Metroid (1986) (NES) Review
I decided to make this entry future-proof by specifying the release date, you never know when a company might decide to reboot a franchise.
With the announcement of Metroid Dread, I thought it was a good opportunity to revisit the franchise, the whole franchise if possible. So I’m starting with the original NES game — though it can be played in quite a few platforms due to later ports, including unlockable versions for Prime and Zero Mission. Disclaimer: I played this a few weeks ago, and didn’t think of taking screenshots at the time, so I’ll replay just a bit in order to have them for the article itself.
Metroid is the start of one of the most beloved videogame franchises, but how well does it hold up 35 years later? After all, years of improvement in both graphics and game design will affect our judgement on old software. Soundtrack for the article:
When starting the game, we see the game’s name, twinkling stars, and what’s likely to be the surface of planet Zebes, accompanied by an eerie pleasant song. If you wait, you’ll see that your mission is to defeat mother brain — the only information you’ll get during the game unless you read the manual. Playing through the title screen is a pleasant song. If you read the manual, you’ll get a bit of information about your mission, about the Galactic Federation who employs you as a bounty hunter, and about how the space pirates stole the Metroid from a research spaceship, the metroid can be multiplied by using beta rays and used as a weapon henceforth and your mission is to destroy them along with Mother Brain — the leader of space pirates.
Do note that the manual implies Samus is male, but her profile comes from a third party that claims that her identity is a mystery — and even the Japanese manual uses a male pronoun, so it’s not a mistranslation — so the conclusion I draw is that this was made to purposely mislead players and surprise them when she’s shown without a suit — assuming you’re fast enough in beating the game, that is.
If you’re wondering what’s the difference with the Famicom version, besides the title being in katakana, the song plays a bit differently, and it has a save system, while the NES version uses a password system. The song difference is due to Famicom’s cart slot having two extra pins that can be used for extra audio channels, the NES had these pins at the bottom of the unit, so they couldn’t be used by games. Though songs have a small difference in how they sound, the biggest difference is item fanfares.
Another notable difference is that enemy behavior (where they aim, how they move) are less predictable in the Famicom version due to differences in the RNG (random number generator) implementation.
And now onto the actual game, we have enemies, Samus, foreground, and no background. Graphically speaking, it’s not impressive compared to later NES games, but it didn’t look bad or out of place when it released. I find that the black background increases the feeling of the place being alien.
However, the map itself can be confusing with its limited palette and its size — this isn’t Super Mario Bros. with tiny individual stages — and you have to backtrack through it to progress in the game, so it’s easy to get lost, specially when most rooms leading to Chozo statues have the same basic layout. There are also some places in the map where if you fall you’ll have to sit and wait for your life to slowly deplete as it’s impossible to get out.
The game has many items hidden in the map, some are needed, and some increase your odds or survival instead. Often times you’ll bomb some tile at random and find that it breaks, from there you’ll often find a new path that may or may not lead to a dead end, you may also have to find breakable tiles inside the secret path in order to progress. The difficulty to find all the paths, not knowing exactly where you are, and the lack of directions in-game can make the game frustrating if you aren’t relying on a guide.
Mechanically speaking, the game is easy to understand, you can move, jump and fire — either the way you are facing, or up — and slowly get more tools as you explore the different parts of Zebes. There is a variety of enemies with different amount of health, attack patterns, and weaknesses, destroying them will normally net you energy to heal yourself or missiles to replenish your supplies, as well as removing them from your way until you re-enter the room.
There’s the Morph Ball which allows you to go through small spaces, the bombs which you can use while using the Morph Ball, missiles which hit harder and are needed to open certain doors, upgrade for that range of your beam, as well as an ice and wave beam which you can’t stack together and need to backtrack in order to switch them, the Varia suit which reduces damage taken, the screw attack to damage as you jump, as well as an upgrade for your jump height, and several energy and missile containers to increase what you can carry.
Generally, what will cause the most trouble are the two bosses, Ridley and Kraid, that you have to defeat before having access to Mother Brain. Encountering Metroids may be a problem first time around, as you’ll need to have the Ice Beam equipped in order to freeze them, and because your beams don’t stack, you’ll probably have to backtrack to get it back again (assuming you found the wave beam).
In the end, the original Metroid is an interesting — if frustrating — adventure game. To those who want to start the franchise, I’d say to skip it, play another game first, and then, if they are feeling daring, play this one. Despite my criticism, I still had a good time with the game, and the music is still great.
And that wraps things up, feel free to talk about my writing, the format, or the subject… or try to guess what I’ll be talking about next time. Us earthlings of flesh and bones tend to be good at pattern recognition, so this probably won’t be all that hard to guess, despite my efforts to obscure it.
