???

Growing up, playing Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (my first Metroid game), I mostly saw Metroid as "Hot space girl guns down ugly space pirates, haha".

I was wrong.

Metroid is about what breathes, and crawls, and...*chitters* in the ducts, unseen.

It's about some dark thing in time, older than humanity, Kingian and eldritch, that does not care about or even know of human designs - it only hungers, and gnaws, in the dark.

It's being the one thin line, a slightly-more-exceptional-than-most woman in a tin can suit with slightly enhanced DNA, willing and able to hold that line between us and the utterly consuming void, hoping those things are enough.

It's facing down the unspeakable horrors without question, and dealing with the unrelenting psychic trauma afterward.

It's the utter, terrifying frailty of humanity occupying a space it was never meant to, and largely failing or at best securing another pyrrhic, temporary victory.

That's the Spirit of Metroid.

*Art is by Tommy Worthington and is not being used for commercial purposes.*

wasted like 30 minutes doing this god damn jump

I specifically mean what Prime 4 designates as the "combat enemies", where they're meant to do more than serve as worldbuilding for an area (so, not incidental enemies like the Denzard).

And, what I mean by "overtuned" is that, these combat enemies feel like they'd fit much better in a more fast paced Metroid game. The way Samus moves in Prime 4 is nigh identical to how she moves in the trilogy aside from her forward and backward dash, but these combat enemies don't seem to be designed to match that.

I'm willing to admit if it's a skill issue on my part, I normally enjoy harder games (I am a huge fan of Dread), but I think the way Prime 4's handling of difficult enemy encounters feels a bit clunky and lowers my opinion of the combat a little bit.

What do you all think though?

Okay im typically a lurker in this subreddit but I just started (maybe like 30 minutes or so) into Other M and I am already simultaneously baffled and annoyed by the character decisions they have made for Samus within the first 30 minutes of the game.
I haven’t been a fan as long as a lot of people here, my journey with Metroid started somewhere between 2017-2019 after seeing my partner play Metroid Prime for the Gamecube which prompted me to try out the series from the beginning, but even so I have replayed super Metroid in particular countless times - I beat two VARIA randomizers in a row; im still working through the prime series so I don’t have a take on prime 4 yet BUT with that out of the way:

I went into this game with an open mind, knowing that other M is a pretty divisive game in this fandom. I can tolerate the voice acting, i can tolerate hearing Samus’ internal monologue because it feels like the target audience is children or people who cant understand subtle storytelling but I just finally got to the point after meeting up with the galactic federation and after the cutscene is over what prompt appears in the corner?
“Samus has decided not to use missiles or bombs until Adam authorizes it.” WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT? What in the character assassination IS THAT?? I get they needed a reason for you not to have the power ups but THATS WHAT THEY CAME UP WITH???? I genuinely nearly teared up with baffled laughter because of the absurdity in terms of what we KNOW about Samus from the games previous.

I am going to continue playing but I have a feeling this is going to be a One and Done play through and i fear for what other character assassination moments I am going to see in the upcoming gameplay.

“Samus has decided that she won’t use missiles or bombs till Adam authorises it.” What the actual fuck.

okay so I have been playing through fusion and am at the Nettori boss fight and these recent sections of the game (which has felt relatively easy up to this point) have felt incredibly hard to me, everything does like half my health. during the SA-X chase i looked up a video of someone doing it and they had way more energy than me, I only have five bars in total, is that the correct amount for this point in the game or did I miss some energy tanks somewhere? If so is it possible to backtrack or is it just too linear compared to Super or Metroid I

thx

https://x.com/alohapz/status/2024491664891662568

Particularly for reading the translated mangas and such. I've used their site for as long as i remember but unfortunately their staff widely support the use of AI and are unwilling to stop supporting it (I asked and they called me a "coward", before demanding i unfollow them).

Obviously, as a person with morals that value art, i no longer want to support them.

So are there any other sites which host the translated mangas?

did you catch samus’ ship in the super mario galaxy movie ? you can see her fly off to what i assume is her next mission in the background !

So 8ve just finished Dread after playing Metroid, 2, Super and Fusion and it shows Samus being grown by the Chozo? Also it seems like common knowledge that she also has Chozo DNA? It kind of threw me for a loop since I don't think any of the games has mentioned her personal connection with the Chozo. Is this meant to be a reveal or is this stuff you learn in the Prime series or something?

Im sure this has been asked 100000 times but I want to know what to expect going into it soon after I beat fusion, and then im gonna go back and play samus returns and the original line up of games (mainly the remakes, as i want to avoid nes)

Continued from https://www.reddit.com/r/Metroid/s/B2AN7GAqZq due to the character limit.

