@@basedsamtv The updates were definitely a team effort. The only reason I decided to mess with the code was to fix that leg glitch that happened in version 1.1. If it wasn’t for that I would have left the game alone. And even then, I was actually quite happen just fixing that and being done. When I discovered it, I told the community about it and thought about moving on. There is a version 1.1.2 made for the speedrunning community that fixed the leg glitch and also an audio glitch. It wasn’t until Craig Kostelecky shared the code that needed changed to do a NewGame+ mode that I really started to consider actually working on the project. Interestingly before then I really had gotten into the ALTTP randomizer. That was a big reason why I decided to try and randomize AM2R. Here’s the randomizer mode backstory. The original code had expansions and power-ups as different variables. Weapon and energy pickups were numbered. Power_ups technically were assigned numbers but were just named variables. I couldn’t just merge the two pools together. It wouldn’t work. So I started by just randomizing the power-ups. That was easy enough. Starting Paths was just a more advanced version. After that I worked on randomizing the weapon and energy tanks. That’s were Split Random came from. I just never liked how it felt. That is when I finally decided to figured out how to merge the two pools. Many hours of re-coding later, I finally had an unnamed pure randomizer mode mostly working. I can’t take the credit for the name though. My girlfriend actually came up with AM2Random, kind of as a joke. But it was perfect. I did consider removing the older random modes but I kept them there just in case somebody liked them. Funny side story. When trying to get AM2Random working, I somehow made the items turn onto 0’s and float up off the screen. I really wish I would have saved that version. It was weird. I really want to stress how valuable the whole team was in this. I just got my code out to the public first. Other people were working with the code as well, like Craig. My main focus with the project was the randomizer, some quality updates, and fixing small glitches. Player immersion has always been important to me. I’ve always hated glitches that makes you stop and realize that you are playing a game. For example: there was an enemy that poked out of the floor when it shouldn’t have, Samus could just walk through the power up orbs, and the reconstructed code broke quite a few things. The team did a lot of the work for me. I’m not an artist. I’ve never figured out the enemy AI. I was handed a lot of code and just had to implement it. It really was a team effort the whole way. I was a bit nervous handing the project off to the team when I stepped down, but I’m very happy with the end result of version 1.5.5. The team did more with the project than I could have. Alex and then Lojemiru really did great work leading the project after me.
LOL! This fan community makes things worse than Nintendo licensed games hence why “Nintendon’t.” You guys don’t know what game development is all about.
If there's one thing that definitely coulda been fun to add onto the mods part of the vid, it's how there's an actual "SA-X hunt" type multiplayer gamemode that's wound up real popular. Basically, several Fusion difficulty players start at the beginning with no items (but the map is opened up), while a couple normal players start above ground, with the same level of weaponry that the SA-X is seen using in Fusion (Varia suit, ice+wave beam, screw attack, and plenty of bonus health) that aim to kill them before they can beat the game. It gets incredibly tense because the SA-X players get an indicator of how many Fusion players are in a given area, but the Fusion players have a little heartbeat monitor that tells them if a hunter is getting close. It's certainly possible for the Fusion players to fight back, but as you can imagine, they're at a heavy disadvantage and need to collect gear (doesn't help that the SA-X hunters can go far out of their way to obtain items they don't yet have), so it becomes quite a mad dash to the end. The chases are especially crazy when veterans are involved, cause there's a ton of speedbooster tech that can be done. Bleh, I'm rambling a whole ton, but it's a very fun mode that I highly recommend for y'all to try out. Also this vid was very enjoyable to watch as a whole, even had a great sense of humor overall. For a random underrated gem, I'm quite glad to have stumbled across this (alongside the channel of course, but yea)
@@Scape_The_Goat UA-cam would just auto-moderate if I stuck in any links, but the first person to come to mind is a fellow called "DruidVorse". Dude's so scary good that one video is just straight up titled "4 SA-X players vs 1 omega speedrunner" and other stuff like that. Of course, those vids aren't necessarily the most entertaining to see cause it's all his perspective and it takes practically a half hour for them to actually reach him (it's all one long vid, not edited down), but the parts where he's actually juking the others is genuinely intense.
i believe when the game first came out, Omegas were much harder. pretty much missile sponges with how long they took and how much damage they dealt. so AM2R did receive a single official update to nerf Omegas, and the DMCA happened afterward Edit: also, one thing i liked to do was since the in-game soundtrack is all a bunch of .ogg files, i found a metal version of the Queen Metroid theme, and put that in for the fight. just to boost up the epic factor
A page for AM2R (on the strategy wiki) says that despite being taken down, Guasti continued to work on the game with updates. I'm curious if that means they released those updates for anyone who had a copy and if that came with any legal trouble. Reasonably-speaking, I imagine there's no legal recourse for making updates to a game/modding as long as they're not using and distributing copyrighted material, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Nintendo wouldn't try to abuse the legal system to scare someone into staying away.
Can confirm. Played it one day after launch and finished it the next day. (The franchise’s bday is August 6th and that’s the day it released, my bday is August 7th and I did my celebrations the day before wolhich that year was a Saturday so I spent my actual bday Sunday celebrating by recovering from my hangover and playing the game lol)
Same here, the Omegas on day one would wreck me. The main issue as stated is they were a bullet sponge which lead to sometimes being pushed back out into the previous room which can cause the fight to reset.
You're not supposed to look forward to the metroid fights until very late into the game. The power dynamic between you and the metroids changes in a narrative fashion throughout the game - their difficulty starts high and ramps up faster than Samus's ability, which creates tension and suspense and makes the player delay seeking out the metroids as much as possible and jump when they're present. Then, later on, as you're closing in on your goal, Samus becomes a hunter. The game pushes harder and harder against the player, depriving them of health, of munitions, of beauty, of traversable terrain with interesting things to look at, yet the player at this point pushes on anyway. They've become the danger. They are the one who knocks. That's what this game is - Samus's journey from savior of the galaxy to genocidal executioner. It's a horror game where you find out in the end that you were the monster.
Humorous, but AM2R's various lore entries while playing include some messages left by the deceased rescue team and one specifically mentions wishing they had the "Metroid-killer" with them, so Samus is kind of already considered a Metroid-killing badass. But this game definitely showcases that over time with how hard you can hit even the harder Metroid forms if you get the hang of it. Super Missiles are a godsend and it's well worth collecting their extra ammo storage.
@@Lucifronz I think that's because Samus is more or less the only person in the galaxy at this point who's managed to kill any metroids. Disregarding the mutated metroids from the Prime series, metroids are impervious to the weapons available to most of the Federation, so no one was having any success dealing with them. Samus managed to eke out a win on Zebes in the first game, which is probably enough to earn her the title of metroid killer. But she doesn't encounter any alphas until Metroid II, and I do believe they're meant to be stronger than the larvae they molt from.
11:25 Actually, from a gameplay standpoint, the tremors were just a way to limit the player's progress so they wouldn't spend ungodly amounts of time backtracking in the original. From a lore standpoint, it's pretty clear that the tremors are being caused by the queen metroid digging tunnels, which in AM2R, towards the later areas, you can actually hear the queen's cry during the tremors.
Yeah I just meant to say that in Metroid 2 it wasn't as obvious that the tremors were linked to the magma lowering, or that the tremors were specifically caused by killing all the Metroids in the area. AM2R did a good job in showing that it's all directly connected, and conveys to the player that they should go back to where they saw magma so they can continue further down. I like that lore explanation, never thought of that!
Old comment but I'd still like to elaborate on this point with a little bit more specificity regarding what is going on in-game. The Queen has something of a psychic, hivemind-like connection to the other Metroids and can sense when one of them is killed. The tremors aren't just caused by her digging, but also her anguish and fury as she thrashes about as a result of another of her children being mercilessly slaughtered. From her point of view, as well as the other Metroids you face along the way, you are the invader intruding into their lives and they are acting in self defense against you. By the time you finally do fight the Queen, there's an element of revenge to her fury against you as she fights to avenge her fallen children.
7:36 The Metroids may not have been the biggest threats in those games, but after the Phazon Crisis was over and the Pirate's Homeworld conquered, the Federation could focus on the next biggest threat: the Metroids. The Prime series established their capacity to adapt and evolve according to their environments (like Talon IV Metroids being able to evolve in Hunter and Fission Metroids, then Prime 3 made them evolve into Phaozn Metroids that could phase through reality to avoid their vulnerability to cold and escape confinement), which means they are indeed the biggest threat now.
You probably already know this, but the escape sequence isn't actually timed, the progress bar is based on how far you are through the area but it's done so insnaely well it maximizes the amount of tension at each moment which distracts the player enough for them to not notice that it's progress based
in the last two days or so, youtube has recommended a few of your metroid videos and i've been watching them. it's crazy, it's almost like youtube was telling me that you were about to make a return with this review. nice.
You will never convince me that Nintendo didn't let AM2R get out on purpose and that their own Metroid 2 remake doesn't owe its existence to the little fan remake that could. Comparing Samus Returns to AM2R is like comparing a McDonald's cheeseburger to prime rib.
