Metroid: Samus Returns

Metroid: Samus Returns, the 3DS remake of Metroid II: Return of Samus, seeks to reimagine certain aspects of the original by focusing on all the wrong things: instead of improving the original’s linear structure or doubling down on its foreboding atmosphere, the game decides to revamp its combat system and visuals, making them both… flashier. In other words, Samus Return misses everything that worked in Metroid II, but looks cool while doing that.

The plot is fairly straightforward. Bounty hunter Samus Aran is hired to go to the alien planet SR388 to commit, well, genocide: she’s to murder all Metroids there, ridding the universe of this dangerous parasitic species once and for all. Genocide is hard work, so killing Metroids is something that we’re going to do a lot here: they’re the game’s main bosses, and there’s more than forty of them to find and murder – while most areas contain just five or six, some will have more than ten for us to hunt down.

In an ironic turn, these Metroids are responsible for impacting the game’s structure, turning it away from the main traits of the genre that’s named after them. You see, unlike most Metroidvanias, Samus Returns is a very linear game, with Samus killing all the Metroids of a single area just so she can finally proceed to the next to kill all Metroids there, too – rinse and repeat until there are no other Ms.

There’s basically no exploration here. We’ll only go back to previous areas to find small upgrades that were gated behind “locks” to which we didn’t have the required “key” yet (a ledge placed too high, requiring a double jump, for instance). We’re always proceeding forward, from one area to the next to hunt Metroids, knowing where to go at all times. The game’s got very few surprises in store for us, then, even giving a warning when there’s a Metroid nearby by making its icon flash on the bottom screen, even though there’s already always a hatched egg near the location: the game is basically saying “you don’t need to pay attention to the environment, dude, we’ve got your back,” and I find that offensive. Certain vampires have killed for much less.

The original game was also linear, but it worked because of its eerie atmosphere and claustrophobic environments. There were no flashy icons trivializing the hunt, and if the eggs still signposted the presence of a Metroid, later on, we would only see them after fighting the creatures, which still preserved the surprise. Samus Returns, on the other hand, not only introduces these flashy icons but goes one step beyond and even puts a huge device at the start of each area that reveals how many Metroids are there.

In Samus Returns, Metroids even manage to lose their threatening aura: killing them becomes not only routine after a while, but an easy, boring affair. While in the original, the Metroids were something to be feared, with the player getting tense during each fight, here they feel like simple busywork. The culprit is the “improved” combat that allows us complete control of our aim: by holding the L button, Samus is locked in place, and we can move her aim 360°, which means we can now hit everything on the screen at any given time – if she’s not taking damage herself, that is. Enemies, consequently, pose much less of a threat, and they are made even easier with the second addition to the combat: a melee counter.

Samus can now perform a parry, which can be followed up with a powerful shot that singlehandedly dispatches any common enemy and leaves Metroids open for several missile shots. Since the window to perform a successful parry is ridiculously large, there’s no risk/reward in the mechanic. And since it dispatches most enemies with a single shot, we’re actually encouraged to use it all the time with all enemies that use a melee attack – and only a select few don’t. This slows down combat by a considerable notch, making players reactive instead of proactive during fights, always stopping and waiting for the enemy to attack first.

Consequently, fighting them becomes tiresome and repetitive: since the window to parry is too generous and enemies always flash before attacking, we don’t need to even study the monsters and their attack patterns, but just blindly use the parry as they flash – every monster encounter, therefore, is basically the same. In other words, gone is the feeling of dread (see what I’m doing here?) that made the original work well, even without focusing on exploration.

And talking of the devil, one of the first abilities we acquire in the game is a so-called Aeion power that does something that will make any Metroid fan instantly shudder: it reveals parts of the map and all their secrets with the press of a button. Certain vampires have committed their own genocides for much less. I’m not being hyperbolic here by saying that this is one of the most baffling design decisions present in any Metroid to date: the game actively works against building any sense of exploration, giving us the choice to know where everything is right from the outset. We can always choose not to use this power and keep our honor intact, but Jesus Christ.

