Metroid: Zero Mission

Mother Brain was a bitch and a half. It's one of Zero Mission's few reminders of how masochistic NES games could be. The update does a great job, though, of showing how the basic Metroid design philosophy hasn't changed all that much in the past 30 years - add a map and a loose narrative, and it becomes thematically and mechanically indistinguishable from Samus's newer outings.

The biggest addition in Zero Mission is actually after Mother Brain. There's an entirely new level, in which Samus crash-lands on Chozodia and needs to infiltrate a Space Pirate mothership to get back into space. The twist here is that she starts out without her power suit - at first, you play the level as a stealth game, avoiding and running from enemies. Then, after regaining her suit and getting a couple new upgrades, Samus escapes yet another self-destruct sequence to roll the ending credits.

This last level is interesting, although it does clash dramatically with everything in the rest of the game; if you didn't know that Zero Mission was a remake and that this level was new, you'd still be pretty sure that the pre- and post-Mother Brain games were made by two different teams. And in general I wasn't really wild about the sneaking around, nor about the action-driven portion of Chozodia after Samus gets her suit back (in stark contrast to the slower-paced exploration typical of Metroid). But, it was fun for what it was.

Zero Mission is the first time I'm not really feeling like going back to collect all the items. It's a good game, to be sure, but the world just isn't as compelling as that of newer games, and I don't really feel like going back to it. I'm satisfied with 65%.

Progress: Finished with 65% items