Review: Metroid
“Metroid” is an action-adventure game released on the Japanese Famicom and North American NES in 1986. Spawning a series that now spans more than three decades, the game was certainly good enough to generate a sequel or 13. Does the original hold up to the test of time, or have sequels improved on the concept to the degree that the first game has lost its luster?
Story - 7/10
The story of Metroid is shallow, but motivational nonetheless. Samus Aran is a bounty hunter sent to destroy the parasitic metroids before space pirates can use them for destruction. (S)he must explore the depths of the planet Zebes (which I’ve always pronounced like the city of Thebes, Greece), gathering suit upgrades and weapons, and defeating powerful monsters. Ultimately, Samus destroys Mother Brain and (nearly) wipes out the metroid population. After the player manages to escape the exploding planet, it is revealed that -gasp- Samus is female.
As the only real character with any sort of background of substantial presence, Samus has become an icon for female gamers. Not only is she considered the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy, but she manages to single handedly defeat a group of space pirates and almost eradicates an entire species of deadly alien pest. Like many protagonists of video games of the era, Samus is silent, but who needs words when you have that massive arm cannon that would put Mega Man to shame?
Fortunately, the world of Zebes is large enough to lend quite a bit of exploration to the player, and within it are three distinct boss monsters. Players can spend quite a few hours exploring and gathering upgrades, or they can just rush bosses and beat the game pretty quickly. With cheats, players can go straight to the final boss and beat the game in just a few minutes. Metroid allows the player to more or less play how they want to. Different completion times yield different endings, in the form of Samus’s end screen attire.
Replay value is present in the form of competition, and the desire to improve one’s own performance in beating the game, and achieving a better ending. Where a novice might carefully comb each area for missile expansions and energy tanks to give the best chance at defeating bosses, a veteran player might run through the game with minimum possible equipment for a challenge. Long before the inclusion of trophies and achievements, players would brag about their accomplishments by recording gameplay on VHS tapes to show off. It was a simpler time.
General Gameplay - 7/10
Perhaps the crown jewel of Metroid is the exploration gameplay. Samus must jump, roll, and climb her way up and down towering columns, as well as back and forth through long stretches of terrain. Once the player unlocks the ice beam, Samus can then freeze enemies and proceed to use them as platforms for navigation. Getting around on Zebes is truly the most fun aspect of Metroid. The sense of exploration and discovery is intense, given the sheer number of upgrades and items hidden in the world. Unlocking abilities gradually opens up more and more of the world for the player to plunder through.
Unfortunately, there is no sort of in-game map available. Players must remember where they are based on landmarks, intersections, and enemy spawns. There is no way to easily identify where you have or have not been, besides simply recognizing the area or seeing where an item was previously located. I’ve heard numerous tales of players drawing maps by hand on graph paper or simply blank pages, in order to remember where things are located and how to reach boss chambers. At the time, there were few to no maps or strategy guides available for purchase, and certainly no such thing as online forums to discuss and share resources.
The game does allow players to save their progress, but with a password system rather than cartridge based save files. At 24 characters long, the password is time consuming to input, and some characters look quite similar. If using a recorded password from a previous saved game, a single incorrect character makes the code completely useless. There are undeniable benefits to a password save system. Players can begin a game on one cartridge, be it a rental or friend's copy, and continue later from a different cartridge (or emulated version) by inputting the string of chicken scratch characters roughly scribbled on a yellow sticky note with the pink pen that belonged to the sister of the friend that you were visiting. Or, as many seasoned gamers have recently learned, the same password will still work long after the battery in cartridges enabling saved data will eventually die and lose the progress on games you played some decades ago. But for most players, the frustrations of a password system outweigh the benefits it brings.
Players unlock new abilities, but the beautiful thing is how organically the game teaches them how to use the ability. You pick up the morph ball in a place that just so happens to have no exit except for a short channel that requires use of the morph ball to leave. The hi-jump ability just happens to be near platforms that are conveniently out of Samus’s standard jump height. There is no tutorial because it is unnecessary. Circumstance teaches players how the items work.