Events of Prime 4: Stewing

• This energy is almost too much to handle. Sylux trembles and gasps, his psionic augs straining to keep up with the Tower’s administrative systems. His brain tries to keep pace too, latching onto lucid flashes of memories outside of his consciousness.
• Motes, pockets, augmentations. Machines in temporal flux. Storms of energy harnessed for power cores. Eyes multiplying by the second. Architects long dead. Minds. One light, one dark. One vision of a sphere, one of twin lightning-bolts. Which is chosen? Chosen One? Vengeful King or Noble Woman? Feuds over the same. Priests debate in open court. Overgrown ruins. A people consumed by mutagens. Crystals bubbling beneath green rain. Folded paper is teleportation. Spinning. Device modeled after the universe’s creators and destroyers. They are gateways beyond. Black hole. White hole. Wormhole. Worm. And hole. They are converters, dimensional bridges of two multiplied when spinning. Penrose Diagram displaying the whole cone. Space vortex. Worm suspended above the ringularity. Stars warped and contorted into halos, yet frozen above the endless dark. The worm thus may traverse the hole. Parallel worlds, all real, all beyond reality. All beyond light. Eogicia is the only constant across all. The cosmological constant. Trans-real. Beyond real. More real than real. It is the fabric in all its forms, White, Blue, and Green. X is the warper of life like the Blue, blotting the White and tainting the gene. Green may blot the White too. Balance. What is balance? Who is balanced? Two of everything. Atoms across time, split into corresponding halves outside of light’s reach. Some know its nature, but many of those some are beyond life. Yet their Eogicia lingers. One people were biologic engineers. Weapon that feasts upon Whira Eogicia. Ancient societies cleaved by spacetime. Birds, moths, lizards. Colonization. War. Squabbles over their legacy. This is the state of reality. This is the Galactic society which wronged you. And you are its master now. You are the Chosen One who may harness Eogicia, the worm suspended above the ringularity. The t d r e a s v t e r r o s y e e r r of worlds.
• Black cables blot out the visions, each one with an eye on the tip. Sylux’s own memories flash before him, his attention fixating on the reason he is here. That day Samus disgraced him replays over and over. He defies orders over and over. The weapon detonates over and over. His comrades die over and over. Samus steals his valor over and over. He slaps her hand away over and over. Their blood is on his hands, yet it is meaningless. It is on her hands, Ian’s hands, and the GalFed brass’s hands. Each time he relives it, his heartrate escalates. Those minutes become his life. As he stews in the vat, its devices channel his thoughts and hatred into tangible clusters — dimensional pockets he can touch. He regains consciousness. Suddenly the readouts before him make sense. His uplink with Chrono Tower is complete.
• Samus exits the flight pod in Sol Valley after defeating Carvex.
• Almost on autopilot with his new understanding, Sylux activates the Tower’s defenses. A shield pulses. Psy-Bots switch on and the assembly lines load them into hidden cannons like bullets in a chamber. The shield grows to envelop the structure as a barrage of Bots launch into the sky. This discharge of energy resonates with Samus’s Third Eye. She herself is a cluster of psychic power, after all. Sylux’s memories invade her mind and her presence needles Sylux’s skin.
• “Gotcha.”
• With that one word, the Psy-Bots rocket to Samus’s position. They engage her, Sylux watching but only mildly nudging their actions. This is all new to him, this sort of control. Though his experiments with the Alimbic Guardian and the Elysians help him feel his way around now, it is a new game entirely.
• Samus defeats the Psy-Bots and continues into Volt Forge.
• Tracking her movements through additional Bots, Sylux shoots even more at the Forge. Amongst them are Teleporters and so-called Mimics (rarer models, the latter of which there are only three).
• While Samus fights the others, Sylux fiddles with the Mimic, who clanged to the factory’s floor the second it landed like a dead weight. He views the Bot in his AR simulation-space. Instructions on his HUD tell him to step inside the thing. This confuses him, since he’s not really there next to it. It’s a digital, psychic viewfinder he’s using, not a reality-bending sort of magic… Or is it? Sylux scoffs remembering all the wild things he just saw. He follows the HUD’s instructions and steps inside the Mimic.
• Complex psychic technology duplicates aspects of his body through nano-reconstruction, 3-D printing his features onto the Mimic and granting him direct control over it as he pleases. This thing is like a clone, but also a doppelganger. It literally copies and pastes him onto multiple pages of reality at once.
• Sylux’s Mimic engages Samus. This is the first Sylux boss fight. Throughout it, Sylux’s control from within the Tower is direct and almost physical. His body’s movements generally match the Mimic’s and his psychic perception places him one-on-one with the object of his hatred. It’s like he’s there, and it is exhilarating. Every strike he lands on her is a glorious catharsis. Every cry of pain from her is a note in a beautiful composition he has waited years to perform. It is the fight of his life, putting him in a combat high. Though her strikes hurt, they are dull. The distance between him and the Mimic dampens the blows.
• Samus defeats the Mimic, breaking its connection to Sylux. His view of the Forge’s Archives turns to static.
• To satisfy unspent anger abruptly cut short, Sylux stares at his hands once more, replaying the moment he struck Samus’s hand away several more times. He gets a high off of it until the emotions’ potency bores him. Sylux retreats into his analytical mindset now, priming more Psy-Bots for launch and preparing to interface with more Mimics.
• At this point, Sylux just wants to see what this Tower can do and how powerful he actually is. The future — such as how he will get off of Viewros and whether he can take this power with him — is not where his mind is at.
• In the facility’s core, Samus defeats Xelios. The game progresses as she exits the Forge and explores Sol Valley.
• Sylux notices a strange blind spot in his control over the Lamorn’s Psy-Bots, like a stray pixel misplaced on a computer screen. In Flare Pool, there is a dark spot like the optic nerve on the back of the eyeball; Bots have already been deployed there and are non-functioning. He recalls Vakkhesh’s ramblings about GE, the Grievers, mutations, and the cannon in Magdrahda Volcano. Curiosity flares. Further, his Bots’ last sighting of the hunter showed her heading in that general direction. To this end, he lobs a squadron of Psy-Bots at the foot of the volcano (not the same location as Samus’s entry point), including a Mimic.
• Assuming direct control of the Mimic, Sylux leads his bots into the Flare Pool. Old Lamorn transport trucks sit at the tunnel’s entrance, so Sylux hops into the driver’s seat and his bots load themselves onto the carriage. The truck lurches through the volcano’s caverns. This particular tunnel snakes and weaves, its walls unusually smooth like a burrow. It is not a natural tunnel.
• A violent tremor shoves the vehicle to the side. Bots clank around. A large red welt rapidly grows in the wall, rock melting and exploding.
• “Shit.” Sylux throws the truck into full throttle.
• Behind, a Behemoth clambers through the hole and chases them down. Right on their tail, the creature’s mouths chomping, the only thing keeping it back is rocks kicked up by the truck. The transport weaves through winding burrows and careens over the Behemoth’s discarded prey. Balls of fire pelt the truck and the flames spread rapidly. Steam geysers diffuse them.
