Tag Archives: samus aran

FGC #648 Super Smash Bros for WiiU

Let's Smash!You know what Sunday is, right? It’s Christmas! Oh boy! But this blog has rarely ever recognized Sunday as an official day of the week (Wankery Week not withstanding), so we’re going to focus on Monday. And you know what Monday is? Little Mac’s favorite holiday! Boxing Day!

And, ladies and gentlemen, the world has not been good to Boxing Day.

As it is assumed that the majority of the Gogglebob.com audience is USAian, we will take a quick moment to explain that holiday that has been hovering around the edges of your calendar. Boxing Day is consistently December 26th, the day after Christmas. While some countries have assigned it the religious undertones of “The Second Day of Christmas”, “Saint Stephen’s Day”, or “The Holy Mother’s After Party”, the day identified as Boxing Day is traditionally secular (if it is one of those other names, though, woo boy, look out [for Jesus]). While Christmas is a time for traditions and families, Boxing Day has become a 24-hour period where you are still technically on the holiday clock, but no longer required to deal with grandma. You don’t have to futz around with the fam or God anymore, but you also don’t have to go to work, so you can do whatever you want to do. In fact, why don’t you go shopping? That is apparently what happens in most places that celebrate Boxing Day, as Boxing Day has been equated to America’s Black Friday in countries like Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

And… uh… that is a bit of an issue for people that, ya know, like to enjoy a holiday. If you are shopping, that means someone has to work to keep the mall going…

PunchtimesBoxing Day seemingly got its start as a holiday for workers. Christmas? That was a day that required all hands on deck, as wealthy families would invite friends, acquaintances, and anybody with a monocle to lavish parties that involved all sorts of slaughtered animals dressed up with enticing fruits. Such an event would require a brigade of chefs, servants, and personal shoppers to achieve the level of opulence to which the masters were all accustomed. But the day after Christmas? Screw it! Nobody is throwing a party after Uncle Steve passed out in the eggnog bowl, so let the staff have the day off. They can exchange boxes with their families, and we will formally recognize the day as a holiday to make ‘em all feel better about being the peasantry. Boxing Day? Sure! Let’s make it official, and then even Scrooge will have to give Bob Cratchit a day off once a year.

But, boxes preserve us, now the opulence is calling from inside the house, and the middle class has decided to feed on itself.

In fact, let’s get all metaphorical on this holiday…

Today’s not-at-all randomly chosen game is Super Smash Bros. for Wii U. It is the fourth entry in the Smash Bros franchise (see that lovely “for” pun in there?), and many could argue that its roster is a response to the anemic additions of the third entry, Super Smash Bros. Brawl. SSBB was an excellent title with exciting gameplay, but, in retrospect, its newcomers were lackluster. Wario, King Dedede, Meta Knight, Diddy Kong, and Samus wearing a different hat all felt like characters that just missed appearing in the previous game. Lucario, Lucas, Ike, Wolf, and Toon Link barely counted as “new”. And that left two company guest characters (who, let’s be honest, were amazing additions) and Pokémon Trainer, Olimar, Pit, and R.O.B. as truly original, truly unexpected recruits. And there was much rejoicing over these newbies, but SSBFW’s bounty seemed to be a direct retort to Brawl’s uninspiring announcements. “For” offered a meager two echo characters (Lucina and Dark Pit), and everyone else was not only a wholly new character, but generally unexpected (give or take Animal Crossing Villager). And while there was an emphasis on newer/contemporary characters, there were “retro” characters introduced with much pomp and fanfare. Duck Hunt Duck & Dog was the ROB/Game & Watch of this title, and Little Mac made the scene as Let him have itone of the few characters to ever be upgraded from “assist trophy” to full-on playable dude (say hi to Dark Samus later, Mac). And there was much rejoicing! Give or take a King Hippo, Little Mac is Nintendo’s most celebrated pugilist from its fightiest franchise, and his addition felt like Little Mac coming home.

But Little Mac “coming home” is… not Little Mac.

