Metroid

incredible for an NES title. despite the praise Zelda gets, the original Metroid deserves as much credit for ushering in the era of non-linear, puzzle based gameplay, if not more.

In games like this, Kid Icarus, and Zelda 2 Nintendo was getting into the latest trend in NES titles: the introduction of more RPG and adventure elements to action platformers. So, like many others, they started adding stat development, or special equipment or inventory items needed to accomplish certain tasks. Now of course Metroid has been elevated to emblematic status for that, but that's largely down to the fantastically well-achieved Super Metroid some years later.

In many respects it really hasn't aged well: The samey-looking and often monotonous tunnels and corridors, the agonizingly long time it takes to regain your health after dying. But it's such a key game in the development of the adventure genre and loaded with so many iconic ideas and iconography and visuals/music from the haunting title screen melody onward that I can't not appreciate it. And of course it's the dry run for my favorite game of all time, Super Metroid.

This game did not age well at all. The game is very difficult and lots of the rooms are identical. However what this game represents and what it has lead to it absolutely incredible.

I sucked too much to enjoy it.

Like a lot of NES games--and the way I rate them--I look at this more from a nostalgic point of view that takes into consideration what they were at the time. Metroid was awesome at the time. It's still a great game but it was surpassed by Super Metroid. But it's hugely important, still well designed, great music. It's Metroid so it's amazing.

Another example of a game that kicked off a series with titles far better than its original. Now, when the SNES Super Metroid came out, THAT was amazing, but it really shines a light on all the things that made this game much less so. Shorter, simpler, clunkier. That's this game.

Trash. Played this when I was a kid. Never liked this game. You beat this fast enough, which is hard to do in this, you'll discover your character is a woman. Yeah I know it was a huge deal at the time because the thought was girls don't play any video games which simply isn't true because most girls I knew when I was small were playing Nes and Genesis.

Want to be the fly on the wall in every room where a circa 1986 NEEERD starts waxing poetic about how wrong it is that Samus is a STUPID GIRL.

I mostly enjoyed the high difficulty, but the need to grind back HP after death was hugely irritating. I used save states before the final boss because I absolutely refused to go back to grinding. The enemies became very manageable once I unlocked the screw attack, but I could only find its location with a guide. The copy/pasted rooms, graphical glitches and heavy slowdowns were also quite irritating. But despite those drawbacks, this was still an enjoyable first playthrough in 2021.