I’m not gonna lie, I went into Nintendo’s E3 presentation this year with low expectations. I’ve never been happier to be wrong. For the first time in years, it feels like Nintendo is listening to their fans. The Switch is getting a new Kirby game, a new Mario game, a new Pokemon game, more Legend of Zelda content, and a Metroid Prime game. Most years, that’d be a bountiful offering, but in 2017 Nintendo is going for the gold: A second Metroid game — this time for the 3DS — is headed to stores September 15.
Metroid: Samus Returns didn’t make it into the spotlight presentation, but that doesn’t mean Nintendo skimped on the handheld game. A reimagined iteration of Metroid II: Return of Samus on the Game Boy, Samus Returns looks to combine classic side-scrolling platforming with 3D environments and the trailer above looks more than promising, and visually stunning to boot. Kotaku has a full list of the game’s announced features, but here are a couple of the stand outs.
- Samus will be free to fire her arm canon in any direction; giving her 360-degrees of range.
- Samus will have a melee counter attack. Take that, aliens jumping in our face and freaking us the heck out!
- Some parts of the map will be locked until Samus acquires certain abilities. To make it easier to backtrack, the game will let users ‘pin’ the map to remember where they need to go.
- Two of the composers of Super Metroid were tapped to create the soundtrack for Metroid: Samus Returns.
How long until this game drops? And why isn’t it tomorrow?