Under the Influence: Metroid and Me Part 2

Going back to go forward.

“Under the Influence” explores aspects of a game or series that influenced my perspective on video games. Details regarding specific years that something took place may be a bit wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff. It is rather difficult to remember details I didn’t think I’d ever write about until today. So sit back, relax, and enjoy the journey.

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My introduction to Metroid was a staggered one. As I mentioned in the previous article, it began as more of a cursory glance. It was sometime in the early 90s, most likely around summer 1990. I was at the home of one of Big Brother’s friends. Descending the wooden stairs into the basement, I noticed a small group gathered around the TV watching someone playing the NES. Taking a curious peek at the screen, I saw what looked like an astronaut jumping up a vertical shaft of golden platforms and shooting insect-like creatures with his arm.

A few moments later, someone reset the game and entered a password. Now I’m seeing a green-haired lady jumping around instead of the astronaut dude. It was at that moment that I suddenly noticed a particular sound effect. Each time she jumped, I thought she was saying “oops!”, as if apologizing for reasons unknown to me.

I don’t know which of Big Brother’s friends was playing the game, but they got the poor girl ripped to shreds within a few short minutes of the game starting. I clearly remember thinking that the astronaut guy was stronger and better prepared for the task at hand. Of course, I’d later learn that the “guy” in the space suit and the green-haired lady were the same person. Her name was Samus Aran, and she was way cooler than I realized at the time.

Funny enough, I didn’t see the name of the game on the title screen, and no one said it out loud (that I recall anyway). As the years marched on, the occasion faded from memory. I thought it was just a figment of my imagination, a misremembered game with no name. And although I did play Metroid II on the Game Boy a year or so later, it was different enough that my mind didn’t make the connection just yet.

Core Memory Unlocked!

Let’s skip ahead to spring or summer 1995. I’m 10 years old at this point, and again at the home of some friends of the family. This time, it’s an elderly couple with grandkids who visit from time to time. After dinner, the couple invited me to play some video games in the basement while they and my parents discussed whatever adults talked about back then.

Any curiosity I had about such things dissipated once I reached the bottom of the stairs. Because what game system should I see but an original NES hooked up to the TV? Shuffling through the small stack of games next to it, I lo and behold find Metroid sitting in the pile.

By this point, I had already played through Metroid II and achieved the best ending. Seeing the pixelated artwork on the Metroid cartridge sparked my curiosity to see the game for myself. So in the game went into the NES! Once it started, I immediately recognized that this was the same game I thought I had forgotten for years.

My mind started connecting the dots regarding the identity of the two seemingly unrelated characters I saw so long ago. What I assumed was a male astronaut and a “less-capable” female counterpart turned out to be Samus Aran, whom I enjoyed getting to know on the Game Boy. As elated as I was to make the connection finally, I didn’t get very far in my initial run. I was unprepared for the hardships of navigating near-identical corridors and shafts in a hostile environment with only a fraction of her energy points.

A little later that same year, another friend of the family, knowing I liked Nintendo games, offered to get me an NES from the Goodwill superstore where he worked, since they were plentiful and dirt-cheap by then. About a week or so later, he came by our house with the NES. I remember the cartridge tray hinge wouldn’t stay in the locked position, so I always had to insert another cartridge to hold the other game in place. Metroid was one of the games he included with the NES. This time, I was determined to see it through to the end. There was no excuse not to at this point.

The Dunning-Kruger Effect in Full Effect

I initially assumed that the game would be a walk in the park. “After all”, I thought to myself, “if I was able to conquer Metroid II, then this first game should be no sweat!” Little did I realize just how different a beast Metroid was from the sequel. At first, things went fairly well. Samus fades into her starting point, and off I go as the triumphant music spurs me on to explore Brinstar’s rocky zone.

After several failed attempts (aka deaths), I felt like I was really starting to get the hang of it. Did I find the Morph Ball? Check. Missiles? Got it. Extra energy tanks (all two of them at this point)? Yuppers. Ice Beam? You betcha. Emboldened by my string of successes, I soon reached something Metroid II didn’t prepare me for—an elevator. Upon my descent into Kraid’s hideout, the triumphant music abruptly changed to something far more ominous and foreboding. A herald of the dread I would soon experience as soon as I stepped off the elevator.¹

Here, the enemies hit harder. The initial rooms were mostly identical, inducing confusion and curbing any sense of forward progress. The brief victory of finding the few missiles I managed to collect was quickly overshadowed, as Samus was soon overwhelmed by the deadly mix of Sidehoppers and those pipe-dwelling, endlessly respawning Geegas continually attacking her in narrow spaces.

