Metroid

I decided to create a list. This list is my list of Metroid games. I wanted to rate all the Metroid games for myself and give others an insight into why I chose what I chose. Alright, here we go.

1. Metroid Prime. Everyone always picks Super as number one. I do not deny it is a good game; however I cannot place it as number 1. Putting it in that position seems to stem from a nostalgia point of view. For nearly 10 years fans of the series had only Metroids 1 2 and super available to them so obviously Super would be considered the best. But now I feel Metroid Prime should be considered top. The game is solid. It keeps the classic feel of “here’s the world. Figure it out” that the original games had, but it still included the hint system Super lacks. There were times in Super that just felt hopeless when you weren’t sure what to do. In Prime, you do this for long enough, the game chimes in with “ok, we’re not gonna tell you what to do when you get there, but go here.” Prime also gives a good classic fight with Samus’s nemesis: Ridley. Overall, I fell this game hits the most good points under the Metroid flag.

2. Super Metroid. It still needs to go near the top. Many common elements that are now complete staples in the Metroid series: Charge beam, grapple beam, beam stacking, etc. all came from this game. It sent gamers back to the original world to see how it had changed and to see what else there was that had never been revealed. There is so much good in this game, but it didn’t feel quite as solid to me. Certain items were hardly used. The SNES controller was completely wasted. So many buttons to choose from and we still had to cycle through items with select? Come on! I also felt the reserve tanks were a waste and should have just been replaced with more ordinary tanks. But still, a great game and one of the best in the series.

3. Metroid Fusion. There may be bias in my heart for this one’s position as it was my first game. But that is where it’s true beauty lies. It is the perfect first game in this series. When I talk to people who haven’t played a Metroid game but are interested in the series, I always tell them to pick up this one. Yes, there isn’t a lot of self done exploring. But by having Adam guide you through the game, you can learn the exploration techniques necessary to better yourself in games like Super and Zero Mission. Also, this game gives insight into the true nature of Metroids themselves and almost makes you feel bad about what you’re doing when you get to Metroid 2. But this title is incredibly linear. You have little freedom to do as you wish throughout the game. The controls also seem extremely clunky if you play and get used to Zero Mission.

4. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. This title shows how to bring Metroid to a wider audience. The voice acting, the communication with others, the betrayal of the hunters; it all gives a show much more like modern gaming. Another thing that shines is the way it took the repetitiveness of Prime 2, tweaked, and made it seem very not repetitive. The energy cells were also an amazing way of taking the whole “items needed for final boss” artifacts/temple key thing and making it seem not like that. The Valhalla was revealed early on in the game and by the time you absolutely had to travel there, you had already gotten most of the cells by chance. There were maybe 2-3 you might have missed along the way. I was genuinely surprised to find that these were the artifacts of this game.

5. Metroid Zero Mission. This was a good review of the original game for those of us like myself who kinda missed the boat of the original 3 (either cuz we hadn’t been born yet, or had just never heard of it). It also gave new insight to the planet Zebes and the Chozo presence there. However, it was short. 2 hours was your goal for the best playtimes, so without even being a speed runner you could beat it in less than 2. I played through it a lot, and it is really a very easy game. Looking back, even my first time was only 5 hours to get through it. Quite a waste.

6. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. Really fun the first time, but its replay drops like a rock. It feels like Prime 1, but it’s just the same thing over and over. Go the temple, get the 3 keys, go to the dark temple to recover the energy, oh look a boss, repeat 2, then get 9 keys for the 4th go around. Just really repetitive after a while. And if you missed a key when you were originally “supposed” to find it, it was so much backtracking to go back and find that stupid thing. All in all, a game that had potential, but fell short.

7. Metroid 2. Probably what bothers me most on this game was simply due to the lack of power on the original gameboy. Plus, my least favorite feature of Samus’s suit, her giant shoulder things, was introduced in this game, ruining an otherwise excellent suit for all time. Metroid 2 avoids being lower than this on the list because it gives insight into what makes a Metroid and how diverse they can be.

8. Metroid Prime: Hunters. Oh what a disappointment. This game along with Prime 2’s multiplayer spawned what I call the “Adventure vs. Multi Shooter Theory” (Halo also confirms this). The theory states that a first person game can have a well made single player adventure, or a well made multiplayer system, but rarely does it have both. Prime 2 got the adventure and Hunters is the multi. Everything about the adventure seems to say “get this over with so you can play with your friends.” And that’s what happened. Heck, my friends playing this is why I purchased a DS. Although they soon grew tired of it after I finally could join in…. oh well, no matter. That’s life.

9. Metroid. Finally we have the original. Being the original, you’d think it’d be higher on this list. This is not true. Why? Because I never want to touch this game again. Even Hunters I’ll play with friends. But Metroid 1 was so annoying, so difficult, and so frustrating that beating the Mother Brain didn’t make me happy because I won, I was happy because I didn’t have to play anymore. And that pretty much sums it up.

And thus ends my Metroid list. The only gaming series that has a history older than myself which I have completely decimated. And I’m darn proud of that!