System: Nintendo 3DS
Release Date: September 15, 2017
Publisher: Nintendo
Time Spent: 17 hours 32 minutes / 25 hours 01 minutes*
A bit of context before we delve into the game itself, so skip the next paragraph if you want.
I previously sat on purchasing
Metroid: Samus Returns, the remake of
Metroid II: Return of Samus, originally released on the Game Boy in 1991, because at the time of its release I was happily playing the original
Metroid II on my 3DS. I was very excited by the surprise announcement of the game
at E3 2017 and the only thing I can think of, is that because
my 3DS became non-well functioning in the end of 2017, I did not see the point in buying a game (and also the very cool
Metroid: Samus Returns amiibo, which now cost
upwards of $200) that I could potentially end up never playing. When Nintendo announced the closing of the 3DS (and Wii U) eShops to new purchases, I had considered buying the game digitally, but since the digital game ran $39.99 (with it rarely going on sale), I was able to justify paying the same price for the physical cartridge.
So it was that in January I started up Samus Returns for the first time and while I regret not playing this game when it first came out, I am eternally grateful that I am able to play it now and that I have played it. MercurySteam did a phenomenal job reimagining Metroid II as I was a little afraid that the level design and layout would be nearly identical, although with the added counter-attack mechanic. That fear was laid to rest pretty early on. The bones from the original Metroid II are here, but so are the early framings of Metroid Dread.
What I had originally feared, that this would be a room-for-room remake of Metroid II, being one of the reasons why I did not immediately preorder the game, but those fears ended up being completely unfounded, not that I had an issue with Metroid II's level design, but I wanted something more than just a remake. I already knew about the melee counter (as was advertised during the E3 announcement), but I genuinely knew little else about how similar the two games were. In the original Metroid II, there was a poisonous/caustic liquid that would prevent Samus from exploring past a certain point, and after all of the Metroids in the current area were destroyed that substance would mysteriously empty down to the next floor where you would then hunt more Metroids. In Samus Returns, the caustic fluid is still there, but now there is a physical mechanism that requires a DNA sample from the Metroids that is fed into a machine that lets you know ahead of time how many, between one and ten in a given area. The other difference is, is that there is a lot more backtracking here as Metroid II was more linear with few reasons to go back to previously explored areas. 
Yes, there was Samus starting out barebones with just her Power Suit that you upgrade over time with all of the classics like the Morph Ball, Ice Beam, Phazer, Super Missiles, Varia Suit, but many other skills and abilities that were not in the original Metroid II. Not all upgrades felt like they were treated equally though, like the Ice Beam and Grapple Beam. Upgrades like the Space Jump, the Screw Attack, and the Super Bomb all felt like they were geared more towards exploring additional areas than being combat functional. For the Ice Beam, it felt like an improvement from the standard beam shot, and there were several enemies that you could freeze and then perform the counterattack to shatter them instead of pummeling them with the Ice Beam, but that at times felt more time-consuming that pummeling them with the standard shot and taking a few points of damage. It felt that shortly after. The Charge Shot I felt that I used it primarily to open doors that required the Charge Shot as opposed to regularly using it in combat. I would still occasionally use the Ice Beam after acquiring the Wave Beam, but very rarely until towards the end of the game when you fought the quintessential Metroid. And even then looking back, unless you came into the game with foreknowledge that Metroids are susceptible to the Ice Beam before being hit with missiles, I do not know how you would figure out that information aside from painful trial and error.
I was probably disappointed the most by the Grapple Beam as aiming at an angle while moving (often after jumping from one Grapple Beam point to another) with the controls on the 3DS felt very cramped, often needing to press/hold the button with the inner pad of my index finger. The swinging mechanic did not feel good either, compared to the Grappling Beam in Super Metroid or even Simon Belmont's swinging in Super Castlevania IV. Here, I felt more like Samus was swinging horizontally and that I could never get a decent arc going to launch myself. And similar to the Ice Beam and the Wave Beam, the amount of time between acquiring the Grapple Beam and the Space Jump (which allows Samus to spin jump infinitely rendering the Grapple Beam essentially useless in a lot of situations. There were other uses for the Grapple Beam though with moving or destroying specific blocks and so it ended up becoming another context-specific tool for exploring and very rarely about traversing.
The only mechanic I did not make extensive use of that was specifically designed with the 3DS in mind was using the bottom touch screen to use the Ball function. The game prompts you to tap the side of the screen (as in on the area with the map on it) to immediately roll up into the Ball rather than tapping down twice on the directional pad (first to crouch, then into a ball). I used it on a few occasions when I wanted to try to stick to the wall (using the Spider Ball) to avoid some environmental obstacle (spikes, slime wall) so that I could bomb a bombable section of the wall, but that action never really felt natural or comfortable, so I stuck to using the directional pad. And honestly, there really were not any areas or tricks that would have required you to roll up into the ball while in mid-air.
Like most Metroid games, I took my pretty time, not really caring to try for a speed run, especially on my first run-through of the game, so I was not aiming to see Samus in her Zero Suit or whatever form of skivvies was designed for her to wear. After every upgrade, I unabashedly would look at my map for any markings I made next to unexplored areas to see if I could possibly acquire more missiles, a new energy tank, or open up additional areas. There was definitely more backtracking than in Metroid II, but with an in-game map to guide me this time, I never felt lost, or at least so lost that I needed to consult a walkthrough. Scratch that, I did feel lost several times, but again, never so lost that I needed to consult an out-of-game map or guide.
I did however consult a guide twice in regards to two boss fights, partly because I apparently missed some on-screen visual clues as to what I needed to do during each of the boss fights, but also because I felt that the game was not obvious in what I needed to do. For instance, during one fight, the enemy created a vacuum that if it sucked you into it, would chomp Samus a couple of times and then spit her out dealing a butt-ton of damage. I thought if I fired missiles into the vacuum I could damage the boss, but that turned out to not be the case. What you were supposed to do was use the Spider Ball function and drop bombs that would be sucked up and damaged that way. The second time I consulted a guide for the final boss, as I was not sure if I was doing something wrong, or missing another visual clue (like using the Super Bombs in the final fight in Metroid Dread), but when I found out that you could also use the verticality of the stage, it changed my way of thinking about that fight and I was able to defeat the final boss on the second of two attempts.
I really hope that Nintendo decides to bring over Metroid: Samus Returns to the Switch since anyone who enjoyed Metroid Dread will immediately recognize the visual style and mechanics that MercurySteam brings to this franchise. The touchscreen functionality could easily be mapped to any of the trigger buttons not on the original 3DS system, and that would really be it. True you would lose out on experiencing a game that looks and plays great with the 3D slider cranked up to max (although I did turn it down during the two aforementioned boss fights), but the sales of the 2DS system prove that not everyone felt they were missing out on the 3D effect baked into the 3DS games. I want more people who never had a 3DS/2DS to play this game because it is just an all-around great Metroid game from a company that has proven they know the Metroidvania genre.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
*P.S. I also included the time pulled from the stats app on the 3DS system to show that there were a few times that I died and the game restarted either from my last save or just right outside the door to the bosses that I died against. This means I spent nearly 4 1/2 hours backtracking and redoing the same thing (or nearly so) because I died.
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