Board 8 > so, Metroid: Samus Returns

(+) Yeah! (+)

Metroid 2 had earthquake gating, no fast travel, and no in-game map. It's kind of a problem.
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Metroid II was easily small and simple enough to not need a map though.
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The problem with the early areas having late game powers is it goes completely against the map design. Metroid 2 treats each new area as a chapter progression - you don't ever go "backwards" normally. Other Metroid games have the areas more interconnected so you actually do have reasons to scavenge for powerups when you're passing by - even Fusion has tunnels connecting the sectors and gives reasons to return and discover new things.

Sure MSR has the teleporters... but it's just not worth it to revisit every area again every time you finish a new one. Towards the end I just feel "well I might as well just keep going and get more abilities before I go back."
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area 1

liking it so far
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Beat it
It was good, there are no real concerns besides the control

But yeah the controls..
The worst offender is holding L to use the Spiderball
The fight against the last Metroid was only hard because I couldn't keep pressing L and moving, it wasn't comfortable and sometimes it made me release L by mistake
So yeah I don't have anything else to complain about damn it

post credit scene was 10/10
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I just got my big shoulders

loving this so far
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so far it feels like metroid fusion which is my favorite 2d metroid
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Nanis23 posted...

The worst offender is holding L to use the Spiderball

How about holding R to use missiles? Like, Fusion did it this way, then Zero Mission recognized that it was awkward and switched to R toggling missiles on/off, and now we're going BACK to the Fusion way, which we already acknowledged was a problem 13 years ago???

Or just moving with the circle pad ffs
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11:32:42
58.7%

13:49:27
100%

Yeah it didn't take really that long to get the last 41.3%
The only problem was trying to figure out how to pass the needles things..but then I realized that there are no more powerups in the game and it's probably something I already have

Onwards to Hard Mode!
Just kidding, maybe during a Metroid Marathon in the future
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yeah I have no idea how to get past the spike stuff. I've tried!
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Spike stuff is super cool but kind of doesn't make sense.

Spider ball then lay a powerbomb to propel yourself across the map. It's weird this only happens in spider ball mode but it is awesome.
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huh. that's.. dumb.
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You're supposed to do it against the queen Metroid! It's awesome man
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Even I admit it's pretty cool. Only used it once to get a power up though
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Gmun posted...

You're supposed to do it against the queen Metroid! It's awesome man

So this is why the fight took longer than I expected..?
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Yeah. It's a nod to the original game and handled very, very well. There is a way to do it without taking damage by the way.

The more distance I've had from the game, and in particular the ending, I really liked it. It wasn't too long so much as the lack od enemy variety really becomes too apparent. I've been trying to think of why none of the individual rooms really stand out compared to say Super Metroid and I really think that's it, along with bland art design. The amount of detail in the background and stuff is great, but I feel like it isn't as emotive as the 2D games. It's really good for the first couple areas then towards the end it kind of drags and honestly you stop paying attention to the backgrounds.

Anyway I would be cool with seeing what Mercury Stream could do with the Metroid IP starting from scratch. Metroid 2 has to be one of the more challenging games to remake and they succeeded better than I think anyone expected.
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Is anyone trying to beat it under 4 hours? it sounds so insane, mostly because of how long some of the Metroid fights are
But then I guess maybe I was missing something, like it was possible to counter a certain move I didn't know about or exploiting another trick
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got through 3 parts of area 2, getting items really quickly
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yeah that's the plus side of the early game, I really felt like I was getting new abilities all the time
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13:55:12, 100%

I think I would have died if I had taken one more hit on the final boss
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went back and got 100%. that power bomb jump move is pretty cool and would be a fun speed trick. too bad you get it so late.

I'm generally feeling like Samus Returns is a good but unnecessary entry to the series, but I also come from a place where am2r exists. I dunno. I'll play this again, hopefully on a platform with a proper analog stick.
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Maybe it'll get a Switch port?
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feels obvious, but I do wonder about second screen game on a single screen platform. there are a lot of DS franchises that just feel lost in a world without low budget hardware and dual screens.
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(not that this needed to be a dual screen game but still)
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Ending spoilers

Hype for the Fusion remake
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LordoftheMorons posted...

