Metroid (1986) for NES

Metroid is one of Nintendo's original dives into the gaming industry. While it's sibling franchises like Mario and Zelda have seen countless games, spin offs, and remakes, Metroid has had a slow release of games since it's creation.

Don't get me wrong it's still a very popular Nintendo franchise, having its fair share of titles and it's protagonist, Samus Aran, being one of the original characters in Nintendo's crossover/mash up series Super Smash Bros. But does the original still resemble what the series looks like today? I gave it a go over the past week to find out, so without further delay, let's have a look at what Metroid is all about, it's history, standout features, and whether it holds up today, or if Nintendo's futuristic sci-fi platformer's origin should stay in the past.

NES Box-art for Metroid

History

Welcome to the 1980s, stylish, colourful, and arguably the most important decade in the industry of videogames. A time when plastic boxes that play game cartridges on your TV was a cutting edge piece of tech. Leading this surge in all things pixels was the Japanese company Nintendo, with their Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) or the Famicom as it was known in Japan.

NES (Left) and the Famicom (Right)

While the Famicom was released in 1983 in Japan, the rest of the world had to wait for their NES. This is because while the two consoles are regarded as the same thing, the NES was actually more of a redesign of the Famicom, not just in shape or size but also some of its hardware.

1985 rolled around and we finally had the NES released to the masses, kicking off what was known as the 8-bit era, and showing everyone what a videogame console could really do.

While the actual concept of "video games" was still a bit of a foreign concept at this time, Nintendo made it appealing to just about everybody the could, kids and adults alike. Of course you had Super Mario Bros, which came with the console itself and was THE game to play on the system, but you also had some more modest titles, things like Golf or Tennis, there was a decent variety of titles

NES launch titles

After this we a steady stream of new releases until 1987-88 when America and Europe respectively got their hands on the subject of this article, Metroid.

Title screen

Metroid is an action-adventure game set in a sci-fi setting. You play as Samus, a famed bounty hunter tasked with exploring the planet of Zebes and putting an end to an evil plan led by space pirates. The game is famous for kicking off the "MetroidVania" genre, involves a large, interconnected world, that requires exploration and upgrading your character in order to access all of it's locations. It comes from Metroid and another title, Castlevania, which was also released on the NES around a similar time. Both games have a lot in common in the way they're designed, hence the genre being named after combining their names.

Reception was overly positive, with both critics' and public opinion of the game celebrating it's graphics gameplay and sound design, pushing another franchise into Nintendo's hall of fame.

Something interesting to note is Metroid was greatly inspired by Ridley Scott's Alien franchise, taking a lot of it's plot points and incorporating them into different entries of the series. You can find a list of the similarities here if you're interested.

Story

When you first boot up the game you're given a short bit of text detailing the plot and what you need to know.

Simple, straight to the point, and a bit confusing, not much else to it. However, the game manual that came with the original cartridge goes into a lot more detail, with cute cartoon illustrations of characters and the story, explaining that an alien species called the Metroids are a dangerous, parastic race, who were being studied by "The Federation" until space pirates arrived and stole the Metroids, taking them to their base on Zebes.

Samus is given a last resort task of travelling to the base, destroy the pirates, Metroids and the one in charge, Mother Brain.

And with that you're off.

Gameplay

The gameplay is where I'd say Metroid truly shines, for a 2D. 8-bit NES game, it does an excellent job at immersing you in the world of Zebes. The graphics combined with the level design really make you feel like you're an outsider on an alien world. When you first start up the game, you're greeted with a large cave like room, two enemies instantly appearing, one coming at you vertically, and the other horizontally. This is a great introduction to the combat as Samus' blaster can shoot up as well as across, so this first encounter does a good job of making that obvious.

The starting area upon beginning the game

This trend of vertical and horizontal combat carries on the whole game, as enemies will be attacking you from either direction and when there's multiple enemies on screen, you'll need to be selective with your targets to avoid being swarmed and knocked around too much.

The blaster itself is puny at the start too. Shots travel a very small range before disappearing completely, meaning you have to get up and close to targets if you want to successfully put them down. This obviously comes with the disadvantage of taking a lot of damage if you can't evade them, meaning the start of the game is very much a fumble to get your bearings, which I'd say adds to the experience greatly.

As mentioned earlier, this game is what really started the MetroidVania genre, and this is because of it's interconnected world.

The map is made up of different areas, which you can explore at your own pace with the exception of one area, where the final boss resides. You begin in a section called Brinstar, where you start off in the cave room I mentioned earlier. From here you have two directions to go in, to the right are enemies as well as a walled off area with a tunnel at the bottom you can't normally fit through, to the left of the starting area is the means to progress through that tunnel, a morph ball. This is your first major powerup and allows Samus to fit through small spaces.

This is when the design of Metroid really shines. There are areas in the game that you need a certain powerup for, among other areas that you can explore from the beginning, but will prove too challenging if you go in unprepared without upgrades.

