The first dozen or so times I tried to play this i kept falling off of it, and i think a big part of it was the controls. Fusion was my first 2D Metroid, and i kept trying to find a way to make this feel like that. Even after playing all the way through and loving Metroid 1 and 2 i still had a hard time with this, i guess as kind of an uncanny valley thing where the controls are similar enough to modern Metroid that it feels off, while 1 and 2 are different enough that they're clearly their own thing.
While i do still think it would be interesting to have a modern remake of it to stand beside the rest of the series, this time i stopped trying to make it feel like modern Metroid and had to get myself into the same mindset i did with 1 and 2 -- i need to sit down and invest my time into this old game and let it be what it is. And making a map -- the game kinda tricks you into thinking you don't need to make a paper map, but you kinda do. (the ingame map shows you where rooms are, but not where doors are; when you have your own map where you've marked how to actually get around and can see all areas at once (fitting all the pieces of graph paper into one big connected thing at the end was really satisfying), the backtracking (which there really isn't a lot of as far as i can remember?) is a lot less frustrating). With that in mind, this time i really got into it and loved it.
Half star off because jumping controls could be better. Wall jumps still feel finicky for me, especially since pressing up or down takes you out of the spin jump and forces you to fall all the way back down and try again (in modern Metroid you can get back into the spin by pressing the jump button again). The controls in general also still feel kinda clunky to me, but the game is slow-paced and easy enough that it doesn't really hurt it.
But i have to say i really don't understand the mindset among a lot of Metroid fans that 1 and 2 are the bad ones that no one should bother with anymore and just play the remakes, and Super is the timeless one. Zero Mission and Samus Returns are both very good games, but the idea that they actually replace 1 and 2 in terms of gameplay makes no sense to me; they're very different games (and especially the idea that a newcomer to the series should play Zero Mission, then Samus Returns, then Super is just completely bonkers; going directly from the newest game to the oldest game is going to cause severe whiplash). Super is the kinda-awkward transition stage between Classic Metroid and Modern Metroid, and all three Classic Metroids are very good games that need to be approached as products of their time and appreciated in context.
While i do still think it would be interesting to have a modern remake of it to stand beside the rest of the series, this time i stopped trying to make it feel like modern Metroid and had to get myself into the same mindset i did with 1 and 2 -- i need to sit down and invest my time into this old game and let it be what it is. And making a map -- the game kinda tricks you into thinking you don't need to make a paper map, but you kinda do. (the ingame map shows you where rooms are, but not where doors are; when you have your own map where you've marked how to actually get around and can see all areas at once (fitting all the pieces of graph paper into one big connected thing at the end was really satisfying), the backtracking (which there really isn't a lot of as far as i can remember?) is a lot less frustrating). With that in mind, this time i really got into it and loved it.
Half star off because jumping controls could be better. Wall jumps still feel finicky for me, especially since pressing up or down takes you out of the spin jump and forces you to fall all the way back down and try again (in modern Metroid you can get back into the spin by pressing the jump button again). The controls in general also still feel kinda clunky to me, but the game is slow-paced and easy enough that it doesn't really hurt it.
But i have to say i really don't understand the mindset among a lot of Metroid fans that 1 and 2 are the bad ones that no one should bother with anymore and just play the remakes, and Super is the timeless one. Zero Mission and Samus Returns are both very good games, but the idea that they actually replace 1 and 2 in terms of gameplay makes no sense to me; they're very different games (and especially the idea that a newcomer to the series should play Zero Mission, then Samus Returns, then Super is just completely bonkers; going directly from the newest game to the oldest game is going to cause severe whiplash). Super is the kinda-awkward transition stage between Classic Metroid and Modern Metroid, and all three Classic Metroids are very good games that need to be approached as products of their time and appreciated in context.