Video Game Review #159: Sonic R

Sonic R

Sega Saturn

Nostalgia Factor:

I was super excited when Sonic R came out back in 1997. I wasn’t a huge fan of the racing genre, but at the same time I was a big fan of the Mario Kart games. I fully expected Sonic R to be just as good as the Mario Kart series. Being the loyal Sega supporter that I was, I went right out and bought myself a copy of the game.

My first impression of the game was not a good one. The graphics looked really sloppy and messy. There was a ton of background draw-in. There were only a small handful of tracks to race on. The music was flat out strange. And the controls…. my god,  the controls. I could barely keep Sonic going in a straight line, much less to the finish line of the race course.

Did I have a serious case of buyer’s remorse after the first time I played this game? You bet.

The more I played Sonic R, the more it began to grow on me. I started to dig the music. Teenage Dan didn’t have a whole lot of other options to play on the Sega Saturn, so he spent many a night staying up into the wee hours of the morning playing this game over and over again. The controls were still a complete mess, but I was able to master them just enough to collect all of the hidden items in the game and unlock all the extra racers (not that I really used anyone outside of Sonic or Super Sonic). The game didn’t offer a whole lot of content or reasons to come back to it, but by the time I was done with it, I was satisfied. It was a short experience, but for the most part I got what I wanted to out of it. I had fun.

It has been years and years since the last time I’ve actually sat down and played this game again. I got it in either late 1997 or early 1998. Let's be generous and assume I played it into 1999. That would mean it has been at least 19 years since my last playthrough. I’ve been a little intimidated to come back and play the game again, because I know the controls are so terrible. Did I really have that much to worry about? Read on and find out.

Story:

As far as I know, there is no story here. You pick your Sonic character and you race against other Sonic characters. That’s it.

There are hidden Chaos Emeralds located in the game’s stages that you can collect, so it wouldn’t shock me if there is some kind of “Dr. Robotnik trying to steal the Emeralds” plot in there somewhere. I never bothered to read the instruction manual, so if there is a story, it is news to me.

Gameplay:

Grand Prix mode is the meat and potatoes of this game. There are other modes to pick from, like Time Attack, but I never bothered with them. Sonic R also offers a two player split-screen mode, but again, I never really bothered with that either.

When you start Grand Prix mode, you get to pick from four characters you’d like to race as. I’d go into great detail about how each racer differs from the others, but I always just picked Sonic every time. He is Sega’s flagship character, so of course he is going to be the fastest and most well-rounded of the bunch.

After picking a character, you are then presented with a whopping….. four tracks to pick from? Four? Really? Hmm. Anyway, assuming you play them in order, they are: a Green Hill Zone-like course, a Casino Nights-like course, an ancient ruins inspired course, and an industrial-style course. If you finish in first place on all of these courses, you unlock a fifth course that seems like it is inspired by Mario Kart’s Rainbow Road, except instead of the course being made of rainbows, it is made of glittering jewels. Beat that course, and the ending credits start to roll. Game over. Seriously, you can beat this game in about 15 or 20 minutes.

If you are just playing to beat the game, you are missing out. Each stage contains a surprising amount of hidden items. The first course contains a Chaos Emerald. The rest of the courses each have two Chaos Emeralds. They are pretty easy to collect. This is the first Sonic game where I never actually had an issue collecting all the Emeralds. Once you collect all the Emeralds, you unlock Super Sonic. Super Sonic almost breaks the game entirely. He is absurdly fast, and much easier to control than the other characters. You can almost finish each course with your eyes closed when you’re in control of Super Sonic.

Each track also contains five Sonic tokens. You have to collect each token while still finishing in first place. If you can do this successfully, you then square off against a secret character in a one-on-one showdown. Beat the secret character, and you unlock them  to play as. Most of these secret characters are useless, however. I only unlock them because I am a completionist. That’s it for single player. Once you’ve collected all the Chaos Emeralds and unlocked all the characters, you are pretty much done.