Ending spoilers

Hype for the Fusion remake

That would be more pointless than Superstar Saga remake
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how do I already forget if MSR actually used the bottom screen for anything
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what is sleep but non-metroid time

in area 5 im addicted, it's like fusion but longer
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the bottom screen was the map + touching it let you morph/unmorph

woo
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I actually needed to use the touch-to-morph to get a few upgrades because the timing was so tight!
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it really only helped if you wanted to get them early, i.e. jump-morph-spider ball before you got spring ball or hi jump
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oh right now i remember

but I just used bomb jumps in those moments, the only time I *really* used the touch morph is during the Diggernaut and Queen Metroid fights
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bottom screen is also switching weapons and switching missles!
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Not getting it if you hate it.

If you read the posts it doesn't seem like Tranny hates it.
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Beat ZM in one sitting for the first time yesterday, 2:21 with 66%... skipped Varia suit which was fun
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use this route and you'll easily cut it in half - https://www.metroid2002.com/0/speed_tricks_early_ridley.php
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Those shortcuts in Zero Mission are so awesome. Easily my favorite thing that game did.
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Yeah never would've found those probably...

I could probably cut 30 minutes from my current route easily too if I stopped going down dead ends and stopped screwing around with diagonal bomb jumps for no reason (but they are so fun)
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OliviaTremor posted...

Those shortcuts in Zero Mission are so awesome. Easily my favorite thing that game did.

it's been years so I could be wrong, but I thought you had issues with this? or maybe it was just semantics - that they get called sequence breaks instead of built-in shortcuts?
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I do think those shortcuts are a bit cheap level design though. Secret missile blocks that you would never find, that lead to magic hallways to sequence break? Kinda lame. I prefer sequence breaks where you can bomb/wall jump to go backwards through paths and skip items and such that way (which ZM has a ton of).
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think of it as replay value. you're never finding that your first time but it gives you more interesting ways to explore the game, all while retaining the spirit of what made super metroid great.

I don't believe that super Metroid's sequence breaks were all true breaks anyway. anyone play testing that game would have caught on to some of those. they just didn't care.
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It's been quite a few years since I've revisited 2D Metroid which could be helping my experience out a lot, but I'm mostly digging this game.
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transcience posted...

think of it as replay value. you're never finding that your first time but it gives you more interesting ways to explore the game

Not really because it's not exploration to shoot missiles at every block in the game. Bombing corners and other kinds of potential shortcut areas, sure, but that one Ridley shortcut is just in the middle of the ceiling. If there was a scanner like in SM then it would be fine, but I can't imagine exploring and finding that in ZM. Unless there's a way to come up on the back from the other side... which is actually very likely considering how ZM is designed. So I would take that back in that case.

And yeah it's clear that SM and onwards were definitely designed with intentional sequence breaks left in. That's fine, it's still rewarding. But they do also have a design philosophy that very strongly allows for really new shortcuts too, so any sequence break you find FEELS like your own invention. Specifically, any gating they do is limited to a few small instances at most, so that if you DO manage to find a way around a gate, you can proceed relatively freely. This is why you can skip the Varia suit in ZM - there are only a handful of small fire rooms, even though theoretically they could've made all of lower Norfair and Ridley fire since you "should" have the Varia suit by then anyways (which is what Fusion and Metroid Prime do I think).
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that room is kind of unique. it's the only one that's a major skip and you probably don't want people finding that their first time because it really changes things, makes the map statues make no sense, etc. you're not gonna come up that the other way.

I'm not claiming this spot is exploration - it's more a secret in the way that, I don't know, Justin Bailey is a secret. there are others that fit that mold a lot better.
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How are you guys getting such low times?

I got 100% item and map under 10 hours without even trying to rush. Only used the scanner on clean up to make sure I wasn't missing any map spaces.

I think the worst part of the control scheme is that they forgot that a New 3DS came out???? Like, the two extra shoulder buttons and the analog nub would have negated a lot of issues people have with the controls.
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Power bombs are the scanner of the GBA games.
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Things they could have done with the new 3ds controls:
ZR activates the super missiles instead of tapping.
Control nub changes powers
ZL cycles beams
That frees up both the dpad and control pad and minimizes touch screen use
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JeffreyRaze posted...

Power bombs are the scanner of the GBA games.

Ohhh true
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fun fact: first time I beat ZM I accidentally didn't get get the Varia suit. Wasn't even trying to skip it
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