Quick Look: Metroid: Samus Returns

Delicious Metroid Juice

Didn't one of these release not too long ago? An old remake metroid for the 3ds?

Just wanna say, that Mercury Steam Castlevania for handhelds (Mirror if Fate?) wasn't bad. Had an interesting concept of letting you play through the generations of the family. I do admit it was a bit clunky.

@one_who_knocks_: That was a fan made remake for PC. People got really upset last year when Nintendo shut it down, but it makes sense since they had their own in development.

Its nice of nintendo to let MercurySteam make a game.

Looks pretty good man, Glad I pre-ordered it.

Jeff erased any concerns I had.

I honestly really hated Mirror of Fate. Out of all the 2D Castlevania games it was easily the worst to me. It felt bad, looked bad, was boring and easy, it wasnt the worst game ever but as something with the castlevania name attached it was just ugh.

But THIS, holy moly, this game looks & plays like a goddamn dream. Im really interested in comparing the credits now.

Ive been playing this and the gameboy original side by side, both for the first time these past few days and I have different abilities in both atm. They changed a LOT, it barely seems like the same mapdesign, really cool. Im having fun with both, the original gameboy version is way more playable than I had been led to believe. Even without a map.

Oh and the more ambient tracks on the ost and stereoscopic 3d layering of the visuals of Samus Returns are just MWAH *kissing fingers like a french chef*

Edit: I also love samus' aiming around animation.

Edit2: Loved watching Jeff getting lost haha.

Has Brad forgotten his age?

I'm currently stuck at the same spot as Jeff in the Quick Look. No idea how to get down to that Metroid.

@deathtrap: You should be able to figure it out if you keep in mind that "scan" reveals all map tiles (meaning there aren't any hidden rooms). At least, I think so, having just gotten to the next area.

@one_who_knocks_: Nope. But there was a recently released remake of Metroid 2 (AM2R) on PC made by a fan.

This is a better game though, imo.

This makes me wish i had a 3DS.

Is nobody else a bit ho-hum on the art style? I wish Samus was a bit smaller like she was in the GBA games... I think really I just want more of that...

This looks like the 3DS game to get this year.

something's up with the mic audio in the video @unastrike - i'm sure you're aware.

"Other M Was successful in what it was trying to do."

I recently watched the cutscene compilation of it and no, it really wasn't. The writing is terrible, Samus sounds bored, and the story is nonsensical.

Nintendo is so clueless when it comes to metroid. Im sure some people want a prime on the switch but I want a solid 2d metroid instead my hope is that this just wasn't quality enough for them to go mainstream metroid as a platformer on the switch.

Please metroid fusion or super metroid 2 for the love of god. The switch is the only thing that should matter and they are watching a pile of money burn by not making awesome 2d metroid games.

Just went to re watch that Alien's Influence video. Super Bunnyhop is great.

After Other M scarred my expectations, I'm glad to hear that this game is getting good reviews so far. I'll be picking this up tomorrow. :)

Thanks.

A huge list of similarities between Metroid and Alien.

I'm with Brad. I really wish this was on the Switch.

@steveurkel: I wouldn't say that, there are very few Metroid games that have surpassed 1 million copies sold.

Really enjoying the game so far. I will say I loved the difficulty of AM2R and this seems very easy by comparison so far. But I just started, played for about 2 hours so maybe it ramps up from here. The melee counter system is a very smart addition, it adds a new wrinkle to the standard Metroid combat system.

They should release this for Switch

The way the map looks makes it seem like the area to go to is closed off from where he was at the beginning but it wasn't you have to find a hidden block and break through. Open Connections are almost always open in plain sight, if two rooms are side by side though even with no open connection it's possible to sometimes break though corridors or morphball shacks. Best bet is get near the room and use the area scan and see if a block or 2 glows. This is how Metroid games has always worked for better or worse the map generally lies to you.

You know, the 2D Castlevania game wasn't terrible. It's just that the 3DS version had awful performance. I had a lot of fun with it when they brought it over to consoles.

@auzurafi said:

Story aside, gameplay-wise it was good.

People forget it was a Metroid game made by Team Ninja. Its primary focus was to be a faster paced Metroid game in the Team Ninja style, not so much a traditional Metroid. I really enjoyed it; I loved the simplicity of its 2 button control scheme.

I feel this worked out as a happy accident with the Quick Look. This is pretty indicative of this kind of game and didn't make that look bad. At a quick look I'd say this shows you what Metroid is, so mission accomplished.

I assume Brad was referring to:

Yeah and also not so popular at all in Japan to my knowledge.

This game is legit.

Justin Bailey? More like Ellen Ripley.

I'm okay with the pulse ability. The old games usually devolved into Power Bombing entire areas screen by screen to reveal breakable blocks anyway, so building it directly in is totally fine.

I would really like to play this, but don't want to dig out my 3ds

Art style and developer both put me off at first but I gave it a shot and it feels really good and I like the way it looks on the low resolution 3DS screen. My only real complaint with it right now is that the framerate is steady but only feels like maybe 20 FPS or so. I would've hoped for better on my "N"3DS. Might run faster with 3D off, I haven't tried it. Certainly doesn't have any "N"3DS optimization, which is truly baffling but it's Nintendo so I guess you can't expect any better.

