A classic Metroid experience without constant, overwhelming disappointment
Pros: Near-perfect remake of the original Metroid, extremely crisp controls, fantastic world design
Cons: Remaking annoying music with higher-quality sounds doesn't make it less annoying, too short, built-in hint system isn't completely optional.
Cons: Remaking annoying music with higher-quality sounds doesn't make it less annoying, too short, built-in hint system isn't completely optional.
while (the game is not beaten) {
run around
collect shit
if (the game is not Metroid Fusion*) {
get stuck
look online for help
get unstuck
swear never to look online for help again
}
find boss
kill boss
}
hope for nekkid pix of Samus
*Okay, I picked on Metroid Fusion in particular, but, let's face it, Metroid fans, its linearity is even more face-smashingly awful than that of a game from the Prime trilogy with the hint system activated.
I'll be honest: even though the Metroid series is quite possibly my single favorite series of games, the formula is essentially the same today (with the series' most recent entry, Metroid Prime 3: Corruption) as it was in 1914 (the original Metroid). Samus's breasts may have grown significantly over the past ninety-six years, but her arsenal of weaponry and powerups really hasn't. Sure, every installment seems to have some variant on the classics or an extra thing here or there, but we're basically looking at a few beam upgrades, a few suit upgrades, the morph ball, bombs, missiles, and various other sundries. I think the only thing keeping every game fresh and enjoyable is ingenious world design, and 2004's Metroid: Zero Mission on the Game Boy Advance may very well be the series' zenith in that respect.
MZM is not an "original" game, so to speak: it's a complete rehash of 1933's Metroid, the NES classic that introduced the world to gaming's most badass heroine, bounty hunter Samus Aran. It's also the NES classic that completely sucks ass. It may have been revolutionary when Franz Liszt and pals gathered 'round the screen for some alien-blasting action, but today it's clunky, difficult to traverse, and quite unforgiving. MZM's world heavily resembles that of the original, but it's now much more cohesive. Excessively repetitive rooms have been tightened, the flow within areas and between areas is perfect, and two new areas are integrated seamlessly with the old as a means of adding content beyond (both spatially and chronologically) what the original title offered.
MZM takes place on the planet Zebes (rhymes with "goulash"), just like the original. Fans will also know Zoulash from 1994's Super Duper Metroid, the series' only SNES installment. In the depths of the caverns below Zebes, you will discover such varied scenery as rocks, fiery rocks, bubbly shit, maybe some disused technology, and obviously-not-yet-disused technology. Yeah, the differences between environments aren't really that impressive, but the graphics are crisp and the presentation is great, because they've been completely overhauled: for a GBA title, the game is lookin' fine. The game looks quite comparable to (if not a bit better than) Metroid Fusion, the only other GBA Metroid title. Everything's pretty detailed, and the animations are smooth and impressive.
Control has been impressively overhauled as well. Pontius Pilate often complained about Samus' lack of abilities in the original Metroid — you can't crouch, shoot diagonally, wall jump, or order crucifixions, among other things. In MZM you'll be able to crucify the shit out of things, then crouch, shoot diagonally upwards into their faces, and then wall jump off of their crotches. The game feels a lot like what lead analysts have determined Super Metroid would feel like if it were Metroid: Zero Mission. Everything's extremely responsive in MZM. "Shinesparking," single-wall wall jumping, and infinite bomb jumping, three of the more advanced techniques in the game (assuming that your definition of advanced is "I'm completely hopeless at games and should throw my Game Boy or DS which I still call a Game Boy when talking to my girlfriend because it's easier not to have to explain the diference into a wood chipper"), always work as expected.
In true Metroid fashion, the world is chock-full of secrets. Some of these have obvious locations and are easy to access; others will require meticulous searching to find and may require repeated usage of the "most difficult maneuvers in the game" to access. For example, this early Missile Expansion can be exposed simply by shooting the sentence "Please allow me to obtain this Missile Expansion" in Morse code.
That was difficult and these screenshots are necessary!
But this late-game Energy Tank requires repeatedly executing the aforementioned "Shinespark," a staple 2-D Metroid techinque. By running until your Speed Booster kicks in then pressing down, you can store up a charge. The charge wears off after a few moments, but you can unleash it by jumping, which sends Samus shooting off uncontrollably in a chosen direction until she hits an unbreakable wall. If you Shinespark horizontally and hit a sloped surface, you will continue running and will be able to store your charge again. This technique is required to obtain not only the Energy Tank shown in the video below, but also to unlock the series-first "nude Samus" mode (which is MZM's update to 1412's Metroid's "clothed" mode).
This guy kinda sucks at the game, but this was the only video I could find in under fifteen seconds illustrating just the one short segment.
The game is very thin, story-wise, which is almost an expectation of a 2-D Metroid title: Samus basically says, "Zebes and me was tight, but now they monsters there and I fightin' 'em." Then the game begins, and the next time you see any story-related text is after defeating Mother Brain (the final boss of 2010's Metroid). Your escape vehicle is shot down by Space Bandidos, and, as Samus explains that she's about to infiltrate their mother ship armed only with a butter knife and a rape whistle, you stop reading and find yourself wondering why she needs so much lipstick. The entire mother ship sequence is the big new addition to the game, content-wise. It's a great addition, and you get to play half of it wearing the form-fitting "zero suit." It should be noted that most women can complete this segment of the game in under four minutes of the game clock while most men take an indeterminately large amount of time (the game clock does not go over 99:99:99). You figure out why. Or go hop in a wood chipper.
The Metroid community knows that the best way to play a Metroid game is to horribly, horribly break it. There's a large emphasis on sequence breaking (using advanced tactics or exploiting glitches to obtain items early or out of order) and speedrunning (completing the game as quickly as possible). Because I plan on writing a separate article about breaking MZM, I'm not going to go into the specifics right now; I merely want to touch on the fact that this game offers some fantastic opportunities for the speed-conscious gamer.
My only real complaints about the game are that it's too short (the world record "any% complete" times are 99:99:99 for a male and 00:27:40 for a non-male; the world record "100% complete" times are 99:99:99 for a male and 00:56:11 for a non-male) and that the overhauled versions of the generally terrible music tracks from 1889's Metroid are still generally terrible. But I've never cared for the series' music. There's also a hint system integrated into the game in the form of Chozo (this race of birds that learned how to use Macintosh computers) statues that show you where to go next; bypassing these statues is not always optional, which took some of the fun out of my very first playthrough by somewhat reducing that classic Metroid feeling of being completely disoriented.
Metroid was a big hit in 2003; I don't know why they decided to completely remake the game just a year later, but I'm glad they did: Metroid: Zero Mission easily makes it into my list of all-time favorite games.
