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+--- Thread: AM2R: Return Of Samus (/showthread.php?tid=1192)
AM2R: Return Of Samus - Jason - 08-15-2016
Let it be known that, yes, Jason is still generally not a fun of remakes/roboots/reimaginingings/redos/do-overs and especially retconings.
That said. I wanna talk about AM2R a little bit and, if you haven't played it, there's gonna be some spoilers here, so keep that in mind.
I love Metroid II. One of my favorite games in the series, and I'd take it over any of the GBA games any day of the week. It doesn't cram too much into it, it doesn't try and be something it's not, it doesn't give you text dumps and bland speculation it tries to pass off as plot, and it doesn't hold your hand and tell you where to go and what to do everytime you get in an elevator.
My problems with Metroid II don't stem from the actual game itself, but from the hardware. The Game Boy, if we're being honest, was a pretty great system that had it's flaws. Graphics being the major one. Ghosting was terrible on that screen and it made action games a little tricky to play sometimes. The Super Game Boy cleaned that up a bit, but still. Not as good as it could have been, but then the price would have put it out of reach of people and blah blah... you get the idea.
Any-dang-way... Metroid II, unfortunately, get's kind of lumped in with Super Mario Bros 2 and Zelda II as being the black sheep of the series because they changed up the formula a bit. We don't need to get into those other two games at all, but we do wanna mention that Metroid II's biggest deviation from the standard Metroid play style is that it's very linear compared to the other games. Your goal is even tracked on screen with a little counter. Go until you can't go no mo, kill all the Metroids, go back and see what changed. (Fusion fans will ignore that Fusion does something similar, but it's ok if Fusion does it cause it's Fusion.)
The more standard type of game play drops you off and says "Good luck." and leaves you to finding your own way around, seeing what works and what doesn't, and trying to get things done as efficiently as possible once you've got a hang on how things work. It's not bad really. It's pretty dang fun.
So is Metroid II, even though it's a little different.
AM2R, I had some pretty high hopes for. Other than emulation on the ol computer box, I didn't think there'd really be a great way to get the game to work without all those ghosting problems I mentioned earlier. I though this game did deserve a little bit of an update strictly for the sake of cleaning up the graphics a bit. I even mentioned to MetroidQuest that a Metroid II with the Super Metroid engine would be pretty darn good. That's almost exactly what we've got here in AM2R.
Unfortunately, AM2R went the Fusion/Zero Mission route instead of the Super route. Would that be a big deal in terms of graphics? Not really. The graphics are great. Samus looks good, the backgrounds and areas look pretty darn good, the enemies look good...
But then liberties are taken. The Metroids, as an example, look pretty good... but... liberties have been taken with a few of the sprites. I understand the reason behind it, and I don't even care that they did it. It would make sense that between the Alpha and Gamma Metroid you should see a little changes, which you do. The last few Alphas you run into start to show signs of change into becoming Gammas. That's kinda neat.
But it just stops there. Gammas never show any signs of changing to Zetas other than a new attack or two, and Zetas don't show anything when they're going Omega.
It's inconsistent.
Music. The music, I have zero issue with. The arrangements are excellent. They keep the feel and, if anything, expand on it. Which is fairly obvious when you've got more then about 4 tracks to work with. Music get's an A.
Plot. Well... it's fine. It's the same basic plot as M2, but it adds stuff. Stuff that didn't need to be there. Stuff that's really reminiscent of Zero Mission and even Prime 2 a little bit. An entire new section of the planets surface opens up with a wrecked ship to explore for a single power up, with a couple more hidden in the area. A research time you have to find and give backup to, new areas within the planet that, really, feel like excuses to include power-ups from the other games. The Gravity Suit in is AM2R. Why? Because there's a water area now. Beams stack. Why? Because since Super Metroid that's been a thing. Super Missles and Power Bombs? Sure, we can do that. Oh but we better come up with a reason for it. Speed Booster? Absolutely. Cause we need more puzzles that require shine sparking.
And that leads me to my biggest complaint with the game.
I'd 99% done. I've found 99% of the items. And honestly I think the game is pretty damn fun. It's a solid B in my book that could have had the A had it not tried to be things it shouldn't. M2 didn't need Super Missles, Power Bombs, Speed Boosters, that annoying grip thing to hang from ledges, and it didn't need puzzles that require you to get a ball into a hole to power up a door.
Coincidentally, almost every Power Bomb expansion you pick up in the game requires you to have power bombs to get to. Like... here's a door that you have to open with power bombs, or here's a wall you have to use power bombs to blow up... and behind it is a single power bomb expansion.
Back to the plot for a bit, since we're still kinda in that mode, what the game does do that I like is that it offers you plot in the way Prime did. After being in an area or meeting a new boss (yeah, not just Metroids but other bosses), for a couple seconds you'll get scan data that you can access via the menu to read to see what's up. To learn about new areas, monsters attacks, weaknesses, all that kinda stuff. It works, and I think it works well.
Speaking of Bosses and monsters. The Metroids, with the exception of the Alpha and larva, have new attacks. The Queen fight is quite a bit different and takes forever, and the Omega Metroid are just about the most annoying, but easy, things to kill ever. It's a weird dichotomy that you can now blast away pretty much anything with a couple of Super Missles, but because your'e not supposed to be able to do that, the enemies can swipe em away and negate the shot. Kinda like the Golden Torizo in Super. He can grab a super missile and throw it back at you, or just side step them completely.
Anyway, the thing is, that it's really not bad... but don't go into it expecting a simple graphic, music, and control update. You're getting a lot more than that. Is it bad? I don't know. A little. Is it good? I don't know? Kinda?
I can't help but feel when a fan game starts adding all this new stuff, areas, attacks, weapons, enemies, bosses... all that... that the game designer/creator really just wanted to make their own game, but it was easier to just alter something someone else already did to make it fit what they want it to be.
Why come up with a new story for your video game when there's already a perfectly "good" one floating around between 3-4 games in a series. You just have to being them together like Voltron or something and it'll be awesome right?
Except there's a Voltron reboot... and it's terrible.
Anyway. I've got a couple videos up HERE and if you'd like to... download yourself a copy of the game HERE and tell me what you think.
RE: AM2R: Return Of Samus - JadePharaoh - 08-17-2016
And there we have the eternal conundrum with remakes that I've touched on before. Do you just make the exact same game, just with prettier graphics and sound, making it feel pointless to people who own the original? Or do you expand on it, giving those people a new experience, while potentially alienating those who felt the original wasn't broken, so why fix it? It feels like a Catch 22, and I still have mixed feelings about it.
Overall, though, I didn't mind the additions to this game. I felt it made it feel like a new Metroid experience, especially later in the game. Again, I have been aching for a new classic 2D style Metroid game, and this is the best I've seen in quite awhile (well, it's the ONLY one we've seen since 2004, but STILL...)
RE: AM2R: Return Of Samus - Jason - 08-17-2016
The first part of your second sentence is I think a good summation of what I feel.
If you want to add all this other stuff, just make your own game. Make an entire new game. Use the characters, the ideas, whatever... but make a new game out of it.
Would it have been so hard to use the planet is almost the intro stage, like the space station in Super, only to find that Metroids somehow got off the planet and ended up elsewhere and you had to go track em down?
Close enough to Met2 to be familiar, but different enough to be it's own thing. Not 85% Nintendo/15% Everything I Wanted Ever Since I Played Fusion.
Does that make sense?