Maplessness

Edit history:

Golem: 2010-02-28 02:11:54 am

2010-02-28 02:08:08 am

why are his lips so thick

I recently put together a consideration of maplessness in Metroid. I decided to post it here; I know I'm not a regular around here, but I got some helpful responses to my Metroid Fusion topic. The ideas I'm expressing here are pretty rough around the edges, so I don't have tons of confidence in what I'm saying. It's also written kind of weird, so it might be hard to read--sorry about that. I'd love to hear any response you guys have!

-------

Someone once told me that the jumping mechanics in Super Mario Bros. 3 were better than those in Super Mario Bros. "You can make jumps in Super Mario Bros. 3 that aren't possible in Super Mario Bros."

I disagree with this person very much.

This view limits his appreciation of video games. Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 are different games with different stage and enemy construction--it only makes sense that Mario would behave differently to match these conditions. Mario's inability to change direction in midair makes sense in Super Mario Bros.; stage design is very linear and forward-focused. Take, for instance, the looping castle puzzles. Even though there are two or three different routes Mario might take, these routes all run parallel to each other, going forward. Super Mario Bros. 3, on the other hand, requires more midair flexibility--not every path leads Mario in one direction. The jumping mechanics fit the game.

Viewing a sequel solely as an improvement over its predecessor often leads you to take for granted the finer aspects of each. Mario's jumping mechanics in Super Mario Bros. highlight the game's forward sense of flow, while his jumping mechanics in Super Mario Bros. 3 emphasize the complexity of direction in game's design.

It might be more convincing to argue this another way. The platforms in Super Mario Bros. are constructed around Mario's jumping mechanics. Using SMB3 jumping mechanics with SMB's platform design would be too easy, and using SMB mechanics with SMB3 platform design would be too difficult.

Super Metroid gives the player an in-game map. This map is automatically constructed as the player travels from room to room; the game keeps track of the size and location of each room you enter. Also, you can see this map on the pause screen. Metroid, on the other hand, offers no map of any kind. Viewing Super Metroid's map as an improvement over Metroid takes for granted the intricacies in the design of both games.

Atmospherically, the lack of map is extremely important to Metroid. If you were lost in a labyrinth, and you didn't have some thread on hand, you would need to construct a map. In this sense, Metroid draws you further into the game by not providing a map. Just as if you were lost within the depths of Zebes, you need to make a map.

Practically speaking, this isn't a problem. Look at a map of Metroid's Zebes and you'll see that the game is small enough that this is no hassle. You don't even need any paper, the game is small enough that you can commit it to memory well enough. Once I enter Ridley's Hideout, I always go left, down, right, down, and left. Of course, that path took some time to find--there's a lot of tunnels in Metroid. Once you get where you want to be, though, it's not hard to go back over your steps, figure out how you got there, and remember it for next time.

However, there's more. You also aren't given a map because the game's structure lacks direction. Rather than long, complicated paths that take you to specific places, there are many small, simple branches which take you to various upgrades and items. The path to Ridley is one of these paths. More often than not, passages to items such as missiles or the Varia Suit are less complicated than the path to Ridley. However, they are also distinct from one another. You don't pick up the Varia Suit on your way to Ridley or to the Screw Attack--all three of these are found on completely separate paths. By providing no map, the game requires you to rely on your own sense of direction. You have to ask yourself: now that I've taken this path, where did it take me? How does it relate to the paths that I've already taken? Which paths will take me to places I haven't been? This analysis would not take place if the game had given you a map.

Since you have no map, you must take the structure of Zebes more seriously. This is possible in part because the paths themselves are simple--the game isn't asking you to compare two windy, confusing paths. Instead, the game asks you to compare a few simple paths in each area. Take, for instance, the path to Ridley that I mentioned earlier. Instead of going left when you enter Ridley's Hideout, you could also go right, down 2 levels, then left in order to reach Ridley. However, this path is longer than the path I mentioned earlier, and it's also got many more enemies stationed in much more difficult places. If you took this path first, you might ask, "how can I avoid going through all these enemies?" Well, you might try going left, then down, then right--in essence, reversing the order in which you take a right path and a left path. This requires an analysis of the options given to you: for instance, you need to make sure that, if you go left, you can go down. If you could only go up when you took the left path, you would never go downward and meet Ridley. A map constructed for you by the game would trivialize this. You would not need to analyze your path to figure out where Ridley was, and you would not need to analyze your surroundings to search for alternate paths; the map would pinpoint Ridley's location for you. Also, if you went too far down and went past Ridley's room, a simple look at the map would instantly inform you.

In short, a map would simplify gameplay in Metroid to a harmful extent. Part of the experience is in figuring out where you are, and sometimes, where you are in relation to everything else. You have to pay attention to your surroundings and watch where you're going.

There's one exception here: the route through Tourian to Mother Brain, unlike most paths in Metroid, is long and winding. However, there is only one way through Tourian, since each room has one entrance and one exit, so there is no chance of the player getting lost along this path.

On the other hand, Super Metroid goes for something else. It provides you with a map, but the Zebes in Super Metroid is much larger and much more complex than the one that's in Metroid. In addition, the game is structured around its 8 bosses, and the items are no longer so optional. In order to get the Varia Suit, you need to beat Kraid. In order to reach Draygon, you need to have the Gravity Suit, and in order to reach Ridley, you need to have the Space Jump. You largely look for items in order to reach the next boss so you can move on in the game. While you might go out of your way to get an extra 5 Super Missiles, your largest concern is still obtaining the tools that you need to reach the next boss. This offers a linearity to the game which trivializes maplessness.

In Super Metroid, you aren't picking up disparate strands on the planet Zebes; your path is always to the next required item or the next required boss. Since you are only discovering one complex path, rather than a multitude of separate, simple paths, the game may as well keep track of it for you. Once you find where you're supposed to be going, there's no more major discovering to be done. You may find small side rooms containing extra items, but these are small bonuses rather than large, crucial elements. They also do not take you far off the path. Since the path you took isn't a trivial path--there's lots of twists and turns and crazy structures--it's natural that the game helps you to remember how to get there. For instance, I can't remember right now how to get to Ridley from the top of Norfair, and I've put much more time into Super Metroid than Metroid. Imagine traversing Maridia without a map!

I realize that I merely asserted that the Super Mario Bros. jumping mechanics are appropriate for the game's platform design. Then I did the same for Super Mario Bros. 3. Maybe one day I'll provide proofs of those assertions. They seem fairly self-evident, but we'll see.

Thread title:

I recently put together a consideration of maplessness in Metroid.  I decided to post it here; I know I'm not a regular around here, but I got some helpful responses to my Metroid Fusion topic.  The ideas I'm expressing here are pretty rough around the edges, so I don't have tons of confidence in what I'm saying.  It's also written kind of weird, so it might be hard to read--sorry about that.  I'd love to hear any response you guys have!

-------

Someone once told me that the jumping mechanics in Super Mario Bros. 3 were better than those in Super Mario Bros. "You can make jumps in Super Mario Bros. 3 that aren't possible in Super Mario Bros."

I disagree with this person very much.

This view limits his appreciation of video games. Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 3 are different games with different stage and enemy construction--it only makes sense that Mario would behave differently to match these conditions. Mario's inability to change direction in midair makes sense in Super Mario Bros.; stage design is very linear and forward-focused. Take, for instance, the looping castle puzzles. Even though there are two or three different routes Mario might take, these routes all run parallel to each other, going forward. Super Mario Bros. 3, on the other hand, requires more midair flexibility--not every path leads Mario in one direction. The jumping mechanics fit the game.

Viewing a sequel solely as an improvement over its predecessor often leads you to take for granted the finer aspects of each. Mario's jumping mechanics in Super Mario Bros. highlight the game's forward sense of flow, while his jumping mechanics in Super Mario Bros. 3 emphasize the complexity of direction in game's design.

It might be more convincing to argue this another way. The platforms in Super Mario Bros. are constructed around Mario's jumping mechanics. Using SMB3 jumping mechanics with SMB's platform design would be too easy, and using SMB mechanics with SMB3 platform design would be too difficult.

Super Metroid gives the player an in-game map. This map is automatically constructed as the player travels from room to room; the game keeps track of the size and location of each room you enter. Also, you can see this map on the pause screen. Metroid, on the other hand, offers no map of any kind. Viewing Super Metroid's map as an improvement over Metroid takes for granted the intricacies in the design of both games.

Atmospherically, the lack of map is extremely important to Metroid. If you were lost in a labyrinth, and you didn't have some thread on hand, you would need to construct a map. In this sense, Metroid draws you further into the game by not providing a map. Just as if you were lost within the depths of Zebes, you need to make a map.

Practically speaking, this isn't a problem. Look at a map of Metroid's Zebes and you'll see that the game is small enough that this is no hassle. You don't even need any paper, the game is small enough that you can commit it to memory well enough. Once I enter Ridley's Hideout, I always go left, down, right, down, and left. Of course, that path took some time to find--there's a lot of tunnels in Metroid. Once you get where you want to be, though, it's not hard to go back over your steps, figure out how you got there, and remember it for next time.

However, there's more. You also aren't given a map because the game's structure lacks direction. Rather than long, complicated paths that take you to specific places, there are many small, simple branches which take you to various upgrades and items. The path to Ridley is one of these paths. More often than not, passages to items such as missiles or the Varia Suit are less complicated than the path to Ridley. However, they are also distinct from one another. You don't pick up the Varia Suit on your way to Ridley or to the Screw Attack--all three of these are found on completely separate paths. By providing no map, the game requires you to rely on your own sense of direction. You have to ask yourself: now that I've taken this path, where did it take me? How does it relate to the paths that I've already taken? Which paths will take me to places I haven't been? This analysis would not take place if the game had given you a map.

Since you have no map, you must take the structure of Zebes more seriously. This is possible in part because the paths themselves are simple--the game isn't asking you to compare two windy, confusing paths. Instead, the game asks you to compare a few simple paths in each area. Take, for instance, the path to Ridley that I mentioned earlier. Instead of going left when you enter Ridley's Hideout, you could also go right, down 2 levels, then left in order to reach Ridley. However, this path is longer than the path I mentioned earlier, and it's also got many more enemies stationed in much more difficult places. If you took this path first, you might ask, "how can I avoid going through all these enemies?" Well, you might try going left, then down, then right--in essence, reversing the order in which you take a right path and a left path. This requires an analysis of the options given to you: for instance, you need to make sure that, if you go left, you can go down. If you could only go up when you took the left path, you would never go downward and meet Ridley. A map constructed for you by the game would trivialize this. You would not need to analyze your path to figure out where Ridley was, and you would not need to analyze your surroundings to search for alternate paths; the map would pinpoint Ridley's location for you. Also, if you went too far down and went past Ridley's room, a simple look at the map would instantly inform you.

In short, a map would simplify gameplay in Metroid to a harmful extent. Part of the experience is in figuring out where you are, and sometimes, where you are in relation to everything else. You have to pay attention to your surroundings and watch where you're going.

There's one exception here: the route through Tourian to Mother Brain, unlike most paths in Metroid, is long and winding. However, there is only one way through Tourian, since each room has one entrance and one exit, so there is no chance of the player getting lost along this path.