What's weird is that they then put out something that, it seems like, is inferior. Like, they removed prime rib from the menu, and said "hold up,... you're going to love we have in store for you in the next year" and it's the McRib.
@brandond1793 AM2R was in development for a long time and garnered a lot of attention in that time. I'm suggesting Nintendo became aware of it in that time and used it to measure fan demand for a Metroid 2 remake. I have no evidence for this or any way to test my suspicions. I just think it's a little too coincidental that they announced their remake so close to the completion and release of AM2R when they'd done nothing in the way of a core Metroid game in so many years and had never expressed interest in am updated version of Metroid 2.
@@Clyde-S-Wilcox I do know that MercurySteam pitched a remake of Metroid Fusion initially, that obviously got rejected for them to work on Samus Returns instead. It is not mentioned when that pitch occured, but going by that, a new 2D Metroid would have probably not happened for another while if it wasn't for them showing up with a proposal. No one can say with certainty if Nintendo was even aware of AM2R's existence before 2016, but what I can say is that typically projects like this only get more attention when they are released, at least that's how I found out about it.
Great video, great editing, absolutely love your sense of humor. Also, I'm glad you didn't spend a ton of time harping on Fed Force. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it is a good time.
Fed force mainly just suffered from coming out at the worst time possible. People were genuinely wondering if Nintendo had abandoned metroid at that point, and then the first game in years is a weird chibi spin off that has little to do with the other games in terms or gameplay or atmosphere. If it had been released later, after we'd gotten samus returns and the prime 4 announcement, it probably would have gone down better.
well, this was a surprise, watched your vids 2 weeks ago and then saw your upload schedule and thought there was no reason but here we are great video!
I remember learning that the Genesis monster was supposed to be like the monster you see in fusion, hiding in the vents and spitting acid. Which I've heard those were Nintendo paying homage to the Xenomorph from Alien since they got a lot of their ideas for the game from Alien. Neat little trivia, though I will have to double check that myself as it's been awhile since I heard that. It is fitting that the log states that it has acid for blood too. Over all, the Genesis monster is kind of a fan fic homage to the Xenomorph as well. For what it's worth.
Great review! I especially appreciate you recommending the fan mod of AM2R. Something that always should be noted when it comes to Metroid. There is an entire genre of games named after it, that seems to be the sign when a game is truly honoured.
When i think of my favourite games as a kid i think of big AAA games like MGS, Half Life, Max Payne, Devil May Cry, but in recent years i'd be more inclined to point out incredible fan projects like this, the people behind these games have so much passion and you can feel it throughout, it just puts a smile on my face.
I've watched honestly hundreds of hours of Metroid....Probably not quite 1000. But a whole lot. And you are highly talented and put in great work. You make it sound very natural and organic, the videos I have seen of yours have really scratched my Metroid itch when I get it. I majorly look forward to your future stuff, and thank you for your time spent adding to the Metroid legacy :) Alsoooo, I rarely am like this....but you should try Helldivers 2 if you haven't already. I'm not sure if you are into games like that, but we need all the help we can get planetside, and it's always worth checking out. The bots have been putting to the screws to us, we need reinforcements. It is some of the best co op I have ever played. Thanks again for the great video though 👍
@BasedSam sorry to ask so late, but what controller were you using at 8:00 ? I've been looking for a something like that, and your looks to be of good quality
I feel so validated after you mentioned the varia suit speedupgrade in metroid 2, I wasn't having fun with metroid 2 until I unlocked the varia suit and samus finally moved at a pace i was comftable with, no other reviews mentioned that it gives the speed boost. I love metroid 2 and I can't wait to play am2r. Your reviews are amazing and really show your love for the franchise, I hope whatever project you make next are just as passionate
I know you mentioned liking how some of the bosses used abilities based on the power up they drop, and that the official games didn’t really do that. Fusion did that for just about every boss.
That is a neat detail about Fusion, but that's not really what I was talking about. In this game you get the Space Jump before the fight begins, and it was cool to see it integrated as part of the fight on the player's end due to the floating platforms and spiked floor. I can't really recall any other bosses in the series that require the Space Jump to that degree. Maybe a couple in Dread? But even then this game predates that, which is kinda cool to see.
Would like to comment how, with AM2R's control remapping, I essentially opted for a compromise between Super and Fusion style controls, having R toggle between missile mode instead of having to hold it, and switching to supers and power bombs with select. Putting strafe on one of the triggers was also really useful for metroids, mastering firing rhythms for quick kills is really rewarding with your aim locked in a direction, jumping at specific points to get the flaoting ones to move up slightly.
You're not gonna mention the extra scene at the end? The extremely creepy scene? And why the baby Metroids were eating those crystals? And unlike Samus Returns, you actually see the death sequence of that frog enemy. Very jarring, in a great way.
AM2R sets the bar very high for what a fangame could and even should be. While it's not perfect in every regard it is designed in a very deliberate, thoughtful manner exactly the same way an official studio would go about doing it. Everything is meticulously built around the idea of the player's interactions with it first and foremost before being tied into the lore from a visual and story standpoint, and the result isn't just one of the best fangames ever made, but outright fan art as well. Something I would like to see in the future though is a sort of new game + mode in which you are able to go back through the game again, but with all of your upgrades and without being restricted in where you can and can't go. I'd also toss in a way to trigger boss refights, effectively turning this mode into a sort of free roam for you to make your own fun in.
the community updates mod has a new game + mode where there's no magma and progression blocking, but afaik it has to be a new playthrough where you start from scratch with your items.
Subbed just in time to see you upload! I always wanted to get into Metroid, but I think I actually hate "getting lost in a world." Reeeeally loved Dread since the boss fights were such a big upgrade from Super. Do any do the fights as well as Corpius or Experiment? Might try Zero next!
Dread definitely has the most engaging bosses in the series, sorry you got to see the peak so early haha. I'd say Fusion is probably the runner-up for interesting boss fights. Even though Zero Mission is one of my favorite Metroid games, I'll admit the bosses are pretty weak :p
I think trying to make killing the metroids feel fun is antithetical to the original metroid 2. I think the game was trying to make killing them feel uncomfortable, how wiping out an entire race should make someone feel. I think there might be a better way to do that, but I still feel that the original gets that feeling across the best
I think my poisoned sarcasm bone is broken, cause I can only think of nice encouraging things to say. This was really well done, especially for someone who's never played am2r. Hollow Knight video next, in case you're taking requests.
Bro, thanks for the awesome video. I was around when the cease and desist happened. To this day, only ever played the demo. Time to get my hands in this masterpiece finally after all these years. Keep your eye on Megaman x corruoted
I love the dodge mechanic mainly because you can telegraph it. It makes the rather easy enemies become a bit harder to chew through, which was always a plus for me.
As I make more of my way through the game, some of the shiny veneer starts to chip away. The Zeta Metroids are definitely the number one reason for this. The first one I fought was the one to the eastern end with such a small room to navigate. First two times it killed me pretty easily because I couldn't get the handle on jumping over it and would often get trapped in a corner with it (plus it just moves so damn fast that a small room is a HORRIBLE addition for a fight with it that makes it just plain unfun). Third time it headbutted me out of the room which reset my progress in the fight so I just went back to the save room to heal for the umpteenth time. Before that, there was the Gamma Metroid in the room across the lava pit. I swear I fell in that lava pit so many times and had to backtrack to get out of it. Once I mess up my timing it's like an infinite loop of fuck-ups on my part, which is pretty much why I prefer save states for these games. It's really frustrating, but I eventually got my timing right and got to the other side... only to have to leave mid-fight to farm healing on this one enemy at the end of the room by going back into the Gamma Metroid room, leaving it, killing the enemy and using the charge beam to grab all (if any) health/missile refills it dropped and sometimes it would drop just absolutely nothing 5-6 times in a row (probably because I already had full missiles most of the time). Eventually I did get filled up on health and then fought the Gamma Metroid and won pretty easily, but I really do suck at this game and I'm even worse at finding the hidden upgrades. It never seemed a problem in Zero Mission, I would find a ton of upgrades all the time, but in AM2R it's a lot rarer. I would find a few, which helps, but I think I'm only up to like 4 super missiles at this point and they're important for beating the Metroids. Two of them can wipe out a Gamma Metroid on Easy, after all. But I digress. I am still having fun, but I may have to reconsider playing the game again in the future because Zero Mission was nowhere near this difficult. Yes, it had its moments. Mother Brain's screen was so full of attacks it was impossible to get the no-damage achievement unless you had no life like the person who made that achievement, but you could tank most of the damage you couldn't dodge thanks to the difficulty setting. All-in-all a fun fan remake that I'm glad I've been able to play even if I have to take large breaks from it the further I get in. It's pretty rare to get a fan remake this good, honestly. Despite their frustrations, the Metroid fights are actually kind of fun once you get used to them. The one Zeta Metroid fight sucks, but the other ones I did weren't too bad thanks to their larger rooms.
yeah the metroids being able to knock you out of the room and reset the fight is definitely a huge issue. in general i remember the game's difficulty being a huge point of contention when it first came out, especially before Doctor M nerfed omega metroids. for this revisit i kinda knew what to expect, so i avoided a lot of those cheap moments but it's something i could've potentially touched on more.
