The Metroid series has always been one of the most profound set of games when I think in terms of nostalgia. By all regards, I can definitely see why someone would dislike the first two entries of the series despite my deep love for both of them. While one gamer may see them as practically unplayable without a guide, I see what was once a great adventure through an alien world unlike anything I'd ever seen. With the free roaming world where you're entitled to do most things in the order that you please, I believe that Metroid paved the foundation of not only the Metroidvania subgenre, but action games in general.
To even begin talking about Metroid, we must look at it's creators. Gunpei Yokoi served as the producer but he got his humble beginnings with Nintendo's Game and Watch portables. Since these devices made Nintendo lots of money, they decided that Yokoi should lead what was left of their original Research and Development team after a large amount had left to form Intelligent Systems. This team would later go onto inventing the Gameboy and furnishing it with some of our most beloved games on that said device. When his team developed Metroid, the idea pool was very open to everyone on the staff, rather than the concepts of one person on how the game should play and how the player should feel.
The other man that played a huge role on Metroid was Yoshio Sakamoto who served as the director. Sakamoto was recruited by Shigeru Miyamoto to help the development of Donkey Kong Jr. and eventually went on to direct Kid Icarus and the rest of R&D1's Metroid games with the exception of Return of Samus. He also coined the word "Metroid" as a portmanteau of "Metro" and "Android".
Okay, great, so we know a little bit about the game's creators, but what about the game itself? Metroid started out basically taking the platforming elements of Super Mario Bros. and throwing in the exploration elements of The Legend of Zelda and added some shooting for good measure. You, as Samus Aran, ventured through a vast subterranean world filled with alien lifeforms that simply existed in their homes; Some attacked you, but overall, these beasts where just living their lives. There were several themed areas starting from the lunactic, cratered Brinstar, to the ancient ruins of Kraid's lair to the volcanic Norfair and Ridley's lair all the way to the decked out tech lab Tourian. Each area was fitted with it's own eerie theme and sets of beasts and all had hidden goodies riddled in it's land.
Having a varied landscape to explore was fun as it is just to explore, but Metroid went a step further and added several upgrades to your movement and you arsenal to mix things up. The most notable item is probably the "Maru Mari" which is now known as the morphball. This enabled Samus to venture through all the little nooks and crannies that no ordinary person in a
metal suit could even dream of. At a later point in the game, you're given the bombs that you can place in ballmode which gave birth to two very foundational concepts in the series: bomb-able blocks and bomb jumping. Throughout you adventure, you will find that there will be objects obstructing your path and you'll have to lay a bomb to get by. Some of these are very obvious, but later on in the game, you'll be compelled to just about bomb everything just to progress. While this is very tedious, it also brought an element of"something just isn't right here" to the scenario. Bomb jumping plays a somewhat minor role in the first game, but there were several small crevices that you just couldn't fit into full size, nor could you midair morph your way in. Here is where bomb jumping really shines, as opposed to Zelda, where your bombs can be a liability to your health, these little explosives would propel you upwards and timed with the right directional button press, you could fit yourself just about in any hole you please.
While the Maru Mari brought new accessibility's to the floors and walls, you also had upgrades that affected your aerial progress. As you played through the game, you'd find items just out of reach like the infamous energy tank in the ceiling towards the beginning of the game. You would have no choice but to return with either one of two items; Hi-jump Boots or the Ice Beam. The Hi-jump was essentially exactly what it sounds like, it allowed you to jump about twice as high as before. This was especially useful for those times when you would miss a platform and end up in Zebes' acidic pools, fighting your way out. The Ice Beam was a revolutionary concept at the time and is something that some gamers may take for granted these days when the same idea is implemented in their favorite games. This brought a whole new depth to dealing with enemies as you could choose to freeze them in place or even better, freeze them into platforms to aid in assent up the numerous shafts that line the planet.
The Ice Beam was one of the few items that can be used as both a weapon and a tool, but there were several other weapons that might make you consider using them over it. The Wave Beam is the other major beam choice you get and it can be immensely useful if you know how to use it properly. This is the only weapon capable of going through walls and floors, making attacking shielded enemies a whole lot safer to exterminate. Your other main addition to your arsenal were your missiles, capable of taking most enemies out in a single blow, you only had a limited number of them at your disposal. The only ways you could expand your missiles were to go treasure hunting throughout the world or they could be won as a prize for defeating the game's end bosses. The last major addition to your attack power was also pretty inventive for it's time. The Screw Attack changed up the shooting mechanic and made your platforming in itself a threat to your foes. When you would somersault midair, you would get an electric charge going through your body, essentially turning you into a flying electrical saw. Interestingly enough, if you truly wanted, you could get the Screw Attack before even fighting any of the bosses, turning your odyssey through their lairs from being a treacherous feat to being an absolute cakewalk.
Alright, so now that you know you have a way of dispatching anything that threatens you, let's talk about what you're up against. Your mission is to go to the core of planet Zebes and destroy the Space Pirate's main military grid, the Mother Brain, Exterminate their power source, the amoeba-like Metroid species, and defeat her two guards; Kraid the trickster and the horrible space pterodactyl, Ridley.Kraid's lair itself is a maze with several similar looking rooms to disorient the player and even included a body double to make you think that you had taken him down. As for fighting him himself, he has a layer of spiky protrusions that he's capable of using as a shield or as a projectile while he can also shoot rocks from his mouth and send boomerang like appendages after you.
Ridley on the other hand has a lair that's coated in lava from top to bottom. Even his arena itself has a pit of lava to ensnare any unlucky player who would get launched back. His attacks consisted mainly of fireball that he spat out at you. Motherbrain itself was carefully guarded in an area hat couldn't even be accessed unless her guardians themselves had succumbed to Samus' weaponry.
Once you were able to get into Tourian, the place was filled with turrets and deadly flying rings spawned from various positions in the floors. While these themselves were easy to deal with, her lair was also filled to the brim with Metroids who could the life straight out of you. Luckily for you, you could easily dispatch them with the Ice Beam and an ample supply of missiles. Once you got to Motherbrain herself, she was easy enough to assault, but that doesn't mean she was defenseless. Her room is swamped with acid pools and had several turrets and ring generators with the sole purpose of knocking you down. Once you learned to avoid these dangers, destroying Motherbrain became a test of endurance. She had a ton of health and could easily cause you to expend a hundred missiles before her defeat.
The real difficulty in the game didn't come from these bosses however, it was the world itself that made many gamers cower. Zebes was the first world in a platformer of labyrinthine proportions. Back in the day, Players could find themselves eternally lost up until they reset the game. Most of this was due to copy/pasted rooms and no ingame map to speak of. Gamers had to rely on memory to forge their way through, or they had to create their own map on graph paper. Lots of people didn't know what to expect as they hadn't seen anything like this at that point in time. There were also a few points in the game where you just plain couldn't progress through the zones unless you went on a bombing spree throughout, just hoping you would get lucky. Most of these places were atleast marked with an "off" looking tile or they were in a place where the floor looked weak as it was, like floors made from bubbles.
Metroid was a revolution at the time, but it has gathered a somewhat negative rap from today's gamers for being too archaic. Sure, the game itself plays like a game from 1986, but really, back in the day, this was something that blew us all away. If you've never played Metroid before, I hope you can look at it's merits and forgive it's shortcomings. It's not for everybody, but for those of us with our rose-tinted glasses, it truly was something marvelous.See you next mission!
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