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The original Metroid....kinda sucks.
- Thread starter Astral
- Start date
Hahaha, yeah, it was so damn painful.Fucking Metroid passwords. "Did I write 0, O or o?"
Speaking of passwords, the original Metroid has best password ever: "ENGAGE RIDLEY MOTHER FUCKER"
Night_Trekker
Member
It's primitive, but I still love it. Zero Mission is a great remake, but there's something about the experience of the original game that does it for me, even now. The soundtrack is still godly.
Metroid's a legendary game for what it did to advance game design, but as OP points out, a mapless game needs readily identifiable and memorable areas. Metroid lacked this, and it made remembering where to go such a chore. I never beat it as a kid. Did so once as an adult and to be honest a lot of it was a chore.
Still, though, that first hour of pure exploration is one of the highest highs on the NES.
EDIT: I also played it after Metroid II as a kid, so I missed the spider ball so badly, and Metroid II spoiled me with atmosphere. Metroid II was a terrifiying game.
Still, though, that first hour of pure exploration is one of the highest highs on the NES.
EDIT: I also played it after Metroid II as a kid, so I missed the spider ball so badly, and Metroid II spoiled me with atmosphere. Metroid II was a terrifiying game.
Oh, for those looking for a Metroid 2 remake, someone has been working on one if you're interested.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB2oeapCFYg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aB2oeapCFYg
I've downloaded the latest demo, and it's coming along nicely. Nintendo should have done it a long time ago.
Night_Trekker
Member
Please let this be finished before they get hit with a C&D...
https://web.archive.org/web/20130208115803/http://www.neillcorlett.com/metroidlua
I don't have the (missing) ZIP archive but maybe someone else does.
I don't have the (missing) ZIP archive but maybe someone else does.
RomanceDawn
Member
Metroid was daunting but during my Gamecube years I was determined to mine out Nintendo franchises and really play through their origins.
Getting killed while the screen scrolled to the next portion used to really pissed me off. Though one of my greatest gaming memories came out of this game. My 7 or 8 year old brother found some deep cavern that had an extremely long stretch to it's end. I must have sat there and watched him for about 45 minutes. I couldn't believe how long this tunnel was and the enemies were relentless. He died and died and died but just kept going back to see what was at the end. After what seemed forever in video game he had finally made it to the end only to discover a door that could only be destroyed by Super Missiles or something. It was red I think and he didn't need to test it he just knew. The moment he saw that door he made the loudest chicken like noise I ever heard. "BUCKAAAWWWW!!!" Sounded like a cartoon and keeps me laughing hard to this day.
Getting killed while the screen scrolled to the next portion used to really pissed me off. Though one of my greatest gaming memories came out of this game. My 7 or 8 year old brother found some deep cavern that had an extremely long stretch to it's end. I must have sat there and watched him for about 45 minutes. I couldn't believe how long this tunnel was and the enemies were relentless. He died and died and died but just kept going back to see what was at the end. After what seemed forever in video game he had finally made it to the end only to discover a door that could only be destroyed by Super Missiles or something. It was red I think and he didn't need to test it he just knew. The moment he saw that door he made the loudest chicken like noise I ever heard. "BUCKAAAWWWW!!!" Sounded like a cartoon and keeps me laughing hard to this day.
Man the longer you can run in silent mode on unauthorised remakes, the better. Getting attention only leads to bad things in 99% of all cases
I finished it earlier this year so it's not unplayable. I did abuse the fuck out of save states tho because fuck passwords
Seven Force
Banned
Wow, I'm pleasantly surprised this is still actually being worked on. Would have thought it'd get canned like that other Metroid fangame (Metroid:SR388, I think it was called?)
Surprisingly, I didn't have much of a problem with this. I would purposely kill myself sometimes just so I wouldn't have to walk all the way back to the beginning of the area.
fvng
Member
outdated game is outdated, but not bad. awful post.
Damn, he's not even halfway done, been awhile since I played Metroid 2,
It seems like he's making progress, and it looks like it's going to turn out alright, he's doing well for one person even if he started the game around 4 years ago.
K
kittens
Unconfirmed Member
I'm a huge Metroid fan and I've barely even given the first game the time of day. It's not fun.
Yes, the shaft you go down in the beginning is the shaft you escape from in the original after defeating Mother Brain.
Seven Force
Banned
He actually started it in '06. He didn't make it public 'til 2008.
