FloweryMarston
Member
i much prefer when they focus on item completion rather than completion time
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Metroid: Samus Returns |OT| What's past is prologue.
- Thread starter TheMoon
- Start date
i much prefer when they focus on item completion rather than completion time
Just finished it 100% on Hard.
Its a very repetitive game. Theres little to differentiate each area - the backgrounds look nice, but the music is mostly unmemorable atmospheric humming and the overall package is insufficient to establish real atmosphere or dread. I wouldnt mind exploring a nondescript labyrinth if I felt like I was getting genuinely lost and afraid, but that never happens.
Theres little creative thought required behind the use of each ability, the game very much uses a key->lock approach to puzzle design: yellow door? Use power bombs, acquire item. Floor and ceiling of spikes? Use the spider ball + power bomb spark to shoot through, acquire item. Navigating the levels and using Samus abilities felt like going through the motions. Normally I wouldnt mind this in a Metroid-like because seeing beautiful new areas with memorable music could be a sort of reward in of itself, but I couldnt even count on that - it was just cave after cave.
The counter system was a welcome addition, but outside of bosses there were no new enemies that required different counter timings after what, the second area?
It was an alright game, but I think other developers are doing far more interesting things with this genre right now (Axiom Verge and Guacamelee are much better designed - and more fun). Its not quite the return to form I hoped for, but its a decent foundation. I just hope they get far more creative with their level design next time around.
Its a very repetitive game. Theres little to differentiate each area - the backgrounds look nice, but the music is mostly unmemorable atmospheric humming and the overall package is insufficient to establish real atmosphere or dread. I wouldnt mind exploring a nondescript labyrinth if I felt like I was getting genuinely lost and afraid, but that never happens.
Theres little creative thought required behind the use of each ability, the game very much uses a key->lock approach to puzzle design: yellow door? Use power bombs, acquire item. Floor and ceiling of spikes? Use the spider ball + power bomb spark to shoot through, acquire item. Navigating the levels and using Samus abilities felt like going through the motions. Normally I wouldnt mind this in a Metroid-like because seeing beautiful new areas with memorable music could be a sort of reward in of itself, but I couldnt even count on that - it was just cave after cave.
The counter system was a welcome addition, but outside of bosses there were no new enemies that required different counter timings after what, the second area?
It was an alright game, but I think other developers are doing far more interesting things with this genre right now (Axiom Verge and Guacamelee are much better designed - and more fun). Its not quite the return to form I hoped for, but its a decent foundation. I just hope they get far more creative with their level design next time around.
I just don't think the core design is really all that good, and I would have deviated far more from Metroid 2 than they did.
Fundamentally, the idea of killing 40 of anything is repetitive, and the game does almost nothing to offer any form of variety among each Metroid type. The Alpha Metroid fights would be unacceptably tedious if not for the next form of Metroid that disappears six times during every battle to go sit in its Vagina Door. I get that Metroid 2 did this, but it would have been better for me if there were 8 Metroids, all unique looking and differently playing.
There's just something missing in this game vs. the other Metroids. The exploration just doesn't seem as rewarding. The areas never interlock, which is a big step down from the design of Super Metroid, and I just don't get the same drive to keep exploring when I know all I'm doing is looking for the next stupid Gamma Metroid or whatever so I can yank it off the ceiling six more times.
I feel like I'm doing the same thing in every area. Spiderball all over the place, bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb, look for Metroids. The areas are not that distinct and they don't play all that differently.
As a remake of Metroid 2, it seems to be a good product. I guess my issue is that Metroid 2 was never good.
Fundamentally, the idea of killing 40 of anything is repetitive, and the game does almost nothing to offer any form of variety among each Metroid type. The Alpha Metroid fights would be unacceptably tedious if not for the next form of Metroid that disappears six times during every battle to go sit in its Vagina Door. I get that Metroid 2 did this, but it would have been better for me if there were 8 Metroids, all unique looking and differently playing.
There's just something missing in this game vs. the other Metroids. The exploration just doesn't seem as rewarding. The areas never interlock, which is a big step down from the design of Super Metroid, and I just don't get the same drive to keep exploring when I know all I'm doing is looking for the next stupid Gamma Metroid or whatever so I can yank it off the ceiling six more times.
I feel like I'm doing the same thing in every area. Spiderball all over the place, bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb, look for Metroids. The areas are not that distinct and they don't play all that differently.
As a remake of Metroid 2, it seems to be a good product. I guess my issue is that Metroid 2 was never good.
panama chief
Member
This might've been asked before:
I have an Ambassador New 3DS XL, with I think Fusion on it. What's the order of the series for a slacker like me?
I have an Ambassador New 3DS XL, with I think Fusion on it. What's the order of the series for a slacker like me?
Metroid (Zero Mission)
Metroid Prime trilogy
Metroid II (Samus Returns)
Super Metroid
Other M
Fusion
The thing with map design is this is not an uncommon "problem" (I agree with seeing it that way) within the series.
Of the Metroids I've played (II through ZM and this game 2D, Prime 1-3), only Prime 1, Super, and ZM aren't stage based. Only those games have a gameflow that moves you irregularly through variable zones.
(And ZM comes with the caveat that almost half the game is a much much worse epilogue.)
Fusion does tear the stages apart at the very end--and that is very much to its credit--but it comes at the price of a the worst case of stage-based Metroid at the beginning: the stages are small and exceedingly straightforward, whereas things like Torvus Bog or an area in Metroid II/this game are large and labyrinthine entities on their own.
I do think the OG Metroid II has much more of an illusion of not being stage-based, as you lack the map. It feels like one long route down by way of a confusing labyrinth of caves.
I lost that particular feeling in this game; it felt much more like a better approach to stage-based than Fusion rather than something different.
Ill add to this that You can feel okay skipping the Prime Series initially and revisit it later, and feel freer I skip Other M and play it as a curiosity after youre familiar with the series.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
I have some thoughts on Metroid: Samus Returns.
