YMMV / Metroid Fusion

• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • The SA-X. The computer proposes the X parasites as mindless organisms that gradually adapt with the more they devour, and the multiple SA-X markedly makes a target out of Samus since she's their biggest threat. But when it narrowly saves Samus at the end from the Omega Metroid and then promptly dies as a result yet grants Samus the Ice Beam needed to win, can it be construed as a pragmatic assault leading to its demise or a mix of Enemy Mine and a sort of villainous Heroic Sacrifice? Or perhaps it saw that it was being faced with two possibilities of losing and decided it would rather be absorbed by Samus than killed by the Omega Metroid?
  • Some fans have theorized that Nightmare, during his first appearance in the background of his level, isn't actually stalking Samus, but running away from the X parasites before being killed off and taken over by them.
  • Just how true was the claim that Samus couldn't use the Ice Beam because of her Metroid DNA? Considering the fact the Federation was deliberately withholding upgrades from her so she couldn't kill the SA-X since they saw potential in it, it's highly likely they also lied about the Ice Beam so Samus couldn't use it against the SA-X; or, more likely, the Metroids they were breeding on the ship. Combine this with the fact that Samus gets and uses the Ice Beam with no ill effects at the end of the game, and it comes off as a Rewatch Bonus. However, on the flipside, Samus herself did experience problems with Cold-X until she acquired the Varia Suit, so it could have been true until that point, except that immediately after she acquired the Varia Suit is precisely when Adam makes that claim to begin with.
• Anti-Climax Boss:
  • The first SA-X fight can be this by manipulating its looping animation. It'll start looping around with the Screw Attack, giving you enough time to charge and blast it repeatedly until it goes to its second form detailed below.
  • The SA-X's monster form. Despite looking horrifying, it dies to 2-3 charge shots and its only attack is to Goomba Stomp Samus. The eye Core X it turns into afterwards is actually more threatening.
  • B.O.X. Round 2. The first time, you fight him on a completely flat surface, and he tosses bombs that spit fire waves that go up and down, requiring you to maneuver around to avoid the tall waves. The second time, he is fought in a depression in the ground that he cannot move out of, but that the monkey bars you have to clutch to extend past, allowing you to stay harmlessly out of his reach. To counter this, he uses missiles instead of the fire bombs this time, and those missiles home in on you, but those missiles are easily shot down with the Plasma Beam. Also, he will come to a resting position in perfect position for a diagonal missile attack. The only part of the battle where hanging in one spot cannot prevent harm is the Core-X fight.
  • The Omega Metroid at the end. There is no elaborate attack pattern to it, all it does is slowly walk forward and scratch you when you're close, and it'll keep backing off while being blasted with the Ice Beam. There is a time limit, but you'll kill it so fast that it shouldn't matter at all. Certainly a very disappointing final boss after all the incredible boss fights in the game.
• Base-Breaking Character: ADAM. Some fans like this game's portrayal of him for his history with Samus and character arc from being a secret rogue Federation stooge to firmly on Samus's side. Others dislike him for interfering with the Metroid franchise's signature isolation and being a vehicle for the game's more linear nature. His widely hated portrayal in Other M would increase the divide, with some believing that his biggest problems were already in Fusion, while others believe that the AI ADAM was nowhere near as bad and even represented a character arc from Other M.
• Broken Base: Fusion is one of the more divisive titles in the franchise for a few reasons:
  • The biggest divider in the fanbase is the more linear gameplay structure. Fans of Fusion appreciate that the Metroid team took a risk by making the "anti-Super Metroid", feeling that such an approach allowed for a stronger narrative than prior games, more segmented level design tailored for handheld play, and taking more advantage of Samus's abilities. Critics dislike it precisely because of its linearity, as the more guided and restricted nature of the game goes against the freedom offered by Super. This group also criticizes the greater focus on narrative, as prior entries relied more on environmental storytelling outside of the opening narration, as opposed to Fusion's constant use of monologues and conversations between Samus and ADAM. The fact that later titles like Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and Metroid: Other M similarly attempted linear, story-focused directions with divisive-at-best results also adds to the discourse, with Fusion either being seen as a great game with an intriguing story that was able to pull this approach off successfully where those games struggled, or disappointing game with a bland story that only served to become origin of every problem that would come to manifest with the series.
  • Samus's radically altered suit really divided fans. To this day, people still argue over whether the bizarrely alien look of the Fusion Suit is cool, or is just a really terrible design; even those who like the basic design are split on whether its final Varia appearance at the end of the game is good as well.
