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Earlier this month, Nintendo and MercurySteam released Metroid: Samus Returns, on Nintendo 3DS.
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The game is a complete remake of the Game
Boy game Metroid 2.
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Coincidentally, Samus Returns comes almost
exactly one year after the release of AM2R,
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or Another Metroid 2 Remake. That one was
made by fans, and was the target of a legal
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takedown request by Nintendo.
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Now it’s not surprising that Metroid 2 has
seen multiple remakes. This game is an important
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part of the Metroid story, after all, because
the plot - which sees Samus on a mission to
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wipe out the entire Metroid species - reverberates
into Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, and even
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Metroid Other M.
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But it’s also a, let’s say, challenging
game to play in 2017.
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For one, it’s different to pretty much every
other Metroid game. Instead of zigzagging
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back and forth across an interconnected, maze-like
map, the game opens up, more linearly, in
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great big chunks. In each area, you find and
kill a certain number of Metroids before the
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lava retracts and you go to the next area
- with no real reason to ever return.
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This is probably due to the handheld nature
of the game. There’s no real need to make
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your own map, as with Metroid 1, and you can
explore a single area of the game in one sitting
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and then safely turn the Game Boy off, without
being hopelessly lost the next time you boot
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up the game.
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But Metroid 2 generally feels subservient
to the technical limitations of the Game Boy.
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The tiny screen reduces your visibility, the
black and white palette is drab and confusing,
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and the game’s got limited controls - though,
Samus does have more moves than she did in
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Metroid 1.
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So there’s plenty of stuff here for these
remakes to tackle. And it’s interesting
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to see the different, and sometimes similar
ways that Samus Returns and AM2R chose to
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address Metroid 2’s shortcomings.
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Look at Samus’s movement. Both games dramatically
improve her agility, they both give her the
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ledge grab move introduced in Metroid Fusion,
and they both have a dedicated button for
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rolling up into a morph ball. But Samus Returns
drastically increases Samus’s combat abilities,
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and adds a melee counter and drops the diagonal
aiming from classic Metroid in favour of full
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360 degree aiming.
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The bosses are also an aspect that both games
sought to change. In Metroid 2 you’ll fight
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the same simple bosses over and over again,
with the only change being the layout of the
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place where you fight them. AM2R makes the
bosses a bit more interesting to fight with
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new patterns, smaller weakpoints, and by giving
the Metroids additional attacks in later fights.
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Samus Returns does the same, actually, but
the fights are even more elaborate and have
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more traditional boss-like patterns to learn.
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And if the repetition gets to you, both games
also have extra bosses - like a Torizo from
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Super Metroid, a door guardian, and a bullet
hell weapons trainer in AM2R, and a very difficult
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mining robot in Samus Returns.
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Other new additions include new power-ups.
Samus had quite a formidable set of tools
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in Metroid 2 but both games add the Charge
Shot, Super Bomb, Super Missile, and Gravity
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Suit, and AM2R adds the speedboost, with all
the shinesparking goodness that comes with
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it, while Samus Returns instead goes for the
grapple beam.
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Oh, and that game also has four entirely new
Aeion powers, which come with their own energy
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meter. These are powers that increase your
attack and defence, one that slows down time,
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and another that reveals the map around your
current location. Which makes secrets and
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hidden rooms pretty easy to find.
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In general, Samus Returns is just less interested
in letting you get lost. The Metroid indicator
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flashes red as you get closer to the bosses,
the map screen is very detailed, and these
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teleporters let you zip around within individual
areas.
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In terms of level design, both games capture
the map of Metroid 2 in the broad strokes.
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One area from Metroid 2 will look largely
the same in both remakes. But they have
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different ways of filling in the details.
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AM2R’s philosophy is to generally keep what’s
already there, right down to placement of
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the item pick-ups and the layout of most of
the rooms. But, the fans added new stuff on
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top - like an all new section where you control
a robot, and a tense escape sequence from
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a weapons labs.
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Samus Returns doesn’t add much new, but
makes huge changes to the current layouts
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- with so much added density of pathways and
obstacles, that many
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locations are practically unrecognisable.
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Both games choose to add more obstacles
and locks that can’t be opened until you
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find a new ability somewhere else in the current
area - making the games feel more like the
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other Metroid titles. Though, it’s much
more pronounced in Samus Returns, which has
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all sorts of weird obstacles that force you
to get specific items and even beams.
