LogFAQs > #970202184

(Please tag any ending spoilers. I reasonably assume that Raven Beak is the final boss and that there might be a traditional timed escape sequence after that; but if the game pulls a Zero Mission or anything similar, please don't say or hint as such)

Fought Raven Beak for about a half-hour last night; ended up getting frustrated and looking up how to get past his invincibility phase; I was then made aware that I hadn't even cracked the 1st phase of the 3-phase fight, and decided that I needed a lot more time and a loooot more patience to get through this. So I thought I'd jot down some of my impressions so far:

PROS
1) The game is gorgeous, and lavishly detailed. I really enjoy some of the details going on in the background, such as ocean life swimming around in the distance, or that giant alien getting poked and prodded (isn't that the alien that comes back as the boss in the magma reactor area?).

2) Some of the item puzzles are genuinely fun and creative. I like that you can keep the Speed Boost going even by sliding and bouncing off walls, that was pretty cool; and even though it was frustrating getting the timing down for some of them, they did give that all-important sense of genuine satisfaction when overcoming them.

3) Story's pretty good. Basically carries over Fusion's story structure, which I liked in both games. Unfortunately a meme I saw about a year vaguely spoiled the plot twist (I knew Samus learned something fucked-up about her parentage in this game, and about halfway through it was becoming more and more obvious that Raven Beak would turn out to be her father / creator). So the 'would you kindly' twist didn't have the impact it might have, but it was still serviceable.

4) I like how they handled Samus' characterization throughout the game; particularly that she has only a single spoken line of dialogue, but they smartly had it spoken in an alien language. Lets her maintain her stoicism and not ruin her character while elevating her slightly beyond a stock mute protagonist. It's ultimately a minor detail, but still, whichever dev thought it up deserves an extra back-pat for it. (Really hope the ending cutscene doesn't somehow ruin this)

CONS
1) EMMIs are...well, I don't want to say that they're flat-out bad, but they're easily the weakest part of the game. They were clearly trying to recapture the 'dread' (oh-ho-ho) of encountering the SA-X, but they went about it the wrong way: first by having designated 'chase zones' that remove all sense of surprise and suspense created by suddenly finding yourself face-to-face with the SA-X; and second by making the EMMIs insta-kill chodes that can catch you simply by brushing against your foot, but also immediately putting you right back in the action after being caught, which turns the encounters into an absolute chore. Compounding this is the repetitive nature of obtaining the super-beam and defeating them (fun the first time, mind-numbing the subsequent five times), which quickly turns besting an EMMI from a satisfied 'YES!' to a disgusted 'Ugh, finally!' Incidentally, the stealth mechanic is a joke in this game if the EMMI is still going to crawl / climb straight to where you are hiding; it's like someone from Bethesda broke into Nintendo's office one night and designed this segment of the game when no one was looking.

2) Parrying / Countering fucking sucks. It is a bag of shit. I hated it in Cuphead, I hate it in this game, and if Samus Returns is supposedly the game that introduced this to the franchise, I think I'll continue to skip that particular entry. Countering particularly pisses me off by being, like Cuphead, that thing that's optional right up until the point where it very much isn't; I am not a pixel-perfect gamer, and I despise any mechanic that leads me to whooping a boss's ass right up until the point I didn't press a single button at the perfect moment. Apparently countering (and without an obvious cue) is the key to breaking Raven Beak's invincibility, and I'm genuinely concerned that I'm gonna have another King Dice situation on my hands where I lose the motivation to actually beat the game after arriving at the finish line.

3) Repetitive Bosses. The game starts strong in this regard with the alien-scorpion boss and the triumphant return of Kraid, but eventually devolves to the point where uninspired repeats of the Chozo Robots and Hornet...er, excuse me, Chozo Soldiers are the norm rather than the exception. They irritated the hell out of me the first time I fought them, and I ain't exactly warming to them the fourth time around.

4) It's a minor nitpick, but 'Raven Beak' is the kind of villain name I would expect to see in a Sonic fanfic. "Nothing personnel, daughter."

So overall, I'd rate it a 9.3, it's has a little something for everyone!