Metroid 2 Remake AM2R Released!

[Sarge]

Even Portrait of Ruin? I enjoyed it, but it's not SotN. I think you could certainly make a case of DoS and Ecclesia.

[MrPopo]

I liked Charlotte's spells; they made for an interesting change in playstyle from the weapon-based attacks of other 'vanias.

[Sarge]

True, those are fun.

One thing I miss in all of them: Juste's dash from Harmony. That thing was awesome.

[PartridgeSenpai]

True, those are fun.

One thing I miss in all of them: Juste's dash from Harmony. That thing was awesome.

YES! HoD had great movement mechanics, although some lack-luster bosses and the aforementioned annoying castle design (I get that a warp system wouldn't really have worked with the thing they went with, but that doesn't make it less annoying that they aren't there) really soured this one for me, comparatively to the other ones.

I played through all of Metroidy Castlevanias last fall in succession after finally finding a copy of Order of Ecclesia, and SotN just didn't peak my interest as much. The worst part was because I was playing the PSP version, all of the silly dialogue in the beginning had been taken out ;A; (I suppose you could argue it was "fixed," but that's like saying the changed dialogue in the Resident Evil 1 remake made that game better ;p )

[Sarge]

I've played through most of the English variants of SotN by now (PSX, PSP, retranslated Japanese PSX). I haven't gone through the Saturn version, which is very much considered an inferior port.

Now, the PSP version is the one I finished most recently. It's got its own little quirks, but for the most part is the same game. I really miss the voice actor for Alucard, the new guy is a little too high-pitched. And I also missed the cheesy dialogue. You can play as a different, unique variant of Maria in the PSP one, though. She's not the same as the Saturn version, being much more based on her Rondo incarnation.

[MrPopo]

I was super disappointed when I found out the PSP SotN had a Rondo Maria. I wanted the hilariously broken Maria of the Saturn version.

[Xeogred]

What I really love about SoTN is the CD quality music. And I was there when it was new, discovering the "second" portion back in the day was exhilarating. But I think I'd probably take Aria, Circle, and Order over it nowadays. They're a bit more compact whereas I tend to find SoTN a little bloated in the long run, and it has to be hands down the easiest Castlevania ever. I was actually way more versed in this side of Castlevania before finally hitting up the others, and just last year I finally went through all the other traditional ones I needed to beat. I love them all and both sides of the series for their own strengths. Super IV, Rondo, Chronicles, and Bloodlines are A+ for me. Despite growing up on the NES myself, I don't know if I really care for the NES ones much. I appreciate them a lot. I think it's just easy to say Mega Man has made me a little jaded over the years and I'm not as receptive to new NES experiences thesedays, because Mega Man is just too perfect and anything that plays or feels differently is weird to me. lol

I seem to be one of the only Prime 2 fans around here though.

I'd be a bigger fan of the game if it didn't have the stupid key hunts. Way too much time spent seeking out hidden keys. I didn't find that aspect fun at all. Prime 2 is however, absolutely the hardest and most complex of the trilogy, no doubt.

How about this... can we agree it's certainly no Wind Waker?

IIRC, don't you still have 3 to play? Perhaps it'll make you appreciate 2 more as it did for me. It's the most linear of the Prime games and 90% of the energy tanks are thrown in your face. Topped off with some weird story bits, yeah. Still an amazing game in my book and I seem to be in the minority, but I find it to be the weakest of the trilogy in a lot of obvious ways. I don't want to discourage you or anyone though. In comparison, while I can back up Other M after finally playing it and it's solid, Prime 3 easily destroys that.

I've always felt disappointed with Fusion - this idea that it's "now cool to hate on the game" is bogus, because people have been bringing up the same arguments for a long time.

The game is very good - but it made a bunch of (in my opinion) gaffes that hurt my overall enjoyment. The way weapons get "unlocked" at convenient times, the chatty narrative and handholding about where to go next*, and the way different sections of the space station are so isolated and locked down for large parts of the game are just a few examples of the game feeling like it's been scaled back or dumbed down to provide an introductory experience instead of a challenging new progression.

Super Metroid is amazing because it has a sense of isolation and exploration. Instead of literally telling you what to do, for some of the more interesting powers you need to just observe and copy things from the environment. If you are particularly clever, and have some experience, then there is room to do some interesting sequence breaking as well to greatly speed up the time to completion for this game - an empowering race to the finish that I strongly identify with the idea of "good Metroidvania design". Overall, Super Metroid asks quite a bit of the players but feels suitably rewarding in return.

Fusion does away with much of that. It's still a fine action game and has lots of great design ideas - but loses some of the key DNA I expect to be present in any great Metroidvania. As a game it would still stand out as a great experience, except Metroid Zero Mission was released a year and a half later on the same platform, improving on almost every complaint that I leveled against Fusion. Zero Mission didn't sell as well and it's taken longer for people to be exposed to it - but I think time has shown it's a better design**, and that's why people now consider Fusion to be the lesser Metroid release on GBA.


