Haunted By The Hallways In This Tiny Room (Metroid)

It's August 6th, 20X5. The #1 song beamed directly into our brainwaves is "Avenging My True Self" by the Black Hole Bomb. So that speaks volumes about where the galaxy's gone to since 20XX. In news that does not sing, we have lord knows how many grim things. There is an investigation sent to the colony on LV421, to discover what happened to its missing colonists. None of them return alive, adding further mystery to the whole affair. To say nothing of the scandals involving Commander Malkovich back on Earth. Let's just say the the women of the military don't take kindly to being called "lady" during a briefing, and leave it at that. Finally, those insurgents from the border outposts, the "Space Pirates", attack a Federation research spaceship with a crudely made power bomb. 19 die. The incident is swept under the rug as quietly as possible... but we know the truth. It was difficult to dig up, but I have the advantage. I stand outside of the lens of history, and I know where that ship had been. A place where angels fear to tread, where the darkest primal recesses of the Nightmare reside. An Uninhabitable, SR388. They took something from that planet, and now the Space Pirates have it. With the experimental life form METROID, the MECHANICAL LIFE VEIN could bring about unspeakable destruction. She could ascend to a new position, usurping Peko The Destructor as Queen of Death. Our resident reaper is none too happy with this. Thank goodness she has her champion. Thank goodness it's 20X5 and Samus Aran can bail us out.

Or... is it August 6th, 1986? Is it actually Peter Cetera at #1 with "Glory Of Love"? If it really is, then New South Wales is in for a hell of a lot of rain. 13 inches of it. The heavens twist and weep over Australia as old Japanese men's work finally comes to fruition. A video game about the future, contained not within grey plastic but the bright yellow of a diskette. A foreign alchemy, but an alchemy nonetheless... and one that would take a year to decipher and fire out to lands that exist. Then again, it is the future, after all. Japan exists, and they created this game. Yes, it's not August 6th at all. It's July 11th, 2014, and I'm sitting here in a Burger Time T-shirt and writing about another one of the Big Ones. It's Metroid. Where do you even begin, aside from making silly asides about fake future history? It's fucking Metroid, for christ's sakes! One of the most important video games ever for a myriad of reasons, and one whose future setting echoes the ghosts of games yet to come. We know this tale. An impossible bounty hunter will rise up from troubled times with innovative exploratory games, culminating in the best damn Super Nintendo game ever. Then all will go quiet... until all returns with a double whammy in the 21st century. America takes over and makes things fantastic. Then Japan takes it back and fucking murders it. It is nigh-impossible to talk about Metroid without talking about these things. Psychochronography is supposed to take things out of context, but what was the context of Metroid? It's changed now, such that the original game is casually dismissed. Witness the chronicles of the Zero Mission. The glam, the vibrant colors, the satisfying crackling sounds, the entire enriched experience. This is what we all play now. "Put that poorly aged NES cart down", they say, "and slot in this GBA game! It's a remake and way better!". The future has consumed this future game. Haunted it.

There's another piece of entertainment that came out in 1986. The novel IT, by Stephen King. In it, one of the characters looks up the definitions of the word "haunt" and finds the last one fitting; a feeding place for animals. This is what the Zero Mission has done to Metroid. It has cannibalized its own past, creating a paradox and feasting on the flesh of its own destruction. Peko's Paradox, if you will. Hell, the original is in there, trapped inside the confines of Zero Mission, waiting to be unlocked. Swallowed whole but still powerful. That's fine. Here, in the world of infinite imagination, one can undo these things. I create my own transcendent space using my power of free thought and typing. In this space, there is no Zero Mission. Not today. The future cannot be entirely kept out, and it will bleed in at times. That's fine. Right now I want to talk about Metroid on the NES. No need for insanity, no need for long walks and esoteric readings. We are going to talk about Metroid on the NES, and why I love it. For starters... it's very fun! Sort of a combination of Pure Platforming and Endless Adventure, a strange melange that shouldn't work but does. Kind of like turning Mega Man into a cartoon horse, but Mega Man doesn't even exist yet so shoosh. It's also brilliant! Like the opening moments of the game. I'll defer to Jeremy Parish's Anatomy Of A Game, but the short version is that the game lets you go right for about the length of an average 1986 pure platforming game before stopping you. The real solution is to go left of your starting point and get the item that allows you to curl up in a ball. Now you know that scrolling works both ways. Soon you will find that we can scroll vertical as well, and every direction is open to you. Time to explore.

Is Metroid on NES perfect? Holy mother of god, no. Even if you ignore the lack of modern convenience like a map system (or saves in the non-disk version), you still have... problems. Like starting with 30 health every time you continue. That's not a lot. You'd have to farm for energy upon continuing. Having to rely on random drops to replenish missiles, the cryptic and hidden nature of some of the secrets... this game is not kind to you! Although... in later years, the Trickster Beast of the ROM would come in on his pirate ship and... meddle with things. A Time Meddler, if you will. Metroid needs no such things to function, though. What it does it does well. It explains the basics by way of example, and then plops you into a harsh world to explore. In that way, it's similar to the shrines of Endless Adventure that we have visited before... but nowhere near as friendly. The planet Zebes is a dark, dreary, desolate and isolated place where you are constantly under attack from nightmarish aliens. Things That Should Not Be assault you at every turn, and in order to succeed you must delve into the depths of Alien Hell itself. This is why I love Metroid on the NES. It has some of the best atmosphere a Nintendo game can have. Zero Mission, lovely and upgraded as it is... kind of misses that. It makes everything bright and colorful and sort of peppy. Metroid, to me, is a black background with purple eyeball platforms and searing lava beneath you. Eyeball monsters and fire breathing seahorses. A dragon hiding deep within a base, the dread beast Ridley... itself a causal link between Metroid and one of Metroid's big inspirations. The backstory is the damn same as Alien. Ship goes to a bad planet, picks up a lifeform... and it turns out that said lifeform could be weaponized and casually destroy all life in the galaxy. That's about where the similarities end, but Metroid and Alien also both share amazing atmosphere. The music for Kraid's Lair is one of the spookiest tunes on the NES, a vibrato of echoing notes that makes the place sound like a haunted cathedral, deep within the bowels of planet Zebes. Zero Mission tries to replicate it... but it doesn't do it for me. It's not as spooky. However, listening to it as I write... it reflects the state of Metroid now. This sounds like triumphant music for a hero. A hero like Samus Aran.

