approaching this came bundled with the massive infamy and legacy associated with it. I'd loved every game I played in this series so far, so this one that's considered the best by default may just be an all timer. And I was 100% proven in that thought by the time I stepped foot on ceres station. HOW DID THEY MAKE THIS SHIT ON SNES?!? It's more cinematic than some ps5/series x games rn. Reputation fully deserved. Send one game to the aliens to save our species. It's this.

this has the best combat and movement in the series. all three metroid 2s are known for their huge rooms and exploring caves with these massive roofs with your jumps and spiderball made the procedural levels each feel big and vast. The metroids themselves also have variable fights, and not in shallow ways like samus returns, you could all of a sudden get ambushed by 5 at a time with no warning. Am2r surprises at every turn and plays like butter. I was also surprised at the amount and quality of scripted set pieces. This game also benefits from being a fanmade pc release, so the quality of life is perfect too. If you wanna play metroid 2, this one's your guy.

dread was an interesting case for me. At the start, I was convinced I was gonna hate it. It controlled so weirdly. It was my first time playing a 2d metroid with a controller. Moving her with the stick was just odd. Aiming was weird too, I used the 360 laser pointer as a crutch. I couldn't shoot without it. So I kinda just moved like re4 leon, positioning myself and shooting separately. Despite how the game may feel inelegant in its level and map design, it's an insanely fun time with great bosses and a cool challenge. It also has some interesting story bits too. Not too interested in the metroid story till this part, and that ending? wooah. Cooool af. A great sequel to fusion and i'm proud that they're keeping it going with fusion's style and not reverting to super metroid. As much as i love super metroid, im so glad they respect fusion and are seeing the vision thru.

my first metroid. a big game i adored completely until the last 3 or 4 hours. Which is a lot of hours. Regardless of that huge blemish, this is still an amazing game with so much care put into every corner of it. I can taste the soul from here. Music is great, combat is... decent, bosses are meh but the exploration and areas are top notch. I just wish traversal was less slow, not just movement speed but teleporters are too sparse and you often have to go through a whole other zone to get you to a teleporter that takes you where you wanna go.

going into zero mission as my 2nd metroid game after prime remastered was complete whiplash. Samus was so fast, the combat was instantaneous, i was crossing rooms in miliseconds. The speed of the movement combined with the shorter game length meant shit was always happening, and it was by design. 2d metroid feels at home on handheld (ignore the fact i played this on an emulator on pc lol) and playing this in short bursts is amazing. Definitely replayable, and that last section was super quaint too, had one of my favourite power up moments in the series. A perfect metroid package.

Where could you possibly go after super? I admire the absolute hell out of this game. I wish I liked it more, but there is some absolutely stiff competition in this series. Given how replayable and romhackable the previous games have been, a change in the series was met (by me) with an "ok nintendo, show me wat ya got..." and change they did. There's nothing particularly wrong with being linear, especially if the linearity brings forth some amazing and memorable moments. The itch to do a quick playthrough like, say, zero mission, 1, am2r, or super is kind of missing on this one. I liked fusion, but I don't think I'll play it again. But I say all this with reverence and respect and shit

note: i played this on a pc port called metroid planets which adds saving, respawning restores ur hp fully, and a map.

Ive tried getting into this series many times, always starting with this. I always closed it after 20 minutes. It was just boring. The short ass beam length, not being able to shoot the crawling bug enemies, identical rooms with no map, ugh. But after playing practically the whole franchise, I decided to try it again on one of these improvement hacks I hear so much. And it completely opened up and I felt what those 80s people felt. Having an entire game completely open to you after 30 or so minutes. Grab the ball, the bombs, and the entire game is accessible to you. Discarding the massive rust stains, this game's core design philosophy is so elegant and freeing. The hack didn't fix the health pick ups though. If you're low on hp, get ready to grind tiny ass health pickups for like 10 minutes. Also, main path progression in one place is locked behind one bomb block in a random corner of a random room. I was lucky enough to find this on accident just bombing everything (a good habit built up by months of nothing but metroid) but this one thing alone put a huge blemish on metroid's reputation and scared people off, thinking theyd be walking around aimlessly shooting individual blocks hoping for the next room. It kind of is like that, but bombable blocks are like doom fake walls or tf2 disguised spies, you just know at some point, yknow?

note: used primehack, gave me kbm fps controls

sometimes you just need a mcchicken on the bus. Yes, this game is trashy. It's low brow, simplified to appeal to mass wii markets, whatever. I don't care at all. I felt kind of patronized the whole time and i got like 90% completion without any guide or even going out of my way to find secrets, but, like, cmon. You turn one of the maps into a nuke and then you ride it. You can call your ship to blow shit up. There is no scavenger hunt. You get all the keys on the critical path, with bonus ones hidden around that unlock extra stuff. But, yeah. I can't ignore it. This game is trashy. Fallout camera npc dialogue trashy. It's cool though. I don't care. Sooo i win.

metroid 2 is an interesting sequel. It doubled down on the avant garde almost horror preying on the player's expectations and habits. Metroid 1 tried tricking the player with traps and identical rooms, fakeout bosses, this one just tries to stop you by pulling some spec ops the line shit. It's so cool how from the very instant the title screen starts and the harsh scratches blast your ears, you know youre in for a different game. The overworld theme being so joyous and fun, then you go deeper and kill more and more metroids, until youre at the bottom of the planet and there's no living creatures, you walk thru completely empty silent hallways on your way to finish the fight. All this dread (heheheheheh!! forgive the pun!1!!!) leading up to one of the nicest and most serene endings in any videogames Ive ever played.

Note: I played this on primehack, it gave me keyboard and mouse fps controls.

i decided to return to the prime series after fusion, saving dread for last. (or so i thought.) This, I didn't really enjoy much. It felt kind of like a rom hack for prime 1, and a lot of things just feel like sidestepping prime 1's ideas to the point where it's like... where are you going with this? your visors are now "dark vision", "echo vision," like what? they have the same function. Just because you give them recolors doesn't make it different. And for some reason they also repeated the scavenger hunt? and made it even worse? i mean, at least the first one you'd have a couple by just exploring. In this, you can't even collect them until you have the endgame upgrade. Speaking of upgrades, you don't get enough of them. Their acquisitions are paced poorly. You get two beams at the beginning and one at the very end that you dont get to use on anything. The dark/light world mechanic is so poorly implemented. You'd think itd be cool, you have two metroid maps to explore! but its just kind of... oh, i gotta come here in the dark world to pick up that thing. The closest portal is 6 rooms and 5 elevators away. Cool. I couldn't wait for this one to end. I was so close to abandoning when I saw there was a scavenger hunt again. But I didn't. Jeez, i'm exhausted just remembering it.

ugggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

i hate the way that you walk the way that you talk i hate the way that you dress.
i hate the parry making me wait and stop every time i see an enemy, if i wanna fight its gonna be direct. I hate your homogenized sludge aesthetic and crowded control scheme with no sense of balance, your stupid lightning armour trivializing the entire game. I hate your dumbass boss fights, i hate the paaaaaaaaaaddddiiiiiiiingggggg and i hate the ruined ending. jesus lord christ heaven allah forbid the modern gamer (tm) go fifteen steps without a cool enemy to parry in slow motion so the camera can do tricks up and down and left to right!!!! and omg!! ridley!! hess soooo iconic!!! put him in!!! put him in!! where?? idc! put him in!!!

this game feels like if someone that hated metroid made a metroid game. How this studio made dread is beyond me.

Played it for like 15 minutes, it's a tech demo after all. eh. graphics are cute.