Johnny vs. Metroid

thanks to raycon for sponsoring today's video the fall season is upon us what better time than now to consider raycons like their everyday earbuds they come in red white and blue yeah i love the french either way you're getting quality bluetooth earbuds that are also about half the price compared to other premium earbuds out there while sounding just as good and their compact design fits great and the years all nice and snug should get as much as you want and they ain't fun oh jesus they also come with a bunch of gel tips for your comfort and unlike some of the brands they don't awkwardly stick out of your ears together with the usb-c carry in case they can recharge the buds on the go recons can last you about 32 hours perfect for workout sessions in or outdoors when i don't want to bother others with ddp's loud ass screaming i got a rorschach test happening on the chest here what the hell and raycon is offering all my viewers a great deal click the link in the description below or go to byracon.com some call me johnny to get 15 off your become purchased today there's also a 45 day free return policy so you can make sure you find the right pair for yourself without breaking the bank i can't keep doing these kind of things without your continued support for this channel so as always thank you but now let's continue on with the show [Music] we're less than a month away from the launch of metroid dread and since i'm in the mood to redo some more sgb reviews let's start tackling metroid next it's one of my favorite franchises of all time easily a part of my personal mount rushmore of gaming next to sonic mario and final fantasy samus aaron intergalactic bounty hunter traveling the far reaches of space to thwart the dreaded space pirates in all other manner of scum for 35 years the metroid series has been an inspiration for the tried and true metroidvania formula exploring the unknown finding upgrades to get stronger and losing all your [ __ ] in the next game for no goddamn reason though nowadays i hear the term search action thrown around a lot and you know what that's fine i say metroid's been an inspiration for the genre for so long but we're also so far removed from metroid's initial debut there's been so many games of its kind released throughout the decades from well-renowned publishers to a shitload of indie studios the term metroidvania is getting a little antiquated isn't it and when the hell has there been another castlevania game no this doesn't count it doesn't it's not called castlevania eat my ass it's funny though because metroid remains one of my favorite franchises of all time but unlike other games uh the metroid series was always something i enjoyed in isolation i mean you guys all know i love this series and if you didn't check my reaction to the reveal of metroid red now you do but i never made it a thing to be a part of like-minded communities like i have with sonic and the like in my years growing up with metroid i've never joined any sort of metroid form or any social media group with metroid i tend to keep to myself when playing the games i've just been that way as long as i can remember and it's only been recently where i've been more open about showing my passion for the series or enjoying watching others absolutely tear the game to shreds like with speedrunning i love metroid speedruns always a sight to behold and like some of my other favorite video games metroid was there for me since early childhood though i have been familiar with samus aaron's space adventures since the first game thanks to my uncle of course another tick for the uncle count it wasn't until my first experience with super metroid back in 1994 where i truly fell in love but that can wait into the super metroid video proper today is all about the first game and we're only going to be talking about the 8-bit original today since i want to give the remake metroid zero mission its own video for reasons i'll explain that in there the year is 1986 and nintendo is adamant on keeping the momentum going with their launch of the famicom disk system in japan and the nintendo entertainment system elsewhere they had super mario brothers setting new standards for the 2d platformer and the legend of zelda was taking players through parts unknown in a grand adventure with a near useless gray block for a map okay i'll stop being petty for this next game nintendo research and development 1 one of nintendo's oldest development teams hot off the release of their previous endeavors including mario brothers donkey kong the gaming watch series they will also later develop the [ __ ] game boy you don't need to keep flexing their nintendo r d one anyway they were set on taking this next adventure to the great cosmos gunpei yokoi then general manager of nintendo r d1 would be acting producer with satoru okada and masala yamamoto in the director's chair hiroji kiyotaki hirofumi matsuoka and yoshio sakamoto will lead in the art department hiroji kyotake fun fact also the main designer for wario so that's a big [ __ ] contrast and for any of you kid icarus fans out there if these names are sounding a little familiar yeah the original metroid and kid icarus were pretty much made by the exact same team you can consider these two like a brother and sister pair in some regard research is fun august 6 1986 would see the release of metroid then a poor man toe of metro and android since the protagonist of this game samus was thought to be a cybernetic space warrior we know nowadays that's not