I do find it funny that a lot of people complain about the original Metroid's cryptic nature and difficulty when I feel The Legend of Zelda has a lot of the same issues but unlike Metroid, I think the gameplay of NES Zelda is timeless.
Metroid feels more claustrophobic and a lot of the world can look very similar to one another, whereas Zelda is very expansive and Hyrule has very distinct areas that make it feel more like a living, breathing world.
I can see people gravitating towards Zelda more for that reason alone.
A really good point actually, Zelda manages to have distinct areas much better for sure. I'm not sure how deep you are into the franchise but some locations like Spectacle Rock, even if unnamed, persist even in the newest games as recurring locales.
I agree with Dylan that the lack of variety of areas is something that compromises the original Metroid. As a kid, I liked Rygar a lot better than Metroid (whether or not we think it holds up today), and I think this has to do at least partly with having more variety of areas.
Something else Zelda has is the fact you can wander practically the entire map from the beginning of the game, if you can survive. And if you like digging for secrets, you'll end up finding some interesting things as you do so! This is really what makes it not a Metroidvania, even if there are some commonalities. By contrast, in the original Metroid you'll very quickly find yourself going back and forth over the same narrow bit of territory, and if you're stuck, BOY are you stuck.
I love Metroidvanias but they're not much fun if you get stuck for too long.
I'm showing my (young) age here but I unfortunately didn't grow up with the NES but I do own one now.
I think a big contributor to that feeling of little variety are the colour palettes in NEStroid. I think if you take a look at a map of the game, the areas do have distinct layouts and game design language but aesthetically they are far too similar and of course, cryptic. Completely agree on Zelda though and I do think it is the stronger game by far.
As well as that I think a lot of modern Metroidvanias outstay their welcome. It's for this reason that I've always found Hollow Knight to be a bit of a slog for me, Metroidvanias need to be bite-sized.
I think it's awesome that you're exploring the NES without having grown up with it. And I agree, it's not that Metroid 1 has no variety; it just was never enough to fire up the joy of exploration for me.
I might disagree on newer Metroidvanias outstaying their welcome; I love Hollow Knight for example. Some of the best ones understayed their welcome from my perspective.
Though I didn't complete HK's optional endgame boss gauntlet (Godhome) -- I'll agree if that's the part you're calling a slog. At that point the game is no longer a Metroidvania to me.
Metroid Dread was also a game that unfortunately suffered from too hard of boss battles, but they put them in the main quest. I never finished it. I wish they had gone the HK route and put the insanely hard battles they apparently wanted to make into an optional endgame, while letting me finish exploring the map and get a sense of completion.
I'm actually publishing something on it tomorrow. I think it's the most important console ever made; it's not my favourite and I think it has a lot of shovelware but it's iconic and I'm always glad to boot it up.
I enjoyed Hollow Knight but I always felt it was an amalgamation of Symphony of the Night's best parts an Dark Souls with some Super Metroid sprinkled in, I know people love it though and I wouldn't go as far to say that I dislike it, I'm just not as enthralled.
I actually finished a 100% run of Dread about 2 weeks ago. I didn't find the bosses too crippling (but I must stress, I've beaten most of the Castlevania games, this is a case of me being used to brutal difficulty, not an insult to your gaming skill) but I will say the stealth sections annoyed the shit out of me and I think it lacks the atmosphere and map design brilliance of Super.
Enjoyed this write-up. I owned this one and it was beloved, though I never beat it until AFTER beating Link to the Past. It was either Level 6 or 7 that stopped me up in the NES era, can't remember which. But it says something that this was one of those games I just kept coming back to in later eras. Like the original Super Mario Bros., there's a certain simplicity here that means that, even though this game has been exceeded in polish and scope (and boy has it been exceeded), there are times I just want to play the original.
I spent a lot of time wandering this game pretty blind (Nintendo Power was some help but I didn't get the strategy guide for at least a year), but the sense of exploration here captured my imagination and kept me engaged to a much greater degree than the early Metroidvanias. I remember going to areas and systematically using the Blue Candle on every bush in a screen.
