How to Beat Metroid in Under an Hour | Quick Guide

A guide on how to get the best ending in the original Metroid! This is what I believe to be the easiest route to follow in order to get the best ending. I think that this is something anyone can do with a little practice, and it feels good to achieve.
If you have any questions; feel free to let me know in the comments.
#Metroid #NES #Guide

[@whimsicalsprites]

Thank you so much for making this video. I have used it to reference the entire run a few times. I did the entire thing in 50 minutes tonight. I couldn’t have done it without you. Thank you so much! Subbed! 🥪

[@HPRshredder]

You're welcome! Congrats on getting the best ending!

[@michaelf9664]

Gotta say I'm super impressed by your psychological savvy here. It's one thing to know the ins and outs, it's another to communicate it in a way that eases the stress and makes it feel accessible for non-speedrunners. May that aspect of yourself serve you well in your personal and/or professional lives.

[@HPRshredder]

I appreciate that! I’m not a speedrunner, myself, but I am someone who has experienced their fair share of stress and self-doubt. The truth is that anyone can beat these games. It just takes a little practice and patience.

[@CrimsonTomb]

Best guide, just beat it right now. Thanks bro

[@HPRshredder]

Nice. Hell yeah.

[@Exmotable]

this is a really well put together and comprehensive guide! is there anything you CAN'T do?

[@HPRshredder]

There is almost no limit to what I cannot do lol

[@je7055]

~55 minutes on my first attempt, whew! The only thing I changed from this route was not getting the second E-tank and missile tanks to the right of the Varia Suit. Instead, I went back to the gold shaft and went straight to Norfair, then eventually just made up the missile pack from the first room on the right in Kraid's lair, since it's pretty much right on the other side of that first red door, and got the E-tank in Kraid's room to make up for the one I skipped. Otherwise I stuck to this route and it was immensely helpful. For anybody who happens to be hesitant to try this, go for it, it was surprisingly kind of a breeze. I got it despite wasting a good 2+ minutes farming Metroids in Tourian, in the last vertical room two rooms before Mother Brain, desperately trying to get one more missile drop from them. I definitely recommend playing before, once you get comfortable fighting Metroids they're a piece of cake but they'll probably kill you a few times the first time you encounter them. Give sub-1h a try when you're comfortable with Tourian and the MB fight! Thanks for posting this, never would've bothered to give it a try otherwise!

[@metal6948]

I like how he calls the little circle things cheerios

[@Berzerkules]

Well done. Thank you! I was able to beat this in under an hour as a kid but going back to it on the NES mini, I couldn't remember how on earth I did it so many years ago

[@ThatFaceMelter94]

I discovered farming for health and missiles in Tourian. I speed ran this many times finding myself stranded in Tourian after dying and not having enough missiles to beat the game. As soon as you head in there, make sure you have plenty of missiles and when you reach the second to last door before MB (I believe) go in and out and you'll be swarmed by 2 or 3 metroids. Spam your ice beam, rinse and repeat until you've got plenty of health and missiles. Much faster than going back up and farming.

[@joshuapappas776]

Dude thank you so much I had tried to beat this so many times using other guides and YOU finally managed to help me beat it! Not only that you made it seem easy! I've been trying to 100 percent all the games on my NES classic edition and I've been at the Metroid roadblock for so long but finally I am finished. Thank you again :)

[@HPRshredder]

Happy to help! I’m glad you were able to complete your 100% journey!

[@TVCupcakes]

Thank you very much for the guide, I needed it!

[@HPRshredder]

Happy to help! 😎

[@TheSnoopyclone]

I had such a hard time with this game as a child. Having to stride through it and completing the game felt quite an accomplishment. Having achieved that, I have remembered the game by heart. It was fun exploring the game after completing it for more potential secret and hidden areas. It is too bad that such a game no longer exist.

[@Doctormario4600]

What a fantastic guide. Thanks so much for making this, did it first try no sweat

[@HPRshredder]

Glad it helped!

[@RETROSTARR76]

Awesome video Man....

[@makocrab2223]

This guide is great! Nice and easy. Thanks!

[@HPRshredder]

Hope it helped!

[@makocrab2223]

It absolutely did!

[@mitri4939]

I love how suportive you are

[@richardoaks8333]

I had given up on metroid feeling like it would be a confusing mess, but after watching your review, I went into it with a new perspective. I decided I was going to enjoy it. And I did I finished metroid for the first time with no map, no guide. Just found my way around. I used save states, but that's it. Thanks for helping me add this to my list of completed nes games. It was years in the making. Ill shoot for under an hour next!

