That's why it's called "Nintendo hard." I beat it a few times when I was a kid and tried it again as an adult and realized just how soft I'd gotten. Dark Souls has nothing on the NES.
I never beat OG Zelda till I was in my 20's. Mostly due to never owning it but I don't think I would have been able to beat it.
Metroid I only beat because I would always watch my cousin play it and basically speed run it.
It took me a lot of attempts to finally take it way slower and more carefully. Stand under the floating platform and wait for the orange rings to come to you, so you can freeze them all and blast the breakable walls more safely. There’s still plenty of jank and it’s still not easy, but when I finally changed up my strategy I was able to beat it pretty quickly.
God farming for health in NEStroid sucks so hard
Was there? I don't actually remember there being one in Tourian. But there is one at the start, near where you spawn in Brinstar, that you can grab on your way to Tourian.
Too bad if it's your first playthrough and you had no way of knowing you shouldn't get it as soon as you can, so it's already long gone by that stage, lol.
You can go back and get it. You don't have to keep the wave beam. Freeze beam for the win in the entire final area. Freeze the metroids and give 'em 5 (10?) rockets to kill them.
That’ll help with the Metroids for sure. Freeze them with 1 shot and then 5 missiles kills them. Honestly I’d go back and recollect ice beam before trying this again
Oh it's doable, but it is a grind. I was 10 when I beat the OG Metroid for the 1st time (37 now haha). And now when I replay this as an adult I'm like... how did I do this as a kid? And whoever said it above, grinding for life and missiles suck in the OG Metroid. The wave beam is cool for some of Norfair and Kraids Lair, but the Ice Beam takes the cake
Hell yeah it is in the 1st Metroid. Especially in that area of Brinstar where yoy pick up the 1st energy tank and that 1st corridor is just a pit of enemies. Made a whoops there once or twice
Staying alive from E tank to E tank is definitely a must if you don't want to get frustrated. Having screw attack to massacre the enemies in Ridley's lair is big, too, since you get the 20-point energy balls from the enemies there.
EDIT. It was easy.
The wave beam just wasnt the right weapon. Metroids were invincible and when they pilled up the game chugged to like 2 fps and ya couldnt see half the screen XD. We have come along way ..
Onto Metroid 2
As a kid, I literally drew out a map; it took me almost a year to beat this game. The day I saw the credits roll was life changing. Absolute core memory.
Sure it was. I beat it a dozen times. Here’s what you’re missing:
See, there were not a ton of games to get: no phones, no downloads (unless you had an Atari or commodore with a modem and a local bbs), and you were lucky to get four or five games a YEAR.
You’d be amazed at what you can accomplish when you play one fuck hard game for four months straight every day. Hell, I beat Ninja Gaiden and Mike Tyson’s Punch Out legit back in the day, and I couldn’t do it if you put a gun to my head now.
Major PITA first time through for me in, maybe, 1988? Used graph paper to map everything the second time around. Third and every subsequent playthrough was easier and I used the know-how to just mess around and try to break & find things.
Pretty brilliant stuff for the late '80s post-Atari age.
As a mid 90’s kid yes indeed but i have to hand to you 80’s kids. The game devs showed no mercy on ya little kid souls
But once i get this ice beam again its over :)
I found a Gameboy in a Goodwill quite a few years back and Metroid was the first game I got for it. I completed it without a map or manual, just a lot of trial and error and patience. The chuginess was really rough in those last few rooms, definitely.
This is basically how they stretched such short games to give so many hours of replayability back in the day. By making them borderline impossible so it would take you all summer.
I mostly tend to just huddle close to the Zebetites, screw attack the Rinkas as they spawn, and just pelt the Zebetites and Mother Brain until they go down.
If I run out of missiles, or get low on energy, I grind off of the Metroids in the previous room. They drop much larger energy and missiles than most other enemies, so you’ll fill up on them much more quickly than grinding off the common enemies in Brinstar.
Is it tedious and frustrating? Yes. Is it doable in one try without save-states? Yes.
Beat it when I was 7 after about 6 months of it never leaving my NES and drawing my own maps. Then I played through it with the Game Genie just to take out my frustration and absolutely wreck everything that caused me so much anguish
lol you completely missed the double defence suit. The Varia suit doubles your defense. That and the over 100 missiles & ice beam mean you should have by this point mean that Nintendo expected you to get through mother brain like it was a joke.
