So... The NES Service! Does anyone besides me ever play this?

[Jumpin]

Spindel said:

Jumpin said:
I finished Metroid, GOOD GOD that difficulty spike at the end if you don't have a proper plan. The game is basically a 1-4 in difficulty for the entire thing until the end, where it jacks up to 9 or 10. I tried to avoid save state abuse, but I had to (especially since farming Metroids is faster than the other guys).

I save stated before the last room and spent some time experimenting the best way to get through before making another proper attempt. Metroids aren't the most difficult enemies in the game, it is the flying O things. Up to 3 will spawn on the screen at once, freezing 3 of them isn't too difficult, and you can get to the brain with minimal damage. At the end, freeze 3, jump to the edge and unload 7-10 missiles into the Brain. It's likely you'll accidentally fall or get knocked down into the lava pit in front of her, freeze beam an O and then jump on it to get out.

In the end, I had a max capacity of 220 missiles (assuming the cap is 255, like other NES/SNES). I had 6 Energy Tanks, there are two more that I missed somehow. I am guessing hidden ones like the one I found in the ceiling. Good game, WAY ahead of its time.

On an interesting side note. An interesting name came up in the credits, "Hip Tanaka" - who was also the composer of one of my favourite RPGs, Earthbound - and Earthbound 0 (Mother 1) before that. When you think about the style of Metroid's audio direction, this isn't surprising!

Given it’s some 20 years since my last playtrough I don’t remember the last room being too difficult (I might very well have surpressed the memory of replaying the entire last section of the game 100 times in my first playtrough :P ).

 

An important question: what ending did you get?

The Metroids do a lot of damage if you're not ready for them, and it takes a few bombs to repel them. With some practice, they become easy enough, and freeze + 5 missiles isn't bad since they drop large health and missile packs which makes for fast farming.

The final area has stuff shooting at you from all over the place, including these little heat-seeking O shaped things. At the same time, there are barriers that you need to fire several missiles at in order to break. If you're too busy dodging everything that's firing at you, the thing seems to restore a health point (1 missile blasts worth) every 3-4 seconds.

At the very end, there's a giant brain, and you have to fire about 25 missiles at it while dodging all sorts of crap, there's a big pit in front of the brain that is easy to fell into and hard to get out of (without freezing one of the O shaped things, and jumping on it).

Overall, this last stretch is significantly more difficult than any other point in the game; essentially, while there were a few close calls, I got through the whole game without dying until the ending portion where I was killed fairly easily fighting Metroids for the first time - mostly because I didn't know how to deal with them (I mean, I knew! I have fought them in other Metroid games, but I don't think they were quite this aggressive or effective, and so I wasn't ready). Then the Brain area is nuts compared to everywhere else, some areas get a little hectic, but this place is constantly hectic; basically, I save stated and practiced freezing everything and then I fought the brain, and even then I was killed a couple of times, and barely survived when I finally defeated it.

Very similar to Hollow Knight, Metroid is a game where you can practice and get good fairly quickly at the parts that are difficult. While Hollow Knight killed me more times than Metroid, I don't recall a section as tough as the end of Metroid; although I think some came close.