My first experiences with Metroid – How I got into the series

For a blog this website has very little in the way of actual opinion so maybe it’s about time that changed.

I got into Metroid when I was still pretty young. My brother was old enough to get into gaming and so for Christmas and birthdays his interest was in that area. Meanwhile I was very much still into legos, toy tractors, and digging holes in the yard. Quite a while after he had moved on from the Game Boy to the super Nintendo I got my hands on it. One of the only games he had for the system happened to be Return of Samus and so I spent my fair share of time completely lost in its world.

I mean that literally because when I picked the game up it was still too difficult for me to handle. I found myself wandering in circles for ungodly amounts of time. I hadn’t grasped the concept of defeating metroids and progressing because they freaked the bajeezus out of me. I replayed the first area so much I dare say I could recreate the layout from memory even now some 15 or so years later. Eventually the lack of progression I was making led to a developing boredom for the game and so I put it down. I didn’t pick up a Metroid game again until 2002 when Metroid Prime came out on the GameCube.

Prime actually came bundled with my system. I remember wanting a GameCube specifically for Smash Bros and Super Mario Sunshine, and although I could have gotten a bundle with Sunshine I decided to go for Metroid specifically because of Metroid II. I was very glad I made that decision, otherwise I may have skipped over the game entirely. To this day Metroid Prime is one of my favorite games, (I run a website on it for crying out loud) second only to the nostalgia I associate with Final Fantasy VIII and Ocarina of Time.

I was reading an interesting topic not too long ago that mentioned if you could go back and replay one of your favorite games as though you were experiencing it for the first time what would it be? That game would without a doubt be Metroid Prime for me. The amount of depth placed into creating the atmosphere is absolutely phenomenal. There were times when I tensed up from excitement and shock; for example, when I walked into Phendrana Drifts for the first time, the iconic track started playing (you can check it out in the music player), and the camera panned back to reveal the whole area. The sense of accomplishment I had when I faced down Prime and defeated both its forms for the first time was surreal.

Looking back I felt like I was actually there in Samus’ shoes exploring this new world for the first time and that’s a feeling I haven’t gotten from any game series other than Metroid.