PixlBit

It’s February, a time for romance, chocolates, and obsessing over waifus. As for myself I think this year, considering that I don’t have a date or have a waifu, I’ll talk about a game starring a bounty hunter that could use a mention after a bad game and what hopefully is just a hiatus. I never really got Metroid even after checking out Super Metroid at a friend’s house. That changed when my aunt and I picked up two pre-orders: her copy of Metroid Prime my copy of Metroid 4.

The story is a simple one: Samus gets infected with the X Parasite, an organism that mimics and clones itself after the host, and is saved by a vaccine using the Metroid Hatchling’s DNA that managed to reach another reseach station after the last one blew up. After waking up and realizing that her own DNA and suit has drastically changed a distress signal came from the Biologic Space Lab research station orbiting around SR388. From there it’s just the Federation asking Samus to do damage control while secretly ensuring that future investments are secured. While it is simple the story is well told. There’s well thought out narrations from Samus that’s to the point and from an intelligent perspective, an enemy that was thought to use only simple instincts showing signs of an actual thought process, and a few twists here and there. Even the SA-X, Samus’s doppelganger in this game, became a potential Federation conspiracy when the government found out the damn thing could multiply up to ten in an hour. While this was heavily based on the movie Alien: Resurrection (as the series was based on the Alien franchise) the story still managed to be a to-the-point classic.

The controls were condensed when adapting Super Metroid’s to the GBA but honestly it was improved for the most part. The face buttons do just what any Nintendo gamer would expect from a GBA game, A for jump, B for fire weapon, etc. The condensing takes place with the shoulder buttons and new weapon upgrade overlap. The L button aims diagonally up or down (based on what’s pressed on the D-pad) and the R button is used to enable Missiles and Power Bombs. Upgrades remain the same for all beams, suits, and bombs but the missiles gain overlap powerups. As with the beams the missile upgrades are applied to the main reserve, meaning that all missiles that the player fires have the Super, Ice, and Diffusion upgrades. The only issue with the controls is that there’s nothing mapped for the Speed Boost ability, causing it to remain as passive. Speed Boost is used to get around and find hidden upgrades but it can be annoying when it kicks in when you don’t want it. Despite the one issue the game is still fun to play. Even though the game is linear compared to the previous 2D Metroid game exploration is still intact and still lives up to the series expectation with a much more convenient control scheme.

The presentation is absolutely fantastic even for the GBA. The colors range from dark to bright to match the atmosphere and the sectors below the main deck do resemble artificial environments meant for observation and preservation, with alien landscapes infused over high tech equipment. The soundtrack is also a worthwhile experience with its motivational tunes and eerie background music. Even the boss battle tracks are worthy for a “jam to” playlist. The real problem comes from finding a system to actually experience the presentation, which the answer is to dig up an old DS unit with a GBA port and set the game to stereo.

When picking this game up again and thinking of how to write this review I started to realize what Other M was. The more I compared these two games the more it became apparent: Other M is a recycled Metroid Fusion poorly made for the Wii. Everything is there: the CO giving orders and power ups, the research station, Samus’s monologues, and even THE UNMAPPED METROID FACILITY. I’ll get into Other M a much later time but I want to focus on Fusion. I went into reviewing this game not because this was how I got into the series or not based on the fact that this was the first Metroid game I owned but this is how I remembered Samus. I don’t remember her sexualized (even though that’s actually a reward for beating the games with a certain criteria), over stereotype-feminized, or anything degrading. I remember a bounty hunter that saved a galaxy from a threat that took her image and power, and this was what she said before the credit roll:

As for my favorite Metroid game, that’s another mission for another review.

See you next review.