Metroid Fusion is a Horror Game.

what are the genres that come to mind when you think of metroid obviously there's adventure as well as action they're easily the most intertwined to the games you could extend out a bit more to say that metroid is also a platformer of sorts with some hints of a puzzle game to it as well except sometimes that puzzle is know what you're doing already but personally an element that's somewhat underlying within the series is horror this is more to interpretation but i think a lot of what defines metroid is congruent with elements designed to keep the player uneasy for one you're exploring these expansive settings filled to the brim with hostile aliens ranging in the quote-unquote cunning god of death to an enemy called a zoomer you have these cold distant sounding skulls by the composers that emphasizes how isolated samus aaron is with little to help her than herself the only thing that quashes metroid from being a full-on horror game is that by and large the progression of samus's power is parallel to the enemy she faces but all it should take is metroid fusion to challenge that ideology i roughly knew what i was getting into with the original trilogy beyond super metroid it's less understood from its release there was then an eight year period of no metroid until 2002 which left you spoiled for choice but that one is for a later day when you consider the development team for all metroid games discussed so far has been from the same nintendo branch along with the gradual improvements in each entry i was excited to play a modern metroid title although according to a lot of people behind the game this was something where they were willing to take more risks the series designer sakamoto yoshio opted to take a wholly new approach to fusion and challenge the team of making something different instead of retreading old games the lead programmer also took inspiration from wario land 4 over the previous metroid games something he had worked on the year before i unfortunately haven't played that yet though an ostensible glance online made me intrigued that a platformer was the biggest point of inspiration for the game so i had no idea what i was getting into properly with that in mind let's get into fusion of course that's not before acknowledging that only jerry and now a few others are subscribed to my channel it's great for him to see that he and his oregano have convinced upwards of three people to join my channel which is especially useful since his wife left him in a similar vein to super metroid fusion uses exposition as the initial driving force for the game's story unlike super however where it pieces together events of previous games here the story diverts quite sharply samus and a team of scientists at biologic were investigating sr-388 the setting for metroid 2 monitoring the planet's species in that investigation a parasitic life-form unbeknownst to samus surprised and infected her which later attacked her whilst in her ship leaving her in critical condition only to be saved by a vaccine developed from metro dna obtained from the baby she extracted with her life saved again by a metroid her mission is now to return to the space station biologic holds an apparent explosion occurred and with it holding the extracted life forms plus remnants of samus's parasite now given the nomina x it could make for a terrible time or maybe it's just a misunderstanding and samus can just leave wow what a great adventure whilst the original trilogy's traversal is implicit fusion instead has an explicit waypoint in the form of adam samus's navigation computer who tells the player to go to the quarantine bay where their lifeforms were previously upon its discovery the same style of mutated alien that samus attacked is the only lifeform there this means that x escaped and can spread throughout the station samasthas has to venture through it trying to find and conquer x so let's quickly talk about the framing for samus and metroid throughout the first three games beyond the brief storytelling in super you don't know anything about her she's an archetypal silent protagonist a surrogate for the player to frame themselves in considering she's been able to conquer two planets filled with enemies single-handedly it wouldn't be a leap to say that samus is a pretty good space under two she wasn't stuck on zebes with mother brain mother brain was stuck on zebes with her this is the first time where samus goes from hunter to hunted for a few reasons initially the infection from x weakened samus something that adam reminds her of saying that she only has a 10 survival rate at the beginning of the game when traversing the early game main deck these zombie researchers do considerably more damage than typical early enemies the trade-off is that there's still an easy one-shot kill yet it demonstrates how fragile samus is comparatively but hey you could maybe ignore some of those reasons if you're familiar with fusion you know exactly what makes samus pray rather than predator this is the exputation of samus dubbed as sax it's my favorite enemy in the metroid franchise so far by a considerable mile and it's what makes metroid fusion so special everything now pivots around the constant threat of an enemy that will you up and it is the first enemy that feels like samus has to get upgrades for to survive not to explore in every other game bar the metroids you usually can defeat any enemy with a regular beam shot or missile most upgrades feel catered for traversal primarily because sax is a carbon copy of samusata's strongest and will kill you super quickly the upgrades are framed as a constant lifeline for samus to elongate her survival until x finds her with metroidvanias focusing on the idea of acquiring power over time until you're at a peak form by the end of the game the motivation for doing so in fusion is magnified you want to get the upgrades because if you don't you're dead vulnerable is not really an adjective i describe samus when playing metroid but the few set pieces where sax rears its head makes for wonderful tension moments like this where the power goes out and you're shrouded in darkness or better yet the