the case but back then samus's true identity was kept tight-lipped the english manual referred to her as a he over in japan it was the same deal she even had some scantily clad space babes cheering her on before setting off c uh no woman will ever be caught in this scenario but those who got the game managed to complete it under a certain time would be thrown for a loop when they saw that armor come off and instead of a grizzled man or even an exposed interior of a robot i would love to see that [ __ ] no under that suit was a woman rocking a leotard and boot combination that remains one of my favorite designs of samus even today yeah you got the bikini if you beat the game even faster that's fine but i like the leotard more with the green hair she rocks when she gets the various suit even i love this design even if it's only a thing for this game though seeing samus returns on the 3ds call back to it was a great surprise too samus aaron was a certified badass in an age where women didn't get to do this sort of thing she wasn't a princess to be saved or moral support for the male hero or any of that other [ __ ] no she was a bounty hunter and she just wiped out a [ __ ] pirate brigade though interestingly kissy from bear duke or alien sector the namco title did the whole secretly a woman spiel a whole year before samus did but i think kissy gets the short end of the stick because i don't think many people got to the end of bear duke back then that game is [ __ ] tough don't get me started on the whole cryptic last boss [ __ ] but how does the first metroid hold up today space pirates have raided a research station belonging to the galactic federation which back then which is the collection of different cultures that yearn for galactic peace and prosperity this is before they just became strictly space military in later games ooh how positively cynical the pirates have managed to steal an organism the federation was studying known as a metroid a life form that has incredibly destructive potential if used as a weapon unable to deal with the pirates directly the federation instead hires space hunter samus aaron to do the job aaron's mission being to infiltrate the space pirate base located on planet zebus and destroy the leader of the operation mother brain and that's all from the manual within the game it's a little more bare bones you gotta defeat the metroid on the planet zebeth the metroid just the one that is something mentioned in the manual the pirates want to multiply the metroid they stole using science juice or something like that planet zebes though not sure what happened there destroy the mother brain the mechanical life vein yours truly the galaxy federal police m510 i never knew what that number was supposed to signify maybe their sector i'm not sure that's it though you hit start no intro no other cutscene you just thrown into the game best of luck space warrior the goal of metroid is exploring the dense maze-like structure of planet zebus amassing more weaponry and items to beef up samus arsenal all in hopes of eventually preventing mother brain and her space pirates from using the metroid for galactic conquest despite being a declared threat in the manual though you never do run into any actual space pirates everything encountered on the planet are just sort of natural inhabitants albeit incredibly aggressive natural inhabitants but there ain't no space pirates here unless do we count crait i always took him as an enforcer for mother brain but not an actual space pirate i don't know maybe his fake clone is a pirate he is stealing craig's look so that qualifies yeah pirate steal his tangent's dumb ridley is definitely a space pirate in retrospect anyway i don't think he was considered the leader of the pirates just yet he was just a purple space pterodacter with a goofy [ __ ] face and yeah the giant purple space dragon is named ridley after director ridley scott yoshio sakamoto credits the 1979 alien as a major influence in metroid's design the h.r giger inspired subterranean and north fern the final area toy and a lot of places have this sort of design maybe that's also why samus ended up being a girl because the sigourney weaver's character ellen ripley the lone survivor of the nostromo that managed to kill the alien by the end of the film samus doesn't get a pet cat though not yet anyway and this sure is [ __ ] ain't a cat the singular black background does well in highlighting the unique color schemes and graphical design of every area's foreground but nothing in this game makes me truly uneasy it sort of tears between grotesque and cartoony i attribute the latter to the bright colors but the accompanying music does pick up the slack brinstar elicits an adventurous energy which i think fits the beginning of the game well but then as you go deeper it gets darker and more sinister ridley's theme is greatly foreboding greatslayer is just damn catchy taurian is just the boss music on lou but given us the last area i think it does well in emphasizing the finality of the situation the final battle theme being a low humming drone is just great in spite of me getting shot at all the damn time but yeah this is the original metroid the adventure gets going and now it's up to you to figure out where the [ __ ] you gotta go because this is a 1986 non-linear action adventure game nothing is labeled not the enemies the areas you discover nor the items you eventually procure without the manual you just gotta know that these let you lay bombs in morph ball mode that this