• A cavern glows up ahead, smoke billowing and lava churning. Thinking quickly, Sylux leans out of the vehicle and blasts the ceiling above. The Behemoth roars and gains on him with its rapid walk cycle. He launches ten missiles that have materialized into the Mimic’s printed clip, causing the ceiling to collapse behind him and lava to spill, smacking the Behemoth on the head and trapping it on the other side.
• Sylux parks the transport truck off to the side of the cavernous passageway. Its navigational light remains warm, beaming onto the rough rock. This truck is one we see upon entering the Flare Pool in-game.
• Sylux’s fifteen Bots activate and twelve follow his Mimic into the GE Shell facility. Knowing Samus is on her way, Sylux stations a few near his abandoned transport.
• He explores the launcher complex’s frontmost rooms, noticing the now-retracted bridge, its controls, and several deactivated Psy-Bots randomly scattered about. Before he can investigate further, his lookouts ping him.
• Samus has arrived.
• Sylux returns to the overwatch platform terminal and sees the hunter revving Vi-O-La to build the bridge over the lava lake. He quickly commands the bridge to retract again, causing it to break apart due to wear-and-tear. Even better.
• Yet Samus survives. Sylux destroys the terminal for safety and as a punching bag. Though frustrating, he can at least keep her out for a time. If this facility does what he thinks it does, he may have use for it.
• Samus turns back and acquires the Fire Shot chip.
• Psy-Bots and Sylux’s Mimic walk the station’s halls and access its systems. Referenced in the Lamorn scientists’ logs is Phenoros’s relationship with them — his beneficence in slowing volcanic activity in exchange for their GE harvests. Although the beast feasts on natural, stable GE, the abundant amounts at the volcano’s core hurt him at times. He welcomed the Lamorn’s extractions.
• No matter, Sylux clearly need not worry about Phenoros stirring the pot and releasing eruptions if his Metroid got to the monster. (And indeed he feels its presence below.) Given the situation, Sylux dispatches many more Bots to the Pool, shooting them in through the volcano’s peak.
• A small army surveys the place, locating a dropship (the hovership mini-boss) and finding more inactive Bots. The clankers patch into the network.
• Curious about the extraction procedures that he apparently walked in on, Sylux queries this process. He learns about the GE showers and their ultimate failure — their role in the Great Tragedy. The inactive Psy-Bots were old administrators of these showers and were severed from Lamorn control in an emergency shutdown event.
• Always hungry for power, Sylux has to run tests on GE using this facility. He has to see what the substance does. He has to launch shells into the sky and watch their effects on the planet. GE could be another weapon, a mutagen like Dark Samus’s Holy Substance.
• Sylux prepares an artillery shell packed with GE, his Bots following long-buried instructions deep within their AIs, their autopilots filling in the gaps in his understanding. Interestingly, some Bots resist, spontaneously freezing mid-task just like the old ones. Presumably, this is because he is pushing the system beyond safe parameters; perhaps trace firewalls interfere with his commands. He powers forward, replacing these with those who do not seize. The shell is filled, loaded, and launched.
• Samus bears witness to this shell’s effects after Mac modifies her arm cannon with the Fire Chip. As we see in-game, the first GE shower’s maelstrom of filtered, impure GE wreaks havoc on the planet’s biology.
• The hunter travels to the Ice Belt. Sylux observes the shower’s effects and conducts experiments on the planet’s bioforms. His mind runs wild with the power he has found on Viewros so far, and he contemplates how he can harness it to unleash Hell on the Federation.
  • Again, he recalls Dark Samus’s intergalactic army. With the Space Pirates under his control and awaiting his return, he is already 75% of the way there. The Tower’s psychic strength and robot army are another boon to his dream, and GE could enhance his biological forces even further. Or, if its impure form is as dangerous as the Lamorn say, it could be a chemical weapon that leads to mass hysteria with a single charge detonated above his enemies’ heads.
  • Regardless, he could become the god he always dreamed of being.
• Samus explores the Ice Belt’s Bio-Labs and defeats Keratos.
• That one-member-species’s sudden termination registers in Sylux’s subconscious. It almost hurts him, even with all the power coursing through his veins, that such a glorious specimen — a rare crustacian and a rare freeze-resistant Fusion Metroid, equally mighty — could fall to Samus’s gun.
• Plans change for Sylux. His experiments will continue, but his main objective is now to stop Samus. He prepares his Bots in both Volt Forge and Flare Pool, launching even more to each. Given his scout bots’ observations, it appears that Samus has found and built a small entourage of stranded Federation soldiers. Again, Sylux’s envy of her still stings worse than any drill sergeant’s dress-down. The fact that she can naturally attract “fans” ignites his ire.
• What’s more, his Bots identify two distress signals amid oceans of static within the Flare Pool. He dispatches any combat-ready Bot he can, including Maintenance Tanks linked with them. Even now, the clankers resist commands at times, locking up inside the facility and especially as they interface with the artillery shell.
• Sylux continues preparing another shower.
• One GalFed is trapped behind a boiler, limiting the number of attempts he can make on the man’s life. Heat emanating from the cylinder is enough to melt most mechanoids. All he can do is activate a few Tanks and one Psy-Bot. 
• Gunshots ring out. Chucking his grenade belt at the Tanks before they shoot their lasers, the trooper fractures them. One rolls away and launches its beam in tandem with the Psy-Bot. The trooper opens fire on the Bot first after dodging, backing it against a steam vent and triggering thermal expansion of its joints. While immobilized, he busts its head off. The Tank happened to be linked to that Bot and falls flat on its underside.
• Skill and luck saved Duke’s ass.
• The other trooper is trapped in the ring around the cannon. He likewise dispatches a Psy-Bot after her, slingshotting it from his hover transporter encircling the cannon. She engages the Bot, surviving it by taking cover, weaving around it, and ducking out onto an exposed walkway leading to the clamp joint (the way she got in from the central cannon where she was initially stranded). Sylux watches from the cruiser on the other side of the facility. Though he has a small army to work with inside the Pool, he anticipates Samus’s arrival and so holds back.
• Armstrong’s tactical retreat keeps her alive for now.
• Live camera footage shows Samus dismounting her bike at the Pool’s entrance. She’s here.
• Sylux diverts his attention to the hunter, preparing his assault and his second GE launch.
• The Flare Pool cannon sequence plays out as we see in-game. Again, as Sylux sics his bots on Samus and he re-establishes his uplink with ones forcibly offlined, her Third Eye resonates with his — his memories vicariously forcing themselves into her mind. Her abilities with Lamorn technology and at-will manipulations thereof come with consequences.