@@basedsamtv The more upgrades you get, the easier the Metroids become, so that's kind of a nice boon. If I were properly following a guide and not just using it when I got lost, I'd probably have a few more super missiles and that would go a long way towards making the Zeta fights a lot easier. I just cleared the power facility and absolutely walloped the robot that blocked my way by breaking it down with super missiles and then just spamming missiles straight at its chest. I was shocked how easy it was, I had to stop and laugh at it. And by "stop" I mean that in the metaphorical euphemistic sense, as I actually had to charge head-first past it because of the impending timer. Leaving the player with a tiny bit of health was pure evil. Thankfully the save point was only past one barely threatening enemy that's slow to chase you even if it does spot you.
Fun fact: plasma beam actually interacts with spazer and doesnt cancel it out unlike super metroid however youre able to turn on/off all upgrades like in super metroid
I actually always took the Genesis optional boss fight as like a homage to Alien, since it kinda looks like a Xenomorph, and Alien is a huge inspiration to the Metroid series With that in mind, I found it cool
"it sounds all well and good, but there's just one issue: it's too easy." me who died like 10 times minimum every omega encounter because they feel impossible to hit:
Undertale Yellow is a fanmade game based on the critically acclaimed game Undertale, which was released in 2015 and the fan project started production in 2016, only one year later. The fan game was eventually released back in 2023. Which means it took over 7 years to be complete. But boy is it an amazing fangame if you love Undertale. 💕
I was just rewatching through the playlist, and I for some reason didn't notice that this one just appeared three days ago! (I started rewatching them more than a week ago.) Anyways, I haven't actually beaten this game, because a while back, shortly after getting the Super Missiles, my save file corrupted. I accidentally opened the game twice at once, and apparently that corrupts the save data due to the way it's programmed. I was having fun with it, but having to start over like that was kind of demoralizing. It's been a while now, I should probably try playing the game again.
Finally finished the game. So there are definitely some rough spots, like a couple Zeta Metroid fights (the one with the energy cells in the room you can detonate and that stupid step in the center of the room throwing off your missile shots on its stomach; and of course the one to the east, which I mentioned in another comment, with such a tiny-ass space to fight it in), but when I got stocked up on more super missiles and then made some more progress there were fewer frustrations. The Genesis fight was fun. Actually, on your note about "fanfiction" in the writing, I was actually looking at notes around this point and thinking "well, it's all nice but I doubt much of this is accurate to canon". But on the other hand, how much canon is there, really? Nintendo doesn't put that much depth to their writing for these games. I mean their emphasis is usually gameplay, which is great, but then the world-building is more of a side effect of keeping the player immersed than it is trying to create a consistent narrative. So I'm alright with whatever they put there. Doubtful that Nintendo will ever contradict it and even if they do, only dedicated fans will even remember because there's not much *to* remember in Metroid. "Samus Aran. Pew pew, space pirates! Pew pew, Metroids! Pew pew, X parasite!" That's your plot. Who's the federation? Space government. Now go kill more Metroids. Pretty straight-forward. Keeps you going and that's about all you need, I guess. Omega Metroids on Easy aren't a real struggle, thankfully. You just walk up to them aim diagonally at their chest and shoot them with a super missile, move away, let them leave another opening and repeat. Exactly 7 super missiles kills an Omega, assuming they all land, of course. You can tank any damage they do to you and wipe them out and then head back and heal, so newbies like me can manage it well enough, far easier than Zeta Metroids that more commonly block your missile attacks (repeatedly, even post-nerf) and have a much smaller window to attack them in. It was cool to see the last of the Search & Rescue Team get the unfortunate end of the Omega Metroid's claws. Even if the enemy is mostly a pushover compared to its previous form, it does give you a sense of just how much more capable Samus is than these guys at taking out Metroids. 35:05 Also, technically the penultimate enemy is the larval Metroid, arguably the weakest of all forms since by this point you have the freeze ray. kek The run-up to the Queen Metroid kinda sucks, it's such a long way from the save point and if you didn't go back to save after wiping out the larva Metroids blocking it, well hoo boy, enjoy doing that all over again when you die trying to learn the Queen Metroid's moves. The second fight against her went a lot smoother for me, though, and it was a really fun and satisfying fight to finish the game off on. I think I might return to the game again in the future the next time I get a hankering to replay Zero Mission. It's a flawed gem, but it shines so bright that you can only occasionally see the dirt on its surface. There's room for improvement in a lot of sections, but even without a guide you can make it through most of the game and even find a few hidden goodies to power yourself up if you're being thorough... though I wouldn't recommend playing without a guide. There's just so much you can miss and you seriously need those super missiles, especially for when you reach the Queen Metroid herself. That last bit with the floating data orb you find and its slow translation (which only really makes sense from a storytelling perspective, not really a lore one; she was raised by the Chozo, I'm sure she doesn't need translation software to do it for her) was a good way to end off the game, setting up the plot of Fusion (that's what I think they were getting at by saying the Metroids are their best hope, at any rate) which, while I've never played, I have read up on a bit so I got the connection right away. Super Metroid is next for me, though, and then if I haven't lost steam I'll move on to Fusion next. Great game, great video. Sorry for the word-vomit comments. I had to take breaks towards the end of the game because of the difficulty jumps here and there, so when I made some significant progress I wanted to include my thoughts on the different sections each time rather than watch the whole video at once first (spoiling the rest of the game's surprises for myself) and just comment then.
Very fun video love your editing, jokes and how you explain the game and its differences from its original. Even Megaman fans have kept Megaman alive since Calvin doesn’t give a damn about Megaman since it ain’t no Street Fighter, Resident Evil or Monster Hunter. I’d love to see you talk about the Megaman series it even has Metroidvanias too with ZX and ZX Advent and the long awaited X Corrupted that has been in development for over a decade and still is as of me writing this comment.
One tiny thing that i LOVE and wish more games would do, the Alpha Metroids FALLING TO THE GROUND when you freeze them. Never liked in games when you froze an enemy and they would just continue to stay in the air.
Speaking of KingK, he had a great Twitter thread on why he considered AM2R to be an "official" Metroid game and that's what inspired me to include the section about fan games at the end. I wanted to include the thread in the video but I couldn't find it!
I remember streaming this and having a little cry after. It’s so good, it understands the essence of Metroid inherently. For me the only 2D Metroid that is better than it is Super. Phenomenal game. Nintendo shoulda hired DM64. Huge mistake not doing so.
Genesis was a Xenomorph reference. Eyeless, humanoid but still clearly a monster, acid spit. Given Metroid's roots are in the Alien franchise, it's fitting to make Genesis an "ancient" race. iirc DoctorM64 made the boss is about a day before release. While I'm a bit of a purist and always recommend the 1.1 version, something interesting about the "fan" updates is the metroid rebalances. In 1.0, Omega Metroids were very tough. They were nerfed for 1.1, but 1.0 also had some game crashing bugs (that I didn't experience but heard about) so it's not so simple as "play the 1.0 version". That's where 1.5 (and maybe beyond) comes in. The first Omega is like the 1.1 version and the Nest ramps up into the 1.0 versions. Alphas and I think Gammas are also more diverse specifically in which ones dodge and how much health they have.
Before I'm watching the video, why Nintendon't? They literally released their own remake after AM2R. You could argue that AM2R brought a lot more but in the same way SR also made good changes and was also very important lorewise Especially regarding Ridley and the connection to the Prime sub-series.
8:30 That's just Japanese developers in general. They expect the player to do things their way and they don't much care if you don't like it. Really pisses me off, sometimes, but none more than with Animal Crossing: New Horizons and its real-time clock. But that's a whole can of worms I'd rather leave sealed.
Fyn fact that had obviously been pointed out. The omega metroids used to be missle sponges and were veeeeery hard. Beating the old ones was fun but was it worth it? Nah
man i was abut to ask about this on your samus returns video until i saw this in the recommended. That thermal plant escape was so nail biting and when i got to the end i legit thought "goddammit I gotta do all that ag- wait wheres the game over screen?" I honestly feel that the game was struck because of the development on SR although i feel like AM2R better represents it and unless nintendo gives us a Super Duper Metroid its going to be weird that samus had all these deflecting skills and powers but suddenly lost touch with them in Super? I honestly feel the Aeon abilities are just situational abilities and im glad the pulse scan was nerfed in dread since SR it just showed damn near whole ass maps. It is a shame that nintendo is going out of their way to DMCA ANYTHING involving their IPs despite most of the things hit are projects done out of love for the series.
