I know backtracking over areas you've previously visited with new abilities is sort of the defining backbone of the genre, but it's hard for me to not feel like I'm having my time wasted deliberately when Zero Mission works so hard to ensure it's telling me exactly where to go, but still insists I cross the same connecting screens back and forth half a dozen times. You can ignore the guidance (to a point) and just try to explore around, but I can't imagine that would be very good for pacing, as you can't really get too far into exploring until pretty late into the game, and can't actually finish the collecting until post-game. It doesn't feel like real exploring through getting lost and finding your way, and it's also not like a well made linear experience.
The exploration rewards are a bit of a weird double edged sword. On the one hand, storage for extra health and weapons is a legitimately useful upgrade, and makes exploration feel tangibly rewarding right up to the end of the game. On the other, this game's difficulty balance can get thrown completely out the window depending on your playstyle. I only got 50% of the upgrades by the end, but had zero trouble purely tanking through every boss. Imago in particular was an absolute joke as I could just choose to get hit on every run to fire more missiles into it. Only Mother Brain was really a challenge, a fact more due to an annoying amount of on-screen clutter and irritatingly spaced out platforms than anything else. The final boss is conceptually really silly, but I do think it's an enjoyable fight mechanically.
The zero suit section, I just can't understand. I can appreciate the concept of stripping you of your learned abilities to reinstate the sense of panicked helplessness (though I don't think the game ever manages to instill that in the first place, so an attempt to harken back to it is misguided), but it's filled with scripted alerts, clearly designated safe spots, and arbitrary dead ends if the enemy is alerted to your presence, seemingly put in to counteract the fact that the Pirate AI is braindead and having them chase you isn't actually a problem whatsoever until you hit one of these barriers. There's nothing particularly tense or interesting about it in my eyes, though there are one or two welcome sections where setting off an alert is truly optional and requires some jump height and timing control. This is my first Metroid game, and it's overall an OK first impression, but I think it'd be much better if it either felt a little more guided and crafted from beginning to end, or wasn't so damn afraid of letting players get lost, instead of sitting in this awkward middle zone.
The exploration rewards are a bit of a weird double edged sword. On the one hand, storage for extra health and weapons is a legitimately useful upgrade, and makes exploration feel tangibly rewarding right up to the end of the game. On the other, this game's difficulty balance can get thrown completely out the window depending on your playstyle. I only got 50% of the upgrades by the end, but had zero trouble purely tanking through every boss. Imago in particular was an absolute joke as I could just choose to get hit on every run to fire more missiles into it. Only Mother Brain was really a challenge, a fact more due to an annoying amount of on-screen clutter and irritatingly spaced out platforms than anything else. The final boss is conceptually really silly, but I do think it's an enjoyable fight mechanically.
The zero suit section, I just can't understand. I can appreciate the concept of stripping you of your learned abilities to reinstate the sense of panicked helplessness (though I don't think the game ever manages to instill that in the first place, so an attempt to harken back to it is misguided), but it's filled with scripted alerts, clearly designated safe spots, and arbitrary dead ends if the enemy is alerted to your presence, seemingly put in to counteract the fact that the Pirate AI is braindead and having them chase you isn't actually a problem whatsoever until you hit one of these barriers. There's nothing particularly tense or interesting about it in my eyes, though there are one or two welcome sections where setting off an alert is truly optional and requires some jump height and timing control. This is my first Metroid game, and it's overall an OK first impression, but I think it'd be much better if it either felt a little more guided and crafted from beginning to end, or wasn't so damn afraid of letting players get lost, instead of sitting in this awkward middle zone.