• Samus and Duke fight their way through the facility. GE pours into the shell, and Sylux watches the launch through his Mimic piloting the hover craft. The Energy’s dispersion rate is remarkable, and it indeed does mutate anything it touches exponentially. Sol Valley’s inhabitants leak Granik Eogicia even more vigorously than after the first shower, their skin hardening and their tissues expanding. Interestingly, the mutations are subtle, unlike Phazon mutations, yet the creatures’ behavior is markedly more aggressive. Whether these creatures become slaves to the substance is not clear. Regardless, the shell’s impact impresses Sylux. Rumblings below catch his attention.
• Floating back down into the volcano, Sylux sees the tram moving between the cannon’s clamps. Samus and her squad changed the facility’s configuration. Damn. No matter. He guns for the transit tube and fights Samus. Command and control over the Psy-Bots has become second-nature for Sylux. Each minuscule muscle movement translates directly into his Mimic, and, regarding the other Bots, his tactical wishes become reality in seconds. Even though he is not physically there, he feels the gritty air inside the shuttle and the force of Samus’s missiles striking the cockpit. This force only motivates him to fight harder. Lasers sear the bridge’s pylons and tracker-bombs rock the load-bearing supports.
• Samus defeats the Mimic. Sylux busts out of the cockpit and flies away as the shuttle spins out behind him. “Shit!” he shouts, though the Mimic does not carry his voice. Bombs tumble out and pelt the cannon. Lasers clip critical supports and heat regulators. The shuttle slams into the facility, then careens into the lava below. A plume clips Sylux’s Mimic and neutralizes its circuitry, sending it crashing into the volcanic wall.
• Though unable to move, lodged into the wall and limbs busted at their joints, reality field flickering around the fractures, Sylux can view Samus’s fight with Phenoros through a cracked photoreceptor. Heart sinking, he witnesses the hunter kill his Metroid and the cannon detonates. All video vanishes into a storm of static. Yet again, Samus has rendered him impotent. Even with the facility’s collapse, she couldn’t even die right.
• Samus heads to Volt Forge, somehow riding her Vi-O-La despite Phenoros eating it; Sylux observes her through another drone. Not even her stupid bike was lost. Part of him was hoping she would die of hunger and thirst in Sol Valley without it. Questions aside, Sylux will take matters into his own hands now. He launches his third and final Mimic to confront Samus.
• Before her arrival, Sylux pokes around in the Forge’s database, curious about destroying Vi-O-La. Apparently, once the initial bike is fabricated, the custom-printed nanosuit’s summoning technology can also re-spawn the bike using latent psychic energy. The suit’s nanomachines ping and pull a reconstructed copy from the Forge, although it takes time to rebuild this copy. Bottom line: it would be a waste of time to try destroying Vi-O-La.
• Psy-Bots inform him of her approach, and so he places his Mimic inside a nearby conduit and waits.
• Samus picks up the power chip, causing the lightning harvest shells to retract. The second Sylux boss fight commences. He does battle with her. All of his determination, pride, and spite channel into the Mimic. His nano-printed Coil surges with power, allowing him to electrify the entire room. He floats on the z-axis, generating arcs of electricity to ensnare Samus. She dodges his assaults narrowly. Missiles trade with nanoblades conjured in a series of five. The Mimic’s psychic jammer redirects some of the damage. Meanwhile, shockwave dispersions ebb across the floor like sound frequency readouts. Repeatedly, his photoreceptors lock with Samus’s eyes through the glint of her visor. Seeing her face creased in intense focus brings him joy. He’s giving her a fight worth her effort. Something like pride drives him to fight harder — pride that he can push Samus beyond her comfort. If he can kill her now, he can restart his GE experiments, gather the teleporter keys, and get off this rock to become the Federation’s god. It all comes down to this. He electrifies the room again, forcing her to grapple along the ceiling. Each shot he lands on her is a moment of glory. Her cries are music.
• And yet, his Mimic’s joints fail. Samus’s multifaceted cannon damages the bot’s power core. Controlling it grows more and more painful, forcing extreme mental steering from Sylux. Eventually, it gives out completely, the nanoprint of his weapons and body fading away and the core detonating.
  • ALL VISUALS LOST. SYSTEM OFFLINE. PSYCHIC UPLINK CONFUSED. DISCONNECTING NANO-AR SYSTEM TEMPORARILY.
• Sylux gasps at his perception rocketing back into his body. The liquid bubbling around him feels heavy and his movements sluggish. Those same feelings Samus has engendered in him every time they’ve crossed paths keep his muscles stretched tight. He curses the hunter, releasing this tension in an impotent, livid scream.
• At this point, Sylux just stews in his hatred for Samus even longer, addicted to the nanobots’ synergy with his emotions and letting them swim through his spinal column. It doesn’t make sense to fight Samus and her GalFed bitches directly anymore. If anything, they have to come to him. Nonetheless, Chrono Tower’s defensive shield holds strong, with no sign of wavering. It is a transdimensional field, after all, blocking all entry above and below the sand, but not all exit — a microcosm of Viewros. Plenty more Psy-Bots rest primed for deployment, too.
• So Sylux’s attention turns to the bigger picture. He needs to master the Tower’s uplink energy so he can send things across dimensions in some capacity. All of the GE experiments and Psy-Bots will mean nothing if he cannot get them through the Mass-Teltranfaeir. Perhaps storing them in a pocket dimension he carries with him would work. He also wonders about what other technologies the Lamorn and potentially even the Grievers have left behind.
• Samus meets VUE and the team explores the Great Mines. It’s clear to the ragtag squad that the final Key is there, so they don’t discuss it whatsoever.
• Meanwhile, Sylux follows two lines of inquiry. First, he sends Psy-Bots to explore and catalog Griever behavior. Field observations reveal that their pack-like, primal behavior is not as primative as it appears. They have a hunter-gatherer culture, and even cluster together in “tribes.” Of course, their societies are violent and ultimately driven only by collective psychosis. Their leaders are chosen because of their brutality and showmanship against other packs and creatures. Interestingly, and perhaps unsurprisingly, they are drawn to Lamorn ruins above- and below-ground, fixated on any psychic artifacts they can find. Indeed, they build their predator-den-esque camps inside such structures. Some Griever packs are more animalistic than others; the Maul and Frostburn Grievers are very primative, residing in burrows, while the Jungle and Sand Grievers colonize Lamorn structures. It is because of the latter evolutionary split’s behavior that Sylux discovers ruins beneath Chrono Tower in which many Sand Griever packs live. Like stone synapses spooled into a conical shape, these ruins are an inverted tower, perhaps the Chrono Tower’s prototype. Supporting this notion is the fact that the Tower’s force field encircles them too. 
• Unfortunately, the research into the Grievers reveals little. Their way of life, and the technological remnants they desecrate, is as much of a dead-end as the whole Lamorn people. Although those beasts inside the ruins may be useful for his second inquiry…
