It's Critter Time!

so, the Metroid games basically created the whole "Metroidvania"/Search Action genre, where you generally get plopped into a big, interconnected labyrinth, and you have to find and collect more tools and abilities that expand your moveset, so you can reach more areas than before.

the series tends to have a more serious and darker vibe than the majority of Nintendo's other stuff, and I like these games *a lot*.



In almost all of the games (Metroid Prime: Federation Force not included), you play as Samus Aran, an intergalactic bounty hunter who regularly fights against the Space Pirates, who generally try to take over the galaxy (and who also killed Samus' parents, so she has some major beef with them). She's generally a silent protagonist, but some games do give her speaking roles, like Metroid Fusion, Metroid Other M, and for one brief moment in Metroid Dread.

My favorite games in the series are Zero Mission, Fusion and Dread, with Dread probably being the game I like the most in the series so far. I'm also very excited for Metroid Prime 4, but I'm also kinda concerned about it at the same time, since it still doesn't have a release date, and I'm not sure if it's gonna be as good as the previous Metroid Prime games. At the very least, that game would be the big reason for me to get a Switch 2 eventually...

I've actually been really wanting to go through the metroid games!

It seems like such a cool experience, and I was just too young when i had access to them to actually be able to play them decently x3
I'm glad you enjoy it so much as a series! if you had a metroid game to recommend, which one would it be, for someone who has never played them?
starting at the beginning? or jumping into a more modern release?

i'd say anything before super metroid would be an unfathomably rough experience if you're new to it

in my imo for 2d ones, you can't really go wrong with starting with super metroid or zero mission

Zero mission is a remake of 1, so in my imo, zero mission is a great place to start, however the movement is a lot snappier feeling than super to me. This means of you try and play super after it'll feel sorta clunky by comparison

If you want to play the first Metroid closer to the original but with a butt-ton of QoL stuff. Metroid Planets is a really good way of doing so.
https://forum.metroidconstruction.com/i ... 952.0.html

The almost excessive amount of animation might be a turnoff, but it's got beam swapping, automapping, saving, starting at full health, and a lot of other stuff.

There's also extra stuff but you gotta join a Discordddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

logging in to say that metroid dread is really cool and good too, it's as modern as it gets hehe

honestly if you got a nintendo switch you can play Dread and Prime Remaster and have yourself a good time

don't go oh so retro with metroid 1.......... it's too retro........................... (nobody @ me about this take we've beaten metroid 1 but we're also sickos)

I wouldn’t play anything before Super unless you’re a serious Retro Pervert (affectionate). Something worth considering is that every single game in the 2D series plays progressively faster, with increasingly higher demands on player reflexes, so honestly I feel like you should just play them in release order. Metroid games are very short by modern standards so even playing literally all of them is maybe a week of investment.

I also want to make a special mention of the Prime trilogy- in a video game climate drowning in metroidvanias, 3D ones are very rare and have their own very distinct feel and spin on the genre. I really think they’re all must-plays.

popping in to say if you're going to play Metroid 2...

the fan-made AM2R is really good and turns the original game into a Zero Mission style thing. it adds more story, a smoothed out progression, it uses sprites from Zero Mission combined with tons and tons of custom graphics. also pretty hard but it has difficulty options (hard mode is NOT lying!).

that said... i think in that translation to a "modern polished feeling game" it kinda also lost a LOT of things that made metroid 2 good...

i kinda disagree with "anything before super metroid is too retro" because i feel like everyone should at least try metroid 2 because it's STILL really unique and very unique for its time. in particular the way it evokes a scary tone though an ambient soundscape instead of music, on a game boy(!), theres nothing really quite like it

metroid 1 absolutely is too retro though, starting out at 30HP out of 100(+ however many energy tanks) every time and no save system? yikes...

I dislike Metroid 1, actually, because it's just so archaic in a not good way, imo. usually when I want to replay Samus' first mission on Zebes, I either go with Zero Mission (which was my first Metroid game!) or with Metroid Planets, which Lolo De Puzlo already mentioned a couple posts above.

