All told there are probably less than 6 Game Boy or Game Boy Color games I would consider playing today as someone who never owned one, and frankly Metroid 2 is not one of them. As such, I can't speak to the degree of credit respectively due to the original Nintendo team and the AM2R team. Regardless, this is an excellent Metroid game: well-paced in terms of difficulty and upgrades, balanced in its music and art to support varying tones and moods, and deeply satisfying in its conclusion. Creates a similar effect to Zero Mission of consistently conveying where to explore next without feeling as hand-holding through the Metroid counter and the receding lava bottlenecks being easily identifiable on the map (complete with markers, which helps a lot).

Where I feel it lacks most is the extent to which certain early upgrades are made borderline obsolete when a new one comes along, cumulatively making your ostensibly huge toolkit feel like one hammer. The spider ball felt revolutionary and I loved the relatively slow creep as I scaled caverns and plumbed tunnels, until the space jump swiped all its utility and added speed. More convenient to be sure, but less interesting. This is by no means a flaw unique to AM2R: both Zero Mission and Super's endgame movesets are (imo) so overpowered that it removes most of the friction from navigation (friction I sincerely love) and yields bosses that tend towards bullet-spongey tedium (I think Prime 1 and 3 avoid this by and large). Despite this I think this may be my favourite of the first three games, balancing the strengths of both Zero Mission and Super while minimizing their flaws. Will be moving on to Fusion to ensure I'm done before October, but if I have the time I may give Super another go now that I feel like I'd understand it better.