Having a good time with it so far, but I have two negatives:
1) This game doesn't lend itself to putting it down and coming back to it after a day or two. I've had a pretty busy week, so I've only managed to get hour-long play sessions in every now and again. Whilst the save points are numerous and easy to reach (which is great), I'm finding that it's incredibly difficult to remember exactly what I was doing or where I was going when I load up my save.
The chat history isn't particularly useful, and I find that the map is decidedly unhelpful. Although you can highlight certain icons, such as a powerup-blocked door (which can be helpful to show you your options), in order to do this you need to actively find one of the icons on the map. This can be rather tricky when you've already eliminated all but one of those blocking doors. It would be nice if there was just a list/index of icon types that you could sift through.
2) Those god-damn Metroid blocks. You know the ones. The ones that just look like normal terrain but can be destroyed/reveal a different type of block underneath. I hate these things so much because the signposting is all over the place. Sometimes there's a little growth which makes it an obvious point of interest, sometimes there'll be the glimpse of another room on the other side which gives another hit, but conversely sometimes you see a glimpse of another room and there arent any destructible blocks in the area. And then some of them you need to seem to have to hit with missiles whereas others can just be destroyed with the beam (I think thats only beam blocks). It's just such a pain. I know its a staple but they're just not good. I don't feel "clever" when I discover them because the progression is normally just "Reach dead end -> shoot every wall". Its not a puzzle, its just brute-force. I hope in the next Metroid game they find a way to make these more palatable.
1) This game doesn't lend itself to putting it down and coming back to it after a day or two. I've had a pretty busy week, so I've only managed to get hour-long play sessions in every now and again. Whilst the save points are numerous and easy to reach (which is great), I'm finding that it's incredibly difficult to remember exactly what I was doing or where I was going when I load up my save.
The chat history isn't particularly useful, and I find that the map is decidedly unhelpful. Although you can highlight certain icons, such as a powerup-blocked door (which can be helpful to show you your options), in order to do this you need to actively find one of the icons on the map. This can be rather tricky when you've already eliminated all but one of those blocking doors. It would be nice if there was just a list/index of icon types that you could sift through.
2) Those god-damn Metroid blocks. You know the ones. The ones that just look like normal terrain but can be destroyed/reveal a different type of block underneath. I hate these things so much because the signposting is all over the place. Sometimes there's a little growth which makes it an obvious point of interest, sometimes there'll be the glimpse of another room on the other side which gives another hit, but conversely sometimes you see a glimpse of another room and there arent any destructible blocks in the area. And then some of them you need to seem to have to hit with missiles whereas others can just be destroyed with the beam (I think thats only beam blocks). It's just such a pain. I know its a staple but they're just not good. I don't feel "clever" when I discover them because the progression is normally just "Reach dead end -> shoot every wall". Its not a puzzle, its just brute-force. I hope in the next Metroid game they find a way to make these more palatable.