here increases your defense and that this here is not the chozo statue telling you to hold this l it's just a long beam because without this samus's default gun can't even travel across the entire screen this planet's rockets some serious [ __ ] wind resistance you also got no map so you either take the effort to memorize where you've been and have it in a game that's incredibly guilty of copy and paste level structure or you just save yourself some time and get a map from online because baby ain't got time to meander needlessly you got next to nothing to work with and you start with the measly 30 units of health even after continuing a game or getting a game over which just [ __ ] sucks because you gotta spend a bit grinding enemies for health and ammunition if you're in a particularly dangerous spot but i would say metroid's weakest moment is in the opening 10 or so minutes i mean what you got a measly peashooter morph ball it's only really used to cross tight gaps occasionally you can use it to dodge attacks gotta be faster than that why are we faster than that morph ball bombs are a nice tool though the damage is pretty crazy when you set them up just right it's also your only reliable means of taking care of grounded targets because samus in this game can't shoot straight down crouch or aim diagonally she can [ __ ] curl into a ball but god for better arthritis lets her point her gun south shortcomings aside things begin to pick up not too far in you'll get your first set of missiles in no time requiring five of these each time you collect an expansion and these [ __ ] decimate enemies like nothing else but early on you don't want to be spamming these because other upgrades are locked behind these red doors which require five missiles to open and nothing in this game sucks more than trying to grind missile drops from enemies when you're just trying to open a [ __ ] door to progress during my famicom playthrough because i did play this on the nes and famicom for shits and giggles i spent a good 10 or so minutes just trying to get a single missile drop in the hallway before the various suit in this sort of scenario let me tell you that's an eternity i understand that drops are frame based in this game as in you can either get a health drop or missile drop depending on the frame you killed the enemy but casual players ain't gonna know that [ __ ] i sure as [ __ ] didn't know that until looking it up as far as i was aware for this playthrough and the other times i played this beforehand i thought these [ __ ] were just being super stingy or i had the shittiest luck i don't know man some sort of number counter had to have gotten stuck because i was getting nothing but health drops all the goddamn time like this sucks what the [ __ ] is this running animation she looks like she's doing a chicken strut appropriate i guess we'll get there later but i stress things get better once you get more missile packs because then everything begins to snowball in your favor enemy start giving you less [ __ ] meaning you can survive longer to get to the good stuff in time you'll get add-ons to your suit like the high jump boots giving samus a much larger jump and she already jumps like she's on the [ __ ] moon so the height you can get from this is pretty significant even if the jump itself is a little loose and floaty the only time i ever get purely aggravated by is the escape sequence at the end with these platforms that are the size of [ __ ] tylenol pills missiles may pack that firepower but your default beam also gets some love and in this game that's the ice beam and wave beam you don't need the wave beam ever it's strong and it can go through walls and other objects sometimes but the ice beam is not only required to finish the game you needed to freeze metroid so that you can blast them with missiles and that's the only way of killing the mirror the ice beam is also just the superior weapon altogether in utility maybe the devs thought this too because there are multiple chozo statues that have the ice beam while the wave beam only gets one sure that could have been just the means to give the player a way to get the ice beam back if they got the weight beam at all since beam weapons don't stack in this game but i like to think the ice beam was so nice they gave it to you twice it may not pack a punch but it can freeze enemies in place making them easier to kill you if it may take a little longer if you just want to play it safe you can just freeze them and then forget them that's what i do if i'm not starving for drops i got no problem just freezing these guys and letting them be because if they don't die they don't respawn and give me ball sores discretion is the better part of balor they say but i don't know who they are later on though i'm relying on the screw attack to kill most things it turns samus somersault into a sweet rave party of death that one shots almost everything that isn't a boss now i don't know why the [ __ ] it's called the screw attack but the screw part is accurate when i think of what i'm doing to these guys you stick to your guns and samus will soon go from a dinky dweeb that rolls into a ball because she can't crawl in the suit to a force to be reckoned with that packs destructive power and is nigh unkillable regardless of how well you arm yourself though this is a mid-80s nes game and their do be jank enemies for one thing can end up going inside doors with you as you leave causing you to take unfair damage during the room transition [ __ ] sometimes enemies