Without spoiling/backseating too much, I will tell you that there were some things that you overthought. For one, you figured out the secret to that mysterious Missile Tank in Sector 5 when you found a different tank. For another, you have a move in your arsenal that you didn't think to try.
Why does Stephen always forget about the Gravity Suit and what it does? This is the fourth Metroid in a row he’s played and his first thought upon finding a flooded room is still “I probably need to drain the water” and not “I’m going to get an upgrade to let me move normally through water”. Yes this is only the second game with a Gravity Suit but also he’s played this one before.
Speaking from this being my first exposure to this game, I'm very impressed by the atmospheric storytelling. I haven't seen or played Dread, so to the people who have, does it manage the same? The impression I get from modern Nintendo (and other companies) is they mostly can't seem to let go of obtrusive tutorials that destroy the suspension of disbelief/story immersion.
Dread's pretty good about not being obnoxious with the tutorials, and the story is pretty solid, but IMO it is a bit atmospherically weaker anyway, outside of some specific areas.
I have a strong memory of the wave beam boss from my playthrough of Metroid Fusion. Beat the boss with less than a single energy tank left, and ended up dancing around the thing for ten minutes rebuilding my health and taking pot shots when I could. I had about half the energy tanks that you did, though, so that would definitely have made a difference...
15:35 Lunar Legends is just a (very downscaled) port of Lunar 1. It also has an extremely awkward localization and as a rather unfortunate byproduct of additional mechanics, the difficulty is very much neutered. There are reasons nobody talks about it now, it’s about as infamous as Lunar: Dragon Song. The franchise just didn’t really vibe well on Nintendo platforms, unfortunately. Oddly enough, one of Legends’ mechanics DID survive to be integrated into the 2009 PSP version: Arts Gauge, which is basically Lunar’s version of Limit Break.
