Samus having her Power Suit surgically removed. Metroid Fusion is the first game in the Metroid series to appear on Nintendo's Game Boy Advance portable video game platform. It is the sequel to the highly critically acclaimed Super NES game Super Metroid. Metroid Zero Mission would be the second one to appear on Game Boy Advance. Metroid Fusion is chronologically set last according to the fictional universe that the Metroid series takes place in.
Metroid Fusion represented somewhat of a departure for the series, as it scrapped the nonlinear adventure formula from earlier games and introduced a non-playable computer character to direct the player where to go and what to do there. It has been regarded as significantly harder to break sequence in this game.
Graphics
The graphics are very similar to those found in Super Metroid for the Super NES/Super Famicom and are rendered in 2D. The game is a side-scroller.
Plot and gameplay
The player becomes Samus Aran a galactic bounty hunter who must spelunk through an artificially maintained habitat onboard a space station, B.S.L. which, along with Samus, has been infected with a parasitoid species known as the X Parasites, or simply the X. She must regather the special abilities and weapons she has lost, as well as some new ones, to neutralize the threat to the station. Along the way she encounters various obstacles and enemies, including a highly dangerous X, the SA-X, mimicking her at her strongest.
Unlike other games in the series, Samus is in constant contact with her "employers" by way of an intelligent computer she named Adam in honor of a former commanding officer of hers. Adam gives Samus a series of objectives throughout the game, and is capable of locking and unlocking doors to ensure she achieves them before she can progress. These range from aquiring a certain powerup to defeating a certain enemy or getting to a specific room. However, these objectives usually require a solution which is not immediately obvious, giving the player room to explore and experiment with the game's environment as in previous titles.
Fusion's environment also changes throughout the course of the game in much more radical ways than before. Some corridors can become blocked off permanently by explosions; pupa-like creatures which block some areas off hatch after a certain point; waters levels raise and lower; parts of the research station are jettisoned into space, and new monsters appear in previously explored areas.
Samus spends most of the game being stalked by the almost invincible SA-X, which appears in certain locations, and Samus must either hide or escape until she is powerful enough to defeat it.
As the monsters in the game are actually the X parasite copying another lifeform, monsters are reduced to floating X cells when they are destroyed, which Samus can absorb to replenish her lost energy and missiles. However, if Samus does not absorb them, they will eventually re-form into either their original host's form, or an entirely new creature. Some monsters can also absorb X parasites, evolving into newer, more powerful forms.
Equipment
 Samus fighting the Omega Metroid. Samus begins stripped of the abilities she aquired in Super Metroid. She must retrieve them through either downloading the data from terminals scattered throughout the station, or through absorbing certain X parasites.
She recovers the following items:
Morph Ball, Charge Beam, Missiles, Super Missiles, Plasma Beam, Wave Beam, Wide Beam/Spazer, Bomb, Power Bomb, Speed Booster, High Jump, Spring Ball, Screw Attack, Space Jump, Varia Suit and Gravity Suit. She also gains the entirely new Ice Missiles and Diffusion Missiles.
Because of the Metroid DNA used to combat the X parasite, Samus now has the Metroids' weakness to cold. Because of this, she cannot use her old Ice Beam, and must use "Ice Missiles" instead, which have essentially the same effect as the Ice Beam. These can be further upgraded to "Diffusion Missiles", which have the same function but a large blast radius, and must be charged up before firing.
The Spring Ball and High Jump abilities are now combined into the one item. Her regular orange suit is now the organic-looking yellow and blue "Fusion Suit". Each type of missile will simply replace the last rather than being a separate kind of weapon, and regardless of what kind of missile is being fired - normal, super, ice or diffusion - it will only ever use up 1 missile. Power Bombs now reveal what kind of weaknesses certain blocks have, their larger blast radius making up for the absence of Super Metroid's X-Ray scope.
Samus does eventually recover her Ice Beam ability, but it is only in effect for the final boss encounter.
Special features
Owners of both Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion can unlock new features in Metroid Prime using the GBA-to-Gamecube cable. If the player completes Metroid Prime, they can unlock Samus' "Fusion Suit" for use in Prime; if they complete Metroid Fusion, they can unlock an emulated version of the original NES/Famicom Disk System Metroid.
There is also a bonus to be had by linking to Metroid: Zero Mission - the entire Fusion gallery of pictures is unlocked in Zero Mission, as well as bonus pictures which chronicle Samus' early years along with what's apparently some concept art.
SA-X
The SA-X is an X parasite that infested Samus Aran's Power Suit at the beginning of Metroid Fusion for Game Boy Advance and was then surgically removed. The rest of the X parasites were then destroyed by a Metroid vaccine and the infected Power Suit was sent to a B.S.L. (Biologic Space Labs) Space Station. But soon after Samus awoke, she found out that a myserious explosion had occured at the station, in the Quarantine Bay.
After Samus investigated, she found out the SA-X was responsbile for the explosion. The SA-X is a clone of Samus that formed itself from the surgically removed pieces of her Power Suit. The SA-X's main weapon is the Ice Beam, which hurts Samus massively and can kill her. The SA-X also uses Power Bombs and Super Missiles, which he destroys doors with. It is later revealed that in fact there are many SA-X and the Space Station had to be destroyed to kill them all. Finally, the SA-X sacrifices itself and gives Samus back her Power Suit, letting her destroy the Omega Metroid, and Samus escapes on her ship.
See also
External links
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