Metroid Fusion: The Official Nintendo Player's Guide

Metroid Fusion: The Official Nintendo Player's Guide is the official strategy guide to Metroid Fusion, published by Nintendo Power and written by George Sinfield.

Content
The book is 120 pages long. The front cover depicts the box art of the game, including a Zombie researcher, Hornoad, Samus Aran in her Fusion Suit, the Arachnus and a Zebesian. The book starts with several sections to help the player get into the game: first, a "Metroid History" section, recapping the events of Metroid, Metroid II: Return of Samus, Super Metroid and Metroid Prime (the recently released games up to that point), and feature screenshots. Notably, the Super cover art contains the watermark of the Metroid Database, the oldest Metroid fansite (as the guide was created in the early days of Google, the most likely explanation is that the watermark is featured by accident). Next, the "Take Action" section covers controls, followed by a "Fusion Suit Abilities" section detailing all of Samus' upgrades in the game (excluding the Ice Beam and Unidentified Suit), and "Station Navigation", detailing "Screen Data" (Pause Screen and game screen), navigation of the BSL and the various rooms in the game (Save, Data, Navigation, Recharge and Security) and hazardous substances (electrified water and lava to name a few). "Enemy Elimination" is the next feature, which details how to deal with various enemies. The "X Collection" piece of this section includes a screenshot that may represent a beta version of Neo-Ridley's room (colored blue rather than red). The final feature before the walkthrough itself is "Maximize Power", which contains information on Energy, Missile and Power Bomb Tanks. A folding map of the entire BSL map with details on each sector and notable rooms (such as the Operations Room and Central Reactor Core) is featured in the guide as well.

The walkthrough itself is called "X Adventure" and the cover page for it is a closeup image of Samus. Each area begins with a full-sprite map of the entire area, with upgrades, doors, blocks, bosses and special rooms labelled. Certain parts of each map are darkened, such as the Habitation Deck, the area leading to Nettori and the seabed area of Sector 4, in each map's first appearance, likely because they are explored much later (though the Operations Room is not darkened in the first Main Deck exploration, but it is in the second). The walkthrough details in numbered sections the steps to progress through each area with screenshots while also listing objectives in the game. Each boss is boxed into its own section with details of how to fight the battle. Section 6 of the Sector 2 walkthrough is called "Pole Position", a possible reference to the classic arcade game. Section 8 of the Sector 3 exploration is titled "Super Missile Sunshine", an obvious reference to Super Mario Sunshine. The map for Sector 3 during the Main Boiler countdown features a dotted line route to the Main Boiler Control room. Section 3 of that portion of the walkthrough is titled "Ice Climber" after the classic video game (the Ice Climbers and Samus appear together in the Super Smash Bros. series). The description for the scientist battle incorrectly states that its Core-X is of the variety "that you fought for the Bomb data", when the Bombs were acquired through download; the only Core-X that previously rewarded a beam was the Elephant Bird. Section 3 of the second Sector 2 portion (leading to Nettori) mistakenly states "The area boss in[sic] not far from the Save Room." Section 3 of the Restricted Zone walkthrough is called "Gone in 60 Seconds", a reference to the 1974 film. The unnamed green liquid in Sector 1's Tourian-like area is called "dangerous liquid" similar to the acid on SR388. No mention of the unidentified suit obtained by Samus at the end of the game is made. The last part of the walkthrough, titled "Quest for Perfection" gives information on how to obtain the various endings, and states that if the game save is loaded up again, the player will have access to the entire station to achieve 100% of the items.

The final part of the book is the "Tank Trials", which again depicts an image of Samus on the title page. This section contains maps of each sector (in the style of the in-game map screen rather than the sprite maps seen previously), locations of each Tank and steps to attain them. The final page covering the Restricted Zone features a section titled "Watch and Learn", in which it encourages the player to watch the title screen footage that is brought up when the game is left idle, for "pointers" from Samus on how to use her advanced abilities. The inside of the back cover features an offer for a 12-month subscription to Nintendo Power as well as a Fusion ball cap when one asks for offer #4362.

The back cover states that "Bounty hunter Samus Aran is after the X parasite that stole her identity."

Interestingly, Gray Hatches are colored dark purple in the legend, while Shutters are blue and Special Doors are grey. The guide does not mention the Secret Message.