Metroid: Zero Mission

Inori Says:

Hello! I am Inori Aizawa. Internet Explorer's Mascot who decided to take up the much cooler job of summarizing Axel-sama's really long posts with tl;dr versions of them! For Metroid: Zero Mission, if you're interested, he strongly suggests giving it a try! Pros Include Not just a remake of Metroid; very clear devotion to making the original game an almost entirely new experience. Great, well-polished art design, sprites, area backgrounds, etc. Nice remixes of classic songs, nearly always setting the mood where dialogue and action are nowhere present. Fast-paced action-platforming gameplay that also encourages you to slow down sometimes. (Careful with running for best times, though). VERY VERY BERRY HIGH REPLAY VALUE, multiple ways to play this game (and rewards for doing so) Fun and challenging boss fights. A neat little stealth segment at the end that subverts the typical series formula (in a good way). Samus is hot? (In all seriousness, the character design is nice). Simple-yet-subtle touches in a couple of moments of the game's otherwise thin plot. Cons Include Running the game on 15% Item Completion on Hard mode was a little over-the-top ridiculous. Also, pretty steep learning curve in figuring out how to solve the more challenging puzzles for items without making so many mistakes that you have to reset the game to preserve your time. Too short? (Maybe for others). Sometimes the bosses may just be a little too straightforward.

Let me begin with an explanation of how this series is going to work. I currently have all of the 2D side-scrolling Metroid games available for me to play on my 3DS, so those will be played first. I really wanted to do a chronological thing, but because I don't have my Wii up here in Tallahassee, that is not going to work. I just found out that Metroid Prime and MP2 seem to work emulated on my computer, but it is uncertain whether there may still be a bug later on in the game that'll cause it to be unplayable on my computer. Because there is a lot of uncertainty about how I'm going to get the Prime series to work and thus be consistent with how often I write my posts here, I am going to play those games after I play through the 2D side-scrollers. That also means Metroid: Other M is last, which shouldn't matter because nobody should really care about that game. Hell I'm possibly showing too much care already by including it!

Now I hope you're not a fanatic who is about to ditch me here just because I chose to review M:ZM before the original Metroid. First of all, I don't have the original Metroid on me; my brother has it on his 3DS (which I used to purchase it, long story). I figured why am I going to buy the game again when I can just transfer it from my brother's SD card? Some of you may be wondering, then, why I didn't just download a rom of the GBA port, and to that I say, I would prefer to play it without the emulator. It's a simple formula: Virtual Console is more stable than flashcart.

Second of all, if you honestly think Metroid is a better game than Zero Mission, you have problems. You must, then, think Final Fantasy I and II are better games than VI, XII, or even VII. Or, to put this back in terms of Nintendo, that Super Mario Bros. was a better game than Super Mario 64 or Sunshine. Or that The Legend of Zelda is a better game than Wind Waker. In that case, there is nothing I can do for you. You are trapped forever in a retroactive state of mind, in a retroactive belief that, "Old is always better." For you personally, I am truly very sorry.

Moving on, let's talk about Zero Mission! I'm going to start with some background to give you Readers an idea of my history with Metroid and this game. Very shamefully, I am going to admit right now that the thing that got me into the Metroid series was that I saw a similarity between it and Halo. I'm talking about Metroid Prime, of course, seeing as how Halo was never a 2D side-scroller. I only had a GameCube, not an Xbox, so I could only play Halo 2 when I was over at somebody who had an Xbox. So, when I found out about Metroid Prime, I thought, "Hey, this looks like Halo," and so I went and got it. Of course, I was immediately disappointed with the fact that there was no multiplayer feature, which was pretty much the thing that sparked a contrast between my brother and me in our liking of the game. However, I was already used to games being single-player only. That was how pretty much all games were throughout my childhood, so why should it bother me then? I also don't think I've ever played the single-player mode of any first-person shooter before, so I guess that makes Metroid Prime my first FPS, even though the game stands far off from that. If it's like any game, it's actually surprisingly a lot like Half-Life. It is almost very much an open-world Half-Life where the emphasis is more on platforming than on physics, yet still retains the sci-fi and the puzzle elements and the simple fact alone that it is more than just running around shooting things (coughs and mentions Call of Duty).