Now we’re going to talk about the controls. Make no mistake about it, the characters in this game do not handle very well. You hold the up button to make your character run forward, left and right to control your direction, and down to slow down. You can also jump. That’s it. Pretty basic, huh? The problem is that your character moves a bit too fast, and there are a ton of sharp turns in the game. You are constantly going to find yourself barreling around and crashing into things. Constantly. You are the proverbial bull in the china shop. Even if you slow down and are extremely cautions, your character movements are still wild and jerky and unpredictable. Why is it so hard to control your characters? You can’t go backwards or put your character in reverse, so if you get stuck against a wall or in a corner, good luck to you!

One thing that will help you out is the ability to use the controller’s shoulder buttons to lean into your turns. It is still hard to control your character, but this does help. In fact, you are going to find yourself in a world of trouble if you don’t utilize those shoulder buttons. Mastering them is an absolute must if you want to beat this game.

I have to give the game credit for its level design. Sure, all the courses seem to be inspired by pre-existing Sonic the Hedgehog stage tropes, but you can’t deny that they are a ton of fun to explore. The wonky control scheme is a hindrance to exploring these stages, but that is a different subject altogether. The stages are large, expansive, and contain a large number of hidden shortcuts and secrets. Half the fun in this game is taking the time to explore each stage in detail (while not caring if you finish the race in last place or not) so that you can come back on your next attempt and collect everything in time. It helps to get all the Chaos Emeralds first, and then come back after you’ve unlocked Super Sonic to collect all the hidden tokens, some of which are hidden well off of the beaten path.

Graphics:

There are things to like and things to dislike about the game’s graphics. By today’s standards, it probably looks like a mess. Some of the characters are pixelated and flicker at the joints. Textures are a little sloppy, especially when you get in close to them. The game’s background draw is painful on the eyes.

That said, the game is very bright and colorful. The character models look nice. There are a lot of cool lighting and water effects to be seen. Despite its flaws, the game’s visuals just ooze classic Sonic charm. They built a really nice and detailed cartoon world for you to race on. I can only sit here and dream when I think about how cool a fully realized Sonic 3D platformer would have been on the Sega Saturn. Even if they didn’t fix any of the graphical flaws of Sonic R, it still would have been an amazing sight to see.

While we’re on the topic of graphics, I have to bring up how there is a remastered version of the game available on the Sonic Gems Collection for the Gamecube. When I played Sonic R, I played it on the Saturn for my initial playthrough. I finished first on all the courses, but my shoulder buttons on the controller weren’t working properly, making it tough to collect all the hidden items. I then switched over to the Gems Collection so I could properly finish the game and collect everything. Both versions of the game are pretty much identical, but the graphics on the Gems Collection are a lot more polished. Everything looks pretty darn good. All the rough edges from the Saturn version have been smoothed out. This version even adds some cool weather effects randomly to each course. If you want to give Sonic R a chance, I’d say to pick the Gems Collection version as it is a lot prettier than the original.

This unlockable character is the thing of nightmares

Sound:

Sonic R’s soundtrack is either love it or hate it. When I first got the game, I thought that the music was terrible. I was expecting something along the lines of the Sonic 3 or Sonic & Knuckles soundtrack. What did I get instead? Some unknown artist singing goofy songs about feeling the sunshine and living in the city. Every stage has its own song that goes with it, each one slightly sillier than the last. I imagine that the game’s soundtrack made a lot of people go WTF when they first played this game. Over time, it grows on you though. Now, I consider Sonic R’s soundtrack to be one of the all-time best video game soundtracks. Yeah, it is corny as hell, but it just seems appropriate to the game somehow. Sonic R wouldn’t be the same without its soundtrack. It is one of the most charming things about it.

The game’s sound effects are exactly what you’d expect from a Sonic game. The sounds you make when you jump and collect rings are all lifted right from the old classics. Can’t complain about that!

Combine the game’s music and its classic sound effects and you have a winning combination as far as audio goes.

