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  • Anti-Climax Boss: The final boss, Mecha Ridley, has a mechanic where if you get 100% item completion, their health triples. If you don't know this and happen to reach them without every item, they go down in six Super Missiles. For reference, Ridley, who you battle earlier in the game, takes ten to be defeated. Even despite the smaller weak point, it's possible to take them down after their first attack.
  • Best Known for the Fanservice: Relatively downplayed. This game debuted Samus's Zero Suit, a blue full-body plugsuit. While it's tame in comparison to her other Power Suit-less attires in previous games, there are some certain shots of her wearing it. This proved to be quite popular for fans that it would go on to be one of her alternate outfits in future games and crossovers.
  • Broken Base: The standing Chozo Statues that show Samus where to go next are a divisive aspect of the game. Some decry it as unnecessary handholding, feeling that it shows less respect for the player's intelligence and that the game's environmental design does a good enough job of guiding the player. Others consider it inoffensive at worst, given that these statues only show the player where to go, but not how to get there (due to the maps still being obtained from separate map rooms), and the ample Sequence Breaking opportunities means the player can skip many of the statues anyway.
  • Catharsis Factor: After having to run for your life through a mothership full of Space Pirates and then fighting a boss who's difficult to hit without missing or shooting yourself, the payoff of getting your fully upgraded suit is so, so worth it. Add this to the triumphant Brinstar theme playing again, and you'll feel invincible dashing through the Pirate hordes you once ran from, now slaying them by the dozens.
  • Demonic Spiders:
    • Metroids are horrifically difficult to fight. Freezing them wears off faster than most enemies, and it's only when they're frozen that they can be damaged, and then only with missiles. If one latches onto you, you can deploy a bomb to make it let go, but drop too many and you'll accidentally bomb jump back into its mouth. They come in groups, so you might freeze one Metroid only to find yourself backed in a corner with another waiting on the other side of its frozen friend, ready to grab you as soon as you kill it. Add this to hazards like lava in some of the rooms, Rinkas that are a nuisance, and thus it only takes one trip from a missed obstacle to fall and become Metroid food. Play on Hard and/or a 15% run, and you'll soon find yourself out of Missiles, desperately re-freezing every Metroid surrounding you and picking off every Rinka in hopes that it drops a missile this time. Did we mention the doors lock so you can't leave the room?
    • Black Space Pirates, though luckily you are only required to fight two. Even so, they have incredible leaping, aren't shy about purposely running into you, and are immune to every non-beam weapon attack of yours.
    • Every single enemy becomes this in Hard Mode. When you start the game, Samus can only take three hits at most before she dies, while many mooks can soak up far more firepower. Making matters worse is that energy tanks are now only worth half of one in this mode, so finding them is mandatory for survival. The absolute worst enemies have to be the Space Pirates, though—one blast from them knocks a whopping 100 hit points off Samus, and they don't drop any health items—7 hits, and you're dead. If you're doing a Minimalist Run without energy tanks and reach the Zero Suit segment, touch is death.
  • Epileptic Trees: A theory going around is that when Samus destroyed the Space Pirate Mothership at the end of this game, she didn't create the Wrecked Shipnote , but rather, she unearthed more of it, and instead created Maridianote .
  • Even Better Sequel: Or prequel, in this case, but many fans who didn't like Metroid Fusion tend to look favorably at this game for bringing back a non-linear progression and leaving out the dialogues, as well as tweaking a few of the general mechanics from the prior game. Newer fans appreciate this game's more forgiving difficulty and consider it a great jumping-off point, making it one of the most universally well-liked entries in the franchise.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • The Final Boss droid shaped like Ridley (known as the "Ridley Robot" in official English sources) has been dubbed "Mecha Ridley" by fans as a romanization of its Japanese name; this probably gained a lot of traction due to being similar to "Meta Ridley". For reasons unknown, the speedrunning community calls it Iron Ted.
    • Speedrunners often refer to the Ruins Test as Charlie.
    • The Charge Beam Beast is often known by the popular nickname King Worm, which is a flavorful interpretation (but not a literal translation) of its Japanese name.
  • Franchise Original Sin: This was the first game to debut the Zero Suit and to feature Samus outside of her Power Suit during gameplay. While fanservice is nothing new in the Metroid series, it was the first time to have it outside of the bonus endings, which got much more controversial when Metroid: Other M rolled around.