I've got 13 metroids to go I think. It's getting pretty hard, I don't know if I'd be able to win on hard mode let alone fusion mode but I'm glad the challenge is there.

It's unfortunate Jeff had to record this when he was stuck (and clearly distracted/disinterested) but I guess it also provides a fair perspective on how much back and forth trial and error there can be. The game never actually forces to backtrack the way Jeff is here, I guess they could've made the game clearer about that.

Between map terminals and the scan/x-ray visor in previous Metroid games, there's nothing "un-Metroid" about the scan pulse.

Anyway, this game super duper owns.

I love this game. I think it's the best Metroid game. I really really hope people buy it. I couldn't be happier with how it turned out and I was skeptical of all footage leading up to its release.

Putting this out in the 3DS is a huge detriment to this game. It should have been on the Switch and not a nearly seven year old handheld already past its end of life.

Even though I own a 3DS I probably won't buy it. I have absolutely no interest of playing this game on that device or any other new release to be honest.

Going by what I saw of people playing this game is getting very hard after about the first one or two hours. Which for me is sort of missing the point of Metroid. Metroid was more of an exploratory game and less modern roguelite difficulty. Especially when you have to play it on a 3DS that'll give you hand cramps after an hour.

There's still a voice inside me saying "you should definitely buy this"

I feel like I'm part of some bad social experiment, hearing people say that this game looks good. It looks like a callback to that dark era of ubiquitous 2.5D XBLA remakes. I'm sure it plays well but holy fuck it's visually unappealing in every way.

@sgtsphynx: It'd be worth it. It's a really good Metroid game.

3DS

@yummytreesap: I get where you are coming from, but it looks a lot better on an actual 3DS. I do not think the 3D looks good though, it gets a tad to grainy. The art style lacks that certain flair and personality that I find in other Metroid games.

Buy yeah, a lot of 3DS games look like utter crap on anything but the 3DS itself.

geeeez i want this

It looks kind of hard to die. You get 3 full lifebars and most enemies drop +-20% health? Jeff could just run through rooms of enemies tanking the damage without any problems. Metroid is a respected franchise so i can see why people want to play it, but having no real reference for the series, i'll stick to Hollow Knight.

@onemanarmyy: Generally enemies while traversing are more of a detriment/distraction after you have the tools to deal with them, with bosses, and enemies you're not equipped to deal with making you glad you had the health.

@comic: Sure, but that's the case in pretty much any metroidvania. Why give the player in the game 3 healthbars + 20% heals per kill pretty early in the game already instead of going there over time. Hollow Knight lets you tank.. 2 hits at the start? After some hours you can tank like 5 hits. That's a more fun progression to me because you actually have to avoid taking damage, learn the enemies or you will simply not progress. I think Ori is somewhere in the same ballpark with 2-3 hits before you die. Giving the player so much durability early on in the game seems a bit much, especially since Jeff was still mostly at the 'explore new area' stage and not the 'backtrack around multiple areas to find places to use your new skills at ' stage yet. At that point, the extra health upgrades are very welcome. But when you start with so much health at the start already, the power curve feels less impactful because you always were quite durable already.

@onemanarmyy: Having not played Metroid 2 I can't comment specifically, but it did look like he was partially through Area 2, which I think is the third area. Not exactly the beginning of the game- you usually start with 1 energy tank in my experience. I also remember reading that Metroid 2 had the least health tanks in the series, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was one per area. It did look like every enemy he killed left some health, but I know that's not always the case with every type of enemy- I recall plenty of times of having to actually grind up health in earlier games.

That all said, Metroid isn't an unforgiving game, requiring more in acrobatic execution and exploration than combat, especially compared to more modern games that take it and the genre it helped to create further and into more challenging areas.

Am I the only one who thinks the visuals in this look downright terrible? Like, to the point that it's impacting my desire to play it. I'm not talking about the graphical capabilities of the 3DS either, I'm talking about the presentation and the designs. Everything just looks flat, bland, and... well, ugly.

I think I'll replay the Prime games instead, or AM2R.

EDIT: Also the people remembering Mirror of Fate as "kind of alright" need to go back and play it for a rude awakening. For all of its many, many, many flaws, I'd rather subject myself to more Lords of Shadow 2 than ever fire up Mirror of Fate again.

Shit, I'd even play Castlevania 64 before Mirror of Fate. Not even Curse of Darkness, just straight-up, raw dog Castlevania 64.

EDIT 2: Just to be perfectly clear, I regard Castlevania 64 higher than Lords of Shadow 1 or 2, but I know that's an incredibly unpopular opinion.

EDIT 3: Also holy shit, I can't believe they locked an entire fucking difficulty mode behind an amiibo, which is now being sold by scalpers for $60+

@keichan: You aren't, this looks bad. I've never been a huge fan of 2D/3D mixes in general, but this is one of the worst looking ones of those too.

I really don't understand why they wouldn't just go with sprites. The GBA games looked way better than this.