full game discussion (spoilers)

2017-09-21 03:15:51 pm

Samus Lauren

the only melee counter prompts on ridley are in the last phase, whenever the hatchling steals his health and gives it back to you. He will snap as he gets up, and you can melee him then and only then.

zeldacia3

2017-09-21 03:27:55 pm

Amateur Speedrunner, Roleplayer

Wait the baby gives you health? I never noticed that

zeldacia3

2017-09-21 04:03:47 pm

Amateur Speedrunner, Roleplayer

I just finished Hard mode :D FInal time was 9:17:22

Idkbutlike2

2017-09-21 07:42:54 pm

Should have 100%'d it, kid. It's way more satisfying when you get all the Chozo memories and such.

zeldacia3

2017-09-22 09:07:48 am

Amateur Speedrunner, Roleplayer

I did 100% it

zeldacia3

2017-09-22 09:48:46 am

Amateur Speedrunner, Roleplayer

On Fusion mode I just picked up the grapple beam. Unfortunately I'm also in area 3 which is my least favorite area in the game

Cantonbags04

2017-09-22 04:17:02 pm

Samus Lauren

My favorite area is easily area 8, aka the chozo laboratories. The music was stellar, definitely my favorite soundtrack. Did all of those areas actually exist in the first Metroid 2? Its been...so long...

zeldacia3

2017-09-22 04:37:15 pm

Amateur Speedrunner, Roleplayer

That's area 7. area 8 is the area with the larvas and the queen

Opium

2017-09-22 04:38:46 pm

I still play through the original metroid 2 a couple of times a year. I played through it two days before Samus Returns came out. I've played through Samus Returns twice now and I have not recognized any area from the original game except the landing site and the area right before the queen.

Serris

2017-09-22 04:58:37 pm

Strangely the original queen area was the one that looked techy and man(bird)-made, so they moved that to the area before that I guess

zeldacia3

2017-09-22 04:59:17 pm

Amateur Speedrunner, Roleplayer

I still can't decide if I like Samus Returns or AM2R better

Opium

2017-09-22 05:10:13 pm

Quote from zeldacia3:

I still can't decide if I like Samus Returns or AM2R better

Me too.

There are things about samus returns that I definitely don't like, but I can't really say that about AM2R. Samus returns just looks so great though and I love the controls.

zeldacia3

2017-09-22 05:20:48 pm

Amateur Speedrunner, Roleplayer

update on fusion mode. I have 8 metroids left. I'm doing a bit of cleanup right now

arkarian

2017-09-22 05:49:49 pm

red chamber dream

wait, there's 8 areas???? i know this is the spoiler thread, that just really surprises me. i was thinking there'd be like, four

i'm still on area 3, haven't played in a few days

zeldacia3

2017-09-22 05:56:42 pm

Amateur Speedrunner, Roleplayer

technically 9 if you count the surface

Cantonbags04

Edit history:

Cantonbags04: 2017-09-22 06:40:44 pm

2017-09-22 06:40:27 pm

Samus Lauren

Whoops I thought there were ten areas. My bad. It is area 7 with the chozo labs.

zeldacia3

2017-09-22 06:41:19 pm

Amateur Speedrunner, Roleplayer

I'm at the first omega on fusion mode and it kicked my @ss

Turtle

2017-09-23 12:21:31 pm

I like turtles.

I just finished my first playthrough, a bit shy of 10 hours for all items. What a ride (especially since my 3DS circle pad detached about 25% of the way into it and hasn't been staying on well since).

There is a whole lot to like about this game. The visuals were almost 100% spot-on. I think maybe they ran out of time for a couple of the animations, namely wall- and space-jumping, which don't seem to be visually distinct from regular jumps in any way. All the boss counter animations are brilliant, cinematic without being outright QTE. The last blow on Diggernaut almost made it worth suffering through the rest of the fight. The cutscenes in the Ridley battle were just amazing. Scenery-wise they did a pretty good job varying up the backdrops, especially Area 4 and on. Samus's suit is still lookin' good, especially the Gravity Suit, newly resurrected from its death at the hands of the Purple Aura.

The movement for the most part feels much smoother than I was expecting from a modern action game, really not that far removed from ZM. I rarely felt like I was fighting the controls, which has occasionally been a problem in both Prime and Super, awesome though they both are. I think the new free-aim system is the star of the show. It's responsive and almost always very useful.

Aeion abilities were also better implemented than I dared to hope - way better, actually. They're all useful instead of being overly specific keys to overly specific locks as some other "newer" powerups in the series have been (*ahem*, Seeker Missiles). Rather, they can actually make large swaths of the game go much more smoothly (but are also almost completely optional to use!). Scan Pulse was a great replacement for map stations - made item hunting less tedious but I never felt it gave away too much.

