Today we take a hard look, as well as a nerdrage-fueled look, at my least favoritest Metroid game, Metroid Fusion.
Why I Hate Metroid Fusion
Metroid Fusion takes a glance back at every other Metroid game that came before it, and then proceeds to totally miss the point.
Let's put this into perspective. The year is 2002. There hasn't been a Metroid game in 8 years. The last we'd seen of Samus Aran was in the widely-claimed "best SNES game ever" Super Metroid. On the same day in November, not only did a new 2D adventure with the bounty hunter land, but so did the revolutionary Metroid Prime. Metroid fever was in the air, or something.
Okay, here's what Metroid Fusion does right: The engine is one of the best 2D engines ever, and it also powers the 99% awesome Metroid Zero Mission. And honestly, that's about it.
The trouble starts right from the get-go as before even getting to take a single step as Samus, we're treated to a lengthy cutscene explaining how everything went tits up when Ms. Aran returned to SR388 for...some reason, got infected with a virulent parasite, almost died, and was then saved by being injected with Metroid juice, which Samus muses is her life being saved a second time by the Metroid hatchling, awww.
Wait, huh? Uh, Samus, honey, that Metroid died. He's dead. Killed by Mother Brain. Do you seriously think that the scientists on Ceres Station divised this cure-all in the five minutes they had the hatchling before it was violently stolen by Ridley? (Samus holding the idiot ball is not important to the plot at all, honest!)
Problem 1: RETCON ALERT. It's revealed that the blandly-named, gooey X Parasites were the natural prey of Metroids on SR388 (as opposed to ANY BIOLOGICAL CREATURE), but since Samus kind of killed all of them, the X have flourished. Of course, no such evidence of their existence...existed in Metroid II, which shows Samus' stint at Metroidal genocide.
It also serves as a very convoluted method of making Samus weak to ice, able to eat X parasites, and spilling all of her old items, of course, as well as changing her power suit, as the med-team could only remove portions of it for...some unexplained reason. (The fact that it's left so vague is what peeves me, especially since an explanation is pretty easy to come up with.)
It also also serves as yet another way to force in another retarded retcon where Metroid is Chozo for "Great Warrior". GET IT? SAMUS IS A GREAT WARRIOR SO SHE'S A METROID TOO HURRRRRR. (It also means they don't have to have Metroids in a game called Metroid.) This meaning of course makes no goddamn sense, since the Chozo created the damn things (which is also retarded, honestly), and nothing about them implies a great warrior in the slightest. Maybe the Chozo were just daft and everyone was too polite to say anything.
Also also also, as part of some deal with the Space Federation (that're not evil, honest!), she gets a new ship 'cause she lost her old one in the whole "almost dying" thing and it has a talking AI on board! Yaaay! Wait, what?
Problem 2: Metroid is about isolation. Every other game in the series achieves its atmosphere by providing a sprawling world where Samus (and by proxy the player) are all alone, carrying out a dangerous mission. Giving Samus an AI to talk back to is nonsensical.
Oh, she nicknames the AI "Adam" after her
So, they return to the biological research station (as in, space station) where the rest of the X Parasite stuff, including her busted up suit pieces, was transported to. And all is not well! There's a strange explosion in the quarantine room and...seriously, guess. You'll never ever figure it out, honest! So now Samus has to deal with the entire station being infected with X, as well as a mysterious saboteur! (Spoilers: It's SA-X, a clone of Samus wearing her power suit, and it has all her items ohno.)
So now Samus has to undertake a series of missions to prevent the X from spreading (which of course does dick, and they of course take everything over). Wait. Missions?
Problem 3: Missions. At the start of every Sector of the station, Adam talks to Samus and gives her an objective...and the MAP. You are never flying blind in Metroid Fusion. (Sort of.) There's also an energy refill and save station at each of these hubs, which is actually fine, since the game is meant for a portable platform and convenient save points are a good thing.
Inevitably, the missions you're sent on herd you along in the proper plot, power-up, and scripted event order the game wants, which is pretty goddamn boring, really. There's some leeway to explore, but god help you if you get caught in a major plot event, since Adam will actually lock down every other part of the game except for where you need to go.
