The trailer for a new Metroid game dropped recently; maybe it's just my algorithm but I've seen a bunch of posts from people who are just getting into the series because of that trailer. It's an encouraging sign; the Metroid series is absolutely worth playing. Super Metroid, Metroid Prime, and Metroid Dread are some of the greatest games ever made. Sure, there have been a handful of slip-ups along the way, but the series is beloved for a very good reason: it's one of the more generally consistent Nintendo franchises in terms of quality. One thing that struck me is that many fans are advising the newcomers to play Metroid: Zero Mission instead of the first game, which inspired me to create a new series on this blog called Bad Games You Should Play Anyway.
That title might provoke some backlash from some of the oldheads and people who haven't played this game in several years. Most people rightfully recognize Metroid as a highly influential classic (it is), an Important Moment in Gaming History that is essential to understanding the development of gaming as an art form (it is), and a genuinely fun game (it can be). However, as time has passed, there’s been a growing contingent of people who consider the game truly lacking compared to many of its descendants (it is); after all, there’s a remake out that’s objectively superior in every way. Its flaws stand out much more strongly today than any flaws in The Legend of Zelda or Super Mario Bros. Some have even declared it not worth playing at all.
I used to be one of these people.
I sighed at the baffling level design. I decried the—at times—frustrating controls. I bemoaned the lack of a save feature. I ground my teeth at the glitches. I rolled my eyes at the unintuitive navigation required to progress. I detested the lack of a map.
These are all glaring flaws. The game is still worth your time.
It would be incredibly tempting to play for 15 minutes, realize you don’t know where you’re going or what you’re doing, notice the lack of essential features, and suddenly feel as though your time could be spent more profitably by playing something else. It might be tempting to say “yeah I played enough to understand what they were going for, it’s just not for me.” I’m writing this to try to convince the hypothetical future-terribleblog.net reader, the one who might get bored or frustrated and move on early, that this isn’t one you should quit on. It is worth playing not just for gaming historicity but also because it can be a genuinely fun game if played the right way.
In order to play it the right way, however, you’re going to need some help from people who know this game well. I’m not saying you have to speedrun it (although this is one of the few games I’m able to speedrun) (my best time is 56 minutes) (actually I think it's more fun to play when speedrunning) (please don’t bother looking up the world record) (feel free to look up SummoningSalt’s world record progression video though), but I am saying that the game is a lot more fun if you know where to go and what to do. It can be frustrating if you don’t approach the collection of items in a specific manner.
This might be difficult to imagine for younger readers, but there was a time before instantaneous answers via the Internet. There was a time when your best chance of getting secrets and advice for video games was on the school bus. That’s a part of this game’s legacy as well. Try to put yourself in 1986, even though it was likely before you or I were born. Some kids just played the game and tried to beat it with what the game provided them. I’m not kidding when I say that could take months. Kids also had access to the Nintendo tip line. They had access to maps in Nintendo Power. They had access to each other, sharing secrets on school buses. I think it’s only fair for you to have the same benefit they did. My first piece of advice:
1. You deserve access to whatever tools kids had in 1986—and much more.
2. Use savestates.
Look at the calendar real quick. You should see four numbers in succession: a 2, a 0, another 2, and then either a 6 or a 7 if you’re reading this in the new year. These numbers, when concatenated, form the current year. In this current year, there is no reason you should be forced to play a video game of this length and depth without the benefit of a save function. I don’t know how you’ll be playing it but I’d hazard a guess it’s on an emulator or via the Nintendo Switch Online (I personally use the NES Classic, which has a save state function). Don’t be afraid to save state if you need to step away, if you’d like to practice something, or if you need to look something up. E.g.: one of the biggest flaws in the game is that every time you die you have to spend half an hour regaining all your health; instead, just load a savestate. Life is too short to waste doing something like that. Speaking of,
