Skyward Sword wanted to keep Zelda fresh and exciting, but it did this by making the things you already did as part of its formula feel good instead of finding new ways to do them. But for a series about exploring at your own pace, simplifying dungeons to make them more fun to complete wasn't going to cut it for much longer. The focus on action, on pulling off simple-but-cool things, only works on a platform built around how fun its controller is to use, and it only works once. After this game, Nintendo had to do something different.
But Axiom Verge 2 doesn't let you forget that there's more to Metroid than backtracking. One of the most enduring things about that series is how isolating it can feel. And that's where Axiom Verge 2 finds its most powerful moments. After acquiring the aforementioned drone, I learned there's a second world I can explore called the Breach. It's uninhabitable by humans, but my little robot friend had no issue exploring it. At one point, though, I got stuck in the Breach, cut off from most of my bodily upgrades and vulnerable as a result.
You don’t play a No More Heroes game for its story. You play it for its style, and No More Heroes 3 has style in spades. The best thing I can say about No More Heroes 3 is that its combat and open-world design stay out of the way, letting its style take center stage, occasionally facilitating some truly great one-off moments.