The melee counter worked pretty well, especially once you recognize that there is a universal visual cue for bosses' parry-able attacks. Like the Aeion abilities, very rewarding to integrate into your playstyle but never overbearing.

The Metroid fights were very well done, nowhere near as tedious as in the original. Zetas and Omegas got an especially nice overhaul. Almost every enemy, boss or otherwise, feels "fair," where it's almost never not your fault for taking damage.

There are a couple of relatively minor gripes I have. There's a lack of a strong soundtrack for about 2/3 of the game areas (Chozo Laboratory and Lower Brinstar remix were awesome though). Diggernaut makes me want to barf with how poorly the devs communicated what they want you to do to damage him. The Instant Morph really needed a dedicated button rather than a touchscreen tap (I would have swapped it with Aeion ability toggle). Also, the loss of Speed Booster kind of bummed me out, I don't miss shinespark puzzles but I do miss the variability in movement speed it normally offers.

I'd say the biggest issues I had were both related to item collection:

The first is that too many "major" items are mandatory, which seems to reduce the replay value/appeal of low% runs somewhat. More than once I remember thinking that it was pretty lazy to lock doors behind an enemy requiring specific beams to kill, rather than just having the beams be skippable. Just removing beam locked doors by itself would make the game seem a lot more open, maybe even allowing for early Supers/Power Bombs, which would let you really get creative with routing.

My other complaint centered on item collection is that there is just WAY too much backtracking for 100%. Does anyone actually think it's fun to backtrack for items (sometimes inconveniently far from a teleport station or elevator) that they don't even need in most cases? Like, I had 264 missiles by the end of the game, and I don't think I ever once found myself running low on ammo even with half that amount. The amount of expansion padding approached Fusion's "of course you need 72 power bombs!" levels. Also re:missiles, as far as I could tell they don't even damage Ridley, so what was the point of adding missile expansions that can only be obtained after fighting the Queen, which seems to be the last time they're useful? Granted, I think just about every game in the series suffers from this to some degree, so it's hard to single this one out. I think it was probably made a bit more obnoxious than usual by those select few expansions that actually require the Baby Metroid to get. Like, I don't want to go on item hunt after it joins me, I want to just hurry up and finish the game.

I think it's inevitable to compare this game to AM2R if you played them both; I would give a slight edge to AM2R personally, basically for doing everything right in those same areas where SR fell down hardest. Morph ball controls were a joy, "derelict Chozo robot" bosses didn't feel cheap and badly telegraphed, backtracking was kept to a minimum and never required extensive map traversal, and plenty of items could be skipped altogether if you were creative/skillful enough to compensate. The biggest advantages SR has are the graphics and the Metroid fights, but I felt that AM2R didn't do those things badly, just not as well - while the above things that AM2R did better, SR did do kinda badly.

But I will definitely be playing this again in Hard and seeing what kind of time I can get for Any% (just hopefully when I can get a new 3DS with decent battery life and a circle pad that stays on).

I just finished my first playthrough, a bit shy of 10 hours for all items. What a ride (especially since my 3DS circle pad detached about 25% of the way into it and hasn't been staying on well since).

There is a whole lot to like about this game. The visuals were almost 100% spot-on. I think maybe they ran out of time for a couple of the animations, namely wall- and space-jumping, which don't seem to be visually distinct from regular jumps in any way. All the boss counter animations are brilliant, cinematic without being outright QTE. The last blow on Diggernaut [i]almost[/i] made it worth suffering through the rest of the fight. The cutscenes in the Ridley battle were just amazing. Scenery-wise they did a pretty good job varying up the backdrops, especially Area 4 and on. Samus's suit is still lookin' good, especially the Gravity Suit, newly resurrected from its death at the hands of the Purple Aura.

The movement for the most part feels much smoother than I was expecting from a modern action game, really not that far removed from ZM. I rarely felt like I was fighting the controls, which has occasionally been a problem in both [i]Prime[/i] and [i]Super[/i], awesome though they both are. I think the new free-aim system is the star of the show. It's responsive and almost always very useful.

Aeion abilities were also better implemented than I dared to hope - way better, actually. They're all [i]useful[/i] instead of being overly specific keys to overly specific locks as some other "newer" powerups in the series have been (*ahem*, Seeker Missiles). Rather, they can actually make large swaths of the game go much more smoothly (but are also almost completely optional to use!). Scan Pulse was a great replacement for map stations - made item hunting less tedious but I never felt it gave away too much.

