Don't get me wrong, I played it back on Gamecube when it came out, and it was one of those top tier, holy games where I gave it 10/10 and replayed it tons of times. When it came out, it was stunning and magical.
Also, it still does tons of things right. The art design is amazing, the graphics. The music and general atmosphere is fantastic. The whole interface of being in the visor is super cool, the different view modes, and the reflective effect where you glimpse Samus' face during bright lights is still one of the coolest and smartest game effects out there.
And so considering all that, I went and played the remaster.
And I'm sorry, it's a complete slog.
Call it my tastes changing, or call it the fact that video games are made differently today, but I do NOT remember this much backtracking in this game. I mean it is unreal. It's an exercise in patience. SO much backtracking it just starts to make you go insane. The same ol' environments, the same old enemies, over and over and over again. The routes they make you take are sometimes crazy. Sometimes they have you go hopping from one end of the world to the other and back again, no joke.
And the game jerks you around, too. I once got one of those helpful little hints that says hey, go check out this room way over on the other side of the map. And I was like, huh, I dunno, that seems fishy. So I went and checked a guide, and sure enough, I needed to get a nearby item first. I forget which exactly, maybe the grappling hook or something. If I didn't check the guide and followed the hint, I would have traveled all the way over there to find I didn't have the needed item to continue. The game tried to trick me!
So many unnecessary time wasting parts. Like getting to the Sunchamber the second time for the artifact. You go the obvious route, climbing a tall ass tower with ghost enemies shooting you the whole time, only to find impenetrable vines are blocking the door, so you have to go all the way around a different route. And nothing is new or different on that other route. It's one you've gone before. It's completely pointless and there to just annoy you.
The fighting gets super tedious too. So many gunfights in the second half of the game. Almost every room has space pirates, and they respawn if you just leave and come back. You get nothing for fighting them again. It's just a time waster. I spent the second half of the game just running past everything. The first time you go through a place, sure, kill everything to check it all out, but after that the enemies are just another exercise in patience.
Oh and too many pointless scans.
I never died, but if I had I would've been pissed probably, because no auto saves and save points are very far apart.
And of course, when you beat the game, you're rewarded with a 5 second clip of Samus looking bored. And then after that, you guessed it, unskippable end credits that take forever.
Again, I say all this while having rated the game 10/10 back in the day. I loved it. It was a masterpiece back then. Compared to modern games though, it's not. It's a super padded game that tests your patience for BS above all else.
http://i.imgur.com/DCjoiZ0.jpg
https://www.deviantart.com/fuee/art/spanky1-811230163