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Metroid Fusion

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Metroid Fusion
Box art of Metroid Fusion
Developer(s)Nintendo R&D1
Publisher(s)Nintendo
Designer(s)Yoshio Sakamoto
Platform(s)Game Boy Advance
ReleaseUnited States November 15, 2002
Canada November 17, 2002
Europe November 22, 2002
Japan February 14, 2003
China March 2 2006
Genre(s)Action Adventure
Mode(s)Single player

Metroid Fusion (メトロイドフュージョン, Metoroido Fyūjon) is a video game developed by Nintendo R&D1 and released for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance portable video game system. It is the fourth main installment released in the Metroid series, and it is the first Metroid game to appear on this console. It is the direct sequel to the critically acclaimed Super NES game Super Metroid and currently set chronologically eighth and last in the series's fictional universe.

Metroid Fusion represented somewhat of a departure for the series, as it scrapped the semi-nonlinear adventure formula from earlier Metroid games and introduced a non-playable computer character to direct the player where to go and what to do there (thus making it significantly harder to sequence break and explore freely in the game).

Metroid: Zero Mission uses a highly modified version of the Metroid Fusion game engine.

Plot

The player plays as the main protagonist, Samus Aran, a galactic bounty hunter who must explore artificially maintained habitats on board a space station run by Biologic Space Laboratories or BSL, which, along with Samus, has been infected with a parasitoid species known as the X Parasites, or simply the X. She must re-gather her special abilities and her weapons she has lost (however she still has the power grip and long beam upgrades), as well as some new ones, to neutralize the threat to the station. Along the way she encounters various obstacles and enemies, including a highly dangerous X Parasite which acts as the main antagonist, the SA-X, which is mimicking Samus and her Power Suit.

Unlike other games in the series, Samus is in constant contact with her Galactic Federation "employers" by way of an intelligent computer, her commanding officer. This computer, which she names "Adam" in honor of her former CO, gives Samus a series of objectives throughout the game, and is capable of locking and unlocking doors and hatches to ensure she achieves her objectives before she can progress. These include acquiring powerups, defeating enemies, and reaching certain areas. However, these objectives usually require a solution that is not immediately obvious, giving the player room to explore and experiment with the game's environment as in previous titles.

The environments in Fusion also change throughout the game in much more radical ways than in other games in the series. For example, some corridors become permanently blocked by explosions, parts of the research station being jettisoned into space, and new creatures that appear in previously explored areas. Some gameplay elements differ significantly as well, including disabling single-wall jumps, mid-air bomb jumping and other methods commonly used to perform sequence breaking.

Samus spends most of the game being stalked by the SA-X, which appears unexpectedly in various locations, and Samus, who is much weaker than the SA-X due to her having the Fusion Suit and the SA-X mimicking her and her Power Suit, must either hide or escape until she is powerful enough to defeat it.

Most of the creatures in the game are actually X parasites mimicking other lifeforms. Creatures are usually reduced to floating X cells when they are destroyed. Samus can absorb these to replenish her lost energy and missiles. However, if Samus does not absorb them, they can re-form into new enemies or disappear entirely. Some monsters can also absorb additional X parasites, evolving into newer, more powerful forms.

The Metroid Fusion instruction manual states that Metroids were actually created by the Chozo to prevent the spread of the X parasite. The word "Metroid" means "Ultimate Warrior" in the Chozo language. Adam was Samus Aran's commanding officer during one of her assignments with the Galactic Federation. Little is known about this mission or about Adam himself, but Samus seems to have great respect for him. At some time during this mission, Adam died in order to save Samus. She stated in Fusion that Adam called her "Lady" on her missions and if any one else had said it, it would have sounded sarcastic, whereas from him, it was respectful.

Unbeknownst to the bounty hunter, Adam's mind was uploaded into a computer following his death, but most likely does not remember anything of Adam. At the beginning of the game Metroid Fusion, Samus is given a computer CO. She is not aware that the computer's artificial intelligence was in fact Adam Malkovich's digitized mind. Because of the similarities she noticed between the computer and her former CO, she started privately referring to the computer as "Adam."

Later, when Samus questions her official orders and accidentally addresses the computer as "Adam", her old CO reveals himself and helps Samus devise a plan to destroy the X-infected research station by directing it to come into contact with SR-388, thereby extinguishing the threat posed to the universe by the X Parasites.

Samus' fate after these events is unknown, as well as how the Galactic Federation now perceives her - still as an asset, or an unpredictable new threat.

Gameplay

Equipment

Samus fighting a Core-X which had possessed the biomechanical organism Nightmare.

Samus begins her mission almost completely stripped of the abilities she acquired in Super Metroid. While exploring the subterranean caverns of SR388 with a group of BSL scientists, she stumbled upon the X and had to be stripped of her infected power suit and consequently, her special abilities. She must retrieve them through either downloading the data from terminals scattered throughout the station, or through absorbing certain powerful X parasites using her newly acquired Fusion Suit.

Samus gathers many of the powerups available to her in previous games, and also gains the entirely new Ice Missiles (also featured in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption) and Diffusion Missiles.

Because of the Metroid DNA used to combat the X parasite, Samus now has the Metroids' weakness to cold. Because of this, she can be frozen by the SA-X's Ice Beam until she gets the Varia Suit. Also, she cannot use her old Ice Beam, and must use Ice Missiles instead, which have essentially the same effect as the beam. These can be further upgraded to Diffusion Missiles, which have the same function but a have an extremely large blast radius which encompasses the whole screen. The Diffusion Missiles must be charged up before firing to obtain the full effect.

The Jump Ball and High Jump abilities are now combined into one item. Her regular orange power suit is now the organic-looking yellow and blue Fusion Suit. Each type of missile will simply replace the last rather than being a separate kind of weapon, and regardless of what kind of missile is being fired - normal, super, ice or diffusion - it will only ever use up 1 missile. Power Bombs now reveal what kind of weaknesses certain blocks have, their larger blast radius making up for the absence of Super Metroid's X-Ray Scope.

Samus does eventually recover her Ice Beam ability by absorbing the SA-X, but it is only in effect during the final boss encounter. Absorbing SA-X also resulted in Samus recovering her trademark gold and orange colors, but the usual recovery animation is not shown due to the conditions of recovery.

Graphics

The graphics are very similar to those found in Super Metroid for the Super NES and are rendered in 2D. The overall graphics and animations are a bit more detailed, however. The game is a side-scroller, so all of the action is displayed from a side-on angle.

Special features

Owners of both Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion can unlock new features in Metroid Prime using the Nintendo GameCube-Game Boy Advance cable. If the player completes Metroid Prime, they can unlock Samus's Fusion Suit for use in Prime; if they complete Metroid Fusion, they can, depending on the game version, unlock an emulated version of either the original FDS version or the NES port of Metroid. There is also a bonus to be had by linking to Metroid: Zero Mission - the entire Fusion gallery of pictures is unlocked in Zero Mission, including the extra ending images from the Japanese version of Fusion which chronicle Samus's early years, and some additional concept art.

Development

Reception

Metroid Fusion received some initial criticism for departing from the open-ended gameplay for which the series is known, but the game has still received high reviews overall.

See also

References

  • "Gamespot's Metroid Fusion Review". CNET Networks, Inc. Retrieved 2006-10-21.
  • "IGN's Metroid Fusion Review". IGN Entertainment, Inc. Retrieved 2006-10-21.
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