Combat - 7/10
As Samus navigates around Zebes, she must kill or evade the residents of the planet. She manages this with a variety of tools at her disposal. Combat is made more interesting each time the player picks up a new weapon. An enemy takes too many hits to kill in a reasonable time frame with the normal beam? Hit it with missles. Another enemy is literally impossible to kill? Freeze it and keep moving. Platforms get in the way of projectiles? The wave beam can solve that problem by passing straight through.
The inconvenient part of picking up new weapons is that beams specifically cannot be toggled. Once the player picks up the ice beam, enemies will always be frozen first. Furthermore, weapon upgrades override each other. Where future Metroid games allowed players to switch between weapons, the original is much less configurable. You get what the game gives you, and that’s what you use for the rest of the time. Plus, other games in the series have added a larger variety of weapons. In Super Metroid, for instance, Samus has normal bombs, super bombs, the standard beam, a charge beam, missiles, super missiles, and more. Metroid offers significantly fewer options for players to use.
Difficulty - 9/10
While the gameplay and combat of Metroid may not be tremendously difficult in and of themselves, the game is tremendously punishing. When the player spawns, they have 30 points of health and no missiles. Even after they collect energy tanks and missile capacity upgrades, every new spawn (either when loading from a password or respawning after death) gives no missiles and 30 health points. Players must then kill enemies, either on the way to a destination or by spawn camping certain enemies, to refill health and missile supplies. Once the player has gotten several health and missile upgrades, this process could take many minutes. Energy and missile stations, like those that exist in Super Metroid, could significantly reduce this overhead time after spawning. However, there isn’t a single way to quickly refill health or missiles anywhere in the game. Therefore, death in Metroid is frustrating and annoying.
Because of this frustrating process, cheat codes can be an extremely attractive way to play Metroid. I’ll admit, I normally hate to use cheat codes in games, especially on the first time playing. However, codes available in Metroid make for a significantly more fun and entertaining experience.
As a kid, I learned of the legendary Justin Bailey code. My cousins and I would spend several minutes figuring out the exact spelling of the code before we would finally get it to work properly. Eventually, we would get the correct configuration, playing as suitless Samus, but we never actually managed to beat the game. Sometimes we would manage to pick up the Ice Beam, and we rarely even got near Mother Brain, but I don’t remember a single time that we got all the way through to the end.
As an adult, I learned of the significantly more broken Narpas Sword code. This code gives the player unlimited health and missiles, but no progress in the game. Players can leisurely stroll through the game, taking their time and face-tanking enemy damage, with absolutely no risk of death. They can toy with Kraid and Ridley, with no fear that they may have to make their way through each lair multiple times, gathering resources over and over again for each attempt. Or, with some luck and careful timing, players can freeze an enemy at the proper spot to avoid killing either boss, and going straight to Mother Brain. Again, I rarely condone cheating, but the invincibility and unlimited ammo of Narpas Sword makes the game so much more fun to play.
Graphics - 5/10
Metroid is not a very pretty game. Admittedly, few games of the 8-bit console generation are, but it is hard to avoid comparing the original Metroid to later sequels. With nearly every new release, environments were more colorful and detailed, eventually resulting in some absolutely gorgeous worlds. The first game, though? It does not look great. Areas consist of colored floors and ceilings on a black background. Sprites are very basic. All in all, it is typical of the NES, and what it could manage regarding visuals.
Zebes contains a number of different regions with unique characteristics and color palates, but… there’s only so much you can do with the graphical capabilities of the NES. If the player uses their imagination, the different areas are all new and unusual. In reality, most of them are just recolored ares with slightly different geology (read: platforms and acid/lava). With the limitations, I feel like the developers did the best they could. Still, you look at Super Metroid released 8 years later and it is just so much more interesting of an environment.