Little Mac is a professional boxer. He is also 17, 5′ 7″, and weighs a whole 107 lbs. In other words, I have eaten nacho platters taller and heavier than this kid. And, while this is not impossible in the world of boxing (look up The Bronx Bull aka Giacobbe “Jake” LaMotta some time), it may be impossible in a boxing league where he has to fell the 6’4”/240 pounds of muscle that is Super Macho Man. Little Mac was “little” in the first place to effectively utilize screen space and compensate for the graphical processing of 80’s gaming platforms, but he has never grown up because the world loves an underdog. He’s just a little dude! And, in the brutal and physical world of boxing, he must rely on his speed and smarts to duck Don Flamingo and pop Soda Popinski. If there were sports betting available for Punch-Out viewers, Little Mac would always be the 100-1 outside chance. Little Mac will one day win, but he will win as the boy who fought his way up from the gutter.

And it is hard to believe someone is down in the gutter when they are starring in Super Smash Bros.

Super Smash Bros. has now established itself as the veritable who’s who of the gaming universe. If your protagonist is distinctive (and not too horny), they may appear in Super Smash Bros. While this was previously an exclusively Nintendo stable, the DLC of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate established that everyone and anyone could sneak in there, even if they hadn’t appeared on a Nintendo console in over a decade. And these DLC characters were the pillars of the industry, whether they were representatives of eternal fighting game franchises or the very concept of gaming for a generation (sadly, I am talking about Steve). Little Mac is in good company!

Get that pikachuBut should he be? Can you still be the underdog when you are running with the big dogs? Can you still be “little” when you are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with giants? Can you be a holiday for the common people when you are right there on the calendar next to Christmas? Boxing boy is supposed to be an underdog everyman, but now he is boxing with Pikachu. Boxing Day is supposed to be a day for the everyman to rest and relax, but now everyone that works retail must spend the day selling Pikachus. Can you still represent the masses when you have become popular? It is possible that the privileged will still believe in you, but the people that have to keep doing the real work might not be so easily duped.

Happy Boxing Day, Little Mac. Relax and enjoy your sellout holiday, you class traitor.

FGC #648 Super Smash Bros for WiiU

  • System: One of those rare situations where it is right there in the name.
  • Number of players: Eight! That was a pretty big deal at the time! According to the release date for the 3DS version, it took a month to implement.
  • A Retrospective Look: Now that we have Super Smash Bros Ultimate, nearly everything about SSBfWU seems to be defined by what was not carried forward. For instance, there are a few final smashes that were modified to be less controlled for their future game, and Zelda is technically a totally different character (that is also the same character). Other than that, this game feels so similar, sometimes I get confused as to why Ice Climbers aren’t available as a pick.
  • Love that space dragonRidley is too big: This would be the final time Ridley appeared in Smash before becoming a playable character. Interestingly enough, thanks to cinema scenes, background cameos, and boss fights, Ridley has always been in every single Smash Bros game in some capacity.
  • Favorite Character (unique to the game): Charizard is alone in this fourth iteration of Smash. He had a team in Brawl, and would get his buddies back in Ultimate, but he is a loner here. And that means he can flare blitz and rock smash with the best of ‘em. No Ivysaur holding this dragon back!
  • Goggle Bob Fact: Back when amiibos were new, every time a new batch would be released, I would invite seven amiibos to an 8 person fight in Animal Crossing town for a half hour. Battling against an army of statue Ais would level them up easily, and it made me feel like I got my money’s worth out of those $13 figurines. Now I just write about amiibos on the internet to feel better about myself.
  • Did you know? Little Mac’s boxing stage was revealed in the Mega Man trailer, which premiered the day the game was publicly announced. While the ring could have been a reference to Wii Boxing from Wii Sports, we really should have seen Little Mac coming.
  • Go big yellowDid you ever wonder? The boxing ring stage offers individual “fight titles” for each character. Do you suppose the producers regretted that as the roster mushroomed to nearly 90 fighters?
  • Would I play again: Everything great about Super Smash Bros For WiiU is replicated in Super Smash Bros Ultimate, so it is an extreme rarity that I boot up the old girl. Sorry, WiiU, but I will get back to you when you let me play as Little Mac and a fat, angry lizard with boxing gloves.

What’s next? The year is just about over, so let’s review 2022! Please look forward to it!