Problem 4: Adam locks the fucking doors. What the hell?? This is insulting, since it makes the game feel like both "Metroid: EXTREEEEME" and "Baby's First Metroid" which obviously doesn't work well. Considering you're always given explicit instructions by Adam, and a map beacon, it seems like a really flimsy attempt to stop you from breaking the scripted sequence or freeing the developers from having to worry about fiddling with the other Sectors during the event.
What's the worst thing about this? You're never told the doors will be locked, yet the elevators leading to each Sector entrance are left online. Which means you take one of those slow ass Metroid elevators all the way down...to a locked goddamn door. Gah!!
The thing that kills me the most is that there was no obligation to provide the map. The plot could have easily included a simple "oops the map system is busted, good luck Samus" explanation, which would have made the game better. This map system creates another issue, that basically destroys any credibility of the setting.
Problem 5: A space station built by a fucking idiot. Google up a map of Metroid Fusion and compare how large the purple (meaning pre-mapped) sections are, versus how much green (meaning hidden or un-auto-mapped) sections there are.
Some of the green corridors make a very vague bit of sense as Adam explains security rooms are left off of the map for security purposes. Okay. Now explain why a space station has secret crawl spaces and breakable walls leading to bizarre, sealed-off rooms containing extra explosives!
In every other Metroid game, Samus is visiting a planet said to be touched by the Chozo and their technological prowess. It's a weak explanation as to why there are power-ups scattered everywhere, but I can buy it. The space station in Fusion is not related to the Chozo in any way. Moreover, because the game is insane, Samus' missiles are downloaded data(!?) somehow transformed into biological constructs (as they're refueled by a special X parasite much like her health). The concept of capacity upgrades seems silly in this new context, especially since the items are still the same classic "missile in glass jar" they've always been.
Oh, and since these missiles have to be a biological construct of some kind, how exactly does the Ice Missile upgrade work? It's introduced to give Samus an alternative to the Ice Beam (since, again, she's weak to ice), but they come from the same damn gun on her arm sooooo...
Alright, they've nuked the entire concept of exploration by forcing you along in more or less a straight line. How do they ensure there are no survivors?
Problem 6: Be dicks about item collection. In one of the very first areas of the game, before you've even got the Morph Ball yet, there is a completely unmarked tile in the ceiling of a room that leads to a secret chamber with an Energy Tank. It gets better. Come back there once you have the Screw Attack, and you'll find a room beyond that room with ANOTHER Energy Tank. What. The. Fuck?!
That is Metroid Fusion in a nutshell. The large majority of items are hidden away not in cleverly disguised secret passages, but rather in spots nobody would ever find on their own, ever. This turns the series' staple of "exploration" into "use a Power Bomb in every room, no exceptions". And then of course, half of those secrets will probably require the Screw Attack (gotten nearly right at the end of the game) so hahaha fuck you.
But wait! There's a new dimension to the gameplay! The Samus clone, the SA-X is stalking Samus the entire time, since the X hate Metroids because...Metroids eat X. Back the fuck up, game. You're implying that the X have an emotional intelligence here, I guess because they cloned Samus? That's not the awful part though. Neither is how this is the second time our favorite bounty hunter has to fight an eeeeevil clone of herself in the timeline.
Problem 7: The SA-X is stupid. No, not the infamously dumb AI they attached to it. The gameplay concept is stupid. Every once in a while, you'll encounter the SA-X stalking around and the game'll play scary music at you, and you have to be quiet because the SA-X HAS THE ICE BEAM SHIT. And then you wait for it to disappear out of a door. Just...gone, even if you follow its path out of the room. Uh-huh. Also, it fails for not using the X-Ray Scanner to search for Samus when she's hiding.
However, once in a while the game will force you into its path, at which point OH FUCK CHASE SCENE. Really frustrating, needlessly difficult chase scenes ensue involving timing, platforming, and everything that I don't give a shit about. Oh, and inexplicably, despite the fact that it wears Samus' temperature-resistant Varia Suit, you can freeze it with Ice Missiles. Uh-huh.
