Metroid Fusion is a very striking game. Its story and presentation are much darker than its predecessors, and the parasitic premise, while it really only means that your item pickups try to fly away from you, is really interesting. One thing I greatly appreciate about this game is that you receive much more direction on where to go. It still lets you explore, and get lost, but the critical path is much easier to follow than Super (which at the time of writing has me trapped in Maridia with no idea of what to do). The core Metroid gameplay is tight as ever, losing some of the complexity of Super (no doubt partially due to the GBA having two fewer buttons), but I think that works in its favor. Trimming the fat, such as combining normal and super missiles, easier button binds (holding R to select your power weapons as opposed to switching with Select), and removing some of the generally more annoying control hiccups goes a long way to help the game feel more streamlined. However, I felt the tragic loss of the run button throughout my entire playthrough, so it's definitely not perfect.

The item progression felt similarly smooth, and every upgrade felt like a noticeable power boost. Another thing I quite like is how the game approaches finding them, oftentimes requiring you to search on your own outside of the mapped area, since you receive a basic one at the beginning of every Sector. As well, using a combination of boss fights and data downloads (the equivalent of regular pickups) to get your abilities back is very clever, especially in how it ties back to the story.

While I see lots of people touting the "horror" of this game, it never really did much for me. The SA-X makes for an enticing villain, and moments like Ridley's resurrection and the Nightmare's gooey reveal were certainly shocking, I never felt scared of them so much as I felt the regular fear of losing progress to a boss. That being said, I never really did feel afraid of losing to a boss, except Ridley, who killed me twice. I wouldn't say this game is necessarily easy, but when all of your problems are nails and you're really only given progressively bigger hammers, the only remaining issue is getting out of the nail's way when it wants to shoot you with lasers or whatever.

That all being said though, I enjoyed Fusion, and I think at this point I officially Like Metroid(tm).

It's a better Breath of the Wild purely for the fact that it's a sandbox with more interesting toys to play with. Everything I like and dislike about Breath of the Wild applies here.

The reused surface map is lame, there's no getting around that for me. I felt no sense of discovery walking through the world of this game. It's the same map with new repeated content. It's all the same stuff as Breath of the Wild like Korok seeds and sidequests and such, but didn't I already do enough of this in the last game? Why do I have to do the same grinds again? The new shrines and dungeons are the same as before, samey and poorly integrated into the world. It all works well enough, but frankly it's boring and I was hoping to see less busywork. Reusing maps can work, it's just that nothing here is fundamentally different from Breath of the Wild.

The sky and depths are cool aesthetically, but they don't really add a lot. I almost wish the depths didn't have lightroots since they kinda take away the edge and danger. The gloom effects are cool at least, mechanically and aesthetically. The aesthetics in general are a strong suit and look more interesting than the Sheikah stuff.

Fuse is an interesting idea, but in practice it's kind of awkward and forces you to pause the game to use weapons even more than Breath of the Wild did. Ideally there should've been some kind of favorites hotbar or something instead of just the entire inventory. Once again, the game gives you way too many resources for the weapon durability to be anything more than a nuisance. It really should've been removed or reworked this time around.

Ultrahand alone almost carries the game. But the issue is that you need to farm ore in the depths to go get random parts from gacha machines in the sky, which is quite tedious and boring. I wouldn't mind it so much of the depths and sky were more interesting to explore, but they're both rather barren. You basically only go there for this stuff, which makes it feel like a chore. The battery charge, even at max, feels so short. Objects despawn after walking just a little bit away. Maybe they made it this way to better balance the mechanic, but the most effective creations are usually rather simple and take few resources to autobuild. As a result, I never felt the desire to be creative or experiment.

Then I tried playing it on Yuzu with infinite stamina, infinite weapon durability, and infinite battery, and wow - what a difference that all makes. Suddenly I was having a lot of fun creating all sorts of contraptions and experimenting with the physics system. It's true that games are built around limitations, and those limitations can breed creativity. Personally, I would rather be limited by this game's tools and engine themselves than by arbitrary resource farming. Maybe I'm lazy, but I don't care.