Metroid Samus Returns for 3DS (2D Metroid game)

[Hero-of-Time]

Yeah, I played and completed Prime 2 but I never finished the 3rd game.

[Ike]

Late game boss:

Spoiler

The driller boss that gives you the Power Bombs... I can't even count the number of retries that boss took, pretty sure I've hurt my hand from fighting it.

Liked the scene after you beat it.

 

[Serebii]

All done. Found all the stuff. Took 10 hours, sure, but still. All done

[Grazza]

22 hours ago, Ike said:

Late game boss:

  Hide contents

The driller boss that gives you the Power Bombs... I can't even count the number of retries that boss took, pretty sure I've hurt my hand from fighting it.

Liked the scene after you beat it.

 

 

That one is this game's Meta Ridley, I think.  Very tough but cool.

[Dog-amoto]

I never had a massive problem with it. Once I realised you could damage it while it was sucking. Sorry, kept it as vague as possible. Dunno how to put spoiler tags in this new forum!

Dunno how people are managing this in 10 hours, I'm already 12 hours in and about 60% done. 

Edited September 21, 2017 by Dog-amoto

[Grazza]

1 hour ago, Dog-amoto said:

I never had a massive problem with it. Once I realised you could damage it while it was sucking. Sorry, kept it as vague as possible. Dunno how to put spoiler tags in this new forum!

Dunno how people are managing this in 10 hours, I'm already 12 hours in and about 60% done. 

 

It's the eye icon.  Either that or frame your text with [ SPOILER= ] [ /SPOILER ] (without the spaces).

 

But yes, I finished it last night and I too am surprised at how it could be completed quickly.

[S.C.G]

To those who have finished it already... are those 100% runs?

[Grazza]

12 minutes ago, S.C.G said:

To those who have finished it already... are those 100% runs?

 

Not for me.  I've got most of the equipment but can't work out some in Areas 4, 5, 6 and 7.  The main thing I can't work out is how to get through the red spikes.

 

Lots of the them have grapple points, but my range isn't long enough, and there are no enemies to freeze and use as a platform.  Is there a longer grapple beam somewhere in the game?

[Dcubed]

All Metroid games, outside of the Prime games, are short.  Hell, they're the games that kicked off the speedrunning community as we know it!

Edited September 21, 2017 by Dcubed

[Grazza]

It was long for me.  What I meant is that I'm surprised anyone can complete it quickly.  One thing's for sure - getting the Speed Run will be a lot more difficult than 100% completion.

 

EDIT - Ah, wait a minute... I think I've just figured out how to get through those red spikes and obtain the remaining items.

Edited September 21, 2017 by Grazza

[Dog-amoto]

13 hours ago, Grazza said:

It was long for me.  What I meant is that I'm surprised anyone can complete it quickly.  One thing's for sure - getting the Speed Run will be a lot more difficult than 100% completion.

 

EDIT - Ah, wait a minute... I think I've just figured out how to get through those red spikes and obtain the remaining items.

How? HOW?!?

[Grazza]

1 hour ago, Dog-amoto said:

How? HOW?!?

 

Spoiler

Grip the exact opposite wall with Spider Ball.  Lay a Power Bomb and you get propelled through.

 

Thanks to this I was able to 100% complete it last night.  I keep meaning to collect my thoughts on it, but it was a truly awesome game.

Edited September 22, 2017 by Grazza

[Mr-Paul]

1 hour ago, Grazza said:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

Grip the exact opposite wall with Spider Ball.  Lay a Power Bomb and you get propelled through.

 

Thanks to this I was able to 100% complete it last night.  I keep meaning to collect my thoughts on it, but it was a truly awesome game.

This is the one thing I couldn't work out when reviewing it, and no-one on the internet at that point to help out! Thanks for the tip, will have to go back and get to 100% now! Glad you enjoyed it, definitely interested in hearing your full thoughts when you put them together.

[V. Amoleo]

I don’t know if it’s my New 3DS XL, my expectations or the game but I’ve had to turn off super stable 3D. It just kept losing track of my head and going out of focus, it was starting to make me feel really ill.

[Glen-i]

38 minutes ago, V. Amoleo said:

I don’t know if it’s my New 3DS XL, my expectations or the game but I’ve had to turn off super stable 3D. It just kept losing track of my head and going out of focus, it was starting to make me feel really ill.

Just wondering, did you have the 3D Slider up to max?

[V. Amoleo]

25 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Just wondering, did you have the 3D Slider up to max?

Yes I did.

[Glen-i]

10 minutes ago, V. Amoleo said:

Yes I did.

It might be easier on your eyes to have the slider up only partway through. Not everyone is comfortable with full whack 3D. I know I'm not, and the 3D is strong in this particular game. Looks great though.

[V. Amoleo]

10 hours ago, Glen-i said:

It might be easier on your eyes to have the slider up only partway through. Not everyone is comfortable with full whack 3D. I know I'm not, and the 3D is strong in this particular game. Looks great though.

I went back and re-enabled Super Stable 3D and set the slider to half way, it still kept snapping out of focus.  So I still think the tracking camera is either failing or struggling to work when playing the game.

Thankfully using 3D on full but without Super Stable 3D works fine, I just have to get in the sweet spot like the original 3DS.

