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Spindel on 16 June 2021
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Vodacixi said:

The original Metroid has a certain charm. It's the most open game in the entire franchise, allowing you go to anywhere you want and skip almost every power up. However, it's an absolute nightmare to play unless you are really into old clunky games. No diagonal or down aiming, no crouching, enemies can hit you even if you are going through a door, password saving, tons of clonic rooms with no other purpouse than to confuse you, no map, no way to refill your HP and ammo other than the painfully slow method of killing infinite enemies that come off pipes...

Honestly, I cannot comprehend how someone could say that METROID (NES) is better than Super Metroid. Other than being an interesting experience for a fan of the series that started the franchise with newer games or a nostalgia trip for those who played it on its time... it's not a very good game at all. Even by NES standards.

The main thing for me is the exploration.

I like the "no mini map" either memorize or draw one for your self. The maze like structure of the game means you come to a dead end and need to turn back and find another way. All promoting the exploration feeling of the game. 

The aiming thing or no crouching thing hasn't bothered me since the game is designed not to have it anyway. It's just a mechanic you learn to cope with.

Nothing with this feels clunky to me. Want to talk about clunky feeling games, play the NES Castlevania where once you hit jump you can do nothing to change your trajectory. Or Dark Souls where the clunky controls are hailed as the second coming of Christ because "you have to know the button press dedicates 2 seconds of time to the coming animation and you can do nothing to change it". 

Only thing I really agree on is the password system and having battery backup in the NES cartridge would have been nice. But back then in most cases it was either passwords or no way to save progress anyway. 

Last time I played through it was a year or two ago on the Switch. Given I still remember where to go so I finish the game way faster than my first time playing it. During this play through I use the save state function instead of passwords.

To me this is one of those games that I wish I could experience for the first time again just to get that feeling of exploration that is lost after the first play through.   

But as with everything YMMV, this is all my subjective opinion.