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The first Metroid I’ve ever played in my life was the GBA classic Metroid Fusion, but the original Metroid for the NES was the first I actually owned. As one who valued (and still values) old games in a time when polygons and powerful CPUs dominated the gaming world, finding the sci-fi classic in a Gamestop bin was as profitable as scoring a Yes from your 3-year-relation girlfriend after presenting her the wedding ring of your grandmother.

But even I know games can get a bit too old by today’s standards. Don’t get me wrong – Metroid is still a ground-breaking title, and stands as one of the best the NES has to offer. But compared to vastly improved sequels like the SNES masterpiece Super Metroid or any of the GBA iterations, the first journey into the depths of Zebes isn’t quite as charming today as it was yesterday.

The premise is simple: Space Pirates stole a parasite creature called Metroid that could be used as a weapon. Samus Aran, the best bounty hunter Galactic Federation could ever hire, is sent to their home base to destroy the specimen before it’s too late, and along the way eliminate their cerebral leader, Mother Brain. Back in the old days, story was short, simple and straightforward, and while this tale had a bit more complexity than, say, Super Mario Bros., it’s there just for you to understand why a cybernetic-enhanced human is inside a deadly planet full of hazards and traps at every corner.

Being a NES game, its graphics are mostly tile-based – if you travel through Brinstar you’ll notice that the walls and floors are mostly composed of blocks of debris and slightly camouflaged vegetation. Some areas swap colors to offer variety, while others have a totally different way of presenting its environment. The mini-bosses’ lairs and Tourain instantly come into my mind, as not only they have different tile-sets, but also feel interconnected that doesn’t feel like they’re connected as some bunch of blocks. The funny thing here is that while there’s minimal backgrounds and tile-based building, it’s the enemies that sets the mood of “being in a dangerous place”. The enemies are varied, and while there’s a good sum of palette swaps, there are enough to say that it’s a nice bunch of creatures to shoot at.

And that’s where the game truly shines: Control. Here’s where Metroid’s unique charm comes into the table – having a simple setup of a d-pad and four buttons, they’ve managed to make Samus fully playable, from shooting in three directions (left, right and up) to rolling into a ball, from selecting a weapon to somersaulting, from dropping bombs to shooting missiles. It’s this tried-and-true setup that makes Metroid fully understandable and intuitive to the player, and while the game doesn’t give you explicit instructions of how to use your newly-acquired upgrades, with a bit of experimentation you’ll learn what aspect of your current skills has been given a new spin or quality.

Perhaps I’m kind of nitpicky when it comes to music, but this game only has a handful of great tracks, while the rest ranges from very good to downright unpleasing. Case in point: Ridley’s Lair. I don’t know why the instruments are too high in this first rendition, which it feels piercing rather than tense. It’s good to have a good track to build up the feeling of reaching a treacherous adversary, but it’s best to keep it balanced so that it’s good enough for a replay.

With no map screens or item managements in this game, Metroid isn’t the easiest to explore of all series; while it established the blueprint of free-roaming, platforming adventure, its archaic structure isn’t going to be easy for new players this generation. However, if you can bear into your head that this is an 8-bit classic that broke ground in the 80s and serves more or less as an education of great level design and clever use of your controller, this NES title should become an instant favorite – much like it did to me. I give this one an 8/10 – and if you think it deserves higher, you should get into your DeLorean, speed ‘till 88 MPH, and get back to 2010. Zero Mission’s far more superior, period.