Four down. Sixty-three left! Goodbye, Metroid. Good. Bye.

Maybe I set myself up for disaster having played three fairly simple games and following it up with a notoriously difficult title like Metroid, but let me say this: Most parents warn their kids about the dangers of teen pregnancy and drug use. I will warn mine about playing Metroid without a map or a walkthrough. It only leads to pain and agony.

Maybe the game was stretched on my TV, maybe that’s why the jumping mechanics were horrible. Maybe the Wii remote just had problems communicating wirelessly and that’s why my shots were delayed and I couldn’t jump out of like half of the lava I jumped into. Maybe… Okay, let’s get real.

It’s probably some big gaming crime to say this, but here it goes: I REALLY didn’t enjoy this game. In fact, I thought it was one of the worse NES titles I’ve played.

The game handles like a wet fish and that’s something you never want in a platformer. You can blame it’s age, but you won’t get by me. Mario and Mega Man easily kick this game’s ass for jumping and landing where you intend, so I’m sorry, that “climbing shaft from hell” in the game is one of the most awful things I’ve ever encountered.

The non-linear nature is interesting, but you have literally NOTHING to go on for most of it, and even though that was interesting for the first oh…three or four hours? I eventually said “Fuck this” and grabbed a walkthrough. When THAT wasn’t enough, I just looked up a map of the entire game and played it that way. And then, even with ALL OF THAT, this was still hands down one of the hardest games I’ve ever played.

Maybe some day when I’m feeling like I haven’t been hit in the nuts for several hours in a row, I’ll pick it up again and try to play it from memory, but I can’t imagine trying to beat this game for the first time and using nothing to help you. It would take you days and not days of fun, days of utter torture. Even if you sat down and made maps while you played, there are so many fake walls and fake floors - it’s just insane.

No, dear friends, it’s safe to say that while I’m glad I played it (on…some…level I’m sure that’s true). I don’t think I would play it again. At least not for a very, very long time.

63 left. Awesome or bust.