Overall:

If you have the time and the patience necessary to master the game’s wooden controls, you should have a fun time with Sonic R. The game is short, though, and there is not a whole lot of content to be found here. You can finish the game and see everything there is to see in single player in about a day or two. Unless you are a serious collector, I would say that you shouldn’t spend more than five bucks on this game.

I am sure that multiplayer adds some replay value when you are battling it out with your friends. I have never had a whole lot of friends, so multiplayer was always a useless feature to me. I tried playing this with an ex-girlfriend once, but I was a jaded Sonic R veteran and it was her first time playing the game. She couldn’t get used to the controls and would end up running into walls and getting stuck. She got completely massacred by me in our head to head matchups. To be fair, the background draw in is especially bad on split screen. Also, it is very hard to see obstacles and turns and where to go when things are shrunk down like that. It was a bad experience and even I didn’t have a fun time when we were playing. This game’s multiplayer definitely has nothing on Mario Kart.

If you are looking for a quick, fun Sonic game that you have never played before, check out Sonic R! I almost look at it more as a platformer where you race against the clock to collect items than I do an actual racing game. No, the game is not flawless by any stretch of the imagination, and the multiplayer is completely useless, but it is still a lot of fun. Sonic R is an acquired taste though, from its control scheme all the way down to its very interesting soundtrack. I can say with absolute certainty that this is one of the most unique games I have ever played. I can also say with certainty that this game is NOT for everyone.

Final Score:

B

If you liked my review of Sonic R, please check out some of my other reviews:

Super Mario Kart

Wave Race 64

Sonic Mania Plus

Sonic Colors

Nights Into Dreams

Re-Review #4: Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

PlayStation 4

>>> Click here to read my initial review of this game! <<<

I don’t know what came over me, but I recently had this sudden, very strong urge to go back and play Uncharted 4 again. As most of you reading this should know, I don’t replay games very often. I am trying to work my way through my entire video game collection, which is quite sizable. I’ve been playing through all my games and reviewing them for nearly four years now, and I still have barely scratched the surface of my collection. Every once in a while, the urge to play something over again overcomes me, however, and I will revisit a game that I have already played and reviewed. Such is the case with Uncharted 4.

The first time I played through this game earlier in the year, I had a good time with it. I enjoyed myself, but I wasn’t crazy about the game or anything. I had read so much hype about the game and how great it was that I think I came in with expectations that were a little too high. It was just more of the same old Uncharted, in my opinion. This time I knew what to expect coming in, and I must say that because of this I had a much better time with the game this time around.

One of the things that helped me enjoy the game more was that I knew what was going on with the storyline ahead of time. The game throws a lot at you right from the get-go. You get four or five different scenes within the first hour of the game, all from different timelines. It was a little confusing to me the first time around, especially considering that Nate’s brother is in several of the scenes. This is the fourth Uncharted game and they had never mentioned anything about Nate having a brother before. This time, knowing in advance what happened to Nate’s brother, everything made so much more sense and I was able to just sit back and enjoy things rather than be confused by  them.

Gameplay hasn’t changed much from the previous Uncharted games. There are a few small tweaks, but nothing game-changing. You can throw a rope and use it to swing across ledges or lower yourself down chasms. You can also use it to pull boxes and other items down from unreachable areas. I don’t know why they haven’t used this element in previous Uncharted games. Maybe they didn’t want it to come across as too much of a copycat of Indiana Jones and his whip? Anyway, it is a natural fit. There is a car driving stage that has open-world elements to it. The game also has some stealth elements to it too, where you can sneak around and avoid battles entirely rather than having every encounter turn into a giant guns blazing free-for-all.

Graphically, the game is freaking gorgeous. There were many moments in the game I just had to stop and take in the scenery. Visually speaking, you don’t get much better than this. All the little special effects like water, fire, and explosions are all rendered amazingly well. The characters look fantastic. I almost had to remind myself that these weren’t real people the deeper I got into the game.

