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One of Nintendo's Best

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: March 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game recently, hoping it would live up to the hype. It far surpassed it. So much fun in this game! The graphics, gameplay great! However, the "cinemas" qualify as little more than pictures. Also, this is the shortest game I have ever played. Still, one of the best games of all time.

Has it been that long?

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: March 12, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Its been a long way since the original metroid in 1986. 18 years in fact. This is the finest to hit the game boy series and also the newest. This game has its ups and down. This is more of a quick play action game. The game is short, but you have to admire everything else also. The galleries, the original metroid game already put in and the well located controls. This is a game for the books.

Slight, but fun game return to the original

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 15, 2004
Author: Amazon User

After having played and fallen in love with the GameBoy Advance's first Metroid game, "Metroid Fusion", it was a little bit of a letdown to play its follow-up, "Metroid: Zero Mission". I found the game to be a bit slight and a little too quick to finish. Alas, it appears that that was simply my own ignorance getting in the way. I was a late convert to the `Church of Metroid' as I didn't get hooked on the series until "Super Metroid" for the Super NES. "Metroid II" for the original GameBoy didn't impress me at all and I never played the original "Metroid". Apparently, that is the source of my ignorance, because "Metroid: Zero Mission" IS the original Metroid, with some additional missions tacked on at the end of the game. Now, that I realized that this was the original, I have a better appreciation of the game. There's still no getting around the `slightness' factor, though. The game is just too short once one has played the "Super Metroid", "Metroid Fusion", or the Holy Grail of video games, "Metroid Prime". It is still an entertaining game and worthy addition to the gaming collections of all Metroid-philes. It's certainly helps all us faithful pass the time until "Metroid Prime 2" comes out.

pretty good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: March 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

this was a pretty good game from nintendo. i was impressed that nintendo remade the orginal. and it was a big success. so get this game if you like action.

Easily beaten in a sitting, but what an amazing remake

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 2 / 2
Date: April 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

When I first sat down with this game, I was in total awe. With updated graphics, remixed music, better sounds, newer areas, and a map (yes, for the young kids, the original Metroid had no map!), it's a Classic Metroid fanboy's fantasy. You even play as suitless Samus in a stealth mission, armed only with an automatic-charging pistol (this part is definitely one of the toughest parts in the game, since the pistol only stuns and the Space Pirates take off 100 HP when they touch you or shoot you). The game even tells you where to go by using Chozo statues, making it much less frustration. However, this is also a problem. The game is easily beaten in 1-2 hours in one sitting due to the fact that you know where to go with the Chozo statues and the new weapons. When you get to Tourian, the Metroids are easily destroyed, as opposed to how you drop off the elevator in the original and next thing you know 2 or 3 Metroids are sucking you bone dry, and you watch as your health just goes from full to 0 in 10 seconds. Also the bosses are sissies (especially Ridley, who screeches like a little girl while you stand under him and bombard him with missiles. Yes this is a strategy on how to easily beat Ridley), but I can't say the same for Mother Brain (who is actually far tougher than in the original), who actually uses energy waves to damage you alot this time. But still, this is an excellent, fun to play remake of such a classic game. Once you finish this game, you'll understand how the Metroid series has been classified as one of the greatest video game series of all time.

Sacrifices gameplay for story

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: June 04, 2004
Author: Amazon User

METROID: ZERO MISSION is a remake of one of the most popular games on the NES, METROID. Before I go into the specifics of why ZM is just a good and not a great game, this is a concise overview of ZM. It has a lot of great level design, but is much too linear, especially given the fact that it's a remake of METROID, the very epitome of free-form exploration. The game holds your hand way too much, and your path in gaining items feels almost predetermined. The game basically tells you where to go next.

In many ways ZM feels like a greatest hits package of sorts as far as gameplay goes. ZM incorporates elements from all the Metroid games, especially the SNES title. The original had only a limited amount of items; here, the inventory is very much enlarged. ZM feels like they took all the fun items from the previous intallments and threw them into the remake. There are several mini-bosses (the original has none), all sorts of powerups, cut scenes, new content (especially after you beat Mother Brain), and radically changed level design reflecting the new items. The new section, as far as I'm concerned, is quite frustrating and can be quite annoying. In the end, you feel like you are playing the original METROID through the spectrum of SUPER METROID.

In the end, do I think ZM is a good game? Yes. But I don't think it's as good as the original because it's much too linear, especially for a series whose hallmark is exploration. The game itself, while entertaining, does not hold true to the original, which is quite shocking since it is supposed to be an updated version. Nintendo doesn't give modern gamers enough credit in puzzle solving. Both METROID and ZELDA threw you into the game without much guidance, and you had to do what you can to discover where to go next. And that's what made the games so popular. Now Nintendo would never release a title like Zelda or Metroid without chozo statues that tell you where to go next or little faeries like Navi or the Wind Waker equivalent. And that's the saddest part about ZM. They may call it a remake, but all they did was enlarge the story, put in elements from the other titles, and hold your hand the whole way through. That's not what the original METROID is about.

