Welcome to a new edition of Horror Gaming and it's been a while since we did a Metroid CP. When it comes to Metroid the writing for these horror stories is solid and has effort put into them. I even ranked them up there with the best of Zelda and Pokémon CPs as seen from Secret Worlds. Yuber Neclord really set the bar on how to write a story involving the series that anyone should follow as a good example. Even the “Mother?” CP used this high standard since that is the only other great story to come close to Secret Worlds. Now, the tale of the topic is based around Super Metroid for the Super NES. A girl who used to enjoy Super Metroid wanted to relive playing it again after she moved out of her parent's house. However, as the woman plays odd things start happening as she goes through the adventure of Samus. Will this be the experience the girl remembers fondly or something weird that happens? Let's find out... We already went over some terrible ones that begin in a rinse and repeat manner, but I want you all to take a guess how this one starts out. If most of the readers guessed reliving a childhood game and wanted to experience it again then you were correct. Instead of beginning with a male character, it opens to a female gamer who recalled the time she played Super Metroid. The girl remembered the games were left in the attic of her parent's house. Once the woman retrieved a box of an old Super NES and its games, she took the stuff home. Right at the start we come to our first strike of the story and I can’t reiterate how played out this trope is. It’s like no one attempted originality back then but threw crap at the wall hoping something would stick. I don’t understand why Roxie-Curtis didn’t write the arc with the character randomly playing SM. At least there is no possessed store clerk/phantom eBay seller that leads to a terrible experience. With the console set up, the woman put in SM and began the adventure through Zebes again. The one thing this CP gets right is the slow build to the climax and as she progresses things become worse. Although I do find it odd for the woman to claim the textures are different due to the cartridge being worn out between fighting with her brother. Unfortunately, the woman never explains what kind of fighting she had with her brother. I guess we are going to assume it was arguing over who would play SM first? The story continues as normal with playing through Brinstar when the girl noticed another anomaly. The next parts of the plot are probably the best thing about it since each event gets worse. These bosses were described to already have the colors once they were beaten on their bodies. SM shows the bosses' colors changing the more the player causes damage as the life bar. I also enjoy the changes the environments showed as seen during the walk through Maridia where the water was drained. That was a solid build to something that might cause the game to act this strangely. Another good feature to the writing is the way the girl explained, the bosses’ cries being louder than she remembered. What really gave these moments the eeriness to them is also how distorted each sounded as if they were in pain. The same thing continues with venturing through Tourian and Mother Brain hinting at something terrible. Unfortunately, this is the last good thing about the writing as the climax as to why the game was acting up becomes meaningless. After entering the second phase with Mother Brain something strange happens. She explains that not only was the Baby Metroid killed with a single shot, but the game asks if the girl was happy the bosses were dead. That leads to our second strike with resorting to blood use for the sake of it. After picking no and dying from the room filling in with acid, an odd sequence occurs as excessive amounts of blood seeps out of Samus’ suit. First off, she died from acid damaging her so how the hell did this cause the sprite to bleed that much. Then as the suit shatters, Samus is seen lying down in a dead scientist pose as Ridley takes her away. Second of all as this concludes the Galactic Warrior had very little gashes or cut marks despite bleeding out before. Writing in blood coming out of the armor and how Ridley was digging his claws into her as he took Samus away doesn’t make this scary—Adding in gore and blood for the sake of it hardly makes a horror story interesting. The Woman goes through the process once getting back to the last save and picks yes after beating Mother Brain. She passes the "evacuate" sequence and once the end of the credits come up, the Author does this again. As Samus gives the thumbs up blood seeps out even more through her armor. These images show the climax the buildup was leading to and as mentioned, absolutely nothing comes from it. The question is why was the game so concerned about whether the main character was happy she killed the bosses many times? It’s also ridiculous that it forces her to pick yes even when she really wasn't happy about the bosses' deaths. Now, the second image is the death sequence that happens when the woman picks no to the answer in the first pic. It's tropes like these that are not needed to write this scene and the closing part of the story. Obviously, it’s not as bad as Mario 64: Damned where blood and gore was excessively used to describe Moron's terrible experience. However, the scene using blood even for no reason like it was in the ending didn't have me on the edge of my seat. The story gets its third strike, and everything happened to that point for no reason. There was no hacker, supernatural force or strange occurrences causes the game to act in this manner. The writer tried explaining with the women fighting her brother when they were younger. However, Roxie never went into whether this was arguing, or the brother