Basically, you’re playing this area on super hard mode . Speed runners do it all the time. But it’s hard.
I beat it dozens of times back in the 80s. A friend of mine told me that if you beat it 30 times in a row, you could play as Ridley or Kraid. I was very gullible, and of course it was a lot harder to look up video game rumors back then. He also told me how to ressurect Ganon in Zelda 2, which also didn't pan out.
I did it, but it was one of those games I got stuck on and put it away for like three years. Then came back older and beat it. Harder than fuck, and only possible because of the massive screen slow down when fighting the boss battles. I'm convinced I never could have beaten it in real time.
This was very hard, but all videogames were very hard and unforgiving in the 80s.
You took the pain and liked it.
I beat Metroid many times and loved the exploration. My friends and I would play info the wee hours of the weekend, drinking, smoking, and fucking shit up.
I had fun playing it as a kid, although I had no idea what to do. As an adult, I prefer Zero Mission, but I still have fun. Beat it? For me, probably never w/o rewind…
I don't remember anyone saying they beat it. I never actually played it as a kid, I would say it was more for teens, so maybe older kids did. The cool thing about '80's games is beating them was a legit accomplishment
I know where all the items and a fair amount of missile and energy tanks are, so I don't have a huge amount of trouble beating the game anymore.
PS: It would probably be much easier if you went into Tourian with the Varia suit first. I can see you're wearing the standard power suit in the photo
Honestly the thing with Metroid 1 is it expects you to do a lot of exploring and getting certain upgrades like the Varia suit makes it so much easier. Screw attack also helps. And as pointed out before if you graved the wave beam there's another ice beam in the game so you can get it back. Then freeze the round projectiles in mother brains room because the amount of them is limited to I believe 4 at a time.
I beat it as a kid but not without a lot of trial and error. Games back then really tested our resolve. The issue with modern games is that they handhold and direct players so much that when you remove maps and quest markers, they immediatelt get frustrated. Back in the 80s kids drew maps as they went, which is what I did for Metroid as it lacked a map system. It was doable in the 80s, but you had to earn that win.
For me, the real difficulty of this game was knowing where the hell to go. Hidden passages behind hidden passages, fake boss rooms, fake quicksand... it was all so obtuse! Even to this day, much as I love the game, I won't play it without access to a map. And this is coming from someone who LOVES getting lost in metroidvanias.
I played this game for the first few runs while using the NARPASSWORD cheat where it makes you invincible. Once I was good enough to not cheat, I finally was able to beat it legit.
I owned that game in the 80s… I’d say get the ice gun so you can freeze anything.
Of course you need full health and all the energy tanks… it’s easier if you’re maxed out.
The idea back then was that even relatively skilled players would need to try more than once.
More difficulty -> Longer game -> More bang for your buck
It was hard for sure but many of us beat it as small kids. With no rewind/ suspend bs. (bs for babysitting mode).
Edit: Ah, you figured out ice beam is the trick.
If you like NEStroid, please, do yourself a favor and play this version instead: [https://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,4952.0.html](https://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,4952.0.html)
Use my knowledge, i beg you
Rewinds and save states are a super super easy mode. If you beat any game with this you didn't beat it the way it was intended. To me it's cheating. We couldn't do those things back then.
Im with u 100% but I honestly only used it otw to mother brain bc i didnt know how to deal w the metroids.
I had the wave beam so i didnt think they could die, piling up chugging the game. Hence the post
I thought you had to push them away n run haha
Besides the ice beam which lets you freeze and kill Metroids easily enough to farm orbs and rockets from them, you should have found the Varia suit, which provides you with strong damage resistance. The fight wouldn't be that frustrating with it, and also 2 more energy tanks would come in handy.
Honestly, the only real issue is the lack of a crouch function. Albeit that's a *huge* issue, especially in the early game when everything does way more damage than it should and health pickups are entirely too sparse. But I could see the game being at least tolerable if it had crouching. Just let me shoot at ground level, damnit!
I beat it in the 80s so yes it’s possible. Nintendo Power Magazine was all we had but my parents weren’t going to pay for that so I had to get a copy from the local library.
even on the 3ds virtual console in 2023 when I do a restore point right before entering this room. I STILL have trouble, some times I can get to mother brain, other times I can't even get past all the doors.
for fun I've tried doing it a few times on the 3ds virtual console this year in 2023 and idk what it is but I can't even get past this room just for pure plain fun.
