While the Switch has plenty of Metroidvanias of different flavors and levels of quality, it has only a small number I’d consider to be outright inspired by Metroid more directly. Axiom Verge and its sequel most easily come to mind, and there have been others, but among the ones I’ve played I think Rebel Transmute feels the most directly inspired by the original and its sequels overall. This can be both a positive and a negative, to be sure, but I think that knowledge is the best thing to be armed with when trying to decide whether it’s worth a purchase or not.

Thankfully, there are a number of areas I think the game does well in, which is always a good start. Your general movement and control mostly feel smooth and capable, though I’d argue some competitors may feel more polished in core execution. While at the start everything feels a bit more plain and generic in terms of your capabilities, once you get further in and have access to new augments and enhancements you’ll end up with plenty of ways to tune your character more to your personal style. Accessibility is also supported wonderfully, with options to slow things down, provide assistance with jumping and shooting, and even to increase your health if you happen to find it too intimidating. That’s an area that’s often neglected, so it’s absolutely worth shouting about when it is done well. In addition, I appreciated the story wrapping everything up, at least feeling interesting enough to be an added bonus to see play out.

Even with those positives in mind, there are a few areas that I had some quibbles with. The first is really just a matter of preference, but the range of your initial attack was a bit aggravating and not remedied quite fast enough for my tastes. Yes, things do improve quite a bit, but in your early skirmishes there is a tendency to feel vulnerable, especially against enemies coming at you more from above. The screens with your augments also initially confused me a bit, as I wasn’t entirely sure what I was doing by clicking on them or whether I could upgrade them. I think that’s only a problem early on as you don’t really have any option other than to disable what few you start with, but I’ll admit that initially it wasn’t clear. Finally, there can be a point where some enemies and elements of play can feel a little too familiar, so in terms of originality this doesn’t do as much as it could to differentiate itself to make it more distinctive.

Some relatively minor thoughts aside, on the whole this is still a very Metroid-esque experience that generally has a flow of its own, even if sometimes seeming familiar. You’ll hit pretty much every aspect of what makes that core experience work with sometimes tense exploration, plenty of enemies, platforming challenges, some tough bosses, and a plentiful number of upgrades to help you along the way. It may sometimes feel a bit too on the nose as being inspired by Metroid, but it’s still a satisfying package overall that’s worth a look for fans of that series.