AM2R – Another Metroid 2 Remake Review

This review was originally published on www.veizy.com but that was deleted, so now it's archived here.

A few weeks ago, a free fan remake of Metroid II was released. AM2R, standing for Another Metroid 2 Remake, was in development for 9 years before being released on the 30th anniversary of the original Metroid game. Nintendo were not happy that a bunch of fans were celebrating the Metroid franchise that they’ve worked so hard to ruin, so issued a bunch of DMCA takedown notices towards everywhere hosting the game. Of course, getting a copy of the game is still incredibly easy, so I did, and I have played it! It’s great!

The original Metroid was released on the NES back in 1986, a 2D action-platformer which broke new video game ground with its kickass atmosphere and female protagonist. Super Metroid, released on the SNES in 1994, is one of the most beloved games of all time, topping numerous Best Game Ever lists for its excellent gameplay, level design, and invention/refinement/popularization of an entire genre of video game, the Metroidvania. Metroid II was released in 1991 on the Gameboy, sandwiched between those two behemoths, and has basically become a forgotten relic of the series. I played Metroid II a few years after its release and found it to be somewhat pathetic. The Gameboy just couldn’t do justice to the atmosphere of the original, and the sublime controls of the series didn’t translate to the mobile form factor. I can’t imagine many people had fond memories of Metroid II. The team behind AM2R clearly had plans to change that, by creating a remake of the game to bring it up to the graphical and gameplay standards of Super Metroid, even taking some cues from the later 2D Metroid games Fusion and Zero Mission. Metroid.

The Metroid franchise is one of the most beloved in gaming, so it’s strange that Nintendo have worked so hard to sabotage it. The last Metroid release was Metroid: Other M on the Wii, a ridiculous game of endless cutscenes with horrible writing, and the upcoming Metroid Prime: Federation Force is some sort of co-op shooter. The last proper Metroid game was Metroid: Zero Mission, which released in 2004, THREE console generations ago on the Gameboy Advance. Nintendo know that people want to play a real Metroid game, yet don’t ever want to make one.

With the backstory out of the way, it’s time to talk about the game. AM2R is a 2D action-platformer, unsurprisingly of the Metroidvania variety. You play as Samus Aran, a female space bounty hunter who is tasked with travelling to the planet SR338 and exterminating all of the Metroids, horrible alien creatures that pose a huge danger to the entire universe. Your main task in the game involves exploring the planet and killing Metroids, after killing enough of them the next area of the planet will unlock and you can kill some more. You get a huge number of powerups throughout the game, giving you stronger weapons, new skills, and snazzy new outfits.

There isn’t a huge amount to actually say about AM2R other than the fact that it’s amazing. It looks great. It really does look like Super Metroid, and it feels pretty similar too. There is little, if anything, in this game to make it feel like a fan-made effort, and not a full scale release. The level design is great, I’m not sure how much has been carried over from the Gameboy Metroid II, from the few comparison videos I’ve seen there are some similarities but the original has been treated more like a guide then as an actual blueprint for the remake. As mentioned above, I don’t think Metroid II was a very good game, so AM2R turning it into a great game has thoroughly impressed me. It wasn’t until I played AM2R that I realised how much I’ve missed playing Metroid. I am a fan of the genre so I knew I would like this game, but I didn’t know how much I would love it. It’s been a long time since the last proper Metroid, and AM2R has rekindled my love of the series.

My only real gripe with the game were the fights against the Metroids. You fight about 50 Metroids throughout the game (there’s a handy counter telling you how many are left to kill) and I didn’t enjoy and of them. The Metroids come in 4 different forms, all with the same glowing weak point on their belly, but getting progressively more vicious as you go through the game. What should have been exciting fights as you try to manouever yourself into the correct position to deal damage, instead were petty annoyances against enemies who tried their darndest to stay below you. My main tactic in all of the fights ended up being running face-first into them in the hopes I could hit them point blank. Even the weakest version of the Metroids I fought this way, because they never flew above me, making shooting their underside near-impossible. I wouldn’t say I hated these fights, but they seemed so much worse than every other aspect of the game. All proper boss fights of the game were awesome, including the end boss fight against the Mother Metroid, I just wish the standard Metroids which you fight so often were more entertaining.

On the whole, AM2R is fantastic. You can tell this isn’t as ultra-polished as an official release, but it’s pretty darn close. The years of effort put forth by people who clearly care strongly about the Metroid franchise is fully on display, and it’s disgusting that Nintendo don’t give a shit about any of that. If you are a fan of the Metroid series you should play this, if you’re a fan of the Metroidvania genre you should play this, and if you’re a fan of great games you should play this. Just play this.

I finished AM2R with an 80% completion rate and an in-game timer of 4 hours 40 minutes. That timer seemed very generous and it didn’t count the times I died, so my estimation for an actual playtime would be over six hours, if not closer to seven. I plan on backtracking through the game and getting all the missing items for 100% completion.

