Quick Read: I Prefer NES Metroid To Zero Mission
[Midweek Read] One of my retro gaming hot-takes.
As of writing, there is an ongoing poll beneath my Symphony Of The Night review where you can vote for February’s retro review. Metroid on the NES looks set to lose this poll by a landslide but Substack, YouTube and the wider gaming media do nothing but slander this underappreciated classic so I wanted to write an article anyway, only condensed down to my main points.
Jim Mander this one’s for you, sorry you were demolished in the polls, we’ll call it a Rishi Sunak moment.
The Case Against Metroid
Let me establish 2 things before we start, first: I really like Metroid Zero Mission, this game’s remake. This isn’t a hit piece on Zero Mission, it’s absolutely one of the best remakes ever created and it’s a perfect entry point for Metroid novices should you have the Switch Online Expansion Pass or an old Gameboy Advance lying around.
Secondly: I’m not calling Metroid NES flawless nor am I even defending it really, my message here is that Zero Mission is a reinterpretation of this adventure, not an improvement and that I prefer the original vision of this game.
So, what is wrong with Metroid on the NES?
Clunky And Unfair
Metroid on the NES has slippery controls and clunky gameplay with Samus unable to shoot enemies along the ground or diagonally in a game where creepy crawlies, hopping beasts and oversized bats make up the majority of the hostiles roster. When you die, you are sent back to the beginning of the area and forced to farm for ages to regain multiple life bars. The final boss: Mother Brain is infuriating.
A Cryptic Maze
Aside from a map of the first couple of rooms included in the manual and a vague outlining of your primary objectives Metroid is a directionless experience with no navigational aids. Vital upgrades are hidden behind breakable walls that look like any other and disguised passages; 9/10 rooms look identical and lack any landmarks for the player to commit to memory.
Technically Compromised
Metroid feels especially rough, even by the standards of early NES games. The framerate is poor, sprites flicker and the game contains a lot of bugs even when compared to its kin; I seem to remember Samus flashing when hit and this causing a lot of issues too.
My History With Metroid
One of the main reasons I got into retro gaming in the first place was to play more Metroid; I owned Prime on my Gamecube as a kid and it made such an impression that I regretted never being able to finish it, I wanted to change that. This flourished into a full-blown Metroid binge and spurred me on to purchase virtually every console in existence.
In early 2023, I grabbed myself a copy of Metroid for a newly acquired NES and simultaneously purchased Zero Mission off the (soon to be closed) Wii-U E-Shop, I expected to give NEStroid a try, find it too dated to enjoy like everyone else and then to put it down in favour of its remake… but that’s not what happened. I was sucked into the game: entranced and for a whole hour I remember being spellbound in front of my CRT, completely ignoring my phone, neglecting to get a beverage or something to nibble on and being completely immersed in the game.
The phone I intended to use for a guide was put aside, I got out a sheet of paper and a pen from my drawer and over the next 7 hours I painstakingly took notes, scribbled out my own rough map of Zebes (which is unfortunately lost to time) and played until at 4am, bleary eyed, 2 energy drinks deep and with an empty bowl of snacks beside me I had beaten Metroid on the NES, no guide, no map, just me and the resources a kid would have had in the 80’s. I loved it so much I did it all in a single sitting.
I came away from the experience feeling that I’d just played one of the greatest games ever made and had experienced intimately a fantastic but inaccessible masterpiece.
I remember everything I felt playing Metroid, so many little moments of triumph and of pain but I remember nothing about Zero Mission which I picked up straight after, save for getting pissed off at the horrible stealth section. Zero mission is a slightly longer game even.
Why I Prefer NES Metroid
Like I said, I played both versions of the original Metroid adventure back to back and I like both of them… but the original just edges out the remake for me, here are my reasons why.
Unparalleled Atmosphere
The atmosphere of Zero Mission is derivative and it doesn’t attempt to pay homage to the feel of the original game or to enhance the emotions you feel playing the NES classic, instead it lifts Metroid Prime’s art-style and tone from the Gamecube and grafts it over the original game’s plot and structure.
Please give the first 40 seconds of this opening a watch and pay attention to the tone of this intro and how it makes you feel. This introduction amps me up, it’s intense, it’s stylish, Samus looks cool and the mellow theme song invites you to Press Start and have a fun adventure.
Now let’s see the original.
NEStroid is dark and foreboding, we see nothing but the cold, vast blackness of space and a barren would, accompanied with that threatening, alarm-like beat and the orders from a faceless, nameless Federation officer, you feel well and truly alone, dropped into the belly of the beast. The tension is only broken if you linger for too long: a more uplifting bit of music, as if they were reassuring 80’s kids that they had what it takes.
It doesn’t stop there, NES Metroid came out in a time before complex 2D backgrounds and parallax scrolling, so Zebes is pitch black and eerie, while Zero Mission is colourful and intriguing.
