Metroid is my favorite franchise, and prime used to be my favorite game of all time (recently overthrown by paper mario TTYD), and seeing people giving it more attention is nothing short of amazing considering how neglected it has been for years. And also, great video as always. Looking forward to the next retrospective
A review I didn't expect, but just the one I needed. Just recently played Super Metroid and hyped for the new Metroid Dread. Nice to see a review for the game that started it all
One thing that you - and well, most people, really - never seem to realize is that most of these "totally random" hidden paths, are, in fact, sign-posted. They just do it in a really weird way. Think about the ceiling under the Varia Suit room, or that bombable floor in Norfair that everyone complains about, or 3/4 of the walls that you can roll though to find Missiles or Energy Tanks. What they all have in common is that the tiles they are made out of are unbroken - that is, they are the SAME block graphic in an unbroken line, whereas the other "lines" in the room are "broken up" by a second block visual. If you see a straight vertical or horizontal line of the same block tile, it's guaranteed to either be destructible or an invisible passage. The next time you roll through a wall in Norfair, notice that the invisible path you're on is NOTHING but Tiny Bubble Blocks, while the rest of the wall is dotted with the Big Bubble Blocks - none of those "lanes" are accessible, but your "tiny bubbles only" lane IS. As for the bombable floor in Norfair, the spot you need to hit is out of sequence and "breaks" the bubble patterns in the floor. This is supposed to be your clue that "this spot doesn't look right, I should shoot/bomb it". Is it obscure? Yeah. But we've been SO INGRAINED by modern gaming that this is "bad design" that no one bothers looking for subtle environmental clues like unbroken lines of block types or a pattern that repeats endlessly EXCEPT where the secret is hidden.
I actually went back and checked out of curiosity. The only "obvious" (and I'm using that term VERY loosly in this case) place where this happens, at least for the places I checked, is between the upper and lower parts of Norfair and this is the only place where this signposting is visible. There's actually two more instances of it. One next to the Screw Attack and one in the shaft next to the Ice Beam in Norfair, but since you approach from below it just looks like a normal pattern. Also, in the path to the Varia suit for example, there are like 3 lines of unbroken blocks leading up to the hidden room above so that also looks like a normal pattern and the two bombable walls with passages in them that I saw also had the same pattern further up the wall. Taking into consideration how random everything else looks, the lack of big bubbles or otherwise missing tiles in a small chunk of the wall doesn't seem very out of place. You're completely right about the connection to lower Norfair and honestly I never conciously noticed that break in the pattern, but something did tell me to go bomb that spot so I guess it kinda works? Problem is though that, like I mentioned, the game doesn't do a lot to incite the mindset that's required to look for this stuff organically so even if it is obscurely signposted it's still bad design. Oh and uh, hey, thanks for watching :)
@@FromHerotoZeroYT Admittedly it's all obscure as hell but once you have an idea of how the designers tried to hide things/what their thought process was it can give you a leg up and save from carpet bombing the whole map. edits! re: the Varia Suit - this is true but the other two lines are almost directly above the doors to the room, making the middle one - the location of the real secret - stand out to a tiny degree. It's still one of the most obscure hidden things in the game, but it also hides what is arguably the strongest power-up, so.... re: the bubble walls You can actually bomb jump up to the higher spot and that will ALSO be a passage through the wall. There's no reason to do this normally but the devs themselves use this built-in "higher path" in areas like the Gumdrop Platform rooms with the large squares of destructible blocks, where you end up near the top of the room but still need to find the hidden path in the wall.
That's true. Since it's a game from a different era I guess they relied somewhat on word of mouth and the discussions that would take place between the people who played the game back in the day. That or guides lol. You are correct of course, there are patterns in the walls, ceilings and floors at places where you can bomb or shoot through, most notably in Norfair, but I don't subscribe to the idea that these were supposed to signpost anything given how extremely hard they are to spot. Like you said, it's obscure as hell but as I mentioned in the video I don't think I'd be as critical of it if they weren't hiding power-ups that makes the game much more enjoyable! Still though, it's kinda amazing how good the game is even despite these nuisances
@@FromHerotoZeroYT I also have the benefit of having played the game EXTENSIVELY in grade school. My dad and I would play for hours, passing the controller, making maps on graph paper; after enough time you just sort of get a feel for "there's definitely a secret wall here somewhere". My dad even went out and bought an off-brand controller (it was the 80's equivalent to a Mad Catz garbage knock-off) solely because it had a turbo button and we thought it would help us bomb jump better. It didn't, but in hindsight the whole idea was pretty amusing.