[@HPRshredder]

I’m so glad you were able to beat and have a positive experience with Metroid! And I have to say, it really does fell good getting the best ending. I think it’s possible for anyone to do it if they try. Let me know if you get it!

[@richardoaks8333]

@HPRshredder I watched your quick video last night and decided to go for it today. Switch doesn't have a way to soft reset so I had to backtrack out of hideout 1 and 2. I also had to farm before going in to tourian, and they just wouldn't drop missles! I'm not sure the exact time, but I did manage to get the second best ending, and it was definitely close! I only used save state for the mother brain fight for time saving purposes. Ill get there! The thing that you noted on your review that really helped me feel like I could do it was when you said that the clues in the game were mostly familiar to other clues. And the map isn't really that big anyway. Now that I've finished it, I feel like a map might have made the game too easy. Super metroid has secrets beyond the map, it's big enough to need one. But metroid is small enough, and the loops become intuitive as you play. My whole feeling on this game has changed. I think I'll be playing it again and again as the years go by, I just love the feel and always have. The new tagline should be "misunderstood masterpiece!" Love your channel, and your attitude about how to approach games. You'll be seeing me in the comments of your other videos.

[@Taldorin]

Really well done guide! I never knew about that bomb tunnel in ridelys to get to the tanks! Also despite knowing about the fake tiles I always forget where they are and fall in them anyways. I've also never tried bombing kraid that seems much easier I always froze his spikes and got between them and him. Id say the only differences in my runs is i usually only get varia before heading into tourian just to save a trip up and I never grab screw attack to the point i even forgot where it was but I do not recommend that for someone looking for an easy time

[@HPRshredder]

No screw attack is pretty hardcore. I feel like I depend on it - probably too much. Unless I have the Wave Beam I guess but I usually don’t pick that up.

[@richardoaks8333]

No screw attack??? Might try that run sometime...

[@dangerrrman]

this was perfect, thank you!

[@HPRshredder]

Hope it helped!

[@dangerrrman]

@@HPRshredder subscribed!

[@denmasterben2348]

AWESOME!!! thank you!

[@samuelbaugh4952]

Nice guide!

[@HPRshredder]

Thanks 😤

[@markm3477]

For an extra challenge, bypass the varia suit, second e tank, high jump and screw attack. ...get that time down to low 30, maybe even sub 30.

[@HPRshredder]

This is more intended as a guide to the best ending rather than a speedrunning guide; but those are good suggestions as to where you could take it if you were interested in getting faster times, so I appreciate your comment.

[@itsasecrettoeverybody]

Great and easy to follow guide.

[@CerealCommander]

Wow, that was really fast, so fast it reminds me of Sonic. Remember Sonic & Sega All-stars racing? Very similar to Mario Kart 64, therefore I must ask; where's the Mario Kart 64 review?

[@itsasecrettoeverybody]

@@CerealCommander he is reviewing games by the order of release of the systems. So it will take a while for him to review any game which name ends with 64.

[@HPRshredder]

I plan to get to 64 eventually! My goal is to make it to the Dreamcast; and possibly Xbox/GameCube/PS2; but that is years away. Thanks for tuning in, guys.

[@CerealCommander]

@@HPRshredder thanks for the confirmation folks...I'll be waiting... and watching

[@itsasecrettoeverybody]

@@HPRshredder I'm already a fan, still need to finish the older episodes tho.

[@SuperJamz64]

I used this guide, and I got the best ending! Thank you!

[@HPRshredder]

Always happy to hear people are getting there! Congratulations! Glad the guide helped.

[@je7055]

I love the original Metroid, IMO the only reason people dismiss it as "skippable" is because Super Metroid is just an upgraded version of it. But I've never done sub-1h and this video is giving me the confidence to try it, I think. One question, if 6 energy tanks is enough to comfortably beat the game, then assuming you don't miss the jump over the hidden pit and you get the 3rd tank, would it not be preferable to get the one in Kraid's room every time instead of the one from freezing an enemy near the start? And maybe using the latter as a safety option if you miss the 3rd tank's jump? Seems a bit quicker, I can imagine that 30 seconds or so potentially making or breaking a run. *edit:* -And if the tank near the start is worth getting every time, why not get both? I guess what I'm getting at is that the one in Kraid's room seems almost free, in terms of time.- Well, given the warp after the Kraid fight, I see why the e-tank near the start would be more useful, aha. Getting it and using the last pipe before Tourian to only fill up on missiles is probably a bit faster than using the pipe to fill up six tanks from 30 health.