Poor little robot

Wild Arms 3 Part 21: Home is Where the Plot Is

Today is a brand new day, specifically September 19, Pot of Hell Day. Although this isn’t widely known, there is a gigantic cauldron in hell that boils sinners for eternity. The broth that seeps out of the rich and chubby sinners makes a good soup base.

Previously on Wild Arms 3: Virginia and company were defeated by Asgard the Golem, but then rescued by the power of love. Now we’re past all that, and, after a quick, secret visit from Virginia’s father, we’re going to Clive’s home.


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Humphrey’s Peak is a long walk from Little Rock, but a quick jaunt from that laboratory dungeon.


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Looks like a pretty place.


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I just said that! Bah!


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“You don’t make ‘buy a town’ money on shooting poisonous birds.”


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“We just had the blue roof installed last month. It is somehow already out of warranty.”


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Fun fact: This is not a super mountainous area. I have no idea what this is supposed to be the “peak” of.


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Maybe we will discover answers under this bridge…

FGC #608 Metroid Dread

That looks like a nice planetMy grandparents and extended family (aka my grandparents’ siblings) always had a home or two in Florida, so, long before I was even capable of forming memories, my family would take annual road trips down Florida way. From the time I actually could remember, these trips mostly followed the same pattern: visit some great aunts and uncles in Northern Florida on the way in, stop at St. Augustine for some history-learnin’, and then scoot down to the Orlando area for the requisite theme parks and surprisingly inexpensive buffets. After that, it was time for the long car ride home, and the best a wee Goggle Bob could hope for was a stop at South of the Border. This pattern continued into my teen years, when it ceased thanks to a combination of those great aunts and uncles aging out of their entertaining-guests years (sleeping on the floor of a nursing home is simply not a fun way to end a visit) and myself aging out of my want-to-spend-any-time-with-my-family years. As a result, whereas I had extremely fond memories of my many Florida road trips, it was not something I ever returned to as an adult. There are other places to vacation, obviously, and maybe I could pick up Disney World again when I have kids or particularly mouse-obsessed dogs or something.

I did return to Orlando a few years ago, though, when my girlfriend (now wife) had the opportunity to fly down there with her sister. Compared to the ol’ family road trips, though, this was a much more concentrated, smaller affair. Not that I would expect anything else! We live in a different world from when I was a child, and now using planes and rideshare apps makes a lot more sense than driving for 20 hours. We didn’t get to stop by the Northern Florida locations, but that was an event that was exclusively reserved for driving through Florida, not saying in Orlando. In fact, unless some global catastrophe occurred, I could not see myself doing anything but flying down to Florida ever again.

And then, of course, a global catastrophe occurred! Whoops!

So, complete with a trip to South of the Border, my wife (definitely now wife) and I drove down to Florida (also, because she would yell at me if she read such a statement, I am legally obligated to admit that my wife did 99.9% of the driving… and you do not want to know what that 0.1% constitutes). We went to Orlando. We went to St. Augustine. We saw all the sites (give or take the theme parks that may have been identified as a little too… plaguey), and enjoyed ourselves in a way that would have been impossible with the typical “just fly in” method. And, since this trip so closely echoed the vacations I took as a child, there was something more than a tinge of nostalgia involved, too. As they say, a picture is worth a thousand words, so here is a picture that was presumably taken by my mother back in the late 80’s…

I had to be, like, seven

And here is a snap taken by my wife this very year…

I had to be, like, 37

See a little similarity there? Thank goodness Florida’s oldest city doesn’t change much.

It was a strange mix of emotions to be experiencing something that was so familiar, yet so different. I had not realized how much those old family vacations had become a part of myself -a part of my very soul- and how returning to a place I had not seen in two decades would fill me with such an odd feeling of… home. This was not just a matter of familiarity or nostalgia, this was a feeling that I was somehow someplace that was objectively “correct”, and why had I not done this in so long? Things changed, as they always must, but the warmth here was so inadvertently welcoming, I could completely ignore any and all faults that were now happening. I did not care if that dork wearing a MAGA hat was yelling on a street corner, or if that bartender was serving drinks with his mask firmly around his chin; none of that mattered, because I was somewhere that felt simultaneously near and distant. It was a kind of concrete ephemeral, like living through a physical fantasy. In short, it is an impossible to define feeling that is somewhere between nostalgia, surprise, contentment.

