Series Metroid has been neglected by the company for a long time Nintendo and even on her thirtieth birthday last year she didn’t receive any big announcements. For comparison, two other famous franchises, Zelda and Mario, regularly replenished the catalog of their games almost every year. Alas, long breaks in the adventures of Samus Aran are the norm for the series. Yes, between Super Metroid on SNES and Metroid Prime It’s been eight whole years on GameCube. The last game about a brave heroine for a long time was released in 2010 Metroid:Other M.
Release Metroid: Samus Returns came as a surprise to many – the game was announced just a couple of months before release. At first glance, the new product for Nintendo 3DS is a classic “Metroidvania” with a fascinating exploration of the world. But is it really Samus Returns corresponds to the canons of the genre?
Hello from SR388
Metroid: Samus Returns – this is a remake Metroid II: Return of Samus from a Spanish company MercurySteam. The original game was released twenty-six years ago on the Game Boy and was a dark black and white story about the extermination of metroids on the planet SR388. It’s clear why the developers chose the second part of the series: a remake of the first had already been released, and the next game had to be rethought.
But, unlike Metroid: Zero Mission, Samus Returns – this is still not the same “Metroid” that we were waiting for, and the fault here is not even the transfer of the game from 2D to 2.5D, and the general concept and its mechanics. Yes, that’s how easily I ruined the intrigue of the entire review.
Original Metroid for the NES and its re-release were about exploring the world, or rather, an entire planet with different biomes and monsters. They had a freedom that was breathtaking. IN Metroid II and its remake, the goal is more pragmatic and boring – kill all metroids on the map. The idea of exploration is no longer at the core of the game.
As the adventure progresses, the silent Samus descends deeper and deeper and in the depths of SR388 finds and exterminates metroids in different stages of their evolution. Here you can easily draw parallels with the Alien franchise, which clearly inspired the creators of the series.
Speaking about the new product, we cannot fail to mention Another Metroid 2 Remake — last year’s fan remake of the second part, which suddenly turned out to be deeper and more interesting than the official game. AM2R made by one person, but he has more attention to detail and features of the original source than the whole team MercurySteam. Moreover, the Spaniards have already had a hand in the classics – the series Castlevania and released Mirror of Fate, which was not enough stars from the sky, but at least it was diverse.
¡No pasaran!
Main innovations Samus Returns – the ability to aim in any direction using the stick and counterattack. Along with the latter, armored enemies were added to the game, which can only be “disassembled” by repelling their blow in time. This greatly slows down the gameplay and running through locations: you have to stop at each such enemy. If you add to this that almost all of them are recolored versions of themselves until the very end, then it becomes clear that moving from one such alien monster to another is not fun at all.
The game painfully punishes Samus for mistakes. Even ordinary opponents take away a lot of health in a collision, let alone “bosses”. At the same time, the “mobs” are resurrected before you have time to leave the room. Convenient for grinding, but tiring for normal passage, especially since you have to run through the same places more than once. At the same time, “backtracking” in the game is not so severe – largely thanks to teleports. Checkpoints have also appeared, however, they only work in the rooms before and after the “bosses”.
Best in Samus Returns – it belongs https://neonbingocasino.co.uk/mobile-app/ to the Metroidvania genre. Everything here is as it should be: cleverly hidden secrets and puzzles that need to be solved by correctly using Samus’ abilities. Somewhere you can freeze an enemy and use him as a platform, somewhere you can open a secret passage with a bomb and roll a morph ball into it, and so on. But not everything is smooth with abilities either. Almost at the very beginning, a scanner is given that opens part of the map and highlights breaking walls – this completely destroys the mystery of exploration.
I don’t want to talk about the spoiled atmosphere, but I have to. The original Metroid was scary and gloomy, but the new one is full of colors and does not give a feeling of doom and hopelessness. More precisely, he gives, but on a completely different level. Dull graphics, monotonous cave corridors – all this makes you sad, but not the kind that should be in a game about exploring distant and dangerous planets.
Portable Metroid II: Return of Samus was far from the best part of the series, and its remake was not a masterpiece either. Bye Nintendo she shelved games about Samus, the Metroidvania genre developed without her participation. And now the ancestor needs to try to match her young and fresh competitors. Then perhaps the Metroid Hunter’s next return will be much more successful.
Pros: interesting puzzles in places; references to the original game.