The melee counter worked pretty well, especially once you recognize that there is a universal visual cue for bosses' parry-able attacks. Like the Aeion abilities, very rewarding to integrate into your playstyle but never overbearing.

The Metroid fights were very well done, nowhere near as tedious as in the original. Zetas and Omegas got an especially nice overhaul. Almost every enemy, boss or otherwise, feels "fair," where it's almost never not your fault for taking damage.

There are a couple of relatively minor gripes I have. There's a lack of a strong soundtrack for about 2/3 of the game areas (Chozo Laboratory and Lower Brinstar remix were awesome though). Diggernaut makes me want to barf with how poorly the devs communicated what they want you to do to damage him. The Instant Morph really needed a dedicated button rather than a touchscreen tap (I would have swapped it with Aeion ability toggle). Also, the loss of Speed Booster kind of bummed me out, I don't miss shinespark puzzles but I do miss the variability in movement speed it normally offers.

I'd say the biggest issues I had were both related to item collection:

The first is that too many "major" items are mandatory, which seems to reduce the replay value/appeal of low% runs somewhat. More than once I remember thinking that it was pretty lazy to lock doors behind an enemy requiring specific beams to kill, rather than just having the beams be skippable. Just removing beam locked doors by itself would make the game seem a lot more open, maybe even allowing for early Supers/Power Bombs, which would let you really get creative with routing.

My other complaint centered on item collection is that there is just [b]WAY[/b] too much backtracking for 100%. Does anyone actually think it's fun to backtrack for items (sometimes inconveniently far from a teleport station or elevator) that they don't even need in most cases? Like, I had 264 missiles by the end of the game, and I don't think I ever once found myself running low on ammo even with half that amount. The amount of expansion padding approached [i]Fusion's[/i] "of course you need 72 power bombs!" levels. Also re:missiles, as far as I could tell they don't even damage Ridley, so what was the point of adding missile expansions that can only be obtained [i]after[/i] fighting the Queen, which seems to be the last time they're useful? Granted, I think just about every game in the series suffers from this to some degree, so it's hard to single this one out. I think it was probably made a bit more obnoxious than usual by those select few expansions that actually require the Baby Metroid to get. Like, I don't want to go on item hunt after it joins me, I want to just hurry up and finish the game.

I think it's inevitable to compare this game to AM2R if you played them both; I would give a slight edge to AM2R personally, basically for doing everything right in those same areas where SR fell down hardest. Morph ball controls were a joy, "derelict Chozo robot" bosses didn't feel cheap and badly telegraphed, backtracking was kept to a minimum and never required extensive map traversal, and plenty of items could be skipped altogether if you were creative/skillful enough to compensate. The biggest advantages SR has are the graphics and the Metroid fights, but I felt that AM2R didn't do those things [i]badly[/i], just not as well - while the above things that AM2R did better, SR [i]did[/i] do kinda badly.

But I will definitely be playing this again in Hard and seeing what kind of time I can get for Any% (just hopefully when I can get a new 3DS with decent battery life and a circle pad that stays on).

zeldacia3

2017-09-23 01:08:23 pm

Amateur Speedrunner, Roleplayer

My best time currently 7 hours 12 minutes can't remember the seconds. this was from my run on fusion mode ironically XD

arkarian

2017-09-23 01:54:47 pm

red chamber dream

i ... have to say i don't understand why people don't like backtracking? you know it's a metroid game, right? like, 80% of the fun to any metroid game for me is running around the whole map after i have all the powerups, easily blasting through enemies, and finding hidden stuff.

arkarian

2017-09-23 01:55:04 pm

red chamber dream

plus the warps make it wayyyyy easier

arkarian

2017-09-23 01:57:22 pm

red chamber dream

metroid's not an action game, it's an exploration game. at least to me anyway

Serris

2017-09-23 02:14:41 pm

I guess the magic is lost because people just spam Scan Pulse and see exactly where every item and hidden block is, so they're more following instructions than exploring

While I do wish there was a separation between the map revealing and the blinking blocks features, it's also their own fault for using it so much

Then again there isn't much to getting leftover items other than going there and picking them up (literally the only thing I had to "figure out" was that dumb new secret move). You can really feel the lack of speedbooster there, those Shinespark puzzles did a lot to break the monotony of cleanup

arkarian

2017-09-23 02:30:04 pm

red chamber dream

that's true, it's disappointing to hear the speed booster isn't in this one

especially because i've seen what look like speed boster blocks ... maybe they're for super missiles

yes i'm still in area 3 lol

Idkbutlike2

2017-09-23 06:18:30 pm

Well, you have the power bomb boost, which is kind of its successor, I guess.