press X and only then shoot it till it dies

You do know that you can get a perfect counter to instantly kill normal enemies, right?

Another example is having to use the touch screen to switch between missile and beam types, it's just impractical to do so in the middle of combat.

When do you need to switch beam types mid combat? Aiming at something you can use the Grapple Beam on automatically equips it for you, which the game explains the moment you get it.

The controls feel a bit... clunky at times, if you want to get into the morph ball mode, you gotta stop moving, press down to crouch, then press down again to morph.

That's every 2D Metroid though.

The X-ray function is too overkill, it sucks to have to spend 30 minutes checking for an arbitrary piece of wall that's destroyed by an arbitrary weapon type, but giving away a huge chunk of each area kills the exploration aspect. EVERYTHING is given away, you can spam the function all the time and know exactly where you'll get an upgrade, where you'll get a minor power up, where you'll find save points, warpers, ammo/energy rechargers, etc. Where's the exploration and surprise aspect?

As someone who can't stand pixel hunting in these games, the Scan is a godsend. But it's not much different than the map & compass in Zelda. It doesn't tell you HOW to get there or what it is. Just that something is there.

Yep, I know it's a remake of the second game, and they couldn't change the entire layout to be more like Super Metroid, but then I have to ask why they didn't just remade it instead? Super Metroid spearheaded its own genre and it's a huge classic. The game didn't age very well for a lot of reasons, but the freedom and map design is nailed perfectly there.

It almost sounds like you should just rather play Super Metroid.