30th Anniversary of Metroid

Happy Birthday, Metroid! Today, 30 years ago, Metroid was released for the Famicon and was followed by eleven more games over the years.

Nintendo won't celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the Metroid franchise, probably because there is nothing to celebrate. In fact the only thing that happened since the 25th Anniversary was the release of Metroid Prime: Blast Ball two weeks ago. We will be getting Metroid Prime: Federation Force soon, but otherwise the franchise has been pretty much dead.

There was no Metroid Prime 4 on Wii U, there was no traditional Metroid on 3DS. And if there was, Federation Force would probably see a better reception or at least more tolerance by the community. It's really the feel of abandonment that's the issue here, ever since Other M it seems like Nintendo is done with Metroid.

But still, the community is celebrating, where you can follow Metroid30th on Twitter for lots of cool stuff around the 30th Anniversary. And it gets even better: the Project AM2R - Another Metroid 2 Remake - was released just in time for the 30th Anniversary and remakes Metroid II - Return of Samus in the style of Zero Mission. So, even if Nintendo isn't doing anything for the 30th Anniversary of Metroid, the fans sure are.

For me personally Metroid still is my 2nd favorite Nintendo series, because with its Action Adventure gameplay it's pretty close to The Legend of Zelda. The Metroid Prime Trilogy is easily one of the best things that Nintendo ever has released and I also love the other games in the series, even Other M, which I have replayed one year ago in Hard Mode just for fun. With the 30th Anniversary I also want to play through most Metroid games again, but I'll probably save this for the next year, after I'm done with my current 30th Anniversary journey through the Zelda series and after Breath of the Wild, which does incorporate futuristic elements and might be a nice transition to Metroid.