Original Metroid = HARD!

[farfel]

Just finished Metroid Zero and unlocked Original Metroid. And got frustrated. I tried for about 5 hours to get the ice beam but kept dying! Starting at only 30 energy points makes the game waaaaay too difficult.

:embarrassed:

[Garry Silljo]

I never saw it as a problem. Zero Mission has spoiled you.

[Red Warrior]

Have you found any energy tanks yet? I can remember not getting anywhere in the game for quite awhile back in 1987 when I first played it... until I found the two energy tanks in Brinstar. And once you get the ice beam, you can find the third energy tank down near Kraid's lair in the ceiling. The two energy tanks that are available right off are in the northeast corner and middle right corners of Brinstar. Check an online map if you haven't already.

[farfel]

I have two tankes but after I die, they are empty and I can't survive on only 30 energy units.

By and by, how does the password system work?

[Bratwurst]

That's the flaw in Metroid, you have to patiently build up your reserves by killing enemies. Preferably by waiting by a pipe but running through the same hallway over and over will do it too.

Stop whining and suck it up. :P

[farfel]

The secret is to kill enemies and collect energy balls? Ahhh.

Sounds boring.

-_-

[Kejoriv]

I think the game is on the medium level on hardness. Not easy but not hard.

[RoboticParanoia]

I hated the password system in Metroid...damn thing never worked for me.

Another reason why I want Zero Mission...in Zero Mission, you can save in the original Metroid...right?

[SoulBlazer]

Both versions of Metroid included recently -- with Metroid Prime AND Metroid: Zero Mission -- allow you to save. One save per game. You can still use passwords if you want.

And yes, Metroid is a TOUGH game. I remember how long it took me as a kid trying to beat it, before I had the Players Guide or ANYTHING.

[Dire 51]

The original Metroid? HARD? I think not. It's challenging if you don;t know where you're going, but hard it isn't.

[ArnoldRimmer83]

Well some areas of the game are tough if you don't have the varia suit. Like Kraid and Ridley's lairs. Still if you know where to find the items, the original Metroid isn't very hard. Try checking the Metroid database for help with it.

http://www.classicgaming.com/mdb/

[NE146]

Try playing it when it came out... with nary a hint book or a clue as to what the heck you are doing. THEN it was hard. But we all finished it anyway. You gotta take it for what it is :)

[Red Warrior]

I played the original Metroid so much back in the day that I actually memorized the password I got when I finally found 100% of the items. And I still remember it to this day:

M 2 t z - ? x - - O 6 0
2 T - - b u C 0 0 0 d k

Back when Funcoland used to have an NES set up in their store, I walked in one day to find Metroid playing on it. So, I picked up the controller and put in this password strictly from memory. I remember the counter guy freaking out and wondering how I got to the end of the game so fast. He was like, "There's no way you just put in a password from memory!". I told him that when you've played this game as much as I have, anything's possible. ;)

[Sashanan]

The original Metroid? HARD? I think not. It's challenging if you don;t know where you're going, but hard it isn't.

That's both the beauty and the curse of the original Metroid, though, having no clue where to go. In a way it makes the game less playable, in another way it's exactly what makes Metroid hard and Super Metroid, Fusion and Zero Mission easy and seemingly too short by comparison.

I think much of Metroid's cult status is the result of the original game requiring a lot of patience and a thick skin to see through without a FAQ. If you finish that game completely without help, it feels like a genuine accomplishment.

[Gnarkill]

Zero Mission was easy so when I beat it I thought Id need sumthing harder, the original on the other hand is just insane. I feel ur pain farfel, starting with 30 energy is wut got me to.

[kainemaxwell]

I had no idea, and sorta still don't where and what to do in the orginial Metroid! Super Metroid I have more an idea on though. lol

[Alex Kidd]

Not knowing where to go?
Draw yourself a map, everywhere you go, draw maps, showing what your found where, showing openings you see but can't get thru yet, etc, etc...
and whenever you claim "i don't know where to go next!!" look at your map, there must be some opening you didn't take or some gap in your map that you CAN get to if you just study the area around the gap!

If you're spoiled on the new games that have automaoing then stay away from the old games... but as for myself? Drawing and studying maps for old adventure games was half the fun right there!

Alex Kidd

[ArnoldRimmer83]

Some helpful advice on the original Metroid. When you run into dead ends, bomb everything. The floors and walls.

[MarioAllStar2600]

I would just like to say I got this game (mint) for $1.99. I havnt played it much, cause its rather hard. It gets boring after a while.

[NintendoMan]

I too think the original metroid is very hard. I have been thinking about getting Zero Mission, but haven't yet. I probably will whenever it goes down in price.

[NintendoMan]

I would just like to say I got this game (mint) for $1.99. I havnt played it much, cause its rather hard. It gets boring after a while.


$1.99's a great price! I too think it get rather boring after a while. I just could never get into metroid that much, for some reason. All the Metroid games are GREAT, just don't find them too fun.

[Dr. Morbis]

Not knowing where to go?
Draw yourself a map, everywhere you go, draw maps, showing what your found where, showing openings you see but can't get thru yet, etc, etc...
and whenever you claim "i don't know where to go next!!" look at your map, there must be some opening you didn't take or some gap in your map that you CAN get to if you just study the area around the gap!

