I have extremely mixed feelings about Fusion. While I love the thriller/creepier atmosphere, the always excellent music, and dazzling art and design, the game's mechanics and story fall hard, enough to ruin enjoyment of the game for me. First, this game is harder than other Metroids. Not inherently a bad thing, but they make the difficulty by giving almost zero ways to recover health. Enemy drops, especially in the late game, do next to nothing to replenish health and the recovery rooms are usually only placed at the start of every level. Speaking of level, that's essentially what Fusion is. You go through each level once, then back through them again under a new circumstance with new abilities...then the game ends. It's a linear experience that could have worked, but gives no time in the structure for exploration or opening up secret areas, which kills the typical pacing and feel of Metroid. Fusion feels like a guided tour through this space station rather than an isolated terrorfest stuck against a soulless rival. This rival, called SA-X, is a cool mechanic, which is unfortunately used too little and not pushed to its limits. Rather, it is made a two room chase sequence, and pitters off to be more of a setpiece than a solid gameplay mechanic. I would have loved to have navigated the halls of the station to narrowly avoid the twin parasite, but it was always very clear what the goal was. Other bosses are either stupidly easy or annoying and damage sponges, which ALL end in the same two parasite breaking thing, which becomes a tacked on final form of every fight. The story tying it all together is interesting, but devolves into Samus diving into past we never really see, and relies on the unfortunate retroactive story of Metroid Other M, which is a disappointing part of the lore to lean on nowadays. Overall, Metroid Fusion has a lot of bold decisions, but in general, they are better left out to float in space. Hopefully, Metroid Dread will be able to take the threat of chasing enemies and balance that with fluid movement and a daunting open environemnt.