RePlay Series #1: Metroid II: Return of Samus

RePlay Series #1

So this is my first game review-ish like thing, so we will see how it goes. I'm not really going to get to critical here just some of my random thoughts about the game going over the things I enjoyed or talking about the things that I think could have been done better. So anyway with that said, lets get started.

Today I will be talking about:

 This is a game that I didn't have during my original DMG days but I did pick it up in the late 90's when I got my Gameboy Pocket. I think that was better though as this game is pretty hard for a 7 year old which is how old I would have been had I got it in 1991 when the game was released, in the US. Fun fact Metroid II was not released in Japan until January 1992, so yea its only 2 months later but I feel like most Nintendo releases would release in Japan first. 

So back to the game, what makes Metroid II so good? Well to start off it looks amazing. Graphically it is very nice the Samus sprite is very large and has very nice animation. The bigger enemies are also impressive to look at. 

Then there is the music, man the music, its perfect for a Metroid game. It sets the tone and makes you feel strong and powerful but then also at the same time alone and vulnerable. The overall sound effects are kind of hit or miss but the music more that makes up for it in my opinion.

Another really cool part of the game has to do with the save feature for the game. This game is not easy and will also, for most, take more than one sitting to get through. The original Metroid had a save feature on the Famicom Disk System and on the NES there was a password system. It was better than no save feature at all but the down side of this was that you always started from the beginning of the game, the only difference would be that you would retain your power ups. When Metroid II came out they were able to ditch the password system and take advantage of battery backed saving, which is much better than trying to remember those long and random passwords. To do this the game has save points located though out the world where you can choose to save the game as well as heal and restore your missiles. When you continue the game it will start Samus at exactly that point. This style of saving and continuing from that point would remain the same in all the Metroid games to come.

While you still could not shoot diagonally, another improvement for the series was the ability for Samus to crouch. Doesn't sound like much but in the first game you simply couldn't do this. With many of the enemies being shorter than your shot meaning you would need to wait for them to climb a wall, position your self under them or place a bomb in the right spot and wait and this always really annoyed me. Perhaps more than it should have but none the less there you are. So this is just a small thing but I wanted to mention it. 

The game is all about exploration its not so much about fighting the enemies its more about finding secrets and locating and defeating Metroids which, in turn, will open up more of the map. However that said the last battle with the Queen Metroid is pretty epic and will take some actual thought as well as skill. The series took a lot of influence from the Alien movie franchise and I think it showed even more in this second game. 

Whats wrong with the game? Honestly not much really the only things I can say in a negative way are somewhat related. First being that the different areas do tend to blend together, it would have been nice if the areas could have been a little more different in their appearance. The other thing that was missing from the game was a world map. With the areas being so similar it is pretty easy to forget where exactly you are and where you need to go, the problem is made bigger when you return to your save file after a few days have gone by. To be fair the first game in the series also had this issue and world maps were not a thing for Metroid games until Metroid 3 "Super Metroid" for the Super Nintendo and Super Famicom. 

On a personal level, this game always reminds me of the time that I was flying to Iowa for a hockey tournament. I brought along this game and was playing it on the plane, there were two farmers, I guess they were farmers anyway, sitting behind me and I kid you not they talked about corn the entire 3 hour flight. If it wasn't for this game I don't know if I would have been able to stand it. Anyway now every time I play Metroid II I think about being in an airplane. 

I realize that a lot of what I talked about was the difference between this game and the first game that was on home consoles but I feel like the original Metroid was a game that many people played and I wanted to explain some of the differences and similarities between the two games. Like I said these reviews are going to be more random in nature. So in conclusion print yourself out a world map or grab a guide book and pop this sucker into your Gameboy. You wont be sorry.