I had my one friend over the other day to look at some things I was letting go and we got on the subject of Metroid.

I think the core of the discussion I wanted to focus on was when he said he wouldn't suggest newer players start with NES Metroid.

I completely agreed.

I still like the original game, but yeah, it has aged kind of badly and yeah, not an ideal starting point in our opinion.

So then we started haggling what an ideal starting point would be. He mentioned the handheld games Zero Mission and Fusion.

I have some gripes with these titles, but yeah, I still think they'd be good starting points. The only thing that's not very welcoming about them are some of the spinesharking puzzles you have to do for some of the powerups. I wanted to pull my hair out on some of those, very hard to do with such a small controller IMO.

Still, while we agreed about Fusion and Zero Mission (despite some of my reservations) I still think my favorite handheld Metroid is still Metroid II. And yeah, that's view point is pretty much based on nostalgia.

Metroid II was the first Metroid game I played and, well, I've always been happy that it was. Metroid II tends to get overshadowed.

Still, while I think Metroid II has aged better than Metroid, I don't think Metroid II is a good starting point these days. It worked when I was younger because there weren't other options and Super Metroid wasn't out at that point.

What would you consider the best starting point?

Super Metroid is the alpha and omega.

But in a pinch, Zero Mission will do!

Re: Metroid II ... still a great game. Introduces the Spider Ball. Has tons of intense situations. Were you aware of the fanmade Metroid II remake? Just came out...

http://metroid2remake.blogspot.com/

Should prolly download before Nintendo C&D's this just like they did with Pokemon Uranium.

When we were talking I think we both figured that Super Metroid would be a great starting point, we just didn't want to be insanely obvious with our pick(s).

I guess we were thinking Fusion and Zero Mission have a few hand-holding elements which may make them more accessible, not that Super Metroid's inaccessible.

Still, I guess the above depends on how you feel about hand-holding elements.

That's where I started when I was a new Metroid player, and things seemed to work out just fine. Obviously, SM is the better choice, and is miles ahead of ZM or Fusion when it comes to what someone's first Metroid experience should be if they're looking for what the franchise is/was actually all about. That said, I'm 100% against Fusion being someone's first Metroid title - too much dialog, hand-holding, and lack of exploration.

#1 SM, #2 Metroid (to see where the series came from), #3 Prime (to see where the series went).

i would start with SNES,, the reason being is that metroid worlds are big enough that even the side-scrolling ones can be overwhelming. if super metroid had been 3d, the frustration of getting my ass constantly lost would probably have taken away much of the enjoyment. i imagine the same to be true for castlevania & zelda games. these games started out with a comic-like appeal and simplicity. Making them too dark & realistic distracts from that feeling