Metroid

"Whee! It's fun to get lost!!"

Behold a true classic! Metroid is probably one of the few games that you can get that you'll have fun being completely lost in! Unless you have a full scale map at your fingers, or have beaten this game enough to etch every little detail into your brain, you ARE and WILL get lost.

I didn't know what this game would behold as I went into the Babbages and spent 13 bucks on this badboy. I went home, got out my trusty NES cleaning kit, washed this badboy out, then started playing one of the NES's true classics. I was having lots of fun...until I got to this one intersection and was completely lost. It was still fun as I was blasting everything and backtracking my way out of there. Eventually, I got tired of being completely lost, and went website hopping to find a map so I wouldn't be completely lost, cause getting lost too much can be frusterating (look at big shot RPGs like Final Fantasy 7, or Racing games. Getting lost=Losing).

Before I get lost in that rant, I'll review this game.

Story
The story was something new at the time of Metroids release. This planet is getting some bad activity going on, just like drug dealers only worse. These little buggers called Metroids are being controlled for evil purposes and need to be exterminated. Answering the extermination call is Samus Aran: the guy in a robot suit. Now, the thing about Samus is not exactly what you think (and if you already played Metroid Prime, looked on the boards, been to other websites like Nintendo.com, or stuff like that, then you'd know what i'm talking about here), and to say that here would to spoil the ending. But, you are this bounty hunter who is dropped off in a random location of this planet, and need to find and kill the Metroid threat.

Graphics
Too many people nowadays would go about saying ''wow...these graphics are terrible!'', but i'm against them! You KNOW for a fact that if your Gamecube, Xbox, or PS2 NEVER came out, or even the SNES and Sega for that matter, you'd be amazed at the graphics of Metroid. These graphics are on the same level as Super Mario Bros., cause you don't get a fancy background but you do get to tell that you are fighting those things from Galaga, and that you are in a Robot suit.

The colors and stuff are mostly reddish, brownish, and blackish. The backgrounds are all completely black at points, while the ground and stuff is usually blue or green-yellow. Not a whole lot of color, but deal with it.

Unfortunately, the graphics had one minor flaw. Due to the limited power of the NES and the fact that it couldn't handle too many enemies or things on the screen at once, you'd get choppiness on the screens. And since Metroid has you fighting more than 4 enemies at a time at many times, you'd get the choppiness a lot, especially at one of the Bosses...

Controls
I don't know if it was my controller, or if it was the game controls themself, but something cause my game to feel a bit ackward. When I'd hit the button to roll into a ball, I'd have to punch in the down button to get it to work right. To jump, I'd have to hit my 'A' button just hard enough to get enough momentum, and my 'B' button was alright. I think I need to buy a new controller, but otherwise, I'd say I THINK the controls are pretty smooth. The select button pulls up your weapon swap, your 'B' button would shoot whatever you had selected to shoot, and your 'A' button would let you jump into the air! And you could aim with the Control pad to shoot stuff above your head.

Music and Stuff
The Music was pretty loud and smooth. You can remember the Metroid theme after playing in that section for a long time, and you can hear yourself jump, spin, shoot, kill, die, and get powerups all at the same time. The enemies themselves really made no noise, except for the Metroids themselves, so its basically you making all the noise in this game. The only big complaint with this is you can't hear the enemies coming for ya when you'd want to know, but you can live with it since you can only shoot what you see, and there are no traps.

Replay?
Considering the fact that you can beat this game in about an hours worth of time if you have a map or know where everything is, the real question is this: Do you want to play again? The only thing that really keeps you coming back for more is to redo the game with ALL your powerups, or to find the locations of the hidden missles/energy tanks located throughout the game. Not much else keeps you coming back for more besides the addiction for Metroid killing.

Should I spend 13 bucks like you did?
I'd say you should try to find this game at a price range of 1-10 bucks. It was not really worth the 13 I got it for, but it was still fun nonetheless. Go get it now if you can find it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/02/03, Updated 03/02/03