Thirty years ago, Nintendo released its first Metroid game for the Famicom platform. Since then, we’ve seen a few refreshes of the franchise, but none since 2004.
Not content with waiting it out for Nintendo to release a version for the current-gen consoles — or the upcoming NX — a group of fans created their own remake of Metroid, and it was awesome.
AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake) had been in development for more than a decade, and was based on the popular Gameboy title: ‘Metroid II: The Return of Samus.’ On Saturday, the creators launched the full version free of charge. After playing it this weekend, I can honestly say it was as good or better than any Metroid game I’ve played — and I’ve played them all.
I wasn’t alone, the gaming press loved AM2R as much as I did.
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According to DoctorM64, one of the game’s developers:
It was a long journey. I grew up both as a person and as a developer along this project. Today I can start sharing with you the rest of the game. There’s lots of improvements and features planned for a near future.
The fun ended yesterday after a DMCA request made its way to Metroid Database — a Metroid fansite and host of the game’s files. Curiously, the game’s official site wasn’t targeted with a takedown request, but this may be because the files are hosted with third-party hosts, like MediaFire and FileDropper (there’s a torrent file as well).
As of this writing, the files still appear to work on the AM2R website. Get ’em while you can; they won’t be there for long.
Update: Well, it was fun while it lasted. It seems like the files have been taken down.
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