Review: Metroid: Samus Returns (3ds)

Game: Metroid: Samus Returns
Platform: Nintendo 3ds
Initial Release Date: September 15, 2017
Publisher: Nintendo
Developers: Nintendo, Mercury Steam, Nintendo Entertainment Planning & Development
Directors: Jose Luis Márquez; Takehiko Hosokawa

Just a disclaimer right up front. I am a huge, unapologetic Nintendo fanboy, but the one big gap in my fandom is Metroid. As a kid, my only exposure to Metroid was playing Super Metroid at a kiosk at Target for about 15 minutes when I was 11 and having the magnet below, which is still on my fridge today.

SPOILERS!

Then in college, when the Gamecube came out, I originally bought two games for it: Super Smash Bros. Melee and Metroid Prime. I'm of course a big fan of the entire Smash Bros. series, but I also really loved Metroid Prime. I played it a lot, but I never got very far. I think my furthest save in the game was probably only about 40% through. Over the years, I've played an even smaller amount of Metroid 1, Super Metroid, and the accursed Other M. 

The point of this rambling history of my Metroid experience - or lack thereof - is that I went into Samus Returns without any nostalgia for the Metroid series. I know a lot about it, because I'm the kind of nerd who listens to retro video game podcasts (shout-out to Retronauts) and read articles on blogs and in magazines. But, ultimately, I went into this game knowing what to expect but judging it purely on its own merits and instead of as the newest installment of a treasured series. And my verdict? I LOVED it.

What is Metroid: Samus Returns?
Allow yourself to journey back to the distant era known as the 1980s. Tony Danza was somehow considered funny, Heaven was a place on Earth, and the home video game market had recently crashed and burned only to be resurrected almost single-handedly by Nintendo. At the time, Nintendo's in-house development was divided between two rival teams: Shigeru Miyamoto's EAD and Gunpei Yokoi's R&D 1. Miyamoto and EAD created such iconic games as Donkey Kong, Super Mario Bros., and the Legend of Zelda. Gunpei Yokoi was the designer of such marvels as Game & Watch, the D-Pad, and the Gameboy, and his R&D 1 team created Kid Icarus and, most important to our conversation, Metroid. Two years into the Gameboy's life-cycle, R&D 1 produced Metroid II: the Return of Samus in 1991, five years after the initial release of Metroid for the Famicom Disk System. It traded the zoomed out view of Metroid for a more zoomed in view that would make better use of the Gameboy's small screen and varied environmental textures to make up for the lack of color. It was also a little more linear, with players progressing from killing one Metroid mini-boss after another. Exploration still existed, but to a lesser extent. Three years later, the team would put out Super Metroid for the SNES, a game that is widely regarded today as one of the best video games ever made. 

I 100%ed it! My first Metroid game that I've beaten and one of the first games I've ever 100%ed, too!

Fast forward to September 2017, when Nintendo released Metroid: Samus Returns for the 3ds. This game is a modern remake of Metroid II, produced by a different team of course (Gunpei Yokoi was tragically killed in a car vs. pedestrian accident in 1997). The game essentially recycles the plot and map of Metroid II, but uses mechanics from Super Metroid as well as Metroid Fusion for the GBA. It also adds in some new things, such as the ability to add pins to your map (essential if you want to 100% the game as I did) and the ability to rotate your arm cannon 360° by holding down the L button. They also added a fun melee counter attack that stuns enemies and powers up your next immediate attack, allowing you to kill most stunned enemies in one shot. And to make up for the changes in resolution, they spread the map out more and added a lot more enemies. But, more or less, it's what Metroid II would be if it had been developed after Super Metroid and with modern technology.

My Thoughts
So, I really loved this game. I've heard it criticized a lot, mostly for not being Super Metroid. I think the fact that it's really my first true, 2D Metroid helped me to judge it on what it is instead of what it isn't. The difficulty isn't too hard on Normal mode, but there were still some bosses that it took me several tries to beat. There is one boss late in the game, in particular, that I think I might have attempted something like 20 times. So, there is definitely some difficulty there. The difficulty is ameliorated very well by the addition of soft autosaves; certain actions, such as using an elevator or teleporter or entering a boss's room, will cause the game to autosave, but this save isn't permanent. I found this out the hard way when I turned my 3ds off after using a teleporter, only to find that I had lost about an hour of progress by not actually saving first. Still, these soft autosaves are great for making you not want to break your 3ds in half after being killed by a boss. 

There isn't much else in this game that will kill you unless you're just being foolish. Few of the enemies do very much damage and pretty much anything you kill will give you health. In fact, because enemies respawn when you reenter a room, it's very easy to fill up health, ammunition, and your Aeon tank anytime they happen to be low. And unless you're just going around spamming super missiles, your ammo probably won't ever be low, either. 

There are a few things that it would be nice if the game told you. A big one is that Metroids are vulnerable to ice. Everyone who grew up playing the series knows this, but there is nothing in the game to indicate it to newcomers. I only knew about it from the Retronauts podcast (second shoutout!). Freezing the Metroids with a charged ice blast pretty much always makes those fights completely trivial.

Speaking of Metroids, the repetitive nature of killing Metroids as minibosses is probably the only really negative thing I can say about the game. They did vary it a bit - this Metroid shoots electricity at you, this one shoots fire, this one is in a room full of lava, this one runs away and goes to nearby rooms. But ultimately they are all the same easy fight. The real curveballs in boss fights are the non-Metroid bosses, all of which were very hard for me and all the more rewarding once beaten. The final boss fight is really great and I won't spoil it for you. It's broken up into stages with really neat cutscenes in between. I don't normally play 3ds games in 3D, but these cutscenes had me pushing up the slider, and I didn't start skipping them until I had already died probably 6 times. 

Final Verdict
If you have a 3ds, Metroid: Samus Returns is an absolute must-buy. I think any fan of the series who is willing to judge it on its own will really enjoy it and be left wishing for a Super Metroid remake with some of Samus Returns' quality-of-life improvements. Anyone new to the Metroid series will probably enjoy it even more. I went from this to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. The latter is better, but this one is still an excellent example of the Metroidvania genre. Pick it up and get to playing.

See you next mission!

PS: Sorry about the long gap between articles. I got the super flu and then had an avalanche of responsibility fall on me at work. I've found a tiny little niche of free time and will use that to get several of these in the can, so to speak.