As a huge fan of MetroidVanias but also someone who's never finished an actual Metroid game, I found this one great, but also frustrating. There were many times where I had to open a guide to figure out how to progress, only to figure out that what I needed to do was shoot a hidden block somewhere across the map. Maybe I just don't have the brain for Metroid specifically, but I found that more annoying than interesting.

I also was sort of confused at the reviews saying that the game was really good for exploration. There were many times where I didn't know how to progress, but that was because I went to every door I thought I could access and they were locked, not because the explorable area was too big. On the contrary, I found the game quite linear for the bulk of it.

Apart from that, the game feel is incredible and the combat is stellar. I didn't expect to love the boss fights, but I ended up finding most of them to be a real sweet spot of challenge and enjoyment.