I’m incredibly excited. Nintendo has decided to dedicate August to all things Metroid. (Eat it, IGN.) This single game is so important, because it is the first major release from Nintendo for the Wii that didn’t start as a GameCube product. It is also very important to me, because it is the latest game in the series that got me into hand-held gaming, got me into console gaming and made me want a Wii. The Metroid series gave me many gaming firsts. I had been a fan of gaming, but I was never allowed to own a system, so I cherished the times I got to go play Super Mario All-Stars at a friends house or Mortal Kombat 3 at my cousin’s. (P.S. It’s rated Mature, though I didn’t know that at the time as I was seven or eight. And I’m not scared for life! Who woulda thought?) I’m not entirely sure on how I discovered Metroid, but as soon as I saw Samus’ incredible suit, I was hooked.

This lead to me begging for the chance to own a GameBoy Advance, either to get one as a gift at some point or to even have permission to buy it if I somehow managed to save up the money. My parents responded with the usual generic answer, thinking this was just like when I’d come back from someone’s house and ask for a day and then give up on it again. I persisted, though, and I don’t know if they eventually gave in but thought they’d toy with me or if they thought it be funny, but they gave be a gift. It was a small, plastic GBA case filled with a Mario, Yoshi, Link, Diddy Kong and Donkey Kong gummy candy. I remember Mom semi-jokingly saying something along the lines of This is as close as you’ll get to owning a real one, but probably worded much nicer. Maybe this made me give up, maybe not. I have a terrible memory for stuff like this. But, I do clearly remember when my birthday rolled around. I had opened all my gifts but one, and as I picked it up the bag’s bottom broke and a GameBoy Advance dropped out the bottom. I was ecstatic, but not N64 ecstatic. I got a bundle that included Yoshi’s Island, which was a great game to start off with. I’m not sure if I ended up beating it before I moved on to something new or bought my first game after. What I think happened was I got my first issue of Nintendo Power, Vol. 164, Dec. 2002. It was the Metroid Fusion cover-issue, and included a walkthrough for the beginning of Fusion and Prime, as well as Animal Crossing and The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past content, which later became my first games in what are now two of my other favourite series.

So, probably after finishing Yoshi’s Island, I was ready for something new, and Fusion was the obvious choice. Featuring the first character from a video game I had ever really cared about and after reading about her adventures in Nintendo Power issues to come, I was more than ready to dive in. Fusion became the first video game I had ever purchased, the first Metroid game I had ever played, and is still one of the best games I own for GBA, falling in at second after Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

Now, much later, I was addicted to video games, and my parents probably regretted buying a GBA for me. I had managed to save a good amount of money, all going towards a GameCube, though now that I think about it, they were only $100 since they had been out for so long. I had to save virtually all my spending money I was given on our family trip to England (my Dad’s side of the family all lives there, my Granddad actually just arrived to visit us yesterday.) to finish covering the cost. When we returned, though, I could finally buy my not-very-limited edition platinum GameCube with free Player’s Choice title (Metroid Prime, Animal Crossing was tempting, but not nearly enough) and Turok: Evolution. I decided right there that Turok was one of the worst concepts for a game I had heard of, and I stand by that, regardless of what people say about the new one. I peeled off the “Free!” sticker and traded it in for some credit at the local non-EB Games store and put it towards a second controller.

My other Metroid experiences are not nearly as exciting. I don’t know if you can really call any of these exciting, but recalling them is fun for me. I simply bought Zero Mission and Prime 2: Echoes. The wait for Echoes was especially long as my bonus disc I got through Nintendo.com took forever to come and was only a couple minutes in length and was during an all-to-frequent GameCube drought. I later got Metroid II: Return of Samus used, it remains the only used game I have ever bought.

I had been looking for another, though: Super Metroid. It remains the single Metroid game I do not own besides Pinball, which doesn’t really count. This elusive game was only released for the SNES, which I would have been more than happy to buy, had I been able to find one to buy that wasn’t on the internet. My friend had two (his parents are divorced) and he claimed to have a copy of Super Metroid. He offered to sell one and the game to me, but as soon as I said yes he had a reason why he couldn’t. He lied a lot back then, convincing some of my other friends about the time he had lunch with Hideo Kojima or how he had tickets to the next E3. He also had us all believing that he owned an Xbox for about a year, but in reality he’d just rent one whenever we went over. (I have a lot of stories like this, so maybe in another post…) Anyways, you’ll understand why I’m so incredibly stoked (yes, enough to use the work ’stoked’) for Nintendo’s latest announcement: Super Metroid is coming to the Virtual Console August 20th. Nintendo: Pushing MP3:C back? Forgiven. (Metroid is also coming, but I already own it on Animal Crossing, Metroid Prime and Metroid: Zero Mission.) The MP3 Preview showed up today on the Wii’s Shopping Channel, too. I was hoping for a demo, but timed releases on exclusive footage alright, too. All this was more than enough to prompt me to write this length story on how Metroid is my gaming history, even though I have only been gaming since the GBA.

P.S.: I feel it is necessary that I should note that I think my parents did the right thing with me and video games. As much as I missed, I don’t know if I ever would have built up the work ethic I have now or developed my interest in reading if I had been a hardcore gamer at the age of six, so I am thankful my parents did what they did. I also do believe that video games can, on rare occasions, contribute to violence, but I don’t think they should be censored by the market because of it. My parents have always been fairly aware of what I’m playing, so while they never laid down any specific rules about ESRB ratings, they were always doing the right thing. So, there. My parents don’t read my blog (they’d be bored to tears) but I feel better putting this in anyways because it’s the truth. Thanks for reading.

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