"Shooting games are fun, they're even better when there are things to shoot at besides walls"

I quickly removed the wrapping from the box. I popped Metroid II out of the box and straight into my Gameboy. I didn't bother to read the instructions yet, as I hadn't been so excited in such a long time. The reason it was so exciting, is because it was the first game purchased by my dad which had shooting in it.

Not only was there shooting involved, but to my amazement, my hero was totally shielding inside of some sort of battle gear. I began running around the area heading deeper and deeper inside of the planet. I was, and still am, disappointed with how strong the basic gun was at the beginning of the game. Pretty much just hold down shoot and run. In fact, that pretty much sums up a third of the game, run while firing away. That is the fun third, the other two thirds are spent moving around in the slow moving spider ball trying to find a hidden entrance to a room and running around trying to figure out where the heck you are supposed to go. This is both good and bad, the good news is, you'll likely find every single item in the game, the bad news is, you may well grow old doing so.

The world is too big, with too many optional areas. While it doesn't sound bad, there are a limited number of places you can save at. In addition, there is almost no music at any time in the game. When you enter a new area there are a few note interlude; along with music to fight the Metroids, but that is it. For you standard exploration you will hear Samus' footsteps and the death sounds of monsters, better known as a 'psssh'. Furthermore, the weapons don't even sound that good when you shoot them.

The weapons’ firing does at least look decent. It's not great by any stretch of the word. All enemies die pretty pathetically, they just make a small circular explosion. The backgrounds are rather bland and too similar to each other. The Metroids' look pretty lame too; except for the final boss. My biggest graphical complaint is with spikes on the floors and ceilings, they would look better if you wrote 'spikes are here you will take damage', instead, they look horribly superimposed from some drawing.

The control of the game is good in many aspects. Jumping, and eventually space jumps are very easy to pull off. It's easy to move in ball mode with jump ball and bomb, but again, spider ball doesn't work well. If you get in a funky area you find yourself pressing down to move left or up to move to the right. Odd. There are some instances where it is hard to shoot an enemy, but you get used to it after a while.

While going through the game, other than pondering how big the levels are, one other thing will be on your mind, is it possible to die? Sure, you take some damage here an there, but with several maximum life expanding tanks around the world, you eventually get so much life you can't get damaged enough. Add onto that the varia suit which reduces damage by half and you're almost indestructible. I can live with being almost indestructible. Then comes screw attack, the single most ridiculous attack in the game. You pull it off while space jumping in the curl up form. It doesn't damage every single enemies in the game, but, it does nullify all damage done to you other than that done by the afore mentioned spikes.

While it's nice being indestructible and such, it's also nice to have enough missiles to kill Metroids. Yes, this was seriously a problem my first time through the game. I missed enough missile packs to the point where I had to connect with the final boss on every shot; or I would be unable to kill it due to lack of supplies. Sure, I could have gone back through the enormous world looking for things I wasn't even sure existed (I know they do now), but talk about boring. It's not the only time either. Typically in zones where you get special items, you have to shoot a vault door with five missiles. Unlike life, missiles are not commonly dropped by enemies when you kill them.

My biggest problems with this game though are the lack of challenge and replay value. Sure, navigating should be factored into challenge, in which case this game would be average, but in terms of, how easy is it to die, this game has little challenge. Frustration is the only enemy in this game, which is somewhat depressing. After you defeat the final boss, you have to walk back to your space ship to see the credits, which are worth watching by the way.

As far as replay goes, there's really nothing different the second time through. You might get more energy storage tanks and missile packs, but aside from that there's really nothing. You get different 'ending credits' depending on your time, though there are only three of them. It might be easier to get a good time your second time through, as you may well know where you are going.

Scores:

Music: 1/10
Sound: 4/10
Graphics: 5/10
Control: 9/10
Gameplay: 5/10
Replay Value: 4/10
Challenge: Below Average
Buy/Rent: It's Gameboy, any more you have to buy the games for a whole two dollars.

Overall Score: 5/10

Reviewer's Score: 5/10, Originally Posted: 04/28/03, Updated 04/28/03