Metroid has always had that wonder at its heart. As with Super Mario Bros., the surplus of bugs in the first Metroid only added to its mystique (how can anyone live without the infamous wall-door trick?). The original Gameboy is creaky enough to lend a powerful mystique to any game which effectively taps its power -- and again, the Spider Ball allowed Nintendo R&D#1 to lattice the game world with more secret passages than perhaps any other adventure game made to this day.
Even Super Metroid, for the SNES, managed to more or less hang onto the atmosphere and the mystique of the earlier games -- despite its attempts to flesh out and explain chunks of the Metroid world; despite its occasionally blatant, gimmicky abuse of the SNES hardware; despite its shimmering polish. The game starts off with some plot and it ends with some plot, but in the center the player is mostly left alone to make what she will of the world she's been given (not unlike the setup for Myst). There were countless references to events, locations, and enemies from the first two games -- but the actual connexions were left mostly for the player to form on his own.
So. What do you get when you design a Metroid which downplays the exploration part of the formula in favor of the less-developed action element of the series? And what if we start fleshing out that plot and character development which has been languishing for so long?
...
It's risky, but -- hypothetically -- it could work, as long as the new elements weren't to interfere too much with the game structure. Character and plot honestly could use some more attention at this point in the series -- and, when you dig a bit, it turns out that the real mystery in Metroid stems more innately from intricate level design than from any of the surrounding details.
There's certainly enough intriguing mythology that's been built up over the years. Heck, we've barely even been told anything at all about Samus, aside from the colour of her panties (purple, monochrome, and black leather, respectively). After sixteen years, maybe it's time to think about some exposition. We've had three games which play more or less the same way. There's no use stagnating in a formula; Super Metroid only reached its heights due to the experimentation in Return of Samus.
The choices made in Fusion seem a logical solution. If Metroid is to grow as a series, and not become trapped in the Dragon Quest cage, it needs to push the boundaries every now and then. Though we love it dearly, we've done the exploration thing. We've pretty much finished up the original plot to the series (such as it was). For Metroid to effectively sputter back again, we need some kind of forceful storytelling to even give a reason for a new game to exist.
Despite my tirades above, I applaud the courage that Intelligent Systems must have mustered in order to mess with an established formula as far as they have here. To some extent they seem to be on the right track, although there are a few strange and seemingly avoidable problems along the way.
Where we lose the lonely and hopeless atmosphere of the earlier games, we get plot and scripted events. We at least double the action, in comparison to previous chapters. In the past, tension came from the creepy and distressing isolation one felt as she wandered around an alien world filled with unknown surprises; now it comes from dramatic machination, scheduled in-game surprises, and a more pressing fear of death. The overbearing, yet vague, sense of dread from the earlier Metroids becomes a more immediately and practically ominous sensation. Where our sense of involvement and fascination used to come from the organic familiarity that the player built with his surroundings, now it largely comes from the narrative flow of the game.
It's different, but it seems they got the balance more or less right. For nearly everything they took out, they found something of equal value to replace it. The game still feels like Metroid, and it remains as captivating as ever. It's remarkable that Intelligent Systems managed to pull off such a tricky set of substitutions with as much grace and as few seams as they have here. The remix feels effortless and natural -- which should clue us in on how much work it must have taken.
What confuses me is how, when they already had such a terrific game on their hands, such an obviously brilliant design team managed to kind of screw up what should have been the comparatively easy part. It's not that the game is broken or anything; It just feels like the designers settled once they were done rebalancing the formula. They wanted to get the game done. You can taste the impatience.
First there's the character makeover: It's ninety percent terrific. Samus' new suit and replacement powerups make the old Sammie feel clunky and outdated by comparison: having to toggle missiles on and off; ice beam instead of ice missiles; having to choose between one missile type and another; having to go after separate (and random) refills for each type of weapon, as well as one's energy -- rather than just absorbing bacteria after every enemy killed. Samus now runs, jumps, stops, flips, does everything about twice as quickly and precisely as she used to. She can climb walls and ceilings! She can hang off of ledges! She's got Ryu Hayabusa's dexterity crossed with Rockman's nigh-magnetic accuracy.
Still, the control is a bit weird in a couple of respects -- especially coming off of the past games. Inexplicably, Samus doesn't bounce very much from her own bomb blasts anymore. This makes it impossible to climb great distances through the air with carefully- (or randomly-) timed explosions, as one can in every other version of Metroid. The game doesn't seem to either require or encourage much use of this technique, so aside from the weird break in tradition perhaps the issue is moot. But heck. Bomb-climbing was one of my favourite pointless passtimes in the earlier games. Ah well. I guess I can live.
What's harder to overlook (as it can have some real consequence) is an unwelcome mechanic whereby hitting "up" or "down" in mid-air (intentionally or not) tends to cause Samus to cut her jump short. Especially considering how hectic Fusion can get at times -- as well as just how much damage Samus takes in comparison to how slowly and incrementally she heals -- it can be disconcerting to suddenly find one's avatar plummeting onto that boss monster or into that pool of electrified water.
What makes it worse is when it's due to something as stupid as a minor slip of the thumb on an already-imprecise D-pad. Practice and familiarity with the hazard can cut down on mistakes, but the point is that the control shouldn't be this touchy. It never was in the previous games. Why is it now? Now that precision is all the more important?
I mean, this game is hard at times -- particularly in the middle portion -- and I'm not even talking about the bosses yet (which are, up until near the end, thoroughly clever and elegant, and challenging to just one notch before the point of frustration). I'm just speaking about the way Samus gets batted around the levels by standard enemies. Okay, so it's no Contra (aside from the bosses -- and then it's more like Gunstar Heroes) -- but things are a lot hairier than I remember from the likes of Metroid.
It's a welcome, if unanticipated, change. Really! I love the new pacing. But the thing is, that pace didn't have to dictate the structure of every aspect of the game -- especially since Metroid isn't a series constructed with speedy linearity in mind.
As many cutscenes as there are in the game, there are many more scripted events. At times the whole level structure will undergo drastic changes due to plot events. There will be terror-filled moments when you'll be forced to hide in a corner and hope no one sees you. There will be worse moments when you'll have to flee for your life -- and even more disturbingly, when you won't know what to do.
Now, this kind of a mechanic adds a ton in terms of subtly advancing the plot, fueling an ever-heightening tension throughout much of the game, and generally drawing the player's interest in an active way (rather than relying on the situation to do it alone). The thing is, it also -- annoyingly -- has a tendency to block off huge swaths of the levels, including places which were accessible in the past. The game doesn't want the player to stray too far, or get too distracted. And at times it even abuses its power over the player.
Also, a note to Intelligent Systems:
Turning off Save Points -- for any length of time -- IS A PAIN IN THE ASS.
Especially in the vicinity of the toughest boss yet so far. Especially when you follow it up almost directly with another appearance of our little terror-inducing plot-related stalker.
Now, I don't mind replaying a section a few times. This is the only way to effectively learn many of the clever boss patterns, for instance. But come ON! This isn't freakin' MDK2. Is the tension you're trying to build really worth the annoyance factor? I appreciate the attempt to use the environment in unexpected ways, but... GOD.
[Next: vhee are all trapped.]
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