The atmosphere is nonexistent
Which is weird as hell for a Metroid game. I honestly can't tell you what the difference is between any two areas in the game. They're all the goddamn same. The backgrounds look nigh identical, the enemies are mostly palette swaps, and there's no variety in the challenges any given environment presents. It'd be one thing if the areas at least looked cool, but can anyone honestly tell the difference between what we have here and what's in any given sci-fi-themed shovelware launched on Steam last month?
Super Metroid owed a huge amount of its success to the strength of its atmosphere. Remember when you were in Brinstar, and then entered the red soil area, and the creepy music kicked in? And then you got to the tubes that eventually lead to Maridia, and you realize that it's gotten super dark, and you start noticing all the subtle details like the glow of Samus' visor that's illuminating your way. It's moody, it's evocative, and this sort of feeling permeated the entire game. Reaching a new area was exciting, because you had no idea what was around the corner, but you knew it was going to be new and exciting. That is what gave Super Metroid such a satisfying sense of progression.
Samus Returns has precisely none of that.
The music is terrible
Which kind of goes hand-in-hand with the lackluster atmosphere. It's not aggressively bad; it's arguably worse -- just plain boring. It's generic, "atmospheric" schlock that adds precisely nothing to the proceedings. The lone exceptions are the the Norfair theme and the
later in the game, because they have some actual musical merit. Unfortunately, somebody else wrote those songs decades ago, so I'm not giving credit to whoever lead the charge here.
I was thinking back to that story about how that deaf guy at Capcom wrote the soundtrack for Resident Evil: Dual Shock, and that's why we had that basement theme that sounded like somebody farting in a circus. That was terrible music, too, but at least I remembered it.
The controls are clumsy as hell
I did not feel like I had adequate precision at any point in the game. There are a lot of things contributing to this. Being forced to use the circle pad in a 2D games is just nonsense, and the 3DS' uncomfortable form factor doesn't exactly make dealing with it any easier. But then, there's the myriad smaller problems like the delay between when you can shoot and use your counter attack, the clunky touch interface for swapping weapons, the spider ball randomly changing directions on you in tight spaces, the needlessly difficult-to-aim grapple beam, etc. Then you factor in the 30fps frame rate in what's otherwise a fast-paced action game. It adds up, and feels like a mess in those dicier segments where you really need to be in command.
The power-ups are lame
Really, this was just the worst batch of abilities I could imagine. The ice shot is annoying, because you'll end up freezing most enemies, rather than killing them, so they just become an obstacle. The Aeion lightning armor ability is a waste of everyone's fucking time -- you use it to move past those red plants, and that's uh... it. It has no practical use outside of that. The beam burst just makes me angry. It's a more powerful shot that can actually kill shielded enemies, but isn't that why I have missiles?
Wait, why are the missiles so useless, anyway? It looks like you're firing a pea shooter when you use them, and they don't hurt like... any of the armored enemies you would actually hope to kill with them. And they give you so damn many of them -- there's this wild imbalance when scavenging for new items where I would constantly find more missiles, but no energy tanks. But I actually wanted energy tanks, whereas if I had the stock 30 missiles or whatever it was that you start the game with, I would've been just fine. But now, I have more than 100, but no energy for the beam burst that actually hurts enemies. Mother. Fuck.
Anyway, pretty much all of the abilities you get in the game are basically just keycards for locked doors. You'll use them to get past one obstacle, but they rarely increase your ability to explore the world, and they generally don't do much to aid you in combat. It's woefully unsatisfying, and after a while, I lost any enthusiasm for finding new gear, because, well... who cares? That feeling was only amplified once I realized that...
The exploration is a scam
Samus Returns is an illusory Metroid game. It is, for all intents and purposes, a completely linear experience. You trudge through an area, kill the requisite number of Metroids, return to the statue, and move onto the next level... and that's kind of it. There's little to no incentive to return to previous areas once you've finished them, even after you've obtained a bevy of new abilities. You're not going to go back to a previous area and uncover a swath of new territory to explore or some nifty secrets. There are no tantalizing, just out of reach areas to pull you back, and you know in the back of your head that all you're really going to find is more goddamn missiles (which, fuck's sake, nobody really needed or wanted more of, ever.) Samus Returns' idea of exploration is backtracking to open a different colored door. Whoopty fucking doo.
Problem is, this is Metroid's fucking wheelhouse. That's why people have so much reverence for this franchise. It's because the more you play, the more freeing it is. You realize, "oh yeah, I can get through that earlier area now," so you head back. But on your way, you'll realize that the ledge you couldn't reach is now accessible, that the other power-up you got lets you break through that wall you totally forgot about, and then you get sidetracked by this totally different thing that you never expected to pop up. There's cool shit to find and meaningful new spaces to explore just by randomly going off the beaten path.
And hey, I get it -- that's tough to do. That's why so many have aspired to Super Metroid's level of design and fallen short. But you have to at least try, right? That's why the exploration in Samus Returns falls flat. There is no sense of discovery, and even if there was, there would be nothing interesting to find, given how the game doles out its power-ups.
The counter attack was a mistake
Okay, so the counter attack was kind of a cool idea, and the first time you do it in-game, it's pretty slick. By the 3rd or 4th time you do it, it's not. It's fine to give a Metroid game some sort of twist, but when the execution is just "enemies dive bomb you a lot, and you can't really do much about it," you should probably reevaluate. The melee attack shtick gets old in a hurry, and in a Metroid game, I really just want to shoot enemies. I'm a simple man.
I think the developers must've realized this at some point, too, so their solution was to give almost all the enemies armor, so that your guns are pretty much useless. So now, when you encounter an enemy, you should stop, wait for them to come to you, counter them, and then shoot them... like I wanted to do in the first fucking place. It's functional, but it comes at the expense of flow. And it doesn't even work very well, thanks to the clunky controls. You can't counter an enemy on the other side of you by simply hitting the button, but turning around and then countering can take too long. You can't cancel out of shooting to counter, so being logical and firing your weapons to weaken the enemy and countering to finish them off isn't really a viable tactic. The delay after performing a counter, and then using it again takes too long, making it impossible to dispatch two enemies who decide to dive bomb you at the same time. It's a lot of small problems that make the whole thing feel woefully unpolished. Past a certain point, I just wanted to run past enemies instead of getting caught up in their passive aggressive bullshit, but you kinda can't do that, either.