What does any of this have to do with Zero Mission, though? Well, Metroid Prime was the only thing I knew of the Metroid series for a while. I had no idea that it was initially a side-scrolling series until I laid my eyes upon an advertisement for Metroid: Zero Mission...

Wait no, that's wrong. I knew pretty much right away that it was initially a side-scrolling series, because after I beat Prime, I unlocked the original Metroid. I never really played through much of it at the time though. After that, I laid eyes on Zero Mission, which I found was supposed to be a remake of the original Metroid game. Remake is a term I refuse to use in referencing Zero Mission, but more on that in a bit. So anyway, since the GameBoy Advance was the biggest thing at the time, I got Zero Mission and fell in love with the game. The graphics, for a GBA game, were beautiful, which sounds shallow but meant a lot to me as a kid, seeing things look better than previous things. I was unsure at first how I'd feel about the gameplay, but the gameplay was incredible to me since it was everything that Prime was but at a much faster and exciting pace (not to deny that Prime was an exciting game). Zero Mission was what truly got me interested in the core games of the Metroid series, and it was what led me to like the original Metroid in spite of how, when I was that age, I never really liked NES games all that much.

So let's talk about Zero Mission, finally. What is Metroid: Zero Mission? Is it a port? Is it a remake? Well, obviously, it isn't really a port. Sure, it's the original game on the GBA, but it's not literally the same thing like the NES series of GBA games. It is defined as "an enhanced remake of the original Metroid game, designed to retell that entry's story with Super Metroid-like gameplay" on Wikipedia. While the gameplay is certainly that of Super Metroid, I would not settle with the term "remake" (even though they threw in "enhanced" to modify that). I would call Metroid: Zero Mission a complete revision of the original Metroid game. Sure, the entire layout of the game is familiar, but this is also a game that was built from the ground up, with its own additions and differences that set it pretty far apart from the original Metroid. I mean, Nintendo could have very easily placed this game somewhere chronologically between Metroid and Super Metroid and called it another game in itself. That is pretty much what Metroid: Zero Mission is in a nutshell.

I guess I can start with the obvious: the graphics and audio. GameBoy Advance games were (or could have been) 32-bit games, allowing for a broader range of color-pallets and detailed sprite images to run together. What was once a blocky-looking Samus Aran robot thing was now a fully-detailed armored sprite, with ridges along the knees, elbows, and other parts of the suit. The "breastplate" of Samus's suit, which in my opinion for the longest time was the only thing remotely indicative of her sex, was sort of distinguishable. You could see markings, the thrusters on the backside of her suit, the ridges and linings in her arm cannon, and the shape of her visor and the small pipes beneath it, I think. The enemies, namely of course the bosses, have also been brought to eye-popping detail. I would go so far as to say that this game looks even better than Metroid Fusion, when in actuality the two may have the same specs in terms of graphics. Here is where it boils down to art design, the backgrounds they use for each section, how the monsters look, and, once again, how the bosses are designed. One example I can pull up is how Ridley in this game looks compared to Ridley in Fusion. First of all things, Ridley in this game is more in line with how he looks in Super Metroid and even the Prime series, whereas in Fusion, Ridley is sort of funny looking. His eyeballs have pupil, they are big, and his snout is more like a cross between a crocodile's and a toucan's beak than his original thin and pointed, dragon-like snout. I mean, he still retains the form of a dragon, more or less, but Ridley in Fusion was a lot more cartoony to me than he was in this game (and cartoony feels like a strange term to use for the Metroid series). It's not that it was bad or anything, it was just... well, it was just sort of funny-looking.

Go ahead, you be the judge. This is a bad screen, too, as his eyes definitely have pupils.

