Metroid: Zero Mission

In the end, Metroid: Zero Mission is not just a new snapshot of where the series began; it is a panorama of where the series has gone over the last two decades. By combining elements from several Metroid installments, Zero Mission unifies the overarching story of Samus Aran and sheds new light on her unusual childhood.

It's hard to imagine a Game Boy Advance game that could match the style and addictive action of "Metroid Fusion," but Zero Mission surpasses even the now classic handheld game quite easily.

They've taken a beloved classic game, reinvented it, rethought it, retooled it, and come up with a new game that is not only better, but vastly superior in almost every way. [Feb 2004, p.52]

An excellent game to introduce someone to the Metroid universe.

It bridges the gap between the original and Metroid Prime better than Metroid Fusion did. Unfortunately, it's so similar to the others that it almost seems like 'just another Metroid'. It's not.

The brief playtime and lack of innovation might put you off. Still, Metroid rocks so hard, if Samus promised you a night of intergalactic canoodling, you'd be happy if all she put out was a quick grope in the shrubbery.

Although Zero Mission's overwhelming quality wins out in the end, the first play reveals a game that's just too slick for its own good, toeing the fine line between a fun, streamlined experience and a hollow, transient one.

Best metroid to date. I wish they make a remake of this. With today's graphics. And a new planet.

Another near-perfect Metroid game for the GBA. This and Fusion are the pinnacle of the series and even better than the 3D incarnations that followed.

The game is good, yet it is more limited that the original, much less free exploration, and there are stupid blocks in the progression, you have to interact with a few things lost in a relatively big map that are so easy to miss. The game overall is much better than the original, but I wished for it to be less restricted, that being said the level design is very much new and of good quality. I had fun playing the game overall.

A great experience that could've spared an objective marker or two. I understood Zero Mission to be the even-handed response to Fusion's most infamous aspect: Linearity. As it turns out, Zero Mission is just about as straight-forward as Fusion, save for a dialog box explicitly telling you where to run. I have no problem with linearity in a Metroid game, and in fact, I welcome it as a breezy counterpart to something like Super Metroid. My issue with Zero Mission is its difficulty, or lack thereof. Never did I fear for my life, and the spare moments of genuine challenge are immediately deflated once you realize you saved 30 seconds before you died. There are difficult rooms with crazy tight platforming, difficult enemy placements, etc., but I have no reason to actually worry when there's no real punishment. All that aside, one of the best-looking games in the series. Great colors, and a fake-out of an ending I genuinely did not see coming. When I initially killed Mother Brain, I didn't realize there's a whole other section to the game that completely flips the script on you. I was a little annoyed at first. Once I saw I was about to enter a whole stealth section when I thought I was done, I was just like, "Man, **** this ****, I'm doing this later." But it offered a completely fresh gameplay experience that I was happy to play once I got around to it. I can't believe I didn't know about it before, but it made for a welcome surprise.

A great game. It's fun and the sense of progression is very satisfactory. And there are even a touching moment near the end that let you smiling like an idiot.