On the other hand, Super Metroid goes for something else. It provides you with a map, but the Zebes in Super Metroid is much larger and much more complex than the one that's in Metroid. In addition, the game is structured around its 8 bosses, and the items are no longer so optional. In order to get the Varia Suit, you need to beat Kraid. In order to reach Draygon, you need to have the Gravity Suit, and in order to reach Ridley, you need to have the Space Jump. You largely look for items in order to reach the next boss so you can move on in the game. While you might go out of your way to get an extra 5 Super Missiles, your largest concern is still obtaining the tools that you need to reach the next boss. This offers a linearity to the game which trivializes maplessness.

In Super Metroid, you aren't picking up disparate strands on the planet Zebes; your path is always to the next required item or the next required boss. Since you are only discovering one complex path, rather than a multitude of separate, simple paths, the game may as well keep track of it for you. Once you find where you're supposed to be going, there's no more major discovering to be done. You may find small side rooms containing extra items, but these are small bonuses rather than large, crucial elements. They also do not take you far off the path. Since the path you took isn't a trivial path--there's lots of twists and turns and crazy structures--it's natural that the game helps you to remember how to get there. For instance, I can't remember right now how to get to Ridley from the top of Norfair, and I've put much more time into Super Metroid than Metroid. Imagine traversing Maridia without a map!

I realize that I merely asserted that the Super Mario Bros. jumping mechanics are appropriate for the game's platform design. Then I did the same for Super Mario Bros. 3. Maybe one day I'll provide proofs of those assertions. They seem fairly self-evident, but we'll see.

BioSpark

2010-02-28 02:16:39 am

i don't think the designers chose to not include a map. it just probably would have been too much work to include one for an nes game.

Golem

Edit history:

Golem: 2010-02-28 02:25:23 am

Golem: 2010-02-28 02:25:08 am

2010-02-28 02:21:59 am

why are his lips so thick

I agree, to some extent--it does seem like it would be unreasonably difficult for them to program in a map of Zebes. However, I feel like Metroid is a game that really owns its maplessness. You can recognize the inability to provide a map and work with it. I get the feeling that the designers consciously structured the game to take advantage of the lack of a map--and, by the same token, built Super Metroid to take advantage of its map.

Opium

2010-02-28 02:44:32 am

I don't know if it's because I'm kinda out of it right now, but I'm not 100% sure what you're trying to say or what your argument is. Are you saying that level design in Super Metroid is influenced by the fact that there is a map, or that metroid didn't have a map because it didn't need one while super has one because it does need one? Draw me a map to what your point is, because I'm lost.

(again, I'm kinda fuct up right now so I'm not saying that you're being unclear, I just need some help)

TheGreenManalishi

2010-02-28 08:11:14 am

If anything, NES Metroid needs a map more than Super/Fusion/ZM because most of the rooms are EXACTLY the same.

Golem

Edit history:

Golem: 2010-02-28 08:39:30 am

Golem: 2010-02-28 08:37:20 am

Golem: 2010-02-28 08:36:46 am

Golem: 2010-02-28 08:35:03 am

Golem: 2010-02-28 08:35:02 am

Golem: 2010-02-28 08:28:48 am

Golem: 2010-02-28 08:27:17 am

Golem: 2010-02-28 08:26:47 am

Golem: 2010-02-28 08:24:57 am

Golem: 2010-02-28 08:22:38 am

Golem: 2010-02-28 08:21:14 am

2010-02-28 08:20:38 am

why are his lips so thick

Opium - don't sweat it, I'm not as capable of expressing myself as I'd like, and this is kind of a weird argument for me to think about. Anyway, the argument is that Metroid's structure is built around the fact that it has no map, while the structure in Super Metroid is built around the fact that it does have a map.

Super Metroid isn't linear in the normal sense of the word. However, there is a sort of linearity suggested by its bosses and items. You need to do things in a certain order in order to advance in the game. For instance, once you beat Draygon and get the Space Jump, you head to Ridley. You might pick up 5 Power Bombs along the way, but you still have a clear goal in mind--you don't go out of your way for the Power Bombs. The path from Draygon to Ridley is complicated, though. Until you've been through the game a few times, getting to Ridley from the entrance of Norfair is pretty hard without a map.

In summary: Super Metroid is relatively linear, but the paths you take are complex. You wind and twist through Zebes in ways that might be difficult to grasp without a map.

Metroid, on the other hand, sends you in an abundance of different directions. The path to the Screw Attack is totally different from the path to Ridley and the path to the Varia Suit. Also, you might do those three in any order--you might pick up the Screw Attack, face Ridley, then get the Varia Suit, but you could just as easily do it in the reverse order.

In addition, the path to each one of these things is relatively simple. In Super Metroid, your path through Norfair to Ridley is complicated and difficult. In Metroid, however, it's easy to remember how to reach Ridley once you're in Ridley's Hideout (I think that's what it's called?). From the entrance of Ridley's Hideout, you go down two levels, then go left.

So in Super Metroid, you discover one complicated main path (for instance, from Space Jump to Ridley) and a multitude of small side paths (for instance, you might pick up the Spazer on your way to Kraid). In Metroid, you are given a large amount of simple paths that go in very different directions. What's more, there's almost no required order to them (don't need to pick up the Varia in order to get the Screw Attack).

Super Metroid has a map to help sort out the one complicated path and its simple side paths. Metroid, on the other hand, has no such sense of direction; when you pick up the Ice Beam, you're on a totally different path from when you go to Ridley. Since there's an abundance of directions you could take at any one point, you're required to analyze and assess your options: what directions could I take? Now that I've taken this path, where am I relative to where I was? Where haven't I been? Is there another path to where I am? You need to think about the directions you could go in--all equally valid directions (as opposed to Super Metroid, which only has side paths along its one direction). This analysis does not occur if you have a map.

I'm not entirely comfortable with this argument; I think it relies too strongly on the notion that Super Metroid is linear. That's is a concept I can argue to some extent, but it's still not something I feel comfortable arguing--it's also very nonlinear.

Manalishi - I have to admit, people have said that to me before, and that argument is strong; it's something I've struggled with before. I think, however, that it can be overcome if you view Metroid's Zebes from a different perspective.

Personally, I always approach Metroid as a structure overall. So, instead of recognizing a room by its layout, I keep a general sense of where I am relative to my starting point. Even if the second vertical corridor of Brinstar (the one that takes you to the long beam) is very similar to the third vertical corridor (the one that takes you to Norfair), I still remember that I'm in the third corridor because I've gone further east. In this sense, Metroid gives the player a better sense of this space than Super Metroid; the rooms in Super Metroid are awkwardly shaped and difficult to compare. I'm never sure how far down or how far east I've travelled in Super Metroid.

Opium - don't sweat it, I'm not as capable of expressing myself as I'd like, and this is kind of a weird argument for me to think about.  Anyway, the argument is that Metroid's structure is built around the fact that it has no map, while the structure in Super Metroid is built around the fact that it does have a map.

Super Metroid isn't linear in the normal sense of the word.  However, there is a sort of linearity suggested by its bosses and items.  You need to do things in a certain order in order to advance in the game.  For instance, once you beat Draygon and get the Space Jump, you head to Ridley.  You might pick up 5 Power Bombs along the way, but you still have a clear goal in mind--you don't go out of your way for the Power Bombs.  The path from Draygon to Ridley is complicated, though.  Until you've been through the game a few times, getting to Ridley from the entrance of Norfair is pretty hard without a map.

In summary: Super Metroid is relatively linear, but the paths you take are complex.  You wind and twist through Zebes in ways that might be difficult to grasp without a map.

Metroid, on the other hand, sends you in an abundance of different directions.  The path to the Screw Attack is totally different from the path to Ridley and the path to the Varia Suit.  Also, you might do those three in any order--you might pick up the Screw Attack, face Ridley, then get the Varia Suit, but you could just as easily do it in the reverse order.

In addition, the path to each one of these things is relatively simple.  In Super Metroid, your path through Norfair to Ridley is complicated and difficult.  In Metroid, however, it's easy to remember how to reach Ridley once you're in Ridley's Hideout (I think that's what it's called?).  From the entrance of Ridley's Hideout, you go down two levels, then go left.

So in Super Metroid, you discover one complicated main path (for instance, from Space Jump to Ridley) and a multitude of small side paths (for instance, you might pick up the Spazer on your way to Kraid). In Metroid, you are given a large amount of simple paths that go in very different directions.  What's more, there's almost no required order to them (don't need to pick up the Varia in order to get the Screw Attack).

Super Metroid has a map to help sort out the one complicated path and its simple side paths.  Metroid, on the other hand, has no such sense of direction; when you pick up the Ice Beam, you're on a totally different path from when you go to Ridley.  Since there's an abundance of directions you could take at any one point, you're required to analyze and assess your options: what directions could I take?  Now that I've taken this path, where am I relative to where I was?  Where haven't I been?  Is there another path to where I am?  You need to think about the directions you could go in--all equally valid directions (as opposed to Super Metroid, which only has side paths along its one direction).  This analysis does not occur if you have a map.

I'm not entirely comfortable with this argument; I think it relies too strongly on the notion that Super Metroid is linear.  That's is a concept I can argue to some extent, but it's still not something I feel comfortable arguing--it's also very nonlinear.

Manalishi - I have to admit, people have said that to me before, and that argument is strong; it's something I've struggled with before.  I think, however, that it can be overcome if you view Metroid's Zebes from a different perspective.

Personally, I always approach Metroid as a structure overall.  So, instead of recognizing a room by its layout, I keep a general sense of where I am relative to my starting point.  Even if the second vertical corridor of Brinstar (the one that takes you to the long beam) is very similar to the third vertical corridor (the one that takes you to Norfair), I still remember that I'm in the third corridor because I've gone further east.  In this sense, Metroid gives the player a better sense of this space than Super Metroid; the rooms in Super Metroid are awkwardly shaped and difficult to compare.  I'm never sure how far down or how far east I've travelled in Super Metroid.

TheGreenManalishi

2010-02-28 08:43:06 am

Quote:

Personally, I always approach Metroid as a structure overall. So, instead of recognizing a room by its layout, I keep a general sense of where I am relative to my starting point. Even if the second vertical corridor of Brinstar (the one that takes you to the long beam) is very similar to the third vertical corridor (the one that takes you to Norfair), I still remember that I'm in the third corridor because I've gone further east. In this sense, Metroid gives the player a better sense of this space than Super Metroid; the rooms in Super Metroid are awkwardly shaped and difficult to compare. I'm never sure how far down or how far east I've travelled in Super Metroid.

You can do that far easier in SM, etc. because instead of getting your bearings through how far you travelled and how many rooms you've been through, you base it on what specific rooms you came through to get where you are.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2010-02-28 10:10:35 am

Prime Hunter: 2010-02-28 10:09:24 am

2010-02-28 10:08:49 am

If you think about it, Super Metroid gives players the tools to explore Zebes in ways that are not on this initial path you describe, the one the game seems to suggest to you as you progress. By using wall jumps, bomb jumps, and shinesparks, there's a lot of things you can do out of order, such as getting the Wave Beam early (Wall Jump), breaking into the Wrecked Ship early (Shinespark over the missile lake), or even into Lower Norfair early (Bomb jump through the lava to the Ridley head). Sure, they may be unorthodox compared to the way the original Metroid gives you multiple paths to take, but they're still there. (Granted, the Wrecked Ship one is probably the most complex of those three I just mentioned, but it's still there if the player can find it and take advantage of it.)