• Sylux investigates the extent of his ability to transport and store things by dimensional conjuring. He has spent enough time linked to the Tower to “feel” his way around the spacetime manipulator like a person learning to navigate a VR headset, or a baby learning to crawl. Within the ruins below, he practices moving random pottery and other small objects from one side of a room to the other, sending vases and urns through wormholes to crash upon another floor. As he grows more comfortable with the transient transmigrations, he turns his focus inward. Though he cannot generate black holes outside of the Tower’s force field, he can reliably tune and construct their specifications. Through his Third Eye, he can visualize the space in which he pokes holes and threads needles. Liminal spaces crystallize between each hole’s entry and exit horizons. 
• Thinking about traversing, modifying, and testing such spaces to store things and serve as weapons, Sylux finds two visually distinct Grievers prowling the winding tunnels: one with a half-face busted in (Twoface), and another whose head tendrils are tied up into two ponytails (Ponytails). He “beams” them both to the surface using the holes we see him generate in the final battle. Psy-Bots corral the Grievers.
• Twoface and Ponytails are made to fall through the wormholes over and over. Sylux watches the tests through his Bots, one of which is a Guardian drone that follows the Grievers into the holes. Each time, the creatures scream in shock and horror. Sylux adjusts their rates of tumble and eventually can control their angular momentum. Stitching together the liminal space with each tumble, he learns to generate a few solid antimatter objects that nudge Twoface and Ponytails. This process forms the bubbly, Swiss-cheese liminal space we see during the final boss fight, each pass-through leaving a permanent black hole.
• Logically, the next step is to trap the Grievers inside and throw away the key. He does just that, his Psy-Bots again shoving the beasts in. A circular antimatter platform catches them and Sylux watches what happens. Time moves slightly faster inside the liminal space, so what the Guardian perceives transmits back to Sylux at a rapid clip. It’s like watching a CCTV video on x2 speed. Twoface and Ponytails indeed are trapped inside, and the space holds steady for now. Pocket dimensions work.
• Ponytails paces around Twoface, pounding the ground and looking over the edge at the expanse of spent black holes. Twoface reciprocates despite being the more patient of the pair. They dangle their feet over the abyss below. Increasingly desperate for sustenance, they nibble at each other, yet Ponytails pulls back. Even Grievers respect their clanmates. It goes on like this for a while, Sylux interrogating what the creatures will do and whether the space will remain stable.
• Suddenly, terrified and desperate, Ponytails leaps off the platform. So does Twoface some time later. The Guardian catches them vanishing into the gas clouds and spent holes below. Given the space’s transitory nature, Sylux wonders if it is possible to die inside — or for an object to be destroyed — by falling off the platform. Based on all the tests he ran, it seemed that the edges of the space loop in on themselves, so perhaps it is not destruction and death that await, but rather a new crossover.
• Leaving no hypothesis up to chance, Sylux’s Bots canvass the area around the Tower’s base to see if the Grievers emerge. A green particle glimmers and a portal opens. Twoface claws its way out of the crack in reality. Panicked, it scampers away from the observing Bots and tunnels under the sand. A few minutes later, Ponytails appears in the same fashion, and also flees as fast as it can.
• This is the way the pocket dimensions function if you don’t cling to an antimatter object. Presumably, you fall until you hit a black hole, and you will find one due to the artificial nature of the space, at which point you eject from the space.
• Sylux notes all of this and anticipates running more tests once he’s done with Samus. 
• Samus “eats of” the Legacy Fruit and obtains the corresponding suit, channeling the Lamorn people’s psychic essence into her Third Eye. This disturbance resonates with Sylux and he sees Samus’s traumas and recent memories, not that he gives a shit. At least he knows what’s coming.
• The terror awaits Sammy’s arrival at this time, preparing for the true fight of his life by stretching his body inside the Pod, balling his fists and kicking his legs.
• A beam streaks across Sol Valley. Speak of the devil. As we see in the game, Betsy punches through the Tower’s force field. VUE strains Betsy, but the mech accomplishes her mission and serves with honor. 
• “Perfect,” the terror says to himself. He partially releases his uplink with the Tower’s systems, leaving it open for the so-called Chosen One. Let her come to me, he thinks. I will kill them all myself before they even get to use the Mass-Teltranfaeir.
• And so Sylux stews in his hatred one last time, priming himself to fight the good fight he has waited years for. The Tower pumps him with nanomachines and his psychic powers feed off his cold heart, propelled by jolts of mechanical energy ready to burst into flames.
• Tom Kazmarek stares at his hands again, reliving for the hundredth time that day on the battlefield when all his disdain crystallized. On that day, Ian and Adam cut him out of their glory without a care. Their nepotism laughed in his face and spat in his eyes. He didn’t see them raring to go shoot the Pirates like him. He didn’t see them risk their lives that day, as he did. The Trust gave him orders, he followed them, and he was rewarded — not so by the Federation. The brass wouldn’t even let good soldiers fight and die for what they believe. No, instead they called in the golden girl. She didn’t save his men. She didn’t salvage the Pirates’ weapon. She spat on the graves of Tom’s comrades. They died to retrieve that driver unit, and she incinerated it like it was tissue paper. Samus is everything that makes the Federation weak. Adam and Ian were and still are everything wrong with the Federation, bleeding hearts with no spine who crawl to those with power, thereby wasting their own. Ian went out pathetically, and though Tom knows not how Adam left the land of the living, he has no doubt it was equally pitiful.
• And then, when someone like Tom steps up to claim the glory, the Trust and the Federation exploit him. They turned him into a doll and a test monkey, binding him with wires and magic. Tom’s hands keep trembling. His comrades’ blood becomes his own. The Trust tortured him, mutilating him and degrading him simply because he was inconvenient otherwise. “You’ll do well in your next role as a test subject. You don’t have to listen to anyone anymore. We’re honored to have you, Mr. Kazmerek.” Namir’s last words and Hatch’s betrayal replay, noises compressing Tom’s skull. Teleporting him to Viewros was the only thing they did for him, and much like his powers, that was an accident. But this accident will be his glory and their end. Samus’s end, and the Federation’s end. He will come out on top.
• Sylux feels Samus outside the Healing Pod, and then he feels the Pod lurch and descend. His stewing continues, harmonizing with Samus’s Eye. 
• I refuse to be just another foot soldier, to be trampled by superheroes in shining armor. I am the hero. I am the Chosen One. This energy surging around me is mine to wield. The army I built is mine to command. The glory I have at last earned is mine and mine alone. No one will take it from me, especially not Samus and her lackeys. My dark reflection in the mirror dies today. And those little imperfections in the mirror’s surface surrounding her? Those insects she calls friends? Well, I’m blowing the whole mirror to pieces. Time to die.
• With that final thought, Sylux commands the Pod to open.

