Like most NES games unleashed upon modern gamers, Metroid's biggest stumbling block is its' difficulty. It'll take quite a bit of effort to level up your character enough so you don't get slaughtered by even the minor enemies. Things are made that much worse by a total lack of any sort of map screen, which can make navigating this game's relatively large world a bit of a hassle.

But once you get your character powered up with the good weapons, Metroid becomes an incredibly fun ride. Mario can keep those mushrooms and fireballs; I'll take rolling bomb runs and screw attacks over them any day of the week.

And Metroid still has some of the coolest bosses ever created. When you beat these monstrosities, you know you've actually accomplished something. It's just too bad that the road to get there is often fraught with head-banging frustration.

Look at the bright side, though. At least with the VC you won't have to bother with any of those ungodly long passwords form the original version. Though, for the cheaters out there, all of the original codes still work, including the famous "Justin Bailey" one, which revealed that our hero here was actually *gasp* a woman.