Metroid Fusion (3DS)

The first resurrection of the Metroid-series!

While writing this there have been 1 week since E3 2021 and the news of Metroid 5 aka Metroid Dread have been revealed coming in October 2021. And since there have been the annual Midsummer celebration in Sweden I was back home with my parents so I fired up my 3DS and played through Metroid 4 aka Metroid Fusion to get back in the story as well as brushing up on the gameplay. And I haven't written a review of the game which is surprising as well.

It start as Samus is heading back from SR388, the planet where the Metroids originated from that she eradicated in Metroid: Samus return or Metroid II: Return of Samus. There she is infected by the parasite X and on the way back to a space station in orbit she loses conscious and crashes into an asteroid belt. She somehow is rescued and taken back to the Galactic Federation where they remove the suit and injects her with a Metroid vaccine in order to combat the parasite. She recovers and is sent back to the space station since the Federation have lost contact with it and they fear the X parasite is behind it. She arrives with a new space ship with a new AI that gives her orders during the game. The station is overrun by X parasites and the SA-X, X parasites that have taken the form of Samus Aran from her destroyed suit. 

Samus looks a bit green.

During the course of the game Samus regains her abilities and discovers that the station is actually a Metroid cloning facility to recreate the Metroid and use them for the Federations benefits. Which the X destroys. The AI tries to keep Samus in place until the Federation arrives since they are trying to capture the SA-X as they see potential in it's capabilities. Samus reacts rather poorly at this and scolds the AI, and in frustration calls it Adam, which was the name of the CO she served under while in the Federation (and in Other M, which I've haven't finished yet). Turns out that the AI is based on Adam so that jolt of memory kicks it's old personality into gear and they plan to send the station out of orbit and into the planet to destroy the station and all X parasites before the Federation arrives. A final confrontation with the SA-X and the station is on it's way. While trying to leave Samus is attacked by an Omega Metroid that have been let loose on the station and tries to kill her. The SA-X arrives a final time and tries to fight its mortal enemy the Metroid, but due to the injuries it's killed. Samus absorbs the ice shoot and make short work and escaped the station before it crashes into SR388. The end.

Took me just below 3 hours with 70 % completion. It was the first Metroid game I played and it was originally for the GBA. It was a fun game when I got a hang on it. Didn't like the split areas of the station since they locked you out from time to time until the end when your abilities allowed you to go anywhere. It also was 8 years between Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion. I got it for GBA, 3DS (through the Ambassador program) and the Wii U. Now, the funny thing with the 3DS version was that I noticed that the screen wasn't properly displayed, part of the top was at the bottom. Some say it's due to larger Micro SD Cards that to be correctly formatted or that it's basically the bad emulation (which I don't think they updated once since I got them). This game is at least passible and at times it looks right when you restart the game. And I also want to notify the records that I was right on the money at Dread being the 10 game as mentioned in Samus Returns as 2D/10, take that!