I kind of see what you're saying though, looking at the games from a non sequence breaking perspective. I'm the exact opposite of you when it comes to remembering Zebes: I probably wouldn't need a map much in Super because I know where most things are and I can navigate the planet very well these days after playing it for so many years. But the original Metroid? I still get lost once I get anywhere beyond Brinstar unless I have some sort of map with me. (Same with Return of Samus, actually) Granted, I've only finished those two a handful of times. I can't even count how many times I've finished Super at this point because of how much I love the game. So a lot of the problem certainly comes from how much experience somebody has with each of the worlds.

But I do have to also mention something you said about Super. Once you get an item, it isn't always clear as to which way you need to go, because unless you've seen the specific clues on your journey, what else is there to tell you otherwise that this is the path you need to take? Think about Grapple to Gravity, for instance - Unless you've seen those grapple points up in Crateria, how would you know to go there after finding the Grappling Beam down in the depths of Norfair? The ENTIRE planet is between you and where you're ultimately headed. Sure, once you finally get up into Crateria and you find that room, it becomes a one way street to get to Phantoon and the Gravity Suit. But there's plenty of ways you can go to get up there, and a lot of rooms that have opened up for you to explore. (Like the one leading to the X-Ray Scope.)

Now that I write that, there are a few items in Super that aren't tied to anything at all. Spazer, Springball, and the X-Ray Scope come to mind. You can grab those at any moment once you have the tools needed to get to them, and in the Spazer's case, that's not much. None of them are technically required to do anything, but will they aid you if you find them? Certainly. Although with either bomb jumps or wall jumps, you can break into Kraid's area without High-Jump Boots, so that could almost be put into this category as well unless I'm forgetting a spot later on that it's pretty much required without some crazy maneuvering. And now that I think about this more, is the Wave Beam absolutely necessary for getting through anything? Heck, even the Screw Attack isn't required if you rely on Power Bombs to get through anything you'd need it for, although it is tied to a boss battle. Actually, Plasma isn't a requirement for anything either, is it? (Sorry about all of that - As I wrote this last part more of them started popping into my head that aren't technically required to finish the game. There's definitely requirements you need to bypass in order to get to a lot of them though, so I'll give you that.)

The others? Yeah, I'll agree with you on those since I can't think of any others that isn't tied to some major event. And a lot of the items I mentioned above definitely make things harder on the player if they don't find them and use them, but it's still possible to completely bypass them without realizing it in a lot of those cases.

I think I'll stop there. A lot of this does come down to experience with the games in the end, but for what it's worth, there is a lot of linearity to Super if you stop to think about it, especially with the bosses and what items you'd generally need to get to them. But there's also a TON of non-linearity to be found if you look for it hard enough. But you're right in that the original Metroid doesn't have that nearly as much as Super does.

And to be perfectly honest, my views on Super are partially driven by the sequence breaking mentality I've picked up over the years I've been here at this site. If you had asked this question what, six years ago, I'd be giving a MUCH different answer to this. But if you take the games as they were made, without any sort of sequence breaking or speed running whatsoever, there is a distinct path you need to follow from one item to the next in Super that doesn't exist in the original Metroid. (Overall, anyway.) And Zebes is certainly more complex the second time around, so having that map in place is probably necessary in some cases, but even then it doesn't tell you everything. You can see the rooms and the path that gets you where you want to go, but it doesn't show you the obstacles involved, or the items you'd need to get through them. A lot of that still comes down to the player and how much they've paid attention to the world. So in that respect, having a map is no different from not having one.

Edit: Heh... didn't realize I had said so much. Again, sorry about that.

If you think about it, Super Metroid gives players the tools to explore Zebes in ways that are not on this initial path you describe, the one the game seems to suggest to you as you progress. By using wall jumps, bomb jumps, and shinesparks, there's a lot of things you can do out of order, such as getting the Wave Beam early (Wall Jump), breaking into the Wrecked Ship early (Shinespark over the missile lake), or even into Lower Norfair early (Bomb jump through the lava to the Ridley head). Sure, they may be unorthodox compared to the way the original Metroid gives you multiple paths to take, but they're still there. (Granted, the Wrecked Ship one is probably the most complex of those three I just mentioned, but it's still there if the player can find it and take advantage of it.)

I kind of see what you're saying though, looking at the games from a non sequence breaking perspective. I'm the exact opposite of you when it comes to remembering Zebes: I probably wouldn't need a map much in Super because I know where most things are and I can navigate the planet very well these days after playing it for so many years. But the original Metroid? I still get lost once I get anywhere beyond Brinstar unless I have some sort of map with me. (Same with Return of Samus, actually) Granted, I've only finished those two a handful of times. I can't even count how many times I've finished Super at this point because of how much I love the game. So a lot of the problem certainly comes from how much experience somebody has with each of the worlds.

But I do have to also mention something you said about Super. Once you get an item, it isn't always clear as to which way you need to go, because unless you've seen the specific clues on your journey, what else is there to tell you otherwise that this is the path you need to take? Think about Grapple to Gravity, for instance - Unless you've seen those grapple points up in Crateria, how would you know to go there after finding the Grappling Beam down in the depths of Norfair? The ENTIRE planet is between you and where you're ultimately headed. Sure, once you finally get up into Crateria and you find that room, it becomes a one way street to get to Phantoon and the Gravity Suit. But there's plenty of ways you can go to get up there, and a lot of rooms that have opened up for you to explore. (Like the one leading to the X-Ray Scope.)

Now that I write that, there are a few items in Super that aren't tied to anything at all. Spazer, Springball, and the X-Ray Scope come to mind. You can grab those at any moment once you have the tools needed to get to them, and in the Spazer's case, that's not much. None of them are technically required to do anything, but will they aid you if you find them? Certainly. Although with either bomb jumps or wall jumps, you can break into Kraid's area without High-Jump Boots, so that could almost be put into this category as well unless I'm forgetting a spot later on that it's pretty much required without some crazy maneuvering. And now that I think about this more, is the Wave Beam absolutely necessary for getting through anything? Heck, even the Screw Attack isn't required if you rely on Power Bombs to get through anything you'd need it for, although it is tied to a boss battle. Actually, Plasma isn't a requirement for anything either, is it? (Sorry about all of that - As I wrote this last part more of them started popping into my head that aren't technically required to finish the game. There's definitely requirements you need to bypass in order to get to a lot of them though, so I'll give you that.)

The others? Yeah, I'll agree with you on those since I can't think of any others that isn't tied to some major event. And a lot of the items I mentioned above definitely make things harder on the player if they don't find them and use them, but it's still possible to completely bypass them without realizing it in a lot of those cases.

I think I'll stop there. A lot of this does come down to experience with the games in the end, but for what it's worth, there is a lot of linearity to Super if you stop to think about it, especially with the bosses and what items you'd generally need to get to them. But there's also a TON of non-linearity to be found if you look for it hard enough. But you're right in that the original Metroid doesn't have that nearly as much as Super does.

And to be perfectly honest, my views on Super are partially driven by the sequence breaking mentality I've picked up over the years I've been here at this site. If you had asked this question what, six years ago, I'd be giving a MUCH different answer to this. But if you take the games as they were made, without any sort of sequence breaking or speed running whatsoever, there is a distinct path you need to follow from one item to the next in Super that doesn't exist in the original Metroid. (Overall, anyway.) And Zebes is certainly more complex the second time around, so having that map in place is probably necessary in some cases, but even then it doesn't tell you everything. You can see the rooms and the path that gets you where you want to go, but it doesn't show you the obstacles involved, or the items you'd need to get through them. A lot of that still comes down to the player and how much they've paid attention to the world. So in that respect, having a map is no different from not having one.

Edit: Heh... didn't realize I had said so much. Again, sorry about that.

Golem

Edit history:

Golem: 2010-02-28 02:59:51 pm

Golem: 2010-02-28 01:22:50 pm

Golem: 2010-02-28 01:21:07 pm

Golem: 2010-02-28 01:17:56 pm

2010-02-28 01:14:56 pm

why are his lips so thick

Awesome, I'm glad to see such a long response.

I think it can be proven that Super Metroid gives you a path if you don't intend to take on major sequence breaking--actually, that was something I realized when I reached the Wrecked Ship on my second playthrough. Recall the pair of vertical tunnels in eastern Brinstar that take you to Kraid, Norfair, and up to Crateria (between your starting point and the Wrecked Ship). After you beat Kraid, if you're not familiar with the game, you may be inclined to go up to Crateria. You go up, find that you need something to deal with the strange plus blocks, and realize you could search downward. You travel down into Norfair, where a series of locks keeps you on the right path to the Grapple Beam. Even if you look around, you're never far from the path to the Grapple Beam--Super Metroid locks up the branching passages pretty well. You need the Power Bombs to get to this point, right? I can't recall. If you don't, then SM locks off those branches better than I thought. Anyway, once you have the Grapple Beam, you know what you need to do in Crateria, and it's a straight shot up through that vertical portion of Brinstar. (Now that I think about it, this person has a strange grasp of the wall jump for someone not familiar with the map in SM.)

However, you might go down directly after beating Kraid. In this case, you go get the Grapple Beam, and Norfair's locks are in good order. You probably go pick up the Ice Beam too, but the point is, Norfair funnels you through a loop. You go east, down, west (at this point you pick up the Grapple Beam), and up--the system of locks just pushes you this way. Once you go up, you're at the entrance to Norfair again. Your options are this: retread old areas and see if you've missed anything on the side or go further up. More likely than not, you're curious to see what's at the top of this vertical corridor--you can test out your shiny new Ice Beam on the Rippers. From the entrance of Norfair, it's a straight shot upward, past the Rippers, to where you need the Grapple Beam. So, you go in a loop through Norfair, then straight up to the Wrecked Ship (or, well, close enough to the Wrecked Ship). While the Grapple Beam is pretty far deep in Norfair and the Wrecked Ship is on the surface of Zebes, the game suggests a path from one to another. This kind of stuff happens the whole way through Super Metroid, I'd argue.

Items like the X-Ray Scope, Spring Ball, and Plasma I'd count as side items. They don't contribute to the main path, but instead, are small branches or detours off of it. You pick up the Spring Ball on your way to Draygon or Ridley, for instance. (Or on your way to the Wrecked Ship? I haven't considered doing that before, but I don't recall why.) The Spazer is the best example of this because it's just a hop and a skip away from the main path to Kraid.

Sequence breaking, however, is a problem for this argument. I have a pretty linear mentality about Super Metroid, so this is something I'm still learning about--typically, I make a beeline through Norfair my first time; I don't pick up the High Jump Boots until I beat Kraid, I grab the Wave Beam as soon as I can (I think it's one of the easier wall jump skips) and the Grapple Beam, and I skip the Ice Beam. For me, sequence breaking is about making the game more linear, but I have to recognize that people generally sequence break to make the game less linear. Sequence breaking in that fashion is very much something I think was intended by the designers, as well.

In Metroid, nothing contributes to the path to Ridley; when you go after Ridley, you don't retread any ground. I think, even if you do sequence break, the paths of Super Metroid run parallel more often than not. When you go to Ridley, you take the same path through Norfair you did earlier--you just branch off of the loop this time. This is the kind of stuff that I think inherently lives in Super Metroid. You go in loops through Zebes; if you sequence break, you're making that loop shorter or changing what part of the loop you do when. That's an incredibly vague response, though, and something that needs some more experience in sequence breaking behind it.

