{"id":2096,"date":"2020-05-01T15:00:29","date_gmt":"2020-05-01T21:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=2096"},"modified":"2020-03-20T16:59:48","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T22:59:48","slug":"video-game-metroid-ii-return-of-samus-1991","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2020\/05\/01\/video-game-metroid-ii-return-of-samus-1991\/","title":{"rendered":"VIDEO GAME: Metroid II – Return of Samus (1991)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"MetroidMetroid II: Return of Samus
\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 1991
\nRating: E
\nTime Played: 7.5 hours<\/p>\n

The forgotten child of the original Metroid<\/em> trilogy, Metroid II<\/em> is that weird transition between a neat idea and a video game masterpiece. Relying on most all of the same concepts that made the original Metroid<\/em> on the NES popular, Metroid II<\/em> suffers from the innate limitations of the Game Boy hardware. Color certainly helped delineate the different areas in the NES game and made the follow-on Super Metroid<\/em> that much more vivid and haunting, which is why the lack of it in this game poses several problems. Still, it is a solid Metroid<\/em> game at its base, despite its few flaws.<\/p>\n

One of the flaws of this game is its lack of a map. Another weakness is the ability for the player to know what exactly changed when the screen shows a rumbling vibration. I spent way too long going back over the same areas, only to learn later that I had to backtrack a long way to access the new space that had opened up. I understand that most Metroidvanias reward some amount of exploration; still, when there isn\u2019t much more to explore in an area until heading back to these unlocked regions, it becomes an exercise in frustration.<\/p>\n

The controls and the challenge of the enemies were well balanced for a small portable game like this. A few spots were a bit tougher, but they were far enough along in the game that I expected the difficulty spike to stall my forward progress. And while the graphical limitations didn\u2019t help navigate the maze-like world, they did a relatively good job of representing Samus and the iconic Metroid in a way that still maintained the base feeling of the series. So, while not an entirely bad game, it is easy to forget that it exists when Metroid<\/em> and Super Metroid<\/em> are better experiences.<\/p>\n

A passable Metroid<\/em> game for the Game Boy, I give Metroid II<\/em> 3.0 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\" \"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Metroid II: Return of Samus Year: 1991 Rating: E Time Played: 7.5 hours The forgotten child of the original Metroid trilogy, Metroid II is that weird transition between a neat idea and a video game masterpiece. Relying on most all of the same concepts that made the original Metroid on the NES popular, Metroid II […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,1900],"tags":[657,2373,2374,2376,8,2375,906],"class_list":["post-2096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-0-stars","category-video-game","tag-657","tag-metroid","tag-metroid-ii-return-of-samus","tag-metroidvania","tag-review","tag-super-metroid","tag-video-game"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2096"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2106,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2096\/revisions\/2106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}