Metroid II: Return of Samus

Metroid II: Return of Samus (メトロイドII RETURN OF SAMUS, Metoroido Tsū Ritān Obu Samusu) is the sequel to Metroid and the second game in the Metroid series and only one to appear on the Game Boy. It is about Samus Aran's mission to exterminate the Metroids on their home planet, SR388. Although it is the second release in the series, chronologically it takes place after Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and before Super Metroid.

Plot
Some time has passed since Samus Aran put a stop to the Space Pirates on Zebes and their plans to use the newly-discovered Metroids for evil purposes. To ensure this will not happen again, the Galactic Federation sends a research ship to the Metroid homeworld, SR388, to annihilate the species. When contact with the ship is lost, a rescue team and combat squad are sent, one after the other, to investigate, though none come back alive.

Realizing the threat that the Metroids pose, the Galactic Federation sends Samus Aran on a mission to land on SR388 and destroy all Metroid organisms. With her experience on Zebes, the Galactic Federation is sure she will succeed.

Arriving, Samus lands her gunship at the base of an active volcano, near the only entrance where the Metroid lair can be found. She exits her ship and begins the difficult trek through the planet's dark network of caves and ruins. One by one, Samus hunts down and destroys each Metroid on the planet. As she does so, she takes note of the steady mutation that each goes through. She discovers mutations which cause them to grow from their small jellyfish-like state into massive, hovering lizard-like beasts. Traversing deeper and deeper, the volcano rumbles at intervals and the lava drains, revealing a massive complex of Chozo ruins. Finally, after several harrowing battles with massive Omega Metroids, she uncovers a small ruined royal palace with infant, just born Metroids floating in the breeze. With their destruction, only one Metroid remains — the massive and deadly Queen Metroid. Samus fights a final battle before finally defeating the slithering monster, and as it crumbles to dust the final volcanic eruption sputters out. Returning to her gunship, Samus comes across a Metroid egg. The egg hatches and before her eyes a small Metroid hatchling floats out of the broken shell and begins to chirp at her. The Metroid, at seeing Samus first, believes her to be its mother. Samus, despite being ordered to exterminate the Metroids, spares its life. The two continue exiting the tunnels, and the Metroid hatchling helps Samus escape the caverns. Samus and the young Metroid board the gunship, ending the game.

Onboard the gunship, Samus places the Metroid in a container so that it can't cause any harm to the ship. Noting the immense scientific opportunity that the captured hatchling poses, she departs SR388 and heads to Ceres Space Colony to deliver her groundbreaking find — a domesticated, infant Metroid.

Gameplay
Gameplay is similar to other 2D Metroid games. However, Metroid II is more straightforward in the sense that advancement through the levels is not strictly controlled by item acquisition as in the other games, but by killing a certain number of Metroids in the area. Once they are destroyed, an earthquake occurs and SR388's lava levels decrease, allowing Samus to travel deeper through its maze-like tunnels.

Like Metroid, Metroid II contains no in-game map. Unique to the game is the Metroid detector, which displays the number of Metroids left on the planet. It is also the first in the series to utilize save modules, located in various points around the planet.

Items and abilities
Rather than being the first items she finds as in most Metroid games, Samus begins her mission with the Morph Ball, the Long Beam, and a small number of missiles. The Ice Beam and Wave Beam return as upgrades, as well as the Bombs, the Varia Suit (known in the game as "Varia" and in the manual as the "Barrier Suit" ), the High Jump Boots, and the Screw Attack.

New items
Metroid II introduced new items into the series, some of which have been in almost every game since this one. The game features two new weapons: the tri-splitting Spazer Laser Beam (identified in-game as the "Spazer", though later changed to "Spazer Beam" in Super Metroid), and the super-powerful Plasma Beam that passes through enemies. As in Metroid, only one beam can be equipped at a time, though Samus can switch between them by collecting the beam she wants to use again.

The Space Jump also debuts in this game, which allows Samus to spin-jump repeatedly in the air, allowing her to access otherwise unreachable areas. The Screw Attack returns, allowing Samus to shred almost any enemy by spinning into it.