• Catharsis Factor: Finally being able to defeat the SA-X after having to run from it for a whole game is extremely satisfying.
• Cheese Strategy:
  • In the room where Serris is fought, there is a spot underwater closest to the door you entered in. Crouch there, and Serris will never be able to hit you while you can blast away at him.
  • Similarly, for the second B.O.X. fight, if Samus hangs from the ladder above the raised underwater section, she cannot be hit by the security robot's jumping, and the missiles it fires are easy to take out with her plasma beam, and she is able to hit the robot's vulnerable section with a diagonal downward aim, making the boss trivially easy.
• Demonic Spiders: The X infected Kihunters do massive amounts of damage even by this game's standards and are faced during a section where you've likely taken tons of damage from an SA-X chase. They're also reasonably durable without using Power Bombs until you get the Plasma Beam. In fact, the first room after you obtain the Plasma Beam, you encounter rows of Kihunters, specifically designed to show off the new weaponry.
• Difficulty Spike: Roughly halfway into the game the X try to blow up the station to kill Samus, in an attempt to protect the X on SR388. Up to that point most normal enemies, bosses and even the SA-X encounters were relatively not that aggressive or fast-paced. However, after the boss fight with The Scientist (which itself isn't that tough, though the time limit can make it nerve-wreaking), normal enemies tend to have more tricks up their sleeves such as flight or additional projectiles, all the following bosses are dramatically harder (with the exception of the B.O.X. refight), and the encounters with the SA-X offer Samus next to no hiding spots and are overwhelmingly more frantic and desperate.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: The Nightmare boss is extremely memorable due to the sheer horror of all the things that surround it. That's probably why it was brought back for Other M.
• Epileptic Trees: Given that the only scientists who were in any meaningful contact with the baby Metroid before it was stolen by the space pirates were the ones at the Ceres Space Colony, the fact that B.S.L. and the Federation have Metroid DNA to create a serum to cure Samus with and enact a restricted Metroid breeding program makes their collaboration with them look pretty suspect. Even if one factors in the Other M Bottle Ship, it all points back to Ceres Space Colony in the end.
• Fan Nickname:
  • The nigh-unskippable Missile Tank in Sector 3, making a 0% run almost impossible, is nicknamed "Bob".
  • The Varia Suit's much-maligned colour scheme is derisively called "Mustard Samus" by some fans.
  • The orange suit Samus gets upon absorbing the SA-X has no official name, but it's usually called the "Omega Suit" due to it being an 11th-Hour Superpower and due to it being used in the fight against the Omega Metroid.
• Fanon: It's common for fanart to depict the Fusion Suit as a fluid suit that can flow around Samus' body at her will, similar to Venom. This has never been the case in any official media, but it's quite a popular fan interpretation nonetheless.
• Franchise Original Sin: The increased storytelling and more limited game progression in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and especially Metroid: Other M (particularly its choices in characterizing Samus Aran) are why the reception is so divided about the games. This can be traced all back to Metroid Fusion, which has every point of criticism those games faced: It has stronger focus on a story, more linear level design, and it even was the first time Samus interacted with another character in-game. Here, the backlash was small because it came out after eight years in rest since Super Metroid and the franchise exited hibernation with two well-received games in 2002, the other being Metroid Prime. It also wasn't too heavy on the conversation, with her AI doing most of the Infodump, and the only scene where Samus actively speaks to someone is in one of the most important scenes, meaning it was O.O.C. Is Serious Business from Samus's part and made its use very effective. Later games, however, would lean into more traditional storytelling and face much more criticisms becasue of it.
• Good Bad Bugs: The Gold Zebesians that appear near the end of the game have to be shot in the back to damage them. However, they can also be damaged by just having Samus shoot a charged Wave Beam shot at their front, then turning her to face away from the Zebesian before the attack reaches them.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Either this or Hilarious in Hindsight, but the computer's theoretical questions "Did this Adam care for you? Would he sit in a safe Command Room and order you to die?" after his controversial behaviour in Other M. Not to mention that this is also the part where the computer ends up remembering that it's actually Adam's Brain Uploading, so depending on how quickly he realized this, he may have deliberately insulted himself for said behaviour.
