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GoNintendo 'End of Day' thought - Happy 29th anniversary, Metroid

by rawmeatcowboy
06 August 2015
GN Version 5.0

I just watched the Wet Hot American Summer Netflix series. I saw the movie and didn't really dig it. Gave the series a try and...didn't really dig it either. I guess it just clicks for some people. Not my cup of tea, but I hope those of you that watched it found a lot to enjoy. Now I'm open to suggestions on other series'! See you in a few, short hours.

The original Metroid was way too much for me to handle when I was a little kid. I remember popping the game in my NES and being completely bewildered. I didn't know where to go...I didn't know what to do. It was so confusing to me and I ended up shelving the game. Don't blame me...I was young and stupid! It wasn't until many years later that I realized what I had missed out on, and how amazing the original experience was.

It was Metroid II that really helped me to understand what Metroid was. I was a tiny bit older, but definitely feeling more confident in gaming and different game types. I figured I would give the game a shot and I fell in love. I now understood what Nintendo was trying to do, and I was able to see the refinements that they made in the design. Metroid II might not be the finest entry in the series, but it was a truly important one to me.

After finishing Metroid II, I rushed back to the original game and gave it another shot. Now everything made sense and I knew what I was supposed to do. The whole point of the game was NOT knowing what to do. You set out to explore, discover weird things and find out how they helped you in achieving your ultimate goal. It was so refreshing and new for the time. It wasn't a design type that you really saw from anything else. That's why to this day, people credit Metroid for creating a genre...a genre that thrives right now.

Many more Metroid games would come and go, with multiple entries winning game of the year status. Developers still point to Super Metroid and Metroid Prime as inspiration for their projects that they create today. The Metroid franchise is a supremely important one to all of gaming and game design. I can't believe that all of it started 29 years ago on this very day. While we wait for Federation Force and cross our fingers for the next main installment, I guess I'll just have to live with replaying some of the most amazing game experiences ever created. It doesn't sound that bad when I put it that way!