Yeah, that's 100% the "Metroid mindset" I was referring to! That sounds awsome. Makes me wish my parents were more involved in my gaming habits when I was younger haha. Thanks for sharing!
Metroid 1 always seemed dated to me, and I haven't played in a long while since I always go back to zero mission, and before that I go back more often to other games. But what stood out to me of this, very solid video btw, was the point about making your own map. I now kinda want to replay it to try it out, since it's simple map design could lend it better to map making compared to future games.
Yeah, if you don't know the level layout by heart, definitely try out drawing a map alongside playing it. It helped tremendously with that feeling of hopelessness you get when you're lost and it's also fun to look back at what you made at the end and compare it to the actual map to see how much you got right and what you missed
i learned a lot watching this! not the least of which being that it's worth finally beating the game after starting it 20-some years ago and never quite making it to the end
Really good video dude. When I was young my cousin and I played through this over a month, and we actually drew out a map as we played after getting lost a bunch. Probably one of the reasons I enjoy the series so much now, and also gave me some really good memories of this. We did the same thing for Zelda and Zelda 2.
That sounds awesome! Probably gonna draw a map myself next time I play Zelda 1, especially for the overworld. Why have I never thought to do that before??
@@FromHerotoZeroYT cause it’s honestly so much more time consuming than doing one for Metroid lol but I’d recommend it for anyone that wants to truly run Zelda blind.
Don't you guys have manuals?? The original TLOZ for the NES had a map in the manual.. Kids these days. jk, but seriously, it'd be fair game if you just look it up yourselves.
Metroid was one of the first games my parents got me on the NES, the other being the Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt combo pack. I can say with certainty that I have a thorough understanding of the layout of the game to the point of being able to imagine any point on the map (say the screw attack room) and mentally visualize playing to any other point on the map room by room. I never drew a map for the original Metroid. It’s layout for whatever reason always made intuitive sense to me. The original Phantasy Star on the Sega Master System, however, that I most definitely had to draw maps for due to the multi-floor psuedo 3D corridors. The trap doors leading to lower levels were the bane of my existence back then.
Yeah, the game is simple and small enough so that you can learn most of it by heart with minimal repetition. It still has a lot of similar rooms, but I guess when you've played through it enough times it starts to make sense despite that?
I highly recommend using the wave beam for most of the game, then grabbing the ice beam before heading into Tourian, it's double damage and wider projectile and wavyness make it quite useful in the harder areas of the game, such as ridley's lair
I see your point, though personally I'd rather stick with the Ice Beam for it's utility unless you know the game well enough to remember to do all the sections you want which requires the Ice Beam before picking up the Wave Beam
@@FromHerotoZeroYT If only they'd implemented the stacking of wave + ice beam... if you input the code "JUSTIN BAILEY ------" (that's with only 6 dashes as opposed to the usual 12), you'll start with an ice beam that displays the sprite of the wave beam, unfortunately it has no wavebeam behavior, it's just a different skin for the ice beam
The easiest way to beat Kraid (provided you have a lot of health) is to morph into a ball, charge at him and spam bombs until he dies. With Ridley, I normally just spam rockets and the Wave Beam while standing in front of him. Another tactic is to jump in the lava (with the Varia Suit), go under Ridley and continuously jump and shoot up at him with the Wave Beam.
I don't think you have any choice but to have a lot of health when you're fighting these guys for the first time lol But these are good tips and actually gives the Wave Beam a specific use which I didn't think was possible haha
I do say that you bring up some good points on how the developers could have made the mandatory secrets not so elusive, but I think that it's really a decision they made in attempt to try and balance something being to little secretive and being to much secretive with the limitations of the hardware, and they happed to just fall on the latter. In a way the phrase 'A product of it's time' is the best descriptor for this because unlike something like Super Mario Bros which is straight forward in it's design, Metroid is something very overly complex in it's design for something like the NES. The amount of workarounds and roundabout ways to code the maps room placement, and the things inside them it's self is a great ingenuity talking into consideration how the NES handles those things (there's a reason why most games on that console are just horizontal scrolling screens, or just a single screen). As such I think that's why in some places in the game there are those rooms that have strange ways to access, and why some rooms are copies of each other (Probably Duplicating to save memory) all work arounds to make the game very much playable, and to make it possible to have the content desired implemented. So even though those things are technically short comings to the game's experience, I'm glad they're there because that made it possible for developers to release a game that was still enjoyable to play, and which spawned a franchise that would come to be beloved for many. I don't know why they would add that area that has no powerups and bunch of tough enemies though, that's just being mean.
