VGPolyglot said:
I think that's your problem right there. Your mindset is way too focused on trying to find objectivity or a fact-based approach, instead of acknowledging subjectivity. Why would you consider M2 better if you'd rather play SR? |
I'd say 90% of what I've said is subjective. I'm not too focused on finding objectivity, unless you consider finding any objectivity at all to be too much. What I'm focused on is backing up my arguments with well thoughout reason, or more accurately, i play a game, get annoyed by 100 little things in the case of SR, notice how many of these issues relate to each other, and say "wow, i have an argument here." I don't need to acknowledge subjectivity, because how subjective something is is not relevant. We're all adults. We all understand subjectivity. I only use objectivity when it supports my subjective arguments.
M2 has less wrong with it, and what is wrong is less cataclysmic overall than what's wrong with SR. SR is designed to be a more easily playable experience. It benefits from 30 years of hindsight and stronger hardware. Metroid vs. themepark. I can complain that M2 is linear, which it is and i think it could have been tackled better in a remake that unfortunately isn't SR, but M2 doesn't, for example, artificially hinder the usefulness of the Spider Ball with unscalable walls. It does so sometimes with spikes, but those instances happen with such infrequency in that game that it feels like it actually belongs in the environment instead of in SR where it feels like the developers don't want the player to do something. SR has bigger areas, yet manages to feel more restrictive than M2 because it doesn't trust the player with the tools it gave them. SR is the demotion of the wall jump that happened in Fusion, but applied to literally every facet of the game other than the grapple beam. M2 may be linear, but at least it's linearity isn't obstructed. SR gives you HUGE areas and goes "You can't go here even though you have the ability that should let you because we want you to always do it our way. Nope! Heehee you can't use the spider ball there! Nope! The wall jump is literally funtionally useless in this game - muahahah! Wait... No, don't bomb jump! Uh... Shit! Fans! That's what we'll do! Those will suck up the bombs so you can't use them! What? We can't put those everywhere because even we see how stupid that would be? Gee... Let's hope nobody figures that out, then. Why would you want to break sequence, anyway? Do you not like our level design already? ;-("
It's the philosophy that Sakamoto is the driver, and he's going to make sure you know it. People complain about how easy the morph ball bomb is to execute, and I'm over here thanking the heavens that that ability hasn't been neutered to all hell yet, because it's how I got everywhere Sakamoto didn't want me to go in this game that wasn't blocked off by one of the 20 door variations in this game that make for the absolute worst case of backtracking and gated exploration in the entire series. I bomb jumped everywhere trying to get the most fun out of this game as i could because there is no other freedom in the entire game. Not even with the spider ball thanks to the previously mentioned yellow walls/spikes, of which there were more than in M2.
But on the other hand, Samus controls better in SR. SR looks better. I can turn my brain off and play SR. I don't think M2 is one of the best in the series, but I don't think that SR's highs out weight it's lows enough for me to consider it a better game than M2. M2's biggest crimes are that it's ugly, clunky, linear, and sometimes it doesn't sound as good as it should considering that the gameboy has the first two gens of pokemon sountracks and M1 had very melodic chip tunes. SR's biggest flaws are fucking (almost) everything and how they loop back into each other. Calling it baby's first metroid may be slightly inaccurate, but calling it metroid for people who hated almost everything great and nuanced about Super isn't. It's the quinticential safe-troid.
Don't worry. Even though the maps are big, you CAN'T get lost. Don't worry. No more backtracking even though it establishes a sense of place. Don't worry - every enemy dies in one flashy hit so you don't get bored with "down time." Don't worry. It still feels like you have the freedom to explore, right? Don't worry. Hey, did you see that metroid carcass? Wait, did you see those dead soldiers? Hold on, we don't want you to miss that totally not obvious thing in the middle of the room unobstructed by anything. Here is a cutscene of samus examining it because surely you wouldn't have just done it on your own because Metorid is just about jumping and shooting shit. Don't worry. Everyone likes puzzles, right? Of course you do! We said so! Here's a shit ton of not annoying little ones that totally won't make moving back and forth between areas an unecessary pain where pure platforming used to suffice. Don't worry. We got you. Just turn your brain off and play our game the way we want you too and no other way. You like Metroid, right?
But after playing Super and the games it inspired, it's very difficult to go back to playing a game that controls and looks like M2, or M1 for that matter. Not impossible, but I'm a man of simple needs. Even if I were to play it now, I'd at least use a hack to improve the aesthetics a bit. In many ways, but not in every way, I'd rather play a game with less hurdles to get through to enjoy, even if it's a problem riddles as Samus Returns.
Then again, AM2R exists. So again, someone please help me with my controller issue - I'm dying here trying to play (what I hope to be) an actual good metroid 2 remake.
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