If you're spoiled on the new games that have automaoing then stay away from the old games... but as for myself? Drawing and studying maps for old adventure games was half the fun right there!
*EXACTLY* I have fond memories of mapping games with my friends many years ago. I still do it with new "old" games I haven't played. Lots of these young pups are spoiled by the ridiculously easy standard of modern games (Metroid Zero is a PRIME example). I'd like to see some of you guys get through excellent games like the original Phantasy Star without mapping. I guess many would probably run to Gamefaqs. But I love exploring those classic games and manually "mapping" with a pen and paper while I'm doing it. I, too, had to finish Metroid back in the day without any strategy guide or internet help, mapping all the while, and damn if I didn't enjoy every minute of it!

Metroid Zero is a joke (difficulty-wise). :)

[k8track]

*EXACTLY* I have fond memories of mapping games with my friends many years ago. I still do it with new "old" games I haven't played. I, too, had to finish Metroid back in the day without any strategy guide or internet help, mapping all the while, and damn if I didn't enjoy every minute of it!
I know what you mean. My friend Lance used to have this game, having bought it new in 1987. We used to spend hours playing the heck out of it. I'll never forget the day we sat down and finally made a map of it. I remember how thrilled I was when we discovered that everything fit together perfectly like a puzzle and could easily be mapped on a single sheet of graph paper--I still use that very map to this day when playing the original Metroid, and it came in very handy with Zero Mission!

As for mapping "old" games, I did the very same thing just a year ago with Metroid 2. That had been on my "to do" list for years and I finally got around to mapping it after all that time. I quickly realized that it was far messier than the original, with lots of overlapping parts. Having several different colored pencils helps. But I when I mapped it, I felt the same joy and thrill as I did years before with the original.


Metroid Zero is a joke (difficulty-wise). :)
I can't agree with you completely on this point as I have made it all the way to Mother Brain and, for the life of me, can't defeat her. (I always had a heck of a time with the original.) For me the challenge is that I can't get used to the new control system; I can't seem to get coordinated. I keep getting knocked in the lava and can hardly get any shots in edgewise. If you have a tip or two you could share to help me get past that? I've got 9 (out of presumably 12) energy tanks, 170 missiles, and only 6 super missiles (boy, they're sparse in this game). I have no power bombs. I'm assuming that I've got everything or nearly everything I'll need to defeat her at this point, or do I need to backtrack and get some more stuff? My "unknown items" haven't been activated yet (I'm assuming that they are the gravity suit, plasma beam, and space jump); I'm guessing that defeating Mother Brain would activate them. If I could only do that!

[farfel]

Mapping? Ach du lieber! Let der Komputer do it! That's what they're for: Doing boring mapping tasks,.

I agree having a flash light say "Go here next" is too much help. Drop the hints. A REAL bounty hunter would not have hints telling her where to go next.


(1) Use rapid-fire missile barrage on the gates.
(2) Move fast across the lava field to minimize energy loss.
(3) Rapid-fire missiles to destro the glass cage.

Mother Brain:
(1) Press select to get super-missiles.
(2) Do a somersault to the top right corner.
(3) Stand on the gun waiting for Mother Brain's fire to pass by.
(4) Drop down, crouch, and unleash a missile barrage at the eye.
(5) Repeat



THIS is the kind of gaming I like. Rapid quick reflexes. Not boring exploration. I did not like Impoosible Mission for the same reason.

[RoboticParanoia]

I like the exploration in the original Metroid very much.

And this also includes the glitch worlds. :-P

[Achika]

My friend had started playing Zero Mission on her Game Boy Player and has inspired me to set down Fusion and pull out my NES and the original Metroid.

I played for about 4 hours last night and didn't find it too difficult. Going up and down a few times in the columns allowed enough enemies to drop power ups to regain health. I don't think it's so much the enemies that are driving me crazy, but those single-block jumps that have to be made (ex. getting the first energy tank)

[KJN]

If you need some insperation here is a Metroid speedrun movie (29.9MB) (http://bisqwit.iki.fi/torrents/metroid-timeattackv2-jeffc.avi.torrent). It shows you how to complete the game in 17 minutes (that inclueds doing stuff like killing Kraid using only bombs and sneaking into Tourian without bothering with Norfair and Ridley's hideout).

You need Bittorrent to download the file.

[Packerfan66]

I think new gamers will find metroid hard because it doesn't take you by the hand and tell you what to do like the new games do. Everytime you do something in Metroid you always have to ask yourself, " what do I do next?" You have retrace your steps and remember places you couldn't get to before. I absolutely love this kind of difficulty because it forces me to explore much more. In Metroid Fusion I only collect a little over 50% because I don't have to explore.

[rbudrick]

Metroid 1 isn't THAT hard...I would bet that half of the metroid fans here can beat it on one life.

-Rob

[Arcade Antics]

Just finished Metroid Zero and unlocked Original Metroid. And got frustrated. I tried for about 5 hours to get the ice beam but kept dying! Starting at only 30 energy points makes the game waaaaay too difficult.

:embarrassed:

Metroid's not "easy breezy" but certainly nowhere near as tough as lots of other games. Maybe you're just really bad at it. :) I'm AWFUL at Sinistar, but that doesn't mean it's too difficult. I know plenty of people who can blast that sonofagun three or four times per game. RARRRHHH!


Metroid 1 isn't THAT hard...I would bet that half of the metroid fans here can beat it on one life.

Most definitely.

[spooie]

I wish more games today would rely on the exploration techniques of the Metroid series. There's just something cool about bombing away a secret dropzone in the ground, destroying a wall and finding a hidden passage in a ceiling, and running through an invisible barrier only to reach a room you've never seen, make it just inches away from a prized possession, and fall to the depth of nothingness all the way at the bottom through an invisible floor you just so happened to fall into... and have to make your way all the way back to where you started over the next 15 minutes that does something for me.

@_@