An incredible amount of promise and creativity crammed into a such a janky and poorly aged cartridge. Hundreds of tiny elements would be tweaked with the next home console entry, like aiming, enemy placement, environment, and especially the music. The tracks here are super barren, which suits the setting, but I can't imagine hearing those same droning blorps and whooshes over and over in the eighties. Despite the limited avenues for creative expression, Zebes still feels like a solid take on a subterranean alien world. It's literally bursting at the seams with enemies, which is incredibly annoying for gameplay, but makes sense within the world the game creates. It's with all of that praise in mind that I say that this game is still pretty bullshit from front to back. Incessant backtracking through identical corridors and seemingly endless vertical rooms. Copy pasted enemy placement, moronic decisions like making multiple Ice Beam locations, and the final fight, which, even by bullshit NES standards, is stunningly unfair, and just not satisfying.

Metroid is a game that wants to feel alive, like the cartridge itself is teaming with extraterrestrial creepy crawlies, just waiting to be blown away in that and sick gaming system. That illusion would have to wait though. 8 years to be specific.