Metroid Fusion was the first in the series released on the Game Boy Advance and the first after Super Metroid. It features numerous changes from previous Metroid titles, not only in mechanics but on Samus herself, as the opening leaves her forever changed from the bounty hunter we’d come to know.
ROUND-UP:
REVIEW-UP:
Nintendo Research & Development 1, the team responsible for Super Metroid and the original Metroid, developed Metroid Fusion. During the game’s early stages and while brainstorming for ideas, Director Yoshio Sakamoto decided early on to focus on a new storyline instead of remaking an old game (which they would later do with Metroid: Zero Mission), as he felt new ideas would inspire and challenge their designers and developers and make them look forward to public reaction.
Metroid Fusion, along with Metroid Prime, were the first experiences I had with the franchise and, while the latter showed me what a 3D title could do and became my measuring stick for all 3D Metroid games to come, Fusion showed me what the core old-school gameplay was like. It hooked me onto Samus Aran and made me want to play all previous titles in the series, including the original on the NES.
The game opens up with Samus accompanying Federation scientists into planet SR388. While studying native species a strange parasite attacks them and leaves our heroine unconscious; Federation forces collect her and find her entire system is infected by this creature, codenamed Parasite-X. Worse still, it has made the biological and mechanical parts of her armour fuse together, forcing medical officers to surgically remove as much as possible and forever changing the appearance of her Chozo Powersuit. To save Samus from being consumed by the parasite, they inject her with a cure made from Metroid DNA to render her immune, as Metroids were Parasite-X’s predators. Better still, the DNA in her allows her to absord X’s to heal and recover her suit’s resources; but it comes at the price of inheriting the Metroids’ vulnerability to cold.
Unlike other games in the series, it’s not the lack of power-ups that stops your progress from one area to another. Instead you are given access levels, gradually opening up the way for you and making Fusion feel less open than you’d expect from Metroid titles. This mechanic supports the new mission structure, where your progress is objective-based; you’re sent to new locations, generally map rooms, to get the details on your current assignment which, while it is a valid plot structuring method, makes the game feel rather linear. It’s made even worse with the missions determining when you’ll get upgrades. Only expansions remain as a means to further exploration.
These locked doors don’t depend on weaponry, but on access level.
Apart from that downside, the game is solid in both control and mechanics, with Fusion taking the best of Super Metroid and bringing it to a new audience. In addition it adds the Parasite-X mechanics and the ice vulnerability into the mix, making for a familiar yet completely new experience even for Metroid veterans.
As for the plot, it’s not the most complex the plot in the series’ history, but it is very intriguing. This is especially the case once you are aware of Parasite-X’s ability to mimic the shape of any creature it has infected (all enemies and bosses you find are Xs, transformed into other beings), and you meet SA-X, the parasite version of Samus, made from the contaminated parts of her Powersuit the Federation removed.
SA-X looks like classic Samus and is just as deadly.
This was the first game to give Samus a voice, an opinion, in the form of written monologues during certain elevator rides as she reminisces about her past and considers the implications of her mission. The monologues give you a glimpse of what she is thinking without it ever taking precedence over the gameplay and the mission. That’s the reason they work, as they are only small moments of insight that neither break the character (which Metroid: Other M did) nor take away from the story.
Visually this is a beautifully-looking title but unlike Super Metroid, with its dark colours and shadows, Fusion opts for brighter colours. However, in places like the Space Station decks, these make the areas look almost sterile which, combined with how empty the place is, gives it all a very disturbing feel. The apparent lack of music, during your first moments in the station, supports this eerie feeling.
Thankfully these are still around, otherwise all upgrades would be story-dependent.
Metroid Fusion is a pretty damn good game with extreme linearity being its major flaw, the title gating your progress in an unnatural un-Metroid kind of way. But if you can look past it, the experience is fantastic and one all gamers should have, be they veterans or newcomers to the series.
RATING-UP:
How did we reach these scores? Click here for a guide to our ratings.