Just stumbled upon this video. A lot to unpack here. Thank you for attempting to maintain some objectivity. While I agree tyrannical Nintendo is a problem they do own the product. These kinds of private works stoke the fires for sure and I love AM2R for what it was. The best in the series? Nah Dredd took that easily. Thanks for the concise and somewhat silly review and you have earned a subscriber for sure.
thank you! it's much easier to be objective when some time has passed and we can look back on it in retrospect, especially since it worked out so well for all parties. the way i see it is that nintendo is absolutely within their legal right to take down AM2R / other fan projects, but i just don't see the point when it's a free game that has virtually zero impact on their bottom line.
You know, the big two things I didn't like about the official Metroid 2 remake, and Dread as well, is the melee counterattack and the analog aiming mode. Hear me out on this one. I feel like Metroid has always been a game centered around movement: Samus moves quick but has low defense, and outmaneuvers enemies to compensate: she has quick, elegant, advanced movement techniques, the ability to shrink into a ball and slip into gaps to escape from or ambush enemies, gains the ability to jump infinitely, and her single most powerful attack is one that weaponizes her jumps. She typically only becomes powerful enough to tank during the endgame when you have all her powers and most upgrades. I feel the melee counterattack and the aimed moves go against this: they force you to plant your feet and stand your ground against foes. Even though they work well and are easy to do, I never found myself wanting to use them: I always wanted to jump over a melee chance and pepper them with gunfire in the back while they did their attack and turned around, and I always wanted to run around to line up shots instead of just using the aimed shots, and I ONLY used these techniques when the game forces you to. I think it goes a long way to why I really preferred AM2R to the official remake, and why I really didn't get into Dread until I stopped playing it on Switch and tried it on emulator where I could remap controls to use D-Pad and have quick, snappy movement.
I feel so fucking stupid... I didn't know you could hurt the Queen Metroid with missiles, I've ran at least 12 randomizers of AM2R this month and every time I get to the final boss I just spam the charged beam into morph combo and time the bombs to all come out right when she goes to bite me, since I thought she was only hurt by regular bombs lmao. Well this will make my next run much simpler lmao, good video love me Metroid games edit: I've been playing the community mod version so maybe that had something to do with it
Ere... the dodge mechnic you can say is cheap but works to the fact that these creatures are living beings... And lest not forget that the SR remake does the same thing. Also makes you chase a few metroids since they run away. So it does simulate that a living creature isn't going to let you just shoot it to death. It is more or less adding features to what was a dry gameplay thing they did for the OG metroid 2 where it was just shoot the metroid till it died... only the queen having invunerable parts. So yes the fan remake AM2R did well with the metroids. Giving them weak points and varied AI to work against. And that goes all the way up the chain of metroid forms. So sure one can complain about lined up shots that should hit (not sure if the updates have changed anythign more than nerfing the omegas)
Just to clarify, I have no issue with the Metroid battles being more difficult! I just wish the player had more agency in how the fight goes -- the dodge tends to feel random and somewhat out of the player's control. It makes sense that a living creature would react that way, but it makes for a frustrating and inconsistent gameplay experience. I thought SR had a pretty good solution to this with the melee counter. It rewarded players for having good reflexes against the risk of powerful attacks that are predictable and well telegraphed. Flawed in execution, of course, but I liked the idea.
@@basedsamtv the dodge used to be frustrating for me as well. But it doesn't bother me much either shoot the beam before shooting a missile so that the Metroid dodges and you can afterwards shoot it with the missile. or just spam missiles. But that is just strat using. since I played it a few times. and seen others play it.
am2r getting legally threatened is when i started to despise nintendo. sure legally they are aloud to do so. but as the saying goes "you knew you could but you never stopped to ask yourself if you should". instead of taking a page out of segas book of praising a fan project and even allowing it to be sold under their name, nintendo decided that they hate the fans and want us to do what THEY want not what us fans wanted. and honestly i feel like the only reason we got samus returns was because nintendo saw the success of am2r and was like "fuck it i guess we'll give you a remake so you'll shut up about it". even today nintendo is proving to hate its fans by patenting a game mechanic so they can sue pal world since they new it was legally distinct enough to avoid a lawsuit. otherwise it would've been shut down years ago when the project was announced. i also agree with a previous point you made in your metroid fusion video how nintendo seems to hate speedrunners and anything that counts as a sequence break. they keep proving that point even now cause in the remaster of paper mario there were several exploits that were patched out and nintendo even had the balls to include extra dialogue that was basically "not in my house. you play by our rules mf". like if it weren't for pokemon being so successful they probably wouldn't still be in business. because of how much they make off of merchandise alone they are able to stay afloat.
I'd argue that Sega being fine with fangames is also not entirely right, they also shut down Streets of Rage remake and let's be honest, they are fine with Sonic fangames because they know that they have struggles staying relevant in the current gaming landscape. Also patching glitches is something not all devs are doing for the current AAA so what's the issue? It's not hating speedrunners but just being a normal dev that don't want to see flaws in their products. Usually when a game is filled with glitches it's (rightfully) panned by reviewers.
For movies and TV I agree 100%, but in games it's sometimes nice to be able to see more around you so you're less likely to get hit by something offscreen, although this is definitely a case-by-case basis.
i must've worded that part weirdly because i got a few comments in the past asking the same question. i meant that the golden torizo is the only boss that i can think of that requires the player to use the space jump against it.
Dread does it with its bosses and the EMMI really well too. almost every boss besides the chozo warriors/robots (which feel like filler for areas/bosses that got scrapped with how awkwardly their shoved into the mid-late game. there’s a torizo in pre order bonus concept art) uses the power it gives in some way in fact
You're thumbnail quote makes no sense. Love AM2R, but "what Nintendon't"??? They literally released an incredible Metroid 2 remake 1 year later. Basically no time at all.
i chose that tagline mostly in support of my thesis statement for the video, which is that the fans are the most important part of the metroid community, because they're just as capable of creating great metroid games as nintendo themselves are, and that the series wouldn't be where it is today without the fans' support. milton guasti, in many ways, even made a game that did a lot of things _better_ than nintendo did. in that sense, the fans _did_ do what ninten...didn't. "what Nintendon't" isn't meant to literally suggest that nintendo can't make a good metroid 2 remake (we have proof that they did, like you said), it's moreso to highlight the importance of the fans and their conflict against nintendo. nintendo saw that passion the fans had for the series and punished them for it. people still hold resentment against nintendo _to this day_ because of the takedown of AM2R and their overall treatment of the metroid series throughout the 2010s. is it still warranted? maybe not, but it shows just how big of a deal it was when AM2R was still new, and that we still haven't forgotten.
Thanks for enjoying the community updates. If you haven’t yet, download the horde mod. It plays like a second quest for AM2R.
I'll be sure to check it out, and thank YOU for your work on the community updates mod!
@@basedsamtv The updates were definitely a team effort. The only reason I decided to mess with the code was to fix that leg glitch that happened in version 1.1. If it wasn’t for that I would have left the game alone. And even then, I was actually quite happen just fixing that and being done. When I discovered it, I told the community about it and thought about moving on. There is a version 1.1.2 made for the speedrunning community that fixed the leg glitch and also an audio glitch. It wasn’t until Craig Kostelecky shared the code that needed changed to do a NewGame+ mode that I really started to consider actually working on the project. Interestingly before then I really had gotten into the ALTTP randomizer. That was a big reason why I decided to try and randomize AM2R.
Here’s the randomizer mode backstory. The original code had expansions and power-ups as different variables. Weapon and energy pickups were numbered. Power_ups technically were assigned numbers but were just named variables. I couldn’t just merge the two pools together. It wouldn’t work. So I started by just randomizing the power-ups. That was easy enough. Starting Paths was just a more advanced version. After that I worked on randomizing the weapon and energy tanks. That’s were Split Random came from. I just never liked how it felt. That is when I finally decided to figured out how to merge the two pools. Many hours of re-coding later, I finally had an unnamed pure randomizer mode mostly working. I can’t take the credit for the name though. My girlfriend actually came up with AM2Random, kind of as a joke. But it was perfect. I did consider removing the older random modes but I kept them there just in case somebody liked them.
Funny side story. When trying to get AM2Random working, I somehow made the items turn onto 0’s and float up off the screen. I really wish I would have saved that version. It was weird.
I really want to stress how valuable the whole team was in this. I just got my code out to the public first. Other people were working with the code as well, like Craig. My main focus with the project was the randomizer, some quality updates, and fixing small glitches. Player immersion has always been important to me. I’ve always hated glitches that makes you stop and realize that you are playing a game. For example: there was an enemy that poked out of the floor when it shouldn’t have, Samus could just walk through the power up orbs, and the reconstructed code broke quite a few things.
The team did a lot of the work for me. I’m not an artist. I’ve never figured out the enemy AI. I was handed a lot of code and just had to implement it. It really was a team effort the whole way. I was a bit nervous handing the project off to the team when I stepped down, but I’m very happy with the end result of version 1.5.5. The team did more with the project than I could have. Alex and then Lojemiru really did great work leading the project after me.
LOL! This fan community makes things worse than Nintendo licensed games hence why “Nintendon’t.” You guys don’t know what game development is all about.
@@DanielMazahreh Tf? AM2R is a great game and I played it all the time for a while.
