I haven't played many original gameboy games as they screen/lack-of-light turned me off of the system as a kid. Of the games I've played, this is likely the best. How they were able to make a compelling Metroid game with such limitations and able to produce the oppressive atmosphere that the series is known for is quite the achievement.

That being said, the game is pretty darn difficult. Getting lost in the mazes and having to farm for health / missiles if you're too far from a refill spot are a real pain, especially towards the end.

The last boss fight is absolutely brutal, too! Definitely the worst Metroid game I've played, but boy am I glad that I played it. Solid GB experience.

I've been trying to play every Metroid game in order of release because the only one I ever beat was, ironically, this game's remake, Samus Returns, and I'll replay that and review it eventually, but because I had already played that game and my friends wanted me to play Super, I was advised to skip this one here, and I did, I played Super first, really enjoyed it, but then I decided to go back to this anyway, I just felt wrong skipping it, and I'm so glad I did.

Metroid II is very different from the rest I've played, including it's own remake, you're not trying to escape the planet, you're there with a purpose, kill every Metroid, it's pretty fucked up and the game is clearly trying to tell you (especially at the end) that maybe what you're doing here is at least morally dubious, and I absolutely love that. Is the gameplay a little rough? yeah, for sure, but outside of that I think pretty much every technical "limitation" of the gameboy ends up working in it's favor. The screen being so small makes the game feel really claustrophobic the whole way through, the music could barely even be considered music sometimes, it's mostly composed of... weird, creepy sounds, the atmosphere is honestly as good as it got in Super, maybe even better at points. The reason it's not equally rated however, is the bosses, there's 40 Metroids to defeat, and they're all pretty uninspired fights, most of them die in 5 missiles, non of them have any interesting patterns to learn, and I understand that this is also probably due to the gameboy's limitations but I can't justify it in this case because it's such a huge part of the game.

Overall, I highly recommend everyone reading to at least give this game a chance, especially if you skipped it for how it looks or for it having so many remakes out there, this is a completely unique experience that I think every Metroid fan would appreciate.

It was ok. The biggest flaw is the lack of a map. An in-game map would make this game so much better.
For a gameboy title, it's very impressive. It controls well enough, the level design is pretty good, enemies are just okay. Music is atmospheric when it's there. Good for the hardware.
I played the colorization which looks really good.
I definitely recommend playing this one with a map. I just can't stand wondering around not knowing where to go.
Camera can be a bit too close, but it seems like the game usually takes it into account, you're not really making blind jumps.

Great game for an original Gameboy game and a huge improvement from the first game. The controls are a lot better, the map is designed much better, and the enemy placement also isn't insane like the first game. There are still some problems, however. The boss fights are a little repetitive and annoying, there's not much variety in scenery due to the limitations of the Gameboy's color palette, and having no health/missile refills in the last area with the omega metroids is pretty stupid. But otherwise, I very much enjoyed it. The way you kill the final boss is pretty cool as well and I love the ending with the cute baby metroid.