I guess I also never shared what I thought about this game so I’ll chime in.
I wasn’t even remotely interested in the game prior to the launch, then like 2 weeks later I did that emulator thing and was so surprised with how they went for a strict continuation of Fusion (my favorite Metroid and the first one I played) that even if the exposition was dry and visually uninteresting I felt like playing the whole thing. The day after I got a physical copy and beat it to 100% completion in like two days.
My biggest complaint with the game is how boring and visually repetitive it is, they do this thing where the game doesn’t show what’s inside the walls and level geometry and the screen ends up being like 60% black 90% of the time, like if you were playing with fluctuating but permanent black bars. All the areas are mixed together inside my head and I have a super hard time differentiating them, even when watching speedruns and such.
EMMIs are also really bad in this regard because they basically come with the sacrifice of having a huge chunk of each biome devoted to their lab environment, which always looks the same and feels the same. Area variety is really bad in this game.
Other than that I had a great time with it. I love how Samus moves and all the care that was put into her animations and transitions from one state to the next. This is a game that feels incredibly dynamic and fluid in a way I really like.
The story was mostly trashy pulp (which has always been the case with this franchise imo) but there is some tokusatsu going on there, with the boss design and specially at the end with Samus transformation that I honestly like a lot. I also think the decision they made to make a 2D game with 3D action and cutscenes is cool, and it leads up to some really fun transitions at certain points in the game.
In the end this felt like a solid 8/10 that I don’t feel the need to either reivindicate or criticize. It’s a solid action game with some stuff going on for it and some other stuff against it. I am not super attached to Metroid as a franchise in general (I basically like Prime 1-2 and Fusion, haven’t touched Super Metroid yet) so that makes it easier for me to distance myself from it. But it made me have a good time, so that’s cool on my book.