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AM2R, on the other hand, is fine with you
missing a fair few items, and is more open
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to sequence breaking.
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Oh, and while neither game messes with the
overarching structure of the game - you’re
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still killing a number of Metroids to open
up new areas after all. Unlike the original, both remakes
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provide a method and a reason to return to
previous areas.
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Samus Returns is dotted with teleport stations
that can ping you around the entire planet,
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while AM2R reveals a distribution centre,
later into the game, with pipes that send
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you back to previous places. Once there, you
can use your new powers and abilities to get
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goodies you couldn’t access earlier.
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We can also look at the two games’s interpretation
of what Metroid 2 was originally going for.
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For a clear example, the unnamed and uncoloured
liquid that fills the chambers in Metroid
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2, was seen as lava by the creators of AM2R,
and as purple acid by those behind Samus Returns.
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And we can look at the backgrounds, too. AM2R
looked for interesting tiles in the original
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game, and went from there. In the second area,
these pipes inspired the developers to turn
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the zone into a water treatment plant. And
in an area with loads of beam pick ups, they
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dressed it up as a weapons testing facility.
Samus Returns is a lot less interesting in
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this regard. Everything’s just various types
and colours of crumbling ruins. AM2R is
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more interested in telling a coherent background
story about the Chozo - which is the ancient
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race that built everything on SR388.
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And finally, another big change is to how
health, ammo, and saving works.
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In Metroid 2, you recharge your health and
ammo at different stations, and save points
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are just save points.
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In AM2R recharge stations are gone, because
save stations now replenish ammo and health.
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Plus, Metroids drop lots of goodies upon death.
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And in Samus Returns, we’re back to recharge
stations and save points, but Metroids now
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drop pick-ups and there are also invisible
checkpoints before and after every boss battle.
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Now, it’s easy enough to talk about how
these decisions have changed how Metroid 2
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works. Both remakes sought to make Metroid
2 work more like the other Metroid games,
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they both made the boss fights more involving,
and they both filled in the blanks left by
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the original game’s monochrome palette.
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But it’s just as important to talk about
how they change how Metroid 2 feels.
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Take that last thing about health, ammo, and
saving. In Metroid 2, you can find yourself
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battered and bruised by a Metroid fight, and
then staggering back to a save station with
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a small amount of health. It feels tense,
and distressing.
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AM2R makes life a bit easier with the post-fight
pick-ups, and it neatly streamlines things
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by rolling recharge stations and save points
into one - but the same anxious sensation
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is just about there.
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But in providing checkpoints immediately after
every Metroid fight, Samus Returns completely
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removes that feeling. That stressful journey
back up through the level and to a save point
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is just gone.
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So when judging these remakes, it’s important
to consider the actual experience of playing
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Metroid 2. Not just what the different mechanics and design decisions were in that game, but
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how they contributed to a specific feeling within the player.
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And for me, playing Metroid 2 invoked feelings
of dread and unease. It was darker and scarier
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than most other Metroid games. It gave me
the feeling of invading someone else’s space.
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Where the other Metroid games almost feel
like a big puzzle for the player to solve,
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Metroid 2 felt invasive and alien.
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And you can point to a lot of reasons for
this. The lack of backtracking made you feel
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like you were always descending deeper and
deeper into the Metroid’s lair. And unlike
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Super Metroid, you won’t return to the safety
of your ship until the very end of the adventure.
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And then there’s the tiny screen space which
means you can only see a few metres in front
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of you, like you’re pointing a torch into
a pitch black room. And where the giant caverns
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are difficult to grasp through the microscopic
viewpoint of the Game Boy screen, making you
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feel small and insignificant, the narrow,
winding paths make other parts of the game
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feel cramped and claustrophobic.
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But ultimately Metroid 2 was something of
a horror game. A frightening journey into
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an uncharted planet. A tense dive into an
alien’s nest. And, if you ask me, neither
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remake really captures that because so many
of the factors that contributed to Metroid
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2’s feeling were seen as issues to fix.
