completely different design philosophy from the one seen in super metroid, but still it feels like not a sequence that does better or worse, but a complementation to metroid 3. it is less aesthetically oppressive but then samus don't have the amount of gadgets you used to have at the end of super metroid - but a virus does have and it is searching you. you don't have that amount of freedom in its level design, too, feeling way more like millimetric calculated segments. what this could be considered a "loss", i find pretty interesting and it is what made the game so special for me: it allows the player to feel full tension while being chased by SA-X and some exits and interconnections are very smartly implemented. the geography logic does less sense than super metroid but still, thinking in-universe, are just a bunch of different habitats in a research facility - by that, it does makes sense. also, i like the bosses! nightmare did live up to his name, probably the most difficult fight in the game but it is so well-made: the hitbox is horrendous but propositally, to make you feel really claustrophobic; as you shoot him, he'll cry until he reveals his gross face. i guess that this boss can say a lot of what metroid fusion search and, to me, accomplishes

Found myself enjoying this a lot less than I hoped I would. Like Shu Takumi's other games, it makes great use of reincorporation and has a really satisfying ending. That being said, I didn't really find the mystery as interesting as the ones in the Ace Attorney games, probably due to how much less grounded the world is. I was also disappointed by the puzzles, which are great conceptually, but I didn't feel satisfied by the solutions to pretty much any of them. The game is worth playing alone though for the fantastic character animations- it has some of the most expressive 3D models I've ever seen, which is unfathomably impressive considering the fact that it's on the DS.