If we're going down this inane route, the Ridley Robot in Zero Mission is a reference to Meta Ridley in Prime, since they also share several hallmarks of design.
They both have necks composed of two segmented rods with a single hinge joint. They both have glowing lights on their chest and are vulnerable to attacks on the chest. Clearly Zero Mission was implying that the robot Ridley is the source of the design the Space Pirates used to reconstruct Meta Ridley.
Or maybe two mechanical Ridleys are gonna look kinda similar in a few ways and the entire thing is a coincidence.
I felt like some of Proteus Ridley's moves were lifted directly from Meta Ridley. The ground pound and charging moves in particular felt very similar to attacks from Prime, except in 2D.
Salvage like a tail and legs that weren't part of the robot?
The robot was at the very center of the explosion that obliterated the Space Pirate Ship to the point not a trace of it is left in Super Metroid. Ridley was deep underground in Norfair. Yes, there's kinda a big difference.
You're ignoring the most simple and plausible scenario: The pirates found Ridley and rebuilt him with new parts.
I said build new parts from the salvage or at least made all-new parts based on his work on Ridley Robot. Repurpose his robot-building lab to build him some cyborg parts. My point is just that Ridley Robot was an influence on the visual design: https://i.imgur.com/tzK7Gs6.jpg
Just got 100%. This game has really raised the bar for combat in the 2d series. The counter was a nice touch, but far more important is the free aim. The ability to quickly target anything means that bosses don't have consist of getting just the right angle on their weak point. And MR takes advantage of this by giving bosses more diverse attack patterns and making those attacks hit hard.
To put it another way, in previous 2d games both offense and evasion required careful micromanagement of your position, and those two goals were very frequently in opposition. You had to do both at once and so it was very difficult to either very well. This might be why in Super Metriod for instance, it seemed like bosses were designed around the assumption that you'd just be taking a lot of hits. In SR though, offense and evasion are decoupled -- offense means aiming, and evasion means changing positions, and you can manage your position with little interference in your ability to land a shot.
Level design and navigation are strong too, but the map layout seems a bit jumbled and haphazard compared to the other 2d games. The areas feel like collections of clever obstacles, but don't have much in the way of organizing principles or cohesion. This contributes to a feeling of "sameyness" that others have complained about.
Visually, while they made a mistake in not varying up the tileset much between areas, those backgrounds are nuts. The level of detail is up there with the Prime games, which clearly influenced their aesthetic. I thought they added a tremendous amount to the atmosphere and really made SR388 feel more like a real place. Too bad that it's so easy to just zoom past them obliviously.
Now I'm bummed out man. Who knows how long we'll be waiting for another 2d Metroid?
I thought it was pretty clear that the implication was that Ridley was re-growing a new body after the events of the Prime games, shedding off his Meta Ridley shell. The manga showed Ridley has significant regenerative powers, so his flesh remnants as Meta Ridley just grew larger and began to replace his metal parts. Left and presumed dead on SR388, he shed the rest of the metal (likely due to the lush environment with plenty of organic matter to consume), which is why his metal hand was left. That leaves him in his Super Metroid form however long after, letting him be full organic before that debacle happens and he gets (mostly) blown up and then later frozen.
Even without the manga as accepted canon, it's not hard to run with the assumption that the Space Pirates were slowly regenerating him new body parts artificially. They're alreayd playing with the idea of regrowing Ridley in Prime iirc, so it's not a stretch to go with that assumption and that, post M2, they pick up Ridley and get him all set up for Super. Without Phazon corrupting their brains and motivations, I imagine they would be able to get a good ol genetically engineering Ridley body ready pretty fast.
Either one of these also has the fun side effect of explaining why ZM Ridley is a different color from Super Ridley, too. New body, regrown almost whole-cloth to replace his temporary metal one.
All finished! 100%! 12:05, according to the game (and 17:35 according to the activity log). Final boss was a motherfucker and my thumb will likely never forgive me.
I fucking love how they kept changing Ridley's color. From pink to red to grey to pink to red... It was almost like a meta commentary on how Ridley is purple in the original Metroid, Prime, and Other M, grey in Zero Mission, and red in the art for Super Metroid. And of course he ends up red since Super Metroid is the next game.
