I've been reading some of the reviews on this game and I notice this is not a very popular game amongst hardcore fans, and I can see why, as someone who played the original Metroid 2 very recently and appreciated it quite a lot, Samus Returns was a little jarring at first, the dark, atmospheric emptiness from the original is largely gone, and the planet in general seems to be a lot more hostile, to the point where your main tool for combat is a parry, it's the antithesis of the original, so as a remake, I agree this isn't great, but I don't see it as a remake anyway.
Samus Returns is a reimagining of the original, and I don't mean that in the fancy, game journalist way, I mean it literally, this game feels like how a kid would've imagined the original Metroid 2 played and looked like. Older games left a lot to the imagination because of hardware limitations and Metroid 2 is no exception, the game didn't even have any backgrounds, everything was just black and white, Metroids just kinda flew at you and all you had to do is shoot them, with these kinds of games, you have to fill in the blanks, this is what this game aims to do. Samus is at her most badass ever, so many awesome animations and cinematics are in this game I don't know which one I should make my profile picture, she does flips and no-looks while killing some of the bosses in the game, maybe to some it's a little over the top, but personally I loved it, it's the most action heavy Metroid yet and I really enjoyed that aspect specifically.
There's also a lot of quality of life improvements that this game brings to the table, like being able to toggle ice beam off, or having a scanner that spots hidden breakable blocks, you can aim in a full 360° angle, this makes both exploration and combat so much more fun, and I wish this features were retroactively added to previous entries because I truly believe it would only make those games better.
When it comes to the bosses, the game is a huge improvement not just on the original but on the series as a whole, the Metroids are pretty fun to fight and if you get good at the fights you can get them done quite quickly which is nice, and the extra bosses here... holy shit, that's all I have to say. I won't go into detail regarding the story and the changes and additions to it, all I'll say is I loved all of it as well
This is also, a replay, because actually, this is the first Metroid game I ever played, the 3DS is the only Ninento console I ever owned so this was my introduction to the franchise 6 years ago and I vividly remember falling in love with this game, playing it to death, and beating it for the first time, and today I feel exactly the same way, I was completely entranced from beginning to end and it was by far the most fun Metroid experience I've had.
Let's get onto the negatives, because yes, even though I just gushed about how much I love this game for like three paragraphs, it's not actually perfect. The music was especially disappointing here, I didn't like most of the remixed versions of the original score and the new stuff was for the most part quite forgettable. Visually the game goes from beautiful and stunning to really blurry and hard to look at, there's some weird bloom effect going on in some areas that honestly ruin them completely, maybe if this is ever ported to the Switch that would be fixed, but as of now, a little iffy on the graphics as well.
That's it though, I love this game a lot, give it a chance if you haven't, and if you have, go replay it, it gets better.
Samus Returns is a reimagining of the original, and I don't mean that in the fancy, game journalist way, I mean it literally, this game feels like how a kid would've imagined the original Metroid 2 played and looked like. Older games left a lot to the imagination because of hardware limitations and Metroid 2 is no exception, the game didn't even have any backgrounds, everything was just black and white, Metroids just kinda flew at you and all you had to do is shoot them, with these kinds of games, you have to fill in the blanks, this is what this game aims to do. Samus is at her most badass ever, so many awesome animations and cinematics are in this game I don't know which one I should make my profile picture, she does flips and no-looks while killing some of the bosses in the game, maybe to some it's a little over the top, but personally I loved it, it's the most action heavy Metroid yet and I really enjoyed that aspect specifically.
There's also a lot of quality of life improvements that this game brings to the table, like being able to toggle ice beam off, or having a scanner that spots hidden breakable blocks, you can aim in a full 360° angle, this makes both exploration and combat so much more fun, and I wish this features were retroactively added to previous entries because I truly believe it would only make those games better.
When it comes to the bosses, the game is a huge improvement not just on the original but on the series as a whole, the Metroids are pretty fun to fight and if you get good at the fights you can get them done quite quickly which is nice, and the extra bosses here... holy shit, that's all I have to say. I won't go into detail regarding the story and the changes and additions to it, all I'll say is I loved all of it as well
This is also, a replay, because actually, this is the first Metroid game I ever played, the 3DS is the only Ninento console I ever owned so this was my introduction to the franchise 6 years ago and I vividly remember falling in love with this game, playing it to death, and beating it for the first time, and today I feel exactly the same way, I was completely entranced from beginning to end and it was by far the most fun Metroid experience I've had.
Let's get onto the negatives, because yes, even though I just gushed about how much I love this game for like three paragraphs, it's not actually perfect. The music was especially disappointing here, I didn't like most of the remixed versions of the original score and the new stuff was for the most part quite forgettable. Visually the game goes from beautiful and stunning to really blurry and hard to look at, there's some weird bloom effect going on in some areas that honestly ruin them completely, maybe if this is ever ported to the Switch that would be fixed, but as of now, a little iffy on the graphics as well.
That's it though, I love this game a lot, give it a chance if you haven't, and if you have, go replay it, it gets better.