I think this might be the game on which my opinion changed the most after a replay. Oddly, this is my first time actually finishing Metroid Fusion - many years ago I almost did, but I got stuck on the final boss and gave up. Nowadays, since I value combat and minute-to-minute level design more than I used to, I actually appreciate this game a whole lot more. It’s still deeply flawed, and a lot of its strongest elements only really work on a blind first playthrough, but it’s a largely enjoyable experience that does some things pretty well.
Fusion’s biggest missed opportunity is how many of its best moments are deflated once you know what’s going on under the hood. The SA-X sequences, which are brilliantly presented in terms of visuals and audio and create tons of tension, lose almost all of that tension once you realize how heavily scripted they are. You’re almost never in any actual danger until the very last one, which is mostly just kind of an annoying but easy chase sequence. Making the AI more competent and allowing it to track you throughout the station would make the enemy much more intimidating, but as it stands these moments don’t really work for me anymore.
The game’s first major weakness, which in some ways could be argued to also be a strength, is how linear it is. On the one hand, there is virtually no routing or large-scale exploration to speak of. On the other hand, the linearity allows for a much tighter and more story-driven experience, with a very consistent difficulty curve, and which plays with the concept of player agency in some interesting ways narratively later on. I won’t go into detail on those moments both because I think they’re best experienced blind and because I don’t feel qualified to adequately discuss them, but I enjoyed them, even if their addition doesn’t make up for the lack of interesting world design for me personally.
My other largest complaint with this game is the simplicity of its movement and traversal mechanics. These have been simplified in order to prevent sequence breaking, but I dispute the necessity of this. The controls here aren’t bad, they’re fairly responsive and fluid, but there’s not much meat on the bones; all of the interesting tech from Super Metroid has been removed, and some things have been pointlessly neutered. Wall jumps exist, but single wall jumps are not possible. Morph ball is here, but not mockball. Morph Ball bombs exist, but cannot be bounced off of midair, and take nearly twice as long to explode as they do in Super for no apparent reason. Fortunately, the Speed Booster and Shinespark are still here, but their usage is limited for traversal, and they’re primarily used for mini-challenges to acquire an upgrade.
I have a few other minor complaints scattered here and there. There’s a lot of unskippable dialogue in this game that wastes your time. Power Bombs trivialize a lot of segments after their introduction, and are fairly abundant if you pick up a few expansions. There are a few really sucky boss fights where it feels impossible to reliably avoid damage, or where the strategy to kill them safely is really boring and repetitive, and unfortunately the final boss is among these. Occasionally, the correct means of progression feels needlessly obfuscated and illogical, usually requiring you to place bombs in places that feel entirely arbitrary. These complaints are minor, but they add up to a greater sense of dissatisfaction with the game.
Despite all my complaints, I actually still like this game quite a bit. The biggest reason why is that even though some of the bosses aren’t great, a number of them are actually pretty solid, and combat with regular enemies is maybe the strongest it’s ever been in the series. The Nightmare fight is among the best in any Metroid game, the fights with Arachnus, Nettori, B.O.X. 1, and Neo Ridley are pretty fun, and Zazabi, Yakuza, and Barrier Core X are inoffensive. It’s Serris, the second encounter with the B.O.X., and the final confrontation with the SA-X that I have real problems with, and those are a minority of the fights in the game.
Normal enemies are often pretty interesting; they’re mostly reasonably avoidable and often don’t give you a safe place to shoot them from to trivialize them. I like that this game is relatively stingy with health and ammo drops, as it puts more stress on your ability to avoid damage and conserve resources. It’s unfortunate that the door before each boss gives you basically a full restore, but this largely works well for individual levels.
Speaking of individual levels, Fusion’s are actually pretty good! The world design might be underwhelming, but Fusion largely nails the levels themselves. They’re reasonably complex in terms of layout, and require some pretty thorough exploration to progress and find upgrades. It’s nice that you’re not always told where on the map your objective is, and are frequently required to visit areas that are not on the initial map, forcing you to explore in spite of the linear, guided nature of the game.
One underappreciated aspect of Metroid Fusion’s gameplay is the replacement of the series’ traditional energy and missile pickups with X parasites, which require you to collect them quickly so as to avoid them reforming into new enemies, have erratic flight patterns that are tricky to predict, and sometimes can only be collected after they’re reformed into new enemies once or twice. These can lead to some surprisingly dynamic enemy patterns within levels.