3. Consider obtaining the items in the order I've designated.
Metroid can be a difficult game, and it can be something much worse—irritating—if you don’t have the right items at the right time. A point I’d like to emphasize now: I’ve completed this game dozens of times now, and I think I can safely say there was—more or less—an intended order for (most of) the power ups in the game. The same thing applies to all subsequent Metroid games. There is some leniency, and you can basically choose your own path (like in the Mega Man series), but this will often lead to you getting stuck and/or having to backtrack to a different area. There will be at least one item (with the option for a second, if you’re good) that I will tell you to obtain that directly violates the order the developers intended. I’ll explain more when I get to it, but it is directly for your benefit. It could technically be classified as a glitch, but I think when you see it you’d go “nah that’s fair, everyone does it.” I’m telling you to get it not only because it makes the game a bit easier and a bit faster, but mostly because it makes the game more fun. Again, that’s why we’re here.
4. Use the map.
I know I alluded to this in the first piece of advice but really, I need to re-emphasize this. The absence of a map in Metroid is arguably worse than the absence of a save feature. Every game in the series after Metroid II: Return of Samus features a built-in map, and Metroid Dread even features one on your HUD. In a game designed around exploration, you need a map. Making one is a waste of time. This isn’t arts and crafts time, you’re not 8-years-old, and you don’t have graph paper (also you’ll probably make some mistakes). Making your own map doesn’t show you where you need to pass through invisible walls or bomb through seemingly ordinary blocks.
That’s really one of the biggest design flaws with Metroid. While in Super Mario Bros. it was pretty cool to find a totally optional invisible block that gave you a 1-Up, games like The Legend of Zelda and Metroid had walls you needed to bomb in order to progress—walls that did not look any different from anything else. The Zelda series corrected this in The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past by making bombable walls look distinct from their surroundings, whereas Super Metroid would give more subtle hints. Suffice to say: it is a problem that Metroid does not tell you which parts of the terrain are bombable. This isn’t a very nice thing to say, but at times it feels as though game developers didn’t really know how to make video games back then. Like yeah, you could put something out, and you could even playtest it, but it wasn’t the way games ought to be made. With the benefit of better and more influential games that have been released over time, video games have largely learned from their predecessors and improved accordingly.
That being said, there’s a defense for this design choice, even if it’s not a strong one. This is probably borne of an idea where the players would take notes, create their own maps (again: no), call up the Nintendo Tip Line, and share with friends. Indeed, I’ve memorized the map and what’s bombable and what’s not. I’m not bragging, it’s actually pretty easy to do once you’ve completed the game a few times—which is my point, and probably Nintendo R&D’s line of thinking. Once you’ve played certain sections, you not only know how you want to tackle the obstacles and enemies but also how you can progress from one area to another. I think that process would take too long. I don’t want you to be stuck playing it for too long, so I’ll try to provide a map with annotations about how I think you ought to proceed.
Shit. That’s a bit small and hard to discern. Might wanna zoom in here and there; the important thing is the letters I added anyway. I don't want to hold your hand the whole way, so I'll just explain a few notes:
C - The Long Beam is totally optional, but just having it makes the game a bit more convenient. It definitely helps get the Varia Suit early. More on that later.
D - Your first energy tank. Obtaining one completely replenishes your health. This is the fastest way to do so, making it much more fun than killing respawning Geega to acquire health pickups.
E - Morph Ball Bombs are essential to exploration in this game. You will need to make sure you’ve replenished the five missiles you used to get the Long Beam. This often means farming enemies for missile pickups. Sorry, them’s the breaks.
F - This is the exception to the developers’ intended route. You may notice while trying to escape from this room that you need the ice beam. If you take a look at the full map, the devs either wanted you to go to point I then right underneath point O. I think that’s a waste of time. There’s an easy way around that sort of nonsense. Just stand on the red block highlighted below (don't worry, it’s solid). Shoot directly up, you’ll destroy the block you had to bomb to get down here. Now, wait about 6-7 seconds and jump directly up. The block should respond with your feet inside of it, either pushing you up into safety or allowing you to jump up and out. This is extremely easy.