[@HPRshredder]

If you had enough time to travel back to the surface without warping you could do that; but, yeah, I think you figured it out -- it's that warping causes you to restart on energy. That's why I save that tank for last. I think it's part of why the developers placed it there.

[@marcoscabezolajr.8408]

Actually it's skippable because it's not a good game. Enemies get stuck in doors, and go through them, knockback juggles you, and in kraid the bugs spawn every half a second

[@je7055]

@@marcoscabezolajr.8408 The only enemy I remember getting stuck in doors was the occasional Zoomer, if it happened to close on them. Some enemies can go through doors yeah, I don't personally see an issue there, and I don't remember ever getting juggled during knockback. The closest thing I can think of to that type of annoyance would be the lack of i-frames when exiting/entering rooms, and the only time I remember _that_ being annoying was the first door in Tourian, where the Rinka hit you as you pass through. I don't remember anything spawning during the Kraid fight other than his own projectiles, but Kraid can just be face-tanked with bombs anyway. Whether it's a good game or not is a matter of opinion, but in terms of the sorts of annoying & inconvenient design quirks and artificial difficulty we associate with the 8-bit era, Metroid's probably in the lower half of offenders in the NES library. It's not remotely as annoying and uncompromising as Castlevania, much less the really hardcore stuff like Ninja Gaiden or Battletoads (as much as I love those games too). Sure, diagonal aiming and running would be nice (and auto-mapping for some folks, I guess). But the reason Super Metroid is universally regarded as one of the greatest games ever is because it's basically just NES Metroid with those little quality-of-life improvements.

[@buffetlace48]

hey man this guide’s been so helpful and has practically made the original metroid a cakewalk. however, i was just wondering if, as a switch player, i can still do the whole reset process following the fight against ridley?

[@bvw22]

You should do a video like this for Metroid 2

[@curtphillipps7830]

Playing this game as a kid when it first came out was a blast I remember staying up all night for days with my brother and cousin playing it accidentally finding hidden walls and rooms getting stuck in ceilings and walls from wall climbing it was so much better than Zelda in the fact there was so much hidden elements in the game

[@crypto_luigi]

Deserves more views.

[@CerealCommander]

Got confirmation that Mario Kart 64 is a while away, I'll be here waiting for the review of the game that copied Sonic & Sega All-stars called Mario Kart 64

[@sumez4369]

Funny, this route is nearly 1:1 the same as what I used to get a sub 45 minute clear. I guess once you got stuff mapped out, it's just the most obvious way to go about it. Might be able to shave off some notable time by not taking the missiles and E-tank after the varia suit, but there's already plenty to spare for the 1 hour requirement. The one thing I did different was resetting to the elevator immediately after getting the screw attack, since going to Ridley's lair is a bit faster that way.

[@whimsicalsprites]

Made it in 36:19 tonight! I am officially starting to speedrun this game now and it is a blast!

[@HPRshredder]

That's faster that I've ever beaten it! Glad it's fun -- I've never attempted a speedrun, but it is one of those games that gets more fun with each playthrough.

[@ThatFaceMelter94]

I don't know how many are playing this through Zero Mission, but I haven't found a way to go to the password menu without dying. After each boss, I had to die on purpose until I ended up at the start. Took time, but I managed to beat it under an hour.

[@HPRshredder]

I didn't realize the original was available on the card for ZM! I haven't payed ZM yet myself.

[@Alan_Chapman]

I do a similar run except I skip the Varia suit (the entire upper floor of Brinstar actually), wait to get ice in Norfair, don’t do any resets. It does mean I have to backtrack up immediately after getting high jump to get ice beam. The rest of the run is pretty similar. Takes about 45 minutes on average. I don’t recommend trying it until you’ve beaten the game at least 4-5 times because going without Varia takes some familiarity and skill.

[@samirasinaie66]

Best part about this run was calling them "cheerios" like we used to 🙂

[@Emberson-9000]

I always thought it was faster to grab Varia from the right than the left.

[@SylentEcho]

Was this all in the manual back in the day? I can't imagine how people first beat this confusing-as-hell game!