  • Game-Breaker: Bomb Jumping in this game is quite possibly the most overpowered form of it in any Metroid game. Unlike the others, the developers didn't put a max cap on the number of Morph Ball bombs Samus can use at a time. As a result, it's possible to use Bomb Jumping by mashing the fire button to get to upgrades and areas way earlier than intended, allowing you to get late game power-ups almost as soon as you get bombs. Naturally, this technique is a major friend of the game's Speed Running community.
  • Goddamned Boss: The Charge Beam Beast will flee the scene if the fight goes on for too long (more than the exact time to shoot 3 missiles into its eye), meaning that if you didn't hit it in the eye three times, the boss could flee. Add in that the only reason to defeat it is to get the Charge Beam (which deals as much damage as one missile without wasting ammunition, but is also obtained after getting the first missiles and can't open missile doors) and some players will choose to skip it in order to save time.
  • Good Bad Bugs:
    • The Black Pirates you battle at the end of the game can be really tough, as they only take damage from your beam and can move fairly quick. However, if you stay atop the high ledge in the room and spam shots at the ledge, for some reason the Black Pirates won't climb all the way up to reach you and will just sit at the top of the wall, shooting in the other direction and leaving you free to Plasma Beam them to death with impunity.
    • By staying in the morph ball slot entrance to Mother Brain’s boss arena long enough, it is possible for the game’s data to overload from trying to keep track of all of the floating rings, causing the game to “forget” to close the morph ball slot behind you once you finally do leave it. This means that when you defeat Mother Brain, you have the option to escape the planet backwards by going through the open morph ball slot and backtracking across the entire map to get to your ship from the other direction. This makes the escape sequence far more difficult, yet fun for those who enjoy the challenge.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: This piece of concept art has the Zero Suit's designer specifically call for Samus to not get impractical high heels. Later designs have given her Combat Stilettos anyway.
  • It Was His Sled:
    • Unlike the game it's remaking, Zero Mission doesn't even try to hide that Samus Is a Girl.
    • Like Sheik, Zero Suit Samus's popularity in the Super Smash Bros. games reveals that Samus has a Power Suit-less level in this game.
  • It's Easy, So It Sucks!: Not sucks, per se, but many have commented on how this game is a significant Sequel Difficulty Drop from all of its predecessors, leading to some series veterans feeling unsatisfied. Generally, these fans will at least appreciate the Zero Suit segment as a sufficient Difficulty Spike to go out on.
  • It's Short, So It Sucks!: Generally considered the shortest game in the series, due to its lack of Guide Dang It! compared to its predecessors, its faster gameplay and lower difficulty than previous games, and its relatively small map. Even a first-time player should be able to clear the game in under 3 hours.
  • Nintendo Hard: Easy and Normal are pretty much a breeze, but Hard Mode feels the closest to the original game's difficulty. While Samus thankfully doesn't start at 30 Energy every time you start the game up (unless you saved the game in that state), all expansions are halved, giving you only 2 Missiles per tank, but notably the 12 Energy Tanks only give +50 to your Energy max, meaning 699 Energy is the max assuming you found them all. Even the least of the enemies can easily destroy you in a few hits until you get the Varia Suit, which mitigates this somewhat. By endgame, however, the gloves fully come off as the Zebesians can deal 200 damage with each shot even once you've acquired the new suit, giving you at best 4 hits tops.
  • Remade and Improved: Metroid is a complete and total groundbreaker in the history of video games. With its emphasis on exploration, and its famous revelation, it helped create and name the Metroidvania genre of gaming. However, Zero Mission is seen as superior in every way, fixing dated level design and generally bringing a game made in the early days of gaming up to more modern standards. Many fans now recommend skipping the original entirely and playing Zero Mission instead.
  • Sequel Difficulty Drop:
    • Much easier than the original Metroid, thanks to its in-game map and hint system, Samus' far greater maneuverability, save points, simpler and more telegraphed puzzle solutions, and more forgiving gameplay in general (e.g. no more starting from 30 energy when you die.)
    • Also easier than its GBA predecessor, Metroid Fusion, due to simpler and shorter boss fights and lower damage inflicted by enemies.
  • Signature Scene: This game marks the debut of Samus in her blue full-body Zero Suit and it would go on to be a mainstay in not just the series but for the Smash series as well.
