Metroid II: The Return of Samus

Metroid 2 carries on the 80s Nintendo tradition of getting experimental with the second game in a series, and of producing a game that's regarded as something of a black sheep as a result. Whereas the first game was a sprawling, unguided maze of a game, with no specific objectives past killing three bosses, Metroid 2 starts you out with a Metroid counter, and the instruction to bring that counter to zero by killing every Metroid you encounter. To enforce this, the game has several lava pools that stop your forward progress, which will disappear once you've killed every last Metroid in the current area.

That said, the game is still quite labrynthine, and that isn't helped by the greyscale spritework and the continued lack of a map. The game mostly takes place in either caves or ruins, with the caves containing most of the Metroids and the ruins containing a wealth of upgrades. This, combined with the tendency of the game to place save stations right inside the ruins, and the change in music, make the ruins a serious relief to find. The caves and tunnels of the planet SR388 are full of enemies that will deal a fair whack of damage, and health drops aren't nearly as common as in later games. This, combined with the somewhat floaty controls, makes the game a rather dangerous affair, so the brief moments of respite in the Chozo ruins are incredibly welcome. As you follow the tunnels deeper and deeper, those moments of respite are fewer and farther between, and the tunnels get more imposing. By the time you reach the lowest levels, the enemies have become incredibly nasty, the Metroids have reached enormous sizes, the music is very ominous, and the walls and floors are lined with spikes and acid.

The Metroids themselves aren't staying the same either. This game introduced the concept of Metroids metamorphosizing, starting with the hard-shelled Alpha Metroid, followed by the spider-like Gamma Metroid, the xenomorph-looking Zeta Metroid, and the dinosaur-like Omega Metroid. The later forms take some serious punishment, and usually have some sort of ranged attack as well.

Once you've killed all of them and your counter is reading 1, you descend through the final set of tunnels, fight past some freshly hatched standard Metroids (the only ones in the game), and find the Queen Metroid, 20 feet long and looking like a weird alien alligator. Once the Queen is dead, either by expending your entire missile supply or by using a trick to climb into it's belly and kill it from the inside, you stumble upon a single remaining Metroid egg, which bursts open as you approach. The baby assumes Samus to be it's mother, and Samus, unable to bring herself to pull the trigger, takes the baby with her as she flees the tunnels of SR388. I'm sure that won't cause problems in the future...

Metroid 2 is a game that improved a lot on it's predecessor, and was then improved upon much further by it's own successor. It introduced many smaller details about Samus and her equipment, and also tells an important piece of her story. Many of it's problems were due to limitations of the hardware it was built for, and the real lack of similar games to look to for inspiration. While it is certainly very different from the Metroid games that would follow, it's still a fine game, and one that I still enjoy playing to this day.

One final note is that there is a fan patch that colorizes the whole game as if it were re-released on the Gameboy Color. I've played a good chunk of the game with that patch installed, and it looks quite good, and does a good job of keeping the atmosphere while also making it a lot easier to navigate and remember where you are and where you've been. I'd definitely recommend it if you're wanting more color from the game, though I'm also just as much a fan of the original black and white game. Whichever way you prefer, I'd definitely recommend a playthrough of this game if you like older metroidvanias, or are just interested the game's concept, like I was back when I first picked it up.