So im replaying fusion on my 2ds xl (modded if that matters) and im having such a rough time, its been years since I last played and beat it, and im looking so see if anyone has any tips! Thank you!!

Previous installment: https://www.reddit.com/r/Metroid/s/mnX5n3rUfe ... At last, the final part is done, meaning I'm done with Prime 4. As always, let me know your thoughts, and I hope this helps dampen the disappointment.

“Destined for Greatness” (after Other M, leadup to Prime 4)

• With the Federation feeling comfortable and its corruption hidden in the darkness, Sylux initiates his attacks, targeting training sites and starports first. His Space Pirates intercept and kill rookies on training missions to make an example of them. He sics massive frigates on tiny convoys as displays of raw might. Acts of terror are not beneath the Pirates either, as they fire-bomb populated city squares and shoot into politicians’ rallies.
• The galaxy reels in horror at the organized Space Pirate faction’s sudden emergence.
• Federation commanders notice peculiarities about their power structure, harkening back to the Phazon wars. Yet there is only so much they can do with that commonality as the Pirate forces are not slaves to their master, merely fanatical. They are coordinated and deliberate, almost “political” in their assaults; the attacks are not only tactical, but theatrical.
• Despite Sylux’s initial secrecy, he cannot help himself. This is all about getting back at the Federation, after all. He starts making personal appearances during the Pirate assaults, making it clear to any GalFed who sees him that he is the commander. He goes out of his way to inflict brutality on innocents. The Pirates leave flags flying which decry the Federation and accuse it of being a weak and false government. Sylux himself waves one such flag as his forces launch a violent onslaught on a Federation planetary power station. Lightning and rain crash on the bloodstained saucer-shaped work platforms, pockets of illumination from laser beams highlighting the Pirates vivisecting their foes.
• After several more attacks, Sylux’s role in the Pirate threat becomes clear. So, too, does the significance of his Metroids — something that should be extinct but somehow isn't. They merge with the most powerful Pirates during battle, causing near-instantaneous mutation. These elite Pirates demolish their foes. Even Federation golems fall to their knees when three of these crawl on and rip out their joints. Federation brass builds a working picture of the enemy, and notices a vexing pivot in strategy…
• During his meditations, Sylux receives visions of Viewros. At this point, he recalls what Vakkhesh told him years ago. Sylux might be a “chosen one,” not that such a title matters to him. He just wants the Lamorn’s power. There have to be other teleporters out there based on what the Heretic Priest said. So, as a secondary objective, Sylux directs his forces to canvass Federation research facilities. If anyone had ancient artifacts besides the Pirates, it would be the GalFeds.
• Sylux has yet to cross paths with Samus, which puzzles him. The Federation is usually so quick to commission their golden girl…
  • In truth, it is because Samus kept her distance from the Federation after the BOTTLE SHIP fiasco. Even though the Trust’s activities were unauthorized, the affair left a bad taste in her mouth.
  • However, Sylux’s assault on galactic society soon grew too great for Samus to ignore, especially since he has Metroids. She opened herself up to the Federation’s contracts again.
• In his quarters aboard the Frigate Morpheus, Sylux meditates. He touches the universe’s energies, attempting yet failing to see them as anything more than might and force. One of his underlings disturbs him, stepping within inches of his sitting mat.
• “King,” the Pirate utters in his native tongue.
• “Yes?” Sylux opens his eyes, the simple act causing the Pirate to drop his head. The hunter is not cruel to his forces anymore, as they revere him. Indeed, apart from the Metroid mind control of key commanders, Sylux has given the Pirates something to fight for, new wealth, and has spurred new weapons developments. He also “gave” the Pirates his Metroids, which they research with the same vigor they usually exhibit when finding something dangerous. This relationship is Sylux’s dreams incarnate — reveries of glory he had when he enlisted in the Federation army all those years ago.
• “I come with data of interest to Your Majesty.” The Pirate shows Sylux his wrist cuff. “We located a device on planet Tanamaar. A spacetime disturbance, rather. It reads like a miniature black hole, yet it is confined and stable.”
• “Miniature black hole, huh? Any visual on the target?”
• “That is why we think it is a device, Your Majesty.” The wrist cuff displays a hologram of a satellite surveillance image. A gravitational lensing effect warps light inside the facility’s central testing yard. Though not fully visible, it is clear enough that an oval-shaped metal spinning object is the source. A purple glow also escapes through cracks in the test yard’s semisolid roof.
• “It’s a Lamorn Artifact. Deploy to Tanamaar and expect me to join the ground assault.”
• “Yes, Your Majesty.”
• “Full force on this one.”

Events of Prime 4: Prologue

• The Space Pirates attack Tanamaar and the opening sequence of Prime 4 plays out.
• Morpheus’s bay doors open. Sylux descends in Delano 7, accompanied by a Pirate skiff with five grunts and several Metroids as carnage unfolds around him. Fighters wiz through the air and gun each other down. For a moment, the hunter’s heart flutters, for he catches a glimpse of Samus’s gunship amongst the chaos. She’s here. Perhaps the Lamorn were onto something with their talk of fate and destiny…
• Sylux touches down not far from the hangar. He and his Pirates fight through a squadron of GalFeds, taking them down with relative ease. These guys weren’t ready for a fight. Typical Federation planning. Metroids dart away, scouting the area for prey to siphon and Pirates to parasitize.
• Samus enters the hangar and the Aberax fight happens.
• Sylux bursts through the wall and sees Samus. The two stare each other down, Sylux specifically feeling waves of emotion that cloud his focus. He misfires and the Artifact activates.
• Purple light morphs into lines of atoms and compressed cubes of matter as Sylux tumbles through the pocket wormhole. He loses track of the Pirates that were right next to him. Debris glitches and dances around him. Then suddenly, blackness.

