The History of Metroid

Just in time for the EU launch of Metroid Prime 3, Eurogamer has a retrospective on the Metroid series well worth checking out. "The first Metroid presciently set the tone for the future of the franchise by appearing first on a struggling format and only reaching foreign shores after lengthy delays. Metroid was initially released only for the Famicom Disc System in 1986. The FDS was one of Nintendo's first attempts to monkey around with new storage methods, but its success was limited and it never made it beyond Japan. One year later, Metroid finally appeared on the plain old NES in North America and then, another year later, we pox-ridden Europlebs were deemed worthy of having a copy to call our own. Hmm. Sounds familiar."

Comments

What about speed runs?

[Spy der Mann]

The very concept I loved in Supermetroid was the possibility of making a speedrun. By using special techniques you could get to certain areas without the required items, allowing you to skip long walks (er.. runs). I could beat the game with 100% collected items under 2 hours, and I'm glad to find out that some people have been able to do it under one hour!

Without speed runs, the time would go up to 6 hours. Speedruns give the game a wonderful replay value.

Re:What about speed runs?

[Chyeld]

You skip item requirements, not the items, meaning you can do things in a far more efficent fashion as opposed to having to backtrack.