I booted up Metroid II: Return of Samus last Saturday, shortly after losing one of the post epilogue battles in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia and before deciding to replace the game cartridge with a new one, I thought I would peruse my digital library. Metroid II: Return of Samus is what jumped out at me, partly because of the recent Metroid: Samus Returns 3DS game released earlier in the month, but also because when I first picked up the game and gave it a go, I got lost, discouraged, and put it away. I even thought I recalled where I stopped, which I can no tell you may not have existed as I did not come across an area that required you to shoot the Ice Beam at enemies in order to use them as stepping stones to scale a wall you could not just jump over. This time, I decided that I would make a serious go of things.
Since I became lost during my last attempt, I did consider using a map to help me when I felt too confused. I justified this position by the fact that 11 year old me would have used maps, especially if they had been included in an issue of Nintendo Power (And I might still have the Super Gameboy Guide around somewhere in my box of issues that I decided were worth keeping). After starting the game however, I made an unofficial self-oath that I would not look at a map unless absolutely necessary. However, it pretty quickly became evident how the game was developed made it not necessary to need a map, and this turned out to be one of the cool design aspects that I very much appreciated.
So in MII:RoS, you start out with an explorable area with a tunnel that is visible, but in accessible due to a poisonous liquid that you can pass through, but will constantly drain your life until you are dead. So you could pass through towards the next area, but the game is designed in a way that makes survival impossible. The way to clear out the poison though happens in an inexplicable manner. Each explorable area has a set number of Metroids that Samus must kill, being her primary mission on SR388, and after the last Metroid is killed in that specific area, there is a minor earthquake and the poisonous liquid drains away leading to the next area. This manner of exploring was a great design choice that allowed me to not feel as overwhelmed as I usually do in the first Metroid.
There was on moment though that I was seriously contemplating looking at a map as I thought that I had explored everything that there was to explore and that maybe I was just missing a bombable wall that would lead me to the final Metroid for that area. After being dissuaded from doing so, I pushed through and accidentally found that last one, which opened up the final area that ended up leading to the Metroid Queen. The Metroid Queen battle was something else too. After the third time failing, I did look up how to kill her as I felt that I was missing something, which was when I found out that after shooting the Queen in the mouth which causes her to pause, you can roll down her throat and drop bombs in her exposed stomach. Or you could take the direct approach and unload the required 150 missiles needed to kill her. I did not take the bombing approach. I did however take the rapidly pressing the B button with my index finger to fire missiles while holding onto my 3DS (thumb at this point was not using the directional pad).
The only thing that disappointed me about the level design, is that once you do look at a map, you find out that it could not actually exist. Too many of the chambers and tunnels lead to areas that would not be possible to exist with the areas that are directly connected to those same chambers. While this does not detract at all from the game, someone with better spacial memory than I might be thrown a little bit, I did find myself doing a little "Owwwhh" and being a little sad. But, that really was all that I felt let down by, but since this only happened because I wanted to see what the interior of the planet looked like in-game, I guess I cannot really complain.
In the end, I finished the game in 6 hours 32 minutes, having found all of the energy tanks, 20 of the 22 missile drops. I think I actually like Metroid II better than the original, as the progression makes more sense to me that, from what I remember, seemingly wandering around Zebes trying to figure out where to go next and what to do once you are there; maybe this just means that I need to play Metroid again (or save it for when the NES Classic is re-released next summer!?). . . But yes, Metroid II: Return of Samus is a great game and the fact that it is on the original Gameboy did not take away any of the fun of exploration or of being engaged with the game that can happen, especially with 26 year old games designed for a monochrome system.
~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
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