It's one thing to introduce a new combat mechanic into the game, but it's another thing entirely to force me to rely so heavily on it; particularly when it cuts against the the rest of the game's design.
The enemies are annoying and shitty
Which is I'm pretty sure, the direct result of wanting to put the counter mechanic front and center. Your weapons, particularly early on, are just not powerful enough, and then there's all the armored foes that you basically have to counter in order to kill. But did they have to be so goddamn obnoxious, even beyond that? There are slugs that leave behind some green goo that hurts you if you step in it, so they'll randomly block off areas you want to go until you kill them and wait for the green stuff to disappear. Oh, and they're armored, so... deal with that, too. The masses of mosquitoes take an eternity to kill, and damage you quite a bit. You're supposed to use the beam burst to kill them, but honestly... how does that make it any more fun or challenging? The jellyfish looking things that are basically just cannon fodder eventually electrify entire platforms at random, which makes getting from point A to point B in certain rooms a complete pain; again, without adding any fun or challenge.
And then, there are the Metroids. I know they based this on Metroid II, where you had to kill 40 Metroids, but holy shit, it did not have to be this repetitive. There's nowhere near enough variation on the Metroids' attack patterns to justify fighting 40 fucking Metroids. You'll fight one that has the power of electricity, and then you fight one with the power of fire, and... they're the same damn fight. Nothing changes, and there is nothing unique for you, the player, to experience. Eventually, you'll encounter more "sophisticated" Metroids that scurry away to a different room after you damage them, so you have to find them again and restart the fight. I'm guessing the developers played Monster Hunter, saw that they did that exact same thing, and were like "us, too -- we can do this!" Except, it makes no fucking sense here, and makes 40 Metroids feel like 400.
Holy hell are the graphics bad
I mean, just fugly. Art design is subjective, sure, but Jesus, it just looks like crap. Why all the bizarre color palettes? So many sections just seem to use a million different shades of brown and orange, which not only looks like garbage; it results in enemies getting lost in the background. That's just amateurish. The whole game looks painfully low-rez, too, probably because it is, and the gaudy bloom lighting only makes the game more of a hazy, blurry mess. And this runs at an unstable 30fps? Really? If that's the best they can do with the tech, they should've gone back to the (literal) drawing board.
Here's the thing. Super Metroid came out 23 years ago. It looked great at the time, and it looks great now. It runs at basically the same resolution. Samus Returns should've been sprite-based, particularly in light of the hardware constraints. There's always some goober that raises the point that, "well, 2D sprites are expensive, an indie studio like Nintendo can't afford that!" Fuck you. I don't care if it's expensive, I care about the end product... and frankly, that's Nintendo's problem to solve anyway. All I see is this:
You're telling me that more than 2 decades of tech and design advancement lead to that? And that's without factoring in how much more smoothly Super Metroid runs. We could do this same experiment with Metroid Fusion from 2002 or Zero Mission from 2004, and the result would be the same. It's shit.
So, uh...
Yeah. The game has some serious fucking problems. I think it's worth playing for Metroid fans, but I think the only 2D Metroid worse than it is... *shock* Metroid II. If you stripped away the Metroid veneer, you'd be left with another passable indie game where the developers were obviously inspired by Metroid, but clearly didn't get what made it good.
The atmosphere is nonexistent
Which is weird as hell for a Metroid game. I honestly can't tell you what the difference is between any two areas in the game. They're all the goddamn same. The backgrounds look nigh identical, the enemies are mostly palette swaps, and there's no variety in the challenges any given environment presents. It'd be one thing if the areas at least looked cool, but can anyone honestly tell the difference between what we have here and what's in any given sci-fi-themed shovelware launched on Steam last month?
Super Metroid owed a huge amount of its success to the strength of its atmosphere. Remember when you were in Brinstar, and then entered the red soil area, and the creepy music kicked in? And then you got to the tubes that eventually lead to Maridia, and you realize that it's gotten super dark, and you start noticing all the subtle details like the glow of Samus' visor that's illuminating your way. It's moody, it's evocative, and this sort of feeling permeated the entire game. Reaching a new area was exciting, because you had no idea what was around the corner, but you knew it was going to be new and exciting. That is what gave Super Metroid such a satisfying sense of progression.
Samus Returns has precisely none of that.
The music is terrible
Which kind of goes hand-in-hand with the lackluster atmosphere. It's not aggressively bad; it's arguably worse -- just plain boring. It's generic, "atmospheric" schlock that adds precisely nothing to the proceedings. The lone exceptions are the the Norfair theme and the
red soil theme
I was thinking back to that story about how that deaf guy at Capcom wrote the soundtrack for Resident Evil: Dual Shock, and that's why we had that basement theme that sounded like somebody farting in a circus. That was terrible music, too, but at least I remembered it.
The controls are clumsy as hell
I did not feel like I had adequate precision at any point in the game. There are a lot of things contributing to this. Being forced to use the circle pad in a 2D games is just nonsense, and the 3DS' uncomfortable form factor doesn't exactly make dealing with it any easier. But then, there's the myriad smaller problems like the delay between when you can shoot and use your counter attack, the clunky touch interface for swapping weapons, the spider ball randomly changing directions on you in tight spaces, the needlessly difficult-to-aim grapple beam, etc. Then you factor in the 30fps frame rate in what's otherwise a fast-paced action game. It adds up, and feels like a mess in those dicier segments where you really need to be in command.
