AM2R

AM2R is an action-adventure game where players control Samus on a journey to eliminate all alien creatures on a planet. The game features diverse map environments to explore, each with different enemies and bosses to challenge. Each boss has unique skill sets, requiring players to remain calm and utilize agile movement and terrain to their advantage. The game thoughtfully provides a mini-map, where different colors may represent ruins, shortcuts, and other rich content, making exploration easier for players.

Gameplay of AM2R:

AM2R is an enhanced remake of the Game Boy game Metroid II: Return of Samus, which follows Samus Aran on her quest to eradicate the parasitic Metroid species from SR388, their home world. The remake builds upon the visual style of Metroid: Zero Mission, 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. 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. The controls are less "floaty" than those of the original and feature new abilities such as wall jumping and grabbing onto ledges, more in line with the gameplay the series has employed since Super Metroid.

The Metroids the player fights have four main evolutionary stages – Alpha, Gamma, Zeta, and Omega – which have been altered compared to their Metroid II counterparts, including new techniques used in battle; Alpha is the least altered, having only been given a new dodge move, while Omega has been altered the most, having been changed to earth-bound enemies that trap the player. The player confronts these Metroid bosses often and has to defeat 55 of them. Among the newly added bosses are non-Metroid enemies such as a moving statue or a Torizo statue.

Features of AM2R:

It follows the story of Metroid hero Samus Aran who is dedicated to defeating all the opposing enemies and saving his home planet SR388. This action-adventure remake game includes many new contents, including a new map system, lore, brand new locations, mini-bosses, and plenty more. With its redone graphics and music sounds, Metroidvania game fans can dive into a spooky, quiet, mysterious world, longly but challenging.

Some of the game features of AM2R include:

Updated graphics and sound design.

Expanded areas and new gameplay mechanics.

New abilities and upgrades for the player character.

Boss battles and mini-bosses.

Multiple difficulty settings.

A map system and save points.

Some additional story elements and lore.

Useful Tips of AM2R:

If you don't know what to do with a think, try shooting it or bombing it. If that doesn't work, come back later. You'll figure out when.

When in doubt, bomb everything. I mean it. Everything. That door? Bomb it. That wall? It too. That floor? Blip boom. All of it. Bomb it.

Watch your enemies and learn their patterns, and get ready to dodge.

AM2R inherits a few issues that Metroid II had (being a remake of it) of repetitive bosses and locking you into areas. Don't let that become how you play the games

Remember what you see in a place. Odds are you'll always find what you need to get there later. Don't be afraid to backtrack and grab more stuff, especially if something is giving you trouble.

Play around with your movement. AM2R's is especially snappy and satisfying and there's a few *ahem* things you can do that the game lets you discover on your own. They're really useful, especially if you fancy sequence breaking, which believe me, a few runs, and you'll start to fancy sequence breaking.

Player Comments of AM2R:

Where do we start with this one… It’s Another Metroid 2 Remake, literally. But I wasn’t really aware that there were others out there in the world anyway. Either way, this is a “remake” of AM2R. But is it? Let’s get into that and see.

The story is the same as the original Metroid II. Samus is going to SR388, home of the Metroids, to make sure there’s no more Metroids. It’s great. Not the story, really. It’s not very great. But what is great is that there’s no big text blocks like in other Metroid games. There’s no weird little static cut scenes… There’s no words in the game at all other than item names and Press Start To Save.

This game kind of sticks with that. So points there

Gameplay is where this, for me, falls off the rails. Metroid II was a very basic game. It was for the Game Boy, it wasn’t fancy. Samus could duck, that was new. Morph Ball is here, high jump boots, ice beam, all the usual stuff with the addition of a couple of other things like the Space Jump. AM2R just pulls whatever from wherever else in the series and crams it in here if it makes sense or not. Super Missiles are in here. The Speed Booster is in here. I think even Power Bombs are in here. They don’t belong here.

Them being here means there must be a reason for them being here. And there is. And all of those things… none of them are in Metroid II. The controls are fine, things work fine, all the Metroids to be hunted are there, its fine. But all the other stuff is less fine. Playing the game, to me, eventually started to feel like someone wanted to make their own game but they had to put an IP on it to get it attention. It really didn’t FEEL like Metroid after a point.

Graphics are great. The game looks really good. The sprites, pulled from other games and tweeked, are great. Environments are pretty, enemies are well detailed, bosses look great. No problems with the graphics at all.

The music is also quite good. It’s mostly remixes of themes from other games and for the most part they work out just fine.

It really is a shame that everything works so well here… except the game play experience. And that experience not because because of poor controls or anything like that, but because it just doesn’t FEEL right. And, unfortunately, game feel is a big deal for me. It has to feel good to play. It has to feel right to play. That’s not saying a game should be easy or not offer any challenge, but it has to feel right. And this just doesn’t.

Final Verdict:

Overall, AM2R is a fantastic game that runs perfectly on Android, and one of the best examples of the genre available on this operating system. And better yet, it's completely free!In this game -obviously- you'll once again play as the bounty hunter Samus Aran, and destroy the many new evolutions of Metroid as you explore the depths of the planet SR388. Just like other games in the saga, you'll begin the adventure with just a few weapons and abilities, and keep improving as you progress through the game's storyline. It's clearly a classic 'Metroidvania' game.