most hostile sounding footsteps you've had on a game boy it's horror there's no other way to describe it though it's not quite as entrenched in the genre as this comparison it makes me think of nemesis from resident evil 3 or misdirects from resident evil 2. hey wait a minute the last thing i'll touch on for now is its introduction because man that reveal is just something else the completely blank eyes the cold sweeping sound far and away the best thing about fusion but there's still a lot to like about the game i'm trying to think of where to start but i think it's best to keep with the theme of enemies or should i say enemy as x can store the information of hosts they've infected they occupy every single obstacle as familiar or different enemies you see a whole cast of them throughout the game the sprite work on these is tremendous going back to the zombie researchers from the beginning are possibly some of my favorite enemies to showcase this with a fantastic animation when it's defeated and when it respawns in retrospect the enemies in previous entries felt a bit stagnant whilst here there's quirks and movements that create a sense of life to them which is a very morbid twist given every enemy here is a singular parasite mimicking them a consequence of enemies being part of the x parasite is conversely the benefit that when you kill them a remnant of x appears for samus to potentially absorb the yellow variations are like energy pellets whilst the green parasite is a very oddly shaped missile recharge there is a great level of balance and fusion for the minor enemies now you do take more damage than in other games no matter how many energy tanks i picked up i knew it didn't guarantee my successful survival as a trade-off every enemy always drops something for the player's benefit which is a really nice reward risk system adding on to that i love how this emphasizes the vulnerability you're in that if these basic enemies can cause trouble god forbid when you have to face sacks oh it's right underneath me but uh i have to go this way uh samus you've got this one bro speaking of her samasana controlling this game is incredibly responsive i played this on the wii u virtual console because you know i'm not going to emulate a game i'm going to pay money for nintendo to emulate it for me my brain is far too big for this world but while playing it i used the wii classic controller and i had zero issues her repertoire is largely the same as super excluding the grappling hook and x-ray scope although now the button mapping is much more user-friendly in my opinion it turns out in super metroid you can literally just press the y button to cancel the item you've selected at the top rather than what my dumb ass thought where i cycled through all the options every time again my brain is just monstrously large thank you to the comments that pointed this out for me that said fusion remedied this so now it's luca approved and lucas safe missiles are mapped to the r button when standing or crouching power bombs are mapped to the r button when in ball form and super missiles are just a standard upgrade to regular missiles there's no cycle to go through everything has its own place it's all really useful stuff the only thing i struggled with was using the l button and down to aim diagonally at the floor as that used to be the r button but i got used to it however there is one massive inclusion infusion this is something i had no idea i needed until i got it and when i did i never wanted to go back by no means is platforming particularly egregious in any game but a recurring event that would happen when i play is samus jumps up to a platform nicely rubs up against it and then i have to try again look i get it samus you're a bit extra and some assaulting is your thing most of the time but fusion samus has been keeping up with her crossfit to the point that now any jump you're making has a wider radius for it to succeed such a great inclusion for the game not only is it seamlessly integrated into level design so it doesn't feel out of place it also is a massive quality of life improvement that makes the platforming much more fluid the level design in general is great too i'd say fusion harkens back to return of samus's world style the most largely through the new navigation system within the space station there are six sections of different environments for her to venture each one begins with a navigation room for directions on the map a save room for a checkpoint and a recharge room to be at 100 before beginning similarly to the earthquake indicating you're able to progress beyond where the acid cuts you off in metroid 2. fusion basically has a computer that goes yeah your gucci and you just move on to where it says to go next though the difficulty of the exploration or the mission will gradually increase over time often requiring the player to find holes around the existing map in order to find shortcuts to progress through the structure for the gameplay here becomes much more of a linear mission based style for point of comparison let's say the return of samus was in that style if you were to lay out the instructions in a rough guide it would be in this particular area take out x number of metroid as well as maybe obtain the spider ball though there's direction you're not shown what order to do things fusion lays out fairly clear instructions at the behest of the navigation rooms and the option in the start menu whether it's download an upgrade for your suit or fight a boss to collect an upgrade it will then require you to go back to a navigation room and be pointed towards your next objective though this sounds restrictive the level design accommodates exploration despite it the path to an item will never be as straightforward as it's made out to be so you're left to your own devices to find the correct way forward this simultaneously doubles up with a non-linear direction that encourages finding extra items like missiles and energy tanks genuinely i think this is the best format i've played so far in a metroid game it has my ideal balance of as overt a navigation you can get so far while being as equally covert as other games on