Having gotten into Metroidvanias earlier this year, I finally (belatedly) got to experience this slice of gaming history and it didn't let me down; it really does so many things excellently.
The areas are full of character, no doubt helped by the moody and atmospheric score - I wouldn't exactly call it 'lore', but each area tells its own story, the highlight for me being a derelict ship whose power you need to restore in order to fully explore it. The auto-mapping function is very welcome here, and makes the game seem much younger than its 28 years of age. Perhaps most relevantly for the genre that it helped to name, the upgrade system is superb. The gradually-expanding moveset functions not just as a series of keys to unlock more of the world; they really convey a sense of both Samus getting stronger and the player getting more skilled. By the end of the game, Samus has a large and versatile moveset that you will generally have very good control over due to being drip-fed new abilities rather than force-fed them all at once.
With so many cool new abilities to unlock and play with, it's a bit ironic that the mechanic that probably gave me the most grief was the most bread-and-butter one of all: the jump. I can probably point at least one finger at myself for a lack of skill, but I found the momentum on Samus' somersaults extremely difficult to nail down, and this made certain platforming segments drag on way too long, with a single mis-aimed jump necessitating backtracking and a do-over. I also often found myself wishing for a slightly more zoomed-out perspective - it would have been easier to orient myself making exploration smoother, would have given me more time to react to hazards and reduced the number of blind jumps I had to make.
These niggling issues do little to tarnish the brilliance of the overall product, and I feel like they would be less significant on repeat playthroughs. Between its obvious merits, its relatively short runtime and its forgiving difficulty, this is another title I'd add to the list of games that everyone should experience at least once.
The areas are full of character, no doubt helped by the moody and atmospheric score - I wouldn't exactly call it 'lore', but each area tells its own story, the highlight for me being a derelict ship whose power you need to restore in order to fully explore it. The auto-mapping function is very welcome here, and makes the game seem much younger than its 28 years of age. Perhaps most relevantly for the genre that it helped to name, the upgrade system is superb. The gradually-expanding moveset functions not just as a series of keys to unlock more of the world; they really convey a sense of both Samus getting stronger and the player getting more skilled. By the end of the game, Samus has a large and versatile moveset that you will generally have very good control over due to being drip-fed new abilities rather than force-fed them all at once.
With so many cool new abilities to unlock and play with, it's a bit ironic that the mechanic that probably gave me the most grief was the most bread-and-butter one of all: the jump. I can probably point at least one finger at myself for a lack of skill, but I found the momentum on Samus' somersaults extremely difficult to nail down, and this made certain platforming segments drag on way too long, with a single mis-aimed jump necessitating backtracking and a do-over. I also often found myself wishing for a slightly more zoomed-out perspective - it would have been easier to orient myself making exploration smoother, would have given me more time to react to hazards and reduced the number of blind jumps I had to make.
These niggling issues do little to tarnish the brilliance of the overall product, and I feel like they would be less significant on repeat playthroughs. Between its obvious merits, its relatively short runtime and its forgiving difficulty, this is another title I'd add to the list of games that everyone should experience at least once.
Zark
1 month ago