Make your own adventure books were all the rage once upon a time, at least that's how this scribe remembers the late '80s and early '90s. With nothing but descriptive text, maybe a small number of illustrations, a dice and a good imagination, you would embark on journeys around the world, try to win the league as manager of a football / soccer team, or save the galaxy as Samus Aran. Yep, in Japan you didn't need a video game to experience the series thanks to the Metroid entry in the Famicom Adventure Game Book series - Metroid: Zebesian Incursion.
For those of you not clued in on this fun bit of publishing history, Did You Know Gaming has produced an entertaining look at how the book incorporated mechanics and ideas from the game, and even introduced ideas that would pop up in the games decades later - pretty standard sci-fi tropes, to be fair, but a fun coincidence.
Check it out below:
More notably, thanks to the sterling work of Devin Monnens (@deserthat) you can experience the book as a text adventure online; it makes adjustments to suit the format, but considering the book itself is both extremely rare and in Japanese, this is the way to try it out in English. You can give it a whirl here.
A fun bit of trivia as we eagerly await Metroid Dread this week, we just need to roll a 4 to beat Mother Brain...
[source youtube.com]
Comments 9
I want that suit as DLC.
I have to admit, that suit looks pretty bad*ss. It's got a sort of Gundam or Super Sentai/Power Rangers feel to it.
The idea that her right hand is wired to the gun explains how she can perform different hand gestures to change beam types in Metroid Prime. It's still weird seeing her and exposed like that though, but that's pretty much my only gripe with this design.
@Iggy-Koopa I'd rather have it for free. Don't you think the game is expensive enough?
@BreathingMiit There is such a thing as free DLC
The game is available over metroid-database, known as twinetroid.
Sadly it's glitched.
You can shoot a missile at a Rio and it won't decrease, also when you get to the room where the bombs are, there's a message saying you've already collected the bombs so there no use to enter the room...
Shoooo.
I'd surely try and patch this if i had the source code.
But i guess someone more talented will beat me to it!
I used to love game books, in particular the Fighting Fantasy ones. I still have all my old ones, which is pretty much all of the main series.
I also have 2 of Nintendo’s Adventure Game Books from the earlier 90s, the Zelda ones. Never actually read them, I’ll save it for when my daughters are old enough.
Black-haired Samus is definitely an example of 80's manga character design. No complaints here.
@BreathingMiit Who said it had to be paid DLC?
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