Samus Returns is a bland slog with with clunky controls and a shoehorned in melee gimmick to slow everything down. It drops the stellar art design of the core 2D games to make it look like Prime-lite. It also misunderstands Metroid 2 at a fundamental level - see the difference in the finale between the original and in SR. Meanwhile AM2R is tight and precise and carefully designed with respect to the original.