By the time I bumbled my way into meeting Kraid for the first time, Samus was in no condition to fight. Yup, you guessed it. Kraid’s endless barrage of spikes and claws made minced meat of her on the first encounter. And the second. And the sixth. This recurring cycle well sums up the rest of my time spent trying to beat Metroid at this juncture in my life.

“Error Try Again”

As I’m sure most of you are aware, the concept of saving game data on the NES came down to two methods (if at all)—a battery-backed cartridge save or a password system. If the game used the battery method, then you were golden as long as the NES was powered down properly (hold the reset button, then press the power button). But if the game employed a password system, may God have mercy on your soul.

It wasn’t unusual for a game to require you to record multiple lines of alphanumeric characters to pick up where you left off. And if you accidentally wrote down the password wrong by just one character, you could kiss that afternoon’s worth of progress goodbye. No game taught me that lesson better than Metroid.

I remember dying after having collected multiple energy tanks and missiles. As I recorded the password, one character was hard to make out visually. At the time, I thought it was the female gender symbol (♀), and I did my best to jot it down as such.

Turns out it was actually a lowercase “g”, but I couldn’t tell at the time because I couldn’t compare it to the full set of characters shown when entering a password. Bye-bye, last hour and change spent collecting upgrades. I hardly knew thee. C’est la vie.

Now here’s the part where things get a little timey-whimey in my recollection. While I did beat the game, I don’t clearly recall doing so without help from either the Game Genie or a password I found on SegaSages (anybody remember that website?) to skip to the final area without having to battle Ridley or activate the Kraid and Ridley statues. I know this because I was completely unaware of the statue room until I played Super Metroid about a year after I had played through most of Metroid.

Bomb Voyage

Flash forward to fall/winter 2002. I had finally found stable employment that paid decently for a 17-year-old with no bills. A nostalgic hankering leads me to purchase an NES again, having traded my old one for a Sega Genesis many moons ago. Once again, Metroid is one of the first games in my collection. And once again, I’m determined to beat this game using nothing but my wits and will this time.

One evening, after getting hopelessly lost and exhausting the limits of tried-and-true platformer gameplay, I wondered to myself if there was anything I could draw from my experience with Metroid II. I thought back to the times I’d bomb a section of the floor in the Chozo rooms and would sometimes discover a hidden area.

I figured, “Well if it worked in the sequel, maybe it also works here.” Applying that nugget of prior knowledge led me to recognize the importance of bombing certain floor sections in Metroid, which, in turn, helped me find new paths where they had previously seemed dead ends.

I had now learned that this method of exploration is essential to reach crucial upgrades and to find Ridley hidden in the molten depths of Norfair. As the pieces of the puzzle were coming together in my mind, that’s when I began to appreciate the game’s design, esoteric as it may be. There was something truly satisfying about finding my way based on a hunch that turned out to be the very thing that cracked Norfair wide open for me.

After finding the Screw Attack and making my way through the surprisingly easy battle with Ridley, I was ready for the endgame. I headed to the final area, exterminated the eponymous Metroids, and defeated their would-be master (or is it mistress?), Mother Brain. I make the great escape. Samus waves goodbye. Staff credits roll. I put down the controller, with a slight grin, basking in the victory.

The Influence

Two lessons stick with me to this day. First, Metroid taught me not to assume that a game is easier than its sequel just because it’s older. More was required than just an understanding of the basic concepts from my experience with Metroid II. The manner in which those concepts were implemented in the original game was completely different.

Could Samus still jump, shoot, acquire upgrades, and save her progress? Sure. But there were unexpected caveats, such as not being able to shoot downward while jumping. She starts with nothing but a small fraction of health points, even when resuming from a password save. This, in turn, meant that each game session required refilling her energy, which takes longer the more reserves she collects throughout the course of the game.

And let’s not forget the possibility of repeatedly going back into areas with pesky enemies because you aren’t sure of the best way to move forward. It would inevitably lead to Samus being picked apart during repeated encounters, and I’d have to start over and remember which way to go (or not go) all over again. Like a stallion that needed to be broken to reach its full potential, my confidence in my “skills” was shattered and then rebuilt from the ground up.

Playing under those conditions while navigating unfamiliar territory felt equal parts humbling and informative. I was learning a lot about my perception of game design while playing a series in reverse chronological order.

As my initial overconfidence eventually settled, the second lesson became ever clearer. Metroid wasn’t in my house. Rather, I was a guest in its house. And it demanded that I take off my shoes and show some respect. Perhaps best of all, its esoteric nature did much to ensure that my time spent with Super Metroid would be one of the most impressive first-time experiences, which only further fueled my enthusiasm for video games as the preferred entertainment medium.

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1. All screenshots were taken by me. The video clip was captured on my Switch via Nintendo Switch Online.