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.