Though, for something a little more universal, I got the same feeling from fighting this guy.

38 for this one

Welcome back, Kraid. Welcome back, the feeling of Super Metroid.

Metroid Dread is the first official, new 2-D Metroid in almost twenty years. In that time, we had a host of 3-D Metroid titles, one remake of the original Metroid that hewed closely to Metroid Fusion, and a remake of Metroid 2. That remake is relevant to today’s proceedings, as Metroid Dread is from the same people that brought us Metroid: Samus Returns four years ago. And, bad news, Metroid: Samus Returns had some significant problems. It relied way too heavily on bosses (and even random, “mook” monsters) that had both very distinct puzzle patterns, and far too much health (to showcase said patterns). Basically, every ten seconds Samus Aran had to stop and use a friggen’ protractor to determine things like “counter windows” or “missile efficiency”. This made Metroid: Samus Returns very much its own take on the Metroid formula, with a greater emphasis on “Samus the Hunter” than “Samus the Planet Explorer/Exploder”.

But Metroid Dread brings back the feeling of Super Metroid for the first time since… well, probably since the last time I went on a road trip to Florida (and I ain’t talkin’ ‘bout this year).

I need an ice beamTo be clear, Metroid Dread is definitely the descendant of Metroid: Samus Returns. Many monsters still exist to encourage counter tactics, and there does not seem to be a single boss that does not include a protracted “counter sequence” wherein Samus flips and twirls through a cutscene that involves no greater gameplay that “keep hammering Y”. Additionally, the EMMI sections seem to be the obvious heir of the Digby the Diggernaut sections of M:SR, with instant death being the punishment for not immediately knowing which way our latest whacky robot is going to turn. Are EMMI and Diggernaut encounters exactly the same? Of course not, but there is a familiar feeling when seeing an instant (and weightless) Game Over because Samus’s precognition didn’t shout “right” when left was always going to be fatal.

But even in the EMMI sections, you see the OG Samus Aran shine through. EMMI introduces some significant “stealth gameplay” to the 2-D Metroid formula for the first time since minor scripted SA-X encounters in Metroid Fusion. But the difference between Solid Snake and Solid Samus is that our favorite bounty hunter has slightly more vertical mobility than Smokey the Merc. Right from the start, alerting your local EMMI may have advantages, as Samus can spin jump around an arena a lot more effectively (and enjoyably) than draining her lifeforce to maintain stealth mode. And by the time Samus has acquired the Space Jump and Gravity Suit? Screw it! Let the EMMI give chase! Samus probably enjoys the cardio of active fleeing! It’s good for the heart!

And that is why Metroid Dread feels so… right. Yes, there are counters, stealth segments, and some particularly weird design decisions along the way (no, Mercury Steam, I did not want to fight the same stupid bird-spear boss like, four times in a row with very little variation), but Samus feels like Samus all throughout. Or, more specifically, she feels like Super Metroid’s version of Samus Aran. And, lest you think I am misremembering a game I have replayed to death, it is absolutely a trick of recollection, as Super Metroid Samus controlled nothing like Metroid Dread Samus. Totally different, tremendously more floaty animal in Super Metroid. But does Dread feel like “old” Samus? Very much so. You won’t be thinking about the distinctive differences between wall jumps by the time Samus is screw attacking through wannabe skrees.

LOVE ORBWhich brings us back to Kraid. Kraid: Dread follows much the same pattern Super Kraid did 27 years earlier. This is not the exact same fight, as Kraid’s belly spews work differently, and that omnipresent opportunity for a counter scene hangs over the battle with every flash of yellow. But this is Kraid. This is Samus Aran facing down a monster that is initially one screen tall, and then graduates to a full two screen lengths. This is a battle where you must jump on spike protrusions, work your way up to that scaly head, and then fire a baiting-beam before launching missiles into Kraid’s maw. It is a Kraid fight. It feels like a Kraid fight. And, while there have been many battles like it across this and other franchises, this is the first time in decades that Kraid has simply felt like… Kraid.

And the feeling of doing that? Of fighting this Kraid iteration after all these years? It is something beyond nostalgia. It is coming home.