So yeah, art direction! I just thought it was all more polished in this game. Not a huge thing or anything, but yeah. There are also some interesting things to talk about concerning Samus's character artwork as well, but I'll leave that for later (probably the end of the post as it is a fitting place). Then we have the soundtrack. The Metroid series probably has one of the most underrated or unnoticed soundtracks out there. You get a lot of orchestral and piano remakes of songs from The Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy. I think there may have even been a Mario music thing at some point or another. If there are stuff for Metroid's music, you just don't hear about it as often. The beautiful thing about Metroid, which probably goes for a lot of Nintendo games as well, is how well they are able to set the mood or tone throughout the game through cues in the music. This is especially noteworthy due to the lack of dialogue and voice acting in the Metroid games... err, well, in most of them anyway. A great example for this post would be the Chozodia theme, after Samus retrieves her Power Suit (if you are freaking about spoilers, you are freaking out over a game that is eight years old). The Chozodia theme is actually a sort of remix of the Brinstar theme, which is an iconic theme of the Metroid series. The Brinstar theme is cheery, catchy, and evenly-paced if not slightly upbeat in tempo and spirit. It is also the very first song you hear in actual gameplay of all these games. It is very inviting in that way and helps establish the feeling that you are on an exciting adventure, enticing you to explore the interestingly subterranean planet Zebes.

I kind of forgot that I was talking about Chozodia, ha ha. As I said, it is a remix of the Brinstar theme: slightly faster-paced, sounding more of like a fanfare as the music is in a higher dynamic, and each down beat (i.e. beat that a phrase starts on) is almost sort of explosive, as they have some sort of percussion marking those beats. We're not just hearing the welcoming theme that evoked excitement at the beginning of the game, we're now hearing that almost sort of celebrates all that you've been through to now have the "fully-powered suit." In other words, Samus is now one-hundred percent badass, and therefore badass iconic music needs to play to reflect that. It's not just a matter of finally attaining all of the main abilities in the game; the space pirates at the end of the game are virtually powerless against the awe of Samus and her awesomeness.

So before I go on forever about the gameplay, let's talk about story real quick. So... story in Zero Mission... wait a minute? Is there really a story here? Well, one of the selling points of Zero Mission is that it has cutscenes that further enact the story of the original game. Plus, we have a really awesome sort of "bonus" sequence (even though it is essential to beating the game) where we see that Samus never fully does escape Zebes after Mother Brain. But that's jumping ahead a little bit. The story of the game kind of actually begins before the title screen, which I think we pretty much have seen before in the original Metroid. We get a message that reads something along the lines of "Emergency Mission! Destroy the Metroids and Mother Brain" blah blah. In between each thing, we see brief scenes of Samus rushing over to Zebes, although not much really. When the game starts, she lands her ship, and we get this sort of retroactive reflection of the events of the game (not everything, but just that this was Samus's first, or "zero," mission). Then that's pretty much it, afterward we just get some brief intermittent cutscenes for most of the zones, which pretty much explain things like how Ridley arrived and stuff like that. Metroid's never really been all that much about the plot, honestly, and that's really okay, because on the other hand we have things like Other M to contend with.

The point of the game where the story gets really big is, once again, the ending sequence after Mother Brain. I actually really love this whole thing on so many more levels than just the fact that it expands the original game. First off, we have what I think to be a brilliant developing point in Samus's character, which all throughout the games hasn't really been too explored... well, aside from Fusion, but I mean even then, most people thought of Samus as this badass femme fatale whose cunning transcended human comprehension, which is sort of a good way to describe who she is. HOWEVER, this game does something really cool hat I think most people don't notice: we see she didn't always outsmart her own foes. We see in a pretty simple and straightforward cutscene how, after dealing with Mother Brain, she flies off into Zebes orbit and runs into space pirates. She manages to escape these guys, but in a moment of ease, when she least suspects it, she gets shot down and crash lands back on Zebes without her Power Suit. This is where the iconic Zero Suit gets introduced, but I'll have more on that later. This scene, at first glance or from just casual observation, just seems simple enough to further the plot along. However, there is something really cool happening here. As soon as Samus leaves Zebes's atmosphere, she takes off her Power Suit and catches her breath. Then, when things seem quite after that run-in with the space pirates, she seems to relax again, and this costs her her escape from Zebes. Do you where I'm going here? Samus makes a mistake. It isn't even just any kind of mistake, but I believe it to be a mistake that kind of implies that there was more to her than we imagine. It's kind of like she might've been sort of naïve during this time of her first mission. I mean, why not be that way? You are a super-human badass with access to an entire armory of advanced technologies and weaponry. No human being can fully understand what you are. If I were Samus I too would've taken a breath after destroying Mother Brain. Hell I would've kicked back with a cigar and glass of whiskey and probably laughed, congratulating myself for being awesome. Unlike Samus, though, I probably would've been so caught up with that nonsense that I probably would've been dead at the end of Zero Mission.

