Metroid Fusion Review

Single-player game, played on the Wii U gamepad courtesy of the Wii U virtual console, originally available for the Gameboy Advance in 2002.

The game begins like almost every other metroid game: you arrive at an isolated location (a space research laboratory) with the intention of helping save any survivors and eliminate any alien threats. Upon arrival, Samus is threatened by the dangerous and polymorphic X parasite, and any contact with it will result in serious harm. This is the first Metroid installment in 8 years since Super Metroid released on the SNES in 1994, a generation and genre defining game, a hard act to follow for any game. It took me approximately 8 hours to finish with about a 45% item collection rate.

Graphics and Tone:

One of the truly quintessential qualities of a good metroid game is the tone. Metroid is to tone as Chick-Fil-A is to the chicken sandwich; it might not have been the first to do it, but damn does it do it well. Fusion doesn’t disappoint the series here and delivers an isolated, creepy and desperate feeling that is amplified by starting out so weak and vulnerable. From the moment you arrive, you encounter enemies and obstacles you cannot overcome, both through mechanics and unopenable passages. Your health is like a millennial’s savings account (3 or 4 hits max and you croak) and your weapons appear more for show since some enemies you can only run from. These features really add to the feeling of hopelessness for you and anyone who was unfortunate enough to be on this space station when the parasites escaped.

The graphics are difficult to appropriately criticize in 2019, since it’s a pixelated experience from 17 years ago intended to be played on a system with less pixels than a TI graphing calculator. Jokes aside the game looks genuinely good for something so old. It has aged very well visually and gives you a nice variety of colors and different spaces to explore. The sprites and enemy model designs, especially the big monster bosses, come across as intimidating and have some cool animations for the era. Even nearly two decades on and you won’t be put off by how this game looks.

Mechanics:

Describing a Metroid game is like trying to describe the color blue to someone without saying the word ‘blue’. Fusion follows the Metroid-vania archetype, which is a bit of a masturbatory descriptor but helpful nonetheless. You control Samus with 8 direction D-Pad controls and navigate the world from a side-viewing 2D perspective moving through a large, networked system of tunnels and old research labs. Upon arrival at the station you are given instructions on what to do, what areas to avoid and which room holds your next objective. There are about 6 or 7 major areas on the map, and a save point, navigation room (where you can check your current objective) and ammo refill room in each of those major areas.

While navigating the game you use your wide selection of weapons (which you slowly acquire) and abilities to obliterate anything that has a central nervous system without prejudice. You start out with very basic abilities like shooting and jumping. With each major area (like a dungeon in a Zelda title) you will likely pick up at least one upgrade. As the game progresses you become increasingly agile and deadly to your foes.

Reasons why I like this game:

The atmosphere and the combat are dialed in, you really can’t ask for much more in this department. The ability to get lost or slightly overwhelmed by the non-linear approach to navigating is fitting to this type of game. The game gives pretty overt suggestions on where to go next, but you certainly don’t have to listen the vast majority of the time. You can return to a previous area after getting a new ability and just comb the place over for secrets, of which there are a TON.

The combat feels relatively smooth, with the biggest threat to the game holding up for future generations being the 8 directional movement and button mapping for some of the more advanced and acrobatic moves. With any combat I always ask myself “can I get through this engagement without taking a single hit of damage?” Each boss that I died to I re-engaged with the goal of not being hit, all but 1 or 2 bosses passed this test so that’s always a great feeling for me. The combat is quick and punishing, but most of the time failing feels like your fault and not the programming of the game being poor.

Reasons why I don’t like it:

The damn guy in the computer, who invited this guy to the party? Mechanically this is the biggest sin this game commits. At any point in the game you can pull up your map and see a blinking spot on your map tellling you EXACTLY where to go next, and the game continuously reminds you of this. During nearly all 8 hours of gameplay this exists. For the lazy, like me, you can just follow this guys’ literal quest markers the whole game. Obviously you don’t have to do this, but when was the last time you turned off the HUD in a Bethesda-esque RPG or exploration game that gave you the option to just follow the bright shiny arrow instead? If you’re anything like me it massively lowers your inhibitions in the exploration department. Maybe this is just a personal preference, but I would’ve enjoyed the game more if I could have had the option to turn that guy off and just find my way to the objective by exploring on my own, you know, like a Metroid game.

Things that made the game great for me:

Fusion loves it when you ask “Can I missile that wall?” “Can I make it to that ledge?” “What happens if I super bomb this glass container?” Often the answer is an enthusiastic “Yes! And thanks for asking, here’s a health upgrade.” The upgrades and secrets in this game are everywhere. Every exploration game has two essential ingredients: Things to explore, and good incentives for the player to poke every single surface. Fusion has this in spades, the vast majority of the time when I went out of my way to do something I was rewarded for doing so. This is the saving grace for Big Brother in your headset telling you where to go at every turn, as every time you disobey him you’re likely to get a missile or health upgrade as a reward. I did a healthy amount of unnecessary poking around and only turned out with a ~40% completion rating at the end. For a short game, it is densely packed with hard to find goodies.

Another amazing high point in the game is the main villain, a cloned version of Samus constantly searching for you with all of your weapons upgrades. You encounter it for the first time when you are at your weakest, and have to run away instead of fight it. It mixes up the gameplay and gives you a real sense of dread, always afraid  you’ll get spotted. It adds a nice layer of tension in some otherwise slow moments in the game. Even cooler, it allows you a chance to escape if you’re spotted, not an instant game over screen. Each time the evil clone showed up on the screen, I enjoyed it immensely.

Things that ruined the game for me:

I’ve already talked at length about the linearity issues the game has, there is no reason to bemoan the point further. If I wanted to nitpick some I would bring up the two times the game really frustrated me to the point of looking something up online. Firstly, at two separate points I got stuck and just couldn’t figure out where to go for the life of me. On both occasions it was a visual occlusion, a plant that had previously been impassable or a wall that isn’t suspicious looking at all that you needed to walk through. It’s difficult to fault the developers here, if everything sticks out and is obvious where is the excitement in exploration? I can sympathize with how hard this balance is to strike. Secondly, the true final boss, the clone Samus. There is technically another boss after but Samus is the true test of your skills. I very well could chalk the difficulty I had with the fight up to my inability to play video games at a higher than 7 year old level, but my god did I die a lot. I never died more than 3 or 4 times to any of the other bosses in the game. At a minimum I died 40 times to Samus, a marathon thankfully shortened with the quick save states of the Wii U’s emulator. Her AI moved faster than you doing the same moves and won the invincibility frame contest if you both had i-frames up at the same time. It felt a bit unfair in a game where I hadn’t run in to that at all after 8 hours and multiple bosses up to this point, but again, kind of nitpicking.

Overall:

A great entry into the series that lives up to the Metroid name. Only marred somewhat by it’s linear and pushy narrator. Any fan of the series should pick up this game (and buy it soon, the Wii U Virtual Store won’t be around forever) if they have never played it. For about 10 bucks it’s worthwhile and stands the 17 year test of time.

That Feeling:

Sneaking into a creepy and strange museum at night by yourself only to find out a guy comes over the loudspeaker every 5 minutes to tell you where to go. Each time you don’t listen right away and wander around you get to see amazing art pieces and are pleased with each room you enter. Only to find out part way through that the security guard is a cross between Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson and Usain Bolt with repressed anger issues.