If it wasn't fun, there would never have been another Metroid made after that. There would be no Metroid series. You realize that, right?
If it wasn't fun, there would never have been another Metroid made after that. There would be no Metroid series. You realize that, right?
It was immensely popular back in '87/88.
Why is this sentiment so popular lately?
I mean I get it it didn't age well, but... sucks?
I'm probably one of the few that plays through Zero Mission and finds it to be too much like Super Metroid for my tastes, as much as I adore Super and Fusion. Hard to describe but it loses some of what made the original what it was and comes off as Super Metroid: the Prequel (which okay yeah technically it is lol).
Not that its a bad thing, mind you.
I'm also probably one of the few that really doesn't mind the lack of a map. Oddly enough I felt the map made Super and Fusion a tad bit too easy to remember your way through at times. And even then, Metroid NES' layout isn't that hard to remember after a couple run-throughs, save maybe Kraid's Lair.
For their time, the first two games were fantastic and to this day I thoroughly enjoy playing them, and even with their faults I just can't see how they really are "bad". More victims of their time/hardware than just being bad (more Metroid NES' case than Metroid 2).
Just breaking my heart, man. :-(
I mean I get it it didn't age well, but... sucks?
I'm probably one of the few that plays through Zero Mission and finds it to be too much like Super Metroid for my tastes, as much as I adore Super and Fusion. Hard to describe but it loses some of what made the original what it was and comes off as Super Metroid: the Prequel (which okay yeah technically it is lol).
Not that its a bad thing, mind you.
I'm also probably one of the few that really doesn't mind the lack of a map. Oddly enough I felt the map made Super and Fusion a tad bit too easy to remember your way through at times. And even then, Metroid NES' layout isn't that hard to remember after a couple run-throughs, save maybe Kraid's Lair.
For their time, the first two games were fantastic and to this day I thoroughly enjoy playing them, and even with their faults I just can't see how they really are "bad". More victims of their time/hardware than just being bad (more Metroid NES' case than Metroid 2).
Just breaking my heart, man. :-(
Night_Trekker
Member
Exactly. Why do these guys even publicize their work before they're finished?
BomberGames, thank god, finished SoRR before Sega pulled the plug. I don't know how that happened... they publicly worked on it for years. I don't expect that to happen to do many fan developers working on remake projects.
I think Zelda 1 holds up. I beat it not too long ago. Metroid is confusing. It has always been that way. Metroid Prime 3 and Hunters both have some extremely misleading level designs. I don't mind being lost if the levels are like Re with backtracking. I hate stuff like Metroid where there's a small latter in the corner blending in with the background, ideally not supposed to be hidden, but causing me to fly to every planet, searching high and low for my next objective, giving up for a month, then forgetting my place in the game completely.
Frank_Tha_Noob
Banned
There's nothing wrong with it and these bs criticisms have been discussed on other websites before.
Beerman462
Member
LoZ and Metroid were god tier games in their time.
TheFLYINGManga_Ka
Member
For a old game, it's pretty darn revolutionary and amazing to me.
No map. No hints. No dialogue. Just pure exploration and discovery in a alien and unknown world.
It's a masterpiece in game designs. Zero Mission just modernized it.
No map. No hints. No dialogue. Just pure exploration and discovery in a alien and unknown world.
It's a masterpiece in game designs. Zero Mission just modernized it.
Beren the Empty-Handed
Member
I played through Metroid recently, and it was almost one of my favorite experiences. I loved not having a map (since the original Zelda did the same thing), getting lost, struggling against Kraid (Ridley was a pushover for me), all that jazz.
But man, what killed the whole thing was starting with that 30 energy. I thought maybe I just needed another Energy Tank, and it would start at 130 or something. Nope. 30. And enemies give off energy 5 at a time, sometimes 20. And not regularly either. In my opinion that's the ONLY thing preventing it from holding up today. I just don't understand the decision not to start with full health. Completely unnecessary. It worked in the original Zelda because you only had 12 or so Heart Containers, and enemies dropped one at a time. And you had Fairy Fountains nearby the start, and potions, and all of that. But starting at 30 HP when your HP goes into the several hundreds and enemies don't drop a lot of health just sucks.
I beat the game, but with save states. And I'm probably never going back
TLDR: Starting with 30 HP is terrible.
