If you know me or my gaming history, you know I have been a fan of Metroid for about as long as the series existed. While I didn’t own the NES cart till much later, I was as often as not borrowing it from a close friend of mine, and when Metroid 2 launched for Gameboy, there was suddenly no gaming system I wanted more.
Even after abandoning console for the PC when DOS games reached their final peak, it was Metroid Prime that brought me back with a copy that included a demo of the then upcoming Metroid Prime 2 in a GameCube bundle. Yes this franchise and I go a long ways back.
But despite this, I never actually played a cart version of the second game. You see until the DS, I never got any of the Nintendo portable machines, so when I finally did play it, it was by PC emulation years later with the European regioned cart on my shelf (which I still have) that was the best I could get my hands on via Ebay. I had a controller, but it was an old Gravis Gamepad Pro which was very loose on the rocker-switch, and the whole situation just felt clunky and old. I bought the game again when it became available on the 3DS, but even as I did, I knew I was just trying to catch up with something that clearly didn’t age well… and then this happened.