Just finished Metroid Fusion. How the fuck did I only get less than half of the energy tanks?
I can see as a kid being thrown off by the tone shift from Super Metroid but now that I understand how key the atmosphere and theme was to SM, Metroid Fusion seems like about the only way they COULD have taken the franchise ahead. Fusion doesn't go for the same atmosphere SM had, it literally can't because it's a different story, but it manages to hold its own just the same. The X have an insane amount of character and personality for just being literal viruses (And since the only other two characters in the story are autistic it's not hard to upstage them.). The game doesn't have the RE style "Formerly good place ruined" atmosphere at all, but SM was a bunch of stupid caves glued together randomly and it worked so I can't fault Fusion for that. The X being a really unusual and yet very conventional vidya enemy is what really sells Fusion. The general difficulty increase was also a huge improvement as Super Metroid only has probably 5 rooms that actually try to kill you, as well as the overall combat just being better on every level.
Not sure if I'd rate it above Super Metroid, but I think I prefer it slightly over Super Metroid because what it loses from that game's breadth, it makes up for by not having that game's jank.
I should have realized it in Metroid Dread but having revisited these games now it feels weird to call the genre of "Platformer dude has to find keys/abilities to opened colored doors" a Metroidvania because Metroid was about that but at the same time was not. The atmosphere was key to its identity. Prime, AM2R, Dread, all of these games understood that (It is also strange now to reflect but Prime was simply TO PAR for Metroid.), but most of the games called Metroidvanias focus less on that and more on the colored doors+abilities combo. Not to knock that, but Metroid seems more remarkable for that atmosphere. Maybe that's the perspective of a man who has played many, many Metroidvanias though.
I can see as a kid being thrown off by the tone shift from Super Metroid but now that I understand how key the atmosphere and theme was to SM, Metroid Fusion seems like about the only way they COULD have taken the franchise ahead. Fusion doesn't go for the same atmosphere SM had, it literally can't because it's a different story, but it manages to hold its own just the same. The X have an insane amount of character and personality for just being literal viruses (And since the only other two characters in the story are autistic it's not hard to upstage them.). The game doesn't have the RE style "Formerly good place ruined" atmosphere at all, but SM was a bunch of stupid caves glued together randomly and it worked so I can't fault Fusion for that. The X being a really unusual and yet very conventional vidya enemy is what really sells Fusion. The general difficulty increase was also a huge improvement as Super Metroid only has probably 5 rooms that actually try to kill you, as well as the overall combat just being better on every level.
Not sure if I'd rate it above Super Metroid, but I think I prefer it slightly over Super Metroid because what it loses from that game's breadth, it makes up for by not having that game's jank.
I should have realized it in Metroid Dread but having revisited these games now it feels weird to call the genre of "Platformer dude has to find keys/abilities to opened colored doors" a Metroidvania because Metroid was about that but at the same time was not. The atmosphere was key to its identity. Prime, AM2R, Dread, all of these games understood that (It is also strange now to reflect but Prime was simply TO PAR for Metroid.), but most of the games called Metroidvanias focus less on that and more on the colored doors+abilities combo. Not to knock that, but Metroid seems more remarkable for that atmosphere. Maybe that's the perspective of a man who has played many, many Metroidvanias though.