* To be fair, the handholding in Zero Mission is also pretty annoying. If the only way you can prompt players to move towards the next section is by putting a flashing square on their map, then maybe you need to rethink the motivations for moving in that direction.

** The whole zero suit section at the end is up for debate here. I'm on the fence about whether that part of the game is good or bad. Although I enjoyed playing it originally, now it's my least favorite part of the game and a section I don't look forward to completing during replays.

I love how you worded everything here. Makes me want to make a topic looking for games in the vein of Super Metroid, OG Metroid, Blaster Master, and more recently things like the Souls series. It seems to be a consistent trend that I absolutely love some games out there that drop you out into this monstrous world and feed you to the wolves basically. Zero handholding and all the exposition is up for you and your imagination to put together and fill in the gaps. How hauntingly amazing is the dead soldier before Kraid's lair in Super? That stuff sits with you forever if you grew up with this stuff. You could fill up your head with a whole novel about what the hell happened there, why, when, and how, what was going on, why does red lower Brinstar look so evil and organic and sound so amazingly dark. The subtle little details can go for miles.

[Tanooki]

I would already have Ori if it were on PS4. My laptop can't run it correctly, it runs about half speed. My excuse for Axiom Verge is that I'd like a physical release, or for it to pop up on GOG.

That's my only excuse too, no GoG release. I wrote the maker off a facebook link yesterday, haven't checked back to see if I got a reply on that. I tried the demo at a Best Buy awhile back and it got me really interested and few Metroid style knockoffs do this.

I've heard solid praise for this one too:

https://www.gog.com/game/momodora_rever ... _moonlight

It's in my wishlist, that got my interest too.

As someone who played the GBA Castlevanias (all of them) before having the chance to play Symphony of the Night (SotN), I have to say that love for SotN feels massively overblown.

Total agreement here. I own all 3, and I think the Aria title and it's direct DS sequel title Dawn...they make SOTN seem subpar, while subsequent DS releases got horrible compared. I played SOTN (well the Saturn NITM which is better) back first around 2001-02 about the same time Circle of the Moon came out, it's better than that, if for any reason some of the sketchy launch problems the GBA title has but I prefer it's environment too a little bit. SOTN just gets blown out of proportion as it was a first and it was(is) very excellent, but it's not the best...it's just sony first console owner ps1 beer goggles going on there, and later generation me-too types who read the hype and want to experience it pretty much (while sure some legit would have reasons to think its best.)

[ejamer]

Interesting counterpoint to my disappointment with Symphony of the Night (which was still very good and totally worth playing):

I didn't grow up with Super Metroid - despite growing up in the SNES era and playing many other classics from the time, somehow I never laid eyes on this game until it was released many years later on Wii Virtual Console. That actually ended up being part of the reason I respect the game so much. Without any nostalgia to fall back on, it held up wonderfully and drew me in from very early in the game until reaching the final encounter many hours later.

So when you say "if you grew up with it" it would leave a strong impression, I'm not so sure that's a requirement. I honestly believe that game stands today just as well as it did decades ago - something that is rarely true for video games. (Of course my opinion is colored by having lots of experience with 8- and 16-bit games before trying Super Metroid. Some new gamers without those experiences would probably find Super Metroid less inviting...)



While everyone is talking about Metroidvanias of different types, maybe it's a good time to ask: has anyone else played Toki Tori 2? A key part of the game involves observing your environment to learn new tricks, which can then be applied to solve puzzles and unlock huge new areas of the world to explore. Not really a Metroidvania since you are a (mostly) defenseless yellow chicken, but using an open world structure and injecting a sense of exploration into this puzzle game made it one of my favorite gaming experiences over the past few years.

The game garnered mixed reviews and clearly isn't for everyone. But I suspect people in this thread - especially those who enjoy being dropped into the middle of a world and left to their own devices to see how far they can go - would find it worth playing.

[PartridgeSenpai]

Interesting counterpoint to my disappointment with Symphony of the Night (which was still very good and totally worth playing):

I didn't grow up with Super Metroid - despite growing up in the SNES era and playing many other classics from the time, somehow I never laid eyes on this game until it was released many years later on Wii Virtual Console. That actually ended up being part of the reason I respect the game so much. Without any nostalgia to fall back on, it held up wonderfully and drew me in from very early in the game until reaching the final encounter many hours later.

I also didn't play Super Metroid until well after I'd played Zero Mission, once it'd come on VC, and I agree that it really holds up. Super Metroid is just a damn fine game, that's not so much a point up for debate. SotN is a good game too, and is worth playing. I'm just saying that calling it the best Metroid-like Casltevania is a bit ill-deserved. I don't think I'd call any of the Metroid-like Casltevanias bad, even Circle has its merits, despite its controls (all the other people who like it when I don't is proof enough of that).

I've played through most of the English variants of SotN by now (PSX, PSP, retranslated Japanese PSX). I haven't gone through the Saturn version, which is very much considered an inferior port.

Doesn't the Saturn version have a third playable character and a really crazy-hard extra dungeon in it, though? I mean, it does look worse, that much is true, but I thought it had content none of the other ports had.