During all of this random chaos, Samus is also tracking down other organisms infected by X who are both large and angry. These are the game's bosses. A turbo eel, a gravity robot (it has an organic brain shut up), and other monstrosities make up the menagerie of power-up providers.
Problem 8: What was Metroid about again? Oh yeah, boss fights, obviously! These bosses are fucking hard just for the sake of it. And unlike in any other Metroid game, where you can do the equivalent of level grinding by finding a few more items to give you an edge, good luck doing that here. Oh, and the special red X that fill up all of your energy and missiles that you get just prior to a boss fight to prepare you for it only fill up a finite amount of each for some idiotic reason.
Said gravity robot, who exists for dubious reasons, is beaten by the strategy of "shoot so many rockets at its face the game slows down, and its face melts, and you win before it can actually attack because goddamn this boss is too fucking hard". Shameful.
I'll admit, having the bosses represent the power-up they're going to give is at least clever and creative. A mutant rolly-polly gives you the Morph Ball, the eel the Speed Booster, the robot the Gravity Suit, etc, etc.
But oh wait, let's twist the thumbscrews a bit more. Pretty much every time you defeat a boss, you also have to fight a Core X afterwards. Think big space porcupine egg that wants to kill you. Basically, after losing large chunks of your health to a difficult boss that came before, you now have to deal with a miniboss as well. For non-beam abilities, it just tries to ram you, and is weak to missiles, but is tricky to jump over. For beam abilities it hounds you, firing its signature beam at you. Either way, you can pretty easily die to these minibosses even though you won the real boss fight, due to the low margin for error. Lame.
Okay, so let's get back to the plot. Spoiler warning, if you care.
It turns out that the reason why one of the sectors on the space station replicates SR388 is because the Evil Space Federation is...cloning Metroids! Bum bum BUM! Where else would they get the Metroid juice to shoot up Samus with?
Problem 9: This makes NO FUCKING SENSE ARGH. The Federation were the ones who sent Samus to SR388 in the first place to kill all of the Metroids!!! And remember how that hatchling sorta died? Where did they get this DNA from?
Okay, I'll be fair, this plot could work, theoretically speaking. The Federation becomes opportunistic and decides "well let's develop Metroids as a weapon after all" since they got lucky and there was the hatchling who somehow gave them its DNA despite being in their custody for like a day. This means they'll have the exclusive use of the Metroids in warfare against the pirates. I can see it working, maybe.
BUT. Why did the Federation send Samus out to murder the green pusbags in the first place? Because the Metroids presented a massive threat to the galaxy, ie, they're very powerful! Gaaaah!! There's no obvious evidence that the Federation is suddenly under new management by the time of Metroid Fusion, so this comes off as a shaky conspiracy plot and discredits the intelligence and/or evilness of the Federation circa Metroid Prime 3, Metroid II, and even Super Metroid, regardless if you can piece all of it together with enough rationalizations.
Not to mention that using Metroids as weapons would have the inevitable result of allowing the Space Pirates to get their hands on them again, what with the entire crisis of Super Metroid beginning with Ridley stealing a glass jar with a baby space jellyfish inside. All it would take is a single space pirate holding a net and doing his best Spongebob Squarepants impression to bring the galaxy back to square one on Metroid-related matters. This whole snafu characterizes this shadowy version of the Federation as short-sighted dipshits, which is maybe what they were going for probably not.
Samus finds the Metroid breeding farm, as well as the SA-X who is killing them all 'cause that's how it rolls. This is all bullshit, so Samus jettisons the entire lab wing into space, and it explodes, 'cause fuck that noise. At least there's no more SA-X, huh?
Oh wait, Adam informs Samus that there's like, at least 10 on board because...Samus had secretly stashed 10 extra sets of power suits on the station when nobody was looking, obviously. (No, asexual reproduction, for no clear explanation is the explanation.) Also, don't worry, this doesn't lead to any sort of interesting mechanic like Bioshock's Big Daddies, in fact, the plot just kind of forgets about them entirely.
