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"An improvement over the first game and a stepping stone towards greatness"

Metroid is a fairly niche Nintendo franchise with a fairly big fanbase. While it has had very few games early on, it did manage to gain its following and resulted in a number of cameos in other games, spin-off games, and a couple of aborted movie attempts. Although the first game was responsible for popularizing the free-roaming genre, it was the third game in the series, Super Metroid, that pretty much set the standard for what free-roaming video games were all about. Even to this day, people have considered it to be the pinnacle of video games in the 16-bit era and beyond and it is still a lot of fun to play. But before that game came out on the Super NES, there was a numbered sequel to the original NES game released on the original Game Boy handheld system. Now this one gets a bit of the cold-shoulder because of its radically different approach to the Metroid formula (even though there was only ONE game prior at the time) and its somewhat limiting gameplay. But despite the limitations, is Metroid II: Return of Samus a black stain in the Metroid legacy... or is it just a game that not enough people have given a proper shake? Let's find out.

STORY: Once again you assume the role of Samus Aran, whose identity is no longer a concealed secret, and you are tasked with the mission of heading into planet SR388 to wipe the entire Metroid race before they grow into a threat to the rest of the galaxy. Yes, Nintendo made a video game promoting MASS GENOCIDE. How did this not escape anyone's notice? It's just insane. People complain these days about a pair of melons being shown or a sex scene engaged by having coffee in a game, but they never seem to complain about this title disguising itself... yeah, I took some crazy pills today. 8/10

GRAPHICS: Much like the previous game, Metroid II's graphics do set the tone for the dark, alien landscapes you had to navigate. Because of the lack of color in this game, they had to be somewhat creative and as a result, there's a larger variety of tiles in this game than there were in the original game. It's actually pretty good stuff, but alas far too limiting and again, it's not hard to confuse some paths with another since they often reuse the same rooms and the same tiles over and over. The sprites in Metroid II are better rendered, more detailed, and seem much more menacing than the foes of the previous game. Of course, the animation is a bit of an issue, as some enemies animate and others... don't. Still, it's a step up over the previous game and given the lack of color, it's pretty much forced to make the visuals a tad better. All in all, they did the best they could on the old Game Boy and it looks really good.

One thing to note; because of the limited color set-up, designers had come up with a way to differentiate Samus' upgraded Varia Suit from her Power Suit by drawing two bigger shoulder pads and more impressive armor - the form that people most recognize Samus in. If this hadn't happened, Super Metroid would still be using colored suits like the original game. So thanks, Metroid II, for this wonderful contribution to society. 7/10

SOUND: Metroid II doesn't have much of a soundtrack, only a couple original songs, ambient noises, and a couple jingles from the original game. While I truly believe the game could have benefited from a couple more tunes, the musical compositions in this game do a pretty good job of enhancing the alien atmosphere and mood of the game, which is always a plus for most games of this type. The sound effects are as good as you'd get from the Game Boy. I sort of liked the Metroid roars in this game; they're actually well done. 7/10

GAMEPLAY: Metroid II improves the control scheme of the original Metroid somewhat and gives you more equipment to work with. Starting the game for the first time, Samus comes equipped with a Long beam, morphing ball, and thirty missiles - just enough to deal with some of the Metroid menace, but obviously not enough to deal with all of it. So the rest of the stuff, she'll have to find herself. Also, somewhere along the way, Samus learned the all-important ability to shoot downwards while airborne, something that would have been nice to have in the first game... but I digress.

Your goal in Metroid II is to eliminate Metroids and thus you have a little counter indicating the total number of Metroids left to exterminate. Pause the game and this counter is replaced with a much smaller number; the number of Metroids left to clear out in a designated area. Unless you clear out all the Metroids in an area, you can't progress forward. This results in a game that is decisively more linear than its predecessor and its eventual successors and a point of contention for many Metroid fans. In all fairness though, there is some semblance of exploration in the game and you'd still have to seek out tools and weapons to navigate farther, but it's still fairly limiting and it actually forces you to go through the motions instead of cheating your way through by some cunning means.

Despite this, the game plays fine, the controls are tight, you have your usual toys from the previous game along with a few new goodies, and you also have save points to save your progress - a definite improvement over Metroid's shoddy password system... and yes, I know the FDS version had a save system. But we didn't get an FDS system here in North America, did we? 8/10

CHALLENGE: Metroid II doesn't seem overwhelmingly difficult, but it's no cakewalk either. Like Metroid I, you have no map function to keep track of your progress, but because the individual areas are short to begin with and there isn't much in terms of deviations, you won't have much trouble getting back on track. All in all, it's a matter of what equipment you have available to deal with the situation at hand. And let me tell you - you'll need all the help you can get. 8/10

REPLAY VALUE: Unsurprisingly, there is very little to do after you first beat the game if you're not into speedruns or attaining 100% collection rates. There are a couple endings to earn based on time, but no option to play as Armorless Samus. Oh well. 3/10

OVERALL: Given the number of improvements that Metroid II has made over its NES counterpart, it's a shame that the trade-off had to be the free-roaming, non-linear progression that has become the Metroid series' trademark feature. But like any good sequel, Metroid II manages to improve upon the original Metroid with its enhanced visuals and improved control mechanics. And while it's not the complete nonlinear adventure that its predecessor was, the game is still a solid and competent sequel and a stepping stone for the series' next entry, as many of the items and elements hailed in the incredible Super Metroid for SNES had their start right here. If you haven't had the chance to play Metroid II, then you're doing yourself a great disservice by skipping this one. It's a pretty good game and it still holds up. 7/10

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 02/02/10

Game Release: Metroid II: Return of Samus (US, November 1991)