Music - 9/10
Where Metroid is lackluster in graphics, it absolutely shines with music. The tunes of the game, despite the limitations of the hardware, are simultaneously otherworldly and immensely listenable. The Brinstar theme exudes adventure and confidence. As you reach Kraid’s lair, the music becomes almost murky and dark. In the home stretch of Tourian, there is a foreboding melody that warns of the coming danger. The music of Metroid is so vivid and memorable, people have made (admittedly fantastic) covers of the songs in the style of metal.
My Take
The Good
Metroid created a style of video game that has essentially become its own genre. The compulsion to explore a mysterious alien world is so pure, and so vividly crafted, it sparked a desire that has yet to be sated some 30+ years later.
The Bad
The password save/continue system is so cumbersome, especially with how similar some of the characters look, and how easy it is to accidentally transcribe something incorrectly. Plus, if you lose the paper on which your password was written (or your mom threw it away when she was cleaning up your room), you had to start over from the very beginning.
The Ugly
While the game was novel for its time, the unfortunate exclusion of an in-game map or health and missile refill stations mean that the first game of the Metroid franchise often gets overshadowed by subsequent games in the series. Sure, you could grind out health and ammunition drops from enemies, but do you really want to do that every single time you play the game?
Overall - 7/10
With some 14 games in the series, people often forget that the entire Metroid franchise began with this single game. What evolved across numerous consoles and generations, started when the original Metroid was released on the Famicom and NES. What Metroid does, it does well. What it doesn’t do well, was ironed out in later sequels. In and of itself, Metroid is a raw proof of concept that did not age well. Its impact on the video game industry, however, cannot be overstated. Even today, game developers continue to mimic Metroid to great success. The quality of life changes introduced in later games of the Metroid series have certainly resulted in more playable games, but the series would never have existed without the original.
Resources:
IGN. (2004, January 30). Metroid: Zero Mission Director Roundtable - IGN - Page 3. Retrieved October 5, 2018, from http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/488/488084p3.html
The story of Metroid is shallow, but motivational nonetheless. Samus Aran is a bounty hunter sent to destroy the parasitic metroids before space pirates can use them for destruction. (S)he must explore the depths of the planet Zebes (which I’ve always pronounced like the city of Thebes, Greece), gathering suit upgrades and weapons, and defeating powerful monsters. Ultimately, Samus destroys Mother Brain and (nearly) wipes out the metroid population. After the player manages to escape the exploding planet, it is revealed that -gasp- Samus is female.
As the only real character with any sort of background of substantial presence, Samus has become an icon for female gamers. Not only is she considered the greatest bounty hunter in the galaxy, but she manages to single handedly defeat a group of space pirates and almost eradicates an entire species of deadly alien pest. Like many protagonists of video games of the era, Samus is silent, but who needs words when you have that massive arm cannon that would put Mega Man to shame?
Fortunately, the world of Zebes is large enough to lend quite a bit of exploration to the player, and within it are three distinct boss monsters. Players can spend quite a few hours exploring and gathering upgrades, or they can just rush bosses and beat the game pretty quickly. With cheats, players can go straight to the final boss and beat the game in just a few minutes. Metroid allows the player to more or less play how they want to. Different completion times yield different endings, in the form of Samus’s end screen attire.
Replay value is present in the form of competition, and the desire to improve one’s own performance in beating the game, and achieving a better ending. Where a novice might carefully comb each area for missile expansions and energy tanks to give the best chance at defeating bosses, a veteran player might run through the game with minimum possible equipment for a challenge. Long before the inclusion of trophies and achievements, players would brag about their accomplishments by recording gameplay on VHS tapes to show off. It was a simpler time.