Not only is the game breathtaking and a lot of fun to play, I enjoyed the story as well. Perhaps it is the added element of Nate’s brother being added to the fold, but things felt more personal this time around. The stress that the events of the game put on Nate and Elena’s marriage was interesting to me as well. This is the fourth Uncharted game that I have played, and I have spent a lot of time with those two. I found myself caring about this fictional video game marriage way more than I should have. I actually teared up a little bit during the scene when Elena shows up and calls out Nate on his lies. The only other games that have made me cry are Telltale’s The Walking Dead and The Last of Us. Uncharted 4 is in pretty good company there.

The first time I played this game, I looked at it as just another Uncharted game. This time, it felt like so much more. I haven’t been this emotionally invested in a video game’s characters for a long time. Even though the game is a blast to play, the characters are what make it go. They all complement each other so well. As I said before, I found myself having to remember that these weren’t even real people. You spend so much time with them over the years, you begin to forget that.

This is the perfect closing chapter to an excellent video game series. I’ve always considered Uncharted 2 to be the cream of the crop when it comes to the series, but it now has some stiff competition. I am eventually going to play that one again, so I’ll let you know if my opinion has changed. That said, I have a newfound appreciation for Uncharted 4. It touched me in a way that few video games have been able to do. For that, I have to give it big time props.

Overall:

A

It may seem a little anticlimactic to give the game the same score as I did the first time, even though I liked it more this time around. But the only place you can go from an A is to an A+, and I do not consider this to be a perfect game, by any stretch of the imagination.

Other games I have revisited:

The Walking Dead Season One (PS3)

The Walking Dead Season Two (PS3)

The Walking Dead: Michonne (PS3)

Video Game Review #158: Fallout: New Vegas

Fallout: New Vegas

PlayStation 3

Nostalgia Factor:

I had never played a Fallout game until earlier this year, so I don’t have much to be nostalgic about. I absolutely loved Fallout 3, and I had heard from many sources that its follow up, New Vegas, was even better. Would I agree with that widely accepted statement?

Story:

This game takes place a few years after the events of Fallout 3. Aside from a few basic themes and elements, the games are for the most part unrelated, so don’t feel as if you need to play Fallout 3 (or heck, even Fallouts 1 and 2) before tackling New Vegas.

The setting: a nuclear ravaged version of the Mojave Desert. You play as a courier who makes his living running around the desert delivering letters and packages to people. On one of your runs, you are attacked by a group of men who steal your delivery and shoot you in the head, leaving you for dead. You are taken in and nursed back to full health by a kindly doctor named Saul Tigh, excuse me, Doc Mitchell.

After helping Doc and the fine people of Goodsprings fight off a bandit attack, you head out into the Mojave wastelands to track down the men who attacked you. The Mojave is a complicated place, filled with all kinds of different tribes, factions, outposts, cities, and eccentric individuals. You never know who or what you are going to run into on your adventure.

A major struggle for power is brewing in the background, and you get caught up in it as the game progresses. You can choose which faction you want to ally with. There is the NCR, who is basically the military looking to restore civilization as we once knew it. There’s Caesar’s Legion, an ancient Rome inspired group of barbaric savages who go around slaughtering and crucifying their enemies. And there is Mr House, an old man kept alive by machines who controls an automated army. He doesn’t want anyone to win the battle, and wants to maintain the status quo.

It’s hard for me to completely recap the story, because the choices you make in the game affect how the game plays out around you. No two playthroughs are alike. You could play this game and wind up going down a completely different path than I did. Just as in Fallout 3, you can be a good guy who brings peace and order everywhere he goes, or you can be a destructive force who takes things and kills people at will. It’s up to you. Not only do you have this choice on how you wish to play the game, which faction you align with affects things as well. I aligned with Mr House on my first play through. If and when I ever play this game again, I really want to go the evil route and align with Caesar’s Legion.

Gameplay:

If you’ve played Fallout 3, you will have absolutely no trouble jumping into New Vegas. It looks, feels, and handles EXACTLY the same as its predecessor. It would have been nice to see something a little different, but at the same time if it isn’t broken, no need to fix it. Right?