Well anyway, putting my silliness aside, that's what I make of that scene where Samus gets shot down. Who knows, maybe I'm reading too much into it and it really is just a means of expanding the plot, but nothing the developers can say will change my mind, I believe this is revealing of possibly Samus's age and mindset versus her experience so far in her line of work.

Then of course we get the whole Zero Suit stealth sequence, which is more gameplay talk to be saved for later. Then we get another interesting cutscene, where Samus is at this sort of shrine or whatever, and we see a flashback that reveals a little of her history with the Chozo, and that she was taken here as a child for some reason. So wait a minute, Samus has been to this shrine before, and it looks like there is only one way in. What does this mean? To me, it pretty much means that the whole time she went at least through the Chozo ruins segment of Chozodia, that she knew where she was going this whole time we, the players, thought we were just exploring. Could that mean that Samus knew, this whole entire time we've been venturing through Zebes, where she was going? I think maybe, but it certainly wouldn't be supported by the Chozo statues, which are placed to guide her to the items you find in the game. I know it mainly serves a gameplay purpose, which many find really annoying since it kind of holds your hand a little, but think about it from a story's perspective. If you know that Samus was raised on this planet, by the Chozo and all, you can kind of get the sense that these statues may have been placed in anticipation of her. We get support in later Metroid games that the Chozo were kind of clairvoyant, too.

Well anyway, after Samus gets her Power Suit back, we see how she acquired the iconic look of the big bulky shoulders and such. Then we see how she escaped, and that's about it. Oh wait, we also see Mecha-Ridley, and the fact that we see it so soon after defeating Ridley really shows how well the space pirates anticipated and prepared for Ridley's death (doesn't seem like they have a lot of faith in their top general). But I like that this kind of shows a sort of development or evolution of the Meta-Ridley we recognize from the Prime series, and that Meta-Ridley wasn't always as fast and efficient as he seemed to be in Prime. I mean, he's a giant robot that can't fly, takes up an entire screen, and has a huge weak spot left right out there in the open (although since he's so cramped in the room, it makes it hard to hit). It's almost clearly obvious that he was in no means ready for a situation where Samus comes bursting into their mother ship, if it weren't for the fact that he is one of the most difficult Metroid bosses ever. I mean, sure, he's no so bad with ninety-nine percent item completion, but on the other challenges of the game, he can be one hell of a pain in the ass.

It looks like we're getting into the gameplay now, so why don't we talk about that already? The first thing I want to look at is the fact that there are several ways to play this game. Yes, there is an "Easy," "Normal," and "Hard" mode, but there's more to it than just that. There are eight different "endings" for completing the game under different circumstances. These "endings" are pretty much concept art with different depictions of Samus, nearly all of which are super awesome. You can set out to beat the game on all difficulties, but what is a Metroid game without any reason for speed-running it (well aside from the Prime series, but more on that in a future post)? There are eight circumstances that will reward you for completing them:

1. Beat the game with 15% item completion or less on Hard mode (I like to call this "Curse-and-Nearly-Break-Your-Game Mode"). The picture up top by the way is the reward for doing this.
2. Beat the game with 15% item completion or less on Normal mode. It really isn't all that bad.
3. Beat the game in under 2 hours with 100% completion on Hard mode (I like to call this "Just-Reset-the-Game Mode").
4. Beat the game in under 2 hours with 100% completion on Normal mode (Also called "Just-Reset-the-Game Mode").
5. Beat the game with 100% completion on Normal/Hard mode.
6. Beat the game in under 2 hours with less than 100% completion, Normal/Hard mode.
7. Beat the game in over 2 hours, but under 4, with less than 100% completion, Normal/Hard mode.
8. Take 4 hours to beat the game, or if you're good at the game and smart, beat it on Easy mode. Why would you intentionally spend 4 hours playing one game to unlock the specific ending?