The power-ups are lame
Really, this was just the worst batch of abilities I could imagine. The ice shot is annoying, because you'll end up freezing most enemies, rather than killing them, so they just become an obstacle. The Aeion lightning armor ability is a waste of everyone's fucking time -- you use it to move past those red plants, and that's uh... it. It has no practical use outside of that. The beam burst just makes me angry. It's a more powerful shot that can actually kill shielded enemies, but isn't that why I have missiles?
Wait, why are the missiles so useless, anyway? It looks like you're firing a pea shooter when you use them, and they don't hurt like... any of the armored enemies you would actually hope to kill with them. And they give you so damn many of them -- there's this wild imbalance when scavenging for new items where I would constantly find more missiles, but no energy tanks. But I actually wanted energy tanks, whereas if I had the stock 30 missiles or whatever it was that you start the game with, I would've been just fine. But now, I have more than 100, but no energy for the beam burst that actually hurts enemies. Mother. Fuck.
Anyway, pretty much all of the abilities you get in the game are basically just keycards for locked doors. You'll use them to get past one obstacle, but they rarely increase your ability to explore the world, and they generally don't do much to aid you in combat. It's woefully unsatisfying, and after a while, I lost any enthusiasm for finding new gear, because, well... who cares? That feeling was only amplified once I realized that...
The exploration is a scam
Samus Returns is an illusory Metroid game. It is, for all intents and purposes, a completely linear experience. You trudge through an area, kill the requisite number of Metroids, return to the statue, and move onto the next level... and that's kind of it. There's little to no incentive to return to previous areas once you've finished them, even after you've obtained a bevy of new abilities. You're not going to go back to a previous area and uncover a swath of new territory to explore or some nifty secrets. There are no tantalizing, just out of reach areas to pull you back, and you know in the back of your head that all you're really going to find is more goddamn missiles (which, fuck's sake, nobody really needed or wanted more of, ever.) Samus Returns' idea of exploration is backtracking to open a different colored door. Whoopty fucking doo.
Problem is, this is Metroid's fucking wheelhouse. That's why people have so much reverence for this franchise. It's because the more you play, the more freeing it is. You realize, "oh yeah, I can get through that earlier area now," so you head back. But on your way, you'll realize that the ledge you couldn't reach is now accessible, that the other power-up you got lets you break through that wall you totally forgot about, and then you get sidetracked by this totally different thing that you never expected to pop up. There's cool shit to find and meaningful new spaces to explore just by randomly going off the beaten path.
And hey, I get it -- that's tough to do. That's why so many have aspired to Super Metroid's level of design and fallen short. But you have to at least try, right? That's why the exploration in Samus Returns falls flat. There is no sense of discovery, and even if there was, there would be nothing interesting to find, given how the game doles out its power-ups.
The counter attack was a mistake
Okay, so the counter attack was kind of a cool idea, and the first time you do it in-game, it's pretty slick. By the 3rd or 4th time you do it, it's not. It's fine to give a Metroid game some sort of twist, but when the execution is just "enemies dive bomb you a lot, and you can't really do much about it," you should probably reevaluate. The melee attack shtick gets old in a hurry, and in a Metroid game, I really just want to shoot enemies. I'm a simple man.
I think the developers must've realized this at some point, too, so their solution was to give almost all the enemies armor, so that your guns are pretty much useless. So now, when you encounter an enemy, you should stop, wait for them to come to you, counter them, and then shoot them... like I wanted to do in the first fucking place. It's functional, but it comes at the expense of flow. And it doesn't even work very well, thanks to the clunky controls. You can't counter an enemy on the other side of you by simply hitting the button, but turning around and then countering can take too long. You can't cancel out of shooting to counter, so being logical and firing your weapons to weaken the enemy and countering to finish them off isn't really a viable tactic. The delay after performing a counter, and then using it again takes too long, making it impossible to dispatch two enemies who decide to dive bomb you at the same time. It's a lot of small problems that make the whole thing feel woefully unpolished. Past a certain point, I just wanted to run past enemies instead of getting caught up in their passive aggressive bullshit, but you kinda can't do that, either.
It's one thing to introduce a new combat mechanic into the game, but it's another thing entirely to force me to rely so heavily on it; particularly when it cuts against the the rest of the game's design.
The enemies are annoying and shitty
Which is I'm pretty sure, the direct result of wanting to put the counter mechanic front and center. Your weapons, particularly early on, are just not powerful enough, and then there's all the armored foes that you basically have to counter in order to kill. But did they have to be so goddamn obnoxious, even beyond that? There are slugs that leave behind some green goo that hurts you if you step in it, so they'll randomly block off areas you want to go until you kill them and wait for the green stuff to disappear. Oh, and they're armored, so... deal with that, too. The masses of mosquitoes take an eternity to kill, and damage you quite a bit. You're supposed to use the beam burst to kill them, but honestly... how does that make it any more fun or challenging? The jellyfish looking things that are basically just cannon fodder eventually electrify entire platforms at random, which makes getting from point A to point B in certain rooms a complete pain; again, without adding any fun or challenge.
And then, there are the Metroids. I know they based this on Metroid II, where you had to kill 40 Metroids, but holy shit, it did not have to be this repetitive. There's nowhere near enough variation on the Metroids' attack patterns to justify fighting 40 fucking Metroids. You'll fight one that has the power of electricity, and then you fight one with the power of fire, and... they're the same damn fight. Nothing changes, and there is nothing unique for you, the player, to experience. Eventually, you'll encounter more "sophisticated" Metroids that scurry away to a different room after you damage them, so you have to find them again and restart the fight. I'm guessing the developers played Monster Hunter, saw that they did that exact same thing, and were like "us, too -- we can do this!" Except, it makes no fucking sense here, and makes 40 Metroids feel like 400.
Holy hell are the graphics bad
I mean, just fugly. Art design is subjective, sure, but Jesus, it just looks like crap. Why all the bizarre color palettes? So many sections just seem to use a million different shades of brown and orange, which not only looks like garbage; it results in enemies getting lost in the background. That's just amateurish. The whole game looks painfully low-rez, too, probably because it is, and the gaudy bloom lighting only makes the game more of a hazy, blurry mess. And this runs at an unstable 30fps? Really? If that's the best they can do with the tech, they should've gone back to the (literal) drawing board.
