Metroid: Samus Returns

While I understand the value of testing them out with a remake of an older game, this game was so far from Mercury Steam's strengths leading to a failure to recognize or recreate the unique value of the original game. See the now ruined ending sequence where what on the Gameboy was a near meditative walk through back through the now empty planet you'd just genocided becomes an epic superpowered romp through pointless enemies with a crummy techno remix of the music, then capped off with a completely unnecessary Ridley fight. The thing about all this is that the Ridley fight is fun, so are the other fights, the diggernaut is such an awesome fight, it was just placed in the wrong game. Samus Returns' place as the first real Metroid game since other m gave it priorities over just being a faithful remake. Samus' character had been defiled by other m, mercury steam took the regirlbossification of Samus as their prerogative, and they did this well as action is their strength. Samus kicks ass in cutscenes that are truly reminiscent of the badass 2 second clip from the melee opening cutscene, she feels like the Samus on all the games' box-art. It just happens that Samus' regirlbossification was chosen to be done in what is effectively a remake of a horror game about genociding a species. The original game's unwieldy qualities add to the narrative, the screen is cramped, the bosses are repetitive and the music often unlistenable. Somehow that game achieved ludonarrative gamification of genocide on the gameboy in 1992. This game doesn't recognize that and instead makes a fun action based Metroidvania with various annoyances while still having a fair few cool and unique things to its name. Samus Returns is a trial run for a third party Metroid that fails to stand out in a sea of indie Metroidvanias.

Call me crazy but this is a perfect game...

Now I know this is going to be a weird review but hear me out. When the pandemic first happened I decided I wanted to play through the entire Metroid franchise, so I started with Metroid Zero Mission and thought it was an excellent game and was really excited to get into Samus Returns as it's a remake of Metroid 2 and I fucking hated it. I thought the parrying mechanic sucked that the shooting felt worse basically a huge downgrade. I put it down after 2ish hours and didn't think about it until I found my 3DS while moving and decided to give it another shot and I don't get how my mind changed in every respect.

I won't drone on about it but the Parrying mechanic MAKES this game. While yes the map is incredibly well designed and exploring all 8? areas was fun and never felt stale the reason that was is that the fighting was constantly engaging I always was on my feet and made even the most inconsequential enemy fun to fight. And thats before I even bring up the boss (metroid) fights. Theres around 50 of them and the pattern recognition and the constant ramping up of the difficulkty made me constantly anticipate the next fight. Even by the end I was hoping for more and the final fight took everything that you learned and made you earn your completion. I ended up 100%ing the game (which I have rarely ever do) because I was obsessed with finding everything and not once did I feel like it was a slog and honestly it ended exactly where I wanted it to.

I know that AM2R gets all the love but Nintendo seriously outdid themselfs with this, it's truely an incredible sequel to zero missions and completely takes over as the definitive way to experience the second chapter of the Metroid series.

Metroid’s back ya’ll!... Well, kinda… Metroid: Samus Returns is a pretty faithful remake of Metroid 2: Return of Samus from back on the original Gameboy. Now… I say faithful because I don’t wanna spend too much time reviewing the original game here so much as I’d like to critique where this game differentiates itself from it. Much of the general map layout, story, and objectives are essentially the same in this version; what’s mainly been overhauled here is the core gameplay and presentation. I had no reason to doubt this remake’s potential given how well they improved the NES Metroid game with Metroid: Zero Mission for the GBA… Still… I can’t help but feel kind of indifferent to this remade game (which was kind of a 2nd rate Metroid to begin with).

Story wise all that really happens is that you’ve been sent to the planet that Metroid’s originate from and your task it to exterminate every last one of them. It’s a pretty simple premise true; but what I’ve always enjoyed about it is getting to slowly follow the life cycle of the Metroids. As time goes by they progressively grow larger and more dangerous. The original game had fairly solid world design for it’s day, the game has you progressing through the world in a giant circle which made it more linear than say, Metroid NES. But it made it easier to tell where you’d need to go and I never really felt as aimless as I did in the first Metroid. This remake pretty much successfully adapts the base design of the original but alters it to account for the new enemies and upgrades that this version introduces. There’s also a “scan pulse” upgrade you acquire early on that actually lets you visualise breakable blocks and walls cutting the exploration time down quite significantly from that of the original (this version also does a better job at guiding you to the Metroids rather then you just aimlessly stumbling upon them).

The sometimes cluttered enemy placements from the original game always pissed me off but here it’s made slightly more tolerable with this new parrying mechanic that has you countering enemy attacks with a well timed button press, and they also threw in some re-worked enemies that better suit this mechanic. There’s also Aeion energy that’s used as a resource to power new abilities like the scan pulse, lightning armour, and even a time altering ability which is pretty sweet. Another new feature is 360 directional aiming but only if you hold down the left trigger and stay stationary which is silly… The big problem for me is that there was just a little too much going on with regard to the controls that I really struggled to get a hang of them. Having to manage holding down the left and right triggers to aim and fire missiles and simultaneously be conscious of my movement during hectic battles broke my brain a little. Samus would constantly crouch when I didn’t want her to because I’d accidentally press down very lightly. Also I didn’t like how they handled the usage of the Aeion abilities having to change modes and activating and deactivating shits. This is the 3DS for crying out loud just let me touch an icon on the bottom screen to use the damn thing! The Gameboy had like two f***ing buttons so this was not a problem with the original lol.

And can I just say that the game looks like proper ass. The Gameboy had limitations there’s no doubt; but with it’s very minimal black and white graphics it got across a much darker and ominous mood with it’s visuals than in this version. This should have been a Switch game or something since the outdated and rough looking visuals from the 3DS do not do this game any favours. Best thing I can say is that it makes the different areas in the game feel more distinct aesthetically which IS admirable. And in terms of audio I mean… I don’t know why they even bothered to publish an “official soundtrack” since all they really did was recycle audio and music from the Prime games… With the exception of a few ambient pieces but I don’t really feel like they’re worth mentioning here.

The original Gameboy game certainly had it’s technical limitations back in the day, and in certain respects I feel like this version mends some of the more frustrating elements of that game’s design (or makes them a bit more tolerable). Hell it even makes the game feel a bit more fresh with the addition of some new power ups and mechanics. But I feel like in doing this the remake not only inherits some of the original’s remaining flaws but it also presents some new ones like with it’s unsightly visuals and over convoluted controls… Sometimes simplicity is better ya’ know? Hmm, I don’t know folks this one’s gonna be for the Metroid super fans only, something to tie us over until Prime 4 drops. If you’re new to Metroid then I’d strongly suggest Super Metroid as a starting point over this.