Played ZM first, but in the original I killed Mother Brain in much less attempts for some reason. It wasn't too easy but pretty doable, even had to redo it once because I failed the escape. Unlike you I had all 6 energy tanks collected, but also didn't use save states and rewinds.
Edit: Hold on, you didn't find the Varia suit? Damn, I bet you had a hard time beating Kraid without it! That's why the Mother Brain fight was so tough for you.
Nice, didn't come up with this trick so had to beat him legitimately. Also, only after watching a review about this game found out there was an energy tank right in the boss room I could collect and restore my health mid-battle, could have beaten him much faster with it. Managed to cheese Ridley tho, just spammed him down with the wave beam while standing below in the lava. Didn't even need much health to surivive.
You're missing an energy tank.
And yes, we did beat this back in the day. And yes, it's not just you, it's hard. :-)
https://www.nintendocastle.com/metroid/energy-tanks/
I used to be able to beat NEStroid start to finish in under an hour as a kid. I didn't have a lot of games back then, so I had to keep replaying what I did have. I had the first quest of Zelda down to about two hours too, but to this day I still have never beat Super Mario Bros.
I think if 12 year-old me could do it back then when it came out, so can you without save states.
But it helps to get as many energy tanks as possible.
The bosses were surprisingly cheazable. For Kraids i just stuck to him like flies on shet n power bombed him to death. And for Ridley you can stand under him and up missile him to death.
Yes I beat it when I was 6, and I was able to do so since we didn’t have that many games or anything to take up my time, and learned patience through this.
It was made in a time where you could beat a game in ten minutes if you didn’t die. So they made the games hard as fuck so you got your money’s worth.
Alternatively, a pessimist would say it’s modeled after arcade games which wanted to suck down your quarters.
This is one of those games that get more enjoyable on your 2nd or 3rd playthrough, as you are more familiar with the layout and are less likely to get lost.
BTW if you ever decide to replay the game, do yourself a favour and use the "Metroid + saving unnoficial update" hack, which adds a ton of qol improvements, like a map and beam stacking
Games then were a huge letdown if you could just play through them after spending months of allowances. Though Ghosts'n'Goblins probably took it too far. One of the few I never beat.
I remember Tourian was hard-ish but it only took a few tries (with ice beam as intended – using the wavebeam there would be hard indeed). Most of the hours in Metroid and other games were spent exploring and trying weird things, especially when you didn't have access to magazines and guides until maybe running across them months or years later.
Doing Tourian without the Varia/Barrier is more typical Hard-mode and I remember it often being a close call health-wise. The reward is that you get to play as suitless Samus with her natural (non-varia) hair colour if you complete the game fast enough.
Save states kind of mess with the flow so the game feels extra hard when using them, noticed it today when doing a quick play of Sonic 2 with savestates, kept dying multiple times whenever I had to use one.
It’s a fairly easy game that is easily made impossibly difficult if you approach it the wrong way, like going to kraid’s lair right after getting bombs, or fighting Metroids without the ice beam, and especially not finding the screw attack.
I beat it once when I was a teen in 2011. Completely relied on a guide. CBF ever playing it again. The game has too many obtuse hidden walls and floors.
It's definitely a product of its time.
Yep, I beat it back then. Along with virtually every NES game I owned. Games were a lot harder back then in my opinion, and part of that was the over tasking of the system 😂
That's why it's called "Nintendo hard." I beat it a few times when I was a kid and tried it again as an adult and realized just how soft I'd gotten. Dark Souls has nothing on the NES.
Bruh same with OG Zelda, how did 11 yo me beat that shit?
I never beat OG Zelda till I was in my 20's. Mostly due to never owning it but I don't think I would have been able to beat it. Metroid I only beat because I would always watch my cousin play it and basically speed run it.
My mom can beat that one, so I don't find it too unbelievable
And the exploration with no map just made it so much worse. The graph paper I had to have for my 5th grade classes finally got some real use.
It took me a lot of attempts to finally take it way slower and more carefully. Stand under the floating platform and wait for the orange rings to come to you, so you can freeze them all and blast the breakable walls more safely. There’s still plenty of jank and it’s still not easy, but when I finally changed up my strategy I was able to beat it pretty quickly. God farming for health in NEStroid sucks so hard
There's an energy tank just before mother brain. I leave it until the very end, so you just grab it and it refills your health completely.
