Over on the Stone Age Gamer Podcast, we've been doing a Metroid retrospective series in honor of the franchise's 30th anniversary. Naturally, this inspired me to start playing through some entries in the series again, and I didn't realize just how long it had been! The first stop on my nostalgia tour was the sublime Metroid: Zero Mission for Game Boy Advance. I decided to shell out the 8 bucks to buy it on the Wii U Virtual Console, and that turned out to be an excellent idea for a multitude of reasons.

First, the game looks stellar on the big screen. I know this is a point of contention among many gamers, but no matter how blocky or chunky something looks, as long as those edges are crystal clear, I think they look great. I remember a year or so ago when I played through Metroid Fusion on Wii U VC I was equally impressed. You really get to see all the detail they put into the visuals, and even though it's clearly VERY pixelated, it still looks absolutely fantastic. That said, Zero Mission looks better. The art direction in this game is just gorgeous, and seeing it on my big screen while sitting on my couch in my living room was quite an experience.

Second, speaking of my couch, siting on it while playing this game with my Wii U Pro Controller was also a delight. Again, I've heard a lot of folks take opposing sides on this controller, but it honestly may be one of my favorite controllers ever made. I love the button placement, I love how it all feels, it's got a great D-pad, and the battery life is absurdly long. I very distinctly remember playing through Zero Mission for the first time on the 7 train to Queens back when it first came out, and this blows that experience away. Plus, if you grab the gamepad, you can use headphones and get that sweet, sweet Zero Mission soundtrack blaring in your ears.

Third and finally, I can not believe how much my son likes watching me play this game. And that's really fun. He's 3, so I don't think I'm ruining any sort of surprises for him, but he thinks Samus is cool, he loves saying "Metroid" and he cuddles up next to me while I play. It really doesn't get much better than that.

I finished Zero Mission in just a few hours (it's a very short game) but my son wanted more. So, I started up on Super Metroid. It's been far too long since I've actually sat down and played this one through, so I'm very excited to get further into it. Speaking of games whose art direction hold up, man this game still looks good. And just for kicks, I fired up the NES Metroid on my Everdrive N8 and have been slowly making my way through that one as well.

I hope I can continue to find this kind of time to play, because I really want to replay more of this series. As I get older, the ability to replay games has become quite a luxury, but there are few games worth replaying as much as the best in the Metroid series. And now, back to Zebes.