+I hadn't played through a game on my actual GBA in quite some time, and god does this game look good on it (the 101 variant specifically). the screen never feels squished and every sprite has a lovely amount of detail to it.
+control here is nice and tight, and it all works well with the limited controls. I was worried I wouldn't be able to pull off wall-jumps on GBA d-pad but I had no problems at all
+the chozo statues destination indicators are a polarizing feature, but I do appreciate how it streamlines the experience. after all, streamlining experience seems to be the name of the game here... most times it probably was not necessary, but I will say I probably would have wasted quite a lot of time trying to figure out what to do after getting the hi jump (specifically returning to brinstar to get the varia suit and then immediately returning to norfair)
+adding on to the above, while you're always told where to go, you often are not explicitly told how to get there. it's useful to have a rough idea of where you're supposed to be without given a route, and a lot of the fun comes from poking around an area until you find specific items or a secret passageway that will get you where you need to go
+in a lot of ways, this feels like taking the skeleton of the original metroid and overlaying all the good things from super metroid on top of it. it's not a bad thing at all!! having a new quickie metroid on the go is never a bad thing
-the game was never going to be long given the small size of the original game, but it's still a little shocking how quickly you can get to tourian blind. this game would be much better if they had taken out the space pirate section and added a third boss/area to the game after ridley instead
-mother brain is no fun to fight... this was the only area where I died over and over again. again, it's just an element from the original recreated here, but it could have been nice to have a proper boss fight instead
-the power grip is a bit stiff. it doesn't always grab when you want it to unless you're very clearly holding a direction on the d-pad into the wall (this is especially annoying when getting chased by space pirates), and when you're actually on the ledge it can be touchy for when you're trying to jump off, jump up, or climb up.
-the zero suit section sucks so bad... the stealth is so poorly implemented and it disrupts the pacing of the game tremendously. it feels like you're really intended to run away from space pirates for most of it, like why not actually let me fight back if that's the case. once you get the suit it's not much more fun either, since the enemy variety is virtually nonexistent
I loved it up until mother brain and then didn't like anything past that. I also don't feel much reason to go back and do all of the 100% backtracking since you can't do it until right before the final boss anyway... again the pacing is very odd. other than sour ending it's a very fun mini metroidvania to blow through in a couple of days, and it was fun for me to pull out my gba for the first time in years as well.
+control here is nice and tight, and it all works well with the limited controls. I was worried I wouldn't be able to pull off wall-jumps on GBA d-pad but I had no problems at all
+the chozo statues destination indicators are a polarizing feature, but I do appreciate how it streamlines the experience. after all, streamlining experience seems to be the name of the game here... most times it probably was not necessary, but I will say I probably would have wasted quite a lot of time trying to figure out what to do after getting the hi jump (specifically returning to brinstar to get the varia suit and then immediately returning to norfair)
+adding on to the above, while you're always told where to go, you often are not explicitly told how to get there. it's useful to have a rough idea of where you're supposed to be without given a route, and a lot of the fun comes from poking around an area until you find specific items or a secret passageway that will get you where you need to go
+in a lot of ways, this feels like taking the skeleton of the original metroid and overlaying all the good things from super metroid on top of it. it's not a bad thing at all!! having a new quickie metroid on the go is never a bad thing
-the game was never going to be long given the small size of the original game, but it's still a little shocking how quickly you can get to tourian blind. this game would be much better if they had taken out the space pirate section and added a third boss/area to the game after ridley instead
-mother brain is no fun to fight... this was the only area where I died over and over again. again, it's just an element from the original recreated here, but it could have been nice to have a proper boss fight instead
-the power grip is a bit stiff. it doesn't always grab when you want it to unless you're very clearly holding a direction on the d-pad into the wall (this is especially annoying when getting chased by space pirates), and when you're actually on the ledge it can be touchy for when you're trying to jump off, jump up, or climb up.
-the zero suit section sucks so bad... the stealth is so poorly implemented and it disrupts the pacing of the game tremendously. it feels like you're really intended to run away from space pirates for most of it, like why not actually let me fight back if that's the case. once you get the suit it's not much more fun either, since the enemy variety is virtually nonexistent
I loved it up until mother brain and then didn't like anything past that. I also don't feel much reason to go back and do all of the 100% backtracking since you can't do it until right before the final boss anyway... again the pacing is very odd. other than sour ending it's a very fun mini metroidvania to blow through in a couple of days, and it was fun for me to pull out my gba for the first time in years as well.