These really aren't the only ways to beat the game either. There are records other players have set, each under different circumstances of their on. There's the 9%-Only Challenge, where you play through the game with only the items essential to beating the game! That means no energy tanks, no missiles beyond the one you need to get to kill bosses and stuff with, no super missiles, no power bombs (mostly unimportant anyway), and no nice things like screw attack and hi-jump boots. Maybe on Normal mode this isn't as bad as it sounds, but I've already vowed to never play another Metroid game on Hard mode for the 15% challenge. That whole thing was so frustrating it nearly made me hate Zero Mission, which is actually my favorite game in the whole series. I managed to do it, though, so I am officially good at these games, and thus that makes me a sound authority.

And then, if that huge block of text describing the different challenges the game has to offer wasn't enough, we have something that's pretty big in the Metroid series: sequence-breaking. Metroid, when it is actually good and not like Other M, is about exploring pretty much every nook and cranny the worlds have to offer. You will find places that will puzzle you and make you scratch your head, but then, when you have found a particular ability, you'll remember that very place and go back again to try and get there. The Metroid worlds are known for being, for the most part, open-ended and enabling for you to explore without any real barriers that go out of the way to prevent you from doing that. Wow that was a loaded sentence. Anyway, so while you can follow the beaten path and go where the annoying Chozo statues tell you to go, you can also rebel against the hand-holding pretty much the moment you get the bombs for morph-ball. Why? Because this game has virtually no limitations on how many bombs you can place at once.

Usually, in other games, you could only place down three bombs and wait for them all to blow up before placing more. In this game, you can pretty much place bombs forever. This enables players the ability to bomb-jump in many ways that were previously impossible to do. For example, one can bomb jump diagonally across spaces to get to areas without the "required" power-ups needed to get there. It's all a matter of timing. Some skilled players can perfectly place bombs in such a timed succession that they can sort of jump twice at a time. It's hard to explain. I never got into doing that, so I just place down one bomb at a time to jump. There's also horizontal bomb jumping, which is somehow done to move in a straight line backward or forward. I have no idea how this is possible, as well as what use it could possibly serve at some point, but it's there if you so choose to use it.

Then of course there's wall-jumping and the shinesparking, which is when you speed boost and suddenly crouch to store up that momentum and unleash it to make some kind of ridiculous jump in any direction you put in. My god I'm having problems with syntax today. Basically, there are a ton of things you can do that go beyond what's clearly set in stone. Sequence-breaking pretty much allows for this game to be experimented with in a ton of ways, allowing for even more depth and complexity in the progression of the game. Combine this with the different challenges you can set out to achieve in Zero Mission, and you essentially have an incredibly high replay value for this game. I beat this game about nine or ten different times in order to A) fully unlock everything, and B) write this analysis of the game, and there was not one play-through where I felt tired with or bored of the game (although certainly annoyed and frustrated when it came to the ridiculous 15% Hard mode challenge, or having to constantly reset the game to preserve a best time).

Here I want to segue into game design, or level design, a little bit. I am no scholar on the art of game design, so excuse me for my lack of critical language, but I can certainly tell intelligent layout of the environments when I see it (disclaimer: sometimes). One example of intelligence and not seemingly arbitrary at first glance: talking about sequence-breaking and item challenges and stuff, at the very end of the game there is a morph ball tunnel which seems like you can only go through by blowing open some blocks with a power bomb. However, hidden above this tunnel is also another tunnel where you don't need to use the power bombs. It seems kind of counterintuitive, since it's really just easier to blow open the blocks once and then leave through them later during the self-destruct sequence, but what if you didn't have power bombs and didn't have that extra tunnel? You would have to sacrifice then another option in your six-percent allotment of items to freely choose from for the 15% completion thing. This also happens right after you beat Mother Brain: there is a tunnel above the exit to the ship that goes over the speed-boost blocks. Why go up this way? Well, what if you didn't have the speed-boost; how else would you get out? There are also, I think, some instances that pretty much anticipate and encourage sequence-breaking too, but I can't really think of them right now. I'd say those instances of game design could fall in line with anticipation of sequence-breaking, though.

