Question about "Kid Icarus"

[anikom15]

Metroid had a manual with maps and other hints. It wasn’t that arcane.

[rainwarrior]

Metroid had a manual with maps and other hints. It wasn’t that arcane.

It hid the last two areas behind a very inconspicuous spot on the floor that you have to decide to bomb. Other than that one point, I think it's pretty reasonable.

[Pokun]

Without the manual you would have no way to know the name of the area you are in, or where to go, as it's not indicated in the game. But other than that, the maps are not really helpful for anything outside the first part of Brinstar, as they don't show any details. And considering that there are so many areas that looks identical, especially in Norfair, it's almost impossible to play without drawing a map. This is unlike both Zelda games which are perfectly fine without drawing anything. The only exception might be the final temple in Zelda 2 which is a bit too large to keep track of in your head.

Obscure passages are not that bad since you are probably bombing all over the place all the time anyway. I think Zelda 1 is worse in this regard, as both burning trees and bombing walls is a slow process that basically requires the red candle and lots of bombs. Though if you want to grab all energy and missile tanks, Metroid is probably worse than Zelda 1, and only Zelda 2 is easy to 100%-complete.

[Nikku4211]

Clearly Nintendo wanted to make it harder for people who rented their games off of Blockbuster, where Nintendo won a lawsuit against Blockbuster over photocopied manuals.

[Pokun]

But the NES manual is basically just translated version of the FDS manual. In Japan I don't think video game rental was even allowed, so this probably wasn't part of the plan when designing the manual.

I think the reason why part of the games from this time often had to be included in the manual is to the save memory and work required to put it in the game. Metal Slayder Glory is an example where the developers said that they couldn't fit the whole story in the game, so the first part of it was put in the manual's backstory section. Zelda also has a list of items after a very short version of the backstory is displayed, and ends with a note to look up any details in the manual. There is no space for detailed item descriptions in-game.

Modern games usually has intro, cut-scenes, item descriptions and tutorials so that a manual is hardly needed anymore.

[gauauu]

It hid the last two areas behind a very inconspicuous spot on the floor that you have to decide to bomb. Other than that one point, I think it's pretty reasonable.

I mostly agree, but I wonder about the location of the varia, particularly since you have to do so much backtracking to get it (unless you do the ice beam ttrick). Is there any in-game clue about that one?

[rainwarrior]

I think the varia location is obscure, but it's not an essential item in Metroid like it is in later games. It's helpful for sure, but not an outright progression blocker.

Things that help hint it a little, which don't apply for the "bomb the floor" spot: there's an enemy in that room that might flight over your head. There's reason to try shooting the ceiling without just checking every ceiling. Repeated shots are a lot easier than repeated bombs in this respect too. You can also see an inaccessible enemy below the floor here, which is weird... the secret isn't below the floor of course, but maybe it provides a very weak hint to try weird stuff in this room.