on the other side will get the jump on you as soon as you enter the room the [ __ ] jerks sometimes enemies will just fail to load normally this is fine that's less you have to deal with but in scenarios where they're required to exit areas like this part in crates lair it just wastes time and feels clunky and this isn't so much jank but rather questionable design but what the [ __ ] is this jump right here this [ __ ] is so precise to do normally and it's only for a single missile pack i'm not even doing this jump as intended most of the time i do this thing where i can morph into the ball and then unroll and then jump immediately after midair that's something you can do in this game for some reason that's pretty helpful if i'm being honest and i also like doing this where i get myself jammed between the door and the wall so i can get the various suit early it's the only time in the original metroid where i sequence break doing something out of the intended method all for the sake of cutting down backtracking which there is plenty of here especially if you're trying to get every item in the game so i do what i can to save time chunk isn't always bad it can be helpful sometimes as we'll see as we continue this series of reviews you gotta traverse through the planet and eventually take down craig and ridley to gain access to the final area taurean where mother brain resides i know you're probably meant to take down craig first seeing as it's easier to find and enter his hideout but i always went after ridley initially by the time i'm heading into his lair i already got like three to four energy tanks a ton of missiles and most if not all my suit upgrades he's pretty damn easy to take down no matter how you go about it the direct confrontation standing under the platform and pelting him with the weight beam or using the ice beam and freezing his fireballs leaving him completely exposed much easier to deal with than crate who's spamming his lethal croissants and titty projectiles non-stop making him way harder to damage consistently both of these guys make some strange noises though especially in the famicom version lots of things make strange noises in this game it's sort of startling check out the metroid's in the famicom that's gotta be the actual sound of hell i'd rather just listen to the nes version [Music] seriously that's just the roulette wheel from press your luck the final encounter against mother brain is just a mess of pixels and pain the metroids are one thing but they're easy to deal with and drop a good deal of energy and missiles in case you need to grind for whatever reason but the rinkas these radioactive cheerios are [ __ ] everywhere and they never stop hounding your ass in the final chamber with mother brain they're the true final boss no way fans or butts about that mother brain herself doesn't do anything besides witness her inevitable destruction watch your eyes though if you're epileptic because her death is an explosion of white flashes and legit hurts my eyes every single damn time i see this but then you climb the final corridor as the base is set to explode clenching your ass cheeks with how tight some of these jumps are what are these jumps here and there we go mission accomplished it will revive peace in the space might be invaded by the other metroid [ __ ] i guess we missed one pray for a true peace in the space damn you know i keep forgetting just how [ __ ] large samus head was in the original game i know eight big constraints and all that but this almost looks nothing like the manual art or any other concept bar for that matter it looks like a rubber suit two bulbous shoulders a large head two pixels dedicated to her ass looks damn weird when drawn to life i'll tell you that now i gave it a shot but i will say that is a nice ass if you beat the game fast enough in the nes version you can play it again without the suit there's not much to it but i like playing the game in this prototype zero suit you could say but yeah this is only in the nes version this wasn't a thing in the original famicom release to my surprise the only thing you had to show for completing the game fast enough here was more bags of money on your save file moneybag she actually gets paid for her work in the japanese version that's great of course you didn't have to beat the game if you really wanted to play as the armorless samus the nes version didn't have a save feature like the famicom version did but it did have a password system allowing you to pick up where you left off by entering a shitload of numbers letters and symbols with the right password you can start the game from scratch without the suit and go to town or you can enter the secret debug password and play the game with infinite health and missiles if you have a serious grudge against it you do you there are some passwords that are just [ __ ] bizarre though depending on the version you're playing try out engage ridley [ __ ] most times it just causes a reset or crashes the console if you're emulating it but other times it can cause [ __ ] like this to happen trapped in a single screen wrapping around the end is like mario brothers which is appropriate i guess this was made by nintendo r d1 my absolute favorite password though one i was actually just made aware of recently was this one mother brain [ __ ] toast that's so if you started taurian no armor it makes this part and toriy in a huge pain he has actually and then when you get some other brain she's already dead leaving you to just exit at your