METROID (NES)

The first Metroid is one of the most unforgiving, but also one of the most rewarding, metroidvanias you’ll ever play. Like most NES games, it has a steep difficulty curve and doesn’t even attempt to hold your hand, but that just makes every success and discovery that much more thrilling. After the briefest of introductions, you’re thrust into the role of Samus Aran, an intergalactic bounty hunter, whose mission is to destroy Mother Brain. There’s a lot of lore in the Metroid universe, which is often convoluted and retcons itself (just how many different species of DNA does Samus have at this point?), but none of that is important in this entry. This is a game from simpler times, where story was a mere afterthought. At the start, you’ll only be able to jump and fire your arm cannon, but you’ll pick up your very first upgrade mere seconds after gaining control of Samus - the iconic morph ball, which lets you roll up into a ball and pass through narrow passageways. From there, the world of Zebes will slowly open up to you, but you’d better have a pencil and paper (or a walkthrough) close by.

Here’s the thing - Metroid, like the Legend of Zelda, Castlevania II, and virtually every other NES game - doesn’t have a map. And you will need one if you are to have any hope of completing the game at a pace faster than that of a snail, if at all. While using maps on the internet is a perfectly acceptable way to play, I really recommend at least attempting to make your own, as it’s way more fun, at least to me. All you need is graph paper and a little patience. While you’ll undoubtedly make mistakes (I can never keep track of how many screens long a corridor is), it’s so satisfying to use your handmade map to determine your whereabouts and where you need to head next. It makes you feel like an intrepid explorer, charting alien lands with only your wits to guide you. The game is a bit obtuse in other ways, as upgrades you collect don’t give you any information on how they are used, or even what their names are. You’ll have to experiment to find out!

If you’ve never played a metroidvania (sometimes known as a search-action game), I’ll give you a rundown. Metroidvanias are two-dimensional sidescrollers set in open environments, where instead of finishing a level to move on to the next one, you are expected to find upgrades to reach areas that were previously inaccessible. By their very nature, they require backtracking, something that some gamers find tedious, but a good metroidvania makes it worth your time. With these new abilities, you can better annihilate enemies, find secret rooms, and uncover shortcuts to make your treks easier. Just like how RPGs can make you feel powerful by having regular mooks in late-game areas be duplicates of the first boss, who you’re now strong enough to one-hit KO, metroidvanias can give you that same sense of accomplishment by letting you breeze through rooms that you previously struggled to clear. Another key aspect of metroidvanias is that they usually encourage nonlinearity. While there may be a “correct” order of beating the bosses, or exploring areas, that’s found in official guide books, the player is often free to explore however they choose once they have the required upgrades. Your playthrough of the game may be very different from that of your friend’s. Furthermore, sometimes you can access areas early by doing advanced techniques, which makes the genre especially welcoming to speedrunners.

As the very first Metroid game, and thus one of the codifiers of the genre, Metroid has all of these attributes in spades. While you’re at first pushed in a particular direction, once you get a few more upgrades, you can tackle the areas in different orders. These upgrades are all abilities that became standard-fare in later installments, such as the ice beam, which lets you freeze enemies and use them as platforms to climb shafts; the hi-jump boots, which does exactly as it sounds; the bombs, which you can lay while in morph ball form, and can be used to break blocks and with perfect timing to jump through narrow passageways; and of course, missiles, which let you deal tremendous damage and can open red doors. Players familiar with the franchise may be disappointed to note that fun abilities such as the spider ball and grappling beam are missing here, but you won’t really notice their absence much. You’ll also find upgrades that increase your health and missile ammo, which they’re rather generous with, assuming you know where to look. Of course, you can intentionally skip getting some, or even most, of these upgrades. It’s possible to only pick up the bare necessities you need to reach the final boss. On the other hand, you can also reach plenty of upgrades earlier than anticipated by performing some tricky platforming. There are so many possible routes through this game, that you’ll probably never have a casual playthrough exactly like the one you did before.

While you’ll probably get lost at least once, it’s hard to mind too much when the game looks and sounds as good as it does for a NES title. The different sectors of Zebes have their own palettes and tilesets that help distinguish them apart from one another, even though they aren’t named in the game. The music is also eerie and atmospheric, and has some of my favorite tracks in the entire NES library. However, there are a couple factors that may blemish your time with the game that are worth pointing out. Firstly, despite how good-looking the areas are, some rooms are very similar. This is partly by design, with the intent of misleading the player in a maze, but can be frustrating, especially if you’re not using a map. “This must be the corridor I took earlier… wait, I already got those missile upgrades, is this a new, nearly-identical room?” Yes, it is. Secondly, your beam upgrades don’t stack in this game like they do in later installments. Each beam you get overwrites the previous one. One particularly annoying example is that the ice beam is all but required for the final sector, and unless you’re doing a low% run, you’ve almost definitely replaced it with something more powerful, so you’ll need to backtrack to collect the powerup again. This by itself wouldn’t be too annoying, but there’s no fast warps in this game, so be prepared for a bit of a slog depending on where you are on the map. And, as there are no save rooms in this game due to it using a password system, there’s no free missile or health refills; you have to regain them through finding expansions or grinding enemy drops. And lastly, for people unfamiliar with metroid games, some of the ways to progress may seem too obscure. Let’s just say that you’ll want to bomb a lot of walls and floor tiles, and maybe that lava isn’t actually lava…?

Other than that, Metroid is a great game for patient fans of the genre who don’t mind making (or using someone else’s) maps, and enjoy a good challenge. There are a couple of other things that might upset even seasoned players, such as corridors that result in dead ends with no hidden upgrades, but truthfully, I find that par for the course for the genre, and not necessarily a bad thing. Those moments are few and far between, too, and are just expected to be in an old-school video game, where trolling the player was a developer’s favorite thing to do. That said, if you’ve never played a Metroid game (or a Metroidvania at all), this probably isn’t the best starting point, as it can feel unforgiving for players new to the genre. I would recommend the excellent Super Metroid, which features a map and is more beginner-friendly, or Metroid: Zero Mission, the GBA re-imagining of this very game, as far as Metroid starting points go. And if you’re wanting to try a Metroidvania for the very first time, I’ve heard great things about Ori and the Blind Forest as a starting point. But for fans, this game is a must-play just to experience the series origins, and I’m impressed at how well it stands the test of time.

Final Rating: 7.5