  • Adam mentions near the end of the game that detonating station would not guarantee the complete extinction of the X. Unfortunately, he was correct, because in Dread it was revealed they were carried over to planet ZDR after a Chozo soldier who was on SR388 was infected by the X, resulting in the parasites being quarantined in the Elun area. And then Samus unwittingly set the X free, infecting every form of wildlife there.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A female protagonist stranded on a space station gone completely off the rails and fighting her way through it while being constantly stalked by an enemy that is impossible to kill, with a government-based agenda behind the whole thing, and a part where said enemy is seemingly killed off, only to be revealed that there's many more of it on the station? Are we talking about Metroid: Fusion or Alien: Isolation? Especially funny because Metroid games before 2014 were often considered to have taken inspiration from the Alien franchise rather than the other way around.
  • One of the more contentious moments in Other M, a section where Samus runs through a heated area taking damage because despite having it, she hasn't been authorized by Adam to activate her heat shielding, makes a couple of the ship's computer's lines unintentionally hilarious. Especially since these come out of the mouth of the same character that didn't authorize Samus to turn on her heat shielding in Other M.
    Ship's Computer: And avoid the ultra-heated areas: your suit can't take such high temperatures yet, but we're working on it.
    Ship's Computer: There are no ultra-heated areas on this route, so turn back if you enter one.
  • Late in the game, the Computer CO uses the phrase "please understand".
• It's Short, So It Sucks!: The game drew some criticism for its short length, not helped by its linearity. For reference, on a first-time playthrough, unless you are stuck on a boss or lost in a particular area, you will likely beat the game in about 4-6 hours. 3-5 hours is the window for the first of the game's bonus endings.
• Memetic Mutation: See Memes.Metroid.
• Minimalist Run: It's possible to beat the game with as few as 1% of the collectibles. A "0% run" is also possible by using the Speed Booster to exploit a design oversight in Sector 3 (a missile tank is placed in a nearly unavoidable spot, and it got so infamous the speedrunning community named it "Bob"), but it requires superhuman timing and precision and is extremely hard, but not impossible, to pull off without tool-assisting.
• Nightmare Retardant: The SA-X's second form has a horrifying appearance, but its only attack is easy to avoid and it goes down in 3-4 hits, which limits the scariness it could have had. Its Core-X form afterwards is actually more dangerous than the monster itself.
• Scrappy Mechanic: Power Bombs, not so much because of the bombs themselves, but because of the extremely loud, abrasive hissing sound of their explosions. Given how often one must use them to find secret passages, one may resort to muting the game after awhile. Tellingly, Metroid: Zero Mission features a much quieter Power Bomb sound effect.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: Completing the game with a 0% Minimalist Run, which means avoiding all item pickups that aren't your scripted weapon and suit upgrades. Not only does this make the game even harder than before, doing this requires you to exploit an extremely hard Sequence Break in Sector 3 to avoid the game's lone mandatory Missile Tank. On the other hand, it is easier than other such minimalist runs in the series, since the mandatory upgrades gained through Data Rooms don't count towards your percentage.
• Special Effect Failure: Whenever the Omega Metroid slashes with its claw, something about the animation looks wrong even when played at normal speed, as though the Omega Metroid is reaching too far considering the length of its arm. Viewing the animation frame-by-frame reveals the problem: its whole right arm briefly disconnects from the rest of its body. There are a couple frames where the disembodied arm is clearly just awkwardly floating in the air a good distance away from the Omega Metroid itself.
• That One Boss:
  • The well-named Nightmare is a Gravity Master where you must understand its three phases. During Phase 2, missiles drop like rocks, so you must rely on a charge beam. Its final phase has it fly erratically around the arena whenever you're forced to move behind it, with its size, speed and ability to move offscreen making it near-impossible to avoid, meaning it will inflict tons of Collision Damage here. There is a way to manipulate Nightmare into stopping early so you can shoot its face some more, but it's very hard to pick up on.
  • Yakuza, the giant spider that knows kung fu and suplexes you into the ground. Once you destroy its body, though, the head will Space Jump erratically, occasionally throwing debris at odd angles. You have to learn how to juggle it properly. That its hitboxes in the second phase allow it to hurt you without touching you is fuel in the fire. And if you lose, you have to come back all the way from Samus's gunship, due to a power outage preventing all save rooms from working. There's also an SA-X chase not very long after this that requires great speed and reflexes as there's no way to avoid being seen.
