While I can definitely see the appeal of the game and how at its core design it has lead a new format/genre of games, and that the visual and control improvements of the remaster greatly improve the overall experience, this is still a game largely stuck in its 2000s roots and you painfully feel that as you play.

As someone with no prior metroid experience, I come into this completely clean with no nostalgia or understanding of the game, which means I had to have a fucking guide open as I played the game or else I'd have an extra 4 hours on my playtime running around to finish this game. My main complaints are:
- lack of fast travel/shortcuts around the map, makes backtracking in the latter half a pain in the ass.
- meta ridley boss fight is ass, the rock monster fight drags way too much, and overall the difficulty seems to just spike in the last 1/4 of the game
- some enemies are just fucking annoying, especially the face suckers and the jetback guys, legitimately just made me mad with how aggressive the room respawns can be when I'm trying to run through an area
- "plot" told through scanning random shit across the world = zzz

All that being said, it still gets 2.5/5 cause it doesn't overstay its welcome, and I did enjoy the visual improvements and the very very core design of powering up as you progress through the game is solid and popular as we see in the years to come.