Well, they had to start somewhere, right? Thank god this game sold like crazy though because if it didn't we probably wouldn't have gotten the amazing later instalments!
I really enjoyed this video as ive always had the same feeling you described in the beginning since i played the game in a browser emulator for the first time as a kid Always felt the same way about zelda 1 as well
I used the wave beam. I got the ice beam, then wave beam to cheese Ridley, then got the 2nd ice beam. Plus the wave beam is required for 100% playthroughs. And I 100% it most of the time.
The original _Metroid_ is a wonderfully flawed mess. Good in its own right, but also riddled with jank and questionable decisions. Here's something that I found out about fairly recently that makes me see the game in a new light: With the sole exception of item rooms, a vertical shaft is *always* connected to a horizontal shaft, and vice versa. This means that every time you seen one of those short corridors that's connected from a longer one? It's actually a vertical room. Start bombing, and you'll find either an item or a shortcut.
Huh, that's a pretty good find actually. Seems like there's a bunch of subtleties that doesn't mean much on their own, but when combined gives big hints. Too bad it's too dependent on the player noticing all of them to even have a chance at discovering certain secrets though
Metroid is my favorite franchise, and prime used to be my favorite game of all time (recently overthrown by paper mario TTYD), and seeing people giving it more attention is nothing short of amazing considering how neglected it has been for years. And also, great video as always. Looking forward to the next retrospective
Thank you! I'm also glad to see the recent outcry of love towards the Metroid franchise :)
A review I didn't expect, but just the one I needed.
Just recently played Super Metroid and hyped for the new Metroid Dread. Nice to see a review for the game that started it all
I aim to surprise lol
Glad you liked it!
One thing that you - and well, most people, really - never seem to realize is that most of these "totally random" hidden paths, are, in fact, sign-posted.
They just do it in a really weird way.
Think about the ceiling under the Varia Suit room, or that bombable floor in Norfair that everyone complains about, or 3/4 of the walls that you can roll though to find Missiles or Energy Tanks.
What they all have in common is that the tiles they are made out of are unbroken - that is, they are the SAME block graphic in an unbroken line, whereas the other "lines" in the room are "broken up" by a second block visual. If you see a straight vertical or horizontal line of the same block tile, it's guaranteed to either be destructible or an invisible passage. The next time you roll through a wall in Norfair, notice that the invisible path you're on is NOTHING but Tiny Bubble Blocks, while the rest of the wall is dotted with the Big Bubble Blocks - none of those "lanes" are accessible, but your "tiny bubbles only" lane IS.
As for the bombable floor in Norfair, the spot you need to hit is out of sequence and "breaks" the bubble patterns in the floor. This is supposed to be your clue that "this spot doesn't look right, I should shoot/bomb it".
Is it obscure? Yeah. But we've been SO INGRAINED by modern gaming that this is "bad design" that no one bothers looking for subtle environmental clues like unbroken lines of block types or a pattern that repeats endlessly EXCEPT where the secret is hidden.
I actually went back and checked out of curiosity. The only "obvious" (and I'm using that term VERY loosly in this case) place where this happens, at least for the places I checked, is between the upper and lower parts of Norfair and this is the only place where this signposting is visible. There's actually two more instances of it. One next to the Screw Attack and one in the shaft next to the Ice Beam in Norfair, but since you approach from below it just looks like a normal pattern. Also, in the path to the Varia suit for example, there are like 3 lines of unbroken blocks leading up to the hidden room above so that also looks like a normal pattern and the two bombable walls with passages in them that I saw also had the same pattern further up the wall. Taking into consideration how random everything else looks, the lack of big bubbles or otherwise missing tiles in a small chunk of the wall doesn't seem very out of place.
You're completely right about the connection to lower Norfair and honestly I never conciously noticed that break in the pattern, but something did tell me to go bomb that spot so I guess it kinda works? Problem is though that, like I mentioned, the game doesn't do a lot to incite the mindset that's required to look for this stuff organically so even if it is obscurely signposted it's still bad design.