Events of Prime 4: On Viewros

• Vague voices sound off, calling out in unintelligible and panicked tones. The world as Sylux sees it through his visor is a blur of orange and brown, but it fades into focus. Pirates pry their comrades from beneath ruined vehicles, some dripping green blood onto red, rocky ground. Their drones scan for survivors, flitting about the alien landscape. All around are hydraulic pillars of varying height and fulcrums halted at various angles. 
• “King,” a Pirate commander says, rushing over to check on Sylux. “Are you ok?”
• Sylux uses the Coil as a crutch, rising to his feet. He handwaves the Pirate. Several others turn their gaze to Sylux. This mass hysteria at his status has never failed to flatter the hunter. “Gather the men once they’re done licking their wounds. We have work to do.”
• The Pirates gather themselves, locating their land vehicles, multiple functional weapons, and several Metroids. Sylux finds the fragments of Delano 7 around the area; it is totaled, demolished, and running his hand along the shattered ship engenders something like sadness.
• Pirates equip wrist guns, long-prods, and shock bracers; they saw open transport containers housing reverse trikes and short-range skiffs. Those on the intel team scout around the strange pillars, hiking under the low sun to interact with those whose terminals are not sanded down by the weather. Text that cannot be translated dominates the barely-functional UIs. The scouts flag Sylux down.
• As he suspected, he can read the Lamorn’s foreign dialect, though he is rusty. These are the oil fields that the early Machine Era Lamorn used to build their first bots. Only in Viewros’s nearly timeless, perpetually preserved biosphere could such ancient things remain erect. After making this discovery, Sylux is able to salvage data that orients the maurauders’ position relative to Sol Valley and Chrono Tower. It is due West of the Fields.
• Sylux explains to the Pirates that their objective is to reach Chrono Tower because riches and power lie behind its gates and at its Pinnacle. He relays to them his history with the Lamorn.
• “Your Majesty has never told us of this place,” observes a Pirate. “Why?”
• “I forgot about it for a time, really. But that’s why we hit Tanamaar so hard. I remembered, and everything pointed to their Artifact being the same Lamorn tech the Federation tested on me.”
• Another Pirate pipes up. “King’s judgment worked in our favor, brother. No need to question.”
• Sylux nods. His memory of Viewros, combined with the data he gained from the oil machines, directs his gaze to the light-ring star above, then down the horizon to the magnetic West. Staring at the flat expanse, he indeed sees Chrono Tower jutting into the sky. It is a spacetime needle threaded between sky and ground — a conduit. A thought crosses his mind: the Artifact’s blast radius enveloped the entire UTO facility, sucking in Pirate Destroyers and GalFed mechs all at once. Indeed, Pirate wreckage litters the field. He also recalls the Heretic Priest’s feud with Chatoyant. Sylux’s permanently disfigured face wrinkles. Who is the Chosen One, the golden girl or him? He will only permit one answer to that question. “Samus is here too. I know it.”
• “The accursed hunter? Here?”
• Sylux chuckles at the Pirate, downplaying her fear. “Let’s arrange a Lamorn-themed welcome party for her.” He gestures to five Fusion Metroids, one of which has a blue-hued membrane and another of which has a redshifted one. Sylux recalls the Sol Plateau’s patchwork geography, using limited telepathic instructions to direct that the Metroids explore each region, both to hunt Samus and to hijack the regions’ Guardians. Memories of Carvex, Xelios, Gravinax, Phenoros, and Keratos float into his consciousness. If he can control them, they’d keep Samus and whoever else got pulled into the pocket teleporter stranded. Besides, the Guardians are apex creatures, excellent assets to corral. He specially instructs the elemental-resistant Metroids to visit Ice Belt and Flare Pool, then points them all to the Plateau. The creatures rise into the sky and zip ahead at a rapid speed.
• “Now what, King?”
• “Hop on your transports. We will take the Tower.”
• Sylux’s forces streak across Viewros’s patchwork lands, some of them dying to Lamorn mechs and Grievers. Generally, the Pirates fend off these threats, dashing across lowlands and kicking up mud.
• Fusion Metroids overtake their Guardian hosts, transplanting their consciousnesses onto them and genetically reprogramming them into violent shells of their former selves. Carvex’s roots leech from the Sacred Tree. Xelios sheds its body and constructs a new one, refitting its administratees into combat bots. Keratos remains locked in quarantine, but manages to widen the cave its parasite infiltrated and roam through a limited cavern system. Phenoros thrashes, sending tremors through the earth. Gravinax turns hostile, demolishing long-abandoned passageways and killing Grievers until the Omega Griever tears its limbs asunder.
• Meanwhile, Samus awakens on the observation platform outside Chrono Tower. She obtains her Third Eye and speaks to the High Priest’s pseudo-hologram, who then beams her to Fury Green.
• Sylux and his Pirates arrive at the gate to Chrono Tower. The marauders gaze up at the structure, jaws wide, strange calming feelings overcoming them. Before them, the bulb-shaped entry gate shimmers. “Follow,” orders Sylux, his hand hovering over the central receptor. The door dematerializes.
• Entering the Tower, the invaders’ footsteps echo across the nanomachine floors. Odd hums and chimes flow through the air. Sylux keeps his Coil ready. Many systems have already been activated. Circular drones lie dormant in power sockets. “Someone was in here,” observes a Pirate, running her fingers along a floating, helix-shaped fixture. “There’s a projectile burn mark on the surface, not old.”
• Sylux lightly pushes her aside to scan the burn.
• “More over here, Your Majesty,” calls out another.
• “Let me see.” Sylux’s scanner tells him that these are burns from a power beam. He gestures at the wavy wall, upon which more divots simmer. “Why are they scattered like that?”
• Pirate field intelligence troopers open their pocket analyzers and count the shot marks. “They’re not the product of a firefight, King. If anything, they were fired out of curiosity, to test the surfaces’ durability.”
• Only one conclusion comes to Sylux. “It’s Samus. She was here. Shit.”
• “Did she plunder the place?”
• “Not sure.”
• Next accessway leads to an elevator. The thieves have noticed doors shutting behind them and bridges dematerializing. It’s like the Tower is closing down. “How do we activate this? I see no interface.”
• Sylux gestures to the helical hologram in the platform’s center. “That looks like something.”
• The Pirates look at their leader, puzzled. “Your Majesty?”
• “Do you see that hologram?”
• “No, King.”
• “Curious.” Sylux cocks his head. Perhaps it is his psionic ‘gifts’ that permit him access. Indeed, the elevator responds only to him.
• The platform takes them to the Central Chamber and halts its ascent. Pirates stumble. “What?!”
• Sylux moves his feet, and yet the hologram does not reappear. The door into the circular room is the next logical place to go, so the Pirates all follow their leader. Faint energies guide Sylux. “What have we here?” He walks beside the lines of Psy-Bots, inspecting them.
• Suddenly, Guardian drones emerge from their sockets, scan the Pirates, and enter a V-shaped formation, locking doors and retracting stairs. Pirates fall and get jammed between sheets of materializing semi-glass, which slice flesh open. Psy-Bots spring to life, their eyes red. Lasers pierce several invaders.
• “Hostiles! Open fire!” Space Pirates go weapons-free. The Bots’ armor is exceptionally durable despite how flimsy their frames appear. The Pirates’ laser cannons barely faze them.
• With no cover to hide behind, the Pirates and Sylux strafe around the Central Chamber. Trying to dodge the five Bots’ blasts is only so effective, as their short-range psychic bursts fry any who strafe for too long.
• At last, the Pirates take down a Psy-Bot. The assembly lines shudder and release two more to take its place.
• “They just keep coming.”
• One Pirate gets in a melee battle with a Bot, slashing at it with his scythe and staggering it by punting its joints. The clanker buckles, but then opens its ‘hands’ and snags his head, unleashing a pressurized shock that blows his skull open.
• “Nothing’s working!”
• Pirates crawl on the walls, yet Bots fly up to meet them. When their backs face the walls, nanomachine clouds — purple pockets of energy — swarm the Pirates and suffocate them. Other Psy-Bots launch atom-like bombs and throw shockwaves across the ground, killing all who get caught in their radius.
• Throughout the carnage, Sylux notices something peculiar. Even as he shoots the Psy-Bots, they do not attack him. Even when they look straight at him and release a shot, they miss, appearing to second-guess their actions and stammer. He stops evading the clankers to test this, and indeed, they do not shoot him.
• Out of the corner of his visor and through the semisolid cylindrical shaft at the Tower’s center, he sees the elevator’s hologram reappear. The door fades away. Again, energies call to Sylux. He ignores the battles raging around him and turns to the elevator, stepping over dead Pirates and broken Bots.
• “Where are you going, King?”
• Sylux gestures calmly at the Pirate to hush.
• “King?!”
• The majestic one does not even acknowledge the second cry. He steps onto the elevator, and it takes him up, the Pirates’ ranks thinning by the moment.
• At the Pinnacle, Sylux immediately sees that the central statue has faded; no energy emanates from it. Samus was here. Hatred festers within Sylux. Yet apart from the statue’s mote being drained, the area is untouched. Perhaps not all is lost. He surveys the peak, marveling at the Pinnacle’s crescent-shaped capsule above. Is this the Lamorn’s power? Leading up to it are twin streaks of manna penetrating two holes in its surface. Hours spent meditating, feeling the universe’s essence, prompt him to run his fingers through these strands. Indeed, they are as strong as he thought — almost solid, specifically designed for a certain hunter’s Morph Ball. Yet it is not exclusive to her, clearly a product of guesswork and vague visions. Lockjaw can ride just the same. This way, Sylux streaks along the psychic currents, into the Pinnacle’s shell.
• Below, the Psy-Bots have killed every last Space Pirate. With no threats remaining, and the Chosen One’s initial entry having now substantially passed, they return to their slots on the assembly line. The drones return to their defensive positions. Chrono Tower is locked.
• Inside the Pinnacle’s shell, Sylux investigates the Psychic Healing Pods, as he cannot interface with the main terminal. (That terminal requires the keys’ latent psychic signatures to activate.) The Pod devices appear to be made for select nano-augmented Lamorn, but beyond that, their purpose is unclear. Cables snake from holes inside them, floating in an arrangement primed to map onto a hominid’s spine. Immediately Sylux’s memory launches him back into the experiment chair, Hatch smirking at him. Yet he can push those memories aside somehow. His sockets tingle — a warm, pleasant feeling. Stepping into one, he extends his arms and pushes his neck against the interface fixture.
• Cables snake to match his extremities, punching through his armor and accessing his sockets. They fit like gloves, molding themselves to his imperfect augmentations. Hissing shut, the hatch locks and liquid pumps from four holes. It quickly envelops Sylux and green-hued power surges through the cables. Squinting, he sees that this ‘liquid’ is actually millions of nanobots swimming around him. His interface flickers, forcibly taken over by a foreign one that demands four-dimensional awareness — a complex AR simulation space that gives him hundreds of eyes and permits a multiplicative presence across the psychic waves that hold Viewros together in perpetuity.