General Gameplay - 7/10
Perhaps the crown jewel of Metroid is the exploration gameplay. Samus must jump, roll, and climb her way up and down towering columns, as well as back and forth through long stretches of terrain. Once the player unlocks the ice beam, Samus can then freeze enemies and proceed to use them as platforms for navigation. Getting around on Zebes is truly the most fun aspect of Metroid. The sense of exploration and discovery is intense, given the sheer number of upgrades and items hidden in the world. Unlocking abilities gradually opens up more and more of the world for the player to plunder through.
Unfortunately, there is no sort of in-game map available. Players must remember where they are based on landmarks, intersections, and enemy spawns. There is no way to easily identify where you have or have not been, besides simply recognizing the area or seeing where an item was previously located. I’ve heard numerous tales of players drawing maps by hand on graph paper or simply blank pages, in order to remember where things are located and how to reach boss chambers. At the time, there were few to no maps or strategy guides available for purchase, and certainly no such thing as online forums to discuss and share resources.
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| Source: https://warosu.org/vr/image/uvUdCWnHqmhE_zhO-B7zUQ |
The game does allow players to save their progress, but with a password system rather than cartridge based save files. At 24 characters long, the password is time consuming to input, and some characters look quite similar. If using a recorded password from a previous saved game, a single incorrect character makes the code completely useless. There are undeniable benefits to a password save system. Players can begin a game on one cartridge, be it a rental or friend's copy, and continue later from a different cartridge (or emulated version) by inputting the string of chicken scratch characters roughly scribbled on a yellow sticky note with the pink pen that belonged to the sister of the friend that you were visiting. Or, as many seasoned gamers have recently learned, the same password will still work long after the battery in cartridges enabling saved data will eventually die and lose the progress on games you played some decades ago. But for most players, the frustrations of a password system outweigh the benefits it brings.
Players unlock new abilities, but the beautiful thing is how organically the game teaches them how to use the ability. You pick up the morph ball in a place that just so happens to have no exit except for a short channel that requires use of the morph ball to leave. The hi-jump ability just happens to be near platforms that are conveniently out of Samus’s standard jump height. There is no tutorial because it is unnecessary. Circumstance teaches players how the items work.
Combat - 7/10
As Samus navigates around Zebes, she must kill or evade the residents of the planet. She manages this with a variety of tools at her disposal. Combat is made more interesting each time the player picks up a new weapon. An enemy takes too many hits to kill in a reasonable time frame with the normal beam? Hit it with missles. Another enemy is literally impossible to kill? Freeze it and keep moving. Platforms get in the way of projectiles? The wave beam can solve that problem by passing straight through.
The inconvenient part of picking up new weapons is that beams specifically cannot be toggled. Once the player picks up the ice beam, enemies will always be frozen first. Furthermore, weapon upgrades override each other. Where future Metroid games allowed players to switch between weapons, the original is much less configurable. You get what the game gives you, and that’s what you use for the rest of the time. Plus, other games in the series have added a larger variety of weapons. In Super Metroid, for instance, Samus has normal bombs, super bombs, the standard beam, a charge beam, missiles, super missiles, and more. Metroid offers significantly fewer options for players to use.
Difficulty - 9/10
While the gameplay and combat of Metroid may not be tremendously difficult in and of themselves, the game is tremendously punishing. When the player spawns, they have 30 points of health and no missiles. Even after they collect energy tanks and missile capacity upgrades, every new spawn (either when loading from a password or respawning after death) gives no missiles and 30 health points. Players must then kill enemies, either on the way to a destination or by spawn camping certain enemies, to refill health and missile supplies. Once the player has gotten several health and missile upgrades, this process could take many minutes. Energy and missile stations, like those that exist in Super Metroid, could significantly reduce this overhead time after spawning. However, there isn’t a single way to quickly refill health or missiles anywhere in the game. Therefore, death in Metroid is frustrating and annoying.
Because of this frustrating process, cheat codes can be an extremely attractive way to play Metroid. I’ll admit, I normally hate to use cheat codes in games, especially on the first time playing. However, codes available in Metroid make for a significantly more fun and entertaining experience.