Then we have the more straightforward level design that falls more in line with the standard progression of the game. While I don't believe this game is anywhere near Super Metroid in the subtlety of its level design, I think I can still see it there. One really obvious instance of the "hidden tutorial" is when you get the morph ball. When you head over to get it, you have to climb over this platform that seems impossible to go back from (well, not unless you wall jump, but that's beside the point). However, there is a little tunnel underneath the platform that may have struck your attention, and when you find you can roll around with the morph-ball, you see what the morph-ball is for. I don't think this always happens in this game, though, unlike in Super Metroid where even the very beginning of the game, without any abilities lying around to pick up yet, feels meticulously made to acquaint you with playing the game. For example, when you go to get the Speed-Booster in Zero Mission, there is no real indicator of its use before you get it. I mean, sure, Kraid's room is huge, but Kraid is also huge, so maybe Kraid's room is just huge to make him fit. Later you find the Power Grip, which lets you hold on to ledges. Here you do find the game's environment sort of working as a tutorial, but the raising of platforms for you to grab onto and climb out of the pit you fall into is kind of obvious. It doesn't help, once again, that there are Chozo statues standing around waiting to lead the way for you.

But there are still moments where the game does this sort of hidden tutorial. If the original power-ups are considered "invalid" for having already been present in the original Metroid, consider the Gravity Suit, which is not only a new item but also a part of the game's entirely new segment. After you get the Gravity Suit, you could, of course, read the description the game gives of what it does. But even if that description was absent, you'll eventually come across a part of a hallway that is submerged in water for seemingly no reason whatsoever. Like, if the water was removed, it would not have affected the hallway in anyway way, especially since you never go in that water before attaining the Gravity Suit. While in this water, there is even an item you can get with the speed-boost by simply running forward (that is, if you have the speed-boost). While players may not think much of its placement, they will realize that they can now move freely through any body of liquid this game throws at them.

So yeah, intelligent and subtle game design. Even if the game tells you what items do and where to go, it's still not like you are going through supermassive tutorial dialogue boxes like in Final Fantasy XIII. Most of the Chozo statues can be skipped anyway via sequence-breaking, which this game seems to encourage.

Other things: the pace of the action is neat. Before Fusion, Samus seemed really floaty and kind of slow. Maybe in the GameBoy game, Metroid 2, this relatively didn't feel that way, but it was never like Fusion where Samus quickly runs through rooms, jumps and flips around and stuff. I feel like the sound effects they use for Samus flipping in the air bring this out very well, where it started initially as a series of blips that could've meant anything. Even if Samus could run fast in Super Metroid (it is, after all, the game that introduced the speed-boost), she was still really floaty in that game. Fusion introduced the mechanic of keeping Samus from jumping too high (at least until you get the hi-jump boots [that is, if you get them]). I don't know why I'm talking about Fusion so much, other than to say that those mechanics are back in Zero Mission and really help establish its pace as an action-oriented game.

I don't feel like the controls are worth mentioning, because they are so simple it just makes no sense for anything to go wrong with them. I will say, though, that using the L and R buttons on a 2DS is a pain in the ass in this game. That is not really the game's fault though, considering I'm not really supposed to be able to play this game on a 2DS anyway.

Next we have the boss fights. The boss fights in this game, while fun and can be challenging, are nearly all very straightforward. You can very easily sum up a boss fight to somebody by simply advising: "Shoot missiles." Ridley is very criminal to this simple strategy. However, there are several things to consider here. First of all, this game is meant to be played in different ways. If you are going for the 15% Challenge, there is no way you can possibly sit there and unload all of your missiles at Ridley, especially if you do the smart thing (although it does looks stupid at first) and kill Ridley first. Second, there are two ways to fight Ridley: one is under the protection of standing beneath him and being immune to his attacks. This may sound like a terrible thing, but if you're anything like me, the anxiety of not screwing something up will lead to mistakes that might very well mean the end of a 15% game. If you have already killed Kraid by this point, or even if you're just collecting all the items and you sequence-broke, there is no point in doing this. Here is the other seemingly disagreeable option: just unload all of your missiles. While on Normal there is really nothing to it, I feel that on Hard mode (which, aside from the 15% Challenge, is pretty much the way the game is meant to be played), luck plays a pretty big role in the fight against Ridley, while still leaving room for skill to have a say in the outcome. This is always a good thing, and so it made each attempt against Ridley on Hard mode exciting since I A) had to recollect missiles and stuff (remember, I sequence-broke), and B) I could not anticipate for sure whether I'd survive.

