand what it is that people see. I promise your time won’t be wasted.

Well now...I think I’ve rambled long enough…

Once again, I probably said a whole lot of nothing, but that’s probably for the best I suppose.

You see my rating...I don’t rate games unless they are something I can call a favorite. This is one of the games and I do admit that the game is not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I love this game. A lot of people do, and this game will continue to be loved as long as video games exist.

Putting a concept like Metroid onto something as limited as a Game Boy sounds like insanity, and to be honest...it is insanity unless the team working on the game is fully aware of the limitations and they have the creativity to work around those limitations. Thankfully, the team working on the sequel were also the people who created the Game Boy, so potential gameplay issues (that isn’t screen crunch) would not be due to the system limitations (I think).

Until I wrote this, I never actually played the original Metroid II (and I call myself a big Metroid fan smh); I usually stick to AM2R if I want to get my Metroid II fix. Now that I’ve actually played the game, it’s honestly not as bad as I was initially expecting.

Instead of going for a more open-world-esque design of the first game, Metroid II decides to take a more linear approach: You go to a new area, find power-ups, kill all metroids in the area, then move on to the next one with the giant vertical shaft in the middle being the pipe that connects all these areas (until endgame). While it is pretty linear and there are actual set-pieces to distinguish which areas you have and haven’t been in, you’re still not told where to go, which is something I like in a Metroid game. To note, I did use a map to see where I was going, but honestly, I don’t think you need a map at all for this game due to the more condensed world design. Navigation shouldn’t be too much of an issue if I’m being perfectly honest…

There are 2 (or 3) limitations of the Game Boy that are present throughout the game: Screen crunch (though that may be more on the developers’ part), monochrome screen and extremely lackluster music.

For the 2 of you that don’t know what screen crunch is, look at Sonic 1 on the Genesis, then look at Sonic 1 on the GBA. Still don’t know? Look at Megaman & Bass on the SNES vs GBA. Thankfully it’s not as atrocious in those games since the hazards that are hidden don’t take that much health away from you (though it’s still a problem). Screen crunch might also make the navigation more annoying than it really should since there is still some of the copy & paste design from the first game...though it’s not as bad. If you have experience with AM2R, then you shouldn’t have that hard of a time navigating through. If you don’t, then it wouldn’t hurt to whip out a map.

The monochrome screen and lackluster music, I think that needs no explanation.

On actual improvements they made between Metroid and Metroid II, you can crouch and shoot down while you’re jumping, so grounded enemies will no longer be an issue (thank god). Though the copy & paste thing is still here, the sprites and blocks used to craft the environments have seen an improvement, though that might be hard to see with the monochrome screen. The team realized this and decided to put a higher emphasis on sprites and environments rather than relying on color and I think it’s the most obvious with Samus herself along with her Varia suit (a design still used to this day).

I think this might be one of the first notable games to have some semblance of environmental storytelling (It’s probably not the first; I think Castlevania 1, 2, or 3 has it beat. Might be wrong about this). It’s all in the last area of the game where there are no living organisms outside of some odd creatures, metroids and the queen. That and one other thing that happens, but I won’t mention that. It was interesting to see it happen here on a hand-held with monochrome visuals.

On to more additions, the Spazer beam (or Wide beam for all you zoomers out there lol) and the Plasma beam make their debut here along with the Space Jump, Spring Ball and Spider Ball. With the beams, they still don’t stack, but the developers had the foresight to put a statue with the Ice beam right before the final area so you don’t have to make an arduous 5-10 minute backtrack just to swap beams. The Space Jump and Spider Ball...can be a bit awkward. With Space Jump, if you understand the rhythm of Super Metroid’s Space Jump, then you miiiiight be able to adapt. The Spider Ball…...uhhhh it works??? I swear I press up and it doesn’t move, then proceed to press down and all of a sudden it’s moving. Am I doing something wrong here??? Spring Ball is king. No need to do unnecessary bomb-jumping.

The metroids themselves can range from pathetic to wild. Alpha and (some) Gamma Metroids aren’t really too much to talk about. I say (some) Gamma Metroids because there were a few that gave me issues, but mainly due to the room layout rather than the actual metroid. Omega Metroids, despite being the final evolution, are just as easy to kill as Alpha Metroids. Zeta Metroids just do not give a damn about your well-being. Not only do they hit hard, but they can be hard to hit with their fast speed and aggressive A.I. There’s like...1 or 2 bosses that aren’t metroids, but they’re not worth mentioning either.

Even with a somewhat technically limited sequel, the spirit of Metroid is all here and can be seen through its environments and world design. I can see myself playing this game again, which is something I can’t say for the first game. I’d tell Metroid fans to at least try it if you want to see the evolution of the series for yourself. Other than that, you’re perfectly fine playing AM2R.

