[Max Cola]

I really do.

But every time I try to play it, I just... can't. I can't like it! I have it for my Game Boy Advance in the form of an extra for Zero Mission, but whenever I try to play it I just die and give up. I've tried emulating it and it seems more enjoyable on a bigger screen, but I still can't get around the... urgh... gameplay.

See, while I know the original Metroid is the game that started the whole series and should be venerated, as a game it doesn't stand the test of time. I can play Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda and enjoy them both on their own merits even today, and they're some of my favorite games.

But the original Metroid is bad news. I played through it once with the aid of a map and guide, and now I want to do it the "right way", and I can't. Everything looks the same! I get lost, but not pleasantly lost - I get lost and I get hurt and die and have to restart with 30 health every damn time. This gets worse later, when you enter bigger, more dangerous, more same-y environments and die even faster. I think it was more fun to get lost in the original Zelda, because you at least had landmarks to help you.

Samus is too slow, and can only shoot up and forward, and is totally defenseless against all the nasty aliens and crazy shit that swwops and dives and comes together in such a way that, no matter how carefully you jump, you will be hit and thrown into inescapable lava until your health is almost completely sapped.

So tell me, am I playing this game the wrong way, or should I just give up and go play Super Metroid and be happy? I'm trying to appreciate this game, at least explain to me why I should!
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Everybody hurts sometimes

[Mr. Mechanical]

[Max Cola]

That is reassuring!

On a related note, I am curious about Metroid 2 as I have not played it. Should I try it? Is it nicer than Metroid?

I like to try these old games and tough 'em out a little. It's been good to me before (for instance, I did not enjoy the original Zelda immediately, now I love it).
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Everybody hurts sometimes

[alice]

max cola, that icon is win.

[Max Cola]

Thanks, someone else made it blink for me :D
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Everybody hurts sometimes

[Talbain]

I actually felt that Metroid 2 was more unforgiving, but perhaps that's because I sort of understood the "color-centric" Metroid. Granted, the purpose of Metroid 2 is a bit simpler, it's also a pretty tough game; though I think that's the point.

In my opinion, the first "good" Metroid game was for the SNES. But that's just my opinion, others will tell you that I'm blaspheming.
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[Marshmallow]

Metroid 2 is awesome, it's way more forgiving than the original. It still looks and plays great today too, one of the games that was made for the system.

[Max Cola]

I tried to emulate Metroid 2, but emulating Game Boy games on a PC just feels wrong.
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Everybody hurts sometimes

[diplo]

after seeing gameplay videos of the original metroid, i'm not eager to play it. the rooms repeat too much, i think.
metroid 2 attracts me a bit, but only because of how secretive the areas appears to be. i'd like to try it some day.

[extrabastardformula]

Metroid 2 is more forgiving of error, but it's still a very brutal game, and it's still a game about getting lost, sometimes even more than the first. Being lost is a big part of the first two. If that was enough to turn you off the first you probably won't like the second. It's a different kind of hard though.

[Broco]

Metroid 1 is one of my favorite games. That said, I think you've played it enough to decide you hate it, and that's fine. I have a similar relationship to Yoshi's Island. Everyone praises it to high heavens and I even understand why, but attempting to play it makes me suffer.


Let me explain anyway why Metroid 1 is so great, even though I fully expect that you will continue to hate it.

Metroid 1's world subjectively strikes me as awe-inspiringly vast, and this even though I know that as a matter of fact it is not especially large compared to other games. Everything in the game conspires to confuse your sense of space. The number of blue doors appears to grow exponentially in a combinatorial explosion -- you are first given the option of two doors, and two each behind each of those, and two behind each of those, and if this were to go on for a few more iterations you would soon be facing millions. You can try to explore systematically, but with everywhere looking the same you're almost guaranteed to lose track. And just when you start to think you've got everything covered, you explode a random block in the floor and suddenly a large number of new rooms open up. In fact, there are no cues whatsoever to the extent of the world -- for all you know, it is randomly generated and stretches out infinitely in all directions.

The way the game forces you to waste ten minutes refilling your health every time you restart means you can't be cavalier about it -- it's a valuable resource. On the other hand, the game is brutal and it's frequently impossible to avoid getting hit. So your health is a timer -- each game, you need to try to get as deep as possible into the caves before it runs out. As you keep stubbornly pushing forward, your health gradually wears down, you start hearing the low-health beep, you deploy all your skills to make it just one more room, just one more room. And all the while, you have absolutely no idea how much further down you have left to go. That's pretty damn scary and exciting, to me.

My favorite moment when I was first playing was after I spent hours exploring the left side of Norfair, the largest, most confusing and emptiest area in Metroid. I was finally starting to get a good sense of the boundaries of the space, and had the feeling that the end was in sight. Then, as I was heading back right on the bottom edge of Norfair, I opened a random, innocuous-seeming blue door, and was horrified to find -- an elevator. Going down.

So, yeah. Metroid is awesome.

[Red_venom]

I want to add that: Metroid is awesome, what's wrong with you?

And the Metroid port to GBA sucks. I dont know why but it controls like shit and everything is shrunk down a little bit and im pretty sure slowdown is more frequent.

