Finally. It’s been a decade, but we get a real Metroid game. No, Other M doesn’t count.



Metroid: Samus Returns

Developer: Nintendo

My completion: Finished, 100%, 11 hours

Available on: 3DS

Price: That weird price most 3DS games are that’s kind of full price but not really ($49 Australian)

Metroid is my all time favourite series. Metroid Fusion is the reason I got into gaming, and it remains the most nostalgic game I’ve ever played, and I recently did a 1hr 40m speedrun. Not trying to brag or anything, but I guess the fact I’ve been playing it for 16 years paid off after all (except it was an any % run so not really that impressive). Metroid Prime 3: Corruption remains my all-time favourite game, and I love that game to bits.

It’s been 10 years since that game, with the only other entries being a game that was a decent game but a bad Metroid game (Other M) and some ridiculous Warhammer: Vermintide Clone (Federation Troopers or whatever it was called). Both were fine I guess, but Metroid is one of Nintendo’s most critically successful franchises. And this one’s a big return to form.

Samus Returns is a re imagining of Metroid 2, done in a similar fashion Zero Mission, a re imagining of the first Metroid. The design idea is the same, and the locations are the same, but much of the game is changed and the layout is almost completely different. There are a few new plot elements too, considering the original had no plot. Also, there’s a map system. For those of you who don’t know, the original 2 Metroid games had no map system. Sort of like Dark Souls, except not fun. The game plays out like a traditional 2D Metroid game. It’s a 2D platformer (albeit with 3D graphics) that takes place in a big old labyrnthine planet that you must scour for powerups that allow you to progress. But because this one is based on Metroid 2, it has a unique twist on the traditional Metroid progression. Whereas in other entries you only need to grab a powerup to unlock a new area, here you have to defeat all the Metroids in the area. The plot of Metroid 2 is still simple, but goes a bit more in depth, specifically about why the Metroids home planet is SR388 (the planet you’ll be exploring) instead of Zebes (the planet their creators call home). It’s a light, but very nice touch that continues the storytelling that the Prime series pioneered, with the immediate plot being simple, but containing a deep historical lore that is unveiled as you explore. So Samus is called to SR388 to destroy all the Metroids, and that’s what makes this one interesting.

While the Metroid variety is sadly quite underused, with the most famous form, the larva (the big toothy jellyfish that everyone’s seen before), being very minor enemies only released towards the end. I understand that this is how it was in Metroid 2, but this is a re imagining, it was an opportunity to improve upon that. That isn’t to say the Metroid fights are dull, not at all, but they are very sadly lacking in variety. There are, as any devout Metroid fan will tell you, 6 types of Metroid, or 6 stages of Metroid. Well, 8 technically, but only 6 you can fight. You’ve got the iconic Larva, the…weird Alphas, the creepy crawly Gammas, the frankly downright scary Zetas, and the intimidating Omegas. I won’t spoil the last one, but it’s very….Aliens. They’re all interesting to fight, especially the Zetas and Omegas, but unfortunately the Alphas and Gammas suffer from a ton of repetition. They try to mix it up by giving them various elemental attacks, but they all still boil down to the same tactics, and can begin to feel more like clean up detail than actual hunting. It doesn’t help that a lot of the graphics can end up feeling really dull and lifeless. While the backgrounds and environment design is beautiful in that classic Metroid way, the actual models themselves suffer greatly. I find it interesting especially that Samus and the Zeta and Omega Metroids look amazing, yet all the other monsters, and even the other Metroids, look really shitty. This is one game on the 3DS I seriously cannot recommend on a 2DS or with the 3D turned off. Seriously, if you play this game without the 3D on full blast, it looks hideous.

But how is the gameplay itself, the exploring and shooting? This is where Samus Returns pulls out the big guns. Gunplay in SR is the absolute best the 2D games have ever seen. Super Metroid is hardly remembered for its combat, and while Fusion was better and Zero Mission was actually good, SR feels like the way the series always wanted to play. It really highlights Samus’ mastery of her suit. That despite it being a big bulky Master Chief styled metal suit, she knows what she’s doing and how she’s doing it. Melee attacks in a Metroid game seem like a bad idea, but not when they aren’t actually melee attacks. Every enemy in SR has a telegraph, a noise and little white sheen will come out of an enemy just as they attack. Hit X within that timespan, and you’ll knock them back and lockon to them, before unleashing a round of automatically powered up shots. Despite how awfully I just described it, I was surprised at how fluid the system was and how fun it made the game, and not just because of the melee system either. Telegraphing enemies allow the player to feel like a badass with precognition. It’s the reason the Souls series is so successful. Clearly show the player when something will attack, and they can dodge and roll and block their way through an entire level fluidly without ever being hit or ever delivering one. Sure, Souls games do it in a much more brutal way, but that’s another reason they’re amazing. SR lets you run and jump and just fly through the level without ever being touched.

Alternatively, if you don’t want to pretend you’re Spiderman in a metal suit, you can just use it to deal with the game’s slightly awkward controls. See, Samus can now shoot in any direction whatsoever. You’re no longer locked to up, down, straight, and the diagonals, you can just the 3DS slider stick thingy to aim wherever. Sounds good in theory, until you realise that means that holding L won’t let you aim diagonally and run anymore. It’ll lock you in place and change movement to aiming. Sounds bad, but that’s where the melee synchronizes with this system. Had there been no blocking system, it was very likely the game would’ve been awkward and frustrating. But Nintendo knew better, and developed a system to counter the flaws of the new aiming system. Basically what I’m trying to say is that both the new systems gel together, and neither would work without the other. That’s some good game design.

