Truth be told I didn't enjoy it as much as other Metroid titles, there was without a doubt a lot more linearity and plot bottlenecking that sort of made you more contained within the game's story, rather than allowing you to just progress and figure out what you needed to do...The Navigation Rooms were, annoying as, once again, you weren't given the opportunity to explore and figure out what you needed to do, but instead were given clear objectives fairly often within the game...
There were a few parts were I felt more isolated, such as shortly after the Nightmare fight I came to an underwater area in ARC, there where I was more 'lost' which in turn made it feel more like a Metroid game...There were several parts that were like this so it wasn't 100% focused on plot railroading...
As for the boss fights, there were some decent ones, Nightmare easily one of the best bosses simply based on the build up, Yakuza was pretty fun as well, and Serris was a nice little challenge...but for the most part they were pretty underwhelming, Ridley was about as easy as any Ridley boss fight was (only reason I died my first time was because I had such low health due to the Gold Space Pirates kicking my ass beforehand), and the SA-X/Omega Metroid final boss was disappointingly easy...I found there were too many boss fights in comparison to other Metroid games, and not enough in between each of the boss fights...sometimes I ended up fighting a boss literally 5 minutes after I just finished off another, which really makes the game much more fast paced in comparison to other Metroid games where there is usually some kind of build-up/preparation needed for each major boss...
My final time was just over 5 hours which goes to show just how short this game was, then again 2D metroid games aren't exactly that long as Super took me over 9 hours and Zero Mission took me just over 6...
My final completion rate was 53%, I know pretty lame, but this leads me into my next issue...I didn't really have a choice since much like in Other M doors shut behind you to force you to progress forward...Like I said earlier there was a lot of plot railroading and freedom to explore was more limited than it was in other metroid titles that I've played...a few times I needed to go into certain Sectors but I wanted to backtrack and explore other parts of the ship, but found my way blocked as the game wouldn't allow me to, and during the final end game push I wasn't even given the opportunity to go back to certain areas I previously visited to find other power-ups I missed...which is usually something video games allow you to do as a means of last minute preparation, or an opportunity to tie up loose ends you previously missed...
Don't get me wrong it still had it's fair share of exploration and the added difficulty (which was due to the fact that Samus takes a lot of damage from enemies, especially early on) was a nice change of pace from other Metroid games...What it did right with it's plot was an element of foreboding and a looming threat, whether it's the dreaded footsteps of the SA-X which will kick your ass if it catches you, or the foreshadowing of a future encounter being the mysterious silhouette of Nightmare in the background (the fact it literally destroyed the crap out of ARC just before the boss fight adds to this foreshadowing), as I just stated Samus takes a lot more damage from the enemies in this game,which lends to the fact that in general she's a lot more vulnerable than in previous Metroid titles...
Besides O**** M, it ranks the lowest out of all the Metroid games I've played but it is still a solid title overall...and I most likely will play it again at some point in the future...
My only question now is...where does the Metroid series go from here? Meaning when the hell are we going to get Metroid 5 dammit!?!