The atmosphere around the station is also really solid. For a GBA game, Fusion’s presentation is extraordinarily strong - the music and visuals are surprisingly effective at creating the tone of horror and suspense, even when the mechanics somewhat fail to follow through on that tone. There are moments with an eerie, clinical computer voice making announcements through low-fidelity audio, and it’s actually very effective and unsettling. There are moments where a boss that’s to be encountered later flies past in the background, and the game doesn’t acknowledge it at all, which did a really good job of putting me on edge. Moments like this sell the game’s horror much better than the SA-X encounters or really any of the actual combat encounters ever did.
I certainly have my complaints with Metroid Fusion; it doesn’t quite live up to Super’s strengths, and mechanically it’s been surpassed by several later games, but it remains a one-of-a-kind Metroid game. Nothing has really tried to replicate its exact brand of creepiness, and it has among the overall strongest combat in the series, which is worth a lot. It’s a shame it couldn’t quite follow through on some of its best ideas, and it has quite a few irritations that I’d rather not deal with, but overall I still really enjoyed this game, and I’m glad to have finally gone back and finished it after all these years.
Fusion’s biggest missed opportunity is how many of its best moments are deflated once you know what’s going on under the hood. The SA-X sequences, which are brilliantly presented in terms of visuals and audio and create tons of tension, lose almost all of that tension once you realize how heavily scripted they are. You’re almost never in any actual danger until the very last one, which is mostly just kind of an annoying but easy chase sequence. Making the AI more competent and allowing it to track you throughout the station would make the enemy much more intimidating, but as it stands these moments don’t really work for me anymore.
The game’s first major weakness, which in some ways could be argued to also be a strength, is how linear it is. On the one hand, there is virtually no routing or large-scale exploration to speak of. On the other hand, the linearity allows for a much tighter and more story-driven experience, with a very consistent difficulty curve, and which plays with the concept of player agency in some interesting ways narratively later on. I won’t go into detail on those moments both because I think they’re best experienced blind and because I don’t feel qualified to adequately discuss them, but I enjoyed them, even if their addition doesn’t make up for the lack of interesting world design for me personally.
My other largest complaint with this game is the simplicity of its movement and traversal mechanics. These have been simplified in order to prevent sequence breaking, but I dispute the necessity of this. The controls here aren’t bad, they’re fairly responsive and fluid, but there’s not much meat on the bones; all of the interesting tech from Super Metroid has been removed, and some things have been pointlessly neutered. Wall jumps exist, but single wall jumps are not possible. Morph ball is here, but not mockball. Morph Ball bombs exist, but cannot be bounced off of midair, and take nearly twice as long to explode as they do in Super for no apparent reason. Fortunately, the Speed Booster and Shinespark are still here, but their usage is limited for traversal, and they’re primarily used for mini-challenges to acquire an upgrade.
I have a few other minor complaints scattered here and there. There’s a lot of unskippable dialogue in this game that wastes your time. Power Bombs trivialize a lot of segments after their introduction, and are fairly abundant if you pick up a few expansions. There are a few really sucky boss fights where it feels impossible to reliably avoid damage, or where the strategy to kill them safely is really boring and repetitive, and unfortunately the final boss is among these. Occasionally, the correct means of progression feels needlessly obfuscated and illogical, usually requiring you to place bombs in places that feel entirely arbitrary. These complaints are minor, but they add up to a greater sense of dissatisfaction with the game.
Despite all my complaints, I actually still like this game quite a bit. The biggest reason why is that even though some of the bosses aren’t great, a number of them are actually pretty solid, and combat with regular enemies is maybe the strongest it’s ever been in the series. The Nightmare fight is among the best in any Metroid game, the fights with Arachnus, Nettori, B.O.X. 1, and Neo Ridley are pretty fun, and Zazabi, Yakuza, and Barrier Core X are inoffensive. It’s Serris, the second encounter with the B.O.X., and the final confrontation with the SA-X that I have real problems with, and those are a minority of the fights in the game.
Normal enemies are often pretty interesting; they’re mostly reasonably avoidable and often don’t give you a safe place to shoot them from to trivialize them. I like that this game is relatively stingy with health and ammo drops, as it puts more stress on your ability to avoid damage and conserve resources. It’s unfortunate that the door before each boss gives you basically a full restore, but this largely works well for individual levels.