I actually do quite like Metroid 2 on the Gameboy, and I did also play both AM2R (the fan-remake) and Metroid: Samus Returns from MercurySteam. while it's true that both remakes kinda lose a bit of that weirdly spooky (for a Gameboy game) soundscape and atmosphere, from a general gameplay perspective they do feel a lot better to play. imo, it's absolutely worth to give both remakes a try to see how two different sets of developers go about remaking a Gameboy game from the early 90s!

Gabu wrote: Fri Jul 18, 2025 7:44 am i kinda disagree with "anything before super metroid is too retro" because i feel like everyone should at least try metroid 2 because it's STILL really unique and very unique for its time.

I really love the original Metroid 2 for basically every reason you listed, but I think it's a terrible indication of what the rest of the series is going to be like, which was the lens by which I was recommending things. I think it's a game you come back to, not one you start with. Honestly I think all three versions of Metroid 2 that exist are excellent and worth playing for their own reasons and none of them replace each other, although I personally find AM2R to be the weakest at executing on 2's themes and message.

yea like, dont get us wrong we love Metroid 2, but it absolutely is not one we'd recommend for a first time player lmao

we gotta try out the hack that makes it color sometime, it looks really good

as for AM2R, I remember we liked it when it initially came out, but several years later we went to try it again and kinda bounced off it just being like "why does the camera show you so much?" The thing about AM2R and Samus Returns is they're both nice in their own right, but miss the point of Metroid 2 being a small, alien experience. playing on the gameboy just makes you feel uncomfortable being there, and the sound design and graphics really help with that. It'd be an interesting challenge to try to port it forward to modern gameplay while still maintaining that narrow, claustrophobic alien vibe - the vibe that says "this game does not want you playing it"

Gosh, surprises me it took me THAT long before jumping in the Metroid chat XD

Series as a whole is just so damn fun for so many reasons, just loving how it feels everytime you go doing a new run of any of the games, it just has you learning something new again and again.

Been diving into Super Metroid speedrunning after finally getting Zero Suit ending req and it's like everytime I go back, new stuff just happens all the time.

Super, Dread and Zero Mission are just absolute peak imo for vanilla games, but I can't help but bring up mods a bit in here:

Dread randomizer (Randovania) is just absolutely cool if ever curious, that mod is purely fun with how they manage reworking a lot of stuff to make it work down to even shifting door types around in the whole rando. Was not expecting it to be a thing but it's just absolutely wild to see in action.

For Super's mods, I highly recommend checking Metroid Construction for any mods/hacks for a lot of games in the series.
Big shoutouts to hacks like Ascent, VITALITY (even though I wasn't too a fan of the odd choice of twist ending) and Subversion for very good SM mods.

Ascent: lots of new mechanics and a rather cool take on the game with a few puzzle focused rooms.

VITALITY: Very beautiful map and crazy cool re-spriting of a few things, but not an easy mod imo for starting out. A few movement techs go a long way and can say easily some bosses get put in some early spots which can be mean (early Draygon is absolutely mean). As mentioned the ending felt weird in it though.
This mod leans a lot into horror and it's quite crazy cool.

Subversion: It's hard to say ANYTHING about it with how that mod is imo the best one, it's surreal how a lot is done in it and how stylish it all is.
You have to experience it to know why it's amazing, highly replayable too with a few things in it you get after finishing it.
Only spoiler I say is 'Check your menus once in a while, important infos MAY appear at points.'

Website for mods here for those wanting it!
https://metroidconstruction.com/hacks.php

Metroid my beloved.

I stand by the vote to skip the first two games (you can still play them but they are cryptic as hell) and start with Zero Mission. There's a few options for a more up to date version of the second game, one of which requires a 3DS and another which requires you to know someone who saved AM2R from Nintendo's wrath.

Super is extraordinary, and Fusion is probably my favorite. Dread is outstanding too--and harder than any of the "2D" Metroid titles to come before it.

I'm going to drop an honorable mention for the Prime series. Those games are very different from the mainline titles but Prime 1 is one of my favorite games of all time.