It makes coming back for the missile expansions and energy tanks feel more like busywork than anything else, for example, since we always know where they are but still must go back for them each time, after acquiring the necessary “key”. And they are the only reason for us to come back, instead of being a reward for testing our new equipment in challenging platform sections or puzzles. No, they’re just lying there, so we just have to use our newfound “key” and get them. If this power was found very late in the game, it could have worked – being useful only to search for the remaining upgrades that we missed the first time around – but acquiring it at the beginning is just sheer madness. Really, what are we doing here?

To make matters worse, this heavily impacts the level design, which doesn’t seem much concerned with signposting anymore, as it knows we can use that Aeion power to discover where everything is: why bother signaling to the player which parts of the environment can be destroyed by making them look subtly different if we can just press a button and get our answer?

Another Aeion power is a shield that makes Samus literally invincible while her Aeion gauge lasts. This is used to pass through areas that would otherwise heavily damage her, but when used against common enemies – which can drop orbs that refill this exact gauge – and even bosses, it trivializes things even more.

Samus Returns is a fusion (I’m… super not sorry) of bad design decisions and signposting problems. There’s this small gap right at the starting area next to Samus’ ship that serves as a prime example: it’s the perfect fit for a morph ball, but after acquiring it, if Samus returns (I can hear the echoes of your exasperated sigh) to that spot, morphs into a ball, and enters the gap, she’ll find that… there’s nothing there at all, and all that backtracking was for nothing. We should’ve pressed that button to see there was nothing there from the start, right? This is what honor gets you.

There’s also a special kind of Metroid we find right near the end that needs to be hit by one specific tool in our arsenal before it can be properly damaged – this tool, however, will probably be one of the last things a new player will try against the Metroid, as it was fairly useless in fights until then and there’s nothing in the creature’s design to suggest it’s weak against it – making the battle a frustrating process of trial and error.

There’s another boss – a mining robot with, at least, a great build-up to its fight – that attacks with a vacuum-like thingy. Throughout the whole game, we’ve been taught that “vacuums” destroy bombs, with several devices spread throughout the areas that suck them up and nullify them. Since this is not your Zero Mission here (yeah, this one I’m kinda sorry for, just a bit), guess what we need to use against the robot when it’s employing the vacuum? Yes, the bombs, which is not only counterintuitive but also arbitrary: why on SR388 do small bombs damage this boss when vacuumed up by it, but missiles or even super missiles don’t? It makes no sense and, unlike Knives Out, it doesn’t compel me either.

Lastly, Samus Returns also falters when it comes to the build-up to the climax. In the original, when Samus gets deeper and deeper into the planet, the common enemies start to disappear, with the final area being practically devoid of them. It’s a fundamental bit of environmental storytelling, as it displays the main problem regarding Metroids, who are being exterminated by Samus precisely because of their unrestrained capacity to destroy all forms of life. So, the deeper we go into their lair, the less animal life we come across, signaling to us the corruption the Metroids represent. But here, of course, the final areas are as packed with as many enemies as all others, which, well… * disappointed sigh *

Samus Returns has style with no substance: form without function. As was the case with Mirror of Fate, from the same studio, it makes great use of the 3D effect of the 3DS, with environments that show a lot of activity in the background, which the 3D makes come alive. The problem is that the things that happen back there are just for show: we may see strange worms coming in and out of holes, but these worms will never leave the background. They are not foreshadowing of enemies or bosses to come, but just some flavor added to the environment. We may see things breaking down and falling, but it never impacts the actual places Samus visits or hints that things are about to come crashing down there. This ends up having the opposite effect of what was intended: as there’s no connection between background and foreground, this “special flavor” reveals its own artificiality, making the environments feel disjointed and fake.

Lacking the backbone of the genre – exploration – and the foreboding atmosphere of the original to make up for it, Metroid: Samus Returns is a disappointing remake of the Game Boy original.

December 09, 2025.