If you haven’t played Fallout 3, I’ll break it down for you real quick. This game takes place from a first person perspective. You could potentially switch the camera to an over the shoulder view, but this view is useless and not even worth messing around with. You can shoot or melee attack your opponents in real time, but the game does have an extremely useful feature that allows you to freeze time and lock on to your enemies and target their limbs. This will be your main method of attack throughout the game, as it not only almost guarantees you will hit your opponent, it also doles out more damage than regular attacks. You can’t use it endlessly though, as there is a meter that regulates how often this feature can be used. Using it depletes the meter, and it takes time for it to charge up again.

As you play you will pick up new weapons and new items. Some items can be used for healing, others are used for repairing things. Some are of no practical use whatsoever except to trade in for some extra money. You have to be careful how much stuff you pick up though, because if you take too much you will become over encumbered. This means you move at a snail’s pace and cannot fast travel between locations. As someone who likes to pick up any and everything he lays eyes on, it’s a pain in the butt is what it is.

Fallout: New Vegas is an RPG, and as such you will encounter many familiar RPG tropes. You fight things. You gain experience. You level up. As you level up you can assign points to different characteristics of your character. Strength, stamina, intelligence, that kind of thing. You walk around and talk to people. You take on missions for people. You make choices that advance the game’s plot. That kind of thing.

One gripe I have about Fallout 3 has carried over to this game: the map system! You can mark your destination on your map, which is fine. An arrow will point you in the direction of your destination, which is fine. But if there is a cliff or obstacle blocking your way, the arrow doesn’t adjust itself to point you in the right direction. It’s just like “your destination is that way!!” and keeps pointing at the thing that is in your way. I know my destination is that way, ya big jerk. But how do I get to it? I got lost and had to aimlessly wander around many times in this game. The problem isn’t as bad as it was in Fallout 3, probably because there is no subway tunnel system to throw things off in this game. But it is still pretty bad.

Graphics:

New Vegas looks better than Fallout 3. Fallout 3 was kind of murky looking with a lot of the same lifeless grey and brown colors surrounding you. In New Vegas, everything is so much more bright, colorful, and sharp. It is a little ironic that a game set in the desert is more bright and colorful than something set in the big city, but it is what it is. At heart, everything looks pretty similar to how it did in Fallout 3, just a bit sharper, like I said. I am much more of a gameplay person than a graphics person, so if there are little subtle differences in enemy and character design, I did not notice them.

Overall the game looks okay. It is not breathtaking or anything, but it isn’t ugly either. It looks fine.

Pee Wee's Big Adventure, anyone?

Sound:

The sound of New Vegas is one of its many strong points. Right away, within the first five minutes of the game, I knew I was in for a treat when I discovered that the character who plays Doc Mitchell is voiced by one of my favorite actors of all time, Michael Hogan. Saul frakkin Tigh, man! The voice acting is on-point for pretty much the entire game. A lot of effort must have gone into recording the audio for this game. Even minor NPCs that you don’t interact with much sound really good.

The sound effects are fine. It’s hard to mess up the sound of explosions and guns being fired. No complaints there.

You can’t discuss a Fallout game without bringing up its music, however. The music for the game is very good, if a bit repetitive. It surprised me a bit when I Googled the music for the game and I saw people attacking Johnny Guitar. That is one of my favorite songs in the game! There are a few duds musically on the game’s soundtrack but for the most part I liked them all. Some of my favorites are Blue Moon, Big Iron, Ain’t That a Kick in the Head, Heartaches by the Number, Johnny Guitar, and my personal favorite: Let’s Ride Into the Sunset Together. I like how Fallout 3 and now New Vegas have introduced me to so many songs I would have never even thought to listen to.

Overall:

I had a really fun time with New Vegas. It does a lot of things better than Fallout 3. Better graphics, slightly better first person shooting mechanics, WAY more missions to take on. The whole “pick a faction to side with” thing was cool too. Technically, this is probably a much better game than Fallout 3, and I think that has been reflected in almost all of the reviews out there that people have posted online. Does this mean that I personally like this title better than Fallout 3?