Put the Metroid Dread and Prime in to my veins. Oh no that's the bad blue gloop guess I'm a boss monster now

But seriously, I adore the Prime series the most in the franchise, especially 2. But Dread's movement is just *chef kiss* it's probably the first game since I was a kid that I finished and immediately went "Nah I can do better"... twice :'D

Won't be doing the OHKO mode tho >_>

DarkOverord wrote: Wed Jul 23, 2025 8:15 pm Put the Metroid Dread and Prime in to my veins. Oh no that's the bad blue gloop guess I'm a boss monster now

But seriously, I adore the Prime series the most in the franchise, especially 2. But Dread's movement is just *chef kiss* it's probably the first game since I was a kid that I finished and immediately went "Nah I can do better"... twice :'D

Won't be doing the OHKO mode tho >_>

Yeah, the Metroid Prime games are rad!!

also, same about Metroid Dread. I replayed that game a bunch of times already, but I haven't touched Dread mode yet, because I don't hate myself that much xD

side note, I also think that the SA-X from Metroid Fusion is scarier than the EMMIs from Metroid Dread. Not in terms of gameplay, because that's where the EMMIs are definitely more advanced, but in terms of story and atmosphere.

technically, the SA-X could just pop up at *any* moment while you're running around the BSL station (which it doesn't, because all the encounters with it are scripted), unlike the EMMIs, which are very clearly kept in designated zones for them, which is taking away a large chunk of the feeling of dread when having to deal with them.

JarylGaren wrote: Sat Jul 26, 2025 1:59 pmside note, I also think that the SA-X from Metroid Fusion is scarier than the EMMIs from Metroid Dread. Not in terms of gameplay, because that's where the EMMIs are definitely more advanced, but in terms of story and atmosphere.

technically, the SA-X could just pop up at *any* moment while you're running around the BSL station (which it doesn't, because all the encounters with it are scripted), unlike the EMMIs, which are very clearly kept in designated zones for them, which is taking away a large chunk of the feeling of dread when having to deal with them.

Yeah the EMMIs basically become less of an element of imminent fear like SA-X was and just in some cases become just an annoyance and in others served at most to make you go "oh for fu-" and panic run away.

And if you have the counter timing down (I do not) then the EMMIs are literally just annoying.

I definitely didn't have the melee counter timing down for the EMMIs, but yeah, after having played the game a bunch of times, it got pretty easy to avoid getting caught by them in the first place. though I think the ones that can scan through the walls would still give me some trouble.

makes me wonder how they would handle the SA-X in a potential remake of Metroid Fusion, because they can't just make clearly designated "SA-X Zones" for it. A lot of Fusion's atmosphere would go down the drain if they would telegraph it in such a way.

like, sure, in Fusion you'd often see destroyed doors, which tend to be used as an indicator that the SA-X is nearby, but I feel that would give you much more of a feeling of fear and dread and "Oh god, where is it?!?!", especially if it's your first time playing the game.

We've seen a lot of people discuss about how they were disappointed the EMMI only showed up in their zones and wanting something like Fusion where they can show up at any time, but the problem is that then you have to test them showing up at any point in the game, when anything is happening, and it creates the possibilities for a LOT of edge cases. It wouldn't be very scary if the guy showed up just to be stuck in a wall

CyanSorcery wrote: Sun Jul 27, 2025 1:17 am We've seen a lot of people discuss about how they were disappointed the EMMI only showed up in their zones and wanting something like Fusion where they can show up at any time, but the problem is that then you have to test them showing up at any point in the game, when anything is happening, and it creates the possibilities for a LOT of edge cases. It wouldn't be very scary if the guy showed up just to be stuck in a wall

To be fair, while the potential for the SA-X to just show up at *any* point during the game would be pretty terrifying, I'd just be fine if they keep its appearances scripted, but that they don't use the big "here is an EMMI now"-style of telegraphing for it. I think Fusion by itself already handled this in a really good way, where you go through an area that looks normal, and then on the way back suddenly the door and surrounding floor and ceiling are destroyed, and then it pops up just as you found a way to proceed.