Now, the level design itself is to me, somewhat of a double edged sword. Overall, needing to destroy a certain number of Metroids before the next area is unlocked is all well and good and is a great way of changing up the last few Metroid games. I honestly found a lot of the design good and bad, though. There are a lot of sections that feel like Metroid at its finest: tasking you with cleverly using multiple tools to quickly zip through hazards and get to your destination. Then there are sections that are Metroid at its worst: there are several crawlspaces that make you blow up bomb blocks one at a time, up to 5 times. Why? It’s a total waste of time, and is completely unnecessary. As far as exploration goes, I would say this is far and away the easiest Metroid game. 100%ing this game is honestly a joke, and a lot of the pickups can, especially towards the end, feel like a massive chore. This is mostly because of the somewhat good somewhat bad Aeon system. And when I say that, I mean it’s good except for one part. You’ve got 4 powers now, mapped to the d-pad and powered by a new unique energy gauge. They’re honestly cool powers, and are pretty interesting ways of spicing up traditional Metroid progression. Sure, some are a bit contrived, but they’re the sort of thing this series really needed to start to implement. What’s most praiseworthy about them is that they are simultaneously required to progress in the game but also just genuinely useful gadgets that help completion. Sure, you could argue things like beam upgrades or the Screw Attack help you beat foes, but Aeon powers are just on another level in terms of usefulness, specifically the last one which I won’t spoil but…BOI. It’s good.

Unfortunately what doesn’t work is the very first one you get. It’s a scanner, which reveals a large chunk of the map around you. This means that map rooms aren’t a thing here, as the scanner is given to you as a sort of portable make-your-own map room. While this sounds good in theory and is fun at first, you quickly realise that because it reveals which tiles have pickups, it’s a joke to 100% this game. Maybe some people, hell probably a lot of people, prefer this to hunting down every powerup over 6 hours, but doing that still holds a special place in my heart as one of the many reasons I love the series. It’s just a disappointing collection system, and like I said it ends up feeling a lot like clean up duty towards the end. I’d just like to point out that this thing is very similar to the X-Ray Scope from Super Metroid, but I think that one was done better. that one only showed you a limited space around you and the screen you were on, but it was still simple to use and it helped ease the burden on people who were having trouble finding everything, while still retaining that satisfying sense of discovery. Here it’s like somebody discovered everything and then told you where to go.

One final thing. One final point I absolutely need to make.

There is a boss in this game.

Whoever made this boss should be fired. Effective immediately.

It was a pathetic, awful, horrendously designed mess that had no place in this otherwise mostly well designed game. The worst things I can say about this game are that certain sections don’t feel polished to perfection. But this boss feels like the office’s pet ape was allowed to bash on the keyboard for half an hour. The mechanics behind it make no sense, you die in 3 hits no matter how many energy tanks you’ve collected, and the way you defeat it is not told you to in any fashion, and doesn’t allow you time to experiment in the slightest. It’s a visual mess, with half the boss in the background and no clear distinction between areas that can and can’t hurt you, and godforbid you try to find where its hit boxes are. It’s a complete mess, an utter failure in almost every respect, and it’s an utter disgrace to the Metroid name. I’ll take the entirety (including cutscenes) of Other M over that boss fight any day. It’s infuriating, confusing, and most of all, isn’t fun. When I fight a Dark Souls boss, I die endless times. And yet, despite this, I have fun all the way (most of the time) because the bosses are clear cut and make sense. I know what’s going to hit me, I know how, but I need to figure out when and how to counter it. A good boss is designed on the principle of taking something from the game and twisting it into a large challenge. It’s sort of like an exam of everything the game has taught you so far. That’s exactly what this mess of a boss isn’t. It uses mechanics that are literally not present in any part of the game, and the way you beat its second phase is absolutely absurd. I had to resort to the internet to figure it out and the moment I saw what you had to do, I immediately said out loud to myself “Wait, what the fuck? How was I meant to know I could do that?”. I think that sums it up nicely. “How was I meant to know I could do that”. That’s the mark of a poor boss fight. No communication, no projection, no nothing. And I’m not talking about the game not holding your hand, I’m talking about the game pushing you over and gurgling in tongues for half an hour. That’s what this boss is. And yes, I do think it’s bad enough to warrant a 224 word paragraph.

Metroid: Samus Returns is certainly a return to form. It’s a great example of what the series used to be, what it can be. But it’s bogged down a bit of bullshit. It’s never enough to make it a bad game, or even a mediocre game, but it’s there. Make no mistake, most of the game is really good, and I certainly enjoyed it and will be playing it again. There was some amazingly clever level design and awesome powerups, not to mention the fantastic combat system. SR certainly isn’t the best Metroid game, but it’s still a great one that I’ll welcome to the series. There was a lot that could’ve been done better, but there was more done well than done badly.

Except that fucking boss fight.

7/10

Good

Enjoyment: 90%. If I ever have to see that stupid robot boss ever again in my life, I’m going to throw my 3DS into a vat of acid.