The Development of the Original NES Metroid
Metroid Prime & Metroid Fusion Staff Interview - N.O.M. March 2003
http://www.metroid-database.com/features/nomsakamoto.php
With regards to the story, what was the concept behind making the Famicom Disk version of Metroid?
Sakamoto: To tell the truth, Metroid wasn’t a game I came up with. At that time, R&D1 was also making new titles for the Disk System. Therefore, production was entrusted to two new guys, and I was making a different game [Wrecking Crew -ed.]. However, I came back to the studio, and there was just an image of a character with incredible physical abilities firing a gun in space-themed level, but it wasn’t a finished game. So, all the surrounding staff, including me, began working on it. Although I say this now, since the release date had been decided, I couldn’t afford to add any new technical specifications. However, regarding the nature of the game, we had no options other than “jump, run, and shoot”. I thought, “With these abilities, what would be best?” and I had everyone design a game about exploring a dungeon looking for power-ups.
Memories of Making Metroid - 2003
http://www.siliconera.com/2011/12/26/memories-of-making-metroid/
Sakamoto: The original Metroid first came into being as our desire to create a game that took place in a gloopy, alien-like world. In early development, there were only rows of blocks, and the backgrounds didn’t give you the sense that they were alive. The Chozo were also something that resulted from this process.
The game was headed up by then-newcomers Hirofumi Matsuoka and Hiroji Kiyotake, but when it came to representing the civilization of an undiscovered planet, I’d hand what I’d written to Matsuoka and tell him “Put this in,” and he would. [Laughs]
Famicom Disk System interview - Nintendo Dream 2004
http://www.metroid-database.com/m1/fds-interview-p0.php
Sakamoto: We were doing it with IS* (Intelligent Systems), making the technical specs for things like the graphics and the movement engine that was done by IS, they would give us the assembled program, and I would bring it back to Nintendo; I had to do this repeatedly so we could evaluate the whole thing.
When Mr. Sakamoto finally saw the Famicom version of Metroid, he said it was a game only about running and shooting! (Laughs)
Sakamoto: Yeah, that’s right! (Laughs) We made the running and shooting move very smoothly, but the game’s development didn’t expand, as it was dangerous to do that close to release date. However, I wasn’t thinking about that! Without warning, I said something like, “Let’s try this!” As an example of how it was done at IS, basically, if they were told to take the stance of following instructions reliably, they would do no more than that. For me, though I was stacking my introductory experiences from small games with “stage clear” [designs] like Balloon Fight, even though I suddenly said, “Let’s make something huge!” I thought it would be hard to do. Moreover, I had wondered if I, one of those guys who had been neglected, would make something completely worthless.
In those days, that was the usual method of making games?
Kiyotake: In summary, somebody would think of the foundation for part of the game and everyone would give it a try, and I think this was the general flow of development. Therefore, you could show anyone the prototype you’d made, but when the release date was fixed, at that time, you weren’t allowed to take it out.
Sakamoto: Although a release date had been fixed, in that space [before release date], there was a reasonable gray zone.
Is that so! (Laughs) Well, was the title for the “only running and shooting” game fixed from the very beginning?
Kiyotake: There was one more staff member,* and the two of us decided on it. We attached “android” to the “metro subway” and that’s how we got “Metroid”.
Sakamoto: However, before that, the game was called Space Hunter.
Osawa: Samus is a “bounty hunter”, or perhaps I should say a little before she was created, she was a “space hunter”. Wasn’t “space hunter” written [to describe her] in the instruction manual?* I mean space warrior.
Sakamoto: There wasn’t enough time to correct it as “bounty hunter” [in the manual