Awesome, I'm glad to see such a long response.

I think it can be proven that Super Metroid gives you a path if you don't intend to take on major sequence breaking--actually, that was something I realized when I reached the Wrecked Ship on my second playthrough.  Recall the pair of vertical tunnels in eastern Brinstar that take you to Kraid, Norfair, and up to Crateria (between your starting point and the Wrecked Ship).  After you beat Kraid, if you're not familiar with the game, you may be inclined to go up to Crateria.  You go up, find that you need something to deal with the strange plus blocks, and realize you could search downward.  You travel down into Norfair, where a series of locks keeps you on the right path to the Grapple Beam.  Even if you look around, you're never far from the path to the Grapple Beam--Super Metroid locks up the branching passages pretty well.  You need the Power Bombs to get to this point, right?  I can't recall.  If you don't, then SM locks off those branches better than I thought.  Anyway, once you have the Grapple Beam, you know what you need to do in Crateria, and it's a straight shot up through that vertical portion of Brinstar.  (Now that I think about it, this person has a strange grasp of the wall jump for someone not familiar with the map in SM.)

However, you might go down directly after beating Kraid.  In this case, you go get the Grapple Beam, and Norfair's locks are in good order.  You probably go pick up the Ice Beam too, but the point is, Norfair funnels you through a loop.  You go east, down, west (at this point you pick up the Grapple Beam), and up--the system of locks just pushes you this way.  Once you go up, you're at the entrance to Norfair again.  Your options are this: retread old areas and see if you've missed anything on the side or go further up.  More likely than not, you're curious to see what's at the top of this vertical corridor--you can test out your shiny new Ice Beam on the Rippers.  From the entrance of Norfair, it's a straight shot upward, past the Rippers, to where you need the Grapple Beam.  So, you go in a loop through Norfair, then straight up to the Wrecked Ship (or, well, close enough to the Wrecked Ship).  While the Grapple Beam is pretty far deep in Norfair and the Wrecked Ship is on the surface of Zebes, the game suggests a path from one to another.  This kind of stuff happens the whole way through Super Metroid, I'd argue.

Items like the X-Ray Scope, Spring Ball, and Plasma I'd count as side items.  They don't contribute to the main path, but instead, are small branches or detours off of it.  You pick up the Spring Ball on your way to Draygon or Ridley, for instance.  (Or on your way to the Wrecked Ship?  I haven't considered doing that before, but I don't recall why.)  The Spazer is the best example of this because it's just a hop and a skip away from the main path to Kraid.

Sequence breaking, however, is a problem for this argument.  I have a pretty linear mentality about Super Metroid, so this is something I'm still learning about--typically, I make a beeline through Norfair my first time; I don't pick up the High Jump Boots until I beat Kraid, I grab the Wave Beam as soon as I can (I think it's one of the easier wall jump skips) and the Grapple Beam, and I skip the Ice Beam.  For me, sequence breaking is about making the game more linear, but I have to recognize that people generally sequence break to make the game less linear.  Sequence breaking in that fashion is very much something I think was intended by the designers, as well.

In Metroid, nothing contributes to the path to Ridley; when you go after Ridley, you don't retread any ground.  I think, even if you do sequence break, the paths of Super Metroid run parallel more often than not.  When you go to Ridley, you take the same path through Norfair you did earlier--you just branch off of the loop this time.  This is the kind of stuff that I think inherently lives in Super Metroid.  You go in loops through Zebes; if you sequence break, you're making that loop shorter or changing what part of the loop you do when.  That's an incredibly vague response, though, and something that needs some more experience in sequence breaking behind it.

Prime Hunter

2010-02-28 09:16:40 pm

Yeah, you need power bombs in order to get to the Grapple Beam unless you sequence break and go in the back way by using the Wave Beam on one of those gates. Without sequence breaking, yeah, there's some truth to your concept of loops, especially in Norfair seeing as the upper levels are basically one giant loop. (Moreso than any other area for that matter.) There are times where, even if you're on the main loop, unless you're paying attention you may bypass an item entirely simply because you miss that it's there, like the Power Bombs for instance. You can head up that shaft once you get the Ice Beam, but unless you examine the floor in that final room you may miss it entirely. Granted, after quickly viewing a video of someone getting to that point, it IS pretty obvious that the floor is not solid right there, so I'm not using the best example here. And to tell you the truth, I can't think of any other main item that you could do that with, seeing as for the most part, they're tied to the bosses.

True, the game does make a lot of suggestions, but it's not like the later Metroids where the game literally tells you where you need to go. A lot of it is up to the player seeing these suggestions and then following them, although again it's not that difficult in some cases to see where you're supposed to go next for the item you want. With some, like the entrance to Lower Norfair, you have to find it to begin with, and then remember it, once you have the Space Jump and you need to go back towards Ridley. And now that I think about it, the statue room gives the player a good idea of how far they've come, because at that point if you have seen that room, you know that Ridley is the only one left to face, and there's only one Boss icon left in the game, which is in Norfair. So once you've exhausted all other options, the game points you back to that area. (I'm not helping myself with that... am I?)

The original Metroid does a similar thing with the two statues leading to Tourian, but seeing as there's only two of them it's kinda hard not to see where you'd need to go in that case. Don't both elevators down into the lairs have their respective bosses as part of the wall decorations? That's about as much pointing as you get from the game along this same vein that Super gives you. I'm thinking a lot of that has to do simply with the limitations of the NES compared to the SNES, because if you quickly look at Zero Mission, it's more like Super in this case. It gives you the locations of both Kraid and Ridley just like Super, doesn't it? (And I KNOW it gives you more direction than even Super through the Chozo statues, so let's not go there.) Not having the map leaves a lot up to the player in the original Metroid, but I still think that a lot of things are left up to the player in Super as well. There's just more... how shall I put it? Nudging... from Super to head in certain directions.

And I'd like to stress on that again, actually. A lot of what the game tells you comes down to whether or not the player picks up on the nudges it gives you. The original Metroid doesn't give you anything beyond the statues and the wall "carvings" leading into the hideouts, so practically everything is left to the player's own senses and whether or not they can find the hidden paths throughout Zebes. Super, on the other hand, has a lot of small hints and such in the environment that, unless the player picks up on them and remembers them, will leave them hanging for a while. (Although as I've said, a good number of these are open enough that if the player happens to find the area before they're ready to go that way, they will know to head there once they have the necessary item in tow. The side items and expansions, not so much.) Maybe it's because it's been SO long since I've played without knowing the world backwards and forwards, but I don't know if everyone would pick up on these hints the first time around. I honestly can't remember much of my first playthrough at this point as far as exploration is concerned.

Either way, there is a lot of room to maneuver throughout Zebes in Super, and with as many side tunnels as there are, there's plenty of opportunities to get sidetracked for a while trying to find the main path. But yeah, to get back to the point you were making, I think I have to agree that there are lots of loops throughout the main road, with plenty of exits along the way. Finding just which exit gets you off the main highway so to speak and along the path you need to find your destination is another story. With the original, that same concept could apply in some cases, except there's a lot more exits and the main highway is more subtle. You still need key items to get to later segments of the game (Morph Ball, Missiles, Bombs, Ice Beam, etc.), it's just not as obvious where they are and what you need because you have no way of knowing where that final destination (Such as Kraid or Ridley) is until you get there.

Now you've got me thinking though - What would happen if you sent a brand new player into Super's planet Zebes, but disabled the map entirely? How much different would that experience be for them? (Closer to the original Metroid, I'd imagine.)

Yeah, you need power bombs in order to get to the Grapple Beam unless you sequence break and go in the back way by using the Wave Beam on one of those gates. Without sequence breaking, yeah, there's some truth to your concept of loops, especially in Norfair seeing as the upper levels are basically one giant loop. (Moreso than any other area for that matter.) There are times where, even if you're on the main loop, unless you're paying attention you may bypass an item entirely simply because you miss that it's there, like the Power Bombs for instance. You can head up that shaft once you get the Ice Beam, but unless you examine the floor in that final room you may miss it entirely. Granted, after quickly viewing a video of someone getting to that point, it IS pretty obvious that the floor is not solid right there, so I'm not using the best example here. And to tell you the truth, I can't think of any other main item that you could do that with, seeing as for the most part, they're tied to the bosses.

True, the game does make a lot of suggestions, but it's not like the later Metroids where the game literally tells you where you need to go. A lot of it is up to the player seeing these suggestions and then following them, although again it's not that difficult in some cases to see where you're supposed to go next for the item you want. With some, like the entrance to Lower Norfair, you have to find it to begin with, and then remember it, once you have the Space Jump and you need to go back towards Ridley. And now that I think about it, the statue room gives the player a good idea of how far they've come, because at that point if you have seen that room, you know that Ridley is the only one left to face, and there's only one Boss icon left in the game, which is in Norfair. So once you've exhausted all other options, the game points you back to that area. (I'm not helping myself with that... am I?)

The original Metroid does a similar thing with the two statues leading to Tourian, but seeing as there's only two of them it's kinda hard not to see where you'd need to go in that case. Don't both elevators down into the lairs have their respective bosses as part of the wall decorations? That's about as much pointing as you get from the game along this same vein that Super gives you. I'm thinking a lot of that has to do simply with the limitations of the NES compared to the SNES, because if you quickly look at Zero Mission, it's more like Super in this case. It gives you the locations of both Kraid and Ridley just like Super, doesn't it? (And I KNOW it gives you more direction than even Super through the Chozo statues, so let's not go there.) Not having the map leaves a lot up to the player in the original Metroid, but I still think that a lot of things are left up to the player in Super as well. There's just more... how shall I put it? Nudging... from Super to head in certain directions.

And I'd like to stress on that again, actually. A lot of what the game tells you comes down to whether or not the player picks up on the nudges it gives you. The original Metroid doesn't give you anything beyond the statues and the wall "carvings" leading into the hideouts, so practically everything is left to the player's own senses and whether or not they can find the hidden paths throughout Zebes. Super, on the other hand, has a lot of small hints and such in the environment that, unless the player picks up on them and remembers them, will leave them hanging for a while. (Although as I've said, a good number of these are open enough that if the player happens to find the area before they're ready to go that way, they will know to head there once they have the necessary item in tow. The side items and expansions, not so much.) Maybe it's because it's been SO long since I've played without knowing the world backwards and forwards, but I don't know if everyone would pick up on these hints the first time around. I honestly can't remember much of my first playthrough at this point as far as exploration is concerned.

Either way, there is a lot of room to maneuver throughout Zebes in Super, and with as many side tunnels as there are, there's plenty of opportunities to get sidetracked for a while trying to find the main path. But yeah, to get back to the point you were making, I think I have to agree that there are lots of loops throughout the main road, with plenty of exits along the way. Finding just which exit gets you off the main highway so to speak and along the path you need to find your destination is another story. With the original, that same concept could apply in some cases, except there's a lot more exits and the main highway is more subtle. You still need key items to get to later segments of the game (Morph Ball, Missiles, Bombs, Ice Beam, etc.), it's just not as obvious where they are and what you need because you have no way of knowing where that final destination (Such as Kraid or Ridley) is until you get there.

