Going to try and keep this one as a reasonable, to the point Game Journal(Spoilers, I failed), but I'm glad I could play both these games after finishing that tome of a Metroid Dread review. At the end of this I'll have my "Dread Review Debriefing", but before that, let me talk about some things I actually enjoyed.

Metroid II gets better with age, and better when you come to it as a willing participant

My palette cleanser after Dread was Metroid II. I ended up using so many Metroid II examples that it felt appropriate to give it a quick play through. This time I played with the EJRTQ Colorization, which I quite liked. I kinda wished I played with Azurelore Korrigan's color Patch(you should read this page and other things she wrote, even if you're not planning on using it) as she's maybe Metroid II's #1 defender, but the patch I had did the job fine. Metroid 2 doesn't need color, but I've played it monochrome enough to justify a little experimentation. I felt like it actually added to the game and it made it clear that the world wasn't actually just the same grey tiles, over and over again? I think a case could be made that being less confused is actually a downgrade, but I think I was confused enough!! 😭

...Aesthetically though there is something about the pure monochrome look. Probably the best way to do a first play through.