"A Game of True Quality, Suspense, and Limitless Replayability that's So Often Overlooked"

Metroid II: Return of Samus- a game without equal in the series and on its native system, the Game Boy. Why bother with a review of such an old game on an outdated game unit? Because MII:RoS is one of those rare instances where everything went right.

Consider this: how many truly great Game Boy games have you ever played? In an age of monochrome and a 2"x2" screen, with nothing but two buttons and a direction pad for regular gameplay to work with, a game had to be exceptional to be remembered. Sure, at the time it was all new and interesting, but when's the last time you considered playing the original Super Mario Bros. on the actual NES a worthwhile experience, what with about 20 remakes on more reliable systems and far newer and better editions in the series to contend with? Few games from that era were truly lasting, and most had to be ported, updated, or otherwise supplanted to really last.

Not this one.

I have played, in one form or another, just about every Metroid game there is, but for every minute I've played each of the other games in this series, I've spent at least thirty playing this one. Sure, I know every inch and corner and enemy and item by heart; I know every surprise, every Metroid, every secret, everything about this game. But the quality is such that it doesn't matter: it still scares the living smeg out of me, and I've been playing it for fourteen years.

Graphics: 10/10

Nothing has ever looked so good on a Game Boy. The world is violent and alien, the heroine resembles a space-age football player armed to the teeth, the enemies are amazingly detailed without the need for color or megapixels or processing power. Animation is smooth and seamless, and fast as hell. So much is done with so little, and yet nothing is cluttered. If ever you needed proof that better system's graphics aren't needed for great gaming, this is it.

Sound: 10/10

The proper way to play this game is with earbuds inserted and cranked. The "main" tune is catchy, and amazingly detailed for its time. But the true beauty of this game lies in the way it sounds in every other aspect. Said main tune lasts perhaps five to ten minutes of any given game's duration, tops. Mostly, the "music" is absent, replaced by something far, far greater: near silence. Little chirps and alien squeaks and scratches make the caverns seem that much more real and large, and more menacing. There are no grandiose or upbeat melodies where you're going, and the suspense compounds with the eerieness of the sounds. You can hear your own footsteps as you walk, and everything sounds just as real as if you were there, an accomplishment rarely achieved even in more recent games. And heaven help you if you run into a Metroid: the shift is sudden, and the battle all the more menacing, because of the way the music announces the onset half a millisecond before it bears down upon you. Sometimes, it happens so fast that you don't have a moment to prepare, and you nearly have a heart attack. The sound in this game is perhaps the most essential element in what makes it so great, and it's all done through a sound system barely a step above the NES.

Control: 10/10

Two buttons, a select, a start, and a D-pad is all you have to work with on a Game Boy (or an NES for that matter), and in a day and age where games like Halo depend so heavily on having a lot of buttons and joysticks just to get about and try not to get killed, having so few options available may seem suicidally limiting. Metroid II, however, proves that you can pack a ton of options and abilities into a small control space and never miss a beat. Consider this: you can use any of four beams, missiles, AND bombs with the B button alone, simply through small changes in context. You can run, crouch, fire in all directions, turn into a ball, and further make that ball zip through holes, stick to walls, etc. with only the directional pad. You can jump- and later, jump again and again, and even shred enemies in your path- with the A button. Start pauses and, in another rarity for its time, saves the game. The only single-function button on the plate is Select, and even that helps multiply the B button's capabilities. There are no menus here, no limits of what can be used when or where, just a simple and reliable setup that never, ever gets in the way. MII:RoS outdoes the other games in the series, if not in expanse of available abilities to control then in the sheer seamless style and setup of the ones it has. Believe me, the setup is perfect.

Gameplay: 10/10
You are a female bounty hunter in a suit of kick-ass alien armor that only improves itself as you play. In the only game of the series that truly pits you against the Metroids as a group for real, you have to combat no fewer than six forms of the most vicious, ruthless creatures in video game history, from the slower but dangerously unrelenting Alphas and Gammas to the ferociously predatory Zetas and intimidatingly powerful Omegas, not to mention a far faster and deadlier group of energy sucking larval forms than in other Metroid games to date and, of course, the awesomely ultimate Metroid Queen herself. You are alone, in an alien world where these bastards can appear at any time, just around the corner or behind the next door, even right dead smack in the middle of a long, confined space with no escape. Just seeing one of the Metroid's discarded shells will make you involuntarily shudder. First time or fiftieth speed run, this game is an experience in survival/horror style suspense and quality gaming unrivaled and unmatched both within the series and elsewhere in gaming. A hard boss isn't just a hard boss, and death can be slow or swift, but always the game sets the mood.

Overall: 10/10
The game, in my honest opinion, is perfect, or very nearly so. My only gripe with it is that games of this quality and resilience are so very rare and few. If you have never played this game, or have never played it through, do so. It is a standard in gaming by which I hold up to the entire series for comparison.

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 04/23/07