2020 Reflection: Metroid

 

Metroid was released in August, 1986 and was first written by Makoto Kano. The series is a science-fiction action adventure video game series starring Samus Aran, galactic bounty hunter, who hunts various threats to the galaxy; most notably the space pirates, the DNA-replicating x parasite, the infective radioactive superorganism Phazon, and the energy-draining animalistic species known as Metroids. The series is well known for the twist at the end of the first game where it is revealed Samus Aran is actually female, which was a major oddity in 1986 particularly for this genre. While I would talk about how I really like having a cool female main character I have 3 bigger praises to give the series.

3 Reasons I love it:

1: Metroid games are, by and large, masterpieces of environmental storytelling. The series has a devotion to telling story not through dialogue or cutscenes but through gameplay and the environment. It's incredible how much Metroid can say just through things like enemy placement and design of the setting. In Metroid 2 for instance, Samus arrives on the world SR388 overrun by the Metroids. As she gets further into the level, more and more the world seems desolate reflecting the destruction of the local environement and Samus' genocide of the metroids, culminating before the final boss with a long empty section without any life whatsoever, where Samus is alone, and the player is given a moment to reflect. This beautifully contrasts the end of the game with Samus bringing the baby Metroid who has mistaken her for it's mother, where the two travel through a long empty corridor together, showing the importance and the peace of choosing a differnet path then genocide and giving the Metroids another chance. All of this was communicated via environment on a gameboy game from 1991 that initially didn't even have color. In Super Metroid, you learn how to use abilities that the Chozo modeled after Zebesian animals by watching how the Zebesian animals do it and then copying without tutorial. Stuff like that is all over the series. 

2: The series has a massive focus on continuity and an expansive wholistic world that one can be absorbed into. The Classic Metroid games were known, at least from what I can tell, for the ability to massively sequence break them to the point you could often fight bosses in the reverse order you were "intended" too. They weren't linear levels to tell a linear story, instead each Metroid game is a miniture world. This design philosophy is carried on through all the games, with the prime trilogy for instance introducing as a primary tool the ability to scan every object for information about it's lore and importance to the character. The games have a very clear continuity between games....save for that one game we don't talk about....and the series is full of imaginative science-fiction ideas that come together nonethless to form a very cohesive feeling world. The galaxy of Metroid is a complete environment where all the parts form a massive connected web. 

3: No other series I know better captures the feeling of "space". More somber and serious then Mass Effect, less bleak and nihilistic then the Cthulhu Mythos, Metroid is a series that carries with it in almost everything the feeling of space and it's duality. Since childhood I was interested in the concept of space, and Metroid is the best series to capture it's feel that I know. The massive empty spaces and sheer isolation is captured by Samus' isolation in each game, put into hostile worlds without backup. The creature and location design carry both the weightlessness yet immensity of floating worlds in the cosmos. And the feeling of exploration, of exploring that unknown is captured in it's immense interconnected feeling worlds. 

3 Flaws: 

I'm going to resist the urge to use Other M as one of the points here. 

1: If you're interested in dialogue or deep characterization, this may disappoint. Metroid is a series focused on storytelling through environment. There is very little dialogue outside of Fusion, Prime 3, and that one we don't speak off. 

2: Both ocassionally by purposeful design and more oftne by the virute of giving a world one can usually freely explore, the Metroid series became somewhat infamous for "backtracking". If you are unaware, backtracking in games is when one goes through something and is then required to go back through the entire space. Metroid games have a lot of backtracking, partially because to allow the level of exploration it does. If backtracking frustrates then you may find yourself frustated.

3: Metroid has some weird difficulty curves. It varies how much of a thing this is from game to game, but because of it's open-ended nature and the fact that it lets the player take on mid or sometimes late game content early on, the game can be radically hard or weirdly easy out of nowhere. Several of the Metroid final bossess are weirdly easy as well.

Favorite Part:

Not going to be getting any points for originality here, but my favorite part is the climax of Super Metroid with the sacrifice of the Baby Metroid. First time I ever cried at a game before. Mother Brain is obliterating Samus but the Baby Metroid stops the attack and shields Samus from it's blast, absorbing the energy before finally dying, allowing it's energy to strengten Samus to defeat Mother Brain.