SPECIAL CASE - Alright, this one is tricky, but I strongly recommend it. One of the most frustrating parts about Metroid is how much damage the enemies (especially the bosses) can inflict upon you. There are two ways to mitigate this. The first is the Screw Attack, which I’ll get into in a bit, and the second is the Varia Suit (pronounce it however you like, it’s a fictional word; I prefer saying it like the first two-thirds of the word “variable” because it’s a poor English translation of what is intended to be the word “barrier”) which cuts your damage in half. This thing is incredibly useful, especially if you happen to get stuck in the lava/quicksand stuff that drains your health. Unfortunately, it’s pretty hard to get without the high jump. I just think it’s kinda boring to go all the way from the high jump back to the Varia suit, then going back down to fight Ridley (or Kraid, if you like). Besides, it fucks up my speedrunning route. You should try the trick shown in this video: https://youtu.be/esddscXopxM?t=9. I strongly recommend the second method shown, beginning at 9 seconds in. That’s my strategy. Make sure you have five missiles to get into the room where it is; grinding in that little room beforehand can be a real pain in the ass. In fact, if you see a red door from here on out, you must have it painted black should be prepared with at least five missiles.
J - The Screw Attack is the best weapon in the game. There’s a reason most subsequent games in the Metroid series saved it for later, because it’s extremely overpowered. By the time you get it in subsequent games, no enemy poses a threat anymore. Same thing happens here. Just jump and spin through enemies. One hit, one kill. You can also pick up health pickups and missiles quicker this way. This is probably the most important item listed here; part of the impetus for writing this was me thinking “man, if people don’t get the Screw Attack early they’re gonna think this game is interminable.” Without the Varia suit you’ll still take quite a bit of damage, but it’s manageable with the Screw Attack. It won’t work on Metroids, so don’t try that. It also doesn’t do enough damage to Ridley or Kraid to be worth it, so you’ll need different strategies for them. Do not skip this item.
P - Oh joy, another energy tank, and it’s just sitting there for an apple-cheeked, fresh-faced young boy like me—with naught but a song in my heart, a smile on my face, and a gleam in my eye—to grab! See the light blocks in front of it on the map? That’s a pitfall, and it sucks. It is 100% fair to save state before trying to grab this energy tank.
Q - I’m not providing a strategy for Ridley, I think he’s easy enough. I’d just like to point out that the door behind him requires 10 missiles rather than the usual 5. I don’t know why that is.
S - I’m not going to explain how to get this energy tank because it's fun to figure it out. Only a hint: sometimes the game doesn’t have the Skree that’s supposed to be there, which makes obtaining it impossible. If that happens and you’re in serious need of health, get the energy tank at location X instead.
V - There are many strategies to defeat Kraid. A lot of people like using Morph Ball Bombs on him. I don’t. I think just getting up in his grill and shooting missiles at him is the way to go. If you try that and it’s not doing anything (you might hear a PING! sound effect that sounds like it’s hitting something impregnable), what’s happening is it’s hitting his middle…spike thing. Here’s what I do: I wait till he shoots it, freeze it, then give him the business. It usually takes two cycles of this before you can take him down.
W - I don’t know how people get this energy tank without the high jump boots. I find it best to jump down, shoot the block hiding the energy tank, jump back up to the door, roll into a morph ball, roll down to the block on the left, bounce off that, then hold right and hug the wall as you fall down into the nook to get the energy tank. It can take a few tries.
After this is a section known as The Climb. You can death warp out of this (which will take a long time if you just picked up an energy tank and/or have a lot of health plus the Varia Suit), but then you’ll need to either farm health, which could take awhile, or find a quick energy tank, which is likely easier said than done (eating a death when you've got the Varia Suit and a bunch of energy takes also takes too long to be efficient). Sometimes it’s just best to go through it. Those blocks are destructible and respawn, so you probably already know what to do. It can take awhile at first, but with practice it shouldn’t take that long.
