now that i wrapped this (took me about 8 hours for some dicking around before i realized i almost never needed more missiles or upgrades)
i can be a little less pithy
really this game has more of the same probpems samus returns did, but doubled down on. the missile barrage upgrade is one of those totally inorganic lock-and-key designs that are just there to make some bosses less tedious
but it really goes too far into trying to trim the fat off of the discovery loop. just constantly throwing upgrades at you, some times just…because? the cross bomb is in there because someome’s acknowleding bombing one block at a time isn’t fast enough. hahha god it’s only there to help you reach a handful of missile capacity upgrades you probably already finagled how to get in more organic ways.
theres this constant steamroll forward. its kind of like a 2D version of lightning returns, with clear paths set through each area delineated by small side rooms that there’s never anything cool or spooky or mysterious in.
id say that so far mercury steams efforts arent too great to play when there’s so many better versions of this out there now - especially considering there’s only one good scene in the story samus wide eyed in fury pulling ravens beak apart because we’re all tires of finding out bad guys are our dads and the rest of it is incredibly unrestrained deviantart fanart