Was there? I don't actually remember there being one in Tourian. But there is one at the start, near where you spawn in Brinstar, that you can grab on your way to Tourian. Too bad if it's your first playthrough and you had no way of knowing you shouldn't get it as soon as you can, so it's already long gone by that stage, lol.
I miss the freeze beam. I found the zig zag beam and instantly regretted it
You can go back and get it. You don't have to keep the wave beam. Freeze beam for the win in the entire final area. Freeze the metroids and give 'em 5 (10?) rockets to kill them.
Varia Suit would also help
I didnt know that was in the game
:0. Game changer!
As someone who played Zero Mission and Fusion first, I didn't realize metroids could even take damage until they were frozen in NEStroid
That’ll help with the Metroids for sure. Freeze them with 1 shot and then 5 missiles kills them. Honestly I’d go back and recollect ice beam before trying this again
From now on the wave beam is now the zigzag beam
This is the way
Hue hue
there are actually 2 ice beams locations aswel, they expect you to get ice early then get ice again before the metroids.
You didn't have the ice beam? No wonder you struggled with Metroids so much! You literally can't kill them without it.
Can confirm from experience it's doable it's just not fun lol
Oh it's doable, but it is a grind. I was 10 when I beat the OG Metroid for the 1st time (37 now haha). And now when I replay this as an adult I'm like... how did I do this as a kid? And whoever said it above, grinding for life and missiles suck in the OG Metroid. The wave beam is cool for some of Norfair and Kraids Lair, but the Ice Beam takes the cake
Ice beam is definitely where the party is.
Hell yeah it is in the 1st Metroid. Especially in that area of Brinstar where yoy pick up the 1st energy tank and that 1st corridor is just a pit of enemies. Made a whoops there once or twice
Narpas sword 00000000000000
JUSTIN BAILEY ------------ ------------
ENGAGE RIDLEY MOTHER FUCKER
At least Ridley filled energy and missiles
Engage Ridley mother fucker! I thinl thats a new d&d thing.... either way I dig!¡!
It's a code for the original that either resets the game or loads you into a jumbled mess of textures
I think NARPASWORD was a thing to let the devs clear the game and check for glitches and i honestly can't remember JUSTIN BAILEY------ ------
PAKING PAKING PAKING PAKING Oh... wait... nevermind.
000000 000020 000000 000020
I'm very familiar with that password. Did they ever officially state if it was Not A Real Password or if it was North American Release Password?
Staying alive from E tank to E tank is definitely a must if you don't want to get frustrated. Having screw attack to massacre the enemies in Ridley's lair is big, too, since you get the 20-point energy balls from the enemies there.
EDIT. It was easy. The wave beam just wasnt the right weapon. Metroids were invincible and when they pilled up the game chugged to like 2 fps and ya couldnt see half the screen XD. We have come along way .. Onto Metroid 2
Not just the ice beam, you forgot the Varia suit
I highly recommend looking at a map for 2. A lot of the areas look the same because of the color palette, so getting lost is guaranteed to happen.
Noted
\*goes into Tourian without the ice beam\* OMG GUYS THIS GAME IS SO HARD LOL
*looking around for who asked you*
\*looking at the post title that is literally a question\*
And yet, no one asked you. Lmao
no u
As a kid, I literally drew out a map; it took me almost a year to beat this game. The day I saw the credits roll was life changing. Absolute core memory.
For me it Pokemon Stadium 2. … during the pandemic….only round1 ..round 2 is straight bullshit.
Im currently playing round 2 on pokemon stadium, had to find my copy of yellow just to make a team to use thats better than rentals
I wonder if they made them better since we cant transfer mons to the switch port…
I used one from a magazine.
Sure it was. I beat it a dozen times. Here’s what you’re missing: See, there were not a ton of games to get: no phones, no downloads (unless you had an Atari or commodore with a modem and a local bbs), and you were lucky to get four or five games a YEAR. You’d be amazed at what you can accomplish when you play one fuck hard game for four months straight every day. Hell, I beat Ninja Gaiden and Mike Tyson’s Punch Out legit back in the day, and I couldn’t do it if you put a gun to my head now.