Oh, by the way, that lovable AI scamp, Adam? Well, in addition to becoming huge pricks lately, the Federation has also gotten into the habit of putting the brains of outstanding military officers into computers because...they can? So that nickname Samus gave to her stupid AI friend for the hell of it? IT WAS REALLY THE REAL ADAM THE WHOLE TIME WHAT THE GODDAMN I AM GOING TO SHIT BLOOD OVER THIS.
Then Samus does some more crap, including fighting an X-infected Ridley, who the Federation had frozen in their giant space freezer. Why? Because they're eeeeeevil I guess. It's never explained.
Sooooo...Samus is finally all "fuck this, the X have to die too! they're too dangerous kinda like those Metroid fellows" and Adam is all "I can't let you do that, Samus. The Federation has taken an interest in the X, kinda like those Metroid fellows." and locks all the doors, and activates the drone guns, and shuts off her oxygen supply, and brutally murders her. Game over.
No, not really. Despite being a puppet for the eeeeevil Federation, after a stern talking to by Samus, Adam, lacking any kind of loyalty or programming enslaving him to his eeeeevil masters, just goes "Oh yeah, that was sort of a retarded plan, wasn't it?" and they decide they're going to blow up the space station. And then ram it into SR388.
Problem 10: WHAT?
Problem 10a: Yes, let's basically copy the premise of Metroid II and turn Samus into a genocidal fuckwit for the second time running. The first time through she only killed one whole species. This time? Let's orbital drop this fucker and destroy the entire planet! Brilliant! The moral qualms of this are addressed only as an afterthought, which I guess is a one-up from Metroid Il, though that kind of had a pass what with it being a first-generation Gameboy game.
Obviously the X had some kind of vague intelligence, considering the actions of the SA-X(es) and all, which makes the entire plan morally unsound. An ending monologue by the gal in orange simply says something like "Wow, I totally blew up a planet, and people are probably going to be a bit mad about that, but screw them 'cause I knew it was the right thing."
Problem 10b: What in the hell is the point of having a facsimile of SR388's ecosystem on a space station right next to SR388? Why not just build the research facility on the planet itself, where Metroids could be grown with less effort, and there's even accessibility to the X parasites once that absurd plot thread picks up.
Stylistically, this would have ironically been more clever despite copying Metroid II, since it would've provided an updated Metroid II environment (thus potentially leading to a remake ala Zero Mission), as well as following the theme of Samus always having to return to a planet twice to blow it the fuck up.
Problem 10c: Why do the X do jack shit about this? A single SA-X, in fact, the original SA-X maybe even, confronts Samus before she can start the self-destruct protocol. What are the rest of them doing? Lesbian goo-clone orgy? Parts of the plot hinge on the X absorbing the human intelligences of the station's staff, so why wouldn't it think to do something like get in an escape pod? Or jump out of an airlock, seeing as how the power suits are space-worthy? Or steal Samus' unguarded ship and fly out of there in that?
In fact, wouldn't it be cool if it came to the same conclusion that Samus did, what with it being a clone of her and all, and try to get an upper hand sooner? It's also not like the other Sectors are dead of life. Sure they might be lesser X-infected beasts, but surely they could do something to disrupt Samus at this point.
No, instead, Samus fights a single SA-X, starts the self-destruct, runs back to her ship as the timer counts down just like any other Metroid game more or less, and flies off into space.
Problem 11: Oh wait there's a timed boss fight first. One of the Metroids from the Metroid farm survived somehow and then grew up into an Omega Metroid (think Metroid crossed with an ugly dinosaur) and then magically appeared in the airlock.
And then, despite having run off earlier at its three-way defeat as Samus clone, mutated SR388 creature thing, and a Core X, the SA-X comes back to give Samus the Ice Beam which she can now use because...? And Samus uses it to defeat the Omega Metroid (if you don't fuck around too much and die either to the boss or the time limit) and then finally finally finally escapes, not once milling over the fact that the SA-X seemingly helped her do so. Good thing they're all dead, haha, genocide is always the answer!