Here's the thing. Super Metroid came out 23 years ago. It looked great at the time, and it looks great now. It runs at basically the same resolution. Samus Returns should've been sprite-based, particularly in light of the hardware constraints. There's always some goober that raises the point that, "well, 2D sprites are expensive, an indie studio like Nintendo can't afford that!" Fuck you. I don't care if it's expensive, I care about the end product... and frankly, that's Nintendo's problem to solve anyway. All I see is this:
You're telling me that more than 2 decades of tech and design advancement lead to that? And that's without factoring in how much more smoothly Super Metroid runs. We could do this same experiment with Metroid Fusion from 2002 or Zero Mission from 2004, and the result would be the same. It's shit.
So, uh...
Yeah. The game has some serious fucking problems. I think it's worth playing for Metroid fans, but I think the only 2D Metroid worse than it is... *shock* Metroid II. If you stripped away the Metroid veneer, you'd be left with another passable indie game where the developers were obviously inspired by Metroid, but clearly didn't get what made it good.
I think the game being stage based is fine, the issue is there's very little that makes each stage feel distinct like in other stage based Metroid games. The lack of bosses until the late game really hurts and besides
there's no cool events that happen anywhere to make things interesting. They tease them a few times like with the huge creatures lurking in the background and bits of scenery collapsing, but nothing actually happens with any of them.
The music doesn't help matters at all but I think I've talked about that enough.
the chase sequence in Area 4
The music doesn't help matters at all but I think I've talked about that enough.
Finised this yesterday, just got 100% today - my first for a Metroid game.
I really enjoyed it overall. I had Fusion back in the day, but I was young and didn't really understand what to do, so I didn't get far at all. As such I consider this my first 2D Metroid experience, so I'm happy I enjoyed it as much as I did.
Some of the comments on this page ring true regarding repetition. Puzzles did begin to blend into each other while finishing my item hunt, though I imagine this is inevitable to a degree with a game like this. Concurrently the Metoid boss battles did start to get tiring.
Reducing the number would have helped. Or better yet, a couple of new Metroid types coulf have been introduced to switch things up. It's a shame because I feel the battles in isolation are pretty good and distinct. The bosses in general are great, particularly in the last acts of the game.
Combat is fun. The melee counter and free aim seem like such simple additions, but I like the options they give you in a battle. I wouldn't say they necessarily add great depth to combat, but it comes together well.
Hopefully they expand on it. A 2D Metroid on Switch would presumably be able to use both sticks to allow Samus to free aim while moving, which would be great. I felt the team did great working within the limits of the 3DS, both in terms of aesthetics and controls - even if they are a bit taxing on the hands.
Honestly, I'd like to see this team make a game free of the constraints this one had as a remake on the 3DS. A full fledged original 2D entry on Switch with a linked world ala Prime would be the dream. Hell, the ending and unlocked Chozo memories have made me excited for where the story might go.
But yeah, solid 8.5/10 for me. Samus is back, and I can't wait to see Prime 4.
EDIT: I feel I might be the odd one out on this page :lol
I really enjoyed it overall. I had Fusion back in the day, but I was young and didn't really understand what to do, so I didn't get far at all. As such I consider this my first 2D Metroid experience, so I'm happy I enjoyed it as much as I did.
Some of the comments on this page ring true regarding repetition. Puzzles did begin to blend into each other while finishing my item hunt, though I imagine this is inevitable to a degree with a game like this. Concurrently the Metoid boss battles did start to get tiring.
Reducing the number would have helped. Or better yet, a couple of new Metroid types coulf have been introduced to switch things up. It's a shame because I feel the battles in isolation are pretty good and distinct. The bosses in general are great, particularly in the last acts of the game.
Combat is fun. The melee counter and free aim seem like such simple additions, but I like the options they give you in a battle. I wouldn't say they necessarily add great depth to combat, but it comes together well.
Hopefully they expand on it. A 2D Metroid on Switch would presumably be able to use both sticks to allow Samus to free aim while moving, which would be great. I felt the team did great working within the limits of the 3DS, both in terms of aesthetics and controls - even if they are a bit taxing on the hands.
Honestly, I'd like to see this team make a game free of the constraints this one had as a remake on the 3DS. A full fledged original 2D entry on Switch with a linked world ala Prime would be the dream. Hell, the ending and unlocked Chozo memories have made me excited for where the story might go.
But yeah, solid 8.5/10 for me. Samus is back, and I can't wait to see Prime 4.
EDIT: I feel I might be the odd one out on this page :lol
TheDinoman
Member
Geez, this thread turned really critical and harsh out of nowhere.
Green Mamba
Member
I won't argue your opinions, Chacranajxy, you're free to them, but you mentioned a couple times that there is a delay after shooting before you can counter, which definitely isn't true, having just checked it myself. Countering after shooting happens just as fast as any other action will.
I think there are a lot of valid complains in this page, I don't necessarily agree with all of them but yeah. IMO many of the game's most apparent problems are directly tied to it being a remake of a game that came right before the one that defined what Metroid is and should be for most fans. Sure, Metroid 1 had its share of problems too, but it was easier to remake it into Super Metroid Lite. Metroid II on the other hand had among its most prominent features the fact that you have to fight a bunch of similar bosses and that the map is stage-structured, which are hard to modify while staying true to the original.
So I think they did a fantastic work with the task they were given, and I'm sure an original game by the same team would be vastly better, and this was clearly a test run from Sakamoto and Nintendo anyway.
Not sure about controls though, honestly, people lose me as soon as they start calling them bad.
The level of freedom and movement SR has is simply not possible with 2D sprites, so for better or worse I'm fairly sure we'll never see a game like that again, unless Nintendo is fine with "downgrading" gameplay which is unlikely if you ask me.
