An existential crisis courtesy of the Game Boy.
I recently started playing Metroid II: Return of Samus for the first time. I’m not sure why. Maybe it was a way of staving off my intense cravings for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, which as of writing still doesn’t have a launch date more concrete than the vague ‘2025’ window Nintendo revealed over a year ago. In any case, Metroid II impressed me almost immediately, but it wasn’t until I saw heroine Samus Aran die that I realised just how unique it is in relation to the rest of the series.
While the video game industry places a lot of importance on the benefits of more powerful hardware, developers can also do incredible things when presented with limitations. Metroid II, released in North America in late 1991 before making its way to Japan and Europe the following year, is a great example of this phenomenon. The changes made to ensure the nascent Metroid formula was readable on the Game Boy’s small, colourless screen resulted in a handheld adventure still praised today for its austere atmosphere.
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