I’ve been a long-time fan of Metroid, ever since I’ve played Zero Mission and Fusion on my GBA back in the mid-2000s. Despite being a 1st party Nintendo property, it hasn’t gotten nearly the amount of attention it rightfully deserves...at least...until Metroid Dread. Giving my thoughts on Dread has kinda inspired me to do a sort-of retrospective (more like, rambling) on the series from the beginning, although I’m certainly not the first, nor will I be the last to do so. The original Metroid was released for the NES a good 35 years ago. While it is a title to be respected in a more historical sense, it has also aged as well as you would expect.

To say the original Metroid has aged poorly would be the understatement of the decade. This is no secret to anybody; we already know what aspects of this game have aged. Rather than take a look at this from a more modern perspective, I will try to look at this game from the perspective of a gamer from the mid-1980s (not too far removed from the video game crash of 1983-1985).

To clarify, I am in no way defending the archaic elements of this game. I’m simply trying to insert myself into a person who played video games in the mid-1980s and has lived through the video game crash of 1983.

Metroid released in August of 1986, and during this time, Mario and Zelda were leading the charge and bringing life to the once dying video game market in the US. Here comes Metroid, giving the player a very unique experience compared to aforementioned games. With the 2D side-scrolling platforming elements from Mario and the exploration/open-world-esque design of Zelda brings a sort-of hybrid between the two.

Transitioning from the 2nd (?) console generation to the 3rd generation was one of the more graceful yet awkward shifts. This was a time where gamers were using their imagination and marking things down by hand and instruction manuals were the primary source of story and occasional interactivity. Modern conveniences we know today (such as in-game maps) are in their most primitive form and developers (that actually cared about making good games) had to invoke some creativity and understand the limitations of the system they were working on in order to create something that not only would stand out from the rest, but would be something gamers would enjoy no matter what.

We all know the feeling of getting lost in a vast world with no idea of what to do or where to go. The set-up and journey through Metroid exemplifies this type of philosophy and was one of a few games to execute it very well. You start off with basically nothing but a pea-shooter and enemies reeeeally hurt since you only start off with 30 units of energy each time you die. Your default beam doesn’t travel across the entire screen. There are no notable setpieces to give you an indicator of where you are and where you’ve been. Nothing tells you where to go or what to do. You have an objective, but no idea on how to complete it nor the prerequisites required to complete said objective.

It is very easy to get lost and it is very easy to get yourself killed (this sounds like Dark Souls the more I think about it). In regards to the copy-and-paste hallways, lack of direction and enemies that are clearly more acrobatic and respawn like crazy, this is the modus operandi of the original Metroid.

There are ways to circumvent these obstacles. With navigation, your only option was to create your own map and plot the areas out yourself, which wasn’t a crazy thing to do considering the Atari 2600 era had several titles where you had to do just that. Seeing this idea return in a more...polished...way was a great way to immerse yourself into the game’s world. Once you’ve marked everything, you will never get lost again and considering you’ve navigated through these hallways dozens of times, you likely won’t need the map ever again. You learn the world through repetition, or marking it on actual paper.

In regards to enemies, it’s a simple matter of realizing what you can and can’t do as the independent bounty hunter and understanding enemy behavior, both at a standstill and in motion. Most enemies aren’t aggressive, but there are some enemies that require more finesse to take down considering your disadvantages and the enemy’s advantages. Most of the time, if you get hit or die, it’s most likely your fault (with the occasional open door allowing a free hit and Kraid himself).

Playing the game and putting forth the effort will result in the player becoming more experienced with the confusing level design and enemy placement/enemies themselves. To put it simply, you gotta play the game and “git gud” in order to beat it (much like 90% of the NES library for better or worse).

Ok. Let’s be real for a second. This game has aged worse than steak that has been left out in the desert for 20 months. It’s aged even worse than the original Zelda, but instead of control and (cryptic) hints being the main culprit, it’s the blatant copy and paste design and many cheap moments in conjunction with not being able to hit those grounded enemies. I’d honestly go tell you to play Zero Mission instead and completely ignore this game.

The NES jank is everywhere...but...there is no way I won’t be able to respect this game for being an origin point of many video game genres and franchises/individual games that used this game/series as a basis.

Regardless if you enjoy the game or not, much like Mario and Zelda, this is a game that should be respected for what it did moving forward and at the end of the day, that’s what you play the original Metroid for. You don’t need to play it, but at the very least, give it the respect it rightfully deserves.

Metroid Dread is everything myself and every other Metroid fan wanted after Samus Returns, the most recent 2D Metroid from 2016, and Fusion, the one labeled "Metroid 4" which came out a whole 19 years ago. It's great watching this game finally grant the series the attention it rightfully deserves after being in the shadow of the more popular Nintendo franchises like Mario and Zelda. It's been almost a month since my 2 playthroughs of this game and I'd like to think I've cooled off from the initial hype. This game is almost everything I want from a Metroid game.

I'm not going to sing its praises because there are thousands of others who have already done so and 90% of those praises I'm in total agreement with. Just to get this out of the way now...I love this game, both in general and as a Metroid fan. This is just merely speaking my thoughts as a fan of Metroid since 2004 (when I was 6).

