How wonderful it is to say that there is a new side-scrolling Metroid title. And how wonderful it is to say that it’s actually good. I won’t go into the history of how long it’s been, and what games have come before it, that’s not the purpose of these posts, but I will say that I have been craving a new Metroid in the classic style for a very long time now. Like many, Metroid was one of those key titles that I played on the NES as a child, many, many times over. And it is in my opinion that side-scrolling style Metroid games are where the series shine the brightest. That’s not to say the Prime games don’t have their merits, but those have never been my favorite entries. But I digress, on to the analysis.
Since announcing the game, Nintendo has been touting this as a remake (of sorts) of the original Gameboy title, Metroid II: Return of Samus. While I enjoy Metroid II a great deal, I was a bit confused about the decision to remake that particular title. It’s certainly not the strongest game in the series, and I’m fairly certain it is the shortest (it was a Gameboy game, after all). After playing Metroid: Samus Returns (MSR), however, I can say with confidence that this is a remake in concept only.
That concept being, that Samus is sent to SR388 (the Metroid homeworld) to eradicate every last metroid on the planet. Aside from that basic narrative (and the fact that they’re both Metroid games) MSR and Metroid II are very different games. MSR is much bigger, has entirely new enemies, is full of new weapons and techniques, and it’s metroids (while clearly similar in style) attack very differently compared to their Gameboy counterparts. But instead of going into a laundry list of how the two games compare, I will be focusing on MSR, what it did right, and what it got wrong, etc.
As with any good Metroid game, MSR needed to get a few key components of the game perfect, in order to succeed. One of the biggest components (so big that it, along with Castlevania, spawned the genre slang of “Metroidvania”) is the sense of exploration. A true Metroid game provides the player with an entire world to explore. A world filled with dangerous enemies, perplexing puzzles, powerful pickups, and hidden secrets. MSR certainly succeeded in providing that world in this re-imagined SR388. I think the thing that I love about exploring in Metroid style games is that exploring feels meaningful. I know many this day and age beg for complete “open world” exploration. To go wherever they want, whenever they want. And while that works in some cases (like in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild), I feel like it lacks a feeling of real progression. In MSR you are given just sections of a map to explore at a time (and yes, the inclusion of an in game map, which was always displayed on the lower screen was a huge boon). More sections would open up to the player after killing a set amount of metroids in the section they were in. Knowing that I couldn’t progress further until I had met a certain goal gave me a drive to truly explore the area I was in at the moment. I wasn’t concerned with what I might be able to do in the future, I was solely focused on what I could do and what I needed to do in the present. This helped me recognize the puzzles of whatever particular section I was in, and what upgrades I might acquire while there, to solve said puzzles (of course, that’s not to say that there weren’t plenty of more advanced puzzles that required backtracking later in the game, with better equipment). It was all a very well executed path of progression. The game never got dull, because there was always some new trick or trial just around the corner.
I feel I would be remiss if I failed to mention one particular feature of exploration that made this game great, the addition of teleportation points. Being able travel around the many areas of the map, quickly, was a much welcomed addition to the series.
Another key component necessary to a successful Metroid game is the upgrades, naturally. This goes hand in hand with map exploration, the two are the foundations of the series, after all. This game has all the classic upgrades (the Freeze Beam, the Varia Suit, the Space Jump, the always coveted Screw Attack, etc.), it also contains a number of Super Metroid upgrades (such as the Grappling Beam, the Gravity Suit, the Super Missile, and the Power Bomb). These all function just as you’d think they would, and as has been proven time and again, they work well. It was the new additions, though, that stood out to me.
The new upgrades of Samus’s arsenal were rather hit and miss for me. Using a new resource called “Aeion,” Samus could use four new abilities of ranging purpose and usefulness. The first of these abilities is the “scan pulse.” By using it, you can reveal all unexplored sections of the map in your immediate vicinity on the minimap. It will also reveal any sort of destructible environments within the scan’s range. In a way, it reminded me of the Batman Arkham games’ Detective Mode. I know without a doubt that there will be people that are so against this ability that they’ll do something drastic, like make an anonymous rant on a Reddit forum. But I appreciated this inclusion. When used sparingly, it can provide the frustrated player with a hint of where they need to go next. And I emphasize the word “sparingly.” Knowing where to go all the time definitely diminishes the fun and spirit of a Metroid game. But after being stuck for some time, with no recourse, I don’t see how a simple use of this ability is no different from going online and reading some dull walkthrough. Actually, I do see the difference, this doesn’t interrupt the fun playing the game.
The second ability is the “lightning armor.” This one was a bit weird for me. The armor would protect you from damage (depleting aeion instead of health), but it was never an ability I used very often. At first, the aeion gauge was simply too small to be really effective, and I’d preferred to save it for instances where I needed to protect myself from environmental hazards (its main purpose, as far as I was concerned). By the end game, my aeion gauge was much larger, but by that time, I was so accustomed to not using the armor, that I simply never used it in any actual fights.
