The original Metroid tried to create an exploration-based action platformer, but because of technical constraints and an unwillingness to accommodate them in the game’s design, it failed to reach the potential of such an idea. Over time the series would slowly find its footing with titles like Super Metroid that helped realize the potential of a world that gradually opens up through what the player uncovers, but Samus’s first mission only seemed to be worsening with age as its flaws became easier to identify by comparison. Then, in 2006, with almost 20 years of experience and multiple titles in the genre the original Metroid helped create, Nintendo decided to revitalize the NES original with the Game Boy Advance remake Metroid: Zero Mission, and in doing so, helped create one of the best titles in the entire Metroid franchise.

As a remake, Metroid: Zero Mission does not stray too far from the setup of the first game. The alien Space Pirates have gotten their hands on the life-draining Metroid species, and with the help of the biomechanical computer Mother Brain, they aim to destroy anyone in the galaxy who opposes them. The Galactic Federation calls on the bounty hunter Samus Aran to handle the situation, and it just so happens that the Space Pirates have built their subterranean base on the planet Samus was raised as a child. While the original Metroid was light on story outside of the manual, we see a few brief scenes in Metroid: Zero Mission to help establish the plot, very few of them using words to convey their message. Short and to the point, these scenes often serve as a way of introducing the threats you will face on Zebes but also give us a peek at Samus’s personal history and her reactions to this formative first mission in what would become a long-running battle against the Space Pirates and the Metroid menace.

Metroid: Zero Mission is not just a graphical overhaul of the first game. As soon as you land on Zebes, you’ll notice that Samus is not nearly as rigid as she was in Metroid 1. The bounty hunter’s arm cannon still starts off a peashooter, but she can aim it diagonally, crouch to hit small enemies, and there a bevvy of new upgrades carried over from games like Super Metroid that enhance Samus’s arsenal and give meaning to once pointless diversions from the original game. Movement on the whole is snappier as well, with Samus feeling easy to use and reliable even before you get helpful upgrades like the High-Jump Boots. Zero Mission has the player exploring the maze-like caverns beneath Zebes, platforming and blasting alien species in the search for new equipment that will help Samus take down Space Pirate leaders like the now enormous dinosaur creature Kraid and the alien dragon Ridley. There are many new bosses to be found as well, the hostile wildlife coming in a variety of forms that will require reflexes and resources to overcome, with a fairly decent scale of boss difficulty and challenge as the game progresses. Death is still a concern, but not the ever-present setback it was in the NES title, as Zero Mission lessens its devastating impact primarily by way of Save Rooms that serve as checkpoints to come back from and will always have you return to life with however much health you had when you saved. If you do need to refill your health and ammo after a tough fight or a dangerous room, Zero Mission makes sure there are easy to access areas with quick refills, whether they be Chozo Statues that will top you off completely or very quick enemy spawners that detect what you’re missing and drop the appropriate pickups without any rigamarole around the process.

Zebes itself has received a huge overhaul to set it apart from Metroid 1 while still managing to preserve much of the original map design. Identical rooms and long vertical shafts were gutted and redesigned to make them feel different and have new obstacles that set them apart from each other, ensuring that no player would ever confuse two areas for each other. The skeleton of the original is preserved, but so much has been altered to feel more fluid and natural that it can be a surprise when you recognize a layout from the original game, and for those coming in to the Metroid series first through Zero Mission, they won’t feel the limitations that made Metroid 1 feel rigid and sloppily designed. A very important addition comes in the form of a map you can view when you pause as well as an always present minimap in the corner, making navigation of the world easier and finding areas you haven’t been to yet a snap. The map fills in as you explore to ensure it doesn’t destroy the thrill of exploration, and map rooms that will fill in parts of the map don’t add the many hidden areas that Zebes is packed with this time around. Zero Mission is flush with secrets of all kinds, with power-ups hidden in walls and behind action puzzles. The game uses Chozo Statues to give you a rough guide of where to go and where your next important major upgrades are, ensuring that no player should get lost for too long, but the world of Zero Mission is made to be broken. You can skip segments with clever tricks with your power-ups, and even though I don’t know many of the complex tricks, I was able to push ahead into areas the game did not want me to enter yet but still knew players could squeak their way in and built its world with that in mind. Upgrades to your missile capacity and energy tanks are placed all across the map, your only clue to their presence sometimes being a small ring on your map with no hint as to exactly where it might be or how to get it. Searching for secrets is an incredibly rewarding activity as it makes boss fights more manageable and navigation a more interesting activity, but the game makes sure it’s possible even with a minimal amount of weaponry just so that players aren’t punished for searching… or so that players can challenge themselves by getting as little as possible.

