Metroid is one of my absolute favorite game series. I’m quite new to it, to be completely honest, first trying Super Metroid when the emulation on PC became pretty good. But it immediately became one of my favorite games and most of my experience with the series has been full of excitement and joy. It’s very hard to pry me off a controller when I’m playing a Metroid game for the first time, and it was true even for the dreadful Other M. Metroid: Samus Returns, an official remake of Metroid 2: Return of Samus, took me about 4 months to complete. Not because the game is particularly long. Because I really didn’t want to continue playing it.
Samus Returns was developed by MercurySteam, a Spanish team of developers who worked on many, mostly mediocre, games including their previous 3DS title – Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate. It was their second attempt at making a Castlevania game and while it was still considerably weaker than the games it tried to emulate, it at least somewhat understood how to make fun “metroidvania” games with an action focus. You might expect Metroid: Samus Returns feel similar. You would be correct.
On one hand, the game does seemingly impossible and re-introduces a lot of badly made elements from Other M, except they work in a more classic-like Metroid, and work well. It’s still action focused, but is much more fluid, with the “counter” ability being less of a QTE one hit kill and more of yet another tool to use (at least in theory). Locations are actually focused on exploration and some of the puzzles for optional items are fun and clever. They are often trying to recreate the mood of the original game, with a lot more loneliness and horror than some other missions Samus Aran undertakes. Even music sometimes follows the original simplistic GameBoy soundtrack. And despite the fears, they avoided the problems they couldn’t avoid in the Mirror of Fate – there are very few cutscenes, all of them are skippable and there’s barely any dialogue or text in the game. Also, no QTEs.
On the other hand, just like with most of the other games by the developer, Samus Returns never feels “difficult” or “challenging”. It just murders you if it feels like it. MercurySteam never understood the concepts of “balance” or “clear conveyance to the player”, so you might get into a fight with a boss, go through the first stages of the fight without a hit, and then die on the final phase because nothing you do seems to do anything. And the actual solution, while it does make sense, is completely non-obvious and makes sense only after you know it. There are puzzles that just expect you to know that a very specific use of a very specific weapon triggers a special move that was previously possible for completely different reasons. And, being completely honest, actually exploring/backtracking is never fun – if you can collect it on the first go, it’s usually not hard to do or find. If you can’t – there’s no reason to return until the very end of the game, and by then it just seems pointless.
The constant focus on action is tiring. Complete misunderstanding of the global mood of the game is shocking, with the ending part getting an unnecessary and badly thought out and designed extra boss fight and sequences. Locations all look more or less the same, yet, somehow, more boring then the monochrome original, with their super low res 3D artwork and horrible pixelated mix of orange yellow and purple everywhere you go… Did I tell you just how boring, and when not boring – frustrating, – playing this game is? Well, now I did.
And the extra cherry on top is the existence of AM2R, a free fan made remake of Metroid 2 that Nintendo forced to officially close down after it was released, so it was not updated past a few releases and cannot be officially distributed. But I urge you to download it from where you can find it, because it’s not just a superior game, but also probably one of the best Metroid games ever made. It has its own faults, of course. It’s a bit more Zero Mission/Fusion in how it plays, but with some new sequences, puzzles and moves that are extremely fitting and fun. Yet, if I’m being honest, more fitting the more adventurous missions of Samus, rather the more somber and horror one Metroid 2 is supposed to be. Though, amazingly, it does the horror and melancholy as well, and understands it, and the mood of the original game, much better than Samus Returns ever does. It’s a fantastic game. Made for free. By a small crew. And yet, far better than this official mess.
It could’ve been different. We could’ve had two differently amazing new takes on the Metroid 2. Enjoyable in their own ways. But instead we got a fantastic Metroid game, and an average, at best, boring and frustrating mess of a game. I’m glad I didn’t get a 2DS XL just for this game, otherwise I would’ve been extremely disappointed, but hey, there are plenty other good games to play on the platform at least.