For anyone considering purchasing this game, you need a Wii Remote and Nunchuk, the Wii U Gamepad is not supported.

I completed the first two and highly recommend them! $10 is a steal for those two alone. If you play either, I highly recommend taking your time and reading/scanning anything that looks important. It might take longer to complete the games but it will enhance your immersion.

The first is the most popular and I agree with its acclaim. It's a pretty enjoyable experience throughout, the atmospheres are typical video game fare (ruins, lava land, ice land, etc) but are well-designed and interesting, the music is fantastic, and the difficulty is fair. My understanding is something most people enjoy about the Metroid games is just being dumped on a foreign world with relatively little direction/plot; you're left to figure things out on your own. This is what you'll get with the first game. It will offer hints on where to go next, but this can be disabled at your preference. There is a general plot, but it's not shoved in your face; you'll need to gradually locate/read scans to pick up on it. As someone who personally didn't have much Metroid experience before playing this game (the only other one I had played was Metroid II on the Game Boy), the underlying concept of "figure shit out, kid" really immersed me. If you know someone that played the first game, you're nearing a 99% chance that they liked it. Go with the flow on this one.

The second game is also outstanding, but was more heavily criticized. My own take is that it's as good as the first. I think most others have a lesser opinion, though. I hope my monster wall of text doesn't scare you off, because I truly recommend playing the game if you enjoy the first one.

My primary complaint is that the entire plot, which is summarized as "this dark world sucks, help us get rid of it," is presented within the first hour of the game. I personally wasn't thrilled with that since it really kills the intrigue of unraveling things for yourself, and the tension never really increases throughout the game. The overall task that you are assigned is to go to the dark world of various locations, collect the keys, and return them to the light world. This never really changes; so at times it feels like a take on Legends of the Hidden Temple that just doesn't feel as exciting/intense as it should be.

Another concern is the pacing. The first game introduces the different environments relatively quickly. It doesn't expect you to explore the entirety of each environment upon your first arrival. You'll need to leave environment A to explore environment B for awhile; but the game will eventually steer you back to environment A two or three times later in the game for new powerups/routes. So you get the benefit of sensation of exploration, and avoid the feeling of being stuck in the same place too long. The second game doesn't really work like this. There's three main "dungeon" environments and when you first enter them, you're going to be committed for a lengthy amount of time, as (if memory serves) they have all the powerups you need to find the keys. The game will present roadblocks in environment A that can only be accessed after acquiring an environment B powerup; but (if memory serves) it's almost always tied to a non-mandatory powerup, like a missile expansion. Your tastes may vary but I think this presentation turned some people off.

That said, I personally enjoyed all of the game's environments. They're still artistically crafted quite well, and I'd say Retro Studios distinguished the light and dark worlds to a remarkable degree. I'd like to hype up the third "dungeon" environment. You'll get there at about the halfway mark but it's a very interesting experience.

I also enjoyed the second game's difficulty. At least, this is assuming the Gamecube and Wii versions' difficulties are identical. The first game's difficulty is fair, but the non-boss encounters don't often present much of a threat, so much of the weight is left to the bosses. The second game has some non-boss encounters that, while fair to fight against, can wreck your shit pretty quickly. There's also some bosses that are considered to be huge difficulty spikes, but are still presented in an interesting and challenging manner. Let me just tell you now that Boost Guardian was something developed to emasculate video gamers for a good hour. It got my jimmies rustled when I first played it, but in retrospect the victory was very satisfying and I'm sort of glad the boss was so ridonkulous.