Oh and uh, hey, thanks for watching :)
@@FromHerotoZeroYT Admittedly it's all obscure as hell but once you have an idea of how the designers tried to hide things/what their thought process was it can give you a leg up and save from carpet bombing the whole map.
edits!
re: the Varia Suit - this is true but the other two lines are almost directly above the doors to the room, making the middle one - the location of the real secret - stand out to a tiny degree. It's still one of the most obscure hidden things in the game, but it also hides what is arguably the strongest power-up, so....
re: the bubble walls
You can actually bomb jump up to the higher spot and that will ALSO be a passage through the wall. There's no reason to do this normally but the devs themselves use this built-in "higher path" in areas like the Gumdrop Platform rooms with the large squares of destructible blocks, where you end up near the top of the room but still need to find the hidden path in the wall.
That's true. Since it's a game from a different era I guess they relied somewhat on word of mouth and the discussions that would take place between the people who played the game back in the day. That or guides lol.
You are correct of course, there are patterns in the walls, ceilings and floors at places where you can bomb or shoot through, most notably in Norfair, but I don't subscribe to the idea that these were supposed to signpost anything given how extremely hard they are to spot. Like you said, it's obscure as hell but as I mentioned in the video I don't think I'd be as critical of it if they weren't hiding power-ups that makes the game much more enjoyable!
Still though, it's kinda amazing how good the game is even despite these nuisances
@@FromHerotoZeroYT I also have the benefit of having played the game EXTENSIVELY in grade school. My dad and I would play for hours, passing the controller, making maps on graph paper; after enough time you just sort of get a feel for "there's definitely a secret wall here somewhere".
My dad even went out and bought an off-brand controller (it was the 80's equivalent to a Mad Catz garbage knock-off) solely because it had a turbo button and we thought it would help us bomb jump better. It didn't, but in hindsight the whole idea was pretty amusing.
Yeah, that's 100% the "Metroid mindset" I was referring to!
That sounds awsome. Makes me wish my parents were more involved in my gaming habits when I was younger haha. Thanks for sharing!
Metroid 1 always seemed dated to me, and I haven't played in a long while since I always go back to zero mission, and before that I go back more often to other games. But what stood out to me of this, very solid video btw, was the point about making your own map. I now kinda want to replay it to try it out, since it's simple map design could lend it better to map making compared to future games.
Yeah, if you don't know the level layout by heart, definitely try out drawing a map alongside playing it. It helped tremendously with that feeling of hopelessness you get when you're lost and it's also fun to look back at what you made at the end and compare it to the actual map to see how much you got right and what you missed
i learned a lot watching this! not the least of which being that it's worth finally beating the game after starting it 20-some years ago and never quite making it to the end
That's almost exactly what happened to me haha
I had a Nintendo Power subscription when I was a kid, so I had maps to Metroid so I didn't get lost.
Really good video dude. When I was young my cousin and I played through this over a month, and we actually drew out a map as we played after getting lost a bunch. Probably one of the reasons I enjoy the series so much now, and also gave me some really good memories of this. We did the same thing for Zelda and Zelda 2.
That sounds awesome! Probably gonna draw a map myself next time I play Zelda 1, especially for the overworld. Why have I never thought to do that before??
@@FromHerotoZeroYT cause it’s honestly so much more time consuming than doing one for Metroid lol but I’d recommend it for anyone that wants to truly run Zelda blind.
Don't you guys have manuals?? The original TLOZ for the NES had a map in the manual.. Kids these days.
jk, but seriously, it'd be fair game if you just look it up yourselves.
@@FindingsOfAnArmouredMind it was more fun to figure it out ourselves.
Metroid was one of the first games my parents got me on the NES, the other being the Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt combo pack. I can say with certainty that I have a thorough understanding of the layout of the game to the point of being able to imagine any point on the map (say the screw attack room) and mentally visualize playing to any other point on the map room by room. I never drew a map for the original Metroid. It’s layout for whatever reason always made intuitive sense to me.
The original Phantasy Star on the Sega Master System, however, that I most definitely had to draw maps for due to the multi-floor psuedo 3D corridors. The trap doors leading to lower levels were the bane of my existence back then.
Yeah, the game is simple and small enough so that you can learn most of it by heart with minimal repetition. It still has a lot of similar rooms, but I guess when you've played through it enough times it starts to make sense despite that?
I highly recommend using the wave beam for most of the game, then grabbing the ice beam before heading into Tourian, it's double damage and wider projectile and wavyness make it quite useful in the harder areas of the game, such as ridley's lair
I see your point, though personally I'd rather stick with the Ice Beam for it's utility unless you know the game well enough to remember to do all the sections you want which requires the Ice Beam before picking up the Wave Beam
@@FromHerotoZeroYT If only they'd implemented the stacking of wave + ice beam... if you input the code "JUSTIN BAILEY ------" (that's with only 6 dashes as opposed to the usual 12), you'll start with an ice beam that displays the sprite of the wave beam, unfortunately it has no wavebeam behavior, it's just a different skin for the ice beam
Thankfully, they at least got it right in the later games!