But man, what killed the whole thing was starting with that 30 energy. I thought maybe I just needed another Energy Tank, and it would start at 130 or something. Nope. 30. And enemies give off energy 5 at a time, sometimes 20. And not regularly either. In my opinion that's the ONLY thing preventing it from holding up today. I just don't understand the decision not to start with full health. Completely unnecessary. It worked in the original Zelda because you only had 12 or so Heart Containers, and enemies dropped one at a time. And you had Fairy Fountains nearby the start, and potions, and all of that. But starting at 30 HP when your HP goes into the several hundreds and enemies don't drop a lot of health just sucks.
I beat the game, but with save states. And I'm probably never going back
TLDR: Starting with 30 HP is terrible.
Original LOZ and Metroid have not held up well in some ways. Stuff like Mario Bros and Megaman have held up extremely well because they worked well within the limits of the console, they took simple gameplay riffs and just nailed them. Zelda and Metroid both suffer for their ambition.
The original Metroid is pointless if you've played what comes after it. There's a fully fledged remake and Super Metroid is in a very similar mold. I have fond memories of playing it but it's not worth attempting to play it these days.
The original LOZ holds up a bit better because there are aspects to it that are still better than recent games. Greater sense of exploration, non linear progression, no hand holding or constant text bubbles, tough difficulty in which each heart container is valuable. Nintendo can still learn a lot from it.
The original Metroid is pointless if you've played what comes after it. There's a fully fledged remake and Super Metroid is in a very similar mold. I have fond memories of playing it but it's not worth attempting to play it these days.
The original LOZ holds up a bit better because there are aspects to it that are still better than recent games. Greater sense of exploration, non linear progression, no hand holding or constant text bubbles, tough difficulty in which each heart container is valuable. Nintendo can still learn a lot from it.
Disaster Nebraska
Banned
Tsk tsk tsk. Kids these days...
I dunno. I was a young kid when Metroid and Metroid 2 were out. They were hard games, Metroid especially, but I suppose I was in a household where you only got a few games a year and therefore you weren't swapping between various titles. With that being the case, I remember drawing maps of Norfair but otherwise I beat Metroid map-less. Metroid 2 I beat mapless and it was rather easy since you had fairly-numerous save points (that also saved your health and items).
I think it's an attention span thing. Metroid was such a wide-open world with a lot of secrets and hidden paths to discover. Metroid 2 wasn't as open, but it did have plenty of secrets and it was scarier due to how the hatched Metroids would surprise you. If you weren't switching between numerous different games (like a lot of us do nowadays) and instead played only one game (like a lot of us did back then), then you'd get very familiar with the maps and would not get lost.
I was actually disappointed when Super Metroid came out. Not only was it easier, but it was fairly linear compared to Metroid. I know a lot of people praise Super Metroid today (and for good reason) but at the time it didn't sell all that well. I remember it being a bargain-bin game for a while. Most of the people I knew at the time thought it was too easy compared to the prior games.
I dunno. I was a young kid when Metroid and Metroid 2 were out. They were hard games, Metroid especially, but I suppose I was in a household where you only got a few games a year and therefore you weren't swapping between various titles. With that being the case, I remember drawing maps of Norfair but otherwise I beat Metroid map-less. Metroid 2 I beat mapless and it was rather easy since you had fairly-numerous save points (that also saved your health and items).
I think it's an attention span thing. Metroid was such a wide-open world with a lot of secrets and hidden paths to discover. Metroid 2 wasn't as open, but it did have plenty of secrets and it was scarier due to how the hatched Metroids would surprise you. If you weren't switching between numerous different games (like a lot of us do nowadays) and instead played only one game (like a lot of us did back then), then you'd get very familiar with the maps and would not get lost.
I was actually disappointed when Super Metroid came out. Not only was it easier, but it was fairly linear compared to Metroid. I know a lot of people praise Super Metroid today (and for good reason) but at the time it didn't sell all that well. I remember it being a bargain-bin game for a while. Most of the people I knew at the time thought it was too easy compared to the prior games.
Agree on this did not liked the concept of metroid 2.
Joei
Member
I don't get this thread. I bought this on Wii U VC a month or so ago and man, I had a blast with it. Granted, I beat this game growing up (I had it for NES when it was new), and have beaten it plenty of times after that, and took advantage of the save-state feature on Wii U but damn, to read people say this game is "bad" or "unplayable" is just wrong. I think, because of the save-state feature, I had more fun with it now than 25 years ago.
Some of the replies in this thread be all "yo sorry this game is too hard for you," and hey I'm right there with you! People gotta suck it up if a game's too hard. Get good!
