This Week In Retro (belated): METROID (Patreon)

August 6, 1986: Peace in space sells...but who's buying?

by Diamond Feit

When I bought my own Nintendo Entertainment System, it was not a blind purchase. I had already seen the console in action at friends' houses, and I knew enough about Nintendo to have some idea of what kinds of software to expect. I was not a wide-eyed child wishing for Santa to bring me a surprise, I was a seasoned middle-schooler with almost a decade of video game experiences kicking around inside my brain. I could never have anticipated how much the NES would mean to me, but from the start I expected it to deliver an exciting assortment of adventures.

I never expected to play a game like Metroid, which made its first appearance in Japan 35 years ago this week.

If you're old enough, think back to that first crop of NES titles (those of you under 40 can watch a YouTube playlist). The early games Nintendo offered American consumers were cherry-picked from the Famicom library to present the system in the best possible light, with a heavy focus on ports of hit arcade games or arcade-like experiences. When I played these games, I went in fully prepared to control a hero with three tries to score lots of points or rescue a distressed damsel.

From second one, Metroid defies such conventions. The title screen opens in outer space on a decidedly alien world, bereft of life as electronic music drones in the background. Wait a few seconds, and a bright flash announces an "EMERGENCY ORDER" from the "GALAXY FEDERAL POLICE." The text says you must "defeat the METROID" and "destroy the MOTHER BRAIN." This is not a rescue mission, this is a directive to invade a planet and clean house. Even though the message is from the cops, they're not looking to "arrest" anyone: This is an assassination.

Any conversation about Metroid must immediately turn to the lead character, Samus Aran, who does not resemble other contemporary Nintendo protagonists. Mario and Luigi, Popo and Nana, even Link and Zelda all appear human. Samus Aran is a mystery, as she enters the game by materializing from nothingness. She has two arms and two legs, but a space helmet obscures her head and her agility exceeds any Earthling's capabilities. It would not be out of line for players to just assume she is either an android or an alien being.

Her gender is also a mystery to all players at first, with the reveal coming as a time-based "reward" for reaching the end of the game. Instruction manuals on both sides of the Pacific suggest Samus is male, but indicate her true identity is unknown. It's not much of a twist ending, but considering how few games even had substantial backstories for their characters, seeing Samus' long hair underneath her helmet took many kids by surprise.

Samus was not the first female video game hero, but she is unique in her independent origins. She isn't tied to or spun-off from any male counterpart. There is no option to select another bounty hunter for this mission, and nothing about Samus' default appearance reads as feminine. None of this should be unusual, frankly, and I think it's a shame that even as multiple generations have passed, Samus remains an outlier in the video game world even today.

Metroid might appear to be another platform action game at first, but again it defies player expectations. Prolific, eloquent writers have already observed that Metroid includes a deliberate road-block to instruct new players on the rules of the game. Should a player begin by running to the right, they will quickly encounter a low passageway that Samus cannot enter. Only if they go back all the way to the left of the starting point will they recover their first and most important power-up, one that enables Samus to roll into a ball (another inhuman trait).

A recent Japanese summary of the series on Nintendo's website describes Metroid as a "tansaku action game." I'd translate tansaku as "explore" or even "hunt," as the word differs from "search" (kensaku) as used in English when seeking information. Today we rely on the portmanteau "Metroidvania" for describing this genre, which definitely feels odd to use in the context of the original Metroid. I've seen the alternative "exploraction" suggested online and as much as I like it, I also like Metroid standing tall as an influencer on game terminology.

The magic of Metroid is not tied to it being innovative, as so many of its distinctive elements have notable predecessors. Yet Metroid brought them all together in such a way and at just the right moment in time to impact a generation of video game fans. It's a dark, challenging adventure that demonstrated the potential of game consoles more than any arcade-perfect port could have done. That it also gave us a memorable heroine and defined a genre in the process makes it a legendary-tier creation.

I know it's weird to use a 35-year-old trademarked name to describe how an unrelated game feels, but if any game has earned the right to become an adjective, it is Metroid. The original game has its share of shortcomings; most notably it lacks any sort of map which makes its identical-looking caverns downright labyrinthine. Zero Mission and Super Metroid tell better versions of Samus' origin, making them easier to recommend to modern audiences, but I cannot overstate the importance of the very first Metroid.

If I'm laying it on a bit thick here, it's because Metroid was one of those formative gaming experiences we've discussed on the podcast recently. It wasn't my first video game. It was never, and still isn't my "favorite" video game. It's a game I enjoyed a lot, so much so that I'm still looking for games that scratch that same itch three decades later. Don't ask me to rescue another princess. I don't want to collect eight pieces of magic macguffins. I want to explore the unknown and become the ultimate badass. I want to be Samus Aran, now and forever.

Diamond Feit lives in Osaka, Japan but is forever online, sharing idle thoughts on Twitter and playing games on Twitch.