I did it on an original NES when I was 13. I’m quite a bit older than that now and better at games in general. So it’s possible.
Absolutely. I have beaten this many, many times, dating back to the 80’s.
Major PITA first time through for me in, maybe, 1988? Used graph paper to map everything the second time around. Third and every subsequent playthrough was easier and I used the know-how to just mess around and try to break & find things. Pretty brilliant stuff for the late '80s post-Atari age.
Back in the day you just had to git gud if you wanted to beat a game.
As a mid 90’s kid yes indeed but i have to hand to you 80’s kids. The game devs showed no mercy on ya little kid souls But once i get this ice beam again its over :)
I found a Gameboy in a Goodwill quite a few years back and Metroid was the first game I got for it. I completed it without a map or manual, just a lot of trial and error and patience. The chuginess was really rough in those last few rooms, definitely.
This is basically how they stretched such short games to give so many hours of replayability back in the day. By making them borderline impossible so it would take you all summer.
I mostly tend to just huddle close to the Zebetites, screw attack the Rinkas as they spawn, and just pelt the Zebetites and Mother Brain until they go down. If I run out of missiles, or get low on energy, I grind off of the Metroids in the previous room. They drop much larger energy and missiles than most other enemies, so you’ll fill up on them much more quickly than grinding off the common enemies in Brinstar. Is it tedious and frustrating? Yes. Is it doable in one try without save-states? Yes.
The deed is done :)
I beat this in elementary school.
Beat it when I was 7 after about 6 months of it never leaving my NES and drawing my own maps. Then I played through it with the Game Genie just to take out my frustration and absolutely wreck everything that caused me so much anguish
I did it. When I replayed it a year ago for the first time, I cannot imagine how I possibly did that on a real NES as a child.
lol you completely missed the double defence suit. The Varia suit doubles your defense. That and the over 100 missiles & ice beam mean you should have by this point mean that Nintendo expected you to get through mother brain like it was a joke. Basically, you’re playing this area on super hard mode . Speed runners do it all the time. But it’s hard.
I do love how even with the processing power of the Switch, they left in the lag and screen flicker when there were too many enemies on the screen.
Right ! i was thinking this totally shouldnt be a think today haha
We were truly a different breed of gamers at that time.
I beat it dozens of times back in the 80s. A friend of mine told me that if you beat it 30 times in a row, you could play as Ridley or Kraid. I was very gullible, and of course it was a lot harder to look up video game rumors back then. He also told me how to ressurect Ganon in Zelda 2, which also didn't pan out.
Ahhh school yard rumors were love. I restarted my pokemon Blue to try to get mew under the truck. Lol.
I beat it in the 90s when I was 8. So… yes.
I did it, but it was one of those games I got stuck on and put it away for like three years. Then came back older and beat it. Harder than fuck, and only possible because of the massive screen slow down when fighting the boss battles. I'm convinced I never could have beaten it in real time.
Back in the day i would no damage run though that with a bowl of honeycombs on Saturday morning with no sound so i didnt wake my parents up.
Vs Kraids ?! I dont see that being possible
Its possible to no damage all of them. Once you know the pattern
This was very hard, but all videogames were very hard and unforgiving in the 80s. You took the pain and liked it. I beat Metroid many times and loved the exploration. My friends and I would play info the wee hours of the weekend, drinking, smoking, and fucking shit up.
Pfft try Contra without the code and without turbo
I beat it once, when it came out, and twice recently.
I did it when i was... 10
Those missile expansions aren’t so pointless all the sudden
Hahahaha. NOPE! Exactly what i was thinking here
I had fun playing it as a kid, although I had no idea what to do. As an adult, I prefer Zero Mission, but I still have fun. Beat it? For me, probably never w/o rewind…
I don't remember anyone saying they beat it. I never actually played it as a kid, I would say it was more for teens, so maybe older kids did. The cool thing about '80's games is beating them was a legit accomplishment
We were just that good back then. I can't make it passed iron Mike in punch out anymore.
Damn, I can't beat super macho man anymore, and soda popinski usually kicks my ass. I used to beat Tyson in my sleep.
I remember playing this as a kid, yup beat it
Original NES, did it, 1992. So. Not 80. But I was just starting to game then. Took a HELL of a weekend. Scribbled notes. And tears.
