Another Metroid 2 Remake

[Ferdinando Addison]

Thegame received positive reviews, particularly for its graphics. It was nominated for The Game Awards 2016, but was later dropped from the nominee list without notice. Shortly after release, Nintendo sent D.M.C.A. notices to websites hosting AM2R, and download links were removed. Though Guasti planned to continue working on the game privately, in September 2016, he ended development after receiving a D.M.C.A. take-down request. Nintendo released an official Metroid II remake, Metroid: Samus Returns, in 2017.

AM2R is an enhanced remake of the Game Boy game Metroid II: Return of Samus,[3] which follows Samus Aran on her quest to eradicate the parasitic Metroid species from SR388, their home world. The remake is done in the style of Metroid: Zero Mission,[4][5] adding a map system, new areas, mini-bosses, upgrades originally introduced in Super Metroid, redone graphics and music, an updated artificial intelligence for enemies, and a log system similar to Metroid Prime.[6] Logs give the player more information on Metroids, enemies and the game world after the player has encountered certain enemies or arrived in new areas.[4] The game's controls are less "floaty" than those of the original and feature new abilities such as wall jumping and grabbing onto ledges, being more in line with the gameplay the series has employed since Super Metroid.[7]

AM2R was developed by Milton Guasti under the pseudonym DoctorM64[9] over the course of about ten years, although with several periods of no work done on the game.[10] Guasti wanted to recreate the fast gameplay of Metroid: Zero Mission and the "atmosphere and solitude" of Super Metroid.[11] After having finished Metroid II for the first time, he imagined it to be "cool" to play the game with modern gameplay, an in-game mini-map rather than with a physical map on one's lap, and the Omega Metroids as tall as the screen.[9] As Guasti was not a programmer at the time, he used a trial-and-error method to modify a platforming game engine by Martin Piecyk within the game creation system GameMaker,[12] with learning being his main motivation for working on the game.[10]

At first the remake followed the original Metroid II's map layout and already existing sprites from Metroid: Zero Mission and Super Metroid. As Guasti kept working on the game engine and polished each ability, he felt that AM2R started to seem more and more authentic.[9] After the game had been made public, several artists contacted Guasti and volunteered to create original art for the game; the Metroid evolutions were redesigned, and new enemies and areas unrelated to other Metroid games were added.[9] He remade the music himself while waiting for customers in his recording studio.[10] The added log system was designed to deliver narrative in a non-intrusive way.[6]

In the later parts of the game's development, the largest challenge was to coordinate Guasti's and his collaborators' work; when Guasti started working as a programmer, he learned about project management and applied it to AM2R, but still found it challenging to have deadlines and keep people motivated, as everyone was working on the game free in their spare time.[10] In late 2014, the project was ported to the newer version of GameMaker Studio, which enabled improved loading times and performance, but required the complete rewriting of some features and changes to the designs of some levels. This move also made bugs faster to fix and new builds easier to make, leaving the development progress in a more expedient and productive state.[11] Later in the same year, the developers worked on improving the visuals, giving the fourth area a new graphics tile set intended to give it more personality.[14]

Guasti released a first demo in late 2011[15] and another in early 2013.[16] The full game was released free following a countdown through its website on August 6, 2016, coinciding with the Metroid series' 30th anniversary.[3][17] Updated versions with further improvements and features were planned, but shortly after the first release, Nintendo sent DMCA notices to websites hosting it.[18][19] The download links on the game's website were removed on August 7,[20] but Guasti said that he planned to work on the game privately. He said he understood Nintendo's need to protect its intellectual properties and encouraged AM2R players to buy the official Nintendo eShop release of Metroid II.[7]

On September 2, Guasti received a DMCA takedown request from Nintendo and announced that he had ended development.[21] He released the soundtrack later that month, including several tracks intended for the unfinished version 1.2 update.[22] Development of the game was continued by people from the Metroid fan community, including bug fixes, new enemies and story elements, and additional game modes such as New Game+ and a "Randomizer", which shuffles the locations of power-ups.[23]