leisure where samus will then proceed to cry in the end screen it's kind of creepy that's kind of [ __ ] you're reading ghost stories what is this password doing to get such a result well out of curiosity i went and contacted my friend experiment to enlighten me on the subject he's the same dude who helped her cover my pokemon gen 5 file when i was recording for that review he's pretty [ __ ] knowledgeable with these sort of things and my go-to guy for tech related [ __ ] and all that so experiment what the hell is happening here when metroid was converted from a disk system to nes game they needed a way to handle the different variables that was once stored as save data on the disk so the programmer toho narito who converted the game device to password system this password system is comprised of 24 characters which represent 144 bits of data or 18 bytes to keep it simple 116 of those is used to store game data which involves time played where to start every power-up expansion boss or statues in brinstar suit or suitless hell even the missile doors and those barriers blocking mother brain are unique variables with a password now 12 more of those bits we actually have no idea what the hell they're for most of it goes unused sometimes they turn up and sometimes they don't the remaining bits are used to encrypt and verify the checksum so that this password is legitimate meaning that with a little give or take here and there that means there are a total of two to the power of 136 possible passwords you can use just don't let your calculator though it might freak out a little bit so every time you're putting a text number or symbol for a password you are effectively programming the game itself in a way very similar to how game genie codes work which is why certain passwords can break the game in unpredictable ways the famous narpus sword or nar password is the only password that exists outside of the system as it's hardcoded into the game to serve as a debug mode now the password mother brain [ __ ] toast always produces the worst ending because of the two game tech values of the password which tells the game how long you've been playing in this case it's roughly 2 billion 861 million 643 thousand two hundred and seventy one ticks or for the human brain that basically means uh rounding it up a little bit 314 and a half years of active game time so yes samus defeats mother brain by doing absolutely nothing holy [ __ ] so we straight so you remember the end the old guy from snake eater how you could win that battle by doing nothing for like a week or something like that this is a little more extreme but that shit's hilarious thank you experiment much appreciated man oh no problem anytime oh uh by the way i got your commission order for that uh thing you requested oh yeah yeah but it's gonna be a while before it's ready give or take a year maybe more i'm a patient man but thanks again experiment i'll chat with you later this probably won't shock you at all but i don't often go back to the original metroid i don't really see a reason to win zero mission on the gba exists but it's still playable if a little antiquated it lags like hell and enemies can cheap shot you because of the [ __ ] i mentioned earlier and if you got rotten luck or if you're getting your ass kicked grinding for health and missile drops can be a chore and this is before the series got energy and missile stations to instantly recharge your arsenal but the formula that would define the series in the genre is still very much intact here and it does reward persistence things will get easier as you find more upgrades to your suit more missiles to handle enemies more energy tanks to live longer if you can get past the first 30 minutes or so with a guide on hand i should stress it'll start coming together as simple as it is it's still satisfying managing to reach craig ridley pumping them full of explosive lead watching them scatter into tiny giblets but again unless you're curious there's not much reason to play the original metroid it's the game that got things started it'll always have my respect because of that but it isn't this game that made me the metroid fan i am today you know obviously next up is a game i feel i'm doing strictly as a formality considering how much i've already covered it previously but it's metroid 2 return of samus on the gameboy but you know what though i might as well take that time to also give you some updated thoughts on samus returns on the 3ds as well as am2r so i'll catch you guys next time as always thank you all for watching stay safe wash your hands wear a mask if you decide to go outside get vaccinated if possible have yourselves a fantastic night and take care you

Channel: SomecallmeJohnny

Views: 223,976

Keywords: Somecallmejohnny, Somecallmejohnny Video, Somecallmejohnny Review, Johnny vs, Video Game Review, Somecallmejohnny Metroid, Somecallmejohnny Metroid NES, Somecallmejohnny Metroid Famicom, Johnny vs. Metroid, Johnny vs. Metroid NES, Johnny vs. Metroid Famicom, Metroid, Metroid NES, Metroid Famicom

Id: _fVJrEauUXM

Length: 22min 53sec (1373 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 15 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/SirMeepo]

YEYEYEYEA MORE JOHNNY YEAAAAA

[u/[deleted]]

Pft, okay I never knew about the "Mother Brain Fuckin Toasst" password.

That can't be just coincidentally a password. I refuse to believe that.

[u/Vinh-FX]

Love me some Johnny!

[u/g1SuperLuigi64]

Johnny's original SGB Metroid videos are what got me into the series!