3/5 ★ – BlooMoon's review of Metroid Fusion.

A bold turn for the franchise. Nintendo, can we go back to the days when you were pumping out these GBA titles with unique identities and gorgeous pixel art? I am always blown away by the quality, charm, and creativity found in these GBA titles. Nintendo, please start developing and releasing $20 2D pixel art games of your franchises on Switch, these are a genre of their own that I do not want to die as technology progresses. Plus, you can create and publish these faster, and these experiences still hold up today. Anyway, I digress. Metroid Fusion is the fourth entry in the series, and the fourth that I have played through. Seeing as I obtained this game through the 3DS ambassador program in 2011, I tried it out a long time ago when I was curious but knew nothing about Metroid. The story jumps right into things with no brakes and little context, which was honestly offputting for me. Plus, the setting of this space station felt very small and cramped. When I first looked at the map, I thought, "is that it?" Granted, there are smaller sub sections, but it does not give a good impression of being a sprawling, exciting setting to explore. Of course, this is on purpose. When I tried out this game with zero context, I did not understand what it was trying to be. Having played the other games into the series and going in with that context, I am able to appreciate everything this game does. It is still true that this game alienates its audience at the start. This really is a direct sequel, and wastes no time pretending it isn't. This deterred me from playing as a newcomer, and I only really stayed my second time because I had the context. I would be hard pressed to recommend this as a first game to anyone new to Metroid, and I still feel that is a weakness of the title. The cramped, seemingly small and underwhelming setting is still present as well, though I now understand it was entirely intentional. I adore the setting of this game. Trapped in an abandoned space lab. You don't have an overall mission, you're just reacting moment to moment, avoiding danger and trying to survive. Adding to this, I love how this is tied to upgrade progression. I honestly didn't mind getting direct orders from an AI with little room for exploration, because I was drawn into the game's world and it made sense. This wasn't the time for trepid exploration. There are very real stakes that require every one of Samus' next moves to be swift and decisive. Go put out this fire. Avoid this threat. The scientists just figured out how to transfer you this upgrade, go get it ASAP before you die. Now stop this immediate threat. The threats and objectives coming one after another contributed to this amazing pacing and atmosphere. You are just barely eeking by and keeping up with these threats. And while there is very little player freedom, I was absolutely fine giving that up and trusting the story to take me interesting places. Something else I appreciate: this game is tough. The enemies you encounter in most rooms are not pushovers. The game emphasizes Samus' weakened state with the unstoppable SA-X, but every enemy drains your energy tanks like it's nothing. I applaud this game for making room to room traversal truly harrowing, and contributing to the oppressing loneliness and necessity for smart, thought out gameplay. Barging through areas will almost never work, you need to be careful and methodical at every turn. That being said, this game has some INTENSE difficulty spikes. The area leading down to the spider boss having no additional save points, like come on, what's up with that? This game would generally benefit greatly from having autosave checkpoints just before boss rooms. In addition, there are some very long areas where I ended up stuck at a save point with very little health. I understand that's partially my fault, but there were some times where I thought I had locked myself into a situation that was just too difficult to overcome. I fought my way out, but overall this game is very unforgiving in some places. Also, there's one room with just an invisible wall you need to go through and it's such BS. If you play through this, please know there is zero shame in checking a guide because some of the obtuse things they pull with the world design are simply not fair. All in all, Metroid Fusion is a great entry in the series, but it has some punishing difficulty spikes that really brought down my enjoyment. There is plenty here to appreciate, especially the atmosphere and storytelling. However I would not recommend this game to anyone who is new to Metroid or overall a more casual gamer. MercurySteam, when are we getting that Metroid Fusion remake you wanted to work on?