Looking at Samus Returns purely as a contemporary Metroidvania, it’s hard to complain too much about it despite some occasional design problems. The biggest offender in this regard to me is the green goop covering a lot of the surfaces in the game — it’s a blatant and patronizing way of limiting progress, and very disappointing considering Metroid 2 was completely built around the Spiderball, which has now become an almost entirely situational ability. Past Metroid games have done this sort of thing a lot more elegantly. The same thing could be said about the way the scan pulse ability is implemented, it’s another thing that just really wasn’t necessary and impacts the design negatively; a lot of the breakable blocks in Samus Returns feel like they’re placed with this crutch in mind.

I’m also not big on the whole Melee Counter system and all of its logical repercussions. It feels great to pull off, but along with the new aiming system (which has Samus planted firmly on the ground to take precision shots) and the much more aggressive and bullet-spongy enemies, it gives the game a start-and-stop kind of rhythm that’s very unlike Metroid. Combat outside of boss fights was never the point of the series, and the changes in Samus Returns don’t make regular encounters any more challenging, just more time-consuming. I think I would’ve preferred the Melee Counter had it been more of a Melee Attack with its own momentum (using it in the air could carry you forward in a dash-like motion), for example, rather than purely this thing you do when the game prompts you to. I did discover that a lot of the regular enemies can be killed instantly by freezing them with the Ice Beam and then using the Melee Counter, but it’s hard to get in close before the Ice Beam wears off because of how hard the designers nerfed it to incentivize their intended playstyle.

What also ties into this is how Mercury Steam got the difficulty balance kind of wrong in this game in general. Checkpoints are everywhere and save stations have been placed throughout the entire map without any rhyme or reason. This is basically what you’re used to from games in 2017, and to balance this out, enemy damage has been spiked to a ridiculous degree, to the point where so much as touching a tiny critter will cut one of your energy tanks in half — this is especially the case with boss fights where Samus will die in just a couple of hits. The difficulty balance has therefore shifted to a sort of trial & error system à la Super Meat Boy where the same boss can kill you a bunch of times, but repeat attempts are pretty much instant. This is a matter of preference, but I don’t think this style of difficulty really suits Metroid — it used to be all about the tension of moving between save stations far apart from each other on a limited amount of health. Samus Returns forgoes this completely in favor of more challenging individual fights, and while I can see how people might enjoy this, I think Metroid is about survival and the adventure as a whole; that tension is almost completely lost now.

I had some initial reservations about the game’s art direction, but those ended up being mostly unfounded — the game looks great in motion and the backgrounds are used to dramatic effect.

In every other way though, Samus Returns is a great success from a game design standpoint, a smooth and zippy adventure with fun action, smart environmental puzzles and awe-inspiring architecture. Just like Metroid 2, the overall progression is very linear, but it’s balanced out with the most sprawling and free-form individual levels in the entire series, even more so in this remake. I couldn’t help but marvel at the sheer scope of these environments, and their branching nature does a fantastic job of getting your brain going: you’re constantly charting out routes and planning ahead as you’re playing, and the overall progression is immensely satisfying.

This remake attempts to bring Metroid 2 in-line with the other entries in a lot of ways; whether or not that was actually the best way to approach it is debatable (more on that in a bit), but it’s hard to deny that Samus Returns achieves exactly what it set out to do in this regard. It does the most it can with the linear structure laid out by the original game to add in the kinds of Metroidvania hooks you’d expect of this kind of game — items are cleverly hidden and fast travel was probably the only way to facilitate backtracking without completely uprooting Metroid 2’s core design. The controls too have been greatly updated, with a sense of weight and precision somewhere between Fusion and Zero Mission, while retaining a general jump arc and travel distance that’s extremely close to Super Metroid and Metroid 2 (and not the shorter hops you’re used to from the GBA games). Hit reactions, effects, animations are all top-notch, and it makes for a game that’s very crisp and satisfying to play (despite the 30fps cap and therefore choppy scrolling).

On an artistic level though? I can’t help but look at Samus Returns as a bit of a mess in that respect. With its constant reuse of Prime’s music, abilities pilfered from Super Metroid and puzzle designs invoking Zero Mission and Fusion, it calls back to basically every series entry… except Metroid 2, the game it’s supposed to be adapting. Samus Returns doesn’t invoke any of the same feelings as the original because it’s not even trying to in the first place.

Thoughts on the music of Samus Returns since I don’t want to repeat myself.

There exist many different interpretations of Metroid 2, and while you might be forgiven for thinking that some of them read into it a bit too deeply, it’s hard to deny that the game has a certain special quality to it, that it was going for a very deliberate feel. It’s arguable that, just by existing, remakes like Samus Returns kind of miss the point. A high-fidelity reimagining like this was never going to capture the same range of emotions, but I think my problem with it only really begins once you start to look at all the unnecessary changes that clearly don’t respect the original vision.

