Happy 30th Anniversary, Metroid!

[Phonetic Hero]

Surprised there wasn't already a thread for this, but happy 30th birthday, Metroid!!  This series means so much to me, and Metroid Prime in particular is one of my favorite games ever.  Anyone doing anything to celebrate today?  I'm working my way through AM2R, the fan remake of Metroid 2 with my roommate - the full version FINALLY released today after years of hard work and the game is seriously amazing, highly recommended!

Any favorite games from the series, or even more specifically, moments from games?  I probably have too many to list, but a couple for me are:

• First stepping foot in the Chozo Ruins in Metroid Prime and having the camera pan around to show the abandoned temple structures
• Pretty much anything to do with avoiding the SA-X when it's revealed how powerful it is and knowing you're no match

If anyone's got any fan works, I'd love to see/hear them!  I've been hard at work myself over the past 6 months or so, putting together a few original tracks to try to capture what the series means to me (made a separate thread for it, if anyone's interested).  If you've made anything to celebrate Metroid recently (or maybe not so recently!), post it up!

[The Damned]

My favorite Metroid is... Fusion.

I know, I know, it's the evil bastard child (for some reason) but it's one of the few Metroid games I really enjoyed. I've played it at least eight times since I got the GBA cart back in 2002 and on my 3DS (Ambassador, baby!), whereas the rest of the series is pretty much one playthrough and I'm done with it.

Prime? Completed the first one, almost finished the second never completed the third.

Original and Super? Tried them... never really got into them. Though Super Metroid had some pretty good music.

Metroid 2 on the GameBoy is a part of my collection, even if it's only something I've played a few times. Pretty good for the hardware and the screen limitations, as they used a huge sprite for Samus.

If only one game out of an entire series can make me keep playing it, then that series has done something right, regardless of the rest.

Thanks for some good times, Samus.

[Subz1987]

That remake is amazing. Kinda makes me mad that Nintendo gave up on 2D Metroid.

[Sam Dillard]

My favorite series for over 20 years.  I celebrated by making a new song based on the Metroid Prime battle XD

 

[Ronald Poe]

My friend and I had a really good time with Metroid the Other M. I can't believe Metroid is 30 years old. Samus is still a beautiful badass.

[YoshiBlade]

14 hours ago, The Damned said:

My favorite Metroid is... Fusion.

 

When ever someone say they like Metorid Fusion  "Did someone say Fusion?"

I gotta give it to Fusion for being probably the scariest Metroid. Oh and that one Face melting boss, I'm not sure if it was him (I'm fairly sure it was at least Fusion) I had headphones on and the sound it makes when it gets hit or dies nearly melted my eardrums.

[Miyakan]

I loved the Prime trilogy. Played the first two on gamecube, never quite managed to beat the final boss on Echoes. Played through most of Corruption on the Wii. Then when the trilogy released on the Wii I bought it straight away. Managed to actually finish all three last year.

I love the atmosphere the prime trilogy had. So much lore that you could discover from scanning everything. It was interesting how they managed to make the world seem so fleshed out in terms of story and lore, yet make it feel so empty as you went through it. It makes you feel so alone when playing through it.

The only 2d one I have played is fusion, but I got stuck on one of the bosses not far from the end. I should probably finish it at some point.

[Thomas Neil]

Prime 2 is absolutely amazing, and the music for the whole Prime series is wonderful. I've never actually played any Metroid games other than the Prime series, but I'd love to. Maybe with release of this new mini NES I will.

OK, technically I started Other M, but we don't talk about that game

Happy (belated) Birthday Samus!

[jnWake]

I'm not a longtime Metroid fan but I've played through a chunk of the franchise these past few years: Super Metroid, Prime 1, 2 and 3 and Other M. I'm now playing Fusion. So far I've liked all of them with Prime 3 and Super Metroid being my favourite.

[Phonetic Hero]

On 8/6/2016 at 10:24 PM, Subz1987 said:

That remake is amazing. Kinda makes me mad that Nintendo gave up on 2D Metroid.