top of the fact it's the most forgiving in terms of grinding by just allowing the player to heal up before every new area it's so refreshing to have grinding trimmed from the main meat of the adventure this doubles up with being arguably the least cryptic game so far as well even without the x-ray scope the number of times that i got stuck in the game without knowing where to go was at its lowest i guess some could say it's a little too on the nose on occasion with some blocks having a certain outline that sticks out or a particular tile that hints at a spot but i found it perfect for me i also think the bosses in fusion are above average there are 12 which you have to face at some point but i'll save the final two for the last part i appreciate that all of them seem to have specific weaknesses and approaches to defeating them though i will say a few of them really weren't for me for one zazabi burn in hell you're gross disgusting f-tier others are fairly okay i don't feel too strongly about a few early game ones but i absolutely loved the fights against nightmare the security robot round 2 and neo ridley all of them felt like an utter tribulation as they took a lot of patience and trial and error to get right but the vindication when i was able to take down a boss that took multiple attempts to defeat was glorious they much like the game are excellent and just for the cherry on top every boss door is blocked by a ghidorah which drops a red variant of the x parasite that gives an incredible amount of health and missiles before a major fight goes on the attention to care infusion is just magnificent i can imagine it gets quite boring to hear a guy just gush about a game for i don't know like 18 minutes but i truly think that fusion is fantastic that being said while this isn't fully a negative i will say my least favorite part of the game is the story which thankfully can help me wrap things up skip to here if you don't want to be spoiled on it i personally don't think you're missing out on much but if you watch it it's your call so some deep space is happening in metroid fusion man though metros were considerably wiped out in the past few injuries samus stumbles upon a secret lab within the space station where many metro aliens are being cultivated demolishing sacks before the lab explodes for most of the game summers had been following orders at adam's discretion though she only found this by going off the beaten path which the computer lambasts her for doing it's then notified to her that the federation is coming in to sort out x which i mean dude really however while samus and adam have a dispute only when she calls him by the name that she gave him does a switch occur in how the computer operates the late adam malkovich the computer's namesake is revealed to be controlling the computer and order samus to send the space station towards sr-388 however in order to do that you have to beat sax just going back for a second i don't mean to say that the story is bad so much just for the fact that it's a bit of an exposition dump a lot of the time i appreciate the different direction taken it just didn't stick the landing quite like the other risk taken although all of this building to a final confrontation with sax awesome it was a boss fight that took me quite a few tries to get right because it really does feel like you're facing a mirrored all-powerful samus yet from the few set pieces where you had to stay as silent as possible so as to not die immediately to running away by the skin of your teeth you finally get that sense of a metroidvania by eventually being able to take out the one enemy that tormented your entire journey and still it doesn't end there with the compromise of the metroid lab just as you're about to escape an omega metroid stands in your way and takes you down to one hp before as is tradition a major enemy comes through to be a martyr for samus's survival xpeated away from samus before she set the path for the spaceship and reappeared right as the omega metroid was about to take you out this leads to it finally devolving into its own parasitic format allowing it to be absorbed summers can now blast away through the final boss that in all honesty isn't as compelling a fight but likewise to mother brain in super is still a great send-off to the game [Music] now after beating super i was convinced that it was going to be far and away at least the best 2d metroid now it's anybody's race except for these two they can just scamper away fusion was fantastic the risks and new ideas put into the series made for an excellently unique spin on the franchise saks might be one of my favorite nintendo villains that helped drive the atmosphere and tension through the roof the level layouts were fine-tuned to minimize confusion yet retained the great exploration of the series samus's control is at its best in this game every enemy has a perfect balance thanks to the damage given as well as their drops the sprite worker music while i didn't really touch on it are still brilliant god metroid is bloody good isn't it makes me all the more excited to debut a particular review style for the next game i'm discussing the prime trilogy will have to hold out a little while longer as for me i'm going to be restarting metroid again as samus's zero mission hey how's it going it's me the video man uh i'm not gonna lie i'm quite tired but i'm just as tired as i am humbled by 436 subscribers uh we're closing on 500 soon which is a very big milestone and i'm very thankful for everyone watching i hope you enjoyed the video like and subscribe get vaccinated uh trans rights like and subscribe and like and subscribe thank you

Channel: Luker

Views: 84,807

Keywords: Metroid Fusion, Metroid Fusion Horror, Metroid Horror, Metroid Fusion Review, Metroid Retrospective, Metroid Fusion SA-X, Metroid Fusion Best Boss, metroid fusion analysis, metroid fusion retrospective, Metroid Nintendo retrospective, Metroid GBA review, Metroid GBA games, trans rights are heckin' cool, transphobia makes you a heckin' fool, Luker, Metroid Fusion GBA

Id: GzAznbQEw9Q

Length: 16min 49sec (1009 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 17 2021