Metroid Dread might not be perfect, but it does present a feeling that is beyond nostalgia. This is a happiness that is not based on simply remembering history, but knowing that what was once good in the past is still here in the present. It is looking at two photographs separated by decades, and knowing that both places are, ultimately, one happy same.

Metroid Dread is a Metroid Dream.

FGC #608 Metroid Dread

NOTE: Spoilers will appear in this area

  • System: Nintendo Switch exclusive. Man am I glad that we are past the DS/3DS/Wii/WiiU era of having no idea how specific gimmicks would be emulated on future consoles.
  • Number of players: One day, we will have a Metroid game where you can play as someone other than Samus. Federation Force? Hunters? No, I don’t see those games with unlockable art in the gallery. They probably didn’t happen.
  • Love that airdashPowerup: Finding 25% of an e-tank or a mere 2-pack of missiles is offensive, and I will not continue to tolerate this kind of withholding. I am willing to accept that new and interesting challenges may be created by reserving the morph ball or gravity suit for later areas, but shinesparking all over creation for a measly two missiles is rude.
  • Can’t touch this: Though I do appreciate that additional power bombs are available without sequence breaking. One of the greatest annoyances in Samus Returns was finding a new item way the hell at the end of the game, and then your only hope of getting additional ammo was backtracking all over creation. Even if it is upsetting to be told you cannot use an “early” discovered power bomb yet, at least it means you will have a stock when they finally become operational.
  • But Super Missiles totally suck now for some reason: Oh yeah. Totally. Most nothing powerup in the game.
  • Amiibo Corner: Unfortunately, thanks to disparate shipping times, my official Metroid Dread amiibos did not arrive until literally a few hours after I 100% completed the game. Just as well, as their boons of random health/missile refills aren’t all that exciting. Could the EMMI amiibo maybe start a chao garden minigame wherein you raise your own terminator? Let ‘em race around homemade Tourian courses? Could be fun!
  • Ridley is too big: He’s so big, he forgot to show up! 100% completion earns some art that confirms the main villain used his troops to hogtie and bound a Kraid down in the depths of a lava pit, so it is my headcanon the ol’ Raven Dork took one look at a revived Ridley, figured it was too much trouble, and left the space dragon to roam the universe on his own. Besides, we must save a surprise for Metroid 6.
  • What is Wrong with our Heroine? Samus, I don’t know anything about bird people death customs, but I am glad you were punished for leaving Quiet Robe’s corpse to just rot there. Think about what you did while dealing with those reactivated EMMIs.
  • Sorry!  Bad Robot!Did you know? It seems that every 2-D Metroid since Metroid 2 has ended with a “villain” heel turn. Baby Metroid plays against type and saves Samus in 2 and Super, SA-X cooperates with Samus during the finale of Fusion, and now Metroid 5 features Quiet Robe-X merging with Samus despite the X creature earlier enabling killer robots. Looking forward to Metroid 6, wherein Samus is saved at the last minute by a very friendly space mutant.
  • Would I play again: This is the first Metroid I have wanted to instantly replay in forever. I’m not going to, because I haven’t even finished that one Persona game that came out like forever ago, but it is on the agenda! It’s going to happen! Even if I completely ignore Hard Mode for the rest of my life!

What’s next? Random ROB has chosen… Zero Wing! Yes! That Zero Wing! From the internet! Please look forward to it!

Sorry birdie
This concludes my coverage of Metroid: Other Dads

FGC #607 Metroid

PRAY FOR PEACE IN SPACESamus Aran has been described as “The Hunter”. She has been described as a mobile tank. She was been described as the ultimate warrior. She has been described as the most powerful woman in the Nintendo pantheon.

And, after all that, I think a great Metroid game makes Samus Aran a bimbo.

My first Metroid was Metroid 1. I have three huge, unforgettable memories of Metroid from when I was a Wee Goggle Bob:

  1. The Ice Beam is so much better than the Wave Beam that, to this day, I still see the Wave Beam as a punishment/threat akin to those birds in Ninja Gaiden.
  2. Kraid is a giant pain in the ass (even when not giant).
  3. The Screw Attack was a boon like no other.