I feel sort of the opposite haha, I'm actually glad they haven't remade Metroid 2 so the fanmake could flourish.  Finished all of AM2R yesterday and it's incredible.  I have my issues with it as an assy game critic, but they're pretty few in number and overall it's a really great play.  There's so much added material and it's such a creative and obviously impassioned take on the original, weaving in the series lore and making nods to games that, chronologically, come later in the series.  Really, if you're a Metroid fan, I can't recommend it highly enough!

[Gario]

Happy 30th, Metroid series. As much as I enjoy this series, I'mma release a relatively unknown arrangement of Sandy Maridia that I did ages ago for some Metroid orchestration project unrelated to OCR. It was made in Sibelius, so be gentle to the instrument quality, lol.

Enjoy the gift.

Also, AM2R is absolutely balls-out amazing, and everyone who enjoys any of the 2D metroid games should give it a go. It lives up to the hype, and then some.

[DarkeSword]

Weird thing about Metroid: I never considered myself a Metroid fan growing up. I missed Metroid, Metroid II, and Super Metroid as a kid (no Gameboy or SNES). But I eventually got around to checking out Zero Mission, the Metroid Prime series, and Fusion. Really like the series, and I have a bunch of Metroid remixes here on OCR.

I love the series, but I still don't really consider myself a huge fan of Metroid; not in the same way that I was a fan of Sonic or Mega Man or even Kirby. For me it's always been "oh yeah, I played that game, it was pretty awesome. Samus is cool." But beyond maybe the Prime games, I have very little nostalgic investment in the Metroid series at large.

I did check out AM2R last night. Pretty solid stuff.

[BorgMan]

My fondest memory is from the original Metroid. I found that music so awesome, it was one of the first things I downloaded (in wav) from a remix site.

But the panning when you set foot on Tallon Ruins, combined with those classic tunes? Oh man... Them were some shivers allright...

[MindWanderer]

I've been a huge 2D Metroid fan all along.  So many good memories.  Getting horrendously lost in the original Metroid, and my friend getting so frustrated with it that he took out the cartridge and chucked it across the street.  Going back later and mastering it, finally seeing what no-suit, no-Varia Samus looked like.  That moment in Super Metroid when you descend through Old Tourian into Brinstar for the first time, and the whole epic descent into Lower Norfair.  Finding secret areas in bizarre places in Super Metroid, and scouring it with my friends to find 100%.  Finding out what the secret of the space station in Metroid Fusion was, and yeah, the terror of hiding from the SA-X, and then those two things combining in the final boss sequence.

Wasn't that big a fan of Zero Mission--it was solid, but the way you couldn't explore the bulk of the map thoroughly until you reached the very end of the game took away a lot of the fun for me.  And when I first tried Metroid Prime, I was complete rubbish at FPS's, so I found it horribly difficult and quit at the first miniboss, though now I have the Prime Trilogy downloaded and it's fairly high on my to-play list.

AM2R looks amazing and I'm looking forward to it.  Looks like it's already been DMCA'd, but it's not hard to find anyway.

[Gario]

On the topic of AM2R, the music that's been remade is quite good. For the most part, it's a combination of Metroid 2 and Super Metroid tunes, remixed to fit the area appropriately. It's some good stuff, overall.

[Admiral_C]

3 hours ago, MindWanderer said:

Wasn't that big a fan of Zero Mission--it was solid, but the way you couldn't explore the bulk of the map thoroughly until you reached the very end of the game took away a lot of the fun for me.

 

The amazing part of Zero Mission is the level design. They make it possible to complete the entire game with less than 5% of the items. Discovering how to do it and then pulling it off was/is awesome.

[BardicKnowledge]

AM2R is wicked good -- it could have done far less and been a successful fan game.  As it stands, the quality is so good that Nintendo could have released it as an official remake and nobody would think twice about it.  The inclusion of all of the native SR-388 enemies from Metroid Fusion is an especially smart touch.

And for those people in this thread who loved Fusion, you will likely enjoy AM2R the most -- Fusion has always had more in common with Metroid II than the other titles, because they share a certain amount of linearity, though both the original Game Boy game and the remake have more open spaces than Fusion.

[The Damned]

18 hours ago, DarkeSword said:

I missed Metroid, Metroid II, and Super Metroid as a kid (no Gameboy or SNES).

