When it comes to gameplay, picking my favorite Metroid is tricky. Conceptually, though? It’s hard for me to pick anything but Fusion as the coolest.
Point 1 – The titular fusion
After three games of committing genocide upon the Metroid race, Samus is forced to fuse with her enemy on a genetic level. All of those weaknesses she previously exploited are now hers to bear. The iconic Ice Beam? Untenable. Chilly rooms? Newly problematic.
Plus, the suit is sick as fuck, let’s be real.
Point 2 – The setting of the BSL Research Station
The video game status quo demands that each level be a radically different biome, with its own enemies and aesthetic… even if that doesn’t make much sense. Here, though, it’s perfectly diegetic – the game takes place on a space station specifically designed for researching different environments, with each of its 6 sectors tailor-made to house creatures that prefer a distinct climate. It’s a type of sci-fi the Metroid series, with its blasted caverns and abandoned precursor technology, usually isn’t, making the game feel fresh. Plus, they nail the aesthetic, with each natural area girded by the station's uniform construction – big shout-out to AQA’s immense tanks and aquariums.
Point 3 – The X
Now you’re telling me all those unique creatures on the station have been replaced by nightmarish shapeshifters masquerading as their former prey? Again, sci-fi gold: this research station is basically the worst possible place for the X to have been introduced, as it can now get its hands on the DNA and abilities of hundreds of species from across the galaxy. The hubris! It’s a great add from a gameplay standpoint, too – the designers have free reign to add whatever enemies they want, including fun callbacks to Metroid II’s SR388 denizens, bizarre hybrids like the mermaid Space Pirate, or Ridley returning yet again in a, well, slightly less contrived way*.
*I can’t be too mad about it when his sprite is this dope
Point 4 – The SA-X
AND one of those shapeshifters has taken YOUR form, meaning the player must spend the whole game in fear of an enemy who uses your own techniques and items against you? Hell yeah. I love the twist later on, too, that it’s not just one boogeyman that’s taken you as its nemesis: there’s dozens roaming the station. Especially given that we’re told the X subsumes memories and intelligence as well as physical prowess, why wouldn’t they start mass producing an organism as successful as the SA-X?
Point 5 – Adam
AND your sort-of-dull computerized AI guide is actually an LLM built from the knowledge and personality of Samus’s dead former colleague? Like a perfect mirror of the SA-X situation, where one’s very essence has been stolen and used without consent to pursue nefarious ends? That’s a throughline, baby.
When I was younger, I remember this game getting a lot of flak for how linear it is. It’s certainly a departure; I can imagine the betrayal oldheads must have felt going straight from Super to Fusion. Honestly, though, for me, the moment-to-moment Metroid gameplay is fun as hell on its own even without the wandering. And since Fusion’s gameplay is in peak form – a handful of dubious bosses aside – I’m still charmed by its more guided experience. Plus, the directed nature makes those moments when you have to go off-book more impactful. In Zero Mission I’m rolling through crumbling infrastructure all day; in Fusion, when the power shuts off and I have to bomb my way out of an elevator shaft, I know some real shit’s going down.
Combine that with the aforementioned rock-solid premise and immaculate horror vibes? It works for me.
My one exception to Fusion’s gorgeous spritework: MAN, do the beams in this game look wack. It really made me appreciate how stylish Zero Mission’s beam upgrades are, compared to Fusion’s boring lines and triangles. This is only aesthetically speaking, of course, because it’s hilarious how absolutely broken the charge beam is in this game.