As a kid, I learned of the legendary Justin Bailey code. My cousins and I would spend several minutes figuring out the exact spelling of the code before we would finally get it to work properly. Eventually, we would get the correct configuration, playing as suitless Samus, but we never actually managed to beat the game. Sometimes we would manage to pick up the Ice Beam, and we rarely even got near Mother Brain, but I don’t remember a single time that we got all the way through to the end.
As an adult, I learned of the significantly more broken Narpas Sword code. This code gives the player unlimited health and missiles, but no progress in the game. Players can leisurely stroll through the game, taking their time and face-tanking enemy damage, with absolutely no risk of death. They can toy with Kraid and Ridley, with no fear that they may have to make their way through each lair multiple times, gathering resources over and over again for each attempt. Or, with some luck and careful timing, players can freeze an enemy at the proper spot to avoid killing either boss, and going straight to Mother Brain. Again, I rarely condone cheating, but the invincibility and unlimited ammo of Narpas Sword makes the game so much more fun to play.
Graphics - 5/10
Metroid is not a very pretty game. Admittedly, few games of the 8-bit console generation are, but it is hard to avoid comparing the original Metroid to later sequels. With nearly every new release, environments were more colorful and detailed, eventually resulting in some absolutely gorgeous worlds. The first game, though? It does not look great. Areas consist of colored floors and ceilings on a black background. Sprites are very basic. All in all, it is typical of the NES, and what it could manage regarding visuals.
Zebes contains a number of different regions with unique characteristics and color palates, but… there’s only so much you can do with the graphical capabilities of the NES. If the player uses their imagination, the different areas are all new and unusual. In reality, most of them are just recolored ares with slightly different geology (read: platforms and acid/lava). With the limitations, I feel like the developers did the best they could. Still, you look at Super Metroid released 8 years later and it is just so much more interesting of an environment.
Music - 9/10
Where Metroid is lackluster in graphics, it absolutely shines with music. The tunes of the game, despite the limitations of the hardware, are simultaneously otherworldly and immensely listenable. The Brinstar theme exudes adventure and confidence. As you reach Kraid’s lair, the music becomes almost murky and dark. In the home stretch of Tourian, there is a foreboding melody that warns of the coming danger. The music of Metroid is so vivid and memorable, people have made (admittedly fantastic) covers of the songs in the style of metal.
My Take
The Good
Metroid created a style of video game that has essentially become its own genre. The compulsion to explore a mysterious alien world is so pure, and so vividly crafted, it sparked a desire that has yet to be sated some 30+ years later.
The Bad
The password save/continue system is so cumbersome, especially with how similar some of the characters look, and how easy it is to accidentally transcribe something incorrectly. Plus, if you lose the paper on which your password was written (or your mom threw it away when she was cleaning up your room), you had to start over from the very beginning.
The Ugly
While the game was novel for its time, the unfortunate exclusion of an in-game map or health and missile refill stations mean that the first game of the Metroid franchise often gets overshadowed by subsequent games in the series. Sure, you could grind out health and ammunition drops from enemies, but do you really want to do that every single time you play the game?
Overall - 7/10
With some 14 games in the series, people often forget that the entire Metroid franchise began with this single game. What evolved across numerous consoles and generations, started when the original Metroid was released on the Famicom and NES. What Metroid does, it does well. What it doesn’t do well, was ironed out in later sequels. In and of itself, Metroid is a raw proof of concept that did not age well. Its impact on the video game industry, however, cannot be overstated. Even today, game developers continue to mimic Metroid to great success. The quality of life changes introduced in later games of the Metroid series have certainly resulted in more playable games, but the series would never have existed without the original.
Resources:
IGN. (2004, January 30). Metroid: Zero Mission Director Roundtable - IGN - Page 3. Retrieved October 5, 2018, from http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/488/488084p3.html
time for a new playthrough
ReplyDeleteNever a bad time for one!
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