Then we have Kraid, who can either be very easy or pretty annoying. He's not annoying to the point where he's a pain in the ass, though, which is good. The alternate way of killing him is simply hit him with three super missiles before he shuts his mouth, which people may have a problem with or consider to be cheap, but I like that it's in there. I like having multiple means of killing things in a game: it's called strategy.

Then there are the new bosses, which I don't care too much for in explaining them in gross detail. However, I will say that they definitely contribute to the atmosphere of the game, further bringing out the curiosities of Zebes. There is also that fight against the Chozo ghost in Chozodia, which was really cool as it is more of a puzzle than a boss. Basically, you have to be decent at dodging things while still being open at the right moment to "strike" the boss.

Mother Brain and Mecha-Ridley are the two bosses in the game where complexity really hits. The challenge of fighting these two is figuring out how to avoid their onslaught of attacks. Neither of them seem to hardly give a moment's rest. I was about to go into detail here, but I realize this post is starting to ramble on a ton about pretty much every aspect of the game, so I'll just leave off the bosses here. Point is, they are (nearly) all challenging and most have various means of defeating them.

This leaves me to wrap up with the ending sequence. So we kill Mother Brain and escape Zebes and think, Woohoo, we won! Then Samus gets shot down by space pirates, and here the game gets pretty interesting. We now have Samus without her incredible arsenal and protection, and now instead we just have this little gun that can only stun enemies, for about a second, and only when it is charged up. So what's this? We can't go running around shooting things anymore? Oh my god it's an intelligent FPS! Run away!

Honestly, as cool and awesome as this segment is, there are things about it that are just total bullshit. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong, but right at the very start of it, how the hell are you supposed to avoid being seen by that space pirate? He stands right up front of the tunnel you can jump into, but you must be like incredibly godlike at timing when to shoot that stun gun or else you will get caught by him, and thus ends any chance of a "perfect stealth run" if that's what you're after for some reason. There are some clever moments, though, like there is one crawlspace in a hallway that nearly seems destined for you to be caught in. However, it is very simple to time when you run out into the open here, and as for that crawlspace, there is a shadow at the end of it that you can actually hide in it if you stop and think about it. From there, you can stun the space pirate and carry on. Wall-jumping also makes interesting uses here, and it can add some extra dimension to the challenge of avoiding being caught, as now you have to time the jumps in both a manner that keeps you from falling and in a manner that keeps you from being caught.

Still, this also means mostly nothing when you are trying to speed run the game. It is actually better to just run out in the open and dodge every attack as best as you can. This segment is most interesting for the 15% challenges, where literally one or two hits on Hard mode means death for you.

If you really disliked this portion of the game or found it excruciatingly difficult, then that just makes regaining the Power Suit all the more exciting and rewarding. Again, really upbeat and almost celebratory music, plus the space pirates are almost laughable cannon fodder. The cool thing is, you still can't get too cocky on the 15% Challenges.

Last I want to talk about Zero Suit Samus, as this now pretty much deviates from anything that really matters about the game. In the past, whenever you beat the game correctly, Samus was depicted without her armor and wearing some kind of... I want to say underwear, I guess? The only game to really feature another suit was, and this is probably not a coincidence, the original Metroid, with that sort of leotard that Samus wore. She also had really cool green hair, whatever happened to that hair?

Well, anyway, this is the game that introduces Zero Suit Samus, for better or for worse. Some may find the thought of a skin-tight suit possibly even sillier than Samus in her underwear, others may (either creepily or in a calm, observant manner) find it attractive. The way I think of it is, it just simply makes more sense with the art design/logic of the game and its universe. What is the point of wearing underwear under a suit of armor? Wouldn't you prefer to wear something that, as strange as it may sound in terms of designing a female character, feels like you're wearing literally nothing? The Zero Suit is supposed to enable Samus's agility and flexibility, which is something of an iconic superpower of hers in itself. Look at this woman with alien blood in her: no human can jump and run like that! I guess maybe underwear makes some sense, but I'm still not buying it. Besides, when Samus dies, her suit comes off. It would probably be pretty embarrassing if Samus somehow lost her suit in a fight (it's been known to possibly happen) and was left in her underwear for her enemies to see completely.