  • B.O.X. the security robot, which requires Samus to hang from monkeybars, is invulnerable while attacking, and is frequently jumping to make its weak point harder to reach. And the worst part: the battle is fought twice! However, the second fight can be cheesed, as there's one spot where he cannot hit you by jumping, can be hit from a diagonal angle, and his rockets are easily dispatched as ever, making the second fight become an Anticlimax Boss.
  • Nettori, due to there being three annoying phases. In the first, there are Spores that can not only harm you,but can also knock you into the "Venus Samus Traps" between the platforms. In the second, the boss will start firing its Plasma beam, which hurts a good amount, can also knock you into the flowers, and have a surprising large hitbox. Finally, once you get it into its core X, it still fires its beam, both on its own and every time you hit it with a missile. Not helping is that the fight has two Guide Dang It! moments. If you fall off the platform and get caught in the plants, button mashing does nothing and you need to hold down the jump button to escape. Also when the core X appears, you can access the room that was behind Nettori for some much needed space to dodge around the core X.
• That One Level: The second visit to Sector 2 is reached through a shortcut after defeating Yakuza, a fairly lengthy and tricky boss. The first four rooms comprise the longest SA-X chase in the game, and its damage output combined with Yakuza's means it's very likely for Samus to enter the new part of the level at low health, leaving her easy pickings for the Kihunters populating the area. The only open Save Room is after your first encounter with them, and while there is a Recharge Room shortly after the Save Room, it's hidden behind a fake wall with nothing indicating it exists. There isn't much left to explore afterwards, but Nettori can be an annoying boss as well, and the run back towards the entrance of Sector 2 can also be harrowing (there is an Energy Tank after Nettori that works as an emergency refill, but it's well-hidden).
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Adam informs Samus late into the game, that there are now no fewer than ten SA-Xs running around the station, and they are hunting her. This would be a terrifying prospect gameplay-wise. Even when Samus is recovering strength, technology, and energy tanks... she'd be more outclassed and outnumbered than ever before. The player would be fighting to survive to the story's conclusion. However, we never see or battle more than one SA-X, at any one time.
• Underused Game Mechanic: Diffusion Missiles are rarely necessary past their dedicated puzzles in Sector 4 and don't have noteworthy combat uses, despite being one of the few upgrades new to Fusion. Dread, the game's direct sequel, didn't bring them back, instead giving their wall-piercing powers to the Diffusion Beam and their "charge missiles" concept to the Storm Missiles.
• Vindicated by History: While already considered a great game at release, there was some controversy within the fanbase about the game's increased linearity and more liberal use of dialogue and monologue. Then Metroid Prime Pinball and Metroid Prime: Hunters became the new black sheep of the franchise, and Fusion was seen as a worthy installment. Around the release of Metroid: Samus Returns, more fans have started to speak highly of the game. It is commonly argued that for what it lacks in exploration, it makes up with an overwhelming sense of dread, no doubt one-upping Super Metroid on that front; not a flaw, but a deliberate choice made to finely tune the game's pacing and enable its much acclaimed atmosphere. Fusion is now considered to contain some of the best examples of video game horror outside of actual Survival Horror games. What's more, fans have even expressed interest in a remake due to the appearance of X-Parasites in Samus Returns. When Metroid Dread was announced after 19 years, the overwhelming majority of fans were outright delighted, especially since Fusion now has a proper sequel, and not a time-jump forward.
• Woolseyism: Elephant Bird's name is somewhere between a Woolseyism and a Good Bad Translation. On one hand, it's a clear "Blind Idiot" Translation of Chozo Statue (鳥人像 in Japanese; translators likely mistook 像 for the similar kanji 象, which means "elephant" instead of "statue"), and since a Chozo Statue obviously isn't an elephant, it comes across as goofy to most fans. But on the other hand, the real-life elephant bird is an enormous extinct flightless bird, which is also a very fitting description of the Chozo race as a human-sized bird-like species that is nearly extinct and has (mostly) lost their flight. Even if unintentional, that ends up turning Elephant Bird's English name into a (rather esoteric) Meaningful Name.
• WTH, Costuming Department?: The Fusion Suit's Varia form, a bright yellow-green with magenta accents, is considered to be one of the worst-looking suits in the series, if not the worst. Here it is,◊ as seen in Prime. It's so infamous that the yellow-green was changed to a deeper forest green and the accents became pink instead of magenta for its appearance◊ in Samus Returns. That said, general consensus is that the purple and cyan Fusion Gravity Suit more than makes up for it.

---