Upgrades are scattered throughout the map, whether it be a bomb upgrade for your Morph Ball, more powerful versions of your blaster, missiles, additional health, additions to your armour etc, everything serves a purpose and will make your life easier as you collect them all.

Average powerup room

This makes combat feel even more satisfying, as some areas are practically impossible without certain abilities, which makes it more satisfying when you return with your updated arsenal and can blast your way through with relative ease.

Overall having a load of cool pick up items scattered across the world to find is fun, the only issue is navigating through it all.

Due to the limitations of the NES, it's difficult for developers to create distinct environments. The difference in areas of Metroid are obvious as they use different colour palettes and you enter them through an elevator which makes it clear you're going somewhere completely different. In terms of differences in rooms? That's where things get tricky, as the most difference you'd have is different enemies and some different environmental hazards.

I noticed while playing that some rooms looked like they had the exact same layout as other rooms, making it a bit confusing to work out where I was/going,

Luckily when you're playing nowadays, there are very clever people who have created detailed maps of Zebes, and the game manual itself included a less detailed map showing the overall layout and shape of the world.

It wasn't a pain to traverse, it can just lead to a bit of frustration if you're going in blind so I'd recommend using a map.

Fan-made map of the game, featuring locations for items and bosses

In order to beat the game you'll have to open up the final area of game, named Tourian. To do this you have to vanquish two bosses, a lizard monster called Kraid, and a pterodactyl/dragon monster called Ridley (named after Ridley Scott) These two bosses are located in their own "hideout" areas, Kraid's being in the Brinstar portion of the map, and Ridley's being in another area called Norfair.

In my opinion the bosses aren't much to talk about, they didn't really do much and they weren't very difficult to beat but I think the designs of the characters were cool and they ended up becoming recurring villains in later games.

Official art of Kraid and Ridley respectively

After beating those two you can finally access Tourian were Mother Brain lives, down through some vertical shaft sections and then at the end of a long corridor like area. She's guarded by the metroids (first time you actually see one is at the end of the game) and a few projectile traps in the walls.

Samus fighting Metroids

This was the hardest part for me and honestly it got pretty unfair at points. You have to fight your way through walls to get to Mother Brain while being shot non stop and if you don't have many health or weapon upgrades I don't even know how it'd be possible.

But after a lot of trial and error, Mother Brain is defeated (she doesn't even fight herself she's just a brain in a big jar) and it's a mad dash to escape the planet for it explodes which comes out of nowhere.

Samus' final fight with Mother Brain

Upon escaping, the game ends and you're congratulated with a very cryptic message in broken English talking about peace in the galaxy. This is a translation error but it does the job and is pretty funny.

Last thing to mention about the game itself is the shocking twist at the end that shows that Samus has actually been a woman the whole time! This was quite impressive for the time as female protagonists in games weren't as common as they are now making Samus one of the first. However, something less family friendly is that if you beat the game at different times, the final cutscene will show Samus either armoured up with a helmet on (Over 5 hours of game time) armoured up without a helmet (3-5 hours game time, which is what I got) no armour and instead wearing a jumpsuit (1-3 hours) or no armour wearing a bikini (under an hour). Classy.

Audio

I don't really have much to say about the audio as there's not a lot to it. I will say it did a good job with the creepy, alien world vibe the game was going for and it's impressive that the did that with such little sound design. The blaster sounds nice and the enemy audio was also fitting to the tone.

I absolutely adore the sound clip that plays when you pick up an item or upgrade, it sounds triumphant and makes you feel glad that you found it, especially if it's something you really needed. You can find it here

Something I did find a bit annoying is the repeating music loop going through areas. In small bursts it was fine but after longer play sessions it would start to get a bit grating since a lot of it is very high pitched sci-fi sound. Wasn't bad music, just replaying constantly could get old.

I think overall the audio department was pretty good for what it is, it nails the tone of the game and adds to that helpless feeling I mentioned towards the beginning.

Conclusion

Overall I would say that Metroid is a nice game to revisit. I think the gameplay holds up tremendously and it says a lot that modern games are still paying homage to it's gameplay style to this day.

It's pretty widely accessible to play too. It's available on all currently running Nintendo virtual consoles and also the NES Mini console which is how I played it.

It's worth pointing out too that this game got a remake on the Gameboy Advance called Metroid- Zero Mission, which refined the graphics and gameplay and added some new quality of life features. It even includes the original version on it as an unlockable which was pretty cool.

Ultimately I had fun playing it, I think the difficulty was fair as well as justified as it fit in well with the theme and story and with the exception of the final boss i didn't have much of a problem with it.

It controls well and it's very satisfying to work your way through at your own pace, I'd highly recommend it and I'll definitely be taking a look at other Metroid games in the future on this site so check back in at some point or better yet, subscribe down below and be updated whenever I post!

Thank you for reading, till next time!