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So claustrophobic screens get zoomed out and
feel less constricting. Colourful backgrounds
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and whirring machines make the planet feel
more welcoming and alive. Classic Metroid
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backtracking sends the player up and down
the planet’s spine. And the more traditional
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level design can come across as artificial,
instead of alien. Which is never more apparent
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than in Samus Returns where you make the acidic
liquid go down by plugging Metroid DNA into
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a giant lock mechanism.
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Now, you might say that I’m reading too
much into Metroid 2, and that most of these
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things were just due to the unavoidable limitations
of the Game Boy. But I want to argue that
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most of this stuff was probably intentional.
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I mean, the game was made by Nintendo R&D1
- the same studio and much of the same team
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behind Metroid 1, Super Metroid, and Metroid
Fusion. So it wasn’t some weird spin-off.
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And the game’s producer, the late Gunpei
Yokoi, was the inventor of the Game Boy and
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so was very aware of the console’s limits.
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I think the team took those limits and made
a game that would suit them - something more
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intimate, claustrophobic, and foreboding.
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And I think you can tell that the designers
were trying to freak you out. Look at the
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Metroid husks. They don’t just work as a
good navigational tool to let you know that
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a boss is near, but they also act like a warning.
They can leave you with a pit in your stomach,
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because you know that you’re about to face
a Metroid.
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And then Nintendo used these husks to surprise
you. After always finding husks before fighting
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Metroids, the game suddenly surprises you
with a Metroid midway through a corridor…
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and then reveals the husk in the next room.
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The game’s not afraid to break its own patterns,
after all. The repetitive act of killing Metroids
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to drop the lava level is shattered towards
the end of the game, where the lava actually
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goes up, forcing Samus to go back and find
a new type of Metroid.
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The music is very telling, also. Of course,
there’s this hopeful, exciting tune that
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plays through the main column of caves that
links back to your ship.
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But it gives way to quiet, spooky, and discordant
tunes when you descend into the different
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lairs. Where most retro games are filled with
catchy, hummable tunes, including a lot of
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great Game Boy games made by R&D1, Metroid
2 sometimes just uses silence, some weird
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electronic sound effects, and Samus’s footsteps,
to throw you off.
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I should point out that Samus Returns mostly
does a good job of this, with surprisingly
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faithful remixes of the original music.
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When it’s not just re-using music from other
Metroid games, that is.
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AM2R is also a mixed bag when it comes to
music, and a lot of the tracks have been replaced
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with jazzy, upbeat, Prime-style music.
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Metroid 2 also had some quiet, evocative storytelling,
used to construct a certain, foreboding mood.
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Like, towards the end of the game, you start
to notice that the number of normal enemies
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is going down. Where the early parts of the
cave, near the surface, are bristling with
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alien life, the lower bowels of the planet
are practically empty. And when you get to
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the area just before the Queen Metroid, there
are no normal enemies at all. Just a quiet,
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eery climb up to the final area.
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You’ve either gone deeper than any non-Metroid
life form has gone in a very long time, or
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the Metroids have systematically wiped out
every other animal, powerfully asserting their
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spot at the top of the food chain.
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And then you get to this room. Where all the
other Chozo statues in the game have been
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kept preserved, and sealed away from pesky
Metroids behind impenetrable blast doors, this
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one - deep inside the Metroid lair has been
smashed to pieces. It’s head is down here,
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it’s body is up there, and its item - the
ice beam, the only weapon capable of stopping
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the normal Metroid, has been pushed aside.
Yikes.
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AM2R captures this part quite well. There’s
sadly no ice beam because you get it much
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earlier, but the statue is still there. And
the lower areas are devoid of enemies.
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But it’s Samus Returns that really didn’t
get it. I don’t think the final Chozo statue
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is even in the game, I couldn’t find it,
and the enemies never let up. Right there,
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in the path leading to the Metroids lair,
you’ll be fighting dozens of standard enemies
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In a noisy, messy gauntlet.
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Back to the Game Boy game. After this area
and a final boss fight - did you know, by
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the way, that Nintendo suddenly removed the
ability to pause during Metroid 2’s final
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boss fight? Friggin’ Dark Souls up in here.
Uh, after that fight, Metroid 2 has one of
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the most surprising and low key endings of
just about any game from this era.
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After finishing off the boss, Samus comes
across this baby Metroid who assumes Samus
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is its mother. Instead of killing this final
creature and finishing the mission, Samus
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decides to spare its life and the two leave
the planet together.