Take something as seemingly innocuous as the addition of elevators between areas (rather than have them naturally connect through shafts and tunnels like in the original) for instance: Metroid 2 is, for all intents and purposes, a downward spiral. As you descend further and further into SR388, the environments bleed together and become larger than you can possibly comprehend, the scale of everything is impossible to judge and the interior layout of the planet makes less and less sense. In Samus Returns, every area becomes a digestible sandbox, and once you’re done playing in one of these sandboxes you simply take the elevator to the next one. The confusing, awkward horror of the original game is completely lost in this remake because of something so simple.

The fusion shout-out after the game’s credits is justified and well-intentioned, but Fusion sucks anyway, so..?

It doesn’t stop there though; I take issue with the idea that this game really needed the backtracking and completion incentives of other Metroids. SR388, as it’s depicted in Metroid 2, would be a nightmare to backtrack through and climb your way out of, which is something you’re constantly aware of on your descent into its deepest levels, only reinforcing the feeling of horror and uncertainty. This is the major way in which Metroid 2 differs from the other entries in the series, and the fact this wasn’t kept with the remake just rubs me the wrong way like you wouldn’t believe. I’m gonna get into this in more detail toward the end of this write-up, but I think a remake should at least try to capture the same basic feeling as the original, and this clearly wasn’t a priority in Samus Returns. Item locks and teleport stations litter the map, returning to the surface at any point isn’t just easy, it’s incentivized.

The most baffling example of this can be found in the game’s final stretch: after witnessing the final Metroid egg hatch, you realize that the baby following Samus around now is capable of clearing a type of obstacle you’ve been encountering throughout the entirety of SR388 from the very beginning of your journey. To achieve 100% completion, the game wants you to backtrack through the whole planet with the baby Metroid in tow, solving small environmental puzzles for inconsequential rewards.

I can’t even begin to describe how much it shocked me to see the emotional core of Metroid 2 be reduced to a dumb Metroidvania item lock… could the developers have missed the point any harder here? Did this game really need any more “WHEEEEEE MISSILE TANK!!” moments? Not to mention how the reveal of the egg and the escape sequence following the death of the Queen Metroid are somewhat poorly executed and lack impact compared to the original: the trek back to Samus’s ship, tranquil and melancholic in the Game Boy original, is now littered with enemies and constant video game-y interruptions.

Upon seeing the unhatched Metroid egg for the first time, Metroid 2 would freeze for a second and play a dramatic sound effect; in Samus Returns you just stroll right by. The resemblance between Samus and the egg is also less pronounced due to the much higher fidelity graphics.

It doesn’t end there though. In a surprising twist, Ridley shows up to snatch away the baby Metroid as you’re about to board Samus’s ship, and the *real* final battle ensues. At the risk of repeating myself: this was all “cool” and “epic” on a superficial video game-y level, but looking at the game as a piece of art it’s once again kind of baffling. Did we really need to shoehorn Ridley into the ONE Metroid game that didn’t have him? It borders on parody at this point.

The fact that the Baby shields you from one of Ridley’s attacks is also once again an example of the developers missing the point (I know I’m repeating myself…): the relationship between it and Samus wasn’t supposed to pay off in this way until the final showdown with Mother Brain in Super Metroid. It’s the kind of retcon that reduces the impact of later events in the series, both with the Mother Brain fight I just mentioned, but also Ridley’s first appearance in Super Metroid: the fact he was still alive after the events of Metroid I was supposed to be a shock and a surprise, but now all of that is in Samus Returns and his attack on the research station in Super’s intro happens mere hours later.

To quote EJR Tairne on this matter, it’s like the developers looked at Metroid 2 as this “broken” game, and “fixing” it to them meant making it like all the other Metroid games. The approach should’ve rather been to look at what makes this game unique from the other titles, and design the remake in a way that supports the original goal, rather than detract from it. I can already picture in my head how much flak Samus Returns would’ve received had it been more faithful to the original (rather than the glowing critical reception it’s enjoying now), but fans of Metroid 2 like me would’ve undoubtedly appreciated that kind of boldness and care more than what we ended up getting instead.

For the first time since Super Metroid, there isn’t a single line of text dedicated to story outside of the game’s opening, which is something I can greatly appreciate.

Because the sad fact is that people WILL look at these two as the same game and that Samus Returns will inevitably supplant the original. As someone who’s played Metroid 2, I’m glad I can enjoy two (or three for that matter) very different takes on the same basic idea, but I can’t help but be extremely vexed at that thought. In ten years time, people will come to Samus Returns expecting it to give them the same experience as the original. That just isn’t the case though, both games are worth playing, and if you’ve finished Samus Returns and you’re reading this, I hope I could convince you to give Metroid 2 a try.

That’s why, ultimately, it’s hard for me not to walk away from Samus Returns with rather mixed feelings. Looked at purely as a *game*, there wasn’t a single moment where I wasn’t enjoying myself immensely, and I never once felt like putting it down. For everyone else though, I just can’t help but hope that it won’t succeed in replacing Metroid 2; please don’t let that game be lost to time.