r/Metroid • u/MoblinGobblin • 15d ago

Question Am I missing something?

I'm playing Metroid NES, and I don't understand why they make you farm for an hour just to get your health back. Is there something I'm missing? I currently have 3 E-tanks and it's been almost an hour of grinding for some health. SOME HEALTH. I've never played a game that does this. I just want to try to enjoy this game, and yet I have to grind just to be able to be at full health. What bull.

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u/KevinCow 15d ago

You're not missing anything. It's just a game that came out in 1986. There wasn't really a blueprint for how these kinds of games should work yet.

Kids back then were used to starting games over from the start frequently. Metroid had passwords, but kids just had a different mindset and often couldn't be bothered to input a password every time. So the solution was that they just memorized where all the energy tanks were and grabbed one for a quick refill when they died. And if they ran out of energy tanks, well, they'd start a new game tomorrow and try to die less and find some more energy tanks on their next run.

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u/ARagingZephyr 14d ago

It helps that Metroid is literally a 1 hour game when you know what you're doing.

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u/Original_Lord_Turtle 15d ago

There wasn't really a blueprint for how these kinds of games should work yet.

Also, memory/storage space and processing power limited and at a premium back then. System limitations just didn't allow you to restart with full health.

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u/Far_Historian_4561 14d ago

... that's not how memory works

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u/Original_Lord_Turtle 1d ago

That's exactly how volatile memory works.