I'll preface this by admitting my initial exposure to
Metroid was a copy of
Metroid Prime: Hunters that my (at the time) boyfriend left in my coat pocket about 5 years ago. (Thanks Adam!) That being said, whilst I'm aware that's a weird place to start, I should mention that whilst I haven't been exposed to much of the series, it is one I do find enjoyable... though I'm not very good at it.
That said, playing the original
Metroid for the first time on the NES Classic Edition I was hella lucky to get in early 2017 was a weird experience. I think part of that boils down to, in my opinion, the best-designed element of the entire game being the first two minutes. I mean, let's consider what you learn in the first section of the game:
- You can move either left or right at any time using the D-Pad.
- You are capable of attacking opponents with a short-range, low-powered projectile.
- Upon making contact with an enemy, you will be damaged, and will briefly become invincible.
- Opponents will typically take more than one hit to kill, thus requiring a degree of patience and strategy.
- You can jump by pressing the other action button. The height and range of your jump can be controlled.
- You can crouch, but under typical circumstances, you cannot crawl.
- The game will not always require you to move to the right, and will reward you for exploring non-linearly.
- There are multiple types of distinct enemy, each with their own movement patterns.
- Blue doors can be opened with a single shot, and passing through open doors instigates a transition.
- On the other side of a door will typically be a new location of some form, allowing you to continue your progress.
Fantastic. In possibly less than 60 seconds, the basic concepts of the game are elegantly and simplistically explored to the player in a non-intrusive way that rewards them for following the breadcrumb trail they leave.
And then immediately after, the breadcrumb trail is eaten by all of the aliens on Planet Zebes as you begin to realise two things - firstly, a lot of rooms look the same due to limited memory and tilesets - and secondly, you do not have an in-game map of any sort, nor any idea where exactly to go from here. You end up in one of several identical-looking shafts with no indication of what you're even really looking for.
For that, you'll need the manual.
See, from this point forward, your experience with the game is pretty much solely dependant on what external resources beyond the game itself (and its applicable equipment) you have access to.
Metroid is in this interesting place in history wherein video games had developed enough that manuals weren't effectively required due to how abstract the graphics could be at times (looking at you,
SwordQuest!), but hadn't yet developed enough to give a player all of the tools they could possibly need
within the game itself. What's annoying about the original
Metroid specifically is that it kind of already shows, at the start of the game, that it's capable of leaving a trail for you to follow - but following that point, you're kind of just booted into a world with literally no direction or objectives.
There's not many games where I can say that your experience of it effectively has required reading, but
Metroid is one of them. Bear in mind, that's not even getting into the fact that some of the game's items are hidden in such infuriatingly obscure places that you would never find unless you had a guide. I think the thing that annoys me about
Metroid more than anything is that there are genuinely sometimes glimmers of interesting and elegant design which then get completely ignored because you have to spend another solid hour traversing up an identical shaft and getting lost. It's a little like when you're training a dog to sit, and it gets so infuriatingly close to doing exactly what you need it to do, and then it runs off and starts defacating on your sofa. Sure, it's
progress, but it sure feels like a waste of time.
That said, I wouldn't say
Metroid is a "bad game". I'll admit I'm a little biased in that the genre it's in isn't exactly my cup of tea to begin with. It's just... a product of its time. Being the "first" in any given thing is going to mean it's not exactly the "best" - the first car wasn't a Toyota Prius, the first song wasn't
Bohemian Rhapsody, the first
Metroid game wasn't
Super Metroid or
Metroid Prime.
Weirdly, it's kind of fitting that the series' namesake creatures are somewhat defined by evolution, too.
Metroid: Zero Mission is therefore exactly the kind of remake I think should be more of.
Metroid is, by its very nature, a flawed game... but not a bad game - so getting modern touchups (or at least as modern as 2004 might be - 19 years old, huh?) is, on paper, a pretty decent way to solve it. And by god, it worked.
The simple act of including a map alongside other minor quality-of-life improvements (like more unique zones and such!) makes the elements of good design within the original game shine. Sure, by 2004,
Metroid: Zero Mission was a small
Metroid game... but it effectively added everything it needed to make what it really was perfect - and more. Additional items, minibosses, areas, story, arguably a new mode, and even an emulated copy of the original game were all things it arguably didn't "need" to add, but benefits a lot from - giving
Zero Mission a different enough feel from its predecessor despite still being a faithful remake of it. It says a lot that the game was pretty well-recieved for its time, and even now is lauded as a fun and engaging experience despite the remake-addled hellhole of 2023's media landscape.
I think that whilst it's important to recognise the importance of the first
Metroid game and its remake, it's also important not to overestimate it. In many ways, it was ahead of its time - but maybe jumped the gun in a few respects, which future games in the series would adapt in their own unique way - arguably creating two of gaming's masterpieces in the process. The existence of
Zero Mission as a more polished interpretation of the original game's vision is, in my opinion, on a similar level of importance to the original game - because it lets us put into perspective how far not just the series, or the genre, but the gaming world as a whole, has come.
Da Vinci's first painting wasn't the Mona Lisa, but every work he did along the way made it happen.
