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Review: Metroid Fusion (GBA)
By Stephen Munn | June 16, 2007
GBA, 2001.
What is it?
The last episode in the Metroid timeline is Metroid Fusion, or Metroid 4. That makes this a direct sequel to Super Metroid, or Metroid 3. It’s a side-scrolling Metroid that’s very reminiscent of Metroid 3, bringing back a lot of the concepts that were invented for and popularized in that game. According to the story, Samus becomes infected with a strange organism called X while marching around on the surface of a planet as part of a mission with some soldiers. She’s unaware of what’s happened, but while flying her ship later, she blacks out. The gunship’s computer jettisons Samus to safety before her ship crashes to the planet below. When she’s recovered by medical government types, they find that the infection has caused the battle suit to become partly integrated with her body. This is a stretch as I don’t recall the suit ever being referred to as having biological elements in the past, but whatever. They surgically remove as much of her suit as possible and seal it in a container, then send it to a research station that’s in orbit above SR-388, the native planet of the metroids which Samus purged in Metroid II. A dramatically different looking Samus is dispatched to the station when an unexplained explosion makes things begin to go wrong on the station.
How does it play?
Gameplay in Metroid Fusion is pretty flawless. The set of moves Samus has are very impressive and comprehensive, and they’re not even all documented in the manual. For example, the wall jump. The wall jump is not required to play the game or complete it, and it’s never mentioned in the instruction manual. The idea is, you leap against a wall and spring off again and again, working your way up vertical channels in the station. It’s very cool, and a lot of fun, but in practice, I found it nearly impossible to pull off. Doing a 100% run in the game, I only needed to execute the wall jump once to collect a single missile expansion, but it took me at least 100 tries to spring back and forth the four or five times needed to reach the item, and I’m not convinced it wouldn’t take me as many to pull it off a second time.
I hate Samus’ fusion suit. I know it’s supposed to be a combination between the flight suit (the skin-tight blue suit she’s wearing that’s called the “Zero Suit” in Super Smash Bros Brawl) and the orange chozo battle suit, but more liberties could have been taken with the color scheme and design to make it less ridiculous. I can appreciate their desire to make a change, but the result here is pretty unsightly.
The biggest complaint most people have about Fusion though is how linear the game feels. It takes place inside a huge space station, which at least at the beginning is mostly corridors and tunnels. There are a lot of locked doors in the beginning and you’re at the mercy of orders that are delivered by a computer who only opens doors when it’s ready for you to perform a mission. Near the end of the game this changes and with some exploration you can find your way just about anywhere in the station if you’re determined enough to do so. Personally, I think this structure is perfect for this game. The plotline does a great job of making you feel trapped in your circumstances and horribly outmatched, which is really what we look for in these games. Particularly as things begin to unravel and you start to figure out what’s really going on, the game gets a solid grip on you and that’s very important.
How does it look and sound?
Metroid Fusion is the best looking and sounding 2D Metroid game, and this series has been no slouch. The scenery, objects, and enemies are so meticulously designed that there were times, even now a generation later, that I was just amazed at what the developers pulled off on the GBA, which has so often been used for SNES ports that I sometimes forget how much more powerful than that it is. The sound is really fantastic too, and you’re given an option when loading a game to play the game in mono or stereo. The intent for this was for those using headphones to have an optimal experience, and it’s an impressive feature for a console that actually only had one speaker. There is a pretty troubling flaw in the system though: the game doesn’t retain your setting, so if you’re playing the game on a DS Lite as I did, and you want the nice stereo sound (since the DS has two speakers) you need to set it every time you load the game, as it defaults to mono.
How is the replay value?
I would say it’s very, very strong. Metroid Fusion offers you more than 2000 hit points across 20 energy tanks, 250 missiles across 48 missile tank expansions, 72 power bombs across 32 power bomb tank expansions, loads of different weapons and abilities, expansive hidden areas that you could complete the game without even being aware of… the game is a collector’s paradise. The first time through the game I completed it in about seven and a half hours, with 10 energy tanks, 29 missile expansions, and only 5 power bomb tanks. My second trip through the game was a 100% run using a guide, and it took me less than four and a half hours. If I wasn’t using the guide, and I insisted on getting everything, it would likely have taken me tens of hours to find everything and figure out the tricks to get at the items.