The upgrades in Zero Mission ensure that Zebes isn’t as hostile as it was in the original game, but that danger was mostly caused by high damaging enemies with little recourse for that inevitable damage. Enemies in Zero Mission that will put up a big fight are designed deliberately to be challenging, rather than being small gnats the pop on screen and shave off 30% of an energy tank. Boss fights require some strategy in addition to good dodging and decent reserves, and your skill set is varied enough to make battles require more than just unloading your missile stock in an enemy’s face. Samus’s arsenal gets packed as you progress, with the Ice Beam and Wave Beam finally making nice and working in tandem to both freeze foes and deal wider spread damage if you have both. Samus now can get a powered-up sprint that tears through enemies and is a key to unlocking many secrets, and old power-ups like the Screw Attack still tear through smaller enemies like they were tissue paper. Your skillset is a bit of an amalgamation of powers from other Metroid titles, but Zero Mission also adds to the game’s general sense of exploring the unknown with a few items you find that your suit can’t identify. Most upgrades in the game will give you a brief overview on how to use new power-ups and why you might use them, and while these unknown items let you break blocks with ancient markings on them, you won’t find out what they are really capable of until late in the game, helping make Zebes feel unfamiliar to even those who’ve played the original Metroid and its follow-ups. You do start off somewhat weak, but the power growth is stark and deaths come from carelessness or powerful challenges in your path. Plus, even though the abilities you get are mostly drawn from the series’s history, Zero Mission has new obstacles, such as zip lines on the ceiling and living creatures that require certain strategies or items to overcome. Despite being a remake that blends together elements from the other games, Zero Mission does add new elements so that you aren’t essentially playing a greatest hits bundle.

An interesting addition to Zero Mission though is that despite the game having a short runtime, things aren’t quite over once you’ve completed the mission of the original game. An entirely new segment has been appended to the end, where Samus is rendered almost powerless in an area that makes Metroid 1’s environment seem pleasant and inviting. A suitless Samus must sneak through Space Pirate territory with only a stun gun that can momentarily stop them if they notice her and she takes an absurd amount of damage if hit while in this state. This period of vulnerability is a complete shift in gameplay approach, but it ultimately culminates in a moment where Samus feels more powerful than she ever has before, partially because of how well the contrast was established during that period of extreme fragility. Zero Mission is an expert at non-verbal storytelling, using visuals and the game experience to evoke specific emotions in the player. You might uncover a strange place that feels like you aren’t meant to be there, only for it to be the path to continue the game. Metroids feel more dangerous than ever as you finally enter Tourian to face them and find the corpses of those they’ve drained littered all over the place. While perhaps not as lonely and foreign as Super Metroid and not as openly hostile as the original Metroid, Zero Mission makes the world feel alien yet cohesive, and while you will be backtracking over familiar ground, it speeds up the process by way of your power-ups and packs the area with little goodies you can scoop up on return trips.

Beating Zero Mission unlocks both a Hard Mode and the original Metroid, and for any video game remake that significantly overhauls the source material’s design, including the original feels like a wonderful way to respect the source material and give players a way to see how much has changed. Multiple difficulty options and some helpful but unrestricting guidance also ensures that Zero Mission is more accessible and prone to less frustration than some Metroidvanias, and it never holds your hand so much that you can’t break away and do you own thing. The game does have a clear path for you that seems hard to break away from, but if you learn the right tricks or think cleverly with what you do have, you can somewhat plot your own course.

THE VERDICT: Independent of the incredible amount of improvements made to Metroid 1’s framework, Metroid: Zero Mission is still an excellent title that blends action with exploration that can be enjoyed by new players and old fans. Guidance to ensure new players don’t get too lost and tons of secrets and challenges to ensure there is meat for committed players to sink their teeth into, Zero Mission is the perfect blend of why hardcore players love the Metroid series and Metroidvania genre and a great first dip for players looking to enter it. The original Metroid could not have asked for a better remake, and Metroid: Zero Mission is definitely one of the best games in the Metroid franchise as a whole.

And so, I give Metroid: Zero Mission for the Game Boy Advance…

A FANTASTIC rating. Combining what worked from all previous 2D Metroid titles into one excellent package, Zero Mission does the original game’s ideas justice by using the experimentation of future titles to nail down mechanics without any of the missteps that feeling out a budding genre’s conventions and mechanics can come with. Zero Mission’s alien world is one that is interesting to explore, rewards puzzle solving skill, and its enemies and boss fights serve are both tests of your dodging ability and let you use the fruits of your secret hunting. If you only want a surface level experience, Zero Mission will point you the right way while maintaining a decent difficulty, and it can still be a blast even if you don’t have any previous Metroid experience. I played Zero Mission for the first time without having played the original Metroid or Super Metroid and come back to it now with both under my belt. Both times it was an exemplary experience that appealed to me in different ways, so these statements comparing how a new Metroid fan and a seasoned one will take to the game are not mere conjecture.

Metroid: Zero Mission feels like the definitive Metroid experience whether or not you prefer a different title in the series more than it. Combining everything that worked in the series so far with a few new ideas that blend in well and a design conducive to the speedrunning and sequence breaking side the series developed, Zero Mission is not just a remake of a dated NES game but an expression of everything that made the Metroid series beloved by fans and a constant critical darling.