The third ability is the “beam burst. This gives the player the ability to fire Samus’s gun like a machine gun. Pretty simple, rapid fire blaster by pressing down the fire button. This one drains the gauge dang fast, so again, I rarely used it, except against enemies that wouldn’t die unless I did (which was kind of annoying, to be honest).
The final ability is the “phase drift.” This ability slows time for everything on the screen, except Samus. Talk about a gauge drainer. there were very specific instances of puzzles, where you needed to move faster than the game would allow, usually just to get another missile pickup. Aside from these extremely specific instances, I saw little need for this ability. The gauge drained way too fast to be useful in any boss fights, or pretty much any other use.
All of these abilities were assigned to one of the four d-pad buttons. Something I greatly lamented. Mainly because this meant all movement, was done by using the circle pad. I hate, hate, hate using joysticks/circle pads on sidescrollers. Movement is not nearly as precise on one of those things, and this brought me a lot of grief. It especially felt bad trying to “press” down twice to get into the morph ball form. It just didn’t feel good.
More on controls, by pressing and holding L, Samus would enter an aimed stance. Standing perfectly still, the player could aim the gun in any direction, 360 degrees. I obviously see the need for the circle pad in this instance, but I’d have happily given up that precise of aiming if it meant getting more precise overall movement with a d-pad.
Overall, controlling Samus just didn’t feel great, simply due to the sheer amount of buttons needing to be pressed at any given time. Hold L to aim, hold R for missiles, press a d-pad direction for an ability then press A to activate it, spam Y, the usual firing button, and B, the jump button to space jump, etc. It’s all just a little draining for these arthritic hands of mine.
You might have noticed the X button wasn’t mentioned in that little rant, but rest assured, that button was well used. X was designated to the other new ability of Samus, the counter. Considering this is a Metroid game, a counter ability sounded strange to me. And it was. It took me a long time to get used to countering. Which was very frustrating, because it was so necessary early in the game. Almost all basic enemies charge at Samus when they get near, when countered, Samus is set up for a one shot kill. If the counter fails, Samus loses more health than is reasonable (this is by far the most difficult Metroid game I’ve ever played). All counter-able moves are telegraphed by a bright flash and sound effect, so you always know when it’s coming, but that doesn’t mean it’s always easy to counter. After a while, I got used to countering, of course. It became quite easy. But I grew tired of it. Metroid is a shooter, I didn’t like being (almost) forced to sit there and wait for an enemy to attack me, counter it, and insta-kill it. It killed momentum for me. And it wasn’t until my blaster was fully upgraded that I could really just let it fire, and kill enemies in my path without countering, like a normal Metroid game. I feel that countering would have been a move put to much better use, if it wasn’t forced upon the player so much. Perhaps, if it were only used during boss fights, for example.
The whole premise of the game is to hunt metroids. The trick behind the metroids of SR388 is that they evolve. The further into the game you got, the more powerful the metroids would become, the fights would change the tactics would change. These were, without a doubt, difficult. But they were always fair. Yeah, I would pretty much be guaranteed a death or two every time I came across a new type of metroid, but I was always able to learn their patterns and finally triumph over them (in that sense it sort of reminded me of that classic game, Punch-Out!!). The metroid fights were hard. But they were fun. And thankfully, Nintendo knew when to give the player a breather. After defeating my second or third omega metroid, they would throw a smaller alpha metroid in my path, it was a good break.
I wish I could say all the boss fights were fair and fun, but sadly, they were not. There were a couple other of bosses, but the one I feel I need to gripe about is the “Diggernaut.” A horrible giant mining/drilling robot. My first encounter of this had the thing chasing me with its drilling arms, in a frantic and horrible forced screen movement section that went on far too long.
The second encounter was even worse. In an ill designed boss fight, the actual boss is in the background (oh you wacky 3D enthusiasts…), while parts of his body would come to the foreground to attack and sometimes be attacked. It was never clear to me where I was safe because I didn’t know when a section that was going back was officially in the background, and vice versa. Another glaring flaw was that the only way to finish the boss (after going through two earlier phases) was to react to an attack that he had used in the second phase differently in the first. In the second phase, he would create a vortex to suck Samus up into it’s grinding blades. I simply avoided it, and was fine. In the third phase, he used this same attack, and unbeknownst to me, I was supposed to drop bombs into the vortex to damage it. Same exact attack. No differences. But I’m just supposed to know to react differently. Bad boss design. Bad.
Those few gripes aside, I thoroughly enjoyed Metroid Samus Returns. It is a triumphant return to classic side-scrolling Metroid action. And I genuinely hope to see more in the future. And I might add, I am totally okay with Nintendo’s new approach to “remakes.” It was so much more fun, and more refreshing than what a traditional remake of Metroid II would have been.