My issue with the original Metroid is that it's not very fun to play. I can and have beat it without save states, it's not even a particularly difficult game by NES standards.
The mere thought of needing to kill a geemer by going into morph ball and dropping bombs for a significant portion of the game just frustrates me to no end. So many enemies are half my height and I can't reliably hit them with a beam weapon! It's like, I can do it, but it's just slow and cumbersome and unintuitive. Shoulder buttons were the best thing to happen to the Metroid franchise and don't let anyone tell you different.
There are at least 25 other NES games I would rather play right now than Metroid. I'm not sure I can say that about any other system-and-respective-Metroid-title aside from Other M. I can still respect and admire that game for what it stood for and for birthing my favorite Nintendo franchise but I am never going to beat that game again.
My issue with the original Metroid is that it's not very fun to play. I can and have beat it without save states, it's not even a particularly difficult game by NES standards.
The mere thought of needing to kill a geemer by going into morph ball and dropping bombs for a significant portion of the game just frustrates me to no end. So many enemies are half my height and I can't reliably hit them with a beam weapon! It's like, I can do it, but it's just slow and cumbersome and unintuitive. Shoulder buttons were the best thing to happen to the Metroid franchise and don't let anyone tell you different.
There are at least 25 other NES games I would rather play right now than Metroid. I'm not sure I can say that about any other system-and-respective-Metroid-title aside from Other M. I can still respect and admire that game for what it stood for and for birthing my favorite Nintendo franchise but I am never going to beat that game again.
kunonabi
Member
you do realize a lot of those elements are what made Metroid appealing right? Metroid has gotten away from those ideas just as much. Zero Mission doesn't really replace the original since everything that was appealing about the original got tossed aside so for the more structured approach that the series has been headed towards since 2. Considering the internet's selective bitching about linearity in the Metroid series you would think people would have better appreciation for the one game in series that completely leaves you to your own devices.
HF2014
Member
Problem is you havent played it when it was release. It was amazing at that time. Your judging it after trying better games after. But i do agree it didnt aged well, like nearly all 8bit games.
Zero Mission is a decent game but a horrible remake. It doesn't capture the experience from the the original in any way, but is basically just an inferior version of Super Metroid, which already had many throwbacks to Metroid 1. The gameplay is completely different, the leveldesign is almost completely different, the bosses are completely different. Kraid and Ridley, though admittedly pretty crappy in the original has far more in common with their SM versions. The only thing connecting it with the original is the soundtrack, and the non-existent story.
Original Metroid was less about getting items to expand your exploration range and more about gearing up to fight the three big monsters (Kraid, Ridley, Motherbrain). Of course that's no longer in the modern Metroids which use items as gameplay changers and gating mechanisms (also put less emphasis on ammo because of the charge beam) so you don't fight the bosses until you're pretty much ready for them.
Different games are now focusing on the difficult exploration and preparing for bosses aspects. As it happens those are now big and popular while Metroid is languishing.
Different games are now focusing on the difficult exploration and preparing for bosses aspects. As it happens those are now big and popular while Metroid is languishing.
Fair enough, that's your call as a fan. I haven't really been a party to the whole linearity debate, but Metroid probably offers one of the few experiences in this day and age in which the player is able to experience sprawling, extremely intelligent level design while still keeping exploration and self discovery intact. In my view Super Metroid pretty much expanded the Metroid concept while keeping the original kind of feeling intact, and you didn't feel as if you were walking the same corridor constantly which was a bonus. Keep in mind I haven't played other M but stuff like Metroid Prime keeps a lot of what made the original great; exploration, items opening up the game, big event bosses, a sense of isolation and desolation, etc. I think the Metroid series has done its roots pretty proud for the most part and that the original has been well and truly bettered. In my view at least, the original Zelda has more to offer the series and has something that can't be found elsewhere along the line.
Joseph Merrick
Member
Yep, I look at Zero Mission as its own game completely. I love the game, but it's nothing like playing Metroid 1.
Shin Kojima
Banned
Still love the game to bits. 100% childhood bliss. Used to run around the house with a cardboard tube on my arm because Samus was cool.
I can understand why unseasoned players would not enjoy it as much but I still enjoy playing through it.
I can understand why unseasoned players would not enjoy it as much but I still enjoy playing through it.
Bakemonogatari
Banned
I love the original Metroid, best NES game.