Speaking of individual levels, Fusion’s are actually pretty good! The world design might be underwhelming, but Fusion largely nails the levels themselves. They’re reasonably complex in terms of layout, and require some pretty thorough exploration to progress and find upgrades. It’s nice that you’re not always told where on the map your objective is, and are frequently required to visit areas that are not on the initial map, forcing you to explore in spite of the linear, guided nature of the game.
One underappreciated aspect of Metroid Fusion’s gameplay is the replacement of the series’ traditional energy and missile pickups with X parasites, which require you to collect them quickly so as to avoid them reforming into new enemies, have erratic flight patterns that are tricky to predict, and sometimes can only be collected after they’re reformed into new enemies once or twice. These can lead to some surprisingly dynamic enemy patterns within levels.
The atmosphere around the station is also really solid. For a GBA game, Fusion’s presentation is extraordinarily strong - the music and visuals are surprisingly effective at creating the tone of horror and suspense, even when the mechanics somewhat fail to follow through on that tone. There are moments with an eerie, clinical computer voice making announcements through low-fidelity audio, and it’s actually very effective and unsettling. There are moments where a boss that’s to be encountered later flies past in the background, and the game doesn’t acknowledge it at all, which did a really good job of putting me on edge. Moments like this sell the game’s horror much better than the SA-X encounters or really any of the actual combat encounters ever did.
I certainly have my complaints with Metroid Fusion; it doesn’t quite live up to Super’s strengths, and mechanically it’s been surpassed by several later games, but it remains a one-of-a-kind Metroid game. Nothing has really tried to replicate its exact brand of creepiness, and it has among the overall strongest combat in the series, which is worth a lot. It’s a shame it couldn’t quite follow through on some of its best ideas, and it has quite a few irritations that I’d rather not deal with, but overall I still really enjoyed this game, and I’m glad to have finally gone back and finished it after all these years.
5 Comments
I just realized something annoying about this site. I can't edit my comment, and any replies to it won't give me a notification, so I'll either have to aggressively refresh the page myself to check for potential replies, or just never see said potential replies. How silly.
Huh, yeah, that is annoying. Actually I can't even directly reply to your comment, I can just post another one of my own on the review page.
Anyway, I mostly agree. I have a higher opinion of Fusion's level design than you, but I think you're bang-on regarding progression logic and the way the game locks you into areas.
I was going to bring up the lack of a run button and the momentum it brought to Super, but that's a complaint I can level at literally every Metroid game that isn't Super, so it felt unfair to single Fusion out in this case.
You have some good points about the story. I generally don't like to discuss stories in gameplay-focused games except when they're really relevant, as it's not really what I'm good at, nor something I personally find interesting to talk about. I think Fusion's mostly works, but yeah that twist kind of came out of nowhere and didn't really land as a result.
Thanks for the comment, It gave me some stuff to think about!
Anyway, I mostly agree. I have a higher opinion of Fusion's level design than you, but I think you're bang-on regarding progression logic and the way the game locks you into areas.
I was going to bring up the lack of a run button and the momentum it brought to Super, but that's a complaint I can level at literally every Metroid game that isn't Super, so it felt unfair to single Fusion out in this case.
You have some good points about the story. I generally don't like to discuss stories in gameplay-focused games except when they're really relevant, as it's not really what I'm good at, nor something I personally find interesting to talk about. I think Fusion's mostly works, but yeah that twist kind of came out of nowhere and didn't really land as a result.
Thanks for the comment, It gave me some stuff to think about!
> I have a higher opinion of Fusion's level design than you
I do want to clarify that while I think the levels lack super interesting geometry, they are well built around the fairly interesting enemy types. The combat and enemies are obviously simple, but they're fairly fun. The only game in the series that beats Fusion in that aspect is Dread, I would say.
> but that's a complaint I can level at literally every Metroid game that isn't Super, so it felt unfair to single Fusion out in this case.
Definitely fair.
Personally, if I ever were to write an in depth review on this game, I think I'd go a bit more over its status as a sequel, and I would do the same for the other games, too. But that's due to preference, and at the end of the day the context a given piece of media was released in, both in the author's own lineup of works and in the broader media landscape, can be separated from the piece of media itself when you're simply going through it and enjoying it. That's why, even if I may be personally disappointed as someone who loves Super Metroid, I think I understand the value Fusion has and its right to be its own thing, as I've already mentioned.