So I think they did a fantastic work with the task they were given, and I'm sure an original game by the same team would be vastly better, and this was clearly a test run from Sakamoto and Nintendo anyway.
Not sure about controls though, honestly, people lose me as soon as they start calling them bad.
The level of freedom and movement SR has is simply not possible with 2D sprites, so for better or worse I'm fairly sure we'll never see a game like that again, unless Nintendo is fine with "downgrading" gameplay which is unlikely if you ask me.
The ice beam and missiles combined are incredibly helpful, since an ice beam into a missile is an instant kill on almost any normal enemy. No need to melee counter or spam power beam shots. Not to mention charged Ice Beam shots help take down Gamma Metroids much faster. Lightning Armor serves as a great cushion for running past enemies or extra health in boss fights.
This game frankly has the best balanced tool set of any 2D Metroid.
There's no question about it. I remember starting the game, getting the ice beam and thinking "well this is very inconvenient and obviously worse than the regular beam", then tried a meele attack against a frozen enemy and it clicked.
It's pretty much the only 2D Metroid where all power ups are consistently useful in some capacity instead of being replaced by later ones. Their inclusion in boss battles is great too.
Green Mamba
Member
The melee counter also shatters frozen enemies instantly.
Control wise I think the biggest improvement would be just to assign the touch screen controls (Beam and Missile swapping and instant Morph Ball) to actual buttons, but that's an issue with the 3DS itself.
Control wise I think the biggest improvement would be just to assign the touch screen controls (Beam and Missile swapping and instant Morph Ball) to actual buttons, but that's an issue with the 3DS itself.
I was thinking about this and I might prefer the Metroids in AM2R and the original game over Samus Returns. Not because the fights themselves are better mechanically but because of how they factor into exploration and atmosphere.
In Samus Returns, you're never surprised by a Metroid. You always have little tracker that goes off when a Metroid is kinda close and you can't turn it off, and you always fight Metroids in samey looking arenas. They feel a little sectioned off and don't really fit in naturally with the rest of the world. There's just no tension or surprise.
In the original and AM2R however, you could find them anywhere and there was no tracker to warn you that one was nearby. You often just stumbled across them in areas you wouldn't expect so they'd often come as a surprise, especially when you'd get attacked when re-traversing an area in AM2R. I think it did a good job giving you the illusion that the Metroids were actively hunting in these areas rather just waiting for Samus to arrive. Not knowing when you were gonna find a Gamme or Zeta really made things feel more tense and the game felt that little more oppressive because of it. Especially in areas like the pitch black Breeding grounds in AM2R, I was actually a little creeped out making my way through that area. Felt the same way playing the original, I don't think I ever felt that in Samus Returns.
As I said I do think the fights themselves are better mechanically for the most part and they're definitely more polished, but I just think the other games handled the atmosphere and exploration aspect way better.
Sorry for adding more to the criticism on this page!
In Samus Returns, you're never surprised by a Metroid. You always have little tracker that goes off when a Metroid is kinda close and you can't turn it off, and you always fight Metroids in samey looking arenas. They feel a little sectioned off and don't really fit in naturally with the rest of the world. There's just no tension or surprise.
In the original and AM2R however, you could find them anywhere and there was no tracker to warn you that one was nearby. You often just stumbled across them in areas you wouldn't expect so they'd often come as a surprise, especially when you'd get attacked when re-traversing an area in AM2R. I think it did a good job giving you the illusion that the Metroids were actively hunting in these areas rather just waiting for Samus to arrive. Not knowing when you were gonna find a Gamme or Zeta really made things feel more tense and the game felt that little more oppressive because of it. Especially in areas like the pitch black Breeding grounds in AM2R, I was actually a little creeped out making my way through that area. Felt the same way playing the original, I don't think I ever felt that in Samus Returns.
As I said I do think the fights themselves are better mechanically for the most part and they're definitely more polished, but I just think the other games handled the atmosphere and exploration aspect way better.
Sorry for adding more to the criticism on this page!
Remember in Super Metroid how cool the Grapple Beam seems, until you realize it's a clunkier way of crossing gaps that you can usually cross through other means? And then you get the Space Jump and there's no goddamn reason to use it?
And then in Samus Returns, it has so many uses that you don't just forget it exists when you get the Space Jump.
The only upgrade that feels kinda useless at the end of the game is the Ice Beam, since after you get the Plasma Beam all freezable enemies go down in one or two shots anyway. And you have enough missiles that you'll never need it for the Metroids. But that's still honestly better than how endgame in Fusion is just Screw Attack through everything.
Yeah. Nothing worse than an OT that discourages well-written criticism.
Aye. That it seems to be all happening on this page is coincidental more than anything.
FloweryMarston
Member
I can't grab ledges in super metroid
I disagree. I beleive the only real problem with the atmosphere is that it is not accompanied by music that gives it a bigger sense of depth, something very well accomplished by other games in the franchise like Super Metroid and the Prime trilogy.
I disagree entirely on the notion that all areas are indistinguishable. There is a varied and well though succession of areas: the Surface of the planet,
the Chozo ruins,
the Dam area with its inner underground rivers, the mining facility which was followed immediately by an area full of diamond ores and similar, etc. The final Chozo laboratory was impressive and interesting
the Dam area with its inner underground rivers, the mining facility which was followed immediately by an area full of diamond ores and similar, etc. The final Chozo laboratory was impressive and interesting
I agree that the heated areas seemed a bit bland and their position on the map quite arbitrary, unlike other games (Norfair in Super/Zero, Magmoor in Prime, etc.). I would have liked better a single heated area, but I guess they did not want to have a simple repetition of Norfair, besides Metroid II didn't originally have any.
I agree on this. Except a few themes which are all basically reused from previous games, most of the music is rather bland, even boring at times. However, and despite what the final result might have been, I think the music was done like that in purpose. Have you listened to the Metroid II soundtrack? It's basically the same. I think Samus Returns did the same justice to Metroid II as Zero Mission did to the original game.