Now you've got me thinking though - What would happen if you sent a brand new player into Super's planet Zebes, but disabled the map entirely? How much different would that experience be for them? (Closer to the original Metroid, I'd imagine.)

Golem

Edit history:

Golem: 2010-03-01 03:06:00 am

Golem: 2010-03-01 03:05:18 am

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Golem: 2010-03-01 02:53:36 am

Golem: 2010-03-01 02:47:02 am

2010-03-01 02:45:47 am

why are his lips so thick

Zero Mission and Metroid, I'd argue, are almost completely different games. In Zero Mission, emphasis is much more on single rooms than on overall map structure. In Metroid, there's hardly a horizontal corridor that you can't traverse left to right easily. This gives you a good sense of placement: your pace is regular, and nothing stops you and breaks your concentration. In Zero Mission, there's hardly a horizontal corridor where you can just walk left to right. Many rooms have some sort of puzzle tied to it--I'm reminded of the room with the Morph Ball crane thing, as well as Norfair's eastern vertical corridor (not the secret one). In any given room of Zero Mission, your concentration is on getting through that one room. In that sense, giving the player direction makes sense; your focus is on the design of single rooms, you can't focus on overall map structure (at least, as a newbie player).

Also, the lairs in Metroid and Super Metroid don't compare well. You're right that in Metroid, you're told when you're entering a lair--there's one dragon head at the entrance to Kraid's lair and two at the entrance to Ridley's. However, in Metroid, once you enter the lair, you're confronted with a new labyrinth. Once you enter Ridley's lair, there's plenty of chances to get lost, and the same holds true for Kraid's lair. The same cannot be said for their lairs in Super Metroid.

In Super Metroid, I consider it difficult to remember how to get to Ridley's lair, but Ridley's lair itself is one of the most linear portions of the game. You might go east once you enter Ridley's lair, and in that case, you reach a dead end in two rooms. You then go west, and the path is self-evident from there. There's only one fork, and that's between leaving Ridley's lair and heading to Ridley himself (this fork is in the easternmost corridor of Ridley's lair). Provided you look at the map, you know to go to Ridley before leaving his lair.

In Metroid, you will find tons of non-Ridley paths before you stumble upon Ridley himself. For a good while I was lost in eastern Ridley's lair, trying to flesh out all of the passages there, looking for Ridley--unaware that he was hiding over in the west. In Zero Mission, the rooms are so puzzle-laden that the player doesn't have a chance to get lost in this same respect. Any room that doesn't take the player forward is simply blocked off. I don't know my Zero Mission so well, but you certainly can't wander Ridley's lair in ZM in the same sense you can in Metroid. I'd argue that holds for the rest of the game.

On my first playthrough of Super, I think the hints were obvious enough. Then again, that was a 10 hour game, and 3 or 4 of those hours must've been wandering around because I didn't know you could break the glass tube between Brinstar and Norfair. So, I had lots of time to find and memorize the hints the game gave me--more time than your average player would have. Also, having taken 10 hours suggests that the hints weren't that obvious, since it's more like a 3 hour game. I'm not sure what to think on that matter, either.

At the end of the day, though, I can agree with that second to last paragraph. Super definitely gives you plenty of chances to get lost, and that there's more hints along the way than in Metroid. Also, Metroid has a subtler main path with more branches. I'm not sure about the last paragraph, though... does that mean that the map itself is a hint in Super Metroid? Actually, thinking about it, I think that works well.

Zero Mission and Metroid, I'd argue, are almost completely different games.  In Zero Mission, emphasis is much more on single rooms than on overall map structure.  In Metroid, there's hardly a horizontal corridor that you can't traverse left to right easily.  This gives you a good sense of placement: your pace is regular, and nothing stops you and breaks your concentration.  In Zero Mission, there's hardly a horizontal corridor where you can just walk left to right.  Many rooms have some sort of puzzle tied to it--I'm reminded of the room with the Morph Ball crane thing, as well as Norfair's eastern vertical corridor (not the secret one).  In any given room of Zero Mission, your concentration is on getting through that one room.  In that sense, giving the player direction makes sense; your focus is on the design of single rooms, you can't focus on overall map structure (at least, as a newbie player).

Also, the lairs in Metroid and Super Metroid don't compare well.  You're right that in Metroid, you're told when you're entering a lair--there's one dragon head at the entrance to Kraid's lair and two at the entrance to Ridley's.  However, in Metroid, once you enter the lair, you're confronted with a new labyrinth.  Once you enter Ridley's lair, there's plenty of chances to get lost, and the same holds true for Kraid's lair.  The same cannot be said for their lairs in Super Metroid.

In Super Metroid, I consider it difficult to remember how to get to Ridley's lair, but Ridley's lair itself is one of the most linear portions of the game.  You might go east once you enter Ridley's lair, and in that case, you reach a dead end in two rooms.  You then go west, and the path is self-evident from there.  There's only one fork, and that's between leaving Ridley's lair and heading to Ridley himself (this fork is in the easternmost corridor of Ridley's lair).  Provided you look at the map, you know to go to Ridley before leaving his lair.

In Metroid, you will find tons of non-Ridley paths before you stumble upon Ridley himself.  For a good while I was lost in eastern Ridley's lair, trying to flesh out all of the passages there, looking for Ridley--unaware that he was hiding over in the west.  In Zero Mission, the rooms are so puzzle-laden that the player doesn't have a chance to get lost in this same respect.  Any room that doesn't take the player forward is simply blocked off.  I don't know my Zero Mission so well, but you certainly can't wander Ridley's lair in ZM in the same sense you can in Metroid.  I'd argue that holds for the rest of the game.

On my first playthrough of Super, I think the hints were obvious enough.  Then again, that was a 10 hour game, and 3 or 4 of those hours must've been wandering around because I didn't know you could break the glass tube between Brinstar and Norfair.  So, I had lots of time to find and memorize the hints the game gave me--more time than your average player would have.  Also, having taken 10 hours suggests that the hints weren't that obvious, since it's more like a 3 hour game.  I'm not sure what to think on that matter, either.

At the end of the day, though, I can agree with that second to last paragraph.  Super definitely gives you plenty of chances to get lost, and that there's more hints along the way than in Metroid.  Also, Metroid has a subtler main path with more branches.  I'm not sure about the last paragraph, though... does that mean that the map itself is a hint in Super Metroid?  Actually, thinking about it, I think that works well.

Opium

2010-03-01 02:55:33 am

So....many....words......Can't...read....all.....

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2010-03-01 09:25:45 am

Prime Hunter: 2010-03-01 09:25:16 am

Prime Hunter: 2010-03-01 09:24:32 am

2010-03-01 09:24:19 am

Quote from Golem:

Zero Mission and Metroid, I'd argue, are almost completely different games.

I was trying to compare the differences they were able to make with nearly a 20 year jump in technology. Zero Mission is certainly based on the original in many ways, but yeah, the room setups are vastly different, even if they are placed in roughly the same areas and shaped roughly the same way as in the original. Though it's funny I say that, because if I'm remembering this right I was able to use what little knowledge I had of the original game's layout when I played Zero Mission for the first time to get around Zebes and have a general sense of where things were (Such as the items and bosses.), so in that respect things were the same.

Quote from Golem:

Also, the lairs in Metroid and Super Metroid don't compare well.

Wasn't really trying to do that. All I meant was that the carvings in the wall are the only hint you're headed in the right direction in the original as far as Kraid and Ridley are concerned. (And the ones in the ceiling right outside of their rooms.) Because yeah, Lower Norfair is very straightforward in Super, and yet it's one of the best parts of the game in my mind because of the atmosphere and music, but we're not talking about those here. The same can be said for the other main bosses though as far as they are on a direct path once you're in their area.

Quote from Golem:

I don't know my Zero Mission so well, but you certainly can't wander Ridley's lair in ZM in the same sense you can in Metroid. I'd argue that holds for the rest of the game.

For the most part, I'll agree with that. There's a few spots where you can wander a bit, but in the end the game is setup more like Super with the way paths are blocked until you have the proper item in tow.

Quote from Golem:

On my first playthrough of Super, I think the hints were obvious enough. Then again, that was a 10 hour game, and 3 or 4 of those hours must've been wandering around because I didn't know you could break the glass tube between Brinstar and Norfair. So, I had lots of time to find and memorize the hints the game gave me--more time than your average player would have. Also, having taken 10 hours suggests that the hints weren't that obvious, since it's more like a 3 hour game. I'm not sure what to think on that matter, either.

Yeah, that tube is definitely one of the least obvious things in the entire game. The only way you'd never have to deal with it is if you go into Maridia the other way from Crateria and loop around to the bottom, right? (There's those loops again.) And again, it's been ages since I first played the game, so I can't remember how well I did with those obstacles and hints. But I'm fairly sure I've heard plenty of times over the years going high above the three hour mark for someone's first time through the game (Not around here as much), so I'm guessing they have to be subtle enough in a lot of cases until you know what to look for.

Quote from "Golem:

I'm not sure about the last paragraph, though... does that mean that the map itself is a hint in Super Metroid? Actually, thinking about it, I think that works well.

I'll go with that. Once you hit the map station, most of the time you have the direct path you need to get to the boss laid out for you. Or at least, what looks like the correct path. The map never takes into account what items you need or what obstacles are between you and said boss, but it still gives you the direction to move in. That's still more than the original Metroid does for you.

[quote="Golem"]Zero Mission and Metroid, I'd argue, are almost completely different games.[/quote]
I was trying to compare the differences they were able to make with nearly a 20 year jump in technology. Zero Mission is certainly based on the original in many ways, but yeah, the room setups are vastly different, even if they are placed in roughly the same areas and shaped roughly the same way as in the original. Though it's funny I say that, because if I'm remembering this right I was able to use what little knowledge I had of the original game's layout when I played Zero Mission for the first time to get around Zebes and have a general sense of where things were (Such as the items and bosses.), so in that respect things were the same.

[quote="Golem"]Also, the lairs in Metroid and Super Metroid don't compare well.[/quote]
Wasn't really trying to do that. All I meant was that the carvings in the wall are the only hint you're headed in the right direction in the original as far as Kraid and Ridley are concerned. (And the ones in the ceiling right outside of their rooms.) Because yeah, Lower Norfair is very straightforward in Super, and yet it's one of the best parts of the game in my mind because of the atmosphere and music, but we're not talking about those here. The same can be said for the other main bosses though as far as they are on a direct path once you're in their area.

[quote="Golem"]I don't know my Zero Mission so well, but you certainly can't wander Ridley's lair in ZM in the same sense you can in Metroid.  I'd argue that holds for the rest of the game.[/quote]
For the most part, I'll agree with that. There's a few spots where you can wander a bit, but in the end the game is setup more like Super with the way paths are blocked until you have the proper item in tow.

[quote="Golem"]On my first playthrough of Super, I think the hints were obvious enough.  Then again, that was a 10 hour game, and 3 or 4 of those hours must've been wandering around because I didn't know you could break the glass tube between Brinstar and Norfair.  So, I had lots of time to find and memorize the hints the game gave me--more time than your average player would have.  Also, having taken 10 hours suggests that the hints weren't that obvious, since it's more like a 3 hour game.  I'm not sure what to think on that matter, either.[/quote]
Yeah, that tube is definitely one of the least obvious things in the entire game. The only way you'd never have to deal with it is if you go into Maridia the other way from Crateria and loop around to the bottom, right? (There's those loops again.) And again, it's been ages since I first played the game, so I can't remember how well I did with those obstacles and hints. But I'm fairly sure I've heard plenty of times over the years going high above the three hour mark for someone's first time through the game (Not around here as much), so I'm guessing they have to be subtle enough in a lot of cases until you know what to look for.