[@zacziggarot]

I like this way of getting the varia suit. I saw another guy that suggested using glitch jumps to get into that door and it just seemed a little too technical for me

[@HPRshredder]

I like to keep things simple for myself lol. I’m not good at performing glitches, typically.

[@toadsonytwo]

I followed this guide but i went ahead and got the high jump and screw attack before the varia suit. I still made it to Mother Brain with 19 minutes left.

[@jasonhsu4711]

Why is there no mention of the long beam? The first thing I did after getting my first missile pack was get the long beam. It's easy to get, and it's so essential for dealing with the enemies needed to reach all the other power-ups, missile packs, and energy tanks.

[@HPRshredder]

It's really not necessary when trying to beat it in under an hour. It's not worth the missile or time investment. Most enemies you're not trying to kill. You just need to avoid them. Plus, the long beam has its downsides. If you miss a few shots, you can't fire another until it's made its way off the screen.

[@andrewadkins7869]

Dame game was hard back in the day 😢

[@markm3477]

Good newbie guide...but, don't farm for missiles at 5:40. Farm missiles with Metroids in the next area assuming you have at least 50 or so...

[@digitalworms]

Next Super Metroid! Or metroid 2 for gameboy!

[@PieJacker1]

would this be the same for FDS?

[@HPRshredder]

It would be mostly the same, however, in the Famicom Disk System version you actually have a TWO hours to get the best ending instead of one! Also, there is no continue function in the FDS version -- so you cannot continue immediately after with all of your powers in tact.

[@ChronoChristian]

Looking forwawrd to the "How to Metroid SpeedRun"

[@HPRshredder]

I don't know if I'll ever make it to that point lol. I think if I ever did I'd want to do "glitchless" but no one usually watches those.

[@triplextrean8488]

I can not get my ridely to die he just keeps taking so many hits

[@ronniemakinen]

I just beat this game finally while ago. Very tough classic game at first round, got four ending in first run and in second run i got second ending. This guide look easy but playing it won't be that easy, lol. Mother brain is annyoing boss in this game. 😂

[@HPRshredder]

If you’re trying to get the best ending I wish you the best of luck! It’s tough but definitely do-able

[@ronniemakinen]

@@HPRshredder Thank you. You sure know how to beat this quickly. All NES games are not easy one to beat. 😁😄✌️

[@reedr7142]

My Kraid fight is the reason I struggle doing a 100% no-reset, no-glitch run in under an hour :/

[@HPRshredder]

Have you tried balling up and just mashing bombs? Or are you using missiles?

[@reedr7142]

@@HPRshredder i doubt it. I’ve tried ice and missiles. I’ll have to try the bomb technique next time.

[@wth22]

How do I do that with Nintendo 3ds 4:45

[@HPRshredder]

I think there is still a way to save normally. Essentially that's what you'll need to do. I'll check when I get off work. I have it on the 3DS.

[@HPRshredder]

There is a way to do it!!! You hold L and R and press Y after you’ve paused to switch to controller 2!

[@SuperBadbruce]

I beat Tourian & Mother Brain with only 30 rockets ^^

[@Ultimabuster92]

I LOVE Metroid.... and i HATE it at the same time. I was born as a completionist... yet these games expect you to finish them in a certain amount of time. If i finish a game without having found EVERYTHING it doesn't feel like i beat the game... but if you want the best ending, you need to be fast enough. Getting absolutely everything WHILE being fast enough is impossible... at least for me, i'll never get the ultimate satisfaction out of this game.... it's a dilemma

[@HPRshredder]

I mean, I think with some practice you could do it. There are some speedruns for 100% that are out there and under an hour. But then also, if you play the Japanese version of the game, you actually have *two* hours to get the best ending instead of just one. That is a little more do-able, and it's the original version of the game, so it definitely still counts.

[@jabbyjim]

Omg

[@scottmccomas22]

If I'm playing on Nintendo switch how can I kill myself quickly. I don't have a second controller option

[@HPRshredder]

I'm not entirely sure, but I know on the 3DS there's a way to use the second controller via emulation by holding L and R and pressing Y while paused. I'd be surprised if there were no option to do so on the switch. Maybe a second Joycon could work, even? I'll look further into it if I have a moment.

[@scottmccomas22]

@@HPRshredder I tried holding l1r1 and y. That didn't work.

[@hirador3879]

I gave up already lol

[@HPRshredder]

:'''(

[@himdotcom]

"Cheerios." 😂