tohya.net
blog #videogames ##Metroid
For once a HD remake that doesn't offend me. Unlike games such as Wind Waker HD and Demon's Souls HD, Metroid Prime Remastered managed to stay decently faithful to the look and feel of its originator.
This post isn't a summary of yesterday's Nintendo Direct showcase. I'm just voicing my opinions on some of the announcements that stood out to me in some way personally.
Samus Returns on the 3DS wasn't exactly to my liking. Still the game was popular and considered a success, so it didn't exactly surprise me to learn that Metroid Dread had come out of the same developer hands. But it also surprised me that the new game improved on almost all flaws that I saw in Samus Returns.
I was really looking forward to this game. It's a remake of Metroid II, the only game in the series I never got around to play. Apparently I missed out, because the remake turned out to be one of my least favorite Metroid games. Which is not supposed to mean that it's a bad one, as I overally enjoyed my first playthrough - just not enough to feel much like replaying it, and I replayed Metroid Prime Corruption multiple times inspite of it having been my least favorite in the series until Samus Returns. Fundamentally it's a good Metroid game that plays similar to Fusion in that the overall progression is rather linear while individual areas can be explored freely. The maps are well designed, there's a technique that allows the player to grab some items earlier than otherwise possible and there's the usual variety in Samus' arsenal and functions to facilitate lots of explorative possibilities. Boss battles feel too much like puzzles for my taste. They have very clear attack patterns that the player has to go through many and many times because of huge HP pools and the fact that most bosses show up multiple times and have to be beaten over and over.