> I generally don't like to discuss stories in gameplay-focused games except when they're really relevant, as it's not really what I'm good at, nor something I personally find interesting to talk about.
Once again, definitely fair.
The story isn't really important in Fusion, nor complex, and for what it is, I do think the rest was handled well. The Adam thing is something that always bothered me, but it's far from a huge problem.
> Thanks for the comment, It gave me some stuff to think about!
Glad to know, as I can say the same about your review.
When running through your profile the other day after stumbling into this review I noticed we had fairly similar takes on the Metroid games, so I felt like commenting with some thoughts of my own.
Fun fact: I actually liked Prime Hunters back in 2019. I literally could not give you any reason why, it's been way too long. I suppose I should go back and revisit it to see how I'd feel about it nowadays, since the harsh criticism you presented made me rethink some things. I definitely remember liking it more than Prime 3, and after coming off of that game I think I just liked something a bit less.. drawn out, not to mention something I had lower expectations for to begin with. I didn't like Prime 3 at all, because I felt like Hypermode made combat incredibly braindead and a lot of the room design was pretty damn boring and safe. I used to value nonlinearity a lot more, I think, which made me prefer Hunters' structure, at the very least.
I do want to clarify that while I think the levels lack super interesting geometry, they are well built around the fairly interesting enemy types. The combat and enemies are obviously simple, but they're fairly fun. The only game in the series that beats Fusion in that aspect is Dread, I would say.
> but that's a complaint I can level at literally every Metroid game that isn't Super, so it felt unfair to single Fusion out in this case.
Definitely fair.
Personally, if I ever were to write an in depth review on this game, I think I'd go a bit more over its status as a sequel, and I would do the same for the other games, too. But that's due to preference, and at the end of the day the context a given piece of media was released in, both in the author's own lineup of works and in the broader media landscape, can be separated from the piece of media itself when you're simply going through it and enjoying it. That's why, even if I may be personally disappointed as someone who loves Super Metroid, I think I understand the value Fusion has and its right to be its own thing, as I've already mentioned.
> I generally don't like to discuss stories in gameplay-focused games except when they're really relevant, as it's not really what I'm good at, nor something I personally find interesting to talk about.
Once again, definitely fair.
The story isn't really important in Fusion, nor complex, and for what it is, I do think the rest was handled well. The Adam thing is something that always bothered me, but it's far from a huge problem.
> Thanks for the comment, It gave me some stuff to think about!
Glad to know, as I can say the same about your review.
When running through your profile the other day after stumbling into this review I noticed we had fairly similar takes on the Metroid games, so I felt like commenting with some thoughts of my own.
Fun fact: I actually liked Prime Hunters back in 2019. I literally could not give you any reason why, it's been way too long. I suppose I should go back and revisit it to see how I'd feel about it nowadays, since the harsh criticism you presented made me rethink some things. I definitely remember liking it more than Prime 3, and after coming off of that game I think I just liked something a bit less.. drawn out, not to mention something I had lower expectations for to begin with. I didn't like Prime 3 at all, because I felt like Hypermode made combat incredibly braindead and a lot of the room design was pretty damn boring and safe. I used to value nonlinearity a lot more, I think, which made me prefer Hunters' structure, at the very least.
On some level, I like Fusion's subversive nature relative to Super. I can see how it would make someone unhappy if they're a really big fan of all that Super does and just wanted another game like it, but I appreciate having some variety, even if that variety comes at the price of having the game be very rigid and linear in terms of progression. I do think Super's structure, exploration, and movement make it a better game overall, but I've come to appreciate Fusion's more directed approach in recent years.
Re: Hunters, I can see how someone who values nonlinearity super highly could appreciate the game more than I did. My perspective nowadays is that nonlinear progression is sort of "icing on the cake"; it enhances a game that's fun to play on a minute-to-minute level substantially, but it can't really save a game as repetitive and irritating as I found Hunters to be. I was thinking earlier today about how I would liken Hunters' nonlinear structure to a to-do list of chores that you're allowed to do in any order. Sure, you can take out the trash and do laundry in whatever order you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the activities involved are chores.
Speaking as someone who also used to enjoy Hunters, albeit for reasons I can't remember as it's approaching a decade since my first playthrough, I'm not about to go off on someone for liking the game. My reviews are, of course, my opinion, and I'm always interested to hear opposing ones, provided they're well-reasoned and give me something to consider. I really, really did not enjoy my playthrough of Hunters, but that doesn't mean I didn't want to, and I'm always looking for ways to appreciate a game more than I do.
