Back to the confinement issue, though. Overall, I'm not all that thrilled with how the levels are designed in this game -- not compared to any of the previous three Metroids. The designs are certainly better than in almost any other game out there (not that such a claim says much in this age), but the planners could've worked the exploration in a lot more seamlessly -- and less annoyingly -- than this. Usually the only areas really left open for a lot of exploration are huge, blocked-off sections where Samus is trapped, often without anything helpful like a recharge room nearby. This simply keeps one needlessly paranoid about one's health and supplies. As such the player must run around in circles for ten or twenty minutes, scouring for the one obscure block that she has missed, which is her ticket to freedom.
Does this sound like Metroid? On the surface, maybe. But it's not. It's not a huge pile of joy to be forced into searching vainly in order to escape. The exploration, previously integral to Metroid's structure, has been turned into a set of defined puzzles to impede the player along the linear path through which they're being towed. What I find interesting is that -- and I feel guiltless in telling you this -- the game doesn't let you get about forty percent of the items, the first time through. Oh, sure; if you're clever and especially paranoid, you might realize on your own how to go on one last big run around the station before you face off against the final couple of bosses. But the game doesn't make it at all easy.
In fact, the game actively discourages you from searching too far off the path until after you've beaten it once. The last powerup you get in the game is required in order to pass through about two fifths of the breakable walls in the game. And yet, once you get said powerup, the plot almost immediately collars you into exactly one path. All other doors which might be a distraction, are now locked. So all you can do is go forward and beat the game, essentially.
Being the way I am, I wasted a bunch of time prowling around, flaunting my curiosity against the linear paths along which I was directed, poking at every rock and backtracking far more than was required. If I'm not going to rush through the game (I always make a point not to), I might as well try to get as much accomplished as I can along the way. No, though. I take forever to finish and I'm only allowed to collect just over sixty percent of the items in the game. Hrmn.
So where did all of the item-hunting go? To minigame land. Once you beat the game once, you get a radar of sorts that informs you how many items, and of what sort, are left in each area. All of the doors which were needlessly locked before, have now been opened up to you. This isn't a fluke; this is what we modern, evolved gamers call "replay" value. Oh, right. Rip out the best part of Metroid and staple to it the end as a deleted scenes reel, completely out of context. That's really cute. What's scary is how well the levels are designed around exactly this structure. They're ingenious! But the genius is used to such fickle an end.
All right, so the level design has been subtly perverted away from inspiring any real sort of exploration until after the fact. So the game is linear. Does it at least work on that level? Yeah! Kind of. Well, up until a point. Um.
Well, you see...
For about five and a half to six hours (measured by the very conservative in-game clock), things are just swell. But then, just at the point where things are beginning to come together and become really fascinating, the game... ends. Just like that.
I could go on for far longer than you probably care, about all of the plot threads left dangling; about all of the tension which simply evaporates. The game only feels three-quarters done when it decides it's time to wrap things up, with a couple of frankly-lame bosses (the weakest and most predictable in the entire game) and not even a real attempt at closure. It honestly felt like something big was coming any moment; something to tie everything up and give new context to all that I'd gone through over the course of the game. It seemed like the level design was starting to cohere and to give a glimpse of some grander order which I just hadn't been able to see before. Things were just starting to get really challenging.
But nope. There was no special meaning. No special effort. No reframing. Just another location, and a generic arrangement of stock Metroid elements. In fact, rather than having a new and deep perspective on the earlier portions of the game, it now feels to me like there was little special meaning to anything I'd been doing for the last several hours.
Wow.
With Fusion, the series now seems to have been revived to walk a new path. Where Super Metroid did its sizey part in ending things, Fusion finishes the job (seriously, everything you know -- it's basically all gone, now) and then opens up some new threads for the future. Fusion is... well, it's a decent bridge game. I guess. It has all of the elements to be something really momentous, but in the end this is just Chapter Four. It's King of Fighters '99.
(Okay, '99 was chapter five -- but I... oh, hush.)
Fusion, for me, does more to raise questions about the next Metroid than it satisfies as a game on its own. It's captivating for as long as it lasts. There's a lot of great stuff introduced here, and there's more plot than in the other three Metroids combined (and probably Prime as well -- you can ask Tim about that). But very little of said stuff is really exploited as well as it could be.
There's not enough game here -- and I don't just mean that the thing is short, which it certainly is (albeit longer than Harmony of Dissonance). It feels more like a test run for a New-Style Metroid, to see how well it works out. It works great! But... I'd like more than just a demo, y'know?
To be entirely honest, I think Fusion thrills me the least of the four main Metroids so far. Some of this I know is just due to my preestablished expectations for what a Metroid game is supposed to be -- as not all of them are met to my utmost satisfaction here. I came in anticipating one thing; then the entire way through, I was constantly pulled in other directions -- no matter how much I attempted to force the issue and to play the game like, well, Metroid. I didn't want to rush through, and in the end this reluctance got me nothing. Unlike every other version of Metroid out there, Fusion essentially gives you no good reason not to blow through it as quickly as you can manage. Then later, it gives you the opportunity to poke around for whatever you might have missed, after-the-fact.
So, okay; let's take it as a linear, plot-based action/adventure game. The plot is intriguing, but it doesn't follow through on some of the major themes and tensions that it spends hours building up. The end doesn't do much except serve as an ending by default of its being at the end. I really like the addition of plot sequences to Metroid, and the new action-based mechanics are terrific. But while the bosses in the middle are astoundingly, overwhelmingly difficult (in a good way!), the last few bosses only took me a few passes in total to get through. One boss requires nothing more than to stay away from him and to shoot missiles as quickly as possible. Compared to some of the crazy earlier bosses in the game, this is just silly.
As a linear game, Fusion feels incomplete. It feels like the beginning of the soap opera era of Metroid. Stay tuned for Metroid 5, where we might actually do something with all of these neat new ideas with which we've taunted you for the last ten hours or so.
And yet, aside from all of these complaints -- it's still Metroid. And it is enjoyable, for what it is. And again, there's a bunch of great stuff in here -- including some pretty daring experiments with what Metroid can be.
I like it. I don't love it, but I'm fond of the game. It bugs me, though, to say that about Metroid, of all games:
"Y'know, Samus, maybe for now we should just be friends."
Ouch.
eric-jon rössel waugh always has nei to go back to
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