{"id":135463,"date":"2025-12-30T20:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/#article-186122"},"modified":"2025-12-30T20:00:00","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T20:00:00","slug":"opinion-metroid-ii-doesnt-care-if-samus-lives-or-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2025\/12\/30\/opinion-metroid-ii-doesnt-care-if-samus-lives-or-dies\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Metroid II Doesn’t Care If Samus Lives Or Dies"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"Metroid<\/a>
<\/span> Image: Damien McFerran \/ Nintendo Life<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the holiday season, we’re republishing some of the best articles from Nintendo Life writers and contributors from<\/em> 2025<\/a><\/em>. This article was originally published in August. Enjoy!<\/em><\/p>\n

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I recently started playing Metroid II: Return of Samus<\/a> for the first time. I\u2019m not sure why. Maybe it was a way of staving off my intense cravings for Metroid Prime 4: Beyond<\/a>, which as of writing still doesn\u2019t have a launch date more concrete than the vague ‘2025’ window Nintendo revealed over a year ago<\/a>. In any case, Metroid II impressed me almost immediately, but it wasn\u2019t until I saw heroine Samus Aran die that I realised just how unique it is in relation to the rest of the series.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s small, colourless screen resulted in a handheld adventure still praised today for its austere atmosphere.<\/p>\n

Metroid II is claustrophobic, at least when compared to its predecessor on the Nintendo Entertainment System. The rooms in both games may not be much different in size, but the portable sequel focuses so closely on Samus that it often feels as if there\u2019s barely any space to navigate its tunnels and passageways. Metroid II\u2019s perspective shift, combined with its story about genociding the series\u2019 eponymous parasites, makes for a game that\u2019s dark and oppressive while still managing to feel like a natural next step in what, at the time, was a young franchise.<\/p>\n

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<\/span> Image: Zion Grassl \/ Nintendo Life<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My first few hours with Metroid II were uneventful. I messed around with the controls and acclimated to the grayscale environments of the Metroid homeworld before settling in to Samus\u2019 mission of extermination. As these things often go, I soon found myself low on health courtesy of the planet\u2019s dangerous inhabitants. I scrambled to reach a previous save point to avoid losing several precious minutes of progress, but eventually my reserve energy tanks hit zero after taking too many hits. And that\u2019s when Samus surprised me by simply\u2026 fading away.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve grown accustomed to one of two things happening when you die in a Metroid game. The first, seen in almost every other 2D instalment, is that Samus and her suit will explode into several pieces. The second \u2013 and infinitely more traumatic, at least in the case of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes<\/a> \u2013 is watching Samus\u2019 visor blink out from a first-person point of view and then being treated to the sounds of her heart flatlining and\/or the image of blood spreading slowly across the game over screen. Dying is climactic and every game in the series makes it feel important.<\/p>\n

Well, every game except Metroid II, of course. As shown in the video below, Samus doesn’t explode, and the game over screen is nothing more than white text on a black screen. She just ceases to exist, the hundreds of pixels that make up her sprite disappearing line by line until nothing is left. The game leads us to believe Samus is the only person capable of eliminating the Metroid threat, but it treats her defeat with hardly any reverence at all.<\/p>\n