No, actually. Perhaps it was only because I had never played anything like it before, but Fallout 3 completely blew me away when I first played it. If you read my review of that game, you will see that I gave it an A+. Maybe it was because I had just played Fallout 3 a few months before taking on New Vegas, but New Vegas didn’t wow me like 3 did. Despite all the cosmetic changes and gameplay tweaks, this is almost the same game but with a different skin.

I also found the game to be bogged down by an alarming number of technical issues. When I peruse online forums that compare Fallout 3 with New Vegas, most people say that they had more technical difficulties with 3, and that New Vegas was a much cleaner experience. I had the opposite experience. This game was constantly freezing on me. It happened a lot when I would save the game or enter new areas. It even happened a few times in the middle of conversations. Every time I would enter a new area I had to hold my breath that the game wasn’t going to freeze on me. I’d say that over my 60 some hours of gameplay the game must have frozen about 25 to 30 times, and that is no exaggeration.

Another glitch happened to me later in the game when I needed to speak to a certain character in order to advance the game’s story line. But when I would walk up to him and talk to him, he wouldn’t respond at all. So there was no way I could start the mission. I even left and came back, and when I returned he was gone completely. The map marker was still pointing me to where he would normally stand, as if he was still there. Weird. Luckily I was able to load an old save and take a different route to end the game (which is why I ended up going the Mr House route. I had planned to side with the NCR!). Stuff like this was constantly happening all game long where I couldn’t finish missions properly for some reason or another. I didn’t know if it was me doing something wrong that had broken the game or wrecked the mission so it couldn’t be completed, or if it was 100% the game’s fault. I’m thinking it is the game’s fault.

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the game’s long loading times. Dear God, the loading times. They are out of control in this game. A perfect example is the Vegas strip. For some reason they broke it in to three sections instead of one big section. You can’t fast travel into the strip either, so each time you need to pay the strip a visit (which is a lot in this game), you have to sit through at least two loading screens – one for fast traveling to the location right outside the strip and another one for when you actually enter the strip. As I mentioned, the strip is broken into several sections. So if you need to access something at the very end of the strip, you’ll have to sit through another two loading screens just to get there. It is ridiculous. This area of the game is bogged down with several fetch quests too, so you are constantly having to leave the strip and come back a few minutes later. Might as well have a book by your side as you play, because you are going to be sitting there looking at loading screens for quite some time. How this isn’t something people don’t harp on more often, I have no idea.

The glitches and the long loading times alone were enough to drop this game below Fallout 3 in my opinion. There are a lot more quests and things to do in this game, but many of these quests are just mindless fetch quests that feel like filler. Normally I would be okay with this as I am an Animal Crossing vet. Fetch quests are nothing for me. But the long load times really made a lot of these quests a big chore to complete.

Anything else I need to gripe about? Nah, I think I got it all out!

All in all, this was an enjoyable game, despite the several paragraphs long rant that I just posted. There are lots of issues here, but nothing that made me say ScReW this GAME!11! or anything like that. It is very addicting. A lot to see, a lot to do, a lot to collect. I spent many long nights playing this game and telling myself “just one more mission! Just let me talk to this one person. Just let me collect this one item, then I will stop.” But then I would just keep on playing and playing and playing.

While the Fallout 3 vs New Vegas debate seems to be rather one sided (most people I know are in New Vegas’s corner), I have to go against the grain on this one. I liked Fallout 3 a bit more. Maybe I liked it more because it was more new and original when I first played it, and this one is just more of the same. I just feel like New Vegas didn’t have the same impact on me as 3 did. It does a lot of things better than its predecessor, but I just wasn’t as into it, for a variety of reasons. It started to feel a little bit like a chore to me on several occasions, which never happened to me with Fallout 3. That is the main difference between the two. Not to say this is a bad game, by any stretch of the imagination. We all have opinions, and this is just my humble version of one.