And to be clear on that final point, it is hard to describe the Screw Attack to someone who didn’t only ever play games like Super Mario Bros. (and its many contemporary clones) or Mega Man 2 for comparison. I remember distinctly describing “imagine you got a star man every time you jumped” to other kids that had not been able to make it through the caverns of Zebes. And did the screw attack actually serve the same purpose as a star man’s familiar invincibility? No. But it changed Samus for the better, and allowed her to sail through a number of monsters that previously would wreck her day. Whatever you consider the true final challenge of Metroid 1 to be (either an immobile brain in a lava factory or a dungeon full of jellyfish), the screw attack barely helps. But for actually adventuring through the other 90% of the game? Eat it, ripper that could otherwise soak 100 missiles, Samus Aran coming through, and you better get out of the way or be diced into your component pixels!

This seems dirtyAnd that feeling has never left my relative enjoyment of Metroid. In fact, I would argue that it is the main difference between Castlevania and Metroid titles. In a Castlevania game, you are constantly accruing new abilities and skills, but, by and large, it is a ladder system, and the bosses are climbing the rungs as you trade a +1 sword for a +2 sword/bat transformation. You are expected to graduate with these skills in the regular encounters just as much as the bosses that now have patterns that account for wolf forms. However, in a Metroid game, you get new skills, but are primarily improving what you have (practically) from the beginning. There are no gradually developing swords to find, just more missiles. Or more super bombs. Or more e-tanks. And the bosses are not 100% tests of skill, but gateways to confirm you have collected enough missiles, e-tanks, or whatever Samus has to find this mission. Can they be beaten with skill, precision, and a charge beam? Yes, but it feels more like they have 100 missiles of health because you are supposed to have 100 missiles by now. And you need those “gatekeeper” bosses, because otherwise you would just screw attack through everything straight to Mother Brain. And somebody has got to be a boss around here!

And that is ultimately what I want from a Metroid game. I do not need the difficulty to escalate as I venture further. I want it to get easier. I want Samus to become dumber, because she has upgraded her pea shooter to launch 50 continuous super missiles that are capable of literally rocking the planet. When Samus has 30 energy dots and the ability to transform into a cowardly ball, she should be precise and technical in all encounters. When she has more e-tanks than she knows what to do with and is blasting deadly rainbows out of her arm, she can soak a few hits while bad guys explode.

And if you still want a challenge? Then you have the option to not pick up that e-tank or missile expansion. Super Metroid‘s “would you like to turn off your screw attack” menu is poison to my playstyle, but it is an option. You can have a difficult trek through Zebes if you would like. “Challenge runs” are aptly named, but by no means required.

BLOW IT UPAnd speaking of Super Metroid, the original Metroid only included the Screw Attack, but Super Metroid upgraded everything down to Samus’s sneezes to be wholly homicidal. Jumping kills with the Screw Attack, running kills with the Speed Booster, and you can literally fly-dash-kill with the (slightly draining) Shinespark ability. And this is all before the finale of Super Metroid sees Samus gain a revenge beam that is capable of obliterating wall and brainnosaurus rex alike.

And it is interesting to consider what it means for Samus Aran when her ultimate goal is becoming practically invincible. Right from the start of Metroid, Samus’s abilities are some of the sharpest on the NES. Mega Man cannot duck, but Samus can roll into a ball to become a mobile, pint-sized target. Simon Belmont’s single-arc jump is one of the most perilous moves in his arsenal, while Samus has more air mobility than some birds (she takes after her dad). Mario can toss off bouncing balls, Samus can rapidly acquire beams that cover the length of the screen, freeze opponents, and/or travel straight through any object. Samus Aran is a formidable opponent from an era when most heroes could nary dream of having the mobility afforded by a Chozo costume. But once she has maximum missiles, energy tanks, and enough bird artifacts to soak a mortar shell? Well, then, who cares? She can just wade in lava like a toad (that enjoys a remarkably warm bath) and murder her parents’ killer by wave beaming through the floor.

