Retro Review: Metroid II: Return of Samus

When we last left Samus, she had just wiped out the Metroids on the planet Zebes and defeated Mother Brain. Oh, and she revealed that she is a woman. With that mission complete, she now proceeds to planet SR-388, the home of the Metroids, in order to wipe them all out.

With the first Metroid game, players faced a world that was too open, and it was often hard to tell where to explore next. Also, many of the secret areas had to be found by trial and error, and when starting from the last save, Samus would begin with a minimal amount of energy, forcing the player to go through a tedious process of recovering health before continuing.

Thankfully, Metroid II solves all of these issues, primarily by introducing a more linear level design. Luckily for Samus, the Metroids were very considerate when designing SR-388. Instead of making it a huge, open world, they mapped out a series of caverns, with deadly lava blocking access to the next area. When the lava blocks your way, it is because you have Metroids that you still need to find and kill in the current area. Once you finish them off, there is an earthquake, the lava recedes, and you are free to explore the next area. It is a very handy system that keeps the player generally focused on where to search next. In a welcome change to the previous Metroid game, you will occasionally find spots that completely recharge your shields or missiles. And since your shields and missiles are stored when you save the game, you no longer have to spend time tediously recharging every time you start.

That is not to say that Metroid II has less exploring than Metroid…not by a long shot. While Metroid had corridors that were either vertical or horizontal, Metroid II has no such restrictions. The tunnels wind around, back and forth, and up and down. Some areas include a gigantic cavern with a huge vaulted ceiling, and in the center lies an abandoned city of alien origin. It is possible to drop from the ceiling, fall for a minute, and then land with no idea of where you ended up. And since all of the caverns look generally the same (one drawback of the black-and-white color palette), mapmaking becomes that much more important. A map for Metroid could fit on one side of one page, while the maps for Metroid II could easily cover both sides of several sheets of paper. So while the caverns are more complex and expansive, they are also more enjoyable to explore, because there is a lot more to discover.

The gameplay itself is very similar to the first Metroid, except the boss battles have been replaced with mini-bosses in the form of mutated Metroids. The early caverns are littered with the discarded husks of traditional Metroids. You soon discover that they are mutating into new and more-powerful forms: Alpha, Gamma, Zeta, and Omega Metroids. And if you’ve seen Aliens, you can deduce what you’ll find at the very end of the game.

To combat these new threats, Samus has even more weapons and gadgets at her disposal. The traditional items make their return: missiles, High-Jump Boots, the Screw Attack, Ice Beam, Wave Beam, the Varia Suit, and bombs. (Samus starts off with the Long Shot and Morph Ball.) But in addition to those weapons, Samus can also find the Spazer Beam and Plasma Beam, which are even stronger weapons than the Wave Beam. Samus also gets the Space Jump, which allows her to perform a mid-air jump, and thus reach areas that she could not otherwise reach. But the best new item has to be the Spider Ball. With the Spider Ball, Samus can morph into ball form, then proceed to scale any wall or ceiling. You may pass by a ledge that is seemingly there for no reason, but then you realize that you can hop up to it, switch to Spider Ball form, and climb along the ceiling to find a hidden passage. The beauty of this ability is that it forces you to look at exploration differently, and you will find yourself revisiting earlier areas to discover new secrets.

While most of the boss fights are generally straightforward, the final boss fight may frustrate same gamers. Although the fight appears to be a simple brute-force attack, there are actually a few tricks that are not immediately obvious, that might the battle significantly easier. Tenacity could pay off in this case, but less patient gamers may want to glance at a walkthrough.

In short, Metroid II is much more fun that the original Metroid. The controls are more responsive, Samus has more weapons and abilities, and the Spider Ball makes you look at exploring much differently. You have actual save points in the game, and your shields and missiles don’t reset to a low amount when you start from your save. Plus, if you end up low on missiles or energy, you can backtrack and find a recharge station for each. The gameplay benefits from some forced linearity, but Metroid purists might miss the open-ended nature of the original. But overall, Metroid II adds more of what made the first game great, while fixing many of the shortcomings.

OVERALL SCORE: 6 out of 7