Re: Hunters, I can see how someone who values nonlinearity super highly could appreciate the game more than I did. My perspective nowadays is that nonlinear progression is sort of "icing on the cake"; it enhances a game that's fun to play on a minute-to-minute level substantially, but it can't really save a game as repetitive and irritating as I found Hunters to be. I was thinking earlier today about how I would liken Hunters' nonlinear structure to a to-do list of chores that you're allowed to do in any order. Sure, you can take out the trash and do laundry in whatever order you want, but that doesn't change the fact that the activities involved are chores.
Speaking as someone who also used to enjoy Hunters, albeit for reasons I can't remember as it's approaching a decade since my first playthrough, I'm not about to go off on someone for liking the game. My reviews are, of course, my opinion, and I'm always interested to hear opposing ones, provided they're well-reasoned and give me something to consider. I really, really did not enjoy my playthrough of Hunters, but that doesn't mean I didn't want to, and I'm always looking for ways to appreciate a game more than I do.
leo0
1 year ago
Fusion's movement always felt weird to me. Your speed slows down quite a bit whenever you're in the air which doesn't feel good. That, and ledgejumps are so unnecessarily limiting. The game would be so much smoother if after a ledge grab you could jump and maneuver yourself back onto the platform or other nearby platforms. Outside of that, movement is incredibly simple, which is a shame. Especially when you consider that Samus was pumped full of Metroid DNA at the beginning of the story. Was there really no way to give her any interesting movement abilities related to this weird alien power? This game literally presents nothing new except for the Diffusion Missiles which are used like, once. Fusion movement is just so clinically safe, and a lot of cool things about Super Metroid were completely butchered in the process (there's a whole discussion to be had about Super Metroid's run ability and what momentum brought to the moment to moment game feel, but that's not the end of it).
Another complaint I have with Fusion is some of the bombable walls are just annoying to find. Unclear, untelegraphed walls is an issue every 2D Metroid game has to varying degrees, and Fusion's way to address this is... to lock the door behind you. I can't say I'm a fan of this approach. Something about several progression moments of this game, from the depths of Sector 4, to the first half of Sector 3, rubbed me the wrong way, and didn't feel good to "figure out".
Samus Returns' approach was to simply ignore any bombblock-related puzzles by simply giving you an instant scanner, which I also am not fond of. Throughout the series there are some genuinely cool little puzzles where you ARE given enough hints to naturally figure it out (getting the Gravity Suit in Super Metroid springs to mind), and forgoing that aspect entirely feels like an easy copout.
It's something that needs a lot of care and finetuning, because an unclear bombable wall can easily halt a player's progression for quite some time. It's even worse if the area they can explore in is big (which is part of why Metroid 1 is so terrible). Fusion does limit your playing field, which is good in that aspect, and with some polish its few archaic moments could be ironed out, but the problem is that Fusion's limiting linearity is something I'm not fond of in the first place, especially when you consider what Super Metroid was building up to, with its approach to non linearity founded on the existence of secret abilities. At the end of the day I don't think the heavy linearity and scripted sequences were worth the trade off in a gameplay sense, basically. I'll always hold a bit of a grudge at Fusion (...and most "Super Metroid inspired" games) for not actually following up on that game's foundation, though I realize that sequels have the right to be their own thing and all that jazz.
The enemy design is definitely some of the best in the series (which granted isn't saying much, lol), and I've also come to appreciate it more with time. Though outside of that I think the general level design is pretty bland. I can't remember any interesting rooms or platforming layouts, in all honesty, and the uninteresting movement only makes that worse.
I do quite like that they turned abstract, gamey health pickups into an outright plot point, I've always been fond of that.
As for plot I always thought the "Adam's deeper brain awakens" scene was really strange. There were ZERO hints before that scene, and it's a very silly coincidence that Samus just happened to call this robot AI exactly like her old commander in her mind as a joke. And the one time Samus accidentally calls the AI Adam out lou, the latter's behavior massively changes as if a switch was pressed... really?
I suppose the AI and real Adam's speech patterns did match, which is why Samus called the AI Adam, but it always felt like a very hamfisted Chekov's gun to me. Maybe if we could hear the AI's robotic voice, and if it sounded similar or identical to real Adam's voice, it would've felt more natural.