acted spiteful by harming the cartridge. We don’t know if the cartridge was dropped or amongst their “fighting” got thrown across the room and hit something hard. Not once did anything hint to them struggling over this because the character never went into her explanation. According to the plot this copy of SM acted strange because it wanted to. If there’s one great thing Roxie got absolutely right is the character doesn’t act like a moron. It’s also the only time where the curiosity trope actually works here with no issues. One, her life wasn’t in danger nor was it going to and two, even if she continued nothing terrible would lead to the outcome. That’s the big difference compared to Mario 64: Damned where Moron in that story knew the dangers of the game but continued anyway. Finally, we reached the last part, and on the “See you next mission” screen SM lets the painful roars of the bosses and Samus play out. We have come to the fourth strike, so far, and it’s the way the next scene was written. The Woman gets startled so much by jumping from the seat suddenly that the “heavy” metal chair she sat on somehow falls over. The object folds and lands on the cartridge while in the system. Roxie explains this happening by "fell over top of it” causing the cartridge (that was in the system) to split in half. If I understand, the person jumps out of fear from the 16-bit roaring sounds so much that the chair she sat on falls on the system? That doesn’t make any sense as a folded metal chair wouldn’t just fold and tip overall because a person jumps to a standing position suddenly. Another thing I also noticed is it’s never explained whether the Super NES was on a low desk or the floor. Even then the chair wouldn’t suddenly tip forward when her movements should've made the object go backwards. The entire scene was written terribly and extremely vague to the point none of this made any sense. Roxie should go back to revising some parts including this one and how her character’s copy of SM started acting strange. The CP’s name also needs some work, and the second time; I saw a title of the same game get used for a story. Using the title of the same name is very uncreative, and a more original one is needed. Honestly, this was a terribly written CP and it’s the worst one on Metroid compared to the others. With authors such as Yuber Neclord and even L.W. Sulton setting such a high example for gaming CPs makes it hard to enjoy this plot. Those themes being expertly written isn’t the sole reason they are the finest but the fact those stories also used good grammar and sentence structure. I will start with the writing and sweet Celestia is it all over the place with the sentence structure and punctuation. There were several times Roxie used commas when none were needed half the time. Usually, when a comma is used it means the writer or character is pausing for a second then continues explaining something. You don't just throw these in thinking this will make your writing come off good. Then there were misspelled words (seriously the word missile wasn't even spelled right many times) along with a few that weren't used right. Let's also not forget how awkwardly she explains the heavy metal chair destroying the cartridge by stating how the object "fell over top of it". I'm just mind boggled by this as the sentence makes no sense. Another thing if the system was in front of her and the chair toppled to the side, how could it land on the cartridge. A better question is how it splits the plastic case when the durability of these cartridges is widely known. Whether this is a personal blog or a professional review, you always have to proofread. Granted I also make mistakes when checking my work and would find some issues in typos and grammar later. Even then I still proofread my work, and nothing was stopping the writer from doing the same thing. Now for the story itself literally had no meaning and things were just happening out of the blue. Does the author expect me to buy the character's game acting up for not using it for years? Even some of the worst CPs on gaming always had a reason whether it was ridiculous or not. Was a glitch causing SM to act up? Is this some unknown entity causing the problem? Did someone break into her parent's house, took the game and put it back as the hacker's personal agenda? The Author never explained why these weird anomalies were happening and despite there being some build up; it just leads to nothing. Let's not forget how blood was thrown in just to make these moments scary for the kiddies. Explaining the sprite was bleeding from the crevices of the armor is a cliché that wasn't needed. What makes this even more stupid is after Samus's suit shatters there is very little gashes or cuts for that much blood to come out. That doesn't make any sense as how is this creepy in the slightest? Some good CPs uses blood, however, when written right it can add to the creepiness. The only thing the author did right for the story was asking someone to make mock images and animated gifs depicting the imaginary. Despite the mockup imaginary, that doesn't make it a good excuse to have this as your only redeeming factor. The woman not coming off as a moron was also the best thing about the plot. Rating: 5.4/10 Mediocre Sources Story: someordinarygamers.wikia.com. Super Metroid. Roxie-Curtis. http://someordinarygamers.wikia.com/wiki/Super_Metroid Images: someordinarygamers.wikia.com. Super Metroid. Urkel. http://someordinarygamers.wikia.com/wiki/Super_Metroid
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Retro Gamer has over 25 years of gaming experience and played many classics since the Golden Age. She has been an avid fan since the day the NES graced her life and changed it forever.
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