22:01 They kind of remind me of the bosses from Mickey Mousecapade on NES.
Well, at least in that game you could cheese 2 out of 5 bosses with Minnie.
The easiest way to beat Kraid (provided you have a lot of health) is to morph into a ball, charge at him and spam bombs until he dies.
With Ridley, I normally just spam rockets and the Wave Beam while standing in front of him. Another tactic is to jump in the lava (with the Varia Suit), go under Ridley and continuously jump and shoot up at him with the Wave Beam.
I don't think you have any choice but to have a lot of health when you're fighting these guys for the first time lol
But these are good tips and actually gives the Wave Beam a specific use which I didn't think was possible haha
I do say that you bring up some good points on how the developers could have made the mandatory secrets not so elusive, but I think that it's really a decision they made in attempt to try and balance something being to little secretive and being to much secretive with the limitations of the hardware, and they happed to just fall on the latter. In a way the phrase 'A product of it's time' is the best descriptor for this because unlike something like Super Mario Bros which is straight forward in it's design, Metroid is something very overly complex in it's design for something like the NES. The amount of workarounds and roundabout ways to code the maps room placement, and the things inside them it's self is a great ingenuity talking into consideration how the NES handles those things (there's a reason why most games on that console are just horizontal scrolling screens, or just a single screen).
As such I think that's why in some places in the game there are those rooms that have strange ways to access, and why some rooms are copies of each other (Probably Duplicating to save memory) all work arounds to make the game very much playable, and to make it possible to have the content desired implemented. So even though those things are technically short comings to the game's experience, I'm glad they're there because that made it possible for developers to release a game that was still enjoyable to play, and which spawned a franchise that would come to be beloved for many.
I don't know why they would add that area that has no powerups and bunch of tough enemies though, that's just being mean.
Well, they had to start somewhere, right? Thank god this game sold like crazy though because if it didn't we probably wouldn't have gotten the amazing later instalments!
Played it back in the days on the NES without a map .. was. crazy for sure lol ... but then again it made it interesting getting lost at times
Yeah, if you're the type of person who likes getting lost in games then this one's for you!
@@FromHerotoZeroYT the moments when you realized you was already in this area :v
Thank god I saw it written down here or I would have still thought Mother Brain's minions were Ridley and Craig
Don't underestimate Craig, he'll mess you up after his 9 to 5 office job
If you want something great, you have to EARN IT. (Same goes in Metroid, sheesh.)
I would love to hear your take on Star Tropics.
I'll put it on the list! Honestly one of the NES games that I'm most curious about. Will probably try it out sooner or later :)
@@FromHerotoZeroYT
Hope you enjoy it 😊
Okay, I beat the game at 15 years old back in 1987 before the internet and cheats and stuff.
I can do naught but tip my hat to you, friend
I really enjoyed this video as ive always had the same feeling you described in the beginning since i played the game in a browser emulator for the first time as a kid
Always felt the same way about zelda 1 as well
Glad you liked it :)
The wave beam allows you to defeat Kraid from underneath, but then again, who used the wave beam? Lol.
Exactly!
I used the wave beam. I got the ice beam, then wave beam to cheese Ridley, then got the 2nd ice beam. Plus the wave beam is required for 100% playthroughs. And I 100% it most of the time.
The original _Metroid_ is a wonderfully flawed mess. Good in its own right, but also riddled with jank and questionable decisions.
Here's something that I found out about fairly recently that makes me see the game in a new light: With the sole exception of item rooms, a vertical shaft is *always* connected to a horizontal shaft, and vice versa. This means that every time you seen one of those short corridors that's connected from a longer one? It's actually a vertical room. Start bombing, and you'll find either an item or a shortcut.
Huh, that's a pretty good find actually. Seems like there's a bunch of subtleties that doesn't mean much on their own, but when combined gives big hints. Too bad it's too dependent on the player noticing all of them to even have a chance at discovering certain secrets though
are gonna do a review on Skyrim any time soon ?
Probably not until next year at the earliest, sadly
Or dagger fall ?
How many tries did it take for you to roll that nat 1?
For the first nat 1? About a couple of minutes. For an actual good shot where the dice didn't fall on the floor or went out of focus? Like, 10 lol
I cheated and played zero mission instead 😂
Haha, well it's a good game so why not lmao