And as cool as he looks, Ridley showing up with metal parts is very problematic because Super Metroid only takes place like the day after Metroid 2 and Ridley's fully organic in Super.
While I really love this game action and combat, playing it for long sessions have made me realize how uncomfortable the 3ds is for gaming when precise movements are involved.
I love playing on the O3DS and moved to my 3DS XL and still feeling soreness on my left thumb due to the analog stick and my hands get super tired on bed since it has no grips.
Besides all this, The game is wonderful and after getting all power ups, My only concern is with the counter making the game somewhat less challenging but the bosses are really pushing me to the edge. I'm glad Samus has finally returned to 2D glory!
The problem with the ending isn't so much based on what we know about Super Metroid's intro, but what we thought we knew.
Since Samus leaving SR388, handing over the baby Metroid, the scientists making the discoveries, and then Samus leaving and the pirates attacking all are narrated in immediate succession, we assumed they followed each other in roughly immediate succession. Of course, Samus could have easily stayed a few more days after she arrived... Or weeks... Or hell, months. It feels wrong, because the way we're presented the information makes us assume the simplest and most natural option, but it seems like the longer wait was the original intent.
I think the strength of adding the Ridley scene to the end of Samus Returns is it shows how and why Samus cares so much about the baby Metroid, an idea that Sakamoto seems to want to convey but never really did before. Metroid 2 and Super Metroid showed how much the Metroid hatchling cared about Samus, but outside a single moment of mercy, Samus never indicated she really cared about it in return. Samus Returns shows them actually forming a bond beyond "it followed me home".
The problem with the ending isn't so much based on what we know about Super Metroid's intro, but what we thought we knew.
Since Samus leaving SR388, handing over the baby Metroid, the scientists making the discoveries, and then Samus leaving and the pirates attacking all are narrated in immediate succession, we assumed they followed each other in roughly immediate succession. Of course, Samus could have easily stayed a few more days after she arrived... Or weeks... Or hell, months. It feels wrong, because the way we're presented the information makes us assume the simplest and most natural option, but it seems like the longer wait was the original intent.
I think the strength of adding the Ridley scene to the end of Samus Returns is it shows how and why Samus cares so much about the baby Metroid, an idea that Sakamoto seems to want to convey but never really did before. Metroid 2 and Super Metroid showed how much the Metroid hatchling cared about Samus, but outside a single moment of mercy, Samus never indicated she really cared about it in return. Samus Returns shows them actually forming a bond beyond "it followed me home".
Well it feels weird because it feels like Samus would have to spend a long time on Ceres for Ridley to recover to the point of regenerating a fully organic body. Samus gotta work. Pay them bills.
A smaller issue is the baby metroid sharing energy with Samus. It sort of diminishes it being a surprising moment in Super; but to be fair they were careful not to give Samus the hyper beam, because in Other M Samus says getting the baby metroid giving her the hyper beam is what surprised her.
Also, I feel like Sakamoto's depiction of Samus' relationship with the baby is kinda complicated. She's never been that affectionate towards it. Other M showed her feeling sad that it died after saving her life, but it didn't feel like it went beyond how anyone would feel about having something that saved their lives die. Samus is weirdly cold about the baby metroid. It follows her around like a child and the first thing she does is dump it off at a lab to be the subject of experimentation. I think they did a good job making it even more adorable in this version to help explain why Samus didn't murder it. It feeding off her charge beam was cute.
Well it feels weird because it feels like Samus would have to spend a long time on Ceres for Ridley to recover to the point of regenerating a fully organic body. Samus gotta work. Pay them bills.
A smaller issue is the baby metroid sharing energy with Samus. It sort of diminishes it being a surprising moment in Super; but to be fair they were careful not to give Samus the hyper beam, because in Other M Samus says getting the baby metroid giving her the hyper beam is what surprised her.
Also, I feel like Sakamoto's depiction of Samus' relationship with the baby is kinda complicated. She's never been that affectionate towards it. Other M showed her feeling sad that it died after saving her life, but it didn't feel like it went beyond how anyone would feel about having something that saved their lives die. Samus is weirdly cold about the baby metroid. It follows her around like a child and the first thing she does is dump it off at a lab to be the subject of experimentation. I think they did a good job making it even more adorable in this version to help explain why Samus didn't murder it. It feeding off her charge beam was cute.