@@FyreofShadow NOT a masterpiece like Prime 1 and Dread biiiccchh
If there's one thing that definitely coulda been fun to add onto the mods part of the vid, it's how there's an actual "SA-X hunt" type multiplayer gamemode that's wound up real popular. Basically, several Fusion difficulty players start at the beginning with no items (but the map is opened up), while a couple normal players start above ground, with the same level of weaponry that the SA-X is seen using in Fusion (Varia suit, ice+wave beam, screw attack, and plenty of bonus health) that aim to kill them before they can beat the game. It gets incredibly tense because the SA-X players get an indicator of how many Fusion players are in a given area, but the Fusion players have a little heartbeat monitor that tells them if a hunter is getting close. It's certainly possible for the Fusion players to fight back, but as you can imagine, they're at a heavy disadvantage and need to collect gear (doesn't help that the SA-X hunters can go far out of their way to obtain items they don't yet have), so it becomes quite a mad dash to the end. The chases are especially crazy when veterans are involved, cause there's a ton of speedbooster tech that can be done.
Bleh, I'm rambling a whole ton, but it's a very fun mode that I highly recommend for y'all to try out. Also this vid was very enjoyable to watch as a whole, even had a great sense of humor overall. For a random underrated gem, I'm quite glad to have stumbled across this (alongside the channel of course, but yea)
Any links to any videos of people playing that???
@@Scape_The_Goat UA-cam would just auto-moderate if I stuck in any links, but the first person to come to mind is a fellow called "DruidVorse". Dude's so scary good that one video is just straight up titled "4 SA-X players vs 1 omega speedrunner" and other stuff like that.
Of course, those vids aren't necessarily the most entertaining to see cause it's all his perspective and it takes practically a half hour for them to actually reach him (it's all one long vid, not edited down), but the parts where he's actually juking the others is genuinely intense.
@@norrecvizharan1177 Thanks for the recommendation sounds like the perfect thing to watch on a lazy weekend day
i believe when the game first came out, Omegas were much harder. pretty much missile sponges with how long they took and how much damage they dealt. so AM2R did receive a single official update to nerf Omegas, and the DMCA happened afterward
Edit: also, one thing i liked to do was since the in-game soundtrack is all a bunch of .ogg files, i found a metal version of the Queen Metroid theme, and put that in for the fight. just to boost up the epic factor
A page for AM2R (on the strategy wiki) says that despite being taken down, Guasti continued to work on the game with updates. I'm curious if that means they released those updates for anyone who had a copy and if that came with any legal trouble.
Reasonably-speaking, I imagine there's no legal recourse for making updates to a game/modding as long as they're not using and distributing copyrighted material, but that doesn't necessarily mean that Nintendo wouldn't try to abuse the legal system to scare someone into staying away.
Can confirm. Played it one day after launch and finished it the next day. (The franchise’s bday is August 6th and that’s the day it released, my bday is August 7th and I did my celebrations the day before wolhich that year was a Saturday so I spent my actual bday Sunday celebrating by recovering from my hangover and playing the game lol)
Same here, the Omegas on day one would wreck me. The main issue as stated is they were a bullet sponge which lead to sometimes being pushed back out into the previous room which can cause the fight to reset.
You're not supposed to look forward to the metroid fights until very late into the game. The power dynamic between you and the metroids changes in a narrative fashion throughout the game - their difficulty starts high and ramps up faster than Samus's ability, which creates tension and suspense and makes the player delay seeking out the metroids as much as possible and jump when they're present. Then, later on, as you're closing in on your goal, Samus becomes a hunter. The game pushes harder and harder against the player, depriving them of health, of munitions, of beauty, of traversable terrain with interesting things to look at, yet the player at this point pushes on anyway. They've become the danger. They are the one who knocks. That's what this game is - Samus's journey from savior of the galaxy to genocidal executioner. It's a horror game where you find out in the end that you were the monster.
Humorous, but AM2R's various lore entries while playing include some messages left by the deceased rescue team and one specifically mentions wishing they had the "Metroid-killer" with them, so Samus is kind of already considered a Metroid-killing badass.
But this game definitely showcases that over time with how hard you can hit even the harder Metroid forms if you get the hang of it. Super Missiles are a godsend and it's well worth collecting their extra ammo storage.
@@Lucifronz I think that's because Samus is more or less the only person in the galaxy at this point who's managed to kill any metroids. Disregarding the mutated metroids from the Prime series, metroids are impervious to the weapons available to most of the Federation, so no one was having any success dealing with them. Samus managed to eke out a win on Zebes in the first game, which is probably enough to earn her the title of metroid killer. But she doesn't encounter any alphas until Metroid II, and I do believe they're meant to be stronger than the larvae they molt from.
11:25
Actually, from a gameplay standpoint, the tremors were just a way to limit the player's progress so they wouldn't spend ungodly amounts of time backtracking in the original.
From a lore standpoint, it's pretty clear that the tremors are being caused by the queen metroid digging tunnels, which in AM2R, towards the later areas, you can actually hear the queen's cry during the tremors.
Yeah I just meant to say that in Metroid 2 it wasn't as obvious that the tremors were linked to the magma lowering, or that the tremors were specifically caused by killing all the Metroids in the area. AM2R did a good job in showing that it's all directly connected, and conveys to the player that they should go back to where they saw magma so they can continue further down. I like that lore explanation, never thought of that!
Old comment but I'd still like to elaborate on this point with a little bit more specificity regarding what is going on in-game. The Queen has something of a psychic, hivemind-like connection to the other Metroids and can sense when one of them is killed. The tremors aren't just caused by her digging, but also her anguish and fury as she thrashes about as a result of another of her children being mercilessly slaughtered. From her point of view, as well as the other Metroids you face along the way, you are the invader intruding into their lives and they are acting in self defense against you. By the time you finally do fight the Queen, there's an element of revenge to her fury against you as she fights to avenge her fallen children.
Didn’t even know your channel existed 5 hours ago. Definitely interested in it now!
Cheers to you being back man!
7:36 The Metroids may not have been the biggest threats in those games, but after the Phazon Crisis was over and the Pirate's Homeworld conquered, the Federation could focus on the next biggest threat: the Metroids. The Prime series established their capacity to adapt and evolve according to their environments (like Talon IV Metroids being able to evolve in Hunter and Fission Metroids, then Prime 3 made them evolve into Phaozn Metroids that could phase through reality to avoid their vulnerability to cold and escape confinement), which means they are indeed the biggest threat now.
You probably already know this, but the escape sequence isn't actually timed, the progress bar is based on how far you are through the area but it's done so insnaely well it maximizes the amount of tension at each moment which distracts the player enough for them to not notice that it's progress based
The Distribution Center has the best music in the game. Damn, I love it.
It was truly A Metroid To Remember.
Welcome back. Great video!!! Please keep them coming!!
in the last two days or so, youtube has recommended a few of your metroid videos and i've been watching them. it's crazy, it's almost like youtube was telling me that you were about to make a return with this review. nice.
knew i picked a good time to finally get this video done! ;)
You will never convince me that Nintendo didn't let AM2R get out on purpose and that their own Metroid 2 remake doesn't owe its existence to the little fan remake that could.
Comparing Samus Returns to AM2R is like comparing a McDonald's cheeseburger to prime rib.
What's weird is that they then put out something that, it seems like, is inferior. Like, they removed prime rib from the menu, and said "hold up,... you're going to love we have in store for you in the next year" and it's the McRib.
I happen to like Samus Returns.
@brandond1793 AM2R was in development for a long time and garnered a lot of attention in that time. I'm suggesting Nintendo became aware of it in that time and used it to measure fan demand for a Metroid 2 remake. I have no evidence for this or any way to test my suspicions. I just think it's a little too coincidental that they announced their remake so close to the completion and release of AM2R when they'd done nothing in the way of a core Metroid game in so many years and had never expressed interest in am updated version of Metroid 2.
@@Clyde-S-Wilcox I do know that MercurySteam pitched a remake of Metroid Fusion initially, that obviously got rejected for them to work on Samus Returns instead. It is not mentioned when that pitch occured, but going by that, a new 2D Metroid would have probably not happened for another while if it wasn't for them showing up with a proposal.
No one can say with certainty if Nintendo was even aware of AM2R's existence before 2016, but what I can say is that typically projects like this only get more attention when they are released, at least that's how I found out about it.
Yeah man they just filed a cease and desist against it because they thought it had so much potential
In my opinion the best Metroid game since Prime 2 loved every second of AM2R
Your standards are low. Prime 1 and Dread surpassed Echoes and AM2R.
@@DanielMazahreh Grow up. People can like different things from you.
@@Lucifronz I have the right to criticize bad opinions. Grow up! You don’t take criticism well.
@@DanielMazahreh"You're wrong to like this game that i dont" is not criticism, it's childish whining
@@ahumanbeingfromtheearth1502 You misquoted me. It is a fact that Prime 1 and Dread overall are better designed with superior pacing and replay value.
Great video, great editing, absolutely love your sense of humor.
