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chuckroEmergency Order: Exterminate all Metroid organisms on planet Zebes and defeat the mechanical life-form, Mother Brain.
A remake of the original NES game with more animated cutscenes and some modern quality-of-life additions (the ability to shoot in down and diagonally; a map; and some in-game direction being primary among them). This is much more a “reimagining” than a straight remake, and not having touched it in 15+ years, I had managed to completely forget that. It’s significantly more linear than the original, with Chozo statues that exist only to point you towards the next goal and relatively few options of where to go at any point (including a lot of “gated” areas that just require you to go somewhere else first). They also filled in a lot of new puzzles to the relatively straightforward exploration and fighting in the original—special blocks, hanging tracks, cannons that shoot you up in ball form, etc.
The addition of the Zero Suit segment—which, admittedly, takes all of 15 minutes—irritated me. A stealth section was really not what I wanted in a Metroid game. Though smashing the hell out of space pirates with the plasma beam after running from them was really satisfying. And while I didn’t do it, I can see the appeal of going back and getting 100% in the earlier areas once you have the gravity suit and power bombs. The original game was fairly short and a sub-1 hour clear time was entirely possible, and that was no longer “enough” game by the GBA era. The abundance of new material, even though it was sometimes frustratingly obtuse, makes for a fuller, better game.
That said, despite being a remake of the first game an having a lot of early hand-holding, it’s not a great choice for somebody new to the series. A number of obtuse tricks (illusionary lava, careful bomb spots, tricky new puzzles) are mandatory to continue. If you’ve never played Metroid before and aren’t familiar with some of the conventions, you’re going to be looking up FAQs online less than half an hour in. (Though, to be fair, I’m not sure how many people beat the original game without the maps printed in Nintendo Power.)
I had actually started playing this in Easy mode on the 9X-S, but then I fat-fingered a save and lost half an hour of progress early on, which was frustrating. When I got back to it, I opted to switch systems to my hacked PSP and TempGBA and start again with cheat codes. I still managed to die in lava a bunch of times.
Overall: I have a special place in my heart for Metroid 2 because I had a Game Boy long before I had a NES. The nostalgia of Samus Returns was real. This…less so. It’s a decent game of its own right, but aspects of it rely on you being a pre-existing Metroid fan.
A remake of the original NES game with more animated cutscenes and some modern quality-of-life additions (the ability to shoot in down and diagonally; a map; and some in-game direction being primary among them). This is much more a “reimagining” than a straight remake, and not having touched it in 15+ years, I had managed to completely forget that. It’s significantly more linear than the original, with Chozo statues that exist only to point you towards the next goal and relatively few options of where to go at any point (including a lot of “gated” areas that just require you to go somewhere else first). They also filled in a lot of new puzzles to the relatively straightforward exploration and fighting in the original—special blocks, hanging tracks, cannons that shoot you up in ball form, etc.
The addition of the Zero Suit segment—which, admittedly, takes all of 15 minutes—irritated me. A stealth section was really not what I wanted in a Metroid game. Though smashing the hell out of space pirates with the plasma beam after running from them was really satisfying. And while I didn’t do it, I can see the appeal of going back and getting 100% in the earlier areas once you have the gravity suit and power bombs. The original game was fairly short and a sub-1 hour clear time was entirely possible, and that was no longer “enough” game by the GBA era. The abundance of new material, even though it was sometimes frustratingly obtuse, makes for a fuller, better game.
That said, despite being a remake of the first game an having a lot of early hand-holding, it’s not a great choice for somebody new to the series. A number of obtuse tricks (illusionary lava, careful bomb spots, tricky new puzzles) are mandatory to continue. If you’ve never played Metroid before and aren’t familiar with some of the conventions, you’re going to be looking up FAQs online less than half an hour in. (Though, to be fair, I’m not sure how many people beat the original game without the maps printed in Nintendo Power.)
I had actually started playing this in Easy mode on the 9X-S, but then I fat-fingered a save and lost half an hour of progress early on, which was frustrating. When I got back to it, I opted to switch systems to my hacked PSP and TempGBA and start again with cheat codes. I still managed to die in lava a bunch of times.
Overall: I have a special place in my heart for Metroid 2 because I had a Game Boy long before I had a NES. The nostalgia of Samus Returns was real. This…less so. It’s a decent game of its own right, but aspects of it rely on you being a pre-existing Metroid fan.