NO PTSD FOR YOUAnd speaking of Ridley, that space dragon may exemplify this philosophy even more than the hyper beam. Meta Ridley of the Prime franchise may be sporting enhancements and brains, but “regular” Ridley is consistently all teeth, nails, and a tail that is 100% spikes by volume. By Super Metroid, Ridley is clawing and slashing and fighting like a wounded animal. There is no pattern to discern, no “phases” to go through. He is just a monster that may or may not eat your family, as there is no deeper Ridley to Ridley. This doesn’t work for everyone in this or any other game (Dracula would never sully his cape by fighting like that), but this is what it is to fight a bear… or The Incredible Hulk. Ridley is trying anything that works, and Samus is standing solid and using everything she’s got as her only defense. This kind of sucks from a videogame design perspective, but that “I just got lucky” feeling after Ridley finally explodes really works for why Ridley is memorable.

The best way to beat a brainless monster is to be a brainless monster.

So, yes, I want Samus Aran to be a bimbo by the time she reaches the end of her quest. After acquiring a PHD in Zebethian lost technology, I want Samus to be a big, dumb clod that will not get out of the way of a rinka while shoveling missiles into a jar. I want the last stand of Samus Aran to be the final flickering of her ultimate brain cell. A gibbering nincompoop could eradicate the Metroid menace with all those upgrades, and I want to play as that nincompoop.

And if Samus has to think about performing a single counter? That’s some other heroine. Samus is too dummy thicc with power to fit in with any of that rubbish.

FGC #607 Metroid

  • I don't understandSystem: Nintendo Entertainment System, but mostly played through e-reader in some version of Animal Crossing. Or maybe I am thinking of the version that was unlockable in Metroid Fusion? Or the GBA classic reissue? Look, it is on practically every Nintendo system ever created, save the Super Nintendo and N64.
  • Number of players: Samus does not encounter a single living thing that is not trying to kill her on Zebes, so only one player.
  • Favorite Powerup: You think it might be the screw attack? There is a reason I made that thing my desktop wallpaper!
  • Speedy Sister: The number one thing I noticed replaying Metroid in 2021? Dang, it goes fast. You only need, what? Morph ball, bombs, ice beam, and hi jump to complete the entire mission? No extra time spent here trying to remember where the hell the space jump got to, just nab some new boots and make a beeline for your local space dragon.
  • Ridley is too big: It is kind of miraculous that Ridley graduated to the main series antagonist role after Metroid, as he is certainly the easier of the two “mini” bosses of Metroid. Sure, Ridley officially has the second area, and gets a whole two scary statue heads leading to his lair, but Kraid? Kraid has his own weirdo clone to confuse new players, more health than has ever been measured, and the raw invulnerability of solid stomach spikes. And he even hides his requisite e-tank better than Ridley! Kraid got robbed when future editions devolved him into a mindless dinosaur. (And he lost all his hair, too.)
  • Map it out: My memories of playing Metroid as a child recall a Zebes that was easily ten times the size it actually is… mainly because I didn’t see a complete map until some “retro” Nintendo Power coverage of the game years later. When you are stuck in the depths of Brinstar with no way to distinguish between a lot of same-y rooms…. Well… let’s just say this game would be very different with Super Metroid’s automap.
  • The big finaleGoggle Bob Fact: I used to have a Nintendo sponsored calendar when I was young enough to not be literate. Metroid was the featured game of one of the months. As I was able to identify an “M” and someone clearly using an arm buster, I thought I was looking at Mega Man, not Samus Aran. I have been ashamed of this mistake continuously since I was 8.
  • Bounty Hunter: The original Famicom version of Metroid has save files, and a menu for such that is similar to The Legend of Zelda. If you complete the game, Samus’s icon receives lil’ money bag icons to indicate a clear. And if you finish the mission faster? Samus gets more money bags. But, money or not, the NES version is the only one with Zero Suit Samus and the “new game plus” of restarting with previous powerups. So what good is all the money in the universe compared to that?
  • Did you know? There are a few “unused” rooms within the code for Metroid. One contains an item orb on a random pedestal over lava. This is unusual, as item orbs only exist connected to Chozo statues in the normal version of Metroid. The room does resemble the location where you are likely to find your first missile upgrade, though, so maybe orbs were initially supposed to be more plentiful.
  • Would I play again: Yes, but only if there’s a map handy. I cannot remember which walls I am supposed to bomb for the life in me!

What’s next? Random ROB has not so randomly chosen… Metroid Dread! We just did the start, let’s see the most recent end! Please look forward to it!

THE END
“The Other Metroid?” Some kind of… Other M?