I finally got around to playing Metroid II: Return of Samus. Ignoring the obvious limitations of the Game Boy for a moment, it was... interesting. It was made before the Metroidvania genre got codified by its sequel, so the design just feels so unusual after playing 800 standardized clones of Super. I'm not talking about the more linear approach the game uses, that seemed fine. The use of lava to separate areas actually worked rather well for a game with no map and meant to be played without your entire attention as a handheld entry. The powerups were all crammed into the first half of the game, and not really used to separate parts of the map. You just grabbed them as you went along. And the different zones? Some of them were huge, and others were tiny. It feels like the first half of the game was crammed in the first few zones. I've played enough Metroidvanias that I can usually tell how close I am to the next major powerup, because game design says you need a certain pace and so forth. But here the rhythm was off. I can't say it's a bad thing, but it did feel weird.
But I can't ignore the Game Boy limitations entirely, so it wasn't exactly a great game. Better than the original, but still it's clear why Nintendo remade it. Also, the final boss was one heck of a difficulty spike. Oh well, I finally played it. One step closer to officially being a true Metroid fan. I've got a couple other games I want to get to first (including Metroid Prime Remastered...) before finally biting the bullet, buying that Switch Online expansion pass, and finally get around to playing Metroid Fusion, a gap in my gaming repertoire that has gnawed at me for years.