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Having been on a Metroid kick as of late, I played through the original Metroid without save states while wishing to try out these save patches. I can verily say this made the original game that much more fun. The save file system looks great, and it still allows you to play the "New Game Plus" feature with Armor-less Samus and still save as well with all your power ups. While the password system was great for its time, being able to save your progress works great for those wishing to take their time looking around and learning the maps of the game. Speaking of which, pausing allows you to see the map much like Super Metroid, which is really helpful.

The mini-map in the corner is a really welcome too. However, it seems to be causing some glitching (a little more like clipping where the sprites will disappear briefly) for anything moving in that section of the screen, which is very noticeable with some enemies on the ceiling and collecting items from the Chozo statues. Nothing that prevents gameplay but it is not there, or maybe not nearly as much, on a vanilla game. Also, when defeating Mother Brain, one of the sprite tiles did not disappear after killing her. Note that I am playing the standard patch, and not the extended ROM patch so I don't know if that makes a difference. Hopefully this is something that can be fixed in a future update.

While this is a change to the old start with 30 health, having the refill on health is really a welcome addition. This really makes the game more accessible to newcomers and makes getting the better endings to the game a bit easier.

Hats off to the snarfblam for making the original patch, and for Simply Danny for updating it. I completely recommend this for anyone looking to play NES Metroid for the first time.

With all the improvements that were made in the original patch, plus the ones you made for this one, the game is much more enjoyable, like the mini-map and that you now start with all the energy tanks full. Although, the only complaint I have is some graphical glitches that appear in some sections, like in the Kraid and Ridley statues section, where the sprites of both Samus and the statues disappear, unless Samus is in sphere form , I'd like to see that fixed for a future update, but apart from that. Still, it's still a great expansion.

This patch does everything it sets out to do, and I especially like that it moved the mini-map to the right hand corner instead of keeping it on the left side of the screen, like in the 0.4 version. It's hard to go back after experiencing the fast door transitions. The changes will even work with Metroid mOTHER, if you create a diff patch between Metroid + Saving 0.3 and this version, and then apply that diff patch to Metroid mOTHER.

The palette glitches seem to have been fixed, from the brief testing I did, and given that, I can now wholeheartedly recommend this hack.

This is by far the best and only way to play Metroid to date. It definitely makes you not want to play it the original way again. To begin, the health meter is automatically refilled on death or after save & quitting. This is a HUGE deal and the main reason why I recommend this hack. The original Metroid was difficult and stressful for this reason, you had to grind for health and it took forever since enemies only drop 5 health points and only IF they drop anything. This makes the game much more approachable to newcomers and anyone who's played the game before. I've beaten this game 2-3 times in the past and I thought I was never gonna touch the original Metorid ever again. This fixes the main problem I had with the game, health. It feels more like a regular game now. It's much more forgiving when you die since you'll start at the beginning of the area with full health. Next, the built in map. I know where to go in Metroid, but I don't have the entire game's map memorized. With the built in map I was never lost and it led me to where the main powerups were. This way you can beat the game without a computer or phone at your side with a map loaded. Now it's much more like Super Metroid where you can press start and look at the map. Third, the ability to save. This makes it easy to put the game down and continue later, and knowing that you will get full health. One big advantage to this is the ability to save and quit by pressing start then up+A. This always brings you back to the start of each area (brinstar, norfair, kraid, etc) which is a great way to bypass backtracking after defeating the bosses. This helped speed up the game so much, that I got the fully revealed samus ending while taking my time. This game loves to make you backtrack, so say goodbye to that.

Now here's the issue I had with the hack, and a suggestion. The hack refills your health, but NOT your missiles. So if you faced kraid for example and you lost, you would have a low supply of missiles and would have to grind. And the enemies barely drop missiles! They only refill 1 missile at a time, so it takes forever grinding for missiles. I'd suggest making the missiles refill upon death or save/quitting to avoid this issue. The game was so fun and playable until I had to grind for missiles which killed the pace. This would definitely be an issue for the Mother Brain fight because it's not easy, and imagine losing then you won't have enough missiles. So you'd have to grind for 100+ missiles before you can retry. I used a save state to avoid this issue. Once I completed my playthrough, I immediately came here to review this hack because I really enjoyed it.

The other issue is a known one, occasionally the graphics will load incorrectly but it doesn't happen that often. And it doesn't ruin the game at all, sometimes I don't even notice it. Despite this issue, I highly recommend this hack to anyone playing the original Metroid, the painless way. This hack is nearly perfect, just two issues with it. But even so, I still recommend everyone to use this patch, it's that good!

One last suggestion I have is to make the health recovery heal more. At least 10 health points. I just came from playing Super Metroid and that game had two types of health drops. It seems that Metroid only has one and its small. Also the game loves to drop health even when I don't need any, when I need missiles. In Super Metroid the enemies drop nothing when you're full.