[quote="Golem]I'm not sure about the last paragraph, though... does that mean that the map itself is a hint in Super Metroid?  Actually, thinking about it, I think that works well.[/quote]
I'll go with that. Once you hit the map station, most of the time you have the direct path you need to get to the boss laid out for you. Or at least, what looks like the correct path. The map never takes into account what items you need or what obstacles are between you and said boss, but it still gives you the direction to move in. That's still more than the original Metroid does for you.

Golem

Edit history:

Golem: 2010-03-01 11:03:37 am

Golem: 2010-03-01 11:00:22 am

2010-03-01 10:46:45 am

why are his lips so thick

Quote from Opium:

So....many....words......

Isn't that the best part? :)

Quote from Prime Hunter:

I was trying to compare the differences they were able to make with nearly a 20 year jump in technology.

Whoops, my bad. I'm too used to hearing people say that Zero Mission is a direct improvement of Metroid. I struggled with Metroid for quite a long time, and people would tell me to play Zero Mission instead. My bad on the lairs thing, too. Though, the Wrecked Ship and Ridley's lair have to be the atmospherically coolest parts of the game. 8)

Also, on Maridia--I'm not certain, but I think you can't get to Draygon unless you break the glass tube. If you enter Maridia from Crateria, you can make a fair amount of progress, but eventually, you get blocked by a Super Missile gate. From there, you have to backtrack, go down and enter Norfair, then approach Maridia from the glass tube.

Quietus

2010-03-01 11:10:52 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

Quote from Golem:

Also, on Maridia--I'm not certain, but I think you can't get to Draygon unless you break the glass tube. If you enter Maridia from Crateria, you can make a fair amount of progress, but eventually, you get blocked by a Super Missile gate. From there, you have to backtrack, go down and enter Norfair, then approach Maridia from the glass tube.

This is correct. If you continue through the Wrecked Ship, you get stuck at one of the grey / brown doors; if you go through the entrance from Red Brinstar, you get stuck at a Super Missile gate; and if you jump up the small hole just before the n00b tube, you get stuck at another Super Missile gate.

Quote from Golem:

EDIT: wait agh i hit quote instead of edit, sorry about that

I'm sure you can just click back...

Golem

2010-03-01 11:13:35 am

why are his lips so thick

I hit "Post" without realizing that the text field was in the wrong place. Embarassed

Still getting acquainted with Taiga, I guess.

Giganotabehemoth87

Edit history:

Giganotabehemoth87: 2010-03-05 01:32:58 pm

Giganotabehemoth87: 2010-03-02 11:12:16 am

Giganotabehemoth87: 2010-03-02 11:11:54 am

Giganotabehemoth87: 2010-03-01 06:46:49 pm

Giganotabehemoth87: 2010-03-01 06:28:01 pm

Giganotabehemoth87: 2010-03-01 05:58:32 pm

Giganotabehemoth87: 2010-03-01 05:58:01 pm

2010-03-01 05:55:00 pm

professional chin scratcher

I'm not really adding much to the discussion here but i thought i'd chip in anyway.

In super metroid the developers were able to provide many rooms with different looks and themes (while not nessessarily hundreds of different tiles lol) so memorising your way around zebes becomes naturally harder. [edit] no actually easier because of rooms having certain looks making them easier to remember

In nes metroid rooms were were all very similar in accordance of where you are on the planet. Of course they are on super as well but there's loads of exeptions all along the way just to confuse you and and to question where the heck you could be. Only because they wanted to make the game more interesting on a aesthetical leval of course. Nes metroid was made on very limited hardware so rooms followed a very distint pattern. That is, up or down

Also some items have had an evolution over the years since metroid nes. In metroid nes the varia suit for example only protected you further from attacks where as in super it protected you from heated environments as well. Heated environments itself is an evolution from nes metroid.

Space jump. Originally was on metroid 2 and as far as i can remeber it wasn't an essential item. It just enabled better progression through the environment. Where as in super they incorperated water environments and lava to traverse. So these are essential.

I don't know where i'm going with this post but i guess what i could be saying is games made later always take on some form of linearity because of how much free reign developers have. The fact that they incorperate ideas to make the game more interesting for the player. ie grapple beam, space jump etc these ideas also invariably make the game easier to remember locations such is how the human mind remembers things. The human mind remembers things by association. You associate grapple beam by grapple blocks etc and the last place you saw grapple blocks was the blocks in the ceiling heading east from your ship to an area you've never been before for example.

In nes metroid you could go anywhere you wanted but you dont nessassrily know where your going because you cant associate your surroundings with much else. So the only way to memorise anything is by a purely mathmatical approach as golem mentioned. Like getting to ridley upon entering ridleys hideout for example

I also agree with golem in the fact that zero mission and nes metroid are completley different. Zero mission is more based on super metroid as far as working your way around the planet is concerned.

I'm not really adding much to the discussion here but i thought i'd chip in anyway.

In super metroid the developers were able to provide many rooms with different looks and themes (while not nessessarily hundreds of different tiles lol) so memorising your way around zebes becomes naturally harder. [edit] no actually easier because of rooms having certain looks making them easier to remember

In nes metroid rooms were were all very similar in accordance of where you are on the planet. Of course they are on super as well but there's loads of exeptions all along the way just to confuse you and and to question where the heck you could be. Only because they wanted to make the game more interesting on a aesthetical leval of course. Nes metroid was made on very limited hardware so rooms followed a very distint pattern. That is, up or down

Also some items have had an evolution over the years since metroid nes. In metroid nes the varia suit for example only protected you further from attacks where as in super it protected you from heated environments as well. Heated environments itself is an evolution from nes metroid.

Space jump. Originally was on metroid 2 and as far as i can remeber it wasn't an essential item. It just enabled better progression through the environment. Where as in super they incorperated water environments and lava to traverse. So these are essential.

I don't know where i'm going with this post but i guess what i could be saying is games made later always take on some form of linearity because of how much free reign developers have. The fact that they incorperate ideas to make the game more interesting for the player. ie grapple beam, space jump etc these ideas also invariably make the game easier to remember locations such is how the human mind remembers things. The human mind remembers things by association. You associate grapple beam by grapple blocks etc and the last place you saw grapple blocks was the blocks in the ceiling heading east from your ship to an area you've never been before for example.

In nes metroid you could go anywhere you wanted but you dont nessassrily know where your going because you cant associate your surroundings with much else. So the only way to memorise anything is by a purely mathmatical approach as golem mentioned. Like getting to ridley upon entering ridleys hideout for example

I also agree with golem in the fact that zero mission and nes metroid are completley different. Zero mission is more based on super metroid as far as working your way around the planet is concerned.

Golem

Edit history:

Golem: 2010-03-02 05:12:52 am

Golem: 2010-03-01 09:45:00 pm

Golem: 2010-03-01 09:43:29 pm

Golem: 2010-03-01 09:41:09 pm

2010-03-01 09:37:10 pm

why are his lips so thick

I could not agree with you more. You get a cookie.

Quote from Giganotabehemoth87:

In nes metroid rooms were were all very similar in accordance of where you are on the planet. Of course they are on super as well but there's loads of exeptions all along the way just to confuse you and and to question where the heck you could be. Only because they wanted to make the game more interesting on a aesthetical leval of course. Nes metroid was made on very limited hardware so rooms followed a very distint pattern. That is, up or down

Exactly--Metroid's structure has a very building block feel to it. Every room is a building block of regular proportions, and it's possible to fit them all together.

Quote from Giganotabehemoth87:

Space jump. Originally was on metroid 2 and as far as i can remeber it wasn't an essential item. It just enabled better progression through the environment. Where as in super they incorperated water environments and lava to traverse. So these are essential.

It did originate in Metroid 2, and I'm pretty sure it's optional. You can Spiderball pretty much anywhere you absolutely need to go (but if you don't take the Space Jump, you might miss out on some energy and missile tanks? I don't think so, but I'm not sure). You don't need the Space Jump in Super Metroid if you're a god with infinite bomb jumps, but otherwise it's all but required.

Quote from Giganotabehemoth87:

I don't know where i'm going with this post but i guess what i could be saying is games made later always take on some form of linearity because of how much free reign developers have. The fact that they incorperate ideas to make the game more interesting for the player. ie grapple beam, space jump etc these ideas also invariably make the game easier to remember locations such is how the human mind remembers things. The human mind remembers things by association. You associate grapple beam by grapple blocks etc and the last place you saw grapple blocks was the blocks in the ceiling heading east from your ship to an area you've never been before for example.

Yeah, this is an essential difference in the items between Metroid and Super Metroid. In Super Metroid, items unlock more of Zebes. In Metroid, past the Bomb, the items you get aren't necessary to unlock a forward path. (You need the Ice Beam and High Jump Boots to get other items, though.) That means the Wave Beam, Ice Beam, Varia Suit, and Screw Attack are all totally optional--they're only there to make combat easier. I view Metroid in three segments. 1, you wander around, stocking up on items. 2, you fight Kraid and Ridley. 3, you raid Tourian. The mapless, aimless design of Metroid makes this kind of approach possible.

On this point, a lot of what makes Metroid interesting to me is that the combat necessitates your wandering around. At least on your first playthrough, you're not going to be able to beat Kraid unless you pick up some optional items. (I count Ridley as a lot easier than Kraid.) You don't absolutely need the Ice Beam to beat Ridley, but I like to freeze all of his fireballs. That's a thing that I do--you might use the Wave Beam on Ridley. Even more than Super Metroid, Metroid is a personalized experience. (I could go play Fallout 3 or EVO, but Fallout 3 isn't a platformer and EVO isn't fun.)

So, in this sense, your upgrades in Metroid help you to explore the environment merely by making enemies less of a problem. Once I get the Varia Suit, I can hit pretty much any area in Zebes I want. The items of Super Metroid don't empower you to explore more of Zebes--instead, they point you to a specific place. (They DO empower you to explore more of Zebes in that you can take more extra passages. However, this is a secondary purpose. In contrast to Metroid, they aren't as empowering.) Metroid's items, on the other hand, empower you to do what YOU want. They have no specific use, you're free to take advantage of them in any way you like.

I start to wonder if it might be possible to construct a defense of Metroid's beam system. It's always seemed really dumb that you lose the Wave Beam once you get the Ice Beam and vice versa. Why not let you switch between the two? Why do you have to go rediscover it? I'm wondering if further investigation of Metroid's combat could make sense of this approach to beams.

I could not agree with you more.  You get a cookie.

[quote="Giganotabehemoth87"]In nes metroid rooms were were all very similar in accordance of where you are on the planet. Of course they are on super as well but there's loads of exeptions all along the way just to confuse you and and to question where the heck you could be. Only because they wanted to make the game more interesting on a aesthetical leval of course. Nes metroid was made on very limited hardware so rooms followed a very distint pattern. That is, up or down[/quote]
Exactly--Metroid's structure has a very building block feel to it.  Every room is a building block of regular proportions, and it's possible to fit them all together.

