Metroid Month on the Wii Console means yes, Yes, YES!

In honor of Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, which comes out… um…a few days ago (How the hell did I let THAT slip me by?) Nintendo has deemed August the Month of Metroid on the Wii Network. And you know what THAT means, right? No? Well, I’ll tell you then. It means that you can pick up both the original Metroid (yawn) and also the seminal sequel Super Metroid (HECK YES!) for moderately low, low prices.

But before I get into just why I don’t care about Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, let me talk about a topic that’s very near and dear to my heart…the game, Super Metroid (You thought I was going to start talking about diabetes, didn’t you?).

Aside from Super Mario World, Super Metroid might just be the best game available to purchase on the Virtual Console, and here’s why. Costing you a measly 800 points, Super Metroid pretty much made everybody who thought they had the whole MetroidVania genre figured out do a double take as its lush graphics, epic quest, and interesting storyline revolutionized the SNES.

This game is around the seventh chronologically (or ninth if you’re counting that Pinball thing, and Gameboy remake of the original, Zero Mission) in the immensely detailed Samus canon (The Prime games actually exist between the original and Super Metroid, even though they came out much later), and also represents a turning point in the Metroid series that…well, why spoil it for you kiddies out there who haven’t played it yet? Your parents have money, go and bug them already.

But now, on to why I couldn’t give two sweet pitoots about Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Quite frankly, as loud as the plaudits were for the original Prime, I just couldn’t get into it. Actually, let me rephrase that, I STILL can’t get into it, even after a second, unbiased run through. And despite many claims that you don’t have to be an FPS fan to like the game, they’re wrong. Dead wrong. The game has the stinky stain of FPS all over it, and it shows as soon as you get to the first boss and have to aim with Halo like precision to nail the jump jiving target.

And personally, I’m sick of this behind the visor crap now anyway and want to see Samus Aran’s beautiful metal figure in glorious 2-D action outside of a Smash Brothers game, thank you very much. Is there anybody else out there with me on this? I mean, even Tony Hawk threw in Bam Margera to spice up the series. So couldn’t Nintendo do the same thing with Metroid?

Oh, and by the way, I mean spice up the series, not throw in Bam Margera. That would just be stupid.