though that moment where you walk into a room, and suddenly you hear the loud ice beam noise, followed by metallic footsteps behind you, also sticks out in my mind. I remember that part freaking me the heck out when I played Fusion for the first time as a kid, lmao

The SA-X is scary until you realize that it's entirely scripted, and its AI is rather terrible. I remember being scared of it as a kid until I went on metroid2002 and saw videos of it being stupid lol

SnowyTasha wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2025 3:02 pm The SA-X is scary until you realize that it's entirely scripted, and its AI is rather terrible. I remember being scared of it as a kid until I went on metroid2002 and saw videos of it being stupid lol

oh yeah, absolutely, lmao.
I think in-story the thing is absolutely fucking terrifying, and I did get a couple nightmares about it over the years.

it's just that in gameplay, it's as dumb as a stack of bricks, and you can cheese it incredibly easily, lmao

JarylGaren wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2025 3:09 pm

SnowyTasha wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2025 3:02 pm The SA-X is scary until you realize that it's entirely scripted, and its AI is rather terrible. I remember being scared of it as a kid until I went on metroid2002 and saw videos of it being stupid lol

oh yeah, absolutely, lmao.
I think in-story the thing is absolutely fucking terrifying, and I did get a couple nightmares about it over the years.

it's just that in gameplay, it's as dumb as a stack of bricks, and you can cheese it incredibly easily, lmao

Oh yeah, in-story the SA-X is terrifying, and tbh I still find it creepy 22 years after playing Fusion for the first time. The actual gameplay of the SA-X is the unintentionally funniest shit.

Fusion was my first game in the series, btw. I was introduced to it by a classmate in 2003 and after school a few days later came home from Toys r' Us with a new GBA SP and copy of Metroid Fusion. What I didn't realize at the time was that Fusion was, at the time, the end of the series timeline lmfao

SnowyTasha wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2025 3:19 pm
Fusion was my first game in the series, btw. I was introduced to it by a classmate in 2003 and after school a few days later came home from Toys r' Us with a new GBA SP and copy of Metroid Fusion. What I didn't realize at the time was that Fusion was, at the time, the end of the series timeline lmfao

oh dang, Fusion as your first Metroid game, nice! My first Metroid game was Zero Mission, though I did play a little bit of Metroid 2 before then at a friends' house when I was a kid. I didn't understand it at the time, lmao, because I was way more used to linear stuff like Super Mario Bros, Castlevania and Yoshi's Island.

JarylGaren wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2025 3:27 pm

SnowyTasha wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2025 3:19 pm
Fusion was my first game in the series, btw. I was introduced to it by a classmate in 2003 and after school a few days later came home from Toys r' Us with a new GBA SP and copy of Metroid Fusion. What I didn't realize at the time was that Fusion was, at the time, the end of the series timeline lmfao

oh dang, Fusion as your first Metroid game, nice! My first Metroid game was Zero Mission, though I did play a little bit of Metroid 2 before then at a friends' house when I was a kid. I didn't understand it at the time, lmao, because I was way more used to linear stuff like Super Mario Bros, Castlevania and Yoshi's Island.

Yup, Fusion was my first! 22 years on I've beaten several Metroid games 100%, including Prime 1 100% an obscene number of times (i think i'm somewhere around 7 and am working on my 8th 100% playthrough). I love this series so much and wish the release gaps were... less frequent.

SnowyTasha wrote: Mon Jul 28, 2025 3:58 pm I love this series so much and wish the release gaps were... less frequent.

god, same.
I think that's where Nintendo's almost pathological need to innovate and think of new gameplay hooks to "surprise and delight" players is actively a detriment, because that then leads to long gaps of nothing (Metroid, Kid Icarus, F-Zero, Star Fox, for example) and the occasional stinker (shout-outs to Paper Mario: Sticker Star)
then again, I have my own hot take about Star Fox, namely that literally everything the fandom makes is more interesting than anything Nintendo themselves would do. And yes, I am also talking about all the gay porn

I get not wanting to make the same stuff over and over again, but also, sometimes it would just be nice to have a new game that's pretty damn good, that maybe doesn't necessarily reinvent the entire genre or series, but is just fun to play.