Interesting, because I felt the game had good controls which allows a very fast-paced experience, only harmed for the limitations of the 3DS stick. However the free aim felt precise and Samus felt fast and her movements precise, closer to Metroid Fusion than to the clunky, slow Samus in Super Metroid.
I would seriously doubt that the 30fps have any significant effect on gameplay for this game. The game moves fast, even on an OG 3DS with 3D always on, and I don't think this is a legitimate complaint.
Most of what you have just said can be applied to any Metroid game. The power ups are useful only until you find better ones that do the same job better. You stop using the
Spider Ball
Grapple Beam
Space Jump
bombs
power bomb
Ice Beam for platforms
High Jump Boots
I mean, if the power-ups of this game are lame, then the power-ups of all 2D Metroid games are lame, because it's the same foundation. In this regard Samus Returns hasn't changed a bit.
I find you complaint about the missiles odd as well. 2D Metroid games always give you quite a lot of missiles, particularly in Normal mode. The original Metroid II gave you 10 missiles per expansion, and this game gives you only 3 and the rest of 2D Metroids give you 5 extra, so I don't think this was anything out of line in the regular Metroid experience. Quite the opposite.
And I found the
Ice Beam and Spider Ball
Again, you do know this is a Metroid II remake, right? That's what Metroid II was about, destroying the Metroids, period. At least this game has tried to spicy it up a little bit with more lore and story elements, like
the DNA Chozo statues, in opposition of having the lava/purple liquid just disappear
the Queen Metroid
The idea of "going deeper" is the reason why the different areas are connected just in a linear fashion one after the other, unlike other planets (like Zebes or Tallon IV) where there was more interconnection.
Also, the concept of having hidden secrets or elements blocked by yet-to-be-acquired power ups in the earlier areas is also present in this game, that's one of the reason those pins for the map have been introduced. Everyone I've seen playing this game is using them for this very reason.
I think this has to do more with your personal tastes about combat so I don't have anything to say. I personally found the counter attack to be intuitive and fun, but as someone who has been playing Metroid games for very long and prefers the older "shoot and dodge" style, I haven't found the need to rely too heavily on that (just like the Aeion abilities). The attacks by the random enemies are easy enough to dodge by doing spin jumps and many armored enemies could be either avoided using the
Spring Ball
I did not use the counter attack for any Metroid battle more than once just to try other than for the
Alpha Metroids
I will agree on the little enemy variety, which was disappointing. Many (most?) of the original SR388 fauna found in Metroid II was missing and they relied far too heavily on re-coloring enemies (particularly the Gulluggs, which are the basic bat enemy). I agree it might be related to them wanting all enemies to have an attack that could be parried.
Your complaint about the slugs... lol. They're slugs and leave some toxic stuff, is it really annoying? There were tons of enemies in Super Metroid and Metroid Prime that did the same and even had the toxic fumes stay for much longer (Tallon mushrooms, for example).
The mosquitoes are easily defeated
with the Plasma Beam once you get it, didn't you say you wanted to feel rewarded for getting new power ups?
Didn't have this problem at all. Only the first
8 Alpha Metroids in Area 2 I think
This is your personal taste. I liked it. I didn't find the style dated or ugly, in my opinion it looked quite good, particularly in 3D. Yeah sure, the low-poly 3D models aren't great. But it's the 3DS we're talking about.
Before playing the game, I too believed that a sprite-based game or something with a pixel-style instead of actual 3D models would have been better and that the game would look bad and bland like Federation Force did. I'm glad I was proven wrong.
I don't like to assume things about people, but your commentary *almost* reads like it could be from someone who hasn't really played the previous 2D Metroid games: many of the things you've complaint about, while may be legit problems (although that's arguable), are actually recurrent elements/features of all 2D Metroid games, so I don't know.
About the game having "serious fucking problems", that's not the mainstream opinion people are having about this game, at all. While there are some real complaints (music and lack of variety of enemies mostly), most people I think agree it is a great Metroid game and that MercurySteam has really hit the right button to replicate the original third-person Metroid feeling. Most people at least conclude it is a good game, that's the mainstream opinion here and as far as I've seen on all reviews too.
Sure it has its flaws, but nowhere near as bad as you're picturing it, at least in my opinion.
I know, I meant the mechanic of freezing enemies as platformsYou only have to use it a few times then it becomes redundant.
I agree. Maybe this is the reason why this mechanic isn't used very often in the other 2D Metroid games. I think the ice beam's role is to unlock a new path : after that, this function isn't useful anymore and not really "fun" (or not enough to be used too often before it becomes redundant).
It is the same for the
grapple beam
On the contrary, other powers like morphing ball, space jump, missiles, charge beam or other beams (plasma, wave) are drastic and fun changes to the gameplay experience, so they must be used often.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
Yes, which is why you also won't accidentally get caught on them again and again when you're trying to descend through passages.
FloweryMarston
Member
grabbing ledges is so good that it's a power up on zero mission
Imagine how nightmarish that initial descent through the old mother brain chamber would be.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
It worked a lot better in Zero Mission than it does here.
FloweryMarston
Member
I understand complaining about what you didn't like, but when you throw terms like amateurish, that the person who composed this deserves no merits even though it's the same who did super, you lose me. You can criticize something without being extremely agressive in your text.
It's funny because you were wondering why the Lightning Armor is useful... When you can use it to easily clear these swarms with a single counter attack.
Samus Returns has a variety of uses for your power-ups. You just have to experiment a bit more.
Danny Dudekisser
I paid good money for this Dynex!
Yes, I understand that, but I think they did a very bad job.
Actually, I tried this again, and you're kinda right. It does work -- usually. But try firing a few shots in quick succession, and then hitting X right after. It doesn't always activate.
In Metroid II or AM2R, I was never surprised by a Metroid (or very rarely) : you could always find a "Metroid sloughed skin" nearby to warn you, so no need to be Einstein to guess you will encounter a new Metroid very, very, very soon. ^^
I think the tracker simply replaces the sloughed skins from the original game.
