Summary Samus Aran's first mission with gameplay, music and graphics all remade for the Nintendo Game Boy Advance.

Description The original NES Metroid was such a huge hit here in America, and it only makes sense that Nintendo would do a remake. With greatly improved graphics, controls, and an extension to the main quest, Zero Mission is everything you'd want from a GBA remake of the original game even though it falls a bit short by todays standards. Story In the year 2003, many different planets in the galaxy established a congress called the Galactic Federation. In this time of interstellar peace, a successful exchange of cultures and civilization began when spaceships were able to freely shuttle back and forth between planets. Not long after, Space Pirates began attacking these ships and threatening the peace. Because of the immense power of these pirates, the Federal Bureau summoned the most powerful bounty hunters to battle the pirates. In the year 20X5, during the reign of the Space Pirates, they attacked a vessel transporting the highly advance life-forms, Metroids, from the planet SR388. Learning of the immense weaponry potential Metroids possessed, the pirates built gigantic labs on planet Zebes to study these organisms, unaware that the Federation Police had traced their whereabouts and dispatched the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy, Samus Aran, to penetrate the base and destroy the mechanical life-form, Mother Brain, that was controlling the operation. After a successful landing on Zebes' surface, only one question remained. Could Samus Aran truly complete this task and return peace to the galaxy? Controls For anyone who's ever played Metroid Fusion, you'd notice that absolutely nothing about the controls has changed. I suppose Nintendo did this on purpose because the original controls of Metroid Fusion worked so perfectly for the game. D-Pad= Move/Aim UUpward/Duck/Morph Ball A button= Jump B button= Shoot/Fire Missiles L button= Aim Diagonally R button= Switch to Missile Firing Mode/Swich to Power Bomb Mode (when in morph ball form) Select= Switch Between Regular and Super Missiles Sound With classic Metroid tunes plus all new ones, the musical score of Zero Mission is one of it's best assets. While the music is good, the sound effects tend to get repetitive. It seems that all you'll hear through the entire game is shoot, shoot, jump, explode. There are many times I've played in mute to give myself a break from the same monotonous sound effects. Graphics Just like the controls, it seems like nothing at all has changed. Even though the overall setting is completely different, it would've been nice to see some new visuals. Just because you are navigating caves instead of labs (most of the time), it still feels like you are looking at the same old recycled graphics. Enemy models, however, are nice because most of them are new entries to the GBA, giving a little bit of originality to Zero Mission over Fusion. With good controls, decent sound effects and the same boring graphics, I'd give Metroid: Zero Mission a B. Not that I'm saying it's not good, but it does feel like too much of the same. I was lucky enough to find a copy in the Circuit City $8.89 or less bin, though I would recommend buying this game cheap or used because it isn't really worth the $20.00+ you'd pay elsewhere. Review Page Hits: 1 today (21 in the last 30 days) Create Your Own Review or