Also, I'm glad you didn't spend a ton of time harping on Fed Force. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it is a good time.
Fed force mainly just suffered from coming out at the worst time possible. People were genuinely wondering if Nintendo had abandoned metroid at that point, and then the first game in years is a weird chibi spin off that has little to do with the other games in terms or gameplay or atmosphere.
If it had been released later, after we'd gotten samus returns and the prime 4 announcement, it probably would have gone down better.
I cant believe i played through AM2R without ever knowing I could wall jump.
found your channel today and marathoned all of your metroid reviews. I hope you do more of this kind of thing eventually, because you're good at it!
well, this was a surprise, watched your vids 2 weeks ago and then saw your upload schedule and thought there was no reason but here we are
great video!
I totally forgot that I subbed to this channel. It was a nice surprise to see this upload.
I remember learning that the Genesis monster was supposed to be like the monster you see in fusion, hiding in the vents and spitting acid. Which I've heard those were Nintendo paying homage to the Xenomorph from Alien since they got a lot of their ideas for the game from Alien. Neat little trivia, though I will have to double check that myself as it's been awhile since I heard that. It is fitting that the log states that it has acid for blood too.
Over all, the Genesis monster is kind of a fan fic homage to the Xenomorph as well. For what it's worth.
I hadn't considered that! If that's true then it's a cool homage
badass female protagonist, larval enemies, "Ridley"
Great review! I especially appreciate you recommending the fan mod of AM2R.
Something that always should be noted when it comes to Metroid. There is an entire genre of games named after it, that seems to be the sign when a game is truly honoured.
When i think of my favourite games as a kid i think of big AAA games like MGS, Half Life, Max Payne, Devil May Cry, but in recent years i'd be more inclined to point out incredible fan projects like this, the people behind these games have so much passion and you can feel it throughout, it just puts a smile on my face.
Charge dragging item towards Samus is technically something it should be able to do in Super but it never worked there.
I've watched honestly hundreds of hours of Metroid....Probably not quite 1000. But a whole lot. And you are highly talented and put in great work. You make it sound very natural and organic, the videos I have seen of yours have really scratched my Metroid itch when I get it. I majorly look forward to your future stuff, and thank you for your time spent adding to the Metroid legacy :)
Alsoooo, I rarely am like this....but you should try Helldivers 2 if you haven't already. I'm not sure if you are into games like that, but we need all the help we can get planetside, and it's always worth checking out. The bots have been putting to the screws to us, we need reinforcements. It is some of the best co op I have ever played. Thanks again for the great video though 👍
@BasedSam sorry to ask so late, but what controller were you using at 8:00 ? I've been looking for a something like that, and your looks to be of good quality
SN30 pro!
I feel so validated after you mentioned the varia suit speedupgrade in metroid 2, I wasn't having fun with metroid 2 until I unlocked the varia suit and samus finally moved at a pace i was comftable with, no other reviews mentioned that it gives the speed boost. I love metroid 2 and I can't wait to play am2r. Your reviews are amazing and really show your love for the franchise, I hope whatever project you make next are just as passionate
i noticed it immediately when i got it lol
I know you mentioned liking how some of the bosses used abilities based on the power up they drop, and that the official games didn’t really do that. Fusion did that for just about every boss.
That is a neat detail about Fusion, but that's not really what I was talking about. In this game you get the Space Jump before the fight begins, and it was cool to see it integrated as part of the fight on the player's end due to the floating platforms and spiked floor. I can't really recall any other bosses in the series that require the Space Jump to that degree. Maybe a couple in Dread? But even then this game predates that, which is kinda cool to see.
Would like to comment how, with AM2R's control remapping, I essentially opted for a compromise between Super and Fusion style controls, having R toggle between missile mode instead of having to hold it, and switching to supers and power bombs with select.
Putting strafe on one of the triggers was also really useful for metroids, mastering firing rhythms for quick kills is really rewarding with your aim locked in a direction, jumping at specific points to get the flaoting ones to move up slightly.
You're not gonna mention the extra scene at the end? The extremely creepy scene? And why the baby Metroids were eating those crystals? And unlike Samus Returns, you actually see the death sequence of that frog enemy. Very jarring, in a great way.
AM2R sets the bar very high for what a fangame could and even should be. While it's not perfect in every regard it is designed in a very deliberate, thoughtful manner exactly the same way an official studio would go about doing it. Everything is meticulously built around the idea of the player's interactions with it first and foremost before being tied into the lore from a visual and story standpoint, and the result isn't just one of the best fangames ever made, but outright fan art as well.
Something I would like to see in the future though is a sort of new game + mode in which you are able to go back through the game again, but with all of your upgrades and without being restricted in where you can and can't go. I'd also toss in a way to trigger boss refights, effectively turning this mode into a sort of free roam for you to make your own fun in.
the community updates mod has a new game + mode where there's no magma and progression blocking, but afaik it has to be a new playthrough where you start from scratch with your items.
@@basedsamtv I'll have to check that out sometime, thanks for the heads up.
Subbed just in time to see you upload!
I always wanted to get into Metroid, but I think I actually hate "getting lost in a world." Reeeeally loved Dread since the boss fights were such a big upgrade from Super. Do any do the fights as well as Corpius or Experiment?
Might try Zero next!
Dread definitely has the most engaging bosses in the series, sorry you got to see the peak so early haha. I'd say Fusion is probably the runner-up for interesting boss fights. Even though Zero Mission is one of my favorite Metroid games, I'll admit the bosses are pretty weak :p
@@basedsamtv Thanks for the tips, I might check out Fusion after all then!
Fusion is the most linear 2d Metroid so I suggest it for newcomers. Really cool boss fights too.
I think trying to make killing the metroids feel fun is antithetical to the original metroid 2. I think the game was trying to make killing them feel uncomfortable, how wiping out an entire race should make someone feel. I think there might be a better way to do that, but I still feel that the original gets that feeling across the best
I don't know about "fun," more like "a worthwhile gaming experience."
8:30 whats the music here?
SR388 surface theme from this game
@@basedsamtv Thanks bro. Just downloaded the game because of your vid. Keep up it big man
That "be careful who you made fun of in middle school" is absolutely hilarious man 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
I love the title. Very straightforward
I think my poisoned sarcasm bone is broken, cause I can only think of nice encouraging things to say. This was really well done, especially for someone who's never played am2r.
Hollow Knight video next, in case you're taking requests.
interesting request... you know too much. ;)
@@basedsamtv hell yeah, I'm hyped.
Lost it at the iconic cease Hooray
Bro, thanks for the awesome video. I was around when the cease and desist happened. To this day, only ever played the demo. Time to get my hands in this masterpiece finally after all these years. Keep your eye on Megaman x corruoted
Played V1 of AM2R on my laptop way back when, but currently going thru the Portmaster V2 on my R36S handheld.
Woah!!! A hidden gem!!! I found you while going through a metroid hyperfixation!
I love the dodge mechanic mainly because you can telegraph it. It makes the rather easy enemies become a bit harder to chew through, which was always a plus for me.
As I make more of my way through the game, some of the shiny veneer starts to chip away. The Zeta Metroids are definitely the number one reason for this. The first one I fought was the one to the eastern end with such a small room to navigate. First two times it killed me pretty easily because I couldn't get the handle on jumping over it and would often get trapped in a corner with it (plus it just moves so damn fast that a small room is a HORRIBLE addition for a fight with it that makes it just plain unfun). Third time it headbutted me out of the room which reset my progress in the fight so I just went back to the save room to heal for the umpteenth time.
Before that, there was the Gamma Metroid in the room across the lava pit. I swear I fell in that lava pit so many times and had to backtrack to get out of it. Once I mess up my timing it's like an infinite loop of fuck-ups on my part, which is pretty much why I prefer save states for these games. It's really frustrating, but I eventually got my timing right and got to the other side... only to have to leave mid-fight to farm healing on this one enemy at the end of the room by going back into the Gamma Metroid room, leaving it, killing the enemy and using the charge beam to grab all (if any) health/missile refills it dropped and sometimes it would drop just absolutely nothing 5-6 times in a row (probably because I already had full missiles most of the time). Eventually I did get filled up on health and then fought the Gamma Metroid and won pretty easily, but I really do suck at this game and I'm even worse at finding the hidden upgrades.
It never seemed a problem in Zero Mission, I would find a ton of upgrades all the time, but in AM2R it's a lot rarer. I would find a few, which helps, but I think I'm only up to like 4 super missiles at this point and they're important for beating the Metroids. Two of them can wipe out a Gamma Metroid on Easy, after all.
But I digress. I am still having fun, but I may have to reconsider playing the game again in the future because Zero Mission was nowhere near this difficult. Yes, it had its moments. Mother Brain's screen was so full of attacks it was impossible to get the no-damage achievement unless you had no life like the person who made that achievement, but you could tank most of the damage you couldn't dodge thanks to the difficulty setting.