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One of the most isolating games you can play
suddenly gives you a companion. And as you
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leave, the Metroid gobbling up walls that
block your path, this strange, calming, and
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evocative music starts to plays.
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Over those last few minutes in the game - there
are no enemies or puzzles to deal with - you’re
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given time to reflect on everything that has
happened. Maybe consider Samus’s final act
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of mercy and compassion, which will be revisited
in Super Metroid.
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Or maybe you’ll reconsider the ethical ramifications
of your, frankly, genocidal mission to kill
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a non-space-fairing species that was only
used as a biological weapon by the space pirates.
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A genocidal mission which would be brought
back up in Metroid Fusion, where it’s revealed
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that by wiping out almost all of the Metroids,
Samus wrecked the ecosystem and let an even
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more dangerous species come to bear.
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And maybe this gives a new meaning to the
discomforting feeling of the rest of the game?
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It’s a dark and disturbing game for a dark
and disturbing chapter in Samus’s life.
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As S.R. Holiwell wrote in the terrific Metroid
2 defence piece A Maze of Murderscapes, “Games
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about killing should probably make you uncomfortable.
They shouldn’t be carefully crafted to be
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pleasant. Metroid II is openly about killing. It
makes me uncomfortable with wordless specificity”.
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Samus Returns on the other hand is very comfortable
about killing. The game puts a tremendous
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focus on combat with that 360 aiming, multi-phase
boss fights, ridiculous Aeion powers, and
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these goofy cutscenes where Samus does ninja
moves on Metroid bosses. Why Nintendo is so
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obsessed with turning Samus into Bayonetta
is beyond me, but there we go.
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And, so, that final escape sequence with the
baby Metroid contains yet more combat, not to mention
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an unnecessary additional boss fight. So much
extra combat, actually, that you can hardly
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hear that the Game Boy game’s final music,
which was given a subtle update in AM2R’s
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completely faithful recreation of the ending...
has now been given a strange high tempo electronic
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remix in Samus Returns.
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And if there was any doubt that Samus Returns
just didn’t get Metroid 2’s themes, well,
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this is a game about travelling to an alien’s
home planet to viciously wipe out the entire
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race, with a primary mechanic, the melee counter,
which is about acting in self defence and
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only killing when first provoked.
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I’m half joking with that one.
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But this ending stuff absolutely boggles my
mind. Samus Returns doesn’t just accidentally
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fail to capture the feeling of Metroid 2 by
updating things, but it specifically undermines
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the original game in boorish, bone headed
ways.
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Now. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not trying
to hold up Metroid 2 as some perfect game.
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There’s much more to it than most critics
seem to realise, but it does have shortcomings
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that any remake should seek to update.
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So I’m disappointed that these remakes
had the opportunity to use modern game design
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to deliver the same experience as Metroid
2, but in a different form - not the same
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form but with a different experience.
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Because what does it matter if these games
have largely the same level design if not
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the same disorienting feeling of exploring
those levels? The same Metroids, if not the
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same dread of facing another one in a dark
corridor? And so on.
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Both remakes attempt to retcon Metroid 2 into
more familiar Metroid design, so AM2R brings
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the game up to the same standards as Zero
Mission and Super Metroid, while Samus Returns
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feels like a mix of classic Metroid games
and Other M.
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But maybe those other types of design didn’t
fit Metroid 2? Maybe the game’s themes and
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intended experience required a different set
of mechanics? The closest analogy I can think
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of is remaking the oppressive Far Cry 2 to
be more like the action movie playgrounds
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of Far Cry 3 and 4.
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So, yeah. This doesn’t make these remakes
into bad games and I really enjoy both of
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these titles on their own terms. AM2R is a
terrific accomplishment for a fan project
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and lots of fun to play, and Samus Returns
has plenty to enjoy also.
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But, you know what happens to remakes. One
of these games will be become the defacto
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way of playing Metroid 2, and the original
- already maligned and misunderstood - will
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become even less popular.
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Well, that was a bit of a bummer to end on.
But, hey, there we go. Thanks for watching and
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thank you for your patience in September - I’ve
been unable to make stuff for half the month
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due to a nasty cold, which hopefully explains
my slightly weird voice in this one.
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But I’m back now! And a special thank you
to all my Patrons who keep the lights on at
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GMTK. Subscribe if you want more game design
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