E3 2002: Metroid Fusion Hands-On News

In addition to having Metroid Prime playable on the show floor Nintendo also had Metroid Fusion on the GameBoy Advance. This is much more like the original two-dimensional games as seen on the NES and SNES. <br /> <br /> Graphically Metroid Fusion has improved a lot since we last saw it as Metroid 4, Samus is nicely detailed with some good animation. However in the version on the show floor we did not get to see many of the different power up effects in action, we assume that they are in place – wouldn’t be Metroid if there weren’t – and that they look good. The action takes place in rooms that may be a few times bigger than the GameBoy Advance screen but when you move from one to another the game stops and the screen scrolls. The levels themselves are suitably organic or mechanical when required, sporting some nice artistic design with good detail. <br /> <br /> Controlling Samus felt very much like the SNES game, ‘A’ jumps and ‘B’ fires with ‘R’ toggling the missiles on and off. As we said we did not get to see any of the other power ups in action but one assumes that they will be implemented as in the SNES version if they were in it and if they weren’t I think we can trust that they will be implemented well. <br /> <br /> The small section that we got to played seemed very impressive and as good as the previous games. However we did not get to see very much so we don’t know if the very good level design and learning curve is still in place throughout the game. The fundamentals are in place however and if the rest of the game is up to the standard of this demo then Metroid fans should be very happy indeed, and the rest of us will have a quality GameBoy Advance title.