This is one of those famous NES games that I remember playing quite a bit as a kid. Usually we would rent it, and I would quickly get lost and not play it anymore. My parents got a little upset about me renting it all the time just to play it for half and hour, but that didn't stop me. I just loved the way the game was set up. It had such a unique look and feel to it. I really felt like I was on another world fighting aliens. It was pretty unique at the time, and it must've been stunning when it came out in 1987. I mean, when this game came out the Atari 2600 was still about 4 years from calling it quits. It was an amazing jump in technology.
So as I said, I really wasn't very good at this game as a small child. It wasn't until a few years later when I got this game for Christmas during the waning days of the NES that I was able to get through it. I will admit that I used a map to help me though. This is something that I feel bad about today. I really wish I could say that I beat it completely legit, but it's a decision I made when I was young and I can't take it back.
One thing that still surprises me about this game is how non-linear it is. Basically you have three objectives: kill Kraid, kill Ridley, and kill Mother Brain. How you do this is entirely up to you. The time between is spent exploring and getting power ups. The only other game like this at the time was The Legend of Zelda which came out at the same time, but even that had 9 dungeons and more orderly gameplay. Metroid was a radical departure from the early side scrollers and arcade hits. It was truly revolutionary.
Now before I heap too much praise on this game it does have one very serious flaw. One that never seemed to bother me until going back through it again. The problem is that whenever you die you only start back with 30 life. At first this doesn't seem so bad, but think about it for a second. In the game you collect energy tanks that raise your total life by 100. I believe there are 9 or 10 of these total. If you get killed near the end of the game it is possible that you will will have to collect 970 life points to fill yourself back up. This is really hard when most enemies other than metroids either give you 5 or 20 health back. To help deal with this the game designers did a couple of things. There are long upward corridors near the beginning with plenty of easy enemies to kill. There are also large holes in the ground that bugs fly out of which you are able to shoot away at. Of course this could still take you 15 or 20 minutes just to get your health back. Why couldn't they start you out with more health? This seems to take up about half the gameplay time. I guess the best way is to plot a course where you get energy tanks when your health might be getting low and just never die. But can you imagine how hard that is?
However don't get me wrong, I do love this game. It can't really help being imperfect. It was made in 1986. I loved it then and I still love it now although probably not as much. It's interesting how Samus' identity was kept secret unless you get one of the better endings. It would've been nice to have a female lead character out in the open at the time. As it is though it's still one of the great 80s games and one of the defining moments in Nintendo history.
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