I'm going to invent time travel and send a GameBoy to your younger self. Until then... did you need a hug?

[BardicKnowledge]

Just finished all of AM2R -- what a ride!  Some thoughts now that I'm done (with 94%, incidentally -- will look for the last things on my next playthrough):

First off, there are no real surprises until the 2nd area -- the first area where you get bombs and other starting items looks very nice, but doesn't immediately signal how much of a departure the remake is from the original.  Easing players into it is probably for the best, and it works.  Once you enter into Area 2's water stuff though, you know you're in for a treat.  Metroid II was often cited as the most atmospheric of the games for good reason, and I love that it keeps its potential to scare you if you wander too quickly inside a breeding ground.  The new mechanics -- especially the underwater zone and the electrified walls that prevented weapons fire -- were very well done.

Alpha Metroids are vastly improved, and it's nice that there are two clear variations of them now.  Gammas are bigger without requiring significantly different tactics, though the new moves they have are awesome (if easily avoided).  Zetas and Omegas -- holy cow, what great stuff.  I never did settle into a good pattern with Zeta Metroids, and instead just unloaded a ton, haha.  I don't want to spoil too much, but almost all of the new bosses (and returning ones from Fusion) are excellent as well.  I thought the optional boss above the mineshaft (come back with power bombs!) could have used one more attack pattern, but otherwise everything was stellar.  

The single best moment was an unexpected scripted event that caused a moment of sheer panic on my part -- absolutely brilliant design decision.  Won't say any more there, as I imagine I will not be the only one wracked with nervousness.

I'd place this right next to Zero Mission for quality, though it's worth noting that I did not encounter either of the large bugs (one after a suit upgrade, one after the Queen fight) that some people have reported.

[DarkeSword]

2 hours ago, The Damned said:

I'm going to invent time travel and send a GameBoy to your younger self. Until then... did you need a hug?

I had NES, Sega Genesis, a Game Gear, and a lot of shareware games for MS-DOS. I'm good.

[Sam Dillard]

Also here's a personalized tribute vid to Metroid30 from the fans and me, including Jessica Martin herself:

 

[AngelCityOutlaw]

I'm celebratin' by playing Prime again and @timaeus222 and I are working on a positively sick follow up to our 2013 Metroid ReMix.

[Chernabogue]

Metroid introduced me to OCR though "Kraid's Lair"/"Brinstar Depths", so I guess it's time to celebrate! I think I'll play some MZM, which is still my favorite. Maybe a remix when I get more time? Everything for Ms. Aran.

[MindWanderer]

On 8/9/2016 at 10:30 AM, BardicKnowledge said:

I'd place this right next to Zero Mission for quality, though it's worth noting that I did not encounter either of the large bugs (one after a suit upgrade, one after the Queen fight) that some people have reported.

AM2R 1.1 is now out, which apparently fixes the former of those two bugs.  No mention of the latter.  And fortunately you can import your old saves, and my current game just happens to be right before said suit upgrade, yay!  Also there's a new endgame shortcut which should speed up 100% runs.

I'm enjoying it immensely as well.  It does have a few areas that are kind of large and empty, but the original Metroid 2 suffered from the same thing a bit.  The difficulty is a bit spiky, and I've died to bosses way more than I'm used to in Metroid games (playing on the medium difficulty setting).  A couple of them are also in large exploration sections, where if you run into them early in the section it'll be an incredibly difficult fight.  There are also a couple of gimmicky sections that I didn't feel were particularly fun--I liked the ideas but the execution wasn't great.  But overall, the only hints that this isn't a real Nintendo game, aside from the explanatory text, are the customization options, which are pretty extensive, and some of which wouldn't make sense on any Nintendo console.  Absolutely professional quality, highly recommended.

[BardicKnowledge]

17 hours ago, MindWanderer said:

But overall, the only hints that this isn't a real Nintendo game, aside from the explanatory text, are the customization options, which are pretty extensive, and some of which wouldn't make sense on any Nintendo console.  Absolutely professional quality, highly recommended.

The side-event to get the Super Missiles stands out as something Nintendo probably would not have done, though it's over so quickly once you know what you're doing that it isn't a big deal.  Any longer and I wouldn't have enjoyed the departure from standard gameplay.