Nice. I did the same back in the day (along with many other games, even going back to Raiders of the Lost Ark on the 2600). Darn gamers today all spoiled and such!
^{/me hobbles away on walker, grumbling about people on his lawn}

I always advocate doing that for this game, but gamers these days have wax in their ears. Or since I'm just typing online, I guess it's in their eyes. Gross, gamers these days. Just gross.

I'm replaying Super Metroid now, which I was never able to get into before, as a result of my NES Metroid epiphany.

...I'm...still not enjoying it as much as everyone else. I think it's the controls. The Wall Jump and the Space Jump in particular seem to be rather finicky...either that, or I'm just really, really, really, really bad at them. In fact, it's probably the latter, but it's still not much fun.

I have a lot of good things I can say about it, but I have to admit it's not grabbing me the way the NES one finally did.

It's the former. They both require clunky timing and manuevering.

As for the thread itself, Metroid has always been my favorite entry in the series, and one of my favorite NES games. You describe it perfectly - the feeling of exploring a hostile and unknown world, the ability to understand how it looks and works, discovering methods for discovering secrets... it's the only Metroid game I've managed to get all items in without a guide, because everything is so logical once you figure out a couple things, much like the first Zelda. There are no puzzles, just systematically hidden secrets. Fantastic game, and completely ruined by that monstrosity they called Zero Mission.

Both are really weird to figure out. Once you figure it out though, they're very easy to do, at least wall jumping is.

However, I still find it not 1/10th as fun as it was as a kid. The game is absurdly easy. The absolute opposite of the original. It's replay value is wholly dependent on if you like to do speed runs or low percentage runs. I like racing through games if someone else is playing at the same time (used to set up multiple TVs for Mario races, like in The Wizard), but not speed running something by my lonesome.

Ah, I love this game too.
I always tried to play it and kept giving up. I bought it on the VC, played a little bit, and gave up. A couple months later I'd try again.
Eventually, I found the Ice Beam, and then the rest of the game.

It's soooo good. I typically play through this game at least once a month, sometimes playing it back-to-back(-to-back) with the New Game+. I've beaten it at least a dozen times, usually in about 45 minutes per run (what's Metroid without speed-running, anyway?).

I beat it for the first time as an adult on Wii's VC with no guide or map or anything and I knew from that moment on that I both loved Metroid and that I knew what "hardcore" gaming was.

How was Zero Mission a monstrosity, btw? I mean I loved the original Metroid and even I thought that Zero Mission was a step up in just about every way. Yeah, it's not as hard as the "real" game, but it's longer and quite possibly more enjoyable.

If not ruined, it's at least nothing like the original at all. It's more like Super Metroid and Fusion. I wouldn't call it a step up but a leap in a completely different direction.

i still cant beat it but i love this game....falling into that little lava pit next to motherbrain gets me everytime

I've given this game about 2 hours of playtime so far. It's alright - kept me entertained for a while. To be honest I've never played any metroid game before and styles of this one just annoyed me. Filling up your energy tank is like grinding in an RPG - the only difference being that unlike the RPG you dont get to keep the levels (you just lose them quite quickly).This seems to make the whole process redundant, and feels more like a continual cost that needs to be payed. This just started to feel like I was paying time to play the fun part of the game. Eventually I just became bored of doing it. I might get back to it later, but playing it for long periods of time is a no for me.

The first... third of Super Metroid isn't very good; I almost never finished it because it was so boring. The rest of it is unreal though. It's so atmospheric and beautiful... its ending has got to be one of my all-time favorites. But yeah, the controls and physics can be pretty clunky, though I did end up getting used to them.

It might not be as awesome if you've already played through the first Metroid. Finding cleverly hidden items and exploring a huge open world was pretty much new to me in a platformer when I first played it, and I think that's partly why I love it so much.