Metroid drops its player at the bottom of an alien planet with a gun, a morph ball and no map. There is nobody to talk to and nothing to explain where to go. The way forward is to notice a gap too low to walk through, a door that will not open, a floor that looks breakable, and to come back once Samus Aran has the equipment to deal with it. Retro Gamer describes it as standing out from Nintendo’s kid-friendly titles of the mid-1980s. So did its ending: the fastest players watched the armoured hero take off the helmet, and found that Samus was a woman.
Fast facts
- Developer: Nintendo R&D1, Gunpei Yokoi’s department.
- Producer: Gunpei Yokoi.
- Released: Famicom Disk System, Japan, 6 August 1986; NES cartridge, North America, August 1987; Europe in 1988.
- Setting: the planet Zebes, where the Space Pirates keep the Metroids, energy-draining parasites, under the control of the Mother Brain.
- Saving: to disk in Japan; a 24-character password on the NES.
Who made it
Yokoi’s R&D1 made hardware and games side by side, and Metroid came out between its Game & Watch handhelds and the Game Boy. In 1995 Yokoi himself named “the Metroid series” among R&D1’s Famicom work. Shigeru Miyamoto’s team, which made Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda, was not involved; Retro Gamer suggests that is why Metroid has none of their cheerfulness. The music was by Hirokazu “Hip” Tanaka.
Who directed it is less clear, partly because the game’s own credits mix real names with nicknames. As transcribed by credit researchers, the ending names Satoru Okada as “chief director”, someone credited only as “Yamamoto” as director, and Yokoi as producer, and lists Yoshio Sakamoto among the designers under the nickname “Shikamoto”. Nintendo’s own 2010 biography of Sakamoto describes him as creating the game’s characters. Retro Gamer’s 2010 history of the series goes further, naming Sakamoto as the director working alongside Yokoi, and describes him setting out to make something unlike Miyamoto’s games. Retro Gamer credits him with nearly all of the later Metroid games.
Exploring Zebes
C&VG’s Tony Takoushi, covering the NES games about to reach Britain, called it “an absolute blockbuster of a game”. He described the route to the Metroids in the planet’s central base, through the Rocky Zone and the Fire Zone, “scrolling terrains (left, right and verticals)”, about thirty kinds of alien, and energy tanks that stored more health than the ordinary gauge could show. He liked the touches: the long beam, high-jumping boots, bombs, and the ability to “roll up into a little ball to get through tight gaps in the walls (nice one)”.
That ball, and everything else Samus picks up, is what the map is built around. Each new item opens up places that were out of reach before, and because the map is one connected space rather than a series of levels, using it often means going back through areas already explored. The bombs show how far one item could go. Nintendo Power called bombing “Samus Aran’s most versatile tool”: besides damaging enemies, bombs broke through some floors and walls, and a bomb laid under the morph ball threw Samus upwards. Its advice for a tall pipe in Ridley’s hideout was that some “Metroid maniacs like to use consecutive bombs to cannon ball up and over the pipe”, or Samus could bomb a single loose brick in the floor and roll underneath.
The NES could not scroll freely in every direction with this game’s cartridge. Metroid moves along one axis at a time, switching between horizontal and vertical scrolling only when Samus reaches a new screen. The corridors that alternate between long horizontal runs and tall vertical shafts follow from that. The PPU entry explains the hardware behind it.
Disk and password
The Famicom Disk System version saved progress to the disk. When Nintendo converted the game to cartridge for the West, it did not add a battery to keep a saved game; the NES version gives the player a 24-character password instead, and the credits name the programmer who wrote the password system separately from the rest of the team. Retro Gamer called it an “archaic password system”, but noted that it produced one of the best-known cheats of the era. Entering JUSTIN BAILEY starts the game with Samus out of her armour, in a leotard and with green hair, and well armed.
The reveal
Samus Aran was an orphaned bounty hunter inside a power suit, and the game’s own manual, Retro Gamer notes, referred to Samus as “he”. In Britain, both C&VG in January 1989 and a reader’s tips in ACE that April referred to Samus as “his”. The game had five endings, depending on how long it took to finish. The quicker ones showed Samus without the suit, and a player who reached the best ending could then play through the game again as the unsuited Samus.
Nintendo Power treated this as a secret worth teasing. When it published its readers’ top 30 in its first issue, in the summer of 1988, Metroid was third, with the question “Have you been able to reveal Samus’ identity?” In late 1989, in a feature on the endings of its “classic games”, it gave it away: Samus, “mighty galactic warrior, is revealed to be a woman when she removes her cumbersome space armor after defeating the Mother Brain.” David Sheff’s Game Over described the moment for a general audience in 1993: in “the video-game world of macho stereotypes”, the hero took off the helmet and “long blond hair fell out”.
Legacy
A Game Boy sequel, Metroid II: Return of Samus, followed in 1991, and Super Metroid on the Super Nintendo in 1994. The word “Metroidvania” came later. Retro Gamer dates it to the fans of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night (1997), who used it for Castlevania games that played like Metroid, with one large map opened up by new abilities. It is now the name of a genre.
Sources
- Retro Gamer Collection volume 4, 2010, “The complete history of Metroid”: the Famicom Disk System release on 6 August 1986; Sakamoto as director with Yokoi, and behind nearly all the later games; Miyamoto’s team not involved; Hirokazu Tanaka; the disk save and the “archaic password system”; the Justin Bailey password; the manual’s “he”, the time limit and the reveal; Metroid II, Super Metroid and the origin of “Metroidvania”.
- Edge issue 18, March 1995, Gumpei Yokoi interview: R&D1’s work including “the Metroid series”.
- Computer and Video Games issue 81, July 1988, Tony Takoushi’s console column: Metroid among five titles set for British release, “an absolute blockbuster”, its zones, items and passwords.
- Computer and Video Games issue 87, January 1989: Julian Rignall’s guide to Metroid (“equip Samus for his mission”).
- ACE issue 19, April 1989: reader’s Metroid tips, with password.
- Nintendo Power issue 1, July/August 1988, p. 102: readers’ top 30 (“Have you been able to reveal Samus’ identity?”). Issue 3, November/December 1988: a reader on replaying the game after the best ending. Issue 8, September/October 1989, p. 36: bombs and the “cannon ball” technique. Issue 9, November/December 1989, p. 33: the endings feature.
- David Sheff, Game Over (1993; GamePress edition, 1999), chapter 3, “I, Mario”: R&D1’s Metroid and the reveal.
- NESdev Wiki, “Mirroring” (web, secondary): Metroid’s one-axis scrolling. https://www.nesdev.org/wiki/Mirroring
- Kyoto Report, “Staff Credits – Metroid (NES, 1986)” (web, secondary): the on-screen credits, including the chief director, director, “Shikamoto” and the password programmer. http://kyoto-report.wikidot.com/metroid-credits
- Wikipedia, “Yoshio Sakamoto” (web, secondary), citing Nintendo of America’s GDC 2010 press biography: Sakamoto created the characters, credited as “Shikamoto”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshio_Sakamoto
- Wikipedia, “Metroid (video game)” (web, secondary): release dates in North America and Europe; five endings based on completion time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroid_(video_game)