New upgrades were given to the Morph Ball. The Spider Ball made its debut in Metroid II and would later appear again in Metroid Prime. The Spider Ball allowed Samus to climb any wall or ceiling. The Spring Ball was also introduced, which gives Samus the ability to jump while in the Morph Ball form.

Metroid lifecycle
Metroid II and Metroid Fusion are the only Metroid games that show the assumed natural transformations of the Metroids, but Metroid II remains the only game in which Samus fights every one of them. The life cycle is in the following order:
 * 1) Metroid
 * 2) Alpha Metroid
 * 3) Gamma Metroid
 * 4) Zeta Metroid
 * 5) Omega Metroid

The more powerful Metroids are found further into the game, with the Queen Metroid being the final boss.

Endings
After the credits are displayed at the end of the game, the total time the player took to complete the game will be displayed. During the credits, Samus is shown running on the screen. Depending on the completion time, you will see a certain ending, all of which are shown below:

Reception
Metroid II is more linear than Metroid, since most areas are blocked off until a certain number of Metroids are killed. It received good reviews when it was released nonetheless — Nintendo Power gave it a 4.5/5 and most gaming magazines and websites have a similar opinion.

In spite of this, some critics and gamers consider it the weakest title of the series, compared to Super Metroid or Metroid Fusion. In retrospect, it is often viewed merely as a connection between the first and third released titles and as an expansion on Metroid morphology. Still, it was later repackaged in a gold colored box along with the official Player's Choice emblem, showing it was well-received by many.

Color version
A color version titled Metroid II: Return of Samus DX was announced in 1999 shortly after the release of the Game Boy Color. Dan Owsen of Nintendo claimed its color-palette needs were even taken into account in the design of the Game Boy Color hardware. Some pictures were shown but the game never saw daylight despite the release of the colorized version of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

Since then, an unofficial pair has taken the time to "colorize" the game, and the IPS patch to add colorized graphics to the game is now available through the internet. This unofficial Metroid II DX completely revamps the graphics by adding full Game Boy Color palette color to the game. The colorization method used by Metroid II DX causes some distortion to occur during gameplay, noticeably when graphics "fadeout" and also during the final boss battle. The reason for this is that the aforementioned method inserts the GBC color palette into the empty space at the end of the original game data, and adds the colorization itself during each "V-blank cycle". Special effects that utilize this cycle, such as the Queen Metroid and the "fadeout", are replaced by random tile distortions, though no other noticeable effects are present with the patch.

Like all original Game Boy games, the Metroid II cartridge is also compatible with the Super Game Boy accessory for the SNES, allowing you to manually remap the color scheme to a maximum of four different colors. Additionally, the Game Boy Player accessory for the Nintendo GameCube automatically colorizes the game, but not true full color, as it is still limited to the same colorization techniques of the GBC and GBA.

Trivia

 * Metroid II: Return of Samus is the only game in the Metroid series that does not have a countdown.


 * With a total of 40 boss battles, Metroid II: Return of Samus has the most boss battles in the Metroid series.


 * Interestingly, the lack of color in Metroid II had some long-term effects on Samus' appearance. In Metroid, the Varia Suit was a different color from the normal Power Suit, but the same shape. In Metroid II, the Varia Suit had to have a different shape because there was no color. Thus, the Varia Suit gained the extra armor plating and bulky, round shoulder pads that have become its most recognizable traits. In addition, rather than Samus' arm cannon and visor changing color to distinguish between "Beam Mode" and "Missile Mode", the end of the arm cannon tip moved outward and back to show that the "missile hatch" was open. These graphical changes have been used in all Metroid games since Metroid II.


 * A fan made remake named AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake) is currently in the making. A demo was released in 2008 where there was a drastic improve in graphics. The project will be renamed but the name has not been decided just yet. The AM2R release date is currently unknown. Here is a link to the blog page. link text


 * Metroid II: Return of Samus is one of three Metroid games without Ridley, the other two being Metroid Prime Hunters and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.