I "get" why Metroid Fusion is the way it is. Moreso than Zero Mission, it's a search-action game designed specifically around handheld gaming, and more specifically the Game Boy Advance's hardware limitations. Locations are broken up into more clearly defined pieces to facilitate playing in short bursts, and the whole adventure is so brightly lit and colorful that it almost seems cartoonish, a necessity to overcome the poor visibility of GBA's screen.
Unfortunately, these design limitations result in a Metroid that I ultimately find pretty so-so and conceptually uninteresting.
Gone is any real sense of ambience or solitude, or piecing together the story through environmental details or feeling truly lost in a hostile environment. You now have an AI companion yammering at you, telling you where to go and what to do. A divisive feature to be sure, one that I unfortunately come down on the side of disliking. I also just don't find the visual design of this game to be appealing. The brighter color pallet is garish and it loses a lot of the ambience of past Metroid games as a result.
Gameplay is fine. I guess. I mostly found it to be pretty unremarkable outside of SA-X's Nemesis-like presence. Probably the strongest part of the game. Having SA-X smash through a wall like a murderous Kool-Aide Man is exciting and breathes a lot of life into a game that otherwise feels so lackluster. None of the bosses, puzzles, or upgrades particularly stuck with me, it failed to engage me at almost every step of the way and as a result a lot of my memory has been washed save for a few set pieces.
A shame too that this remained the most current Metroid in the overall series timeline until Dread, which shares some similarities but is a vastly better game in almost every way. It also doesn't help that I played Zero Mission before this, which does such a great job at showing what the series can do on the GBA, being so tight in its design and accomplishing so much more without compromising on the elements that make Metroid work. With that setting the bar, it's hard not to find Fusion underwhelming.
Unfortunately, these design limitations result in a Metroid that I ultimately find pretty so-so and conceptually uninteresting.
Gone is any real sense of ambience or solitude, or piecing together the story through environmental details or feeling truly lost in a hostile environment. You now have an AI companion yammering at you, telling you where to go and what to do. A divisive feature to be sure, one that I unfortunately come down on the side of disliking. I also just don't find the visual design of this game to be appealing. The brighter color pallet is garish and it loses a lot of the ambience of past Metroid games as a result.
Gameplay is fine. I guess. I mostly found it to be pretty unremarkable outside of SA-X's Nemesis-like presence. Probably the strongest part of the game. Having SA-X smash through a wall like a murderous Kool-Aide Man is exciting and breathes a lot of life into a game that otherwise feels so lackluster. None of the bosses, puzzles, or upgrades particularly stuck with me, it failed to engage me at almost every step of the way and as a result a lot of my memory has been washed save for a few set pieces.
A shame too that this remained the most current Metroid in the overall series timeline until Dread, which shares some similarities but is a vastly better game in almost every way. It also doesn't help that I played Zero Mission before this, which does such a great job at showing what the series can do on the GBA, being so tight in its design and accomplishing so much more without compromising on the elements that make Metroid work. With that setting the bar, it's hard not to find Fusion underwhelming.