I didn't do any sequence breaking in my 100% Normal and 100% Hard playthroughs, but I did notice several ways to sequence break the game that was probably intentionally designed for the veteran players who love that thing. I'm not that much of a sequence breaker myself, but there are so many ways to "break" the established rules that were set and it's wonderful to see things like this in a Metroidvania game.

However, I think some/most of these were "intentional" and not "unintentional". Taking a look at Super Metroid, most of the tricks you see have Wall Jumping. With the wall jump, you can get items and fight bosses out of order even though the wall jump was an intended maneuver since there are little creatures that teach you this via demonstration. It was up to you to apply this wall jump to various places and carve your own path. I think I can get away with saying that you get about 30% of the items with simply the wall jump. Even with sequence breaking routes in Dread, there's still this feeling of an invisible hand that's guiding you and that you're still within the game's "rules" with the Space Jump, Gravity Suit and Kraid immediately coming to mind.

The more I played through and thought about this game, the more I felt that this game had the soul of Fusion more than any other Metroid title. From the world design to the enemies to even the order in which you get your items (outside of the Morph Ball, Bombs and Power Bombs). Much like Fusion, and to a similar extent the Prime games, areas are connected via elevators and those elevator rooms give an idea of what you're getting yourself into. There's nothing like Zero Mission (less so), Super Metroid and AM2R where you can pretty much access most areas of the map with a few exceptions. It does make sense regarding the geological architecture and the technology being integrated into said architecture. While it doesn't really bother me personally, this did catch my attention and thought it was worth mentioning.

The biggest indicator for me saying it has the "soul" of Fusion was the incorporation and existence of the E.M.M.I. These robots put the "Dread" in "Metroid Dread"...at least for most people. While I think these robots were executed extremely well, I found them pretty weak on a conceptual level. As a result, the feeling of "Dread" was nonexistent after the 2nd one. To me, nothing in the Metroid series will be as terrifying as the SA-X, which is an X-parasite copying a Full-Power Samus. The later E.M.M.I do provide some sense of dread since they have abilities that makes hunting Samus really easy, but I do wish that a future game will take the concept of Mr. X from the RE2 Remake (by that, I mean an entity that is stalking you throughout the area that you can't kill) and incorporate that into a Metroid game in order to make something truly terrifying...but that's only assuming the level design can accommodate both the enemy that's constantly chasing you and the Metroidvania-styled exploration. As far as the E.M.M.I sequences, they are executed wonderfully as I mentioned before, but the melee-counter failsafe to me was a bit tooooo picky with its timing. Maybe I'm just a boomer and with no reaction time and this is just a me problem, but I would either be too early or too late and the fact that the counter timings were randomized only drove me more insane. I'm not asking for much, only to add 0.1-0.25 seconds to the counter window time.

Some more (very) minor gripes I have with the game involve the labeling of hidden things. In the beginning of the game, it tells you that items not labeled on your map (in rooms you have traveled in) will be ambiguously marked with a large glowing box giving you an indication of the general area, but not the specific room. However, it won't give indications on where hidden rooms are which can make exploring for them a giant pain, especially in areas like Burenia and Cataris, which aren't small areas in the slightest. I would've appreciated it if hidden rooms got the same labeling, but even more ambiguous, like...labeling 1 or 2 quadrants of the map. I admit that this is more of a me problem and it didn't take me long to find these hidden passageways/rooms, but I can see how those people looking to go for 100% completion can be driven insane after looking at every detail of the map and not being given any indicator. One thing that drove me to near insanity was this: if even a small pixel of an item is labeled on your map, the glowing box on your map does not show up. As such, I spent 2-4 consecutive minutes staring at my map trying to figure out where this item is. This has happened on 4 separate occasions across my 2 playthroughs. It didn't affect my overall experience, but I was fuming for a bit after those times when it happened lol.

The biggest gripe I have with this game is...the music, arguably the most subjective part outside of personal enjoyment. Regarding atmosphere, they're on par, if not slightly exceeding the Prime games. However, I didn't find the soundtrack that memorable. A trademark of the Metroid series for me was not only having atmospheric music, but it's music that sticks in my head and it's music that I go back and listen to. For most Metroid games (even the GBA games and Prime 2), I go back and listen to several songs in the soundtrack. Outside of returning pieces from Super Metroid, I can only recall 2-3 tracks at maximum. Perhaps I need more time for the music to grow on me (which is probably the case), but for the time being, this is the weakest Metroid soundtrack in the series for me (not counting the limited Metroid 1 and 2).

I think I've rambled on long enough and I probably said a whole lot of "nothing", "nonsense" and "bs". To be frank, this is barely 30% of everything I had to say regarding this game and it's probably not even that interesting. At the end of the day, if you aren't playing Metroid Dread, you are committing the equivalent of a cardinal sin. It is a MUST PLAY for all fans and Nintendo Switch owners. The whole thing about "Is it worth $60" fiasco that has surrounded this game...it's pretty stupid if you ask me.

I would rather take a tightly designed 4-hour pixel game for $60 that's loads of fun where nothing on the screen is wasted space over a beautiful open-world game that has a lot of empty space and "filler quests" to give the illusion of "money's worth".