"Okay."

I remember when I first got this game. I was eight or something, and it was around Easter. I decided I was going to get a Game Boy Pocket, because I wanted to get a Game Boy Pocket. So, I says, 'Ok, I'll get a Game Boy Pocket' I take my Dad up to Target, and we look around for a little, and we come up to the Game Boy Pockets. I stare at them for a while, and I decide that I wanted a clear one because it looked cool. I got the clear one, but then my Dad told me I could get a game to go along with it, because I wasn't particularly expecting that to happen, I decided to pick this game because, I don't know, I like Super Metroid or something. So, the guy picks this out, and I happily take it home. I was eight at the time, and I was hyper because I could play video games in the car, but it took me a few years to realize that this game was flat-out bad.

When you first start out in the game, you're the simple Samus Aran, with her blasting arm, and her cool space suit and stuff. The game pretty much tosses you onto a planet, and tell you to destroy the Metroids that inhabit it. Right there, you realize that you're most likely not going to have fun on this trip. After you explore this little exterior part of the planet you've seemingly landed on, you find your way into this cave, and you begin your descent into the depths of the planet. You walk around a little, blasting these boxes that are supposed to prevent you from getting lower, and after a while of jumping, shooting, and falling, you're going to start to notice the first few signs of life. You'll notice strange flying enemies hovering over your head, snail-like creatures crawling all over the ground....Well, after you're done getting somewhat deep into the planet's depths, you have the choice to explore. This is where the game's hilariously boring side comes into play. The game gives you absolutely zero amount of clue on what to do, so you're pretty much walking around with your eyes closed. Although this gives the game a difficult edge, it doesn't exactly make it fun. So you explore your surroundings a little more, and you come to an open area. The life forms just aren't in that area, and you have zero clue on what's going on. After you walk around the area a little more, another enemy life form will start to come up. It's a Metroid. What're you going to do now Samus? I seriously hope you're going to pump it's guts full of plasma, because that's what you're supposed to do. So, after you destroy the Metroid with your missles, the ground will shake, and you'll be plunged into even more depths of the planet. You see, the planet's insides are pretty much layered with some poisonous acid type thing, and, in order to advance, you must destroy all the Metroid's in the surrounding area.

This game, compared to most other Metroid games, Samus is forced more into a survival mode, rather than being stocked with supplies up to the neck. You're not going to get as many power-ups, missles, and extra blaster equipment. I don't know why, some might say it's because Nintendo wanted to make it this way, but I say, Nintendo was just down-right lazy. You only start off with your little blaster, barely defeats enemies with one shot on it's own, forcing you to continuously hound enemies with shots until they're defeated. Especially the air folk, they can be frustratingly hard to hit, considering they randomly change directions, and your blaster shot is slower than a pencil trying to go uphill. After playing the game awhile, you're eventually going to come across a power up. If you're doing the game correctly, it's the Ice Beam, and it allows you to freeze enemies, as the name itself suggests. This doesn't make the blaster's power any stronger, it just pretty much freezes the enemies, allowing you to take your time and defeat them at whatever speed you want. Along the way, you'll uncover special abiliies for Samus's rolling ball, such as the Spider Ball, which cleverly allows you to pretty much roll anywhere and everywhere, and there's a jumping capability that you can get to go with it, meaning you don't have to blow the crap out of yourself with bombs in order to thrust Samus into the air. Overall, the guns and special abilites that you're going to be able to equip yourself with will slowly adapt to your surroundings, meaning the guns are going to get stronger as the enemies get stronger, and so on. Overall, the gameplay in this game is below par, although it is quite deep with the different aspects of weapons and other capabilities.

Although there's some part of a story, I can't really find words to describe it. It's pretty much: ''Hey, Samus go to here, and then kill all the Metroids there, and then manage to destroy the huge metroid that seemingly controls the place, k''? Not many Metroid games' stories are exactly deep, but, come on, at least the other games give you some insight on what the hell is going on. I found the game stupid, and them giving you no insight whatsover made it much much worse. The story is just...bleh.

I can't really find much to say about the graphics in the game, except that, they're bad. The game is black and white on pretty much every game boy, and on Game Boy Color and GBA, the colors are only blue and some strange shade of green, which doesn't make any improvements to the graphics whatsoever. The game is dark all the way through, regardless if you're outside or not, and the lighting itself is just plain terrible. At least you can tell the difference between rock and liquid, and you can see it alot easier by pretty much shoving it into any light that you have around your body. The gun graphics aren't exactly detailed, as they're pretty much a dot lighter than the background flying through the air. They have missle animations, which is a bigger lighter dot flying through the air. They have the bomb animations, which is a circle lying on the ground that explodes eventually. And then there are the animations of your local enemies, they're a tad more detailed than your neighborhood gun spots. The enemies are pretty much your basic sprites. You get the occasionaly bat type thing flying through the air, and you get the strange snail-type thing crawling slowly across the ground. You also get the ever-famous strange fish that flies out of the seemingly deathly lava sprite. Once in a while, after tearing through repetitive enemy sprites, you'll come across a Metroid. These metroids range from small, fat, parasitic looking things, to manta ray-ish things, and so on. Each Metroid gets bigger and bigger as you progress through the areas, and that gives the game some type of a variety. And, at the end of the forest of weird enemies, and metroids, you'll come to the huge Metroid. You know, the thing that runs the place. It's huge, and it's difficult to beat, it's also freakishly anorexic looking, and it throws out fire, etc. The usual boss attacks. After you defeat it, it dies, and you get a strong sense of pride and accomplishment. Overall, the graphics are crap.

Then there's the sound of the game. I don't know if it actually qualifies as sound, considering there's pretty much the music, footsteps, and strange bleeps to signify the gun going off. The music of the game isn't very deep, it's just a simple few bleeps that try and make the game somewhat creepy. The music changes tunes once in a while, to suspenseful when you're going through unexplored territory, to joyous; after you kicked the crap out of some big Metroid or something, and then to the downright supsicious; 'OMG, there's a metroid around here'. Overall the music is really bland, actually, as they aren't all that different, but you can tell them apart. And then there's the different sounds and happenings of the game. When you freeze an enemy, some type of crystal-ish sound will hopefully occur, and when you just shoot with the normal blaster, a little bleep will occur, and when you shoot with the missle, a larger, deeper sound will occur. There's really nothing special about the sound in the game. As a matter of fact, there's really nothing special about anything in the game

Gameplay: 5/10
Story: 1/10
Graphics: 2/10
Sound: 4/10

Final Score - 3/10

Good day.

Reviewer's Score: 3/10, Originally Posted: 10/06/02, Updated 02/08/03