All-in-all a fun fan remake that I'm glad I've been able to play even if I have to take large breaks from it the further I get in. It's pretty rare to get a fan remake this good, honestly. Despite their frustrations, the Metroid fights are actually kind of fun once you get used to them. The one Zeta Metroid fight sucks, but the other ones I did weren't too bad thanks to their larger rooms.
yeah the metroids being able to knock you out of the room and reset the fight is definitely a huge issue. in general i remember the game's difficulty being a huge point of contention when it first came out, especially before Doctor M nerfed omega metroids. for this revisit i kinda knew what to expect, so i avoided a lot of those cheap moments but it's something i could've potentially touched on more.
@@basedsamtv The more upgrades you get, the easier the Metroids become, so that's kind of a nice boon. If I were properly following a guide and not just using it when I got lost, I'd probably have a few more super missiles and that would go a long way towards making the Zeta fights a lot easier.
I just cleared the power facility and absolutely walloped the robot that blocked my way by breaking it down with super missiles and then just spamming missiles straight at its chest. I was shocked how easy it was, I had to stop and laugh at it. And by "stop" I mean that in the metaphorical euphemistic sense, as I actually had to charge head-first past it because of the impending timer. Leaving the player with a tiny bit of health was pure evil. Thankfully the save point was only past one barely threatening enemy that's slow to chase you even if it does spot you.
The first time i got power bombs and eacape i thought i failed lol til some energy was left lol
Fun fact: plasma beam actually interacts with spazer and doesnt cancel it out unlike super metroid however youre able to turn on/off all upgrades like in super metroid
Fun fact.
Tori = Bird in Japanese
I actually always took the Genesis optional boss fight as like a homage to Alien, since it kinda looks like a Xenomorph, and Alien is a huge inspiration to the Metroid series
With that in mind, I found it cool
"it sounds all well and good, but there's just one issue: it's too easy."
me who died like 10 times minimum every omega encounter because they feel impossible to hit:
Metroid Pinball is hardcore
Love this game, for some reason this morning I sat down at more computer and just noticed it there and played thru it again on hard mode in 1 sitting.
7:48 genuinely had me cackling I did not see that coming aha
Undertale Yellow is a fanmade game based on the critically acclaimed game Undertale, which was released in 2015 and the fan project started production in 2016, only one year later.
The fan game was eventually released back in 2023. Which means it took over 7 years to be complete. But boy is it an amazing fangame if you love Undertale. 💕
I was just rewatching through the playlist, and I for some reason didn't notice that this one just appeared three days ago! (I started rewatching them more than a week ago.) Anyways, I haven't actually beaten this game, because a while back, shortly after getting the Super Missiles, my save file corrupted. I accidentally opened the game twice at once, and apparently that corrupts the save data due to the way it's programmed. I was having fun with it, but having to start over like that was kind of demoralizing. It's been a while now, I should probably try playing the game again.
Awesome content! Is there any place I can download am2r?
Where can I download it...?
Finally finished the game. So there are definitely some rough spots, like a couple Zeta Metroid fights (the one with the energy cells in the room you can detonate and that stupid step in the center of the room throwing off your missile shots on its stomach; and of course the one to the east, which I mentioned in another comment, with such a tiny-ass space to fight it in), but when I got stocked up on more super missiles and then made some more progress there were fewer frustrations.
The Genesis fight was fun. Actually, on your note about "fanfiction" in the writing, I was actually looking at notes around this point and thinking "well, it's all nice but I doubt much of this is accurate to canon". But on the other hand, how much canon is there, really? Nintendo doesn't put that much depth to their writing for these games. I mean their emphasis is usually gameplay, which is great, but then the world-building is more of a side effect of keeping the player immersed than it is trying to create a consistent narrative. So I'm alright with whatever they put there. Doubtful that Nintendo will ever contradict it and even if they do, only dedicated fans will even remember because there's not much *to* remember in Metroid. "Samus Aran. Pew pew, space pirates! Pew pew, Metroids! Pew pew, X parasite!" That's your plot. Who's the federation? Space government. Now go kill more Metroids. Pretty straight-forward. Keeps you going and that's about all you need, I guess.
Omega Metroids on Easy aren't a real struggle, thankfully. You just walk up to them aim diagonally at their chest and shoot them with a super missile, move away, let them leave another opening and repeat. Exactly 7 super missiles kills an Omega, assuming they all land, of course. You can tank any damage they do to you and wipe them out and then head back and heal, so newbies like me can manage it well enough, far easier than Zeta Metroids that more commonly block your missile attacks (repeatedly, even post-nerf) and have a much smaller window to attack them in. It was cool to see the last of the Search & Rescue Team get the unfortunate end of the Omega Metroid's claws. Even if the enemy is mostly a pushover compared to its previous form, it does give you a sense of just how much more capable Samus is than these guys at taking out Metroids. 35:05 Also, technically the penultimate enemy is the larval Metroid, arguably the weakest of all forms since by this point you have the freeze ray. kek
The run-up to the Queen Metroid kinda sucks, it's such a long way from the save point and if you didn't go back to save after wiping out the larva Metroids blocking it, well hoo boy, enjoy doing that all over again when you die trying to learn the Queen Metroid's moves. The second fight against her went a lot smoother for me, though, and it was a really fun and satisfying fight to finish the game off on. I think I might return to the game again in the future the next time I get a hankering to replay Zero Mission. It's a flawed gem, but it shines so bright that you can only occasionally see the dirt on its surface. There's room for improvement in a lot of sections, but even without a guide you can make it through most of the game and even find a few hidden goodies to power yourself up if you're being thorough... though I wouldn't recommend playing without a guide. There's just so much you can miss and you seriously need those super missiles, especially for when you reach the Queen Metroid herself.
That last bit with the floating data orb you find and its slow translation (which only really makes sense from a storytelling perspective, not really a lore one; she was raised by the Chozo, I'm sure she doesn't need translation software to do it for her) was a good way to end off the game, setting up the plot of Fusion (that's what I think they were getting at by saying the Metroids are their best hope, at any rate) which, while I've never played, I have read up on a bit so I got the connection right away.
Super Metroid is next for me, though, and then if I haven't lost steam I'll move on to Fusion next.
Great game, great video. Sorry for the word-vomit comments. I had to take breaks towards the end of the game because of the difficulty jumps here and there, so when I made some significant progress I wanted to include my thoughts on the different sections each time rather than watch the whole video at once first (spoiling the rest of the game's surprises for myself) and just comment then.
Is this a rerun?
Very fun video love your editing, jokes and how you explain the game and its differences from its original. Even Megaman fans have kept Megaman alive since Calvin doesn’t give a damn about Megaman since it ain’t no Street Fighter, Resident Evil or Monster Hunter. I’d love to see you talk about the Megaman series it even has Metroidvanias too with ZX and ZX Advent and the long awaited X Corrupted that has been in development for over a decade and still is as of me writing this comment.
I still love the fact that this game became available on my birthday
19:00 why NOT chorizo? You have problem with chorizo, I make you my chorizo'n'rice. Then you wonder how you never had such a culinary experience.
One tiny thing that i LOVE and wish more games would do, the Alpha Metroids FALLING TO THE GROUND when you freeze them. Never liked in games when you froze an enemy and they would just continue to stay in the air.
The intro really sounds like KingK's AM2R video lol
Speaking of KingK, he had a great Twitter thread on why he considered AM2R to be an "official" Metroid game and that's what inspired me to include the section about fan games at the end. I wanted to include the thread in the video but I couldn't find it!
Can AM2R still be played??
I remember streaming this and having a little cry after. It’s so good, it understands the essence of Metroid inherently. For me the only 2D Metroid that is better than it is Super. Phenomenal game. Nintendo shoulda hired DM64. Huge mistake not doing so.
37:52
nah i just got undertale jumpscared
this's my favorite fan game with sf x mm being second then probably turtlepalooza
The developer is in captivity. Nintendo is at peace.
Nintendo takes years to release a Metroid game so fans make their own games.
Lmao. This shit was hilarious. Great video!
I love that widescreen introduction edit so much
Genesis was a Xenomorph reference. Eyeless, humanoid but still clearly a monster, acid spit. Given Metroid's roots are in the Alien franchise, it's fitting to make Genesis an "ancient" race. iirc DoctorM64 made the boss is about a day before release.
While I'm a bit of a purist and always recommend the 1.1 version, something interesting about the "fan" updates is the metroid rebalances. In 1.0, Omega Metroids were very tough. They were nerfed for 1.1, but 1.0 also had some game crashing bugs (that I didn't experience but heard about) so it's not so simple as "play the 1.0 version". That's where 1.5 (and maybe beyond) comes in. The first Omega is like the 1.1 version and the Nest ramps up into the 1.0 versions. Alphas and I think Gammas are also more diverse specifically in which ones dodge and how much health they have.
Before I'm watching the video, why Nintendon't? They literally released their own remake after AM2R.
You could argue that AM2R brought a lot more but in the same way SR also made good changes and was also very important lorewise
Especially regarding Ridley and the connection to the Prime sub-series.
