Metroid was released in 1986 by Nintendo it follows intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran as she searches throughout the planet Zebes in a mission to hunt down the wanted space pirates Ridley, Kraid and Mother Brain

The concept of the gameplay is simple but most players find it very difficult once they take control over Samus, what made Metroid unique when it came out was the freedom to go where ever you want from the very beginning however there are a lot of areas to explore and many paths you can follow which is what makes the game so challenging also the lack of any in game map means that getting lost is likely to happen more often than you may expect.

Samus is first only equipped with her trusty arm cannon but by exploring the game players will find many different upgrades for her cannon and her suit, a good example which doesn’t give away to many hints is that if you go left from the very start of the game you can find an upgrade which allows Samus to morph into a ball and drop bombs, you can also find upgrades for Samus’s health bar and early on in the game you can find missiles which allow you to break into more securely locked areas, be wary that the game doesn’t allow you explore free from danger as many enemies will try and destroy Samus  and don’t be surprised if you are dead only 10 minutes into the game because it honestly really is that difficult.

Metroids visuals were outstanding for the time, the art designers managed to use a great blend of dark backgrounds and areas with bright and outstanding colors for the important parts of the game, the dark backgrounds make the game more scarier as it allows the atmosphere to feel empty but dangerous, it helps to keep the gamer on edge while they are dealing with the threats within the darkness, the labyrinth design of the world makes it clear that if anything was to happen too Samus she may never be found, in my opinion this is Nintendo’s first video game for adults compared to lighter hearted titles such as Mario and Kirby.

The soundtrack isn’t anything to get excited about, its not terrible but like many of these early Nintendo games it lacks in variety, there are few tracks that last longer than 20 seconds before looping which quickly becomes redundant but I will say that some of the quiet and shorter tracks help make the atmosphere feel more empty and far away from society and the Brinstar theme really packs a lot of energy into the game and makes the player feel like a real bad-ass also its one of my favorite video game tunes so I have to give some credit for that.

Upon it’s release Metroid quickly went on to become a classic Nintendo game which soon became a much beloved series for video game fans alike, its a product of the time and many younger gamer’s will definitely struggle to survive without using a cheat code but don’t let the difficulty put you off buying this on the virtual console as its well worth your time, there was a remake for the GBA called Metroid: Zero Mission which was much easier and a lot more story driven so it may be more worth your time to pick up that one instead either way Metroid is awesome enough to earn itself an impressive 8.8/10

I hope you enjoyed my review of Metroid for the Nintendo Entertainment System

By Padawan

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