Metroid: Full Circle

The first action adventure I can remember that influenced my interest in games to a significant degree was Metroid. My friend Jason Emery got Metroid for Christmas in 1986 and called me just to play the title music over the phone, saying "five voices!" He then described the gameplay to me and I was quite intrigued. For the uninitiated, Metroid is a game where you control the bounty hunter Samus Aran through the planet Zebes with a mission to destroy the alien life form known as "Metroid", a jellyfish looking creature that can drain life from its victims. There's a truckload of more specific information here.

The story sounds as plain as toast, doesn't it? The execution is what set this title apart. Firstly it was the first side scrolling adventure game with any degree of exploration, allowing the player to progress through simple discovery of new areas and power ups, some power ups enabling the player to proceed. This turned the concept of "the level" on its ear, as there was no level to speak of, just a world to explore. The simple graphical presentation and lack of text provided the perfect blend of bright colored environments for the imagination to complete in a very comforting almost satirical way. 

Regardless of the camp nature of the visuals, the music stood on its own as the most unique soundtrack of its day. I had the honor of interviewing its composer Hirokazu "Hip" Tanaka a few years ago. Such is the start of Metroid coming full circle. All this great gameplay and music began twenty years ago.

Metroid was the top of the heap along with such titles as Zelda and Super Mario Bros. when it came to new and enjoyable gameplay. However, while sequels were made on the Nintendo Entertainment System for the latter two games, Metroid had no sequel until 1994, nearly ten years later, on the Super Nintendo. Super Metroid was every bit as good as its predecessor and added some groundbreaking game design mechanics such as friendly creatures teaching you special moves with no text or voice instruction. The player simply watched other characters and imitated them. This led to another hit title, but once again, while Super Mario World (the SNES Super Mario) got a sequel, there would be no sequel for Metroid. It was popular, but not popular enough, it seemed. That is, until 2002.

Let's speed forward to the summer of 2000. I'm no longer just a game player but am moving from freelance music composition and sound design to full time in house audio production. I have a choice to be hired by Stan Nuevo or Warren Spector. Stan runs the audio department at Retro Studios: a company staffing up for development on Nintendo's latest system: the Dolphin (or Gamecube as it would later be known). Warren Spector runs a team creating a science fiction first person perspective role playing game. Both these companies are in Austin, Texas. at this point I have no idea what the names of the games are these studios are making but it was a tough choice. In the end I went with Warren and the Ion Storm team creating music for "Deus Ex" and later its sequel. What I didn't know is that Stan was working on what would become one of the greatest first person titles of all time: Metroid Prime.

While I don't kick myself for missing the opportunity, I feel a twinge of both regret and professional satisfaction. Retro was a far more unstable company at the time even though they're still in existence and Ion is not, and music was being created by Kenji Yamamoto in Japan (which is ironically the worst aspect of Metroid Prime). I was offered a position later by Clark Wen for audio lead to work on Metroid Prime 2, but I was starting a family at the time and required something more. In another twist of fate I ended up working with the lead programmer of Metroid Prime: Mark Johnston, who told me many an amusing story about the game's development.

On to the less biographical stuff: Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 2 exceeded expectations beyond perhaps any other sequel jumping from 2d to 3d. I expected Prime to be clumsy and not enjoyable at all. It is difficult if not impossible to translate a 2d title to a 3d one, but Retro did it amazingly well. The graphics and environments are just as fantasy themed as the original and you feel as though, well, you're coming full circle. You ARE Samus Aran, rather than viewing her as a cute tiny pixellated character. Metroid Prime 2 employs the "don't mess with success" strategy but has a lot of well executed (but not necessarily original: Soul Reaver did this a lot earlier) gameplay mechanics such as phasing between two different universes.

To summarize, Metroid was a series that began in glory, faded into near obscurity, and then lept back into the forefront of popularity and industry respect. It is my hope that the upcoming "Nintendo Revolution" will offer another great Metroid title for all to enjoy. I am fortunate that I have been close to the series but haven't actually delved into creating it... it leaves more to speculation and ignorance, and in this case that is a very good thing to have in spades.