[quote="Giganotabehemoth87"]Space jump. Originally was on metroid 2 and as far as i can remeber it wasn't an essential item. It just enabled better progression through the environment. Where as in super they incorperated water environments and lava to traverse. So these are essential. [/quote]
It did originate in Metroid 2, and I'm pretty sure it's optional.  You can Spiderball pretty much anywhere you absolutely need to go (but if you don't take the Space Jump, you might miss out on some energy and missile tanks? I don't think so, but I'm not sure).  You don't need the Space Jump in Super Metroid if you're a god with infinite bomb jumps, but otherwise it's all but required.

[quote="Giganotabehemoth87"]I don't know where i'm going with this post but i guess what i could be saying is games made later always take on some form of linearity because of how much free reign developers have. The fact that they incorperate ideas to make the game more interesting for the player. ie grapple beam, space jump etc these ideas also invariably make the game easier to remember locations such is how the human mind remembers things. The human mind remembers things by association. You associate grapple beam by grapple blocks etc and the last place you saw grapple blocks was the blocks in the ceiling heading east from your ship to an area you've never been before for example.[/quote]
Yeah, this is an essential difference in the items between Metroid and Super Metroid.  In Super Metroid, items unlock more of Zebes.  In Metroid, past the Bomb, the items you get aren't necessary to unlock a forward path.  (You need the Ice Beam and High Jump Boots to get other items, though.)  That means the Wave Beam, Ice Beam, Varia Suit, and Screw Attack are all totally optional--they're only there to make combat easier.  I view Metroid in three segments.  1, you wander around, stocking up on items.  2, you fight Kraid and Ridley.  3, you raid Tourian.  The mapless, aimless design of Metroid makes this kind of approach possible.

On this point, a lot of what makes Metroid interesting to me is that the combat necessitates your wandering around.  At least on your first playthrough, you're not going to be able to beat Kraid unless you pick up some optional items.  (I count Ridley as a lot easier than Kraid.)  You don't absolutely need the Ice Beam to beat Ridley, but I like to freeze all of his fireballs.  That's a thing that I do--you might use the Wave Beam on Ridley.  Even more than Super Metroid, Metroid is a personalized experience.  (I could go play Fallout 3 or EVO, but Fallout 3 isn't a platformer and EVO isn't fun.)

So, in this sense, your upgrades in Metroid help you to explore the environment merely by making enemies less of a problem.  Once I get the Varia Suit, I can hit pretty much any area in Zebes I want.  The items of Super Metroid don't empower you to explore more of Zebes--instead, they point you to a specific place.  (They DO empower you to explore more of Zebes in that you can take more extra passages.  However, this is a secondary purpose.  In contrast to Metroid, they aren't as empowering.)  Metroid's items, on the other hand, empower you to do what YOU want.  They have no specific use, you're free to take advantage of them in any way you like.

I start to wonder if it might be possible to construct a defense of Metroid's beam system.  It's always seemed really dumb that you lose the Wave Beam once you get the Ice Beam and vice versa.  Why not let you switch between the two?  Why do you have to go rediscover it?  I'm wondering if further investigation of Metroid's combat could make sense of this approach to beams.

Giganotabehemoth87

Edit history:

Giganotabehemoth87: 2010-03-02 11:08:16 am

2010-03-02 08:36:52 am

professional chin scratcher

I think there is a degree of '' wow i wonder where i can go now'' on super metroid after picking up a item you've never seen before. Especially on your first play through. I mean we all went to norfair before killing Kraid in super only to find out we couldn't go anywhere because of the heated environments. But then i guess it's quite linear in the fact that they put hi jump boots on the bottom left room to make the jump to get to Kraid. (of course i'm talking about before the speed running days and everybody found bomb jumping and wall jumping difficult).

I think it's better to accept what you CAN do with super metroid rather then the linear path given to you. Because this of course where maximum enjoyment comes in. Sequence breaking leading to speed running etc.

The emphasis on super is how you handle samus with your environment. Your questioning whether you could make that jump and maybe get a little wall jump off that wall and so on. and i'm not talking about glitches because these are all unforseen errors on the develepers part.

Also samus in super moves a heck of a lot faster and more freely than nes metroid obviously so this in turn gives you the freedom to look around and see what more you can do. Where as in nes metroid the emphasis isn't on how you control samus. More it's about discovering the route that is right for you. There's no wall jump. Bomb jumping is hard from what i remember and not worth it (clear me up on this because i can't remember).

So i think your mission in super is exploration and discovery and to attain the nessassary items to take on mother brain and finish tha game. Where as nes metroid is like ''Well you can go to mother brain if you want but you aint gonna like it, i'd stock up on a few things before you go there'' lol

I think there is a degree of '' wow i wonder where i can go now'' on super metroid after picking up a item you've never seen before. Especially on your first play through. I mean we all went to norfair before killing Kraid in super only to find out we couldn't go anywhere because of the heated environments. But then i guess it's quite linear in the fact that they put hi jump boots on the bottom left room to make the jump to get to Kraid. (of course i'm talking about before the speed running days and everybody found bomb jumping and wall jumping difficult).

I think it's better to accept what you CAN do with super metroid rather then the linear path given to you. Because this of course where maximum enjoyment comes in. Sequence breaking leading to speed running etc.

The emphasis on super is how you handle samus with your environment. Your questioning whether you could make that jump and maybe get a little wall jump off that wall and so on. and i'm not talking about glitches because these are all unforseen errors on the develepers part.

Also samus in super moves a heck of a lot faster and more freely than nes metroid obviously so this in turn gives you the freedom to look around and see what more you can do. Where as in nes metroid the emphasis isn't on how you control samus. More it's about discovering the route that is right for you. There's no wall jump. Bomb jumping is hard from what i remember and not worth it (clear me up on this because i can't remember).

So i think your mission in super is exploration and discovery and to attain the nessassary items to take on mother brain and finish tha game. Where as nes metroid is like ''Well you can go to mother brain if you want but you aint gonna like it, i'd stock up on a few things before you go there'' lol

Quietus

2010-03-02 11:00:23 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

There are relatively few areas in Super that really screw with the player, difficulty-wise. The only real spots I recall that really aren't hinted at are the so-called n00b tube, and the entrance to Kraid's lair. It's not made clear in-game that Bombs reveal a block's weakness. Other than that, the original route is actually quite linear. Only through mastery of Samus's moves do you get the freedom, and this reward is probably what keeps players coming back, as even now you can learn something new.

JaggerG

2010-03-03 08:16:27 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

Yeah, though the manual to Metroid had a very vague map in it, I think the main appeal of the game is exploring the planet yourself. Later on they decided immersion is more entertaining than going back to a pencil and paper every time you reach the next room, I think. And it's not so much that the console limited the player. Just look at The Legend of Zelda for example. Metroid is basically a much cruder Legend of Zelda, except it had a gun instead of a short-range blade.

Also I tried to beat Metroid before Zero Mission, but I kept hesitating before going into Hideouts 1 and 2 because I didn't realize they had just been elevator rooms. I feared the statue being a boss itself and sending me back to the beginning at 30 health, so I doubled back a couple times. Then I got sick of falling in the lava in Norfair and being unable to jump out. Not to mention the trap in the floor to the left of Brinstar's Ice Beam. >_<

I ended up just spoiling the entire original game for myself by going through Zero Mission. Seriously, once you do play through Zero Mission, the original has hardly anything left to offer. The unlockable original game is much more of a trophy than an actual game.

As for Ridley and Kraid in Metroid, I usually just hope Ridley lobs fireballs far so I can just stand underneath them and pummel him. As for Kraid, I've found that 3 etanks and bombs can just dominate him before he can kill you, and I also found a pretty cheap strategy for a 1-item run that basically hinges on the RNG for his "AI" making him toss fingernails short - Stand on right block, jump over belly-buttons, after 8 are shot, run off block and shoot, then jump back on block. If the fingernails make you nervous, you can rush him and force him to back up to the far left side first.

---

Also in response to the bomb jumping in Metroid question, it hypothetically is possible to IBJ, but it requires frame precision each time. You can pretty much only hope to reliably do a triple bomb jump. To go any higher, your best bet is to door-jump. There are un-morph jumps though, that provides slightly more mobility (I personally use it quite a bit in places like Hideout 1 just to get health refills from bugs that fly up out of the..."sand" as they call it, so I don't fall in.

As a side note, I like to think of speedrunning as being a different type of entertainment than video games in general. Video games are generally very limited in the amount of playthroughs you can do before it gets old, at least for most games. Speedrunning on the other hand challenges you to beat it dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of times. I mentioned earlier that after beating Zero Mission, there's not much left to Metroid, but that doesn't apply to speedrunning. I also consider minimalist playthroughs to be a different type, too.

Yeah, though the manual to Metroid had a very vague map in it, I think the main appeal of the game is exploring the planet yourself. Later on they decided immersion is more entertaining than going back to a pencil and paper every time you reach the next room, I think. And it's not so much that the console limited the player. Just look at The Legend of Zelda for example. Metroid is basically a much cruder Legend of Zelda, except it had a gun instead of a short-range blade.

Also I tried to beat Metroid before Zero Mission, but I kept hesitating before going into Hideouts 1 and 2 because I didn't realize they had just been elevator rooms. I feared the statue being a boss itself and sending me back to the beginning at 30 health, so I doubled back a couple times. Then I got sick of falling in the lava in Norfair and being unable to jump out. Not to mention the trap in the floor to the left of Brinstar's Ice Beam. >_<

I ended up just spoiling the entire original game for myself by going through Zero Mission. Seriously, once you do play through Zero Mission, the original has hardly anything left to offer. The unlockable original game is much more of a trophy than an actual game.

As for Ridley and Kraid in Metroid, I usually just hope Ridley lobs fireballs far so I can just stand underneath them and pummel him. As for Kraid, I've found that 3 etanks and bombs can just dominate him before he can kill you, and I also found a pretty cheap strategy for a 1-item run that basically hinges on the RNG for his "AI" making him toss fingernails short - Stand on right block, jump over belly-buttons, after 8 are shot, run off block and shoot, then jump back on block. If the fingernails make you nervous, you can rush him and force him to back up to the far left side first.

---

Also in response to the bomb jumping in Metroid question, it hypothetically is possible to IBJ, but it requires frame precision each time. You can pretty much only hope to reliably do a triple bomb jump. To go any higher, your best bet is to door-jump. There are un-morph jumps though, that provides slightly more mobility (I personally use it quite a bit in places like Hideout 1 just to get health refills from bugs that fly up out of the..."sand" as they call it, so I don't fall in.

As a side note, I like to think of speedrunning as being a different type of entertainment than video games in general. Video games are generally very limited in the amount of playthroughs you can do before it gets old, at least for most games. Speedrunning on the other hand challenges you to beat it dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of times. I mentioned earlier that after beating Zero Mission, there's not much left to Metroid, but that doesn't apply to speedrunning. I also consider minimalist playthroughs to be a different type, too.

RT-55J

2010-03-03 07:47:19 pm

Armor Guardian

I don't have anything in particular to say, but I think this is an interesting analysis of the issue from a non-gamedesign perspective.

