Samus Returns in 2023 - A Buried Treasure? Or Discarded Misfire? Do we need a remaster?

Samus Returns launched on the Nintendo 3DS in 2017, but everyone seems to have already forgotten about this entry in the Metroid franchise. What happened to this interesting remake of Metroid 2: Return of Samus? Is this game secretly a buried treasure, or just a discarded misfire? How did the 3DS platform play into this? How does it hold up in 2023? We'll dive into all these questions, and more.

[@cato3277]

The gameplay loop is really addictive, and I think it works best on OG hardware with many sporadic short play sessions. Its kinda bad for a marathon playthrough compared to other 2D Metroid games like Dread or Super.

[@AkaiAzul]

I think you described it perfectly: Samus Returns feels rather lifeless.
I played for a few hours and stepped away without any desire to return. Shooting felt weak, Samus felt weak, enemies had too much hralth, melee stops the momentum of progress. Music is lacking, environments are forgettable, you just feel...bored.
This is its biggest problem: it hardly lets you get into the "flow" of a Metroid game, that being forward progression into the unknown and engaging you with the environment.
This problem somewhat happens in Metroid Dread as well: engagement with the environment, the lack of memorable music and zone identity (especially with multiple cookie cutter Emmi Zones), makes each zone feel a bit lifeless or more accurately uniform. Dread's speed of progression saves it, Samus moves fast and you dont feel bogged down, allowing you to move on and ignore or forget the forgettable, onto the next story beat!
For both games, and hopefully Mecury Steam realizes this: they need to make the zones have personality and identity with melodic music and visually distinct appearances while maintaining the flow of exploration and speed. Not too fast that you fly past it, but not too slow that it bogs the player down.

[@crywolfplays]

Thanks for watching, I agree with a lot of this (as you can tell from the video). I agree that Dread also has a few sort of bland zones and segments, but the pacing and movement is much faster so there's more momentum like you said, and I think some areas are definitely more interesting than anything in Samus Returns. I think Retro studios did such an amazing job pouring life into every environment, and we saw that in other 2D metroids as well, I hope that gets more love and care in Prime 4 and the next Mercury Steam game (assuming its in dev). Samus does feel powerful later on but it takes forever to get there, about 3/4ths of the way through in my opinion, which is too long.
I think lifeless is a good word choice - It's that combination of fairly bland environments and "story context" combined with the slow movement/pacing, even if the core mechanics and gameplay is pretty traditional Metroid.

[@dis_inferno9173]

This game is a masterpiece. The best version of Metroid 2.

[@lukedavies3654]

A fun game for sure but has too much large space and less of a compact design that other titles have. That being said it is still a great game and worth playing

[@crywolfplays]

Thanks for watching, I agree, enjoyable game but the maps feel a little bit excessively large and sometimes empty, there's more areas that aren't as densely packed as previous titles.

[@jujitsuguy8244]

Wish I could play this game on my tv

[@rp-lopez]

4:35 this is what I'm afraid might happen with Prime 4

[@crywolfplays]

That's a valid concern, I'm hoping that can be avoided a little bit through Switch 2 backwards compatibility, or ideally a native cross gen release on both systems with improved resolution and some other enhancements on Switch 2 like we saw with BOTW. It was a bummer there was no Switch version of Samus Returns at the time, I think a cleaned up port with higher resolution graphics could be a great experience on Switch..

[@OnyxSkiesXIX]

The classic design absolutely appealed to me. While Dread is clearly the better looking and controlling game, I had way more fun playing this remake.

[@crywolfplays]

Thanks for watching, I can definitely see that perspective

[@bluemario5266]

This game would benefit by having a port to the switch with dreads controls

[@crywolfplays]

Yeah, I think this game could be made way more awesome with a sharpened HD overhaul (not a full remake) and snappier controls like Dread. I hope it doesn't end up stuck on 3DS forever, 3DS is one of my least favorite consoles from a pure hardware perspective (great games tho).

[@d0dg3st4r]

It's legit one of the best if not THE BEST game on the 3ds

[@Dionaea_floridensis]

Good shit!

[@jetstreamwinds6072]

metroid is metroid. yall love pinabll of all games.

[@bronyferienminuet2125]

The only good thing about samus returns remake was it created metroid dread. I'd still rather play dread, or am2r