During my childhood, I had a wide variety of games. Being a 90's kid I obviously had a NES, and my favorite game was Metroid. When I was little, I'd always get lost in the seemingly endless world, getting items, killing enemies. I would prefer no other game being better, but now after what happened, it seems that Nintendo has a few secrets installed...
When I was 14, I had lost the game from under some unknown circumstances, and I looked everywhere for it. Until one day my mom said she had must have accidentally thrown it away. 4 years later, I received a strange package in the mail, the same day I had lost the game (which was ironically my birthday). After my friends had a drink or two, they stumbled back to their cars, and I realized that I had never opened the package.
Upon doing so, the package was apparently an old dirty NES Metroid cartridge. I was a little tipsy when I saw the game (I should have never played beer pong before my friends left). My parents were out for a reason I couldn't remember. And they wouldn't be back until 12:00, so I stumbled towards my NES and popped it in. Surprisingly, I had still remembered the controls of the game. Despite my partial drunken state, I still managed to get around rather smoothly. Another thing I had realized is that, there was no title screen, the game just started where we could see the pixelated sprite of Samus standing on the blue platform just like in the original game. Being a huge Metroid nerd, I instantly remembered where the first item of the game was, the morph ball. I went to the left, jumped over the platforms and reached the item, surrounded by a couple of zoomers. I dodged their slow movements and got the item. But when I did, something strange happened.
A strange, red, static-like aura passed over the pixelated screen, heading towards the right end. I assumed it was just a glitch (after all I didn't clean the cartridge when I had received it). But, it was seen, and heard to clearly to have been a glitch, or a hallucination. So I decided to walk in the direction the aura was headed (after all that's where the first door was) but before I could move, the screen glitched, and went to static. It then went back to the game, showing my Samus sprite back on the platform of the game's beginning. I brushed it off and walked down the corridor to see that there was no end, I must have been walking for 3 minutes before I found a blue hatch. When entering the hatch, I entered a smaller corridor made from bricks, like in the original game where you passed into the second region of Brinstar. But, when I entered this room, I saw the static aura again. Once it hit the other side of the room, the bricks turned into a red stone.
And the hatch opened on it's own, at this point, I wanted to start taking screenshots of the game. To see if any one this was even real, the computer was set to take screenshots every few minutes or so. While this game got stranger I actually forgot about the computer still being on, and taking screenshots. Reluctantly, I entered the opened hatch and reached a strange room. It was red like the bricks in the corridor, and it had no platforms, so I really had no option but to go down. I could also see some red colored geemers crawling up and down the walls of the deep room. After reaching the ground below, I noticed that there was a green tinged door. Strange, because green doors were added in later Metroid games, there was also another door of to the right side, it was a standard door, so I decided to walk through. Upon doing so, there was another long corridor, instead of making the walk down,
I decided to take some more time to look around. And of course I came the conclusion that there was no way out and I once again began to leisurely walk down the corridor. I also forgot to mention that the Brinstar music was playing in the background (obviously), but as I walked down the corridor, it slowed down, and eventually stopped. I also began to walk slower, and the screen darkened. Until, I heard a very realistic sound, something with multiple legs scuttling down the corridor, either that, or a group. I listened closer to hear the sound was coming closer, I wanted to run, I wanted to get out! Without hesitation I turned back, and as I ran down the hall, a loud screeching sound echoed from behind.
And just like how I walked down the hall I got slower, but while going back I got faster. I eventually reached the blue hatch again, and I got a good look at my attacker. A huge red beetle-esque creature burst it's way through the closed hatch, in the original Metroid game, I remembered that Samus had a specific amount of health, I frantically looked around the screen to see that I had no health bar, no missiles, no anything... The beetle lunged while trying to aim it's scissor-like jaws at me, I had no idea what to do, Every time the beetle rushed at me, I had the chance to jump over it, but I'd only narrowly avoid coming in contact with it, and it would pause for a moment. At the time, I only had my weak pea-shooter of a gun, I shot a few pellets at the hulking creature, and I
discovered that its back area was its weak point. I was glad the beetle seemed to lack any projectile weapons, but that doesn't mean the fight was any easier. With having only one weapon, the fight was very long, the beetle would sometimes spasm, and gnash its jaws while running around the screen. Eventually after taking enough hits, the beetle died with a loud explosion that made me jump. I was still pretty shook from from the intensity of the fight, afterwards, I could feel my stomach churning, I ran to the bathroom and I threw up, and then I must have passed out until next morning.
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