[Blade]

I had problems with 3D being too blurry with thie game. I've just re cab the super stable 3d and now its amazing. 

Im really enjoying this game. It took me a while to get used to the controls though as I found them fiddly 

[nekunando]

I'm still pretty early in the game (I've played around 3 hours ) but I'm well into Area 2 now. My most recent battle with a metroid has been the first significant deviation from the standard fights so far (which have been very basic and repetitive ) but it still felt like a case of dodging a couple of attacks and spamming the missiles with free aiming.

It's a good game, which I'm sure will get better, but I'm not blown away so far..

[FalcoLombardi]

I haven't even taken the cellophane off of the game box...

[Grazza]

As I say, I finished Samus Returns the other day and wanted to type out some more detailed thoughts when I had time.

 

I've long thought that Metroid, especially 2D Metroid, was the ultimate form of game.  Neither as simple as Tetris or Street Fighter II, for example, nor as elaborate as Zelda or an RPG.  It has action, exploration and a real sense of progression as you upgrade your weapons and abilities.  The formula is so good, it's baffling how it doesn't sell better.  Mercury Steam Entertainment has managed to replicate the gameplay of Nintendo's own 2D Metroid titles almost perfectly, which I think is a stunning achievement for a non 1st-party studio.  It's a clear contender for my personal Game Of The Year.

 

But first, I must set out some things that I'd class as personal nitpicks.  There's no getting around it, I prefer proper 2D graphics - ideally pixel art, but hand-drawn 2D would do.  Samus has so much appeal in Super Metroid, but here she's represented by a few polygons.  On the plus side, the polygons do allow a cinematic feel that wasn't in the older titles.  The camera zooms in and out during boss battles in a way that simply didn't happen in the pixel art games, giving a varied sense of scale depending on what's happening.  Another nitpick is that the Circle Pad does take some getting used to, especially when you are forced to change into a Morph Ball under pressure.  The flipside of this is that the free aim the Circle Pad allows certainly is satisfying.  Whether it's better than the combination of d-pad plus diagonal aiming we won't really know until there's another game without it and we miss it and want it back.  The third nitpick is that there is no Speed Boost or Shine Spark.  I particularly miss the former, as it added to the feel of being powerful when fully upgraded, as you could just run anywhere and through certain walls.

 

But for me these weren't really things that took away from the excitement of the game, such as the amazingly atmospheric sound or fearsome bosses.  If you've played Metroid II you'll be familiar with the monsters that Metroid larvae turn into.  Here, they are more impressive than ever.  

 

I played much of the game thinking it could be a 10/10, but in the end there were two things that I felt knocked a point off.  For one thing, the counter system is a mixed blessing.  Although satisfying at times, it does turn much of the gameplay into something of a Quick Time Event.  You've always needed good reflexes in Metroid, but arguably QTE-like moments interrupt the smoothness of the gameplay.  The second complaint is that it's just a bit too tough.  Whilst it was fun to learn the techniques needed to defeat the bosses, for me they hit just a bit too hard.  It doesn't feel "medium" to me, and slowed the pace down enough to lessen my enjoyment.

 

But as I say, Samus Returns is an absolute cracker, and deserves its place alongside Super, Fusion and Zero Mission.  The best way to describe this game is "2D Metroid with the sensibilities of Metroid Prime".  Mercury Steam Entertainment has replicated the gameplay of 2D Metroid brilliantly, but it feels like Metroid Prime is the game they really love.

 

9/10

Edited September 23, 2017 by Grazza

[Hero-of-Time]

I finally got to have a good session on this, this afternoon. I went from needing something like 28 Metroids to 16. 

I wasn't a fan of area 3 at all. I found it far too big and the Metroids that kept pegging it just felt like a cheap way to lengthen the battle.

[Hero-of-Time]

The game really got it's hooks into me today. I'm now down to 4 Metroids.

Spoiler

The Area 6 bosses took some doing.

The first one was a big Metroid...beastie...type...thing. I had a fair few restarts on that fight. The thing could take a serious amount of hits.

The second, the big robot who had nicked my power up, wasn't too hard a fight, it just took some figuring out in terms of what I had to do. I got to the final phase a few times but it took me a while to realise how to actually damage him.

Both bosses gave me a huge sense of satisfaction when defeating them.

To those who got 100%, I've just reached area 7 and was wondering if it's now possible to go back and start collecting every item?

[Grazza]

14 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

The game really got it's hooks into me today. I'm now down to 4 Metroids.

  Hide contents

The Area 6 bosses took some doing.

The first one was a big Metroid...beastie...type...thing. I had a fair few restarts on that fight. The thing could take a serious amount of hits.

The second, the big robot who had nicked my power up, wasn't too hard a fight, it just took some figuring out in terms of what I had to do. I got to the final phase a few times but it took me a while to realise how to actually damage him.

Both bosses gave me a huge sense of satisfaction when defeating them.

To those who got 100%, I've just reached area 7 and was wondering if it's now possible to go back and start collecting every item?

 

No, you need something from after a later boss than that.

 

Spoiler

Not sure if you've played Metroid II, but you need something from after the Queen Metroid battle.

 

Edited September 23, 2017 by Grazza