Especially as a father myself now, I like to remind myself of these things -- things that remind me of what it was like to be a kid. Being a kid means spending 15 minutes going back and forth burning every bush on a screen on the original Zelda without any payoff, and never feeling like you wasted your time.
"Being a kid means spending 15 minutes going back and forth burning every bush on a screen on the original Zelda without any payoff, and never feeling like you wasted your time."
Man, this resonates. I hope kids today have a game like this, and I hope it's not just Minecraft.
I hear ya, I never beat LoZ until I was 20 or so. I enjoy it today, but like Metroid, the game intimidated me when I was younger. I hated not being given a clear direction, and I never had a Nintendo Power subscription growing up so I didn't even know I could "cheat" haha.
If they have a game like that, it might well be the Switch Zeldas. Which are full of both intentional and unintentional secrets, if you take my meaning.
I’ve heard the argument that the Zelda game most like BotW/TotK is the original. And I think I agree with it.
Not graphically or in terms of core mechanics. But in terms of being a truly open-ended quest. A map that truly wants you to wander it in search of secrets, as opposed to going to the next map marker.
Hell yeah, excellent game. I finally beat it and Zelda 2 for the first time a couple of years ago thanks to Switch's rewind feature making them much more manageable.
This is one of the few classics I've never played. This is despite putting it on every emulation device I've ever owned. I really should rectify this... Great write-up!
Funny enough, I'm pretty sure my mom actually picked this one for me too. Did this game get word of mouth somehow? Not sure how she knew. That original box art doesn't exactly seem designed to sell the game to young boys. I didn't know what to expect. Once I opened the box and saw the cartridge was gold, I was pretty sure she had steered me right. Once I turned on the game and heard that intro theme with the waterfall, I had no doubt.
An iconic classic, thanks for writing this post.
I do find it funny that a lot of people complain about the original Metroid's cryptic nature and difficulty when I feel The Legend of Zelda has a lot of the same issues but unlike Metroid, I think the gameplay of NES Zelda is timeless.
Both can be cryptic for sure.
Metroid feels more claustrophobic and a lot of the world can look very similar to one another, whereas Zelda is very expansive and Hyrule has very distinct areas that make it feel more like a living, breathing world.
I can see people gravitating towards Zelda more for that reason alone.
A really good point actually, Zelda manages to have distinct areas much better for sure. I'm not sure how deep you are into the franchise but some locations like Spectacle Rock, even if unnamed, persist even in the newest games as recurring locales.
I agree with Dylan that the lack of variety of areas is something that compromises the original Metroid. As a kid, I liked Rygar a lot better than Metroid (whether or not we think it holds up today), and I think this has to do at least partly with having more variety of areas.
Something else Zelda has is the fact you can wander practically the entire map from the beginning of the game, if you can survive. And if you like digging for secrets, you'll end up finding some interesting things as you do so! This is really what makes it not a Metroidvania, even if there are some commonalities. By contrast, in the original Metroid you'll very quickly find yourself going back and forth over the same narrow bit of territory, and if you're stuck, BOY are you stuck.
I love Metroidvanias but they're not much fun if you get stuck for too long.
I'm showing my (young) age here but I unfortunately didn't grow up with the NES but I do own one now.
I think a big contributor to that feeling of little variety are the colour palettes in NEStroid. I think if you take a look at a map of the game, the areas do have distinct layouts and game design language but aesthetically they are far too similar and of course, cryptic. Completely agree on Zelda though and I do think it is the stronger game by far.
As well as that I think a lot of modern Metroidvanias outstay their welcome. It's for this reason that I've always found Hollow Knight to be a bit of a slog for me, Metroidvanias need to be bite-sized.
I think it's awesome that you're exploring the NES without having grown up with it. And I agree, it's not that Metroid 1 has no variety; it just was never enough to fire up the joy of exploration for me.
I might disagree on newer Metroidvanias outstaying their welcome; I love Hollow Knight for example. Some of the best ones understayed their welcome from my perspective.
Though I didn't complete HK's optional endgame boss gauntlet (Godhome) -- I'll agree if that's the part you're calling a slog. At that point the game is no longer a Metroidvania to me.
