Metroid Fusion
“YOU STILL DON’T UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU’RE DEALING WITH, DO YOU?”
» GBA » 2002 » NINTENDO R&D 1
I know it seems obvious to many of you out there, but Metroid games are kind of scary. It makes a lot of sense, given that the developers of the original game were deeply inspired by Ridley Scott’s 1979 sci-fi slasher film Alien. The games conjure up this unmistakable feeling of dread and isolation – that intro to Super Metroid aboard the stricken space colony, where you arrive to be greeted by dead bodies, must have frightened the pants off of gamers back in 1993.
I didn’t think Metroid was scary. My introduction to the series was Metroid Prime while I was at middle school circa 2004. It nails that feeling of being alone on a hostile world, but mostly it plays out like a power fantasy where you’re this intrepid explorer, blasting the glowy bits off all kinds of alien flora and fauna. Still, I loved it.
I enjoyed it so much, in fact, that I promptly badgered my mate Josh to borrow his GBA copy of Metroid Fusion, thinking it’ll be more of the same, but in 2D and with pixel art. “Sure,” he said, “watch out for this thing called the SA-X, though, that scared the crap out of me. Oh, and don’t forget to link it up with your Gamecube because you unlock the Fusion suits for Metroid Prime.” In retrospect, Josh was a great friend who gave good advice but I scoffed at his warning. ‘How spooky could this SA-X be?’ I thought to myself. ‘It’s all sprites and pixels. That’s not scary. It’s hardly Resident Evil, is it?’
Turns out, sprites can be scary. Like all Metroid games, Samus loses her gear at the start of Fusion, but here they all get absorbed by a parasite which then becomes a haunting imitation of her – the SA-X. Compounding things further, you’re trapped aboard a derelict space station, hunted by this super-powerful alien with no real method of fighting it. You have to run.
Powerful nemeses I can handle, but what solidifies the SA-X as something harrowing is an early close encounter. You descend an elevator like normal, but the camera lingers in the empty room. A wall explodes and a suit of power armour thuds through the debris. It pauses, and then turns its gaze to you through the screen. Then the camera zooms in and you see its face with those cold, dead eyes… ugh, even today it still manages to make my stomach turn in terror.