Final Score:

B

If you liked my review of Fallout: New Vegas, please check out some of my other game reviews:

Fallout 3

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

BioShock

Shenmue

Video Game Review #157: Metroid

Metroid

Nintendo Entertainment System

Nostalgia Factor:

I was only four years old when Metroid came out back in the mid-80s. This was never a game that I actually owned myself. Instead, I would play it whenever I was visiting a friend that had the game. Metroid was a bit too complex for us at that age. We never had any idea of what was going on, nor did we ever make a significant dent as far as progressing in the game. But hey, we liked it and we had fun with it.

My uncles also had the game, and I loved to sit there spellbound, watching them as they played. My uncles are several years older than me, so they had a better grasp of how to advance in the game and how to eventually complete it. I remember when my uncle John beat the game, it seemed like such a giant accomplishment to me. I ran out of the room shouting “John beat Mother Brain! John beat Mother Brain!!!” Aaaaaand no one cared. Good times.

Metroid was a game that always vexed me when I was younger. As a kid, I was generally pretty good at video games and beat nearly every game I sat down and played. Metroid was another story. Perhaps if I had owned the game myself and had been able to invest more time in it, I would have been able to beat it. But I never did.

Years and years went by before I saw this game for sale at Mega Media Xchange. I quickly snatched it up and added it to my collection. I was in my mid to late 20s at the time, so clearly a LOT of time had passed since I’d first played it as a kid. I used an online walkthrough to beat the game, and I felt so accomplished when the closing credits started to roll. By beating Metroid, it was like I had exorcised an old demon that had been following me around since I was four years old. This was several years before I started doing reviews.

Now here I am in my mid-30s. A week or two ago this random urge to pull out Metroid and give it another go (this time, with limited help from online guides) overwhelmed me. It was time to return to the game that had haunted me for so long when I was a small child.

Story:

There isn’t much to report as far as Metroid’s storyline goes. You power up the game and it takes you to the title screen. If you wait a minute and don’t push any buttons, you get a screen that says:

"EMERGENCY ORDER!

DEFEAT THE METROID OF THE PLANET ZEBETH AND DESTROY THE MOTHER BRAIN THE MECHANICAL LIFE VEIN

GALAXY FEDERAL POLICE M510"

And that is all the information the game gives you concerning its storyline. Informative, huh? If you have an instruction manual, maybe it outlines the storyline in more detail. Unfortunately, I do not have a manual.

Gameplay:

One of Metroid’s strongest areas is in its gameplay. Using the directional pad, you control the game’s protagonist, Samus Aran. Samus can run left and right. She jumps. She shoots. The deeper into the game you get, the more moves you can unlock. The most notable move is unlocked when you collect the morph ball mere seconds into the game. This item turns you into a ball when you press the down key. This allows you to roll through small corridors and tight spaces. You can drop bombs when in ball form. Not only is this useful for killing enemies and destroying fake walls and floors, the bombs also help propel you into the air to reach hidden areas.

The controls for the game are all crisp and responsive. Samus moves perfectly in tune with the directions you input into the controller. I have no complaints there. The game can be difficult at times, especially with some of the precision jumping that you need to master in order to progress in the game. But the game rarely ever feels unfair, which is a testament to its design. If you die or miss a platform with an ill-timed jump, it is most likely your fault that it happened, not the game’s.

How does Metroid play out? Why did I struggle with this game so much as a kid? Quite simply, it all boils down to the format of the game. On the surface, it may look like your typical 2D platform game, but it is not. Most games of this nature from the NES era were pretty simple. You started on the left side of the screen, working your way towards the right until you reach the end of the level. Rinse and repeat. But things are not that simple in Metroid.

In Metroid, there are no levels, no stages, nothing of the sort. The whole game is one giant maze, and it is pretty much wide open right from the beginning. Where you go, where you choose to explore – that is entirely up to you. Hidden in this maze are essential power ups like missile and health upgrades and different types of attack beams. In order to beat the game, you have to explore this giant map, collecting as many upgrades as you can. You are going to need them if you want to have any hope of beating Mother Brain at the end of the game.