Metroid 2 is more.. Endless. If you look at maps of the original Metroid everything is very boxlike and it doesnt take much foot travel to get back to a familiar vertical corridor. But all I remember about Metroid 2 was how useless horizontal corridors could go on for quite a while and usually only yielded a BETA Metroid or whatever. ; ]

[Red_venom]

[haze]

on the idea of getting lost, it seems to be that era where games about exploration actually, you know, required you to hand-draw your own maps. it'd probably increase your enjoyment a lot more to do so, and the rest will just be trying to stay alive.

imagine if Super Metroid had no auto-mapping screens. though it was innovative in its own way for providing intentionally incomplete maps.

while other games like Zelda would keep you in the dark until you find a map in a dungeon, which instantly shows you everywhere you must go, and in Kid Icarus you had to pay money for 3 items when you could just draw a better map yourself by hand

someone could write an entire article on this, I suppose.

[extrabastardformula]

[Talbain]

To me, Metroid 2 seemed to be much more about the hunt. The original seemed to be about exploration, though Broco explained this much more articulately than me.
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[Max Cola]

[haze]

[Broco]

[Dark Age Iron Savior]

[Felix]

yeah, for some reason, after never being able to get into the original i remember a younger version of myself being a tremendous fan of both super and metroid 2. i beat the latter in my parents' bed one saturday morning, which is the kind of experience selectbuttoners always seem to be grasping at to explain just why a particular game is so good - but yeah, it can't be emulate. samus sprite is way too fucking big as is. just makes it seem silly.

[Dracko]

You don't have to like it, you know?
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[Max Cola]

[Dracko]

Lost Levels is by far the best thing Miyamoto has ever done.
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[Max Cola]

[Toups]

The thing with the original Metroid is that yes, in many ways it is archaic, but once you learn the right way to play it it's actually not all that bad. I'm not that good at video games but I can consistently beat the original Metroid. It just takes a bit of patience and perseverance.

The most important thing is that you can't play it like it's Super Metroid. The game is more like the original Castlevania in its design. You have to be deliberate and careful with your every move. Learning the subtleties of the jumping mechanics helps a lot. Also don't be shy about using missiles -- though they aren't easily replenished, if you build up a good supply, using them to take out some the more frustrating enemies in a single shot can make a world of difference. Aside from that, it helps to have a good sense of direction, of course (I generally don't have problems getting lost) but don't be afraid to make your own maps! Or consult gamefaqs, if you're lazy.

I've always felt that Metroid was a survival horror progenitory in a few ways. It shares some of the negatives (using awkward controls to artificially inflate tension) and the positives (there being a relatively fluid tradeoff between your health and consumable ammo). It's still one of my favorite Metroids for atmosphere and level design, though Metroid II trumps it in terms of both.
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[Capitan Smexy]

I first played the original Metroid when it was an extra with the linked Fusion/Prime and eventually gave up in disgust for the same reasons the opening post stated. It wasn't until I'd memorized Zero Mission's layout that I finally managed to appreciate (not like) the game. And am I the only one who found Ridley to be way weaker than Kraid?

As for Metroid II, it is definitively the more forgiving of the two games, and far more playable. Random question: Was anybody else weirded out by how...organic Metroid Fusion's rendition of SR388 turned out? The original version of the planet makes it seem like a monochrome Norfair, in a way that makes both versions impossible to reconcile, to me. In other words: how would you feel if they remade Metroid II using Fusion's rendition of the planet as its template?

[Toups]

[Shapermc]

[v84j3gs2uc7ns4]

[Shapermc]

JUSTIN BAILEY
------ ------

Apparently it means Just In Swimsuit (a European word for swimsuit on women is Bailey). I would like someone to verify that, but yeah, Samus in a swimsuit like suit is what you get with this code so it kind of makes sense.
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[extrabastardformula]

[v84j3gs2uc7ns4]

[v84j3gs2uc7ns4]

[professor_scissors]

One of my favorites ways to fight enemies in Metroid 1 is to freeze them with the ice beam and then drop 3 bombs on their head.

[Shapermc]

Like I said man, it sounded like hearsay to me, nothing solid.
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[L]

The Narpassword code is the only code that makes Samus completely invincible and also gives her infinite missiles.

The full code is:

[Marshmallow]

i thought everyone knew Justin Bailey was an accident... it's just one of the most well known accidents, I first found out about it years ago in an old nintendo magazine.

anyway, I notice no one has mentioned this yet:

http://metroid.homestead.com/Metroid2DX.html



Some people think the game loses some of it's dark edge with colour, and perhaps so, but I encourage people to judge for themselves.

[Shapermc]

I should mention that if you're going to emulate the game, use the link that Cycle just provided.
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The bad sleep well at The Gamer's Quarter

[inmatarian]

The trick to playing metroid is to feel claustrophilia. You want to be locked up in a tight room with nowhere to go and times running out. A better game for this would probably be Faxanadu, but we'll save that for a different thread.

Anyway, isn't there a rom hack where you can play as a naked samus? I'm sure that would help the biggest haters of the game absolutely love it.
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2993 badness blog email

[Marshmallow]

i played that, the sprite work is really terrible :(