There's no use trying to play around Samus. Samus's identity is about as secretive as who Luke Skywalker's father is. No alchemy can keep that immutable fact completely out, and yet... the manual straight up lies to you. It refers to Samus as "he" multiple times. Misdirection? Losing things in translation? Apathy? Whatever it is, it creates one of the first possible "surprise" moments in video gaming. Samus Aran, the space bounty hunter who entered the shifting walls of the Labyrinth Zebes and came out alive... was a girl. A cynic might say that it doesn't matter, that we all just assumed Samus was a guy anyway and putting a girl at the end (who'll strip down to a bikini to reward the player for really mastering the Labyrinth) doesn't serve women in video games well. I counter with "fuck that". I'm also a very privileged fellow with a blog, so this probably isn't the best space to talk... but why wouldn't we want a cool lady like Samus? Again we are forced to reject everything that exists outside, in the future. There is no origin story involving Ridley and the planet KL2. No Captain N comic. No two hour pre-rendered movie with dialogue delivered like an oak tree on orders up high. There is only Samus Aran, Disciple of Peko The Destructor. Here is a woman, a bounty hunter who deals with threats and puts herself in danger on a daily basis. This is her job. She is good at it. One day the terrorist cell led by the MECHANICAL LIFE VEIN steal something that would bring untold Death to the galaxy. Samus Aran, not quite yet a Huntress, is sent to save the day. With the powerful suit she has learned to master, she delves into the underworld and deals with hellspawn. Hellspawn that have gone rogue, and joined with the MECHANICAL LIFE VEIN. The Labyrinth becomes her domain, and she thrives in it. There's a certain giddish glee to making Samus a super-powered badass. It is entirely selfish on the part of the player, as their desire to finish the quest is what keeps Samus going... but the Disciple benefits from our action. Gradually, we learn powerful incantations and local myths. The harrowing tale of Justin Bailey. The legend of the Narpas Sword. Even rumors of the Negative Zones, the Space Between Spaces. Then comes the endgame. Then comes Tourian.

The Metroids are a known quantity. I was surprised to find them displayed in the manual, sprite and all. Only the MECHANICAL LIFE VEIN is a true mystery, but to get there one must defeat a horde of Metroids. In another unfortunate misstep, it is possible to come here with the wrong weapon for killing Metroids. It certainly makes the things scarier, but come on. You shouldn't do that. Still, Metroids are horrific. Pulsating jellyfish with sharp teeth that latch on to you and never let go. They are vampiric, draining the life force out of all. Such entropic endurance cannot be allowed. They all must go... but that's for later. Right now, we must worry about the task at hand. Destroy more of the things on your orders, and then come to It. The MECHANICAL LIFE VEIN herself. Mother Brain. Oh, is this ever a tense fight. A sentient mass of neurons encased in a jar shouldn't be a threat, but everything works against you. The flame rings that can knock you into lava, combined with the unstable terrain, make things difficult as hell. Grit your teeth, Samus Aran. It's almost over. With the power of death and missiles on her side, the MECHANICAL LIFE VEIN explodes. A time bomb is set. Get out fast. Maybe see a girl in a bikini if you were fast enough.

That is Metroid. Of course, serving Peko The Destructor, the Queen of Death, has its consequences. We can't keep her out, I'm afraid. Death comes to all things, even these spaces. The Nintendo Project faced death already, but it's been back for almost a year now. Still, there are side effects and odd coincidences. I probably shouldn't bring this up, because it's really quite inappropriate to bring up a real world tragedy and compare it to dumb video game blogging... but the day Metroid was released in Japan? The 41st anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. William J. Schroeder, the second artificial heart recipient, dies. Coincidence. As Samus kept coming back, other things happened. 1991 sees her return, and her near-genocide of the Metroid race... right as the Dance Apocalyptic winds down and the Soviet Union dies. 1994 is Super Metroid, and with Samus heading strong in 16 bits, Peko's blade cuts down our wonderful grey box. The Nintendo Entertainment System dies. Samus remains dormant after that, but comes back in full force. This defies the rules. Death comes to all, and Samus had her chance... but Samus Aran is more than a Disciple now. She is a Huntress. She is more than just a slave to reality. She is a mythical being deigned by Fate, a Legend of her own. She is her own reality, and with that power she transcends Death itself, becoming the Bounty Hunter Victorious... for a time. Then Peko gets her revenge, and everything Samus was is torn down by the very forces that created her.

It's August 2nd, 2010. Samus Aran dies.