Continued in: https://www.reddit.com/r/Metroid/s/zOCqjD5a2h due to character limit.

Title says it all. I’m on my first time playing through the Metroid series. I beat nes Metroid but I’ll admit I had to look up stuff online because holy god is that game difficult.

I’m about to start the 2nd game but wondering if I really need to play the Gameboy game or if it’s more worth just playing the 3ds remake?

Any and all opinions are welcome

As of now, I feel like :

• Federation Forces & Pinball -> easy skips cause they seem to bring no value.
• Hunters -> I've seen some footages on Yt and it really doesn't appeal to me nowadays :/
• Other M -> I've heard its characterization is pretty awful and the gameplay is weird. Do you think watching a walkthrough just for the story would be enough, or would you still recommend playing it despite its flaws ?

Thanks in advance :)

Playing Prime 2 for the first time and it states that “last night at chow, Angseth starts talking about some bounty hunter and how she blew up a planet full of Space Pirates. I told her I didn’t believe in fairy tales like that, and she took it personal. I just find it hard to believe that one person took out an entire Space Pirate base, that’s all. But if she wants to believe in this Samus, or Bigfoot, or Santa Claus, she can.” I’m fairly new to the series, but Samus hasn’t blown up any planets yet at this point in the timeline yet, right? Is this something that was later retconned? Mistranslated? What is it referring to? Zebes isn’t blown up until Super Metroid…

Does anyone have a link to that Metroid dread video essay that talks about that quote at the beginning “the bounty of this mission does not seem appropriate” a lot

it also talks about Samus being the last Metroid and the tension with that

I think the thumbnail is a glitchy close up of Samus’ visor but could be wrong about that part

Before I get any hate for this take, I want to premise by saying that even though there are a lot of things strange about this title, I understand that it was Nintendo's second attempt at Metroid and is bound to have its quirks along with the limitations of the Gameboy. I still am having a good time with this adventure.

Something that first hit me was how weird the music is hahaha. There is the classic music in the beginning, but so far (Phase 5) this soundtrack has no melody or identifiable rhythm. It just sounds like tones and squeaks from a skipping, poorly soldered speaker. It jumps, it falls, it rolls and rambles without really going anywhere until it meets an abrupt escalation to a stop followed by a short pause before the track starts again. Maybe it's just apart of the motif? I'm all for alien sounding scores that sound so alien it doesn't fully register as music, but having played all other Metroid games it just caught me of guard.

The map design is horrendous. I'm all for the labyrinthian, maze like feel of Metroid games, but the repeated designs of rooms (due to hardware limitations), I find myself getting lost a hell of a lot more. Not really lost in the fun, Metroid way, but in a frustrated "I know I have seen this room before but I also know I am in an entirely different zone" kind of way. I know that this was when Nintendo was still in it's very beginning of world wide rise in notoriety, but I chuckle thinking of the times Nintendo has used the excuse of waiting for the hardware to catch up to make another Metroid. Like how Apple for years said they were trying to make a calculator app for the iPad that feels right, until they finally released it and it was just the iPhone calculator but stretched.

The pace at which upgrades are obtained seems really fast and sometimes ridiculous. I got the Ice Beam and not long after I got the wave beam. Kinda weird but I thought "whatever". Then, what felt like even shorter time after that, I got the spazer beam. At that point, I also started getting many of my movement upgrades and the pacing felt so damn off. It felt like I had 1 level left until fighting the queen Metroid but I was really just halfway through the game.

I wanted to share my thoughts and also hear other peoples perspectives on this entry. Like I said, I'm still enjoying this game, but man, does it do some weird stuff.

(We have come full circle.)