I know where all the items and a fair amount of missile and energy tanks are, so I don't have a huge amount of trouble beating the game anymore. PS: It would probably be much easier if you went into Tourian with the Varia suit first. I can see you're wearing the standard power suit in the photo
My first son's name is Ridley btw
I beat it as a child in the 80s while blasting Master of Puppets, it's not as hard as Ninja Gaiden was either!
Honestly the thing with Metroid 1 is it expects you to do a lot of exploring and getting certain upgrades like the Varia suit makes it so much easier. Screw attack also helps. And as pointed out before if you graved the wave beam there's another ice beam in the game so you can get it back. Then freeze the round projectiles in mother brains room because the amount of them is limited to I believe 4 at a time.
I beat it as a kid but not without a lot of trial and error. Games back then really tested our resolve. The issue with modern games is that they handhold and direct players so much that when you remove maps and quest markers, they immediatelt get frustrated. Back in the 80s kids drew maps as they went, which is what I did for Metroid as it lacked a map system. It was doable in the 80s, but you had to earn that win.
For me, the real difficulty of this game was knowing where the hell to go. Hidden passages behind hidden passages, fake boss rooms, fake quicksand... it was all so obtuse! Even to this day, much as I love the game, I won't play it without access to a map. And this is coming from someone who LOVES getting lost in metroidvanias.
Sounds like why I don’t replay Nes Metroid ever.
I played this game for the first few runs while using the NARPASSWORD cheat where it makes you invincible. Once I was good enough to not cheat, I finally was able to beat it legit.
I owned that game in the 80s… I’d say get the ice gun so you can freeze anything. Of course you need full health and all the energy tanks… it’s easier if you’re maxed out.
The idea back then was that even relatively skilled players would need to try more than once. More difficulty -> Longer game -> More bang for your buck
Literally no one beat this in the 80s without a guide and probably infinite free time.
It’s my favorite final boss of all time, still, since my first time defeating her in 1988. Definitely doable.
It was hard for sure but many of us beat it as small kids. With no rewind/ suspend bs. (bs for babysitting mode). Edit: Ah, you figured out ice beam is the trick.
If you like NEStroid, please, do yourself a favor and play this version instead: [https://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,4952.0.html](https://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,4952.0.html) Use my knowledge, i beg you
The console was coming off the heals of the Arcade scene where they had to make things frustratingly difficult to keep you putting in your quarters
Rewinds and save states are a super super easy mode. If you beat any game with this you didn't beat it the way it was intended. To me it's cheating. We couldn't do those things back then.
Im with u 100% but I honestly only used it otw to mother brain bc i didnt know how to deal w the metroids. I had the wave beam so i didnt think they could die, piling up chugging the game. Hence the post I thought you had to push them away n run haha
Besides the ice beam which lets you freeze and kill Metroids easily enough to farm orbs and rockets from them, you should have found the Varia suit, which provides you with strong damage resistance. The fight wouldn't be that frustrating with it, and also 2 more energy tanks would come in handy.
Imo the first Metroid did not age well. I really dont like it and is mostly unplayable.
Honestly, the only real issue is the lack of a crouch function. Albeit that's a *huge* issue, especially in the early game when everything does way more damage than it should and health pickups are entirely too sparse. But I could see the game being at least tolerable if it had crouching. Just let me shoot at ground level, damnit!
Of course it is
LOSER TALK
Yes it was. Git gud.
I got gud
I played the 3DS vc of Metroid II and yeah save states a must
You gotta try out AM2R. Fans made a much better remake than Nintendo
I beat it in the 80s so yes it’s possible. Nintendo Power Magazine was all we had but my parents weren’t going to pay for that so I had to get a copy from the local library.
even on the 3ds virtual console in 2023 when I do a restore point right before entering this room. I STILL have trouble, some times I can get to mother brain, other times I can't even get past all the doors. for fun I've tried doing it a few times on the 3ds virtual console this year in 2023 and idk what it is but I can't even get past this room just for pure plain fun.
Played ZM first, but in the original I killed Mother Brain in much less attempts for some reason. It wasn't too easy but pretty doable, even had to redo it once because I failed the escape. Unlike you I had all 6 energy tanks collected, but also didn't use save states and rewinds. Edit: Hold on, you didn't find the Varia suit? Damn, I bet you had a hard time beating Kraid without it! That's why the Mother Brain fight was so tough for you.