As you make your way to Tourian, here’s my advice: freeze the Metroids and run away. You really, really don’t want to get caught by them. The strategy to escape them is to roll into a morph ball and use a morph ball bomb, but that’s kinda finicky in this game for some reason. Just freeze em’ and run away—until you get to the door right before Mother Brain. This is a good place to double back and farm Metroids for health (if you need it, which you shouldn’t) and/or missiles (which don’t spawn as often, which can lead to frustration). I always try to make sure I have at least 115 missiles before I go into Mother Brain’s room. You might think “but Chris, it takes 5 missiles to kill each Metroid and missile icons only restore 2 missiles; isn’t that a net loss?” Ordinarily it would be, but missile icons taken from Metroids restore a huge number, like 30 or something.
Once you’ve escaped Zebes, take some time to reflect. Are you thinking to yourself “boy, I’m glad that’s over”? I can hardly blame you. That last room can be headache-inducing, and I’ll bet you’re sick and tired of looking at that map every five minutes. If that’s the case, then fine! That’s more than fair! It’s not a particularly well-designed game, and there are far better games in the series that await you. I’d just like to personally thank you for heeding my words and taking the time to play the game.
But what if you liked it? Would you like to try it again? Personally, my second time beating it I wanted to run through it again, faster, cleaner. It’s a game that, despite being based on exploration, really gears itself toward speedrunning. I don’t think you need a pixelated woman in a bikini to compel you to play the game faster, but just the fun of developing your own route and methods is fun enough.
I really do think Metroid is worth defending. Let’s not kid ourselves: as much as the original Nintendo Entertainment System is regarded as a classic, most of its games aren’t very good, and the ones regarded as classics barely hold up. This one is a major exception, though, right from the beginning. The ominous theme song is excellent for setting the mood. Once you get the hang of the controls, you’ll feel proud of your skills and be able to do all sorts of neat tricks. There are little artistic touches like the demonic mouths above the elevators and of course the Chozo statues, which would come to be a major part of the series. There are parts that frustrate me to this day, but I’ll tell you this: when I played Metroid Dread, I was also replaying Metroid concurrently. It’s interesting to see that as far as the series has come, its roots are firmly intact. There's a section early on in Super Metroid where you go through the ruined final section of the first game, where you destroyed all the Zebetite and blew up Mother Brain; that section doesn't hit anywhere near as hard unless you've played this game first. The same can be said of all the massive improvements over the first game made in Super Metroid, which is part of what makes it one of the most impressive games of its generation. There's a sense that you could tell Nintendo R&D had really learned how to make a great game.
There’s this nostalgia for an era that I never lived through (my family couldn’t afford a console until 1998, when we got the Sony PlayStation). I feel a kindred brotherhood with the children of 1986. Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda are properly regarded as classics of the medium, but Metroid must have been so much cooler. You get to play as a space explorer with a gun for a hand, exploring a dark, foreboding alien planet, blasting away hideous monsters, collecting all sorts of cool power-ups, trading school bus secrets with your friends. Then, one day, you hear a rumor that you’re actually playing as a girl—and you realize that’s actually kinda kickass. You hafta test it out for yourself, though—no way Billy on the schoolbus is right. Imagine the catharsis you’d feel after beating the game fast enough to confirm the rumor. It’s all true. You saw it with your own eyes. This is before the age of YouTube and Google, where you’d have to beat the game yourself in order to see it (or see it in a magazine, I guess). A game that can create that kind of legend in the schoolyard is pretty cool to me. I think that's reason enough to struggle through it.
And if you didn't like, you should still play Zero Mission if you haven't, at least for the ending. That game doesn't need its own entry though; Good Games You Should Play doesn't strike me as a necessary series on the blogosphere.
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