Metroid Dread was also a game that unfortunately suffered from too hard of boss battles, but they put them in the main quest. I never finished it. I wish they had gone the HK route and put the insanely hard battles they apparently wanted to make into an optional endgame, while letting me finish exploring the map and get a sense of completion.
I'm actually publishing something on it tomorrow. I think it's the most important console ever made; it's not my favourite and I think it has a lot of shovelware but it's iconic and I'm always glad to boot it up.
I enjoyed Hollow Knight but I always felt it was an amalgamation of Symphony of the Night's best parts an Dark Souls with some Super Metroid sprinkled in, I know people love it though and I wouldn't go as far to say that I dislike it, I'm just not as enthralled.
I actually finished a 100% run of Dread about 2 weeks ago. I didn't find the bosses too crippling (but I must stress, I've beaten most of the Castlevania games, this is a case of me being used to brutal difficulty, not an insult to your gaming skill) but I will say the stealth sections annoyed the shit out of me and I think it lacks the atmosphere and map design brilliance of Super.
Enjoyed this write-up. I owned this one and it was beloved, though I never beat it until AFTER beating Link to the Past. It was either Level 6 or 7 that stopped me up in the NES era, can't remember which. But it says something that this was one of those games I just kept coming back to in later eras. Like the original Super Mario Bros., there's a certain simplicity here that means that, even though this game has been exceeded in polish and scope (and boy has it been exceeded), there are times I just want to play the original.
I spent a lot of time wandering this game pretty blind (Nintendo Power was some help but I didn't get the strategy guide for at least a year), but the sense of exploration here captured my imagination and kept me engaged to a much greater degree than the early Metroidvanias. I remember going to areas and systematically using the Blue Candle on every bush in a screen.
Especially as a father myself now, I like to remind myself of these things -- things that remind me of what it was like to be a kid. Being a kid means spending 15 minutes going back and forth burning every bush on a screen on the original Zelda without any payoff, and never feeling like you wasted your time.
"Being a kid means spending 15 minutes going back and forth burning every bush on a screen on the original Zelda without any payoff, and never feeling like you wasted your time."
Man, this resonates. I hope kids today have a game like this, and I hope it's not just Minecraft.
I hear ya, I never beat LoZ until I was 20 or so. I enjoy it today, but like Metroid, the game intimidated me when I was younger. I hated not being given a clear direction, and I never had a Nintendo Power subscription growing up so I didn't even know I could "cheat" haha.
If they have a game like that, it might well be the Switch Zeldas. Which are full of both intentional and unintentional secrets, if you take my meaning.
I’ve heard the argument that the Zelda game most like BotW/TotK is the original. And I think I agree with it.
Not graphically or in terms of core mechanics. But in terms of being a truly open-ended quest. A map that truly wants you to wander it in search of secrets, as opposed to going to the next map marker.
Yeah, that makes sense!
Hell yeah, excellent game. I finally beat it and Zelda 2 for the first time a couple of years ago thanks to Switch's rewind feature making them much more manageable.
Today I learned the Switch has a rewind feature?!
Yeah for almost all of the NSO classic games!
Shoooot, now I gotta start taking advantage of that.
This is one of the few classics I've never played. This is despite putting it on every emulation device I've ever owned. I really should rectify this... Great write-up!
Thank you! It's definitely worth at least one playthrough.
Honestly the greatest game of all time. Ninja Gaiden Black (Xbox) is a close second, and they're remarkably similar in all the right ways.
I loved Ninja Gaiden for Xbox, but never played Black. What’s the difference?
They kept perfecting the game. After two extremely good downloadable "hurricane packs," Ninja Gaiden Black is the final version.
Camera controls, new enemies, mission mode, the list goes on and on.
If you've never played NGB, go for it. It's a masterpiece.
Your mom knows what's up.
Funny enough, I'm pretty sure my mom actually picked this one for me too. Did this game get word of mouth somehow? Not sure how she knew. That original box art doesn't exactly seem designed to sell the game to young boys. I didn't know what to expect. Once I opened the box and saw the cartridge was gold, I was pretty sure she had steered me right. Once I turned on the game and heard that intro theme with the waterfall, I had no doubt.
When the parents know best!