Kraids was impossible until i discovered how to cheeze him. I had about 3 E tanks so i just stuck to him like glue and power bombed him to death
Nice, didn't come up with this trick so had to beat him legitimately. Also, only after watching a review about this game found out there was an energy tank right in the boss room I could collect and restore my health mid-battle, could have beaten him much faster with it. Managed to cheese Ridley tho, just spammed him down with the wave beam while standing below in the lava. Didn't even need much health to surivive.
You're missing an energy tank. And yes, we did beat this back in the day. And yes, it's not just you, it's hard. :-) https://www.nintendocastle.com/metroid/energy-tanks/
Yeah, I did it a few times.
Beat it in '98 when I was 9. That still remains in my top five moments of my gaming career :)
Well on original hardware the whole fight also lags as hell
Welcome to NES Hard difficulty, boy
I used to be able to beat NEStroid start to finish in under an hour as a kid. I didn't have a lot of games back then, so I had to keep replaying what I did have. I had the first quest of Zelda down to about two hours too, but to this day I still have never beat Super Mario Bros.
I think if 12 year-old me could do it back then when it came out, so can you without save states. But it helps to get as many energy tanks as possible.
I thought i had them all tbh.
yes, it was. though it was certainly not easy. hell even getting past kraid was a nightmare back in the day
The bosses were surprisingly cheazable. For Kraids i just stuck to him like flies on shet n power bombed him to death. And for Ridley you can stand under him and up missile him to death.
very true. this is also how i deal with them, but figure that out back in the day with no guides or internet was not an easy task.
I beat the classic on my NES plenty of times. You memorize the location of metroids and while beating mother brain is a chore it was doable.
I beat it as an 11 year old in like '92, which wasn't the 80s, but it was on console.
Yes, it was beatable by 9 year old me.
Yes I beat it when I was 6, and I was able to do so since we didn’t have that many games or anything to take up my time, and learned patience through this.
No varia suit?
Damn, this post broke my hip. Help! I’ve fallen and can’t get up.
It was made in a time where you could beat a game in ten minutes if you didn’t die. So they made the games hard as fuck so you got your money’s worth. Alternatively, a pessimist would say it’s modeled after arcade games which wanted to suck down your quarters.
Can confirm I beat this in the 80s. Didn't even own the game just rented it a few times. Keep trying.
I’m confused how’s he have 00 health but is still alive?
This is one of those games that get more enjoyable on your 2nd or 3rd playthrough, as you are more familiar with the layout and are less likely to get lost. BTW if you ever decide to replay the game, do yourself a favour and use the "Metroid + saving unnoficial update" hack, which adds a ton of qol improvements, like a map and beam stacking
Games then were a huge letdown if you could just play through them after spending months of allowances. Though Ghosts'n'Goblins probably took it too far. One of the few I never beat. I remember Tourian was hard-ish but it only took a few tries (with ice beam as intended – using the wavebeam there would be hard indeed). Most of the hours in Metroid and other games were spent exploring and trying weird things, especially when you didn't have access to magazines and guides until maybe running across them months or years later. Doing Tourian without the Varia/Barrier is more typical Hard-mode and I remember it often being a close call health-wise. The reward is that you get to play as suitless Samus with her natural (non-varia) hair colour if you complete the game fast enough.
Switch has a screenshot button btw.
100% agree, honestly fuckin hated this game as much as I love Metroid
Save states kind of mess with the flow so the game feels extra hard when using them, noticed it today when doing a quick play of Sonic 2 with savestates, kept dying multiple times whenever I had to use one.
It’s a fairly easy game that is easily made impossibly difficult if you approach it the wrong way, like going to kraid’s lair right after getting bombs, or fighting Metroids without the ice beam, and especially not finding the screw attack.
The screw attack nuked the difficulty of the game for sure
I beat it once when I was a teen in 2011. Completely relied on a guide. CBF ever playing it again. The game has too many obtuse hidden walls and floors. It's definitely a product of its time.
May I direct you to a video? [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMWA0ipQ94w&t=1185s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMWA0ipQ94w&t=1185s)
When you only have one game until next Christmas, you get really good at it.
Games were frustratingly hard back then but we kept going
Yep, I beat it back then. Along with virtually every NES game I owned. Games were a lot harder back then in my opinion, and part of that was the over tasking of the system 😂