Additionally, if you have Metroid Zero Mission or Metroid Prime, there are bonuses if you link the games together. After completing Metroid Fusion, linking to Metroid Prime unlocks the ugly Fusion suit in Prime (despite the fact that this is a major anachronism). If you complete Prime, linking up to Metroid Fusion unlocks the original NES Metroid game, with a save function added in, for play on the Prime disc. Link Fusion to Zero Mission, and all the unlockable artwork in Fusion will appear in Zero Mission’s gallery. A pretty comprehensive set of bonus features, actually.
Is it worth it?
If you’re not a Metroid fan, you might not like the game, as it adheres to a lot of the series standards which were later absorbed by the Castlevania franchise, another of my favorites. These include the whole get-the-powerup-to-get-past-this-thing idea. One thing Metroid always has over Castlevania is that “I’m invincible” feeling you get at the end of the game when you’re packing serious firepower and lots of energy tanks. Castlevania never makes you so powerful that the end bosses become particularly easy, but Metroid rewards your exploration by making end bosses a pushover to a powerful Samus, and Fusion is no exception. The very last battle in the game, for example, is not hard to complete with full life.
Metroid Fusion, like so many early GBA titles, is sadly out of print. That said, it should be easy enough to find used at less than $15 from the usual places, because the game was pretty popular. If you’re a Metroid fan, it’s a no-brainer, and I don’t understand why you don’t already own the game. Pick the game up and play it on a DS Lite. The impressive visuals really pop on the bright backlit screen, and control is tighter with the better D-pad Nintendo put into the DS Lite, when compared to the various GBAs. I played it on an SP the first time around and it’s an amazing difference, looking far better on a Lite than it does on an SP or even a TV with a Game Boy Player.
I give Metroid Fusion four point five out of five.
3 Comments »
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Comment by TheBrain — June 16, 2007 @ 11:03 am
I really enjoyed this game. They better put out a 2D DS Metroid or I’ll cry. Hunters just didn’t cut it.
Also, why do I feel like I’m the only person who doesn’t understand/ignores the storyline in the Metroid games? The story seems so very buried. I don’t know much more than: Samus is a bounty hunter, Metroids like people’s faces, Ridley doesn’t die, and space stations/ships ALWAYS self-destruct..and I’ve beat every Metroid to date save the very first two.
Comment by Stephen Munn — June 16, 2007 @ 5:09 pm
Actually, I felt that the story was very much in the foreground of this game. There’s a surprising amount of dialog in the game, and Samus actually speaks in the game a few times, which surprised me. In other games, including Prime, the only communication she seemed to do was through log entries.
The difference is a bit more dramatic in Metroid Zero Mission because it’s easy to contrast it against the original Metroid.
Comment by John H. — June 16, 2007 @ 5:39 pm
Hm, it’s my opinion that Fusion is the weakest game in the series. It’s the only game that locks off major portions of the world at some point, meaning you cannot stop just before the last boss and go back and look for everything you missed.
Also, the Metroid games have always limited initial exploration organically, by keeping places he’s not ready for locked off by requiring the use of later powerups, instead of just sealing them off with doors that unlock, and relock, as the plot demands. There might not seem to be a lot of difference between these two progress-limiting methods at first, but to this player it is a big deal.
Finally, Fusion changed so many things in Metroid’s story that, since then, ALL the Metroid games, five of ‘em, are prequels.
Notice that Smash Bros. Melee copied the original design for Samus instead of the globby green look, and looks like Brawl will do the same. It cannot be denied: Samus’ new look is -unpopular-, and there’s not a lot of enthusiasm for the new direction Fusion took the series’ story. They’re probably biding their time before Metroid 5, trying to figure out how best to backspace back past Fusion’s over-broad story changes.
They’ll do it eventually, of course. But it won’t be easy.