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Metroid drops Samus Aran into the caverns of Zebes with a weak beam and doors that will not open until the right upgrade is found. Missiles, a morph ball, and ice beam are found by getting lost, not by following a marker.
Yoshio Sakamoto, Hiroji Kiyotake, and Gunpei Yokoi shaped it at Nintendo as an exploration game rather than a stage-by-stage shooter. Kraid, Ridley, and Mother Brain guard the path, and a password system stands in for a battery save.
The ending that removes Samus's helmet, if the player is fast enough, was a genuine surprise in an era when the hero was assumed to be a man. That reveal is why the series' identity starts here and not with a later comic.
Super Metroid, Fusion, and the Prime games all reuse the loop of getting lost, finding a morph ball or a missile tank, and opening an earlier door. They are separate works. This page is the first Metroid.
Same series is the tight name match. Same franchise is the wider family. Same platform is other games on the systems named above.
The series list above is the whole family set in this catalog.
Facts in this grid are RAWG's, not our review. Open the RAWG record. RAWG.
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Nintendo publishes a classics library for this era on Nintendo Switch Online. Confirm this title is still in the current library. Where to Play does not host this game.
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