Warning, this game suffers from poor controls and often unfair gameplay. Blind drops into pits of acid or lava, or just bumping against enemies or being hit by them when entering a room without having a moment to counter or avoid.



Often the controls are frankly unwieldy, forcing you to have precise aim whilst using the grappling beam to swing from point to point over a pool of lava that Warning, this game suffers from poor controls and often unfair gameplay. Blind drops into pits of acid or lava, or just bumping against enemies or being hit by them when entering a room without having a moment to counter or avoid.



Often the controls are frankly unwieldy, forcing you to have precise aim whilst using the grappling beam to swing from point to point over a pool of lava that does insane damage. In this scenario even the exact order of aim and button presses needs to be precise or you'll wind up doing something totally different from what you intended. Control direction that is inversed sometimes from what you would expect when using spider ball. Juggling to switch between aion powers with the dpad whilst holding the shoulder buttons and circle pad to aim whilst pressing face buttons to fire, it can be a bit too much. And quite frankly it brings back really bad memories from bad control schemes back in the nes & snes era.



Add to that that the environment is extremely repetitive and boring, with no story and world building at all. And the most annoying part that the environment is built like a maze to be extremely obtuse to traverse, which is only made slightly easier down the line when extra abilities are unlocked. But unlike prime, where your abilities are keys to doors, here your abilities from even late game are needed for normal traversal in all areas. So be prepared to take that detour in a stupid morph ball maze for the first 6 hours of the game until you finally get the ability you need to just open the door to bypass that horrible experience. Prime games never ever used ability unlocks in that way, because that is very poor gameplay design.



I will also challenge you to tell me the difference between each colour block you can blast or each door icon on your minimap. It's impossible. They are extremely non descript. Again, prime was simple in this regard, each color door corresponds to each beam type using the same color. Color association. It works. Here in Samus returns they chose to throw that out of the window. I'm also baffled by why every blastable bit or crack is hidden with little or even no sign that it is there. It's integral to actually playing the game. If it weren't for the scan pulse, you would be blasting and bombing every cell of the level to find where the exit of a room is. Yet again what's wrong with showing cracked walls ? Zelda does it, metroid prime does it. Seems like great game design. Yet Samus returns ignores that too.



In the grand scheme of things these are annoyances that can be largely overcome or ignored, but there is one point in the game where all these bits come together in a glorious cocktail of infuriating madness. It's like it is specifically designed to test your determination to actually finish this game. All the bad parts meld together, punishing difficulty, controls that never seem to do exactly what you want. Unfair blind drops. Level design that is a horrible maze mess and annoying to traverse. It all comes together in this part where you'll genuinely question wether this is worth the effort.



I also take issue with the worldbuilding and environment. It is extremely repetitive, as are the boss fights and all enemies for that matter. There is no logic at all to the setting of the environment. Gone are the regions of prime. With ruins, ice temples, crash sites, underwater areas, etc. Each area having defense areas, installations, power facilities, laboratories with a logical reason for it being there. In Samus returns it's just level arenas dressed up to resemble a jungle theme, ruins theme, lava theme. But with none of the intricate detail and worldbuilding, backstory and logic. Just some generic hallways in maze form to connect it all. It's a gigantic step down from prime in this regard.



I'm terribly afraid of what this means for prime 4 if retro is not at the helm and Samus returns is heralded as being one of the best metroid games in years. To me this is metroid watered down. It's not a terrible game but there are things in there that I deem unacceptable. If the gameplay wasn't borked it would have received a 7. … Expand