I want to see the alternate story where ALL of the Metroids imprint on Samus and she can't bring herself to kill any of them, so they all pile into her gunship and it's like a crowded minivan on a family road trip.
It looks to me like its a straight lift of Meta Ridley.
Similar moves, prosthetics on Proteus Ridley matching that of Meta Ridley. Ridley Robot has a lot less similarities in my opinion. The moves being straight out of Prime just make it fairly straight shooting to me.
On Super:
I doubt Samus would just drop off the Hatchling and then peace out immediately.I could see her remaining for weeks to months in order to make sure nothing went wrong with it. Remember, it may be a larvae but its still an extremely dangerous species.
Despite my issues with the controls,MS's sloppy game design issues, kind of rushed second half, soundtrack and underwhelming environment and enemy design i was still enjoying it enough to put it on par with Metroid II. Then i beat the
Queen Metroid
and the game headed straight into the toilet. Screw all that noise. I still like the game better than Fusion and Zero Mission but I'm pretty soured on it right now.
It looks to me like its a straight lift of Meta Ridley.
Similar moves, prosthetics on Proteus Ridley matching that of Meta Ridley. Ridley Robot has a lot less similarities in my opinion. The moves being straight out of Prime just make it fairly straight shooting to me.
On Super:
I doubt Samus would just drop off the Hatchling and then peace out immediately.I could see her remaining for weeks to months in order to make sure nothing went wrong with it. Remember, it may be a larvae but its still an extremely dangerous species.
We get a Metroid 2.5 that tells of a story of Samus and the baby about the adventures they share on the way to the Ceres Space Station. What kind of hijinks would the two partake in!?
A smaller issue is the baby metroid sharing energy with Samus. It sort of diminishes it being a surprising moment in Super; but to be fair they were careful not to give Samus the hyper beam, because in Other M Samus says getting the baby metroid giving her the hyper beam is what surprised her.
The Hyper Beam doesn't come from the baby Metroid; it comes from Mother Brain. It's her giant rainbow eye laser beam attack that easily defeats Samus. When the Metroid transfers Mother Brain's energy, it also transfers the hyper beam. That's why Mother Brain stops using the rainbow eye laser attack after the baby Metroid sucks her dry. That's why the hyper beam is the same rainbow color. That's why you go from getting your ass completely kicked to completely kicking ass. The Metroid took away Mother Brain's ultimate power and gave it to you.
Of course, Other M kinda messed that up by having Mother Brain use the eye laser attack to kill the Super Metroid. So maybe the Metroid is now supposed to be the source of the Hyper Beam?
Proteus Ridley is very obviously a Meta Ridley reference. Corruption already played with Omega Ridley being more organic than Meta, and this went further. In addition, Proteus Ridley's theme was composed in this game with the exact same additional flairs to the standard Ridley theme that is present in Meta Ridley's theme. Neither the standard Ridley nor the robot in Zero Mission have those flairs, and that soundtrack was both made by Yamamoto and released after Prime, so it's not like he just thought of an additional part to give Ridley's theme; it's specifically for the Meta variant, and by extension Proteus.
This game is fucking phenomenal. I've been limiting myself to 2 or 3 hours per day to make it last as long as possible (just in case we don't get another one for a while.) My opinion might change after I beat it, we'll see, but right now it's everything I wish Fusion and ZM had been at the time (games which I liked, but found mostly short, easy, and slightly disappointing.)
This game is fucking phenomenal. I've been limiting myself to 2 or 3 hours per day to make it last as long as possible (just in case we don't get another one for a while.) My opinion might change after I beat it, we'll see, but right now it's everything I wish Fusion and ZM had been at the time (games which I liked, but found mostly short, easy, and slightly disappointing.)
I got past the Omega Metroid and am now on the fight against the mining robot. Holy shit the Omega Metroid battle was intense. I really loved the way they did that battle.
Overall, even without finishing it, I feel like I can say with confidence that this is not only an excellent return for the franchise, but easily the second best 2D Metroid. So far this game has delivered on everything I wanted out of a Metroid II remake.
Honestly the best part about this game is how little if any hand holding it does. The only times it ever tells you where to go is when it's time to go back to the Metroid gate. You can step on the button on the gate before you have all the Metroids in that area and it will tell you where one is, but I discovered that completely on accident and it wasn't told to the player. Good on them for keeping it hidden sort of as a "super guide" type of thing.