Mike Fahey, writing for Kotaku, called the game brilliant and compared the gameplay, graphics, and music favorably to their Metroid II counterparts.[6] Siliconera's Ishaan found the game impressive and said that it stands out from other fan-made remakes.[12] Sam Machkovech at Ars Technica said that the game would be a delight to people who liked Zero Mission, and that its quality and amount of polish put it on par with Nintendo's games.[7] Zack Furniss of Destructoid liked the game to the point that he thought Nintendo should use some ideas from it in future Metroid titles.[4] Jonathan Holmes, also at Destructoid, said that AM2R does a good job at filling the "void" left by Nintendo's lack of new 2D Metroid games, calling it "even more of an extensive re-imagining than Metroid: Zero Mission was to Metroid 1".[27] Gonalo Lopes at Nintendo Life said that the game was a great way to celebrate the series' 30th anniversary and a dream come true for Metroid fans, and that he imagined people would be willing to pay money for it if sold on Nintendo's eShop.[28] Matthew Castle at Nintendo Gamer called it an example of how to do a remake right.[9] Tom Sykes at PC Gamer praised AM2R as a "great game in its own right" regardless of whether one had played Metroid II prior or not.[29] NF Magazine's Tony Ponce initially worried that the game would lose the "eerie charm" of Metroid II, but found it to be able to keep a high-tension feeling, as well as including new things for longtime fans of the original.[8]

Furniss found that the gameplay changes compared to the original Metroid II, such as the ability to grab onto ledges, all felt natural, and called the user interface "sleek". He liked the log system, calling it one of the biggest additions, and enjoyed how the opening added more story content while not being "overdone", instead feeling like the opening to Super Metroid.[4] Holmes commended the boss battles, calling them "arguably" the best across all 2D Metroid games.[27] Ponce found the precise win conditions for Metroid battles annoying considering how often they are fought, but similarly thought that the new non-Metroid bosses were among the most exciting and challenging in all 2D games in the series. His favorite new gameplay elements were the "gimmicks" such as the player-operated tunneling drill machine and the walker robot minigame.[8]

Machkovech said that the game looks "phenomenal" and that its "beautiful, easily discernible sprites" and 60-frames-per-second animations made it look modern despite the 320240 resolution. He particularly enjoyed the game's color palette, saying that it made AM2R feel like a completely new game.[7] Furniss called the game "gorgeous", praising the colors and the increased graphical detail.[4] Alec Meer at Rock, Paper, Shotgun said that the game looked lovely, and that it was a large improvement over the Game Boy version's green screen.[30] Jeffrey Matulef, writing for Eurogamer, found it impressive how closely the game resembled Super Metroid visually.[19] Fahey noted the soundtrack in particular as being of high quality,[6] and Lopes called the music "fantastic".[28]

The game was nominated for The Game Awards 2016 in the "Best Fan Creation" category, but was removed from the nomination page without notice alongside the fan game Pokmon Uranium. The Game Awards host Geoff Keighley explained that AM2R and Pokmon Uranium were not legally cleared by Nintendo to be included in the event.[31]

On June 13, 2017, Nintendo announced an official remake, Metroid: Samus Returns, for Nintendo 3DS. It is speculated that this was the true reason AM2R was shut down by Nintendo, as historically the company has usually only taken issue with fan games that directly compete with current or upcoming official games in some way. Guasti stated in response: "N won E3 for me, #SamusReturns looks like the Metroid 2 I always wanted to play. Looks like the ANOTHER part of #am2r still makes sense now."[1] Samus Returns was released on September 15, 2017, and was highly praised by Guasti.

The game's plot is largely unchanged from Metroid II. It now features a Super Metroid-style introduction narrated by Samus Aran (narration above), about the nature of her mission on SR388. Over the course of the game, Samus's scanners automatically download Logbook entries similar to the Metroid Prime series that reveal additional lore about areas and bosses. She can uncover optional areas that include the landing sites of the G.F.S. Thoth and an Anhur-class patrol ship carrying the two ill-fated Galactic Federation teams sent to rescue the Galactic Federation Special Squadron sent previously. Metroid II did not feature the final resting places of these Federation teams, despite mentioning them in the manual. Samus also encounters surviving Federation Marines battling a Zeta Metroid that metamorphoses into an Omega Metroid before effortlessly killing them. It is not possible to save the marines. The mysterious earthquakes linked to the deaths of Metroids are insinuated to be caused by the Queen Metroid herself, as her cries can be heard during the last few in the game. The Logbook reveals that the cave system is located between two tectonic plates on SR388. The game ends with Samus killing off the remaining Metroids, the Queen, and discovering an infant Metroid she later calls the baby.

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