Cons: monotony of locations and enemies; not always convenient control; inexpressive graphics and music.
Metroid: Samus Returns
Best comments
Well, well, well, well, that means you don’t have to worry too much and just continue to replay AM2R… 🙂
P.S. And yes, Daur, stop being encrypted and writing reviews on behalf of Katerina. We all know very well for a long time that Kate is stored in jars in your basement, you inhuman 🙁
You can still agree with the enemies, but what’s wrong with the locations, graphics, music and atmosphere in general?? Not all games in the series are dark. Zero Mission and Prime weren’t so dark, but they still stuck in the soul. AM2R came out great, and I didn’t feel gloomy there either, there were no smart ordinary opponents, and the corridors could just as well be called monotonous, except for a couple of moments. Still, Samus Returns deserves its “Commendable” rating.
It seems to me that you didn’t finish the game and didn’t see the amazing run from the robot and the fight with it. The game has become really difficult, at the last level the developers managed to make it so that the situation, even with all the weapons, is aggressive towards the player, this is really a test and maintains the level of difficulty, unlike most games, where by collecting all the secrets and armor you become a god!
Analysis of the game on the topic of graphics is irrelevant for 3DS, after all, the platform is not about that, but more about the experience of passing. Of the minuses, it is much more important that additional buttons were not used for Ball morphs and rockets, so the thumbs would get less tired. So the review is a C grade (((I wanted a deeper analysis of the mechanics
Pari doesn’t reduce the dynamics of the game, what are you doing?. On the contrary, its addition gave the developers the opportunity to make enemies faster and more aggressive. In all 2D metroids, enemies almost always fly around the room or crawl, almost never attacking Samus directly. There are exceptions, but they are few of the total number of opponents. Here all the enemies attack her when the hunter approaches. The game only wins. Well, a counterattack is not necessary at all. I don’t understand the complaints about the graphics either. For a side-scroller on 3DS, it could have been better if only the developers had chosen a cartoon style, like Kirby and Mario. The game looks very decent and is well animated. Well, there’s not a word in the review about the new bosses and the fierce and driving battles with the later stages of metroids. I only agree that the variety of enemies could have been greater, but they migrated from the original, so what?. Don’t add Space Pirates. A pulse scan is also not necessary, by the way. If a player wants to drill into every block in search of secrets, let him drill, for God’s sake. The game doesn’t deserve a passerby IMHO. An excellent remake of not the most popular part of the series.
Taking into account the console, it is generally problematic to make the graphics better, for a portable console this is a very good game (which can be played on both a simple 3DS and a NEW 3DS), or rather, it is even a very good remake.
Something like a review about nothing. The comrades above have already spoken out on the most “egregious” claims, and also noted that there is much more to find fault with in this review. And the remark is already from me. It’s kind of strange to see the words about “Research is not at the forefront” and “There are still a lot of secrets”. Isn’t searching for secrets and stuff research?? Or am I missing something?
I strongly disagree with the author’s opinion. At the time of its release, and let me note this was 1991, when the full-fledged movement of portable platforms was just emerging, the game was very good, and given its portability, even more so!
I haven’t played the original Metroids, but for some reason I get the feeling that the author has some kind of personal dislike either for the series as a whole, or for the second part in particular. Okay, I tried the first Metroid at one time, but it was too short-lived. I saw the overall gameplay of Samus Returns and I can’t say that this is a passable project. Naturally, it doesn’t reach the level of raisins, in my personal sofa opinion, but somehow it doesn’t smell like raisins, which is partially confirmed by the comments above, from people who apparently played.
Yeah, yeah – “I don’t know anything important about Daura”… As Bates used to say: “I believe you”.
Well, okay, if you continue to stick to your line, “Daurchik,” then I’ll remind you (watch until the very, very end, of course :D):
from the video and I can form an opinion in 30 minutes, it’s extremely uninteresting to read due to my frank lack of knowledge of the series and the events taking place
I recently played metroid zero mission, metroid fusion, supermetroid, metroid prime trylogy. I can say with confidence that the 2nd Metroid is a passable one (the remake too). I was bored playing it.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), the author of the review is a fan of the series, so he is very critical of all the shortcomings and from the very beginning was wary of the fact that the project fell into the hands of MercurySteam.
Unfortunately, my fears were confirmed, and the game turned out frankly weak (not only in my opinion). But if someone liked Samus Returns, well, I’m glad.