More fun: The Metroid Wiki helpfully points out that there are interesting (and by interesting I mean suspicious) similarities between Fusion and Aliens and Alien: Resurrection. Awesome.
How I would have done it, or a Metroid game I'd like to see that would be better than this:
In Metroid: Hunted, Samus Aran would discover a massive Space Pirate operation already under way in an isolated space station far outside Federation territory. It turns out they have successfully raided a Chozo planet and are reverse engineering the technology. Why? To make their own answer to Samus, of course.
Samus must now fight for survival inside the massive pirate complex as she's hunted by a suped-up Space Pirate. She explores across the vast sectors of the space station, made up of the stolen and salvaged bits and pieces of other ships and worlds, trying to nab the vital, stolen Chozo-made power-ups before the Pirate Hunter can.
Where are the Metroids in this game? Well, the pirates have a damn good testing methodology. If their super soldier can completely wreck up Metroids, they're good to go. If they can't, they die.
Obviously Ridley would be somehow connected to this mad scheme, prompting a fight with everyone's favorite Space Dragon.
Inspiration for this whole thing comes from the Frigate Orpheon from Metroid Prime and the Wrecked Command Ship and Pirate Homeworld from Metroid Prime 3. Plus I like being meta when it's actually interesting.
Update 10/17/10
After revisiting the game with the help of a Let's Play (good god I am never actually playing Fusion again), it turns out I fucked up just a tad.
The SA-X does not come back to help Samus (and I don't think she mentions it, either). The implication, based on earlier events, is that the SA-X sees the Omega Metroid and just goes back to mindlessly trying to kill it because once again Metroids eat X therefore X hate hate hate Metroids. Right.
This lowers the stupidity of things from "really bad" to "obnoxiously convenient". If the SA-X hadn't shown up, Samus would be dead.
Also, another thing I caught was that when first crafting her brilliant plan, Samus states that the X are "heartless" and that despite being able to copy knowledge, DNA, etc. from their hosts, they lack a soul. How the fuck do you know, bitch?
There's also the fact that the Federation is apparently single-mindedly obsessed with getting their hands on X, hence why Samus couldn't just blow up the space station and then put a "Do Not Enter" sign on SR388, I guess.
Honestly? If we're already in the territory of making the snap-judgement to commit genocide, why not just fight the Federation? Hell, let the idiots come to the station, sabotage their ships so they can't leave, and when the X inevitably catch them, then blow everything up.
I'm amazed at the self-restraint of the plotting, really. Any option that keeps some X alive would mean room for a sequel.
But oh wait, apparently Samus also magically knew that the X would never stop feeding, growing, expanding, or fighting, and would just eventually consume the universe. Again, how the fuck does she know that? She's spent a long day (maybe a few at most) fighting the X in the worst case scenario. There's really no clear answer how the X would affect the rest of the galaxy.
There's also the sudden realization that oh, hey, the X are a natural organism. And yet the Metroids were engineered to eat them. So what they're saying is...SR388's ecosystem spawned a creature that would have naturally consumed the entire planet, eventually? In fact, why hadn't that already happened if the X are supposed to be so damn fast at what they do, and had no Metroids around to stop them? Apparently everything I learned in biology was wrong! Fuck you, Metroid Fusion.
Another few things that get swept under the rug concerning the Feds: For one, not only are they interested in the X, but also the SA-X (presumably because, hey, cloned power suits and power ups? Or cloned super soldiers? It's never elaborated upon.). Samus has no particular comment on this potential defilement of Chozo technology. Also the Federation never thought to check the million billion Chozo worlds seeded with Chozo technology, I guess.
Adam also explains, however, that the Feds explicitly withheld upgrades from Samus, fearing she might kill the SA-X and ruin everything. Early in the game, these upgrades are explained as increasing Samus' chances for survival. In other words, the Federation was perfectly okay with potentially getting Samus killed in exchange for the SA-X. She has no comment on this development, either. Fuck you, Metroid Fusion.
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