Strap in for my tiered ranking of every Metroid game — from the ones I struggled to make it through to the ones I wish I could experience for the first time over and over again.
Tag: metroid
Screw Attacks, Third Impacts, and Other Interstellar Horrors
As a medium, video games are defined by different forms of touch. Both the interface between player and game and the action of most games itself relies upon a set of simple rules — what kinds of responses a particular touch will engender, and what groups of pixels can and cannot be safely touched. Games have their own language for these interactions: collision detection defines the act of in-game touch, and hitboxes measure where and when that touch brings pain. In most games, this becomes a kind of broad and neutral framework: a foundation on which mechanical and narrative structures can be built. But in Metroid, touch becomes its own singular kind of horror.
Metroid II: Return of Samus: Crafting the Genocide Run
There’s something eerily beautiful about the ending to this game. In a way, it does mirror the first Metroid — the shafts filled with metroid larvae that appear just before Samus fights the queen feel much like the entrance to Tourian, and it fills the space after its final boss with an ascent. But this ascent isn’t timed and frantic; it’s really the only moment of peace this otherwise relentless game has to offer. It also is the only moment the game forces Samus to wait for anything, as the hatchling gnaws through otherwise impermeable barriers. It is, in a way, as if it’s asking her to stop and recollect — and it comes as close as it can to a feeling of revelation.
Metroid, and the Art of Getting Lost
Metroid wants to disorient you, to leave you confused and scared and wondering wait, have I been here before as you backtrack through its labyrinthine world, and the result is an environment that feels like its own kind of enemy. And its lack of a visual map — a design choice almost unheard of in decades since — is essential to that feeling; all you have to rely on is your notes and your memory, and both are set up to let you down.
Another Metroid 2(021) Rewind: Mission Statement
After almost two decades in limbo, a game called Metroid Dread will be coming to the Nintendo Switch in early October. In the meantime, join me for a deep dive into why that matters — not just for longtime fans of a seminal series, but for anyone interested in the way video games developed as an art form and storytelling medium. So, over the next three months, I will be playing through the entirety of the Metroid and Metroid Prime series. Welcome to my 2021 Metroid Rewind.
Sunset Over Ithaca 