metroid: zero mission - 7/10
a crazily good metroid remake, and also some other bullshit
godddd it got so close to being as good as super! i played most of this game through november 9th-13th, put it down when i got to chozodia because i had to help decorate my house, and didn't come back to the game until december 6th. and unfortunately, i have to say that i was probably better leaving the infinitely better part of the game untainted by that really quite poor home stretch.
but, despite that, my rating for this game is still quite high. much like super has meridia as its area of pure dogshit that makes you wonder how it was even made by the same team, zero mission has chozodia, which is a forced stealth sequence that entirely strips you of your weaponry that youve worked the whole game to get to force you through a snaking set of S-shaped rooms trying to avoid detection lest you get at absolute best fare from my case, 5 hits until you die. yeah no im good on that man. the power suit up was really cool, i will give you that, but the power fantasy of that is somewhat diminished when you introduce metal space pirates that were literally not here mere moments ago in the exact same rooms just in case you didn't think that youd had enough of unkillable huge-damage enemies. not to mention the design of this place driving you absolutely fucking crazy on where to go because it feels like every other floor is made to be destroyed with power bombs - an item that you get far too late for it to be useful in anything other than post-game collection, really!
but as i breathe a sigh of relief at the fact that the final encounter with mecha-ridley is piss-easy, i can turn my brain off and cast my mind back to those fine november days of playing the good bit of zero mission.
where this game succeeds is bringing the original metroid into the new formula, with a resounding success; its a very tightly designed game, there was never any moments in that crucial build-up stage where i felt truly cluelessly lost, progression was always smooth and rewarded my exploration, whether that be with upgrades or alternate routes to different places. i really enjoy this game's version of zebes!
its greatly helped by the fact that its so fun to traverse; whereas super is floaty, yet fluid, zero mission is an incredibly snappy beast. it is so much more immediately responsive to your inputs, samus moves on a dime, your jumps feel fast and frenetic, and generally, the pace feels much higher as you move. ironically, the one exception to this is the returning speed booster, which feels so much less impactful than it did in super to me - i dont know whether thats due to the smaller screenspace or what, but it just feels far less truly speedy. on that topic, the upgrades are back and swinging in full force, all making for some much needed flavorful additions to the original metroid layouts, as well as bosses on which to use 'em. its a very breakneck pace game, which i suppose is in keeping with how some people were able to beat metroid in like an hour. im nowhere near that good haha.
if you take this game purely for the metroid remake section then it's incredibly tight. fun and snacky, its a rather quickly shot through experience in just a few short sittings on even a first playthrough, and its one that i would wholeheartedly recommend.
chozodia is singlehandedly what is keeping this game at a 7 instead of the 9 it could possibly be. it blows so much man. the forced stealth section was nothing but an exercise in frustration and the power suit up is immediately shot in the ass by the aforementioned appearance of metal space pirates, but also by the fact that you kinda just dont know where the fuck to go after you get it. its like they didnt want to just remake metroid, but they also didnt want to spend too much time making this epilogue bit, so they just called it a day. it just left such a sour taste in my mouth after an otherwise truly incredible game. if i do end up replaying this im just gonna not replay chozodia. i appreciate what it did for the plot of these games, with i believe the first in-game appearance of the link between child samus and the chozo, but otherwise its just such a vestigial section that i feel like im truly not missing out if i dont play it, if not just outright saving myself a migraine.
overall, zero mission is a very great game for a majority of its runtime unfortunately bogged down by an unneeded final act that seems to meander around for a truly needless extra bit just to say that it was different. if you ignore that, however, this is one of the tightest design games in the franchise. really solid, just a shame about that ending