Metroid

"Our lovely heroines first adventure."

Metroid for the Nintendo Entertainment System

The Review

Released in 1986 for the NES, Metroid brought intergalactic bounty hunting to gamers everywhere. Like most Nintendo franchise Metroid went on to become hugely popular and spawn many sequels on multiple platforms. Let's take a look at the game that started it all.

Graphics

The graphics in Metroid were phenomenal for a game of it's time and a game programmed on relatively new hardware that hadn't been pushed far. The main character herself looked great and the enemies all were vivid sprites. Environments on the other hand were sparse and unattractive. Metroid suffers from a common element of early Videogames in that changes to environments only went as far as changing the color of the enemies and environments. Also the environments themselves had no backgrounds, just a black void. It would have been nice to see something back there to add depth to the environments but alas there is none and this comes off has a more noticeable problem when you take into account the high level of detail put into the enemies and characters. Fortunately there is not a drop of clipping which is great and frame-rate usually stays sharp with the few exceptions being in the boss battles.

Score: 8/10

Sound

Sound effects were sparse and simple. Your character had an array of four sounds that were used repetitively and the enemies, not including the bosses, make absolutely no sound at all until you destroy them which gives you a standard explode sound. This is a huge problem in that Metroid is trying to absorb you into this alien planet but there is nothing to be heard from the fearsome enemies that you find along the adventure. When you fight one of the bosses you are treated to a range of equally generic roars and screams from the boss. Music consists of about a thirty second midi that loops over and over again. Each level has its own midi but none of them are breathtaking or even memorable. Of course this game is where we got the now famous Samus entrance tune which has appeared in all Metroid games and the Super Smash Bros games. Both the sound and music comes out sounding flat and muted making for a none to pleasing experience. Sure this was 1986 but we had Super Mario Bros before Metroid and that game had great sound and music. Metroid disappoints in this category.

Score: 5/10

Game-play

You play as a female intergalactic bounty hunter named Samus Aran. You arrive on the planet Zebeth after receiving orders from your commanders. Your mission is to take care of an alien parasite infection of a creature known as Metroid and destroy the hive brain know simply as Mother Brain. The whole time you will battle other alien creatures some that are pushovers and others you will need upgrades to defeat.

Zebeth itself is one large cavern that is connected to the other parts of Zebeth by large elevators. Moving around consists of your standard platforming bits. Close jumps and blasting enemies out of your way is the name of the game here and it's done well thanks in part to the great controls. You'll find areas where you are stuck and must use your new found abilities to continue. This adds an element of thought to the game but it never gets to confusing. In fact no where in Metroid will you have to stop and think or will you get stuck in a certain area. The emphasis here is on straight run and gun action.

The planet is populated with about a dozen or so different enemies that climb the walls, fly down from the ceiling or pop up out of the ground and hurdle towards you. To defeat these and the bosses you will find multiple power ups hidden around Zebeth including a corkscrew jump that hurts your enemies, a rolling ball move that lets you slide into small gaps and an ice beam that lets you freeze your enemies, using them as steps to reach higher places. You'll also come across missile expansions that up your missile ammo by 5 each time. Missiles are used against your tougher foes or doors that can only be opened with them. These powerups are awesome but it's a shame you never really get a chance to use them beyond a few scripted areas.

Separating the main areas are two bosses known as Ridley a large purple dragon and Kraid an overweight mutant beast, all leading up to a battle with the Mother Brain deep in her liar where the Metroids hunt. Defeat the Mother Brain and you make an escape while the liar comes down around your ears. This game at its core is still a platformer and it does its job well, giving the player a fun experience although you can't help wishing for a little more variety in the enemies or environments to use your awesome abilities on. It's worth noting that this game can be finished front to back by a skilled player in under two hours so if you pick this up don't expect the same amount of gaming as you'd find in other platformers.

Score: 8/10

Controls

Controls are tight and responsive which is greatly needed in all platformers. Direction pad controls Samus. [A] is jump, hit [A] again combined with a direction after you get the Screw attack and you will spin in that direction. [B] is the fire button that is used in tandem with the D-pad to aim in front or above you. When you are rolled up [B] also drops one of your bombs. Select switches your gun from which ever beam you have acquired or to her missile launcher. Start pauses the game. Nothing here that will hurt the game experience although the jump can feel a little floaty at first but you get over it quickly.

Score: 9/10

Over-all

Metroid for the NES is a solid platformer that fans of the franchise should look into if you haven't played it before. It's a good game but not the best the franchise has to offer and younger gamers might have a hard time going back into a simpler time of gaming that is found here. This game is available as part of Classic NES series on the GBA and as an unlockable on Metroid Prime for the Gamecube so finding a port shouldn't be to hard. Metroid has also been remade into a graphically enhanced version known as Metroid: Zero Mission.

Sometimes it's fun to see how a franchise started and Metroid manages to deliver a fun albeit dated gaming experience.

Over-all Score: 8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 02/28/05