Metroid: Zero Mission | The Completionist

the basic arc of a Metroid game is a journey of emotions isolation anxiety empowerment then triumph Metroid pioneered an entire genre with this rock-solid formula and the end of the original game hasn't aged amazingly the impact of the design philosophy is still felt today metroid zero mission is a top-to-bottom remake of the very first game in the Metroid series and even though it was developed for the Game Boy Advance zero mission defied my expectations being far more than just a Game Boy game the completion criteria also totally changed the way this game is played from play through to play through making this one of the most satisfying Metroid's ever it's time to complete metroid zero mission [Music] hey everyone and welcome back to another brand new episode of the completionist we're don't just beat the games we complete them every February we pick a theme for the games I'll be doing for the month and this year it's all about remakes remasters and ports metroid zero mission is a remake of the very first metroid game on the NES a game I've avoided personally for a very long time because I found it scary as hell in a ton of different ways [Music] [Music] from the first comic book style cutscene metroid zero mission feels bigger than what a handheld game would suggest it's what happens if you take the best parts of Super Metroid and layer them into the most interesting elements of the first game zero mission is incredibly deep and feels like a full-fledged console release and I mean that with no disrespect to the legendary gameboy advance system my first experience with the Metroid series was Super Metroid basically a perfect video game after playing that I got excited about trying to knock out the rest of the series but when I played the first Metroid game on the NES I was startled by how much it legitimately terrified me the game was difficult and incredibly vague in its objectives I understood the central loop of 2d map exploration item gathering fighting aliens powering up and eventually escaping the planet but I had a hard time getting through the world because I was used to a more streamlined and user-friendly Super Metroid I mean Metroid 1 didn't even have a map it wasn't just the mechanics that scared me it was the world design Metroid is dark and mysterious it feels unknowable truly alien compared to the brightness of Super Mario Brothers or The Legend of Zelda Metroid is an NES game that really made me feel the loneliness and just plain indifference of space I put it down and never looked back when I was younger it weirdly scarred me and still makes me uneasy to this day enter metroid zero mission released in 2004 pretty much the heyday years for the GBA zero mission takes the same basic story and structure of the first game and add some new thrills Samus Aran is still a badass bounty hunter she shows up on zebus and yes I'm still not sure how to pronounce that to exterminate metroids and destroy the mother brain the same basic plot but with a totally reimagined far-reaching scope this remake puts the player in samus's head more than the first game for a better narrative effect [Music] most metroid games have a few different endings depending on how you go through the game zero mission is similar but puts a few twists on the formula to make completing this game extremely satisfying and memorable the restrictions I had to place on myself to fully complete this game seemed limiting at first but ended up paying off in surprising and awesome ways even if getting there was pretty exhausting to consider this game completed I had to fill out the gallery in the options menu sounds simple enough I unlocked a different cool image for each ending I reached and the first few weren't all that bad but as I drilled down into what benchmarks I had to hit for each ending I felt that old Metroid anxiety creeping back up in me again all Metroid games feature a collection aspect and zero mission is no different as I went through the game I upgraded Samus with tools and weapons that may travel and battle easier each energy tank or missile expansion counts towards the completion percentage eventually adding up to 100% completion playing the game completionist style always scratches that itch and hits that sweet dopamine spot in my brain Metroid as a series is also famous for its speedrunning component while the game rewards a careful and exhaustive approach it's also designed to be blitzed through like your speed boosters on full blast zero mission follows this tradition rewarding players who beat the game in record time someone who chose to speedrun Samus returns before anyone else had the opportunity to trust me when I say this this aspect is one of the most rewarding and frustrating parts of the Metroid franchise topple all of that zero mission has difficulty moments easy normal and hard which are unlocked after beating the game once on normal hard mode makes it so that Samus takes more damage from enemies and also makes any upgrades half as effective it's incredibly punishing I love a challenge but even I felt pretty wrecked after hard mode now here's where things start to get sticky the gallery images unlocked are determined by different combinations of all three of those factors I had to beat it quickly slowly completion to stop non-completion of style and buckle in on hard mode with less than 15% of items collected and NASA not even counting the between 2 to 4 hour runs on various difficulty levels I had to have my producer make an extremely streamlined charts like I had for insanest returns at first this overwhelming list of things to do was more paralyzing than a shot from the ice beam this remake adds a ton of content to the game way more than just a graphics update for the first Metroid there's even an entirely new area of the map the Nintendo added after the mother brain fight which is where the first game ended this is where the titular zero suit actually shows up and you're forgiven if you forgot that it's actually in this game before it appeared in Smash Brothers Brawl