  • That One Boss:
    • Mother Brain. Let us count the ways. First off, you fight her while standing over a pit of lava. And you don't get a platform to stand on. Instead you get just two measly blocks which aren't connected to each other that barely let you take more than two steps on either before you fall. Stand in one spot for too long, and you get targeted by Rinkas that will knock you off, and, just to be petty, are Red Rinkas that aren't guaranteed to give you any health or missiles. Surrounding the area are turrets that fire in random directions, making jumping risky because it's impossible to predict when and where they'll shoot. Even if you made sure to replenish your missiles after destroying all the Zebetite barriers blocking the way to her, you still have to waste a ton of them trying to crack her tank. Also, remember how in the previous games Mother Brain was just a sitting duck who wouldn't fight you as you filled her with missiles? Well, say goodbye to that; now she has a Eye Beam of doom that fires every time you damage her or fall off the blocks. Not only that, but you have to hit her in the eye unlike previous games where you could damage her anywhere. God help you if you try fighting her in a 15% run.
    • The Ruins Test is also pretty difficult. You have to shoot it in the glowing orb it's holding whenever it displays a certain symbol, but all the other times it shows you, meaning shooting it then means hurting yourself. You take a lot of damage due to lacking your Power Suit, and can only fire when your pistol is at full charge. Its bouncing is hard to avoid, and the area is pretty small. Plus, it hurls lightning at you, and it's hard to watch for the flashing cues that signal whether it's just a single bolt of lightning or twin bolts that climb up the floor and wall. Defeating it takes a lot of mental juggling.
    • Ridley in Hard mode is brutal. You have half the health you'd have in Normal mode, but that'll be the least of your troubles. He's much more aggressive, his fireballs deal an obscene amount of damage, and your health drains at a ridiculous speed if he picks you up. Also, staying under his feet doesn't work this time.
    • Kraid can be this, especially on hard mode or a 15% run. Not only do his nails subtly home in on the player but the player has a very small space to attack Kraid with. As the fight goes on more of the floor is removed, until only a 2 block area and a small alcove are available for Samus to stand on and still reach Kraid's head. It doesn't help that when Kraid swipes he can not only knock Missiles out of the air (especially ones that were headed for his eyes) but his attack takes up almost the entirety of the 2-block floor, meaning Samus has to get on the alcove just to avoid being hit.
  • That One Level:
    • Tourian on Hard Mode will make your tear your hair out. Not only are there many more Metroids than before, the deck is stacked against you since you only have a very limited supply of missiles and health in this mode, and you are guaranteed to use them all up by the midway point. The absolute peak of frustration is the room just before the second save station, which is bursting with Metroids, and there are absolutely no safe spots—you'll be refreezing Metroids like crazy and hammering them with every missile you have just to get through in one piece. Do not visit this level until you've gotten every possible upgrade and item. And to say nothing of the Mother Brain fight itself...
    • The Zero Suit segment. Samus is stuck in her Zero Suit after being shot down by the Space Pirates and only has the Emergency Pistol to use, which can only stun enemies when fully charged for an extremely short period of time. All of the enemies attacks deal one hundred damage, which means the amount of hits she can take is equal to the amount of E-Tanks she's collected. Sounds like a standard Stealth-Based Mission level... except for the fact that it's surprisingly easy to alert the Space Pirates to her presence even if you know what to do. On top of that, on your first playthrough, it's easy to accidentally box yourself in a corner while trying to figure out where to go, which can easily get you stun locked by a Space Pirate into oblivion. It's at least nullified a bit by the fact that the Save Points restore Samus' E-Tanks (a fact that no other save points in the game does anywhere else) but still, you better prepare yourself for an annoying, easy to mess up level until you get her Power Suit back.
  • That One Sidequest:
    • 100% Completion is not as easy as in Super Metroid or Fusion - some packs and tanks require well-timed Shinespark or Wall Jump chains, others are just well hidden. Add that most can only be collected following the Chozodia part, and players can easily give up on getting the final upgrades to go after the Final Boss. Plus, to unlock all eight of the post-credits artwork, you have to beat the game at least four timesnote  All for some pretty pictures.
    • Perfect stealth in the Zero Suit segment, all due to the very first section which requires an incredibly precise shot of the Paralyzer to stun the Pirate while his back is turned. At least the rest of the run isn't as bad since there are secret areas where you can bypass many of the more inconveniently placed Pirates. Additionally, it's a Self-Imposed Challenge; there's no real reward to doing it aside from getting to listen to the Wrecked Ship music for longer.

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