There is a moment I’ll never forget when I played NES Metroid: arriving at Kraid’s Lair, about 5 hours into my 7 hour marathon. I was tired, my reflexes fatigued from hours of map-drawing and difficult gameplay, when I went down that lift into the Lair the music, visuals and low-fi NES charm all came together to make me feel profoundly uneasy. It was magic.
Zero Mission looks nicer, plays better and has great remixes… but it just doesn’t hit the same.
True Freedom
Since the original Metroid on NES, every 2D Metroid since with the exception of Super has been more linear than the one that came before it. Now, linearity isn’t an inherently bad quality, in fact, I’m actually a bit sick of it being treated like a filthy word by Metroidvania fans but the more linear structure and hand-holding of Zero Mission absolutely damage the game. It takes the waypoints from Fusion: my least favourite 2D Metroid and places them into a game world that is already not at all confusing once the player is equipped with a map.
Save for the Morph Ball, Morph Ball Bombs, your first missile tank and one or two late-game upgrades that require the Hi-Jump Boots, Metroid’s upgrade progression is entirely non-linear and so are 2 of its 3 bosses, with Kraid and Ridley able to be beaten in whichever order you choose. This endless freedom will lead many to wander around aimlessly but for those who love uncovering secrets and replaying games, the sheer number of hidden upgrades, obscured pathways and a set of different endings that require speed-running will keep you coming back to Metroid and learning its layout.
Simple, Effective Ingredients
Online, all I ever hear is that Metroid on the NES was ‘raw’ and ‘a good foundation’ but an absolute nightmare to play, needing to be rebuilt in the superior SNES entry: Super Metroid. But let me ask you this: take away Super’s map, diagonal aiming and inventory and is it really any different? The controls are still slippery, the way forward is still obscured and your primary objectives are still the same: hunting down the real life versions of those statues you see near the beginning.
I am of course being reductive here, Super Metroid has many other things that make it the better game but my point is this: Super didn’t succeed in spite of NEStroid but because of it. It doesn’t fundamentally reinvent anything the original had, it just makes the barrier for entry lower.
Furthermore, looking at the wider context of NES games from the era, I find it funny that Metroid has this horrible reputation when say, Zelda does not. Zelda is even more cryptic than Metroid, is horribly translated and also features many areas that look almost identical… but that gets a pass? Because it’s a critical darling and nobody else you know says anything bad about it?
Metroid can be beaten in less than an hour if you’re good and know what you’re doing, it’s easy to pick up and play and the objectives are simple, I enjoy that.
Setting The Mood
Most people don’t put the effort in to give this excellent game the chance it deserves, they’d rather open Switch Online, get neck ache from squinting at a phone guide, die over and over from barely paying attention to the main screen and then write off NEStroid as a dated piece of junk. This is not the way.
Obviously, an NES game from the mid-1980’s isn’t going to be for everyone but if you’ve bounced off Metroid in the past and want to give it another shot, or if you’ve been looking to try it and have been put off, here is my advice.
Read The Manual, Draw The Map
The expectation by developers in the 1980’s and for much of the 90’s was that you’d read the manual before ever booting up the game and keep it on hand to refer back to, you should do this for Metroid too. It’s widely available online as a PDF, print it out for extra lo-fi goodness and paper ruffling.
Once you’ve made it past the initial few corridors, you should start drawing your map, preferably with colour coding and a few little map markers for things you should remember; I would market breakable walls with a zig-zag and red missile doors with an X when I was drawing mine.
Watch Closely
If you are observant, patient and pay close attention to your surroundings then almost every hidden passage and breakable wall in the game is revealed by enemies and unusual patterns in the terrain. If you see anything fly through a wall, crawl through a ceiling or hovering above a death pit then the chances are these are illusions.
Keep Ice-Cool, Learn
Metroid is not an easy game, you may die often, you may have to keep farming to regain your health but as with any difficult game, these moments of defeat are an opportunity to refresh.
You need to be hanging back and watching enemy patterns closely, if you die and have to farm you need to question whether it’s worth dying again to a difficult encounter when you could use missiles to improve your chances, take a look at the corridors on your way back to where you died, could there be some extra help hidden nearby? The more frustrated you get at a hard game, the worse you perform. Anger can help you make risky and rewarding moves, anxiety at losing progress can make you more observant, frustration just makes you whiny and not receptive to improvement.
If you’re really in pain then look up where the Ice-Beam is, it really helps and so does the Long Beam, Metroid’s default shot-type is awful.
Thank you very much for reading to the end, I hope you enjoyed today’s post, as always I’ll be happy to chat in the comments below and please like and subscribe to the Journal for more.
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I agree, NES Metroid can be hard and demands dedication from players, but I can't deny it has this indelible charm that synthesizes everything I love on the platform. I finished it when I was a teenager and it was a very satisfying experience.
Nowadays, when I revisit the original, I go straight to the Metroid mOTHER hack. Nothing against playing the NES version again, but having a save system and a map helps a ton in terms of accessibility.
Couldn't agree more. Metroid: Zero Mission, while very polished, doesn't compare to the original's mood and atmosphere. I played Zero Mission once and promptly forgot about it.