was I the only one that thought that huh zero mission even brings in some favorite items from Super Metroid that weren't featured in the original touches like this change of the gameplay even more and I loved having to constantly adjust my play styles even the character models for Ridley and kraid are imported straight from Super Metroid to tie the games together even more speaking of which what is even Ridley like obviously a space dragon but does he have intelligence can he speak English does he speak the language of the old people he flies a spaceship but also in the space he built a robot how does he communicate to Mother Brain does he have children how many children do I know I bring up Super Metroid a lot when I talk about these games call it a reflex if you will but zero mission does a great job of using the legacy of Metroid as a series to influence its gameplay I couldn't get enough of how the game used itself as a reference leading to some incredible moments of restrictive yet exciting gameplay [Music] a strange thing happened to me when I started making my way through metroid zero mission as i started finding items like the iconic morph ball and ScrewAttack i realized that i was beginning to conquer my initial fear of metroid sure there are major differences between the first game and the remake especially in regards to brightness and ease of use but what zero mission did was turn fear into excitement as it gave me more interesting tools than ever before sabes became a puzzle box the more I explored it the original Metroid required players to basically bomb every square inch of the map in the hopes of finding out where to go next zero mission makes navigation and item gathering slightly easier which I super appreciated there isn't an arrow on screen telling you where to go but the player can find chozo statues that guide Samus in a general direction Nintendo nailed it with this little quality of life change once I started trying to fill out the endings gallery the most interesting challenging and rewarding parts of the game became very clear it's not just about defeating the bosses and making it out before the big explosion it's about teaching yourself how to play a new type of game to reach each ending completing a general untimed 100% run requires a completely different mindset and skill set than knocking out this game speed rock and I had to access a completely different part of my brain to do the 15 percent or less hard mode playthrough asking a completionist to deliberately skip upgrades that are lying out in the open begging to be collected is absolutely mind-blowing since I had to essentially do eight separate playthroughs of this game I learned to appreciate different aspects of each playthrough but Gerard you might say zero mission only has three save slots that's right everyone I had to do something that genuinely pained me over write save files to see every single ending but honestly this didn't hurt as much as I thought it would and if you really want to unlock everything in this game you have to do it eventually for the true completionist run I loved exploring the environment and testing the limits of all the abilities including those that were not present in the original game almost every room has a secret waiting to be uncovered and I felt smart and satisfied uncovering what was hidden all this exploration and uncovering becomes insanely important once I shifted mindsets to the speedrun the game that becomes an exercise in path optimization and memorization I had to learn where to go when to go and how to avoid backtracking as much as possible something that once again requires a total reset of how I play Metroid games the genre makes backtracking a staple and to retrain my brain to avoid doing that was hard but also made me feel like I was learning a brand new skill doing the speedruns also reinforced how important it is to learn advanced techniques like the bomb jump and the Super Metroid style wall jump if you can master these difficult moves that the game never explicitly teaches you you can access certain items way out of sequence shaving off a ton of time and when it comes to the speed run every minute matters and the execution becomes just as important as the knowledge learning how to do the moves perfectly every time is the name of the game for a completionist speedrun now the most unique challenge 0 mission has to offer is definitely the 15% and under run each upgrade or item in samus's arsenal basically counts as a percentage point and there are some key path items that you cannot avoid and will take up most of your inventory but once you know what upgrade samus absolutely needs I could pick up and choose the rest to suit my own play style what started out as dread turned into a form of self-expression that I loved it was almost like I was making my own custom Samus do I focus on firepower and find more missile upgrades make defense a priority and gathered a few more precious energy tanks or get one or two more traversal options to make navigation just that much easier no matter what I chose I had a nagging feeling that I was making the wrong choice everything felt consequential and weighty and I loved every second of it now I do want to add that Metroid Samus Returns was very very difficult for me personally I never played Metroid 2 in the Game Boy and the remake was so different and statistically speaking metroid zero mission in terms of completion matches up very closely with that of Samus returns so what makes my experience with metroid zero mission different than Metroid Samus returns with the exception of a 3ds game versus a Game Boy Advance game the biggest thing was the idea of being the completion in the timeframe that I had in the case of Metroid Samus Returns I essentially created my own speedrunning guide on top of creating an insane video within just a couple of days of production I essentially became a speedrunner on a game that hadn't been spedrun before and that pressure alone changed my entire perspective whereas with zero mission I knew everything going into