Last I want to talk about this game's iteration of Samus. In every Metroid game so far (hell, even in Brawl), Samus's appearance has constantly changed. You may go ahead and criticize me for admiring a female video game character's appearance, I don't care because I know there's more to it than just, "Samus is hot." There's appreciation for the character art in itself, like how I described Morgiana in one of my other blog's posts where I talked about Magi. Now anyway, this game is kind of weird with its interpretation of Samus, by which I mean, it can't seem to make up its freaking mind. In some of the cutscenes, her face kind of looks hard, I hate to say it but I guess kind of feisty, like a kind of supermodel or something. I'll use pictures, that'll help.

Okay, so Exhibit A. Huge eyes, huge lips. Super model kind of shit, yeah? Is that a fucking tan?

But here we have Exhibit B. I know, kind of hard to tell, but you can certainly agree her eyes are nowhere near as big. Maybe her lips are slightly smaller. Whatever the case, the art direction here really makes me liken her to Han Solo, which is immensely awesome. However...

We have Exhibit C here. What the hell? Make up your minds, Nintendo! Maybe it's because she let down her ponytail, I don't know, but her face is a loft "softer" here, if that's a term I can use. She actually kind of reminds me of somebody I know in this picture, it's kind of creepy in spite of its sweetness.

I think, if it's anything we are to go by, it is actual concept art showing us the thought process behind designing Samus's face. I can't read any of that Japanese, in spite of the fact I'm taking Japanese in college. I'm just not at that level yet. Oh wait a minute, I can read the subtitle! It says, "Samus Aran Face" and then the rest I can't read because it's kanji I don't freakin' know.

So in spite of the huge deal I put up over Samus's many faces in this game, literally speaking, I think this is one of my favorite iterations of her. It could very well be simply because this is probably the first time they went into detail about showing what she looks like. Wait, no, they did that in Fusion, but I wouldn't count Fusion because it says her genetic makeup changed due to the injection of the Metroid DNA. You also see her in Prime, but I don't care. I like this one, now shut up and leave me alone. I also like the "Justin Bailey" depiction in this game, or the orange crop-top and shorts combo in other words. I don't really know why, maybe it's because orange is a color you never see Samus in anywhere else.

Oh wait a minute, her Power Suit is orange. This just got awkward.

No but seriously, you don't see her wearing anything else orange in anything. It's usually a blue Zero Suit or a blue crop-top and shorts. Well, actually, now that I think about it, her crop-top and shorts/underwear depictions have always been different. Whatever, okay, I just really like this one for some reason. I mean, come on, you can't say it's not stylish! Just look at it! I like it so much I have a modded version of Zero Suit Samus in Brawl where she sports the flashy orange crop-top and shorts combo. Oh, speaking of style, I found this:

She is apparently a fashion diva too. I find this hilarious. Alright alright, enough with the Samus pictures before somebody files a copyright claim on me (can't do anything though since I'm not breaking any rules here).

I think this is a good point to end my discussion on Zero Mission, as we can so clearly see by pretty much my drifting away from the topic of the game. If there's anything wrong with the game that I hadn't listed above... I mean, I guess it's "too short?" Maybe more like "too addicting," if that can even be considered a problem. I find myself wanting to go through it all it one sitting, which is good, but also bad because it's a handheld game, meaning it should be something I feel comfortable with picking up on the go. To be fair, there is a "sleep mode" that works, obviously, when it is played on a GameBoy Advance. If memory serves me correct, this is where the picking up and putting away aspect of handheld games came from for Zero Mission. For those who complained it was too short, what they fail to realize is you don't just play through this game once and be done with it. You just can't do that. Zero Mission is all about the replay, and the new ways you find yourself playing the game each time you start it over, and, just when you ask yourself how long this new method will carry you through the same game over again, you find yourself wanting to finish it as soon as possible to see if your new method will net you a new reward. My goodness, so many ridiculously long sentences!