In order to get to Mother Brain, you need to first kill two of the game’s boss characters: Ridley and Kraid. Ridley and Kraid each exist in their own separate hideouts that you have to find and explore. Think of your starting area in the game as the “main hub”. Hidden within this hub are elevators that take you to Ridley and Kraid’s lairs. Find and kill these two characters, and this unlocks the elevator to Mother Brain. The game doesn’t give you much in terms of direction, so it is up to you to discover this on your own. Given the maze-like structure of the game, it is no wonder I could never figure out what to do when I was as kid. Knowing what to do now, in present day, made things so much easier.

I expected to come into this game and spend days and days wandering around getting lost. That didn’t happen. I actually beat Metroid pretty quickly in two different playing sessions that totaled just a couple hours each. Amazing how I could beat a game so quickly that I had struggled with for so long as a child. But I had fun. It was a great time. It is no fun wandering around with no idea of what your goal is or where to go. Having a purpose in mind really, really helped me to enjoy this game, so much more than I ever did when I was younger. Even more than I did when I had to use a walkthrough to beat it about ten years ago. I’ve never appreciated Metroid more than I do right now.

Graphics:

I think Metroid still looks terrific. The game’s look and feel just oozes classic charm. All I have to do is take one look at a screenshot of the game and it immediately teleports me back to my childhood.

That said, if you are not a child of the 80s, you are going to think this game looks super primitive. Focus on the positives though. Samus look great. The enemies look great. There are a wide variety of enemies that all look different, they aren’t just the same thing over and over again with different color schemes. The areas of the game all look different too. Each section of the game has its own unique feel with its own distinct personality. Yes, the game’s visuals are super primitive, but remember that this came out in 1986. Most of you reading this probably weren’t even born yet!

Sound:

 Aside from its gameplay, Metroid’s music and sound effects may be one of the strongest things about it. As soon as you turn on the system, you are immediately greeted by the game’s booming, iconic opening theme. This theme is kind of eerie and intimidating, and it definitely gets you in the mood to play some Metroid when you hear it. Once you start playing, the game’s equally iconic but cheery hub theme starts up. Enter different areas, and different music starts to play. Each area’s music is freaking great, and fits in perfectly with the environment to create a truly engrossing atmosphere for the game. I can’t say that there is a Nintendo game out there that has a better soundtrack.

The sound effects, while not quite as good as the game’s music, are really good too. I love the jumping sound, the sound of your main weapon, the sound of the ice beam, the sound your bombs make, and the sound the game makes when you hit an enemy. All iconic. If it was up to music and sound effects alone, Metroid would definitely get an A plus.

Overall:

Metroid is a great game no matter how you look at it. When I view it through my nostalgia goggles, I look at it is a big, challenging game that, although I had fun with it, gave me fits as a kid. Looking at it by today’s standards, the game has aged surprisingly well. If you can ignore the graphics (which I actually enjoy, but I know most younger people won’t), you will find great gameplay, great music, and a really fun world to explore. It definitely helps if you know what the goal of the game is when you start it out. If you come into it blind, it can be a little confusing and difficult to get into.

Metroid is an important game as it laid the groundwork for “open world” platform games. You don’t just move from the left side of the screen to the right, you explore! You find things. You backtrack. You discover new areas. Seems commonplace in games now, but it can all be traced back to Metroid. They don’t call newer games in this vein “Metroidvania” style for no reason.

Would I recommend this to anyone who hasn’t played the game before? Yeah! Metroid may not be for everyone, and it certainly is not without its flaws, but it is an important game both in my life and in the history of video games as a whole. It is not and probably never will be my favorite Nintendo game, but I’ve played Super Metroid, some of the Prime games, and Other M, and this still stands out as my favorite in the series.

Final Score:

A

If you liked my review of Metroid, please check out some of my other reviews:

Castlevania

Ghosts 'n Goblins

Vectorman

Tomb Raider

Alien: Isolation

(sorry, haven't reviewed many games in this vein yet)