Metroid Fusion is a Metroidvania game for the Game Boy Advance, and it was astounding when re-reading my review for Metroid: Zero Mission how similar my critiques are regarding the two games. This will, thus, be a pretty short review. If you're interested in a more in depth study, feel free to check out the link I mentioned earlier! I'll cover any relevant new points in brief below:
Graphics: Really good!
Music: Good, from what I can tell. The GBA SP has no headphone port, so listening to music at work is really tough.
Story: More in depth than other Metroid games, but also it's a bit too chatty and spoon fed, taking away some of the lonesome self-written story of the previous Metroid games. I prefer the previous approach.
Gameplay: Solid, Metroid gameplay. Bosses stink, as usual.
Experience: The path you take in this game is much more driven by the story, and is less free and open than in previous Metroid games. There's always been a "right" way to explore whatever planet Samus lands on in each game, but this one feels very forced and contrary to the philosophy of the genre.
Progression: Samus actually has a few new abilities here, which is cool. It felt like you weren't just going through the same progression of roll-bomb-missile-super missile-super bomb that you get in the other games.
Length/Pacing: Superb
Final judgment: This is a solid game, and fans of the genre will enjoy it. I'd recommend Metroid: Zero Mission over this one for a more faithful take on the exploratory nature of the genre, but I'd really recommend Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow as the premium game in this genre for this console. I'll give this an 8.4/10.
Up next on the handheld track of What I'm Playing is a game that I've held off playing due to being scarred by an earlier game from the same development team. After two hours, I'm really kicking myself that I didn't listen to the reviewers, and wish I'd started it earlier. This is going to be a long one, so I'd guess that I will be reviewing a home console game before the next handheld, but we will see what time will tell. See below for a teaser.
-TRO
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