Freezing the SA-X is helpful, but they definitely used even that weakness to add to the terror of the sequence. Anyone who has played around with freezing enemies in either this game or Super Metroid knows that after a time (10 seconds or so?), the enemy will flash indicating that the freezing is about to end. With the SA-X, though, this flashing begins *immediately*; even the ability to hit the SA-X’s supposed weakness only grants you a brief reprieve, albeit an extremely valuable one nonetheless. Getting the Plasma Beam shortly after this sequence is incredibly satisfying as you know you finally have a means of fighting back.

It’s interesting how differently one can approach bosses in this and many other games. I found Nettori’s falling spores and the killer flowers a death trap which I tried to escape as quickly as possible. Forget slow and methodical, that first stage is something I struggled to end as quickly as possible. I didn’t even bother avoiding the spores, instead focusing on unloading as much firepower as I could into Nettori as quickly as possible, and mitigating all the hits I did take by controlling my fall back onto the platform. Only once the less dangerous second stage made its appearance did I adopt the slow pace described here.

While I normally love the gameplay in Fusion (best combat in the series by a ways in my humble opinion), I’m not a fan of the flowers who trap you in Nettori’s room. If you don’t figure out the somewhat unintuitive method to escape from them, you’re dead. The Metroid games are great about letting you learn things, but usually immediate and unavoidable death is not your punishment for failing. Contrast with Yakuza’s grab, which you can also learn how to escape: failing to escape the grab greets you with loads of damage, certainly, but not fatal amounts, so you will have another chance to try again without seeing the continue screen.