Golem

Edit history:

Golem: 2010-03-03 10:37:15 pm

Golem: 2010-03-03 10:31:02 pm

2010-03-03 10:30:05 pm

why are his lips so thick

RT, that was an awesome read. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, though, since I'm graduating with a bachelor's this semester and I have to go find work. :b

Quote from Giganotabehemoth87:

The emphasis on super is how you handle samus with your environment. Your questioning whether you could make that jump and maybe get a little wall jump off that wall and so on. and i'm not talking about glitches because these are all unforseen errors on the develepers part.

A key part of Super Metroid's awesomeness is that you can deviate from the designated path, yeah. Metroid allows a certain amount of freedom due to its lack of structure, creating an organic world. Metroid's Zebes isn't something designed by someone for you to conquer, but an old ruin you're incidentally digging up. This isn't necessarily for YOU to dig up, but someone else was using it as their living quarters--someone who didn't give a care about you. Super Metroid, on the other hand, creates an organic environment by giving you a designated path and letting you deviate from it. When you wall jump to Kraid instead of using the High Jump Boots, you're going where you want to go, not where the game wants you to go. Super Metroid's world is organic because you can see past its metaphoric borders. When you see a jump that's too high for you, there's a border set in place by the game. When you wall jump and reach the top of that jump, you're breaking through a border--the game exists outside of a strict set of pre-imagined actions (just like how Metroid's world exists outside of Samus). (I'm reminded of Super Mario 64, which always felt a little hammy because you couldn't swim out to the rest of the world through the moat--you get stopped by an invisible wall. That's not organic.)

Quote from JaggerG:

Later on they decided immersion is more entertaining than going back to a pencil and paper every time you reach the next room, I think.

By later on, you mean Super Metroid, right? Apologies if I'm beating a dead horse, but I gotta disagree with you there--going back to a pencil and paper is more immersing than the game keeping a map for you. If you literally use a pencil and paper to make a physical map, then the game is probably kind of tedious, true. However, by not providing a map, the game requires you personally to get a sense of how Zebes is structured. You have to get Zebes into your head, and that puts you that much more into the game. When the game provides a map for you, it's doing some of the job of exploring Zebes for you.

Quote from JaggerG:

Seriously, once you do play through Zero Mission, the original has hardly anything left to offer.

I dunno, I can't see how that follows. The larger map structure of Zero Mission borrows heavily from Metroid, sure, but the room structure of Zero Mission is so largely dictated that Metroid is mostly a new world. While Zero Mission asks you to be a good battler and kind of an okay puzzle solver, Metroid asks you to be a good scavenger. Based on your post, my guess is that you see Metroid as Zero Mission minus the rich room design. However, if you try to progress through Metroid using the same path that you took in Zero Mission, the game is a lot harder than if you paved your own way.

I'm also not sure in what sense Metroid is a crude LoZ; they both have very different approaches to structure, items, and bosses, among other things.

RT, that was an awesome read.  Not exactly what I wanted to hear, though, since I'm graduating with a bachelor's this semester and I have to go find work. :b

[quote="Giganotabehemoth87"]The emphasis on super is how you handle samus with your environment. Your questioning whether you could make that jump and maybe get a little wall jump off that wall and so on. and i'm not talking about glitches because these are all unforseen errors on the develepers part.[/quote]
A key part of Super Metroid's awesomeness is that you can deviate from the designated path, yeah.  Metroid allows a certain amount of freedom due to its lack of structure, creating an organic world.   Metroid's Zebes isn't something designed by someone for you to conquer, but an old ruin you're incidentally digging up.  This isn't necessarily for YOU to dig up, but someone else was using it as their living quarters--someone who didn't give a care about you.  Super Metroid, on the other hand, creates an organic environment by giving you a designated path and letting you deviate from it.  When you wall jump to Kraid instead of using the High Jump Boots, you're going where you want to go, not where the game wants you to go.  Super Metroid's world is organic because you can see past its metaphoric borders.  When you see a jump that's too high for you, there's a border set in place by the game.  When you wall jump and reach the top of that jump, you're breaking through a border--the game exists outside of a strict set of pre-imagined actions (just like how Metroid's world exists outside of Samus).  (I'm reminded of Super Mario 64, which always felt a little hammy because you couldn't swim out to the rest of the world through the moat--you get stopped by an invisible wall.  That's not organic.)

[quote="JaggerG"]Later on they decided immersion is more entertaining than going back to a pencil and paper every time you reach the next room, I think.[/quote]
By later on, you mean Super Metroid, right?  Apologies if I'm beating a dead horse, but I gotta disagree with you there--going back to a pencil and paper is more immersing than the game keeping a map for you.  If you literally use a pencil and paper to make a physical map, then the game is probably kind of tedious, true.  However, by not providing a map, the game requires you personally to get a sense of how Zebes is structured.  You have to get Zebes into your head, and that puts you that much more into the game.  When the game provides a map for you, it's doing some of the job of exploring Zebes for you.

[quote="JaggerG"]Seriously, once you do play through Zero Mission, the original has hardly anything left to offer.[/quote]
I dunno, I can't see how that follows.  The larger map structure of Zero Mission borrows heavily from Metroid, sure, but the room structure of Zero Mission is so largely dictated that Metroid is mostly a new world.  While Zero Mission asks you to be a good battler and kind of an okay puzzle solver, Metroid asks you to be a good scavenger.  Based on your post, my guess is that you see Metroid as Zero Mission minus the rich room design.  However, if you try to progress through Metroid using the same path that you took in Zero Mission, the game is a lot harder than if you paved your own way.

I'm also not sure in what sense Metroid is a crude LoZ; they both have very different approaches to structure, items, and bosses, among other things.

JaggerG

Edit history:

JaggerG: 2010-03-04 07:20:23 am

2010-03-04 07:08:59 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

Quote from Golem:

I gotta disagree with you there--going back to a pencil and paper is more immersing than the game keeping a map for you.

Fair enough, I had just been thinking of immersion as in staying in the game as opposed to using peripherals in real life.

Quote from Golem:

Based on your post, my guess is that you see Metroid as Zero Mission minus the rich room design. However, if you try to progress through Metroid using the same path that you took in Zero Mission, the game is a lot harder than if you paved your own way.

The thing I meant about Zero Mission being a spoiler for Metroid is that all the items and bosses that are in Metroid are in the exact same place as they are in Zero Mission except for the Brinstar ice beam. You can no longer discover anything important beyond figuring out there's no charge beam, supers, speed booster, or grip. The biggest surprise going from ZM to M1 is probably that you lose one beam if you pick up the other one, and that's not a very nice surprise. I've just felt that the best part of M1 had been finding things yourself and feeling like a great explorer, and once that element is removed, it becomes just one of those old NES games that are tough because of the limited controls.

Quote from Golem:

I'm also not sure in what sense Metroid is a crude LoZ; they both have very different approaches to structure, items, and bosses, among other things.

I felt that Metroid had the feel of someone's first project, and they tried to make a maze but didn't feel like putting too much effort into the room design, so they just copied and pasted rooms and put them together. The controls had been nearly as basic as you can get, though at least they had been better than Jackal's. You could aim in three directions, and you can't hit anything beneath your arm until you get bombs. The bombs send you up no matter the relative location of it. Bombs still make you invincible even though you're not taking damage from them. There are only three bosses, one is completely stationary, and the others simply mirror their horizontal movement depending on if she's to the left or to the right.

In LoZ, most of the rooms in the game are unique except for the dungeon basements and random caves. You can slash in four directions (that's one more than three!), and the perspective enables you to get to just about anything to hit it except for the damn peahats and zora. There's also a boomerang that you can toss in 8 directions. Bombs in LoZ damage you, and send you the opposite direction of the blast. There are several different bosses, and since the developers expect you to collect the heart containers at the end of each dungeon, the last dungeons use bosses from previous dungeons as basically standard enemies, like they're no big deal anymore. There's also no real map outside of dungeons (the map given only gives you your location relative to the boundaries of the game), so that gives you the same element of exploration as Metroid does.

Not to say I hate the game and I demand a refund or anything (I've beaten it probably a hundred times), but Metroid mostly looks like the developers just said "This counts as a game right?" They probably didn't have a very large staff, and might not have even expected to make a sequel, much less a series. It's kind of strange that it evolved into Super Metroid, one of the most popular games ever.

[quote="Golem"]I gotta disagree with you there--going back to a pencil and paper is more immersing than the game keeping a map for you.[/quote]
Fair enough, I had just been thinking of immersion as in staying in the game as opposed to using peripherals in real life.

[quote="Golem"]Based on your post, my guess is that you see Metroid as Zero Mission minus the rich room design.  However, if you try to progress through Metroid using the same path that you took in Zero Mission, the game is a lot harder than if you paved your own way.[/quote]
The thing I meant about Zero Mission being a spoiler for Metroid is that all the items and bosses that are in Metroid are in the exact same place as they are in Zero Mission except for the Brinstar ice beam. You can no longer discover anything important beyond figuring out there's no charge beam, supers, speed booster, or grip. The biggest surprise going from ZM to M1 is probably that you lose one beam if you pick up the other one, and that's not a very nice surprise. I've just felt that the best part of M1 had been finding things yourself and feeling like a great explorer, and once that element is removed, it becomes just one of those old NES games that are tough because of the limited controls.

[quote="Golem"]I'm also not sure in what sense Metroid is a crude LoZ; they both have very different approaches to structure, items, and bosses, among other things.[/quote]
I felt that Metroid had the feel of someone's first project, and they tried to make a maze but didn't feel like putting too much effort into the room design, so they just copied and pasted rooms and put them together. The controls had been nearly as basic as you can get, though at least they had been better than Jackal's. You could aim in three directions, and you can't hit anything beneath your arm until you get bombs. The bombs send you up no matter the relative location of it. Bombs still make you invincible even though you're not taking damage from them. There are only three bosses, one is completely stationary, and the others simply mirror their horizontal movement depending on if she's to the left or to the right.

In LoZ, most of the rooms in the game are unique except for the dungeon basements and random caves. You can slash in four directions (that's one more than three!), and the perspective enables you to get to just about anything to hit it except for the damn peahats and zora. There's also a boomerang that you can toss in [b]8[/b] directions. Bombs in LoZ damage you, and send you the opposite direction of the blast. There are several different bosses, and since the developers expect you to collect the heart containers at the end of each dungeon, the last dungeons use bosses from previous dungeons as basically standard enemies, like they're no big deal anymore. There's also no real map outside of dungeons (the map given only gives you your location relative to the boundaries of the game), so that gives you the same element of exploration as Metroid does.

Not to say I hate the game and I demand a refund or anything (I've beaten it probably a hundred times), but Metroid mostly looks like the developers just said "This counts as a game right?" They probably didn't have a very large staff, and might not have even expected to make a sequel, much less a series. It's kind of strange that it evolved into Super Metroid, one of the most popular games ever.

Golem

Edit history:

Golem: 2010-03-04 08:52:07 pm

2010-03-04 08:51:11 pm

why are his lips so thick

Begrudgingly ;), I can't deny that your points are right. Though I don't consider the controls difficult, I love me some Mega Man, who can't figure out how to duck or shoot in any direction that isn't parallel to the ground.

Anyway, I feel like saying thanks. This discussion has been/is awesome, I have yet to find another forum that's able to carry on about game design for so long (or at all, really). In my experience, people are uninterested in discussing things to this level of detail. (Wondering if I should post my thoughts on non-Metroid games here...)