And on the contrary, the Metroid fights in the original game were always the same for each mutation (except the room which could complicate the fight), whereas in Samus Returns each mutation has several variations to surprise the player and give him tension.
What do you mean? The only thing that would be gone is the cinematic flair/camera angle changes which weren't all that important in the first place.
I agreed with most of their objections, and I can't speak for them, but I've 100%'d every Metroid to date and I also think that it has serious problems that are in my opinion maybe even foundational to the series as a whole.
I was never seriously challenged in trying to find every item in the game. It wasn't a skill-based challenge (none of them really required precise timing like shinesparking challenges in Metroid Fusion/Zero Mission) - and it wasn't an intellectual challenge either (you see a
super missile block
super missile
Is it necessary to be challenged in this way for it to be a good game? Or is it satisfactory enough to obtain
power bombs
I'd love to see the series introduce challenges that require some lateral thinking, where you must utilize a well-established moveset against ill-defined problems requiring novel solutions, and where the level design doesn't explicitly point out when and where you must use your abilities to progress but once you figure it out the player's response is "Aha! Of course!". Maybe the Metroid series never was that - but why can't it be?
I wasn't scared while playing this, I wasn't surprised (except for, notably, the
drill machine chase
I think he means that you can't have the same gameplay in a 2D game, because in 2D you can't make a game allowing you to aim in 360° (with Samus' animation following the entire rotation in 360°). So the gameplay would be "downgraded" if the game was in 2D.
Youre right. Im drunk
Heavy's Sandvich
Member
Honestly glad I don't really use others as barometers for whether to go for a game or not.
This game is extremely enjoyable for me, felt like the little things they added helped address issues that were in the other games.
Not finished I but am thoroughly enjoying my time with it.
Baffled by some of the reactions here.
This game is extremely enjoyable for me, felt like the little things they added helped address issues that were in the other games.
Not finished I but am thoroughly enjoying my time with it.
Baffled by some of the reactions here.
I'm still baffled after someone brought it up why Aeion abilities should need the additional confirmation of the "A" button, makes them much clunkier to use and turn off. That, the touch screen beams, and slight overuse of counter early on, leave an unfortunate feeling of clunkiness to the controls.
The music is also unfortunate yeah, but at least it's better than Other M, thank goodness. I think it's a lot of things that lead to the "same-y" feel - the areas don't have names, notable music themes, or diverse colour schemes. I'm baffled they didn't use the original Tunnel theme more in the original sections, it's unfortunate.
I'm willing to wave away some criticism because man, it feels so good to play a fresh 2D Metroid, but I would be much harsher on a "Metroid 5" on Switch that should really go all out.
The music is also unfortunate yeah, but at least it's better than Other M, thank goodness. I think it's a lot of things that lead to the "same-y" feel - the areas don't have names, notable music themes, or diverse colour schemes. I'm baffled they didn't use the original Tunnel theme more in the original sections, it's unfortunate.
I'm willing to wave away some criticism because man, it feels so good to play a fresh 2D Metroid, but I would be much harsher on a "Metroid 5" on Switch that should really go all out.
I imagine abilities needing you to press A for confirmation is a thing because otherwise you'd have to stop moving to activate them due to being mapped to the Dpad.
This is what I meant, yeah.
This is what I meant, yeah.
Wait, what. There's no reason they couldn't do a full 360 degree set of sprites or using modern sprite rotation. The only reason they wouldn't have been able to before would've been technical reasons and lack of a convenient analog circle pad-like control.
Just finished 100% on normal for the first time
Uhhh...I guess it's the best game I've ever played
Samus Returns > Zero Mission > Prime > Fusion > Super > [the rest]
I couldn't have hoped for more out of this and I'm glad that as great as AM2R was it totally did not eat Nintendo's lunch on this one.
Uhhh...I guess it's the best game I've ever played
Samus Returns > Zero Mission > Prime > Fusion > Super > [the rest]
I couldn't have hoped for more out of this and I'm glad that as great as AM2R was it totally did not eat Nintendo's lunch on this one.
Eh, for the most part I was never really surprised by a Metroid in AM2R or the original. The layouts are too simple and telegraphed so plainly that it's always obvious when there is a Metroid fight coming up.
That said, I wish there was an option to just turn off the beeping sound just because it's annoying. It factored into my decision to just play the game on mute after a while.
Most of the time there wasn't a Metroid skin though. In the early parts of the game when you were fighting a lot of Alphas sure but they weren't as common Area 3 on wards. Plus there's plenty of those Metroid skins in Samus Returns anyway. There should at least have been an option to turn off the tracker
And I wouldn't say the game was made more tense by the Metroid variations, just a little bit more fun. Though I thought the changes in AM2R were better, largely because there both attack variations and significant differences in most of the rooms you fought the Metroids in. Plus sometimes you'd fight more than 1 Metroid at a time or they'd mix in different game mechanics like the EMP blasts and destructible platforms.
As I said I do prefer the fights themselves in Samus Returns, I just they could've done a much better job with the variety and discovery of the Metroids.
It'd technically be possible but it'd take A LOT of work and time to emulate the animations and movement seen in SR, to a point that it'd be pointless because they can just use 3D models instead. It's too expensive and time consuming, there's a reason even SNK is moving away from 2D sprites (RIP).
Then there's the camera angles mid boss battles which really elevate the presentation, those cannot be emulated in 2D at all.
freeofgreed
Member
So I'm in the first Main area I guess and I'm trying to find the fourth metroid.
I feel like that's the only way forward but that seems really complicated. Can anyone tell me if i'm right, because I don't want to waste my time attempting this over and over if I'm just over thinking things.
I'm at a section where there's 3 of those jumping aliens that you have to freeze to get to a Metroid. Does the game want you to freeze the last one, Jump on it, bomb jump, then turn into the spider ball then blow the ceiling?