it and I feel that very dramatically changes my personal experience both as a gamer and as a youtuber though I did find that boss battles were so much more incredibly difficult I had to be spot-on with my super missile attacks or suffer the consequences once again I was taught another empowering skill that for us completionists we should always have patience in a game that places such an emphasis on speedrunning I did not expect that patience would really be showcased as a virtue here each run made me consider the game as a whole and appreciate how much it had been designed with the player in mind the game is designed to be completed in under two hours but also feels complex enough that doing so feels like a real accomplishment most Metroid games make you feel under power in the beginning and then like an unstoppable force by the end zero missions still empowered me but differently for the low percentage runs I really feel connected to a problem solving Samus who had to make do with what she had in front of her for the speedruns the same deal I felt her mastery in returning to the planet where she was raised of course you would know how to get from one side of the planet to the other over all the darkness of space did not get me down and I was able to finally conquer my fears [Music] samisen i overcame hostile aliens and made it out alive we're both survivors and live to fight another day the ending screens and gallery images became a testament to how I felt for each completed run seeing Samus decked out in her armor are looking more relaxed in her two-piece suit was satisfying seeing these static images I remembered the challenges I overcame and the puzzles I had to solve each and every time now I wish there were a bit more having completed several Metroid games many times I just might be feeling a little burned out on being given so little after doing so much completing hard mode also unlocks a sound test which is a cool sort of throwback bonus in case they ever need an ambient space music I now know I can fire up zero mission any time there's another image gallery that's unlocked if you link up with another Game Boy Advance and a copy of Metroid Fusion fortunately I had a copy lying around this is a cool bonus but it's not really tied to any gameplay stuff I like that the images and diffusion gallery provide a little more lore for Samus and I just think the concept of linking stuff together with cables as tight going through the game this many times was fun and I enjoyed all the variety of the different runs brought but I definitely started to feel a little drained by the end developing such a strong relationship to a game can be exhausting even though Metroid and I get along great I was craving some space by the end fortunately there's another gift best and most rewarding of all beating zero mission on any difficulty unlocks the original Metroid now this is an amazing completion bonus it's not tied to hard mode or any crazy timed run or anything it's a great way for players who never had the chance to experience the classic to do so for me it's the like a full circle experience to come back to the first game after mastering this remake though the original is still vague mysterious and incredibly difficult I didn't feel scared anymore zero mission feels huge and rewarding all throughout overall there were eight separate run throughs completed some easy some incredibly difficult and all very rewarding a different gallery images earned my rewards for each run 100 upgrades found from classics like the super missile two newly essential moves like the Power Grip each upgrade was welcome I suffered about 15 deaths overall not too bad for going and completely blind 30 hours of total playtime spent way more than I would have thought from a remake of an NES game and one classic game revisited with a significantly lower fear factor completing metroid zero mission was incredibly satisfying but also pretty damn brutal it takes the most memorable aspects of the first title and mixes them in with some of the best aspects of other metroid titles the result is a remake that feels more than a Game Boy game or nes game and it challenged me to play in several totally different ways it's an incredible remake but unless you're a fan of the full-on mentor and franchise completing the gallery maybe up in the air whether or not you want to do it or not however when it comes really to the minutiae of completing metroid zero mission there are a few things about that I really love the gallery is kind of a hit or miss thing of people but for me it's all about the endings you feel incredible when you conquer all of these insane tasks so but that of my guys I give this game my completionist rating of complete it completers that's all the time we have today guys so please as always let me know what you thought of today's episode somewhere on the internet hey if you like the show do me Pieper hit that subscribe button in a check us out on patreon patreon comm / the completionist you have a podcast now that's happening two times a month as well as a board game show called bored boys the first episodes are free you go check them out right now guys I've been Gerard I'll see you next week for the brand-new episode off the completionist bye

Channel: The Completionist

Views: 330,352

Keywords: metroid zero mission, metroid, metroid: zero mission, metroid review, metroid zero mission review, metroid: zero mission review, metroid gameplay, metroid game, metroid zero mission gameplay, game boy advanced, gba, samus, samus aran, super metroid, metroid remake, metroid zero mission remake, metroid super zero mission, game review, game reviews, completionist, jirard khali, metroid prime, nintendo, ridley, somecallmejohnny, metroid prime 4, metroid switch, kraid, metroid fusion

Id: l8LKgPbfgV0

Length: 17min 50sec (1070 seconds)

Published: Sat Feb 02 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

Well that took me back... Zero Mission was a great game.

[u/chiakinanamiis1]

Great video by a great guy

[u/MrTylerwpg]

Love me some Completionist