This review contains spoilers
How do you follow up a masterpiece 9 years after the fact? By corrupting everything it stood for. Metroid Fusion is, first and foremost, a story of infection. Before the game even begins, an encounter with an X Parasite leaves the series iconography shattered: Samus’s gunship is destroyed, her iconic power suit defiled, her life saved by a Metroid vaccine. Her new “fusion suit” is a powerful visual statement: an almost unrecognizable, uncomfortably organic design that evokes the Metroids Samus once slaughtered more than it resembles a legendary bounty hunter. Fitting, not just because of its origins, but because it’s in this game that Samus learns what it’s like to be hunted herself. This doesn’t feel like Super Metroid anymore. This feels alien. This feels wrong.
Samus is noticeably weaker in Fusion than any of her prior appearances. Even when fully upgraded she can’t reliably tank hits like she used to, and her new Metroid DNA gives her an extreme vulnerability to the cold. Rooms that would have given you no trouble in past games become genuine questions of survival, with boss fights becoming daunting challenges. While every Metroid game begins by stripping you of the upgrades you collected in the previous mission, their absence is most viscerally felt in Fusion. You didn’t just lose your abilities, they were taken from you. It’s a fresh wound that hurts all the more thanks to the SA-X, a parasitic mockery of Samus at her full power trapped on the same space station as you. The game tells you point blank that you stand no chance against the SA-X in your current state: If you see it, all you can do is run. A warped shadow of your lost autonomy, the SA-X’s all-too-familiar presence dominates the whole experience. No matter where you go you know that it’s out there, you know that it’s looking for you, and you know firsthand exactly what it’s capable of. The danger and horror of Metroid have never been so pronounced.
Even the Metroid formula isn’t safe from infection. While past titles were all about independently exploring vast, interconnected ecosystems, Fusion has you following linear objectives through segmented–and distinctly artificial–simulated environments. The game puts you on a tight leash, forced to take orders from an on-board AI, your destination always cleanly marked on the map. The moments you do get to freely explore are aberrations, disruptions that no longer feel safe given your newfound frailness and the constant threat of the SA-X. By the time I finished the first three Metroid games my connection to their worlds felt intimate, I knew them front to back and felt confident traversing them. By the time I finished Fusion, the BSL space station still felt like a stranger, one I was desperate to leave behind me.
That linearity seems to be a major point of contention, and it certainly threw me off at first after the expansive freedom Super Metroid provided. It felt stifling, oppressive, like I wasn’t allowed to be in control… which is precisely how Samus must be feeling. If you come to this series for the exploration first I can see how Fusion might come as a disappointment, but for me it only made things more immersive. Like Samus I was growing numb to it all, the bleak reality of my life as a government pawn setting in, my resentment towards my situation and Adam’s orders only building, every locked door another reminder of how much agency I had lost. It’s a really smart use of structure as a form of storytelling.
In a lot of ways, Fusion feels more like a successor to Metroid II than it does Super Metroid. Both are much more linear, rigidly-segmented adventures, with progression being gated by a series of boss battles, and a greater emphasis placed on making the player feel uncomfortable rather than empowered. But as much as I adore Metroid II, I vastly prefer Fusion, if only because it’s so much more fun to play. The increased agility of the fusion suit, the fast crunchiness of your weapons, the streamlined GBA button layout, this is the most enjoyable controlling Samus has ever felt. I’ve mentioned the boss fights a few times now and it’s because they’re really the highlight of the game to me, the moment where all the game’s choices come together to create these huge, frenetic encounters against truly difficult opponents where one slip-up means death. Fusion overall is a much faster, more difficult game than the Metroids we’re used to and that was something I really connected with. Big Megaman Zero 3 vibes, which a lot of this game has come to think of it.
If it wasn’t abundantly obvious, I think Metroid Fusion is fucking brilliant. I could never not respect such a ballsy shakeup of series convention, but the fact it’s also an incredibly enjoyable game to boot is just icing on the cake. A masterclass in vision, theming and atmosphere the likes of which only Metroid is capable of. I wish all sequels could be this bold.
Samus is noticeably weaker in Fusion than any of her prior appearances. Even when fully upgraded she can’t reliably tank hits like she used to, and her new Metroid DNA gives her an extreme vulnerability to the cold. Rooms that would have given you no trouble in past games become genuine questions of survival, with boss fights becoming daunting challenges. While every Metroid game begins by stripping you of the upgrades you collected in the previous mission, their absence is most viscerally felt in Fusion. You didn’t just lose your abilities, they were taken from you. It’s a fresh wound that hurts all the more thanks to the SA-X, a parasitic mockery of Samus at her full power trapped on the same space station as you. The game tells you point blank that you stand no chance against the SA-X in your current state: If you see it, all you can do is run. A warped shadow of your lost autonomy, the SA-X’s all-too-familiar presence dominates the whole experience. No matter where you go you know that it’s out there, you know that it’s looking for you, and you know firsthand exactly what it’s capable of. The danger and horror of Metroid have never been so pronounced.
Even the Metroid formula isn’t safe from infection. While past titles were all about independently exploring vast, interconnected ecosystems, Fusion has you following linear objectives through segmented–and distinctly artificial–simulated environments. The game puts you on a tight leash, forced to take orders from an on-board AI, your destination always cleanly marked on the map. The moments you do get to freely explore are aberrations, disruptions that no longer feel safe given your newfound frailness and the constant threat of the SA-X. By the time I finished the first three Metroid games my connection to their worlds felt intimate, I knew them front to back and felt confident traversing them. By the time I finished Fusion, the BSL space station still felt like a stranger, one I was desperate to leave behind me.
That linearity seems to be a major point of contention, and it certainly threw me off at first after the expansive freedom Super Metroid provided. It felt stifling, oppressive, like I wasn’t allowed to be in control… which is precisely how Samus must be feeling. If you come to this series for the exploration first I can see how Fusion might come as a disappointment, but for me it only made things more immersive. Like Samus I was growing numb to it all, the bleak reality of my life as a government pawn setting in, my resentment towards my situation and Adam’s orders only building, every locked door another reminder of how much agency I had lost. It’s a really smart use of structure as a form of storytelling.
In a lot of ways, Fusion feels more like a successor to Metroid II than it does Super Metroid. Both are much more linear, rigidly-segmented adventures, with progression being gated by a series of boss battles, and a greater emphasis placed on making the player feel uncomfortable rather than empowered. But as much as I adore Metroid II, I vastly prefer Fusion, if only because it’s so much more fun to play. The increased agility of the fusion suit, the fast crunchiness of your weapons, the streamlined GBA button layout, this is the most enjoyable controlling Samus has ever felt. I’ve mentioned the boss fights a few times now and it’s because they’re really the highlight of the game to me, the moment where all the game’s choices come together to create these huge, frenetic encounters against truly difficult opponents where one slip-up means death. Fusion overall is a much faster, more difficult game than the Metroids we’re used to and that was something I really connected with. Big Megaman Zero 3 vibes, which a lot of this game has come to think of it.
If it wasn’t abundantly obvious, I think Metroid Fusion is fucking brilliant. I could never not respect such a ballsy shakeup of series convention, but the fact it’s also an incredibly enjoyable game to boot is just icing on the cake. A masterclass in vision, theming and atmosphere the likes of which only Metroid is capable of. I wish all sequels could be this bold.
Brintendo
4 months ago