Samus controls incredibly well. Honestly it was, and still can be difficult to get Morph Ball with the Circle Pad, but I definitely have it down and it's d definitely just second nature to use that.
This game is incredible and delivering on my personal hype got it. If you like Metroid, go buy it!
Yeah I got that part, but what are you supposed to do after that?
There's something I'm not getting because it looks like it's just holding him up there and leavijng me a standing target to be filleted by those wall bouncers instead of doing anything to damage it. It seems pulling down makes it shake, but other than that I don't get it.
Despite my issues with the controls,MS's sloppy game design issues, kind of rushed second half, soundtrack and underwhelming environment and enemy design i was still enjoying it enough to put it on par with Metroid II. Then i beat the
Queen Metroid
and the game headed straight into the toilet. Screw all that noise. I still like the game better than Fusion and Zero Mission but I'm pretty soured on it right now.
Ehh I dunno. Metroid 2's small world combined with no map has a unique feel I don't think any other game in the series quite captures. I think it's a shame both remakes includes a map and didn't play around with better spacial world indication in game for direction, because that's such a cool aspect in the game that with the proper hands you could make a killer game with. I know m1 doesn't have an in game map either, but that game always felt like it was too large to make it anything other than annoying.
I don't know personally if I can say I like m2 better than this game, but m2 has quite a novel style that depending on how well it grabs you it might personally make up for other shortcomings just for that.
Yeah I got that part, but what are you supposed to do after that?
There's something I'm not getting because it looks like it's just holding him up there and leavijng me a standing target to be filleted by those wall bouncers instead of doing anything to damage it. It seems pulling down makes it shake, but other than that I don't get it.
About 6 hours in. It's a really well-executed game that's hampered by the tech, the handheld's ergonomics, and the fact that it's still essentially Metroid II. Despite that, I think the blueprint is there for an original 2D game on the Switch. I love the free aim, Samus' fluid movements, and the counter attack. I feared the Metroid fights would get really stale, but the changes in room design and fights have kept things fresh.
All finished! 100%! 12:05, according to the game (and 17:35 according to the activity log). Final boss was a motherfucker and my thumb will likely never forgive me.
Metroid games you should always add about 25-30% more to your playtime due to deaths, menu, maps, and logs not counting against you. This is a beefy game here! Even the other 2D games aren't as short as the final gameclock might lead you to believe.
Yup! As excited as I was about the game before release, length/content was one of my main worries. That worry more or less melted away as soon as I realized how fucking massive some of these areas are, and yet thoroughly manageable.
tried everything yeah... just after the boss, there's a vertical room and at the top, an item, but it's blocked by a small path surrounded by red spikes, the room next to it or the room itself, power bombs do nothing and i tried to bomb every part of the wall with the spiderball
tried everything yeah... just after the boss, there's a vertical room and at the top, an item, but it's blocked by a small path surrounded by red spikes, the room next to it or the room itself, power bombs do nothing and i tried to bomb every part of the wall with the spiderball
i'm doing that right now... in AREA 1, at the bottom right, there's an item under a chozo statue, but the path is blocked by these blue/green rocks....
how the fuck do i go there? I tried i tried to blow up every wall from every room surounding this area, no clue...
After literally breaking my 3DS on this game and thinking my run was kaput in Area 4, I managed to get my Circle Pad to settle down enough (without conclusively fixing it) that it felt pretty good and unintrusive for the rest of the experience. It helped, I think, that the more flexible movement options that you get in the latter half of the game take some stress off the stick.
Finished the game at 100% and a slow, slow completion time of
16:42:47
. This is what happens, you see, when you backtrack an awful lot between major power-ups, attempt infinite bomb jumps all over the place to see what they can get you early (
not much; if things are accessible, the relevant power-up that's supposed to get you there usually isn't far, and in other cases high passages are redundantly locked down with late-game doors
), explore
the western half of the Surface
far in advance, and poke around with things like (endgame)
checking to see if it's possible to approach the final boss from the opposite side.
I wanted to screenshot my clear screen for Miiverse to give the service one last send-off, but hadn't updated my 3DS to the latest version compatible with the online features, so that didn't happen. Well, maybe if I run the game again before Miiverse shuts down in November.