I still think Nintendo should have taken this project and bundled with Metroid Samus Returns xD
8:30 That's just Japanese developers in general. They expect the player to do things their way and they don't much care if you don't like it. Really pisses me off, sometimes, but none more than with Animal Crossing: New Horizons and its real-time clock. But that's a whole can of worms I'd rather leave sealed.
Fyn fact that had obviously been pointed out.
The omega metroids used to be missle sponges and were veeeeery hard.
Beating the old ones was fun but was it worth it?
Nah
I think it's interesting the difference between Nintendo and Capcom in regards to fan games.
man i was abut to ask about this on your samus returns video until i saw this in the recommended.
That thermal plant escape was so nail biting and when i got to the end i legit thought "goddammit I gotta do all that ag- wait wheres the game over screen?"
I honestly feel that the game was struck because of the development on SR although i feel like AM2R better represents it and unless nintendo gives us a Super Duper Metroid its going to be weird that samus had all these deflecting skills and powers but suddenly lost touch with them in Super? I honestly feel the Aeon abilities are just situational abilities and im glad the pulse scan was nerfed in dread since SR it just showed damn near whole ass maps.
It is a shame that nintendo is going out of their way to DMCA ANYTHING involving their IPs despite most of the things hit are projects done out of love for the series.
This may be the second best Metroid game. It may be my favorite one.
Just stumbled upon this video. A lot to unpack here. Thank you for attempting to maintain some objectivity. While I agree tyrannical Nintendo is a problem they do own the product. These kinds of private works stoke the fires for sure and I love AM2R for what it was.
The best in the series? Nah Dredd took that easily. Thanks for the concise and somewhat silly review and you have earned a subscriber for sure.
thank you! it's much easier to be objective when some time has passed and we can look back on it in retrospect, especially since it worked out so well for all parties. the way i see it is that nintendo is absolutely within their legal right to take down AM2R / other fan projects, but i just don't see the point when it's a free game that has virtually zero impact on their bottom line.
I wish we got a switch release for this.
You know, the big two things I didn't like about the official Metroid 2 remake, and Dread as well, is the melee counterattack and the analog aiming mode. Hear me out on this one. I feel like Metroid has always been a game centered around movement: Samus moves quick but has low defense, and outmaneuvers enemies to compensate: she has quick, elegant, advanced movement techniques, the ability to shrink into a ball and slip into gaps to escape from or ambush enemies, gains the ability to jump infinitely, and her single most powerful attack is one that weaponizes her jumps. She typically only becomes powerful enough to tank during the endgame when you have all her powers and most upgrades. I feel the melee counterattack and the aimed moves go against this: they force you to plant your feet and stand your ground against foes. Even though they work well and are easy to do, I never found myself wanting to use them: I always wanted to jump over a melee chance and pepper them with gunfire in the back while they did their attack and turned around, and I always wanted to run around to line up shots instead of just using the aimed shots, and I ONLY used these techniques when the game forces you to. I think it goes a long way to why I really preferred AM2R to the official remake, and why I really didn't get into Dread until I stopped playing it on Switch and tried it on emulator where I could remap controls to use D-Pad and have quick, snappy movement.
great video
I think you're mispronouncing the chorizo statues it's spelled like the meat. (Jk)
...why i oughta...
what if the metroids where not killed off and become a biopunk empire
I feel so fucking stupid... I didn't know you could hurt the Queen Metroid with missiles, I've ran at least 12 randomizers of AM2R this month and every time I get to the final boss I just spam the charged beam into morph combo and time the bombs to all come out right when she goes to bite me, since I thought she was only hurt by regular bombs lmao. Well this will make my next run much simpler lmao, good video love me Metroid games
edit: I've been playing the community mod version so maybe that had something to do with it
i always call it chorizo. i know it's wrong but i think its funny
Ere... the dodge mechnic you can say is cheap but works to the fact that these creatures are living beings... And lest not forget that the SR remake does the same thing. Also makes you chase a few metroids since they run away. So it does simulate that a living creature isn't going to let you just shoot it to death.
It is more or less adding features to what was a dry gameplay thing they did for the OG metroid 2 where it was just shoot the metroid till it died... only the queen having invunerable parts. So yes the fan remake AM2R did well with the metroids. Giving them weak points and varied AI to work against. And that goes all the way up the chain of metroid forms.
So sure one can complain about lined up shots that should hit (not sure if the updates have changed anythign more than nerfing the omegas)
Just to clarify, I have no issue with the Metroid battles being more difficult! I just wish the player had more agency in how the fight goes -- the dodge tends to feel random and somewhat out of the player's control. It makes sense that a living creature would react that way, but it makes for a frustrating and inconsistent gameplay experience.
I thought SR had a pretty good solution to this with the melee counter. It rewarded players for having good reflexes against the risk of powerful attacks that are predictable and well telegraphed. Flawed in execution, of course, but I liked the idea.
@@basedsamtv the dodge used to be frustrating for me as well. But it doesn't bother me much either shoot the beam before shooting a missile so that the Metroid dodges and you can afterwards shoot it with the missile. or just spam missiles.
But that is just strat using. since I played it a few times. and seen others play it.
am2r getting legally threatened is when i started to despise nintendo. sure legally they are aloud to do so. but as the saying goes "you knew you could but you never stopped to ask yourself if you should". instead of taking a page out of segas book of praising a fan project and even allowing it to be sold under their name, nintendo decided that they hate the fans and want us to do what THEY want not what us fans wanted. and honestly i feel like the only reason we got samus returns was because nintendo saw the success of am2r and was like "fuck it i guess we'll give you a remake so you'll shut up about it". even today nintendo is proving to hate its fans by patenting a game mechanic so they can sue pal world since they new it was legally distinct enough to avoid a lawsuit. otherwise it would've been shut down years ago when the project was announced. i also agree with a previous point you made in your metroid fusion video how nintendo seems to hate speedrunners and anything that counts as a sequence break. they keep proving that point even now cause in the remaster of paper mario there were several exploits that were patched out and nintendo even had the balls to include extra dialogue that was basically "not in my house. you play by our rules mf". like if it weren't for pokemon being so successful they probably wouldn't still be in business. because of how much they make off of merchandise alone they are able to stay afloat.
I'd argue that Sega being fine with fangames is also not entirely right, they also shut down Streets of Rage remake and let's be honest, they are fine with Sonic fangames because they know that they have struggles staying relevant in the current gaming landscape.
Also patching glitches is something not all devs are doing for the current AAA so what's the issue? It's not hating speedrunners but just being a normal dev that don't want to see flaws in their products.
Usually when a game is filled with glitches it's (rightfully) panned by reviewers.
Nintendo salty a fan made a better Metroid game then they had release in 9 years.
torizo (鳥像) in japanese literally means statue of a bird
The metroids are very proactive in defending their obvious weakspots by not letting you get easy shots in?
Say it isn't so!?!
just because it makes sense doesn't make it fun to play
Good video
I'm playing this on modded ps4 and yeah it's good.😮😮😮😮
One day he wil upload the dread video
am2r did everything better yes , except for metroid 2's greatest strength , it's oppressive horror level immersion
I will genuinely never understand why people insist on stretching 4:3 into 16:9.
For movies and TV I agree 100%, but in games it's sometimes nice to be able to see more around you so you're less likely to get hit by something offscreen, although this is definitely a case-by-case basis.
Crud now I wanna play it again lol
Only metroid boss that puts the upgrade it gives you to use? Does Yakuza mean nothing to you??? Nightmare????
i must've worded that part weirdly because i got a few comments in the past asking the same question. i meant that the golden torizo is the only boss that i can think of that requires the player to use the space jump against it.
Dread does it with its bosses and the EMMI really well too. almost every boss besides the chozo warriors/robots (which feel like filler for areas/bosses that got scrapped with how awkwardly their shoved into the mid-late game. there’s a torizo in pre order bonus concept art) uses the power it gives in some way in fact
👀
why hasn't he done a retrospective of other m, is he stupid?
You're thumbnail quote makes no sense. Love AM2R, but "what Nintendon't"??? They literally released an incredible Metroid 2 remake 1 year later. Basically no time at all.
i chose that tagline mostly in support of my thesis statement for the video, which is that the fans are the most important part of the metroid community, because they're just as capable of creating great metroid games as nintendo themselves are, and that the series wouldn't be where it is today without the fans' support. milton guasti, in many ways, even made a game that did a lot of things _better_ than nintendo did. in that sense, the fans _did_ do what ninten...didn't.
"what Nintendon't" isn't meant to literally suggest that nintendo can't make a good metroid 2 remake (we have proof that they did, like you said), it's moreso to highlight the importance of the fans and their conflict against nintendo. nintendo saw that passion the fans had for the series and punished them for it. people still hold resentment against nintendo _to this day_ because of the takedown of AM2R and their overall treatment of the metroid series throughout the 2010s. is it still warranted? maybe not, but it shows just how big of a deal it was when AM2R was still new, and that we still haven't forgotten.
Clickbait, just that.
I don't hate it but at least being honest about wanting views is just the minimal requirement.