AM2R Website

Tomb Raider II (1997) Review

This review was originally published on www.veizy.com but that was deleted, so now it's archived here.

I’m playing through all of the Tomb Raider games thanks to the Veizy.com Tomb Raider 20 Years of Fun Times Retrospective. This here is Tomb Raider II, and it’s jolly good. It was developed by Core Design, published by Eidos, and originally released in October 1997.

Tomb Raider II is great and should be remembered as one of the great video game sequels. It refined as many elements from the first game as it possibly could, it is overall more polished, and it is a joy to play that still holds up today. It keeps the same tank control scheme from the first game and subtly improves on it. The base movements have been improved, Lara’s starting and turning speeds have both been tweaked to feel more responsive, jumping feels ever so slightly tighter, and movement on the whole feels nicer. Starting the fine Tomb Raider tradition, Lara has a couple of new moves, in Tomb Raider II she can climb ladders(unfortunately very, very slowly), ride zip-lines, and drive vehicles. In Venice you can ride a speedboat, and in the Himalayas you get to ride a ski-mobile. Both are confined to single levels and are surprisingly fun to use. In general I am against “vehicle sections” in games, but the vehicles in Tomb Raider II actually integrate themselves into the puzzles. Plus you get to pull off some sweet jumps with both, so I approve.

Graphics have also been improved from the first game. This is still 1997 technology so it’s nothing mindblowing, but huge leaps have been made since the first game that really make you realize how quickly graphics were progressing back in the day. Lara herself has a flowing ponytail as opposed to the weird block of hair she had in the first game, levels in general are much larger with wide open spaces, and level geometry is less blocky. It’s still on the same grid system, but the squares of the grid look nicer. Yes, nicer squares.

In huge contrast to the first game, and the comments I made when reviewing it, the vast majority of enemies in Tomb Raider II are other humans. Unlike the first Tomb Raider where you only fight about three actual people with the rest of the enemies being animals or monsters, other people are the prime threat in Tomb Raider II. It is an interesting contrast between the two games. This also extends to the more real-world locations featured in the second game. All of the levels in Tomb Raider I were ancient ruins, in Tomb Raider II you don’t visit any ancient ruins until the very end of the game. The storyline of Tomb Raider II sees Lara battling against the Italian mafia in a race for an ancient dagger with magical properties, and it’s these mobsters who are the primary enemies throughout the game. And they don’t just melee you, a whole bunch of them have guns. The enemy progression does follow the same as the first, with more supernatural enemies appearing later on in the game, and a Tyrannosaurs Rex showing up in the first level for no blooming reason.

The game is quite a bit longer than the first but I felt it dragged a bit in the middle. There are a series of levels where you investigate a wrecked ship that’s at the bottom of the ocean. It’s really cool, but you spend about five levels down there, and I think it got a bit tedious. The game also got a bit too weird at the end, much like the first game. The last level in Tomb Raider I was some weird meat castle, with fleshy walls and general ickiness. In the last level of Tomb Raider II you go underground and find a bunch of weird, multi-coloured floating islands. It seemed so out of place, and wasn’t very fun to play. I appreciate the descent into weirdness as the game goes on, but it felt like they didn’t really know what to do for a final level, so just put out whatever they could.

Random thoughts. The end boss of the game is a giant dragon. It’s awesome. You also fight a giant bird man a couple of levels earlier who looks silly and stupid. Killing him was great. The final level has creepy, floating samurai who shoot green goop at you. They are also very cool.

Spoilers I suppose, for the end of the game, but the very last level of Tomb Raider II is amazing. It’s a short epilogue where Lara is at home getting ready for bed when a whole bunch of mobsters show up, angry that you killed their boss. You then have to defend yourself as they storm Croft Manor. It’s an awesome way to end the game, and something very few games ever do.

The biggest downside of Tomb Raider II for me was the puzzle design. In the first game there were acceptable levels of suspension of disbelief for the obtuse puzzles, as they were left to guard ancient secrets in the various tombs you explored. However, as previously mentioned the majority of Tomb Raider II takes place in real-world locations, so it makes very little sense that the key needed to turn off an oven would be in a secret room hidden behind a painting that you can only access by clambering over chandeliers which first you have to raise and lower to get in the right position. Of course, quibbling over borderline issues like this is the entrance to a rabbit hole I certainly don’t want to go down, but it is a bit of a let down considering how much work was put into the game’s locations.

Tomb Raider II holds up amazingly. It improves a lot on the first game, and I highly recommend everybody play through it. It’s quite tough, but rewarding. You fight a dragon! What more do you want!?

I played Tomb Raider II on Steam. According to the in-game timer I finished it in eleven and a half hours, according to Steam it took sixteen. I guess that means there where four and a half hours of dying. Nice. Much like the first game there was annoying technical faffing to get it to work on Windows 10. Even after loads of hassle I never got the game running fullscreen, and instead it ran in a 1080p window. Also the screen freaked out whenever there was a pre-rendered cutscene. Curse you old game! Curse you!

Tomb Raider II Steam Page