*
Major observations:
A part of me kept wishing this game was made for the Wii U. The second-screen map is as wonderful as we always knew it would be, and I'm fundamentally on board with free aiming as a concept thanks to everything it brings to the table in the encounter design (and, even for a few traditional powers like
the Space Jump/Screw Attack
, analogue movement), but having to use the Circle Pad instead of a proper stick is an unfortunate compromise that undersells how good that concept is. But I don't want to knock the 3DS too hard for this, as I adore the way the DKCR-like 2.5D background art and background/foreground interactions fill out this cavernous Prime-like space with the system's 3D effect. I'd love to see SR-like free aiming and analogue movement return in a future 2D Metroid on a system with a good stick, though I already dread losing the map.
The flow of the first exploratory run is the best since Super Metroid. Fusion had its own identity as a set-piece-driven game, but I always felt it was excessively claustrophobic and locked down, and I especially didn't like the way it handled the endgame and point of no return. ZM shines over multiple runs given its openness to different completion orders that make the sense of sequence breaking accessible to average players who only know a basic repertoire of advanced techniques, something that SR would be hard-pressed to replicate given Metroid II's zone structure, but SR outstrips it handily in the vastness and freedom of its layouts. For a game with the linear progression of Metroid II, where areas lose their relevance to the main path once you've passed them by, the map flows unexpectedly like SM's, since there is so much room for the zones to breathe and offer multiple simultaneous paths to make route-building interesting. And how about that Scan Pulse? Yes, it follows Prime 3 and Other M in how accessible it makes 100% completion, but it's a unique and well balanced navigational solution that could only work in 2D, and a far better fit for this game than any of the old Map Station or hint-marking systems, given that the point is to search for the Metroids on your own.
The Morph Ball is slow. Slow to toggle, slow to move. I'm accustomed to the old down-down input to get into the ball just fine, but here it reminded me of Super Street Fighter IV DS: certain inputs designed for D-pads do not translate at all to nudging a stick, much less the Circle Pad. I like that double-tapping down still worked, as old habits die hard, but a better alternative would have been welcome. I did train myself to use the touch screen for the ball (and wouldn't have gotten through certain bosses without it), but it was a bit of a reach for my right thumb, which I preferred, which meant reaching for it occasionally tilted my old-3DS screen out of its 3D-effect sweet spot.
And alternative UI designs for a more responsive ball aren't that hard to imagine. There isn't really any reason to put Aeion powers on A with a D-pad select when all of them are tap-activated or tap-toggled; why not just tap the D-pad position for the Aeion power, and put the Morph Ball on A? Or in the current scheme, why not designate a touch-screen button in the bottom right (for instance) for the Morph Ball when there's plenty of space, given how the beam-switching buttons are so generous? I know some people might prefer tapping with the left thumb instead, like how Morph Ball was bound to the Wiimote's A in Other M, and perhaps that's the intended design, but that's not conducive to techniques like balling up while travelling directionally in mid-air.
The game takes its time to reveal its brilliance. And I love its brooding escalation. To be clear, from the start it captures that old feeling of progressing through a maze in silence, albeit with new environment art and combat mechanics. But for the first few areas, it's not a game that distinguishes itself, especially as the obstacles make it so obvious that the item progression
mimics Super Metroid's, only with beam switching instead of stacking, plus Aeion powers that ultimately affect almost nothing in terms of traversal on the main path.
It's patient about showing its hand, from the first hints of
foreground-background interaction with the crystal pillars crumbling as you step on them
to the gradual introduction of
the whole subplot involving Diggernaut, from the missing Space Jump to the later scene where you see it vacuum up the Power Bomb.
Then there is the way the gates drain the zones, a game-long setup for
the one gate that merely swaps the flooding of the zone from one side to another.
Going by the Metroid count, the bulk of the creativity arrives nice and late, a payoff for those who have stuck it out through what might have seemed like a standard, if competent experience.
Then there's the whole business with the crystalline obstructions that you see everywhere from the beginning of the game, clearly in need of a certain power-up to bust through eventually,
only that never comes: you fill up every equipment slot only to find that nothing still works, not even the Power Bomb, with the Scan Pulse confirming there are no alternatives in sight.
One begins to dread a situation like
how Fusion or Other M handled 100% and the postgame, but then you the question of the final power-up resolved in such a marvellous way.
Really, everything involving
the Baby Metroid
is great,
from your first sight of the egg to the adorable cinematic of the hatching to the moment of realization that the baby is the last tool in your kit.
The environments do have a problem with coherence at first: you see some incredible backgrounds early on in the vast "exteriors" and main halls, but there isn't a sense that the areas on the whole are integrated as a place, especially with the pockets of Varia-restricted hot pockets everywhere that seem to exist just for the purpose of giving you something to check once you have the Varia suit, not because they belong to a contiguous locale. But I turned around on this, too, around Area 5 and through the rest of the game: perhaps it's that I was more in the habit of reading the backgrounds by then, but that contiguity and zone identity do eventually show up. Layout aside, I think much of the sense of sameness comes from how the foregrounded stage elements all share the same blocky N64-like 3D aesthetic we already know from so many other 3DS games, the Zelda remakes included (if in a 3D art style based squarely on Prime), while the sprite art of the GBA games made total use of colour palettes as a scene-setting device.
The difficulty tuning is excellent. Separating save points from energy refills was a stroke of insight, contributing to some interesting situational decisions about when to use the Lightning Shield and whether to bank energy or Aeion, depending on where I was on the map (or indeed, what phase of a big fight I was in). The major bosses (by which I mean
Diggernaut, Queen Metroid, and Proteus Ridley
) all took me about 3-5 attempts, some of them quite long and protracted: a few just to see all phases and read the cues, a few to nail down the execution while taking less and less damage every time. They're tough but fair, calling on the whole arsenal and posing interesting questions of "What can I do to deal with this?" in the heat of the moment as you cycle through the pattern, requiring observation, problem-solving, and execution in equal parts. Again with that slow burn: for the longest time it seemed this game might be lacking in this department, but by the end it delivered.
These are exemplary bosses all around, while the repeated Metroid encounters give you a chance to clear them out faster and more cleanly every time as your mechanics and weaponry both improve. (I didn't get much use out of the
standard missiles
, perhaps, due to
the Metroids sensibly being weak to the Ice Beam.
) Granted, I'm not that fond of
the Diggernaut chase sequence, but even in Fusion I found the SA-X pursuits to be more fun to remember and talk about afterwards than to actually play.
As for the final boss,
perhaps Proteus Ridley was a little one-dimensional as an "avoid damage and zap him" fight—not rewarding you at all for getting that full bank of special ammunition at 100%—but I'm speaking as someone who failed to pull off the melee counter in the final phase when offered, and wore him down the long way. This was all about staying in the middle and reading the tail.
*
TL;DR and other short notes:
- Terrific combat and encounter design; shame about the Circle Pad. Not because of analogue movement or the free aim (the latter in particular is great and opens up so many interactions), but because it's the Circle Pad.
- Thank heavens wall jumps now work in the intuitive Mario-standard direction.
- I'm doubly thankful that narrative is back to being delivered in silence and pantomime, the way Metroid is supposed to be, without any of the incessant chattiness of Fusion or Other M.
- I don't see the point of the mid-zone elevators. They didn't seem necessary for loading (in most cases, they're direct alternatives to a contiguous route) and were so short that they could easily have been replaced by vertical connecting passageways. I suspect they were a product of late revisions or obscure technical compromises.
- My gut reaction, which may change with sober second thought, is that as a first-run experience Samus Returns is my second-favourite of the 2D series behind Super Metroid. (SM has too many X factors going for it to be surpassed, too many elements that are all classic stand-ins for whole conversations about game design—the Draygon kill, the Maridia tube, the way Shinesparks and wall jumps are signalled, the save-the-animals decision, the list goes on and on. Individual elements might have been improved in three 2D games we've received since, but Super has several games' worth of lightning-in-a-bottle magic.) Any doubts that Sakamoto or Nintendo understand their own series should go out the window. Metroid is back to its proper place as an agenda-setting IP.
- I can't wait to see what Sakamoto does with the 2D series next in 2030.
I want to see the alternate story where ALL of the Metroids imprint on Samus and she can't bring herself to kill any of them, so they all pile into her gunship and it's like a crowded minivan on a family road trip.