P.S. The best thing about ZM is after beating it you unlock the original game.

(The above is the actual review of the game. I include this section because it further illuminates the changes made, detailing why ZM is such a different game than its predecessor.).

METROID, quite simply, was one of the most popular NES titles, starting a franchisee still alive and kicking today. Nintendo decided to reinvent the first METROID in a new game called METROID: ZERO MISSION. Is it a successful remake? Depends on your point of view. My belief is they botched this opportunity to remake the original METROID, and I'll explain why.

METROID, a first generation NES title, kept the story simple, largely due to technological reasons. Back in the early days, videogames were largely focused on gameplay, not story. Mario had to rescue the Princess. Why? A big reptilian monster captured her. The same with Link and Zelda. Gannon kidnaps Zelda, hides eight pieces of the Triforce, and you have to find them. The story operates as the necessary impetus to send you on your quest. METROID is no different. Not much of a story. But one hell of a game.

The simplistic stories of SUPER MARIO BROTHERS and THE LEGEND OF ZELDA, two vastly important titles, did not really have any real effect on subsequent releases other than establishing archetypes. Especially with SUPER MARIO BROTHERS, the gameplay takes precedence over paper-thin plots. As for Zelda, any series continuity becomes increasingly more difficult to maintain with each new release. In the end, supposedly, each LEGEND OF ZELDA (save for the first two, which has the same principal characters) stars a different Link, a different Zelda, and a different Ganon. I personally detest the `multiple Link theory.' There are multiple Links is because it gives Nintendo's writing department (who don't have the best track record going for them) license to come up with any situation to star Link, Ganon, and Zelda without having to tie it into what went before.

METROID faces a different problem. Partly because there hasn't been nearly as many METROID games as the other two Nintendo franchises, METROID has a fairly stable storyline. Because the original is a first-gen NES game and has a very limited story, the events in the first METROID don't properly reflect why the writing department now wants to take the series. So what do we get? METROID: ZERO MISSION.

My belief is ZM simply exists to bring the story more inline with the series as it now stands. ZM ties the events of the first game (now rendered obsolete story-wise) succinctly to METROID PRIME. The best thing about METROID is that it doesn't hold your hand. It doesn't tell you where to go. Explore. That's the hallmark of a Metroid game. In ZM, they sacrifice the gameplay for the story. When I play through the original, I generally beat Ridley first. Now you can't. You have to beat Kraid, because Ridley has become more important than Kraid in subsequent releases. The backstory about Samus growing up on Zebes and being with the bird-race was included to bring the series together. I don't have a problem with tying up loose ins, but I do have a problem when you do it at the expense of what made the original so great to begin with. Much of the explorative challenge has been eliminated. And just about all of it is for the sake of the story as well as incorporating all the new items. That is what makes ZM a failure.

pretty good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: March 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

this was a pretty good game from nintendo. i was impressed that nintendo remade the orginal. and it was a big success. so get this game if you like action.

An Amazing Concept

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: January 20, 2004
Author: Amazon User

First of all, this review was written BEFORE the game was released. I just want to make that clear. Because the reviews I've seen for this game didn't seem to serve much purpose, I felt it should be made clear what this actually IS, but since it's not out yet I'm going on official information. This is more a summary of the CONCEPT and POTENTIAL for the game.

It's been confirmed that this is taking the original Metroid NES game and revamping it with elements from othe Metroid games. Abilities and items come from all the games in the series. For example, you can hang like you can in Fusion, wall jump like you can in Super, duck like you can in the other 2D Metroid games, use the grappling beam, speed booster, etc. But that isn't all. Of course there'd have to be some area modification to incorporate all these additional items and make them useful, but Nintendo is going a step beyond that. They're adding entirely new areas as well as hugely expanding the pre-existing ones.

There are also cutscenes (though I'm not guessing FMVs [full-motion videos]) designed to enhance and reveal more of the storyline. Seeing as there wasn't any sort of communication between the player and the world in the first one (don't get me wrong, I love it, I love the whole Metroid series, i'm just stating what IS) this will undoubtedly (as stated on the Nintendo Zero Mission website) "bring Samus' story to life like never before". There's also apparently a big surprise at the end as well.

Overall, this game has the potential to be on par with Super Metroid (which, in my opinion, can't be beat). The idea behind it is a solid one (I admit to begging something like this would be made) which people will enjoy all the more by the enhancements. I, for one, will be in line the day before it comes out to make sure I get it on opening day.

pretty good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: March 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

this was a pretty good game from nintendo. i was impressed that nintendo remade the orginal. and it was a big success. so get this game if you like action.

pretty good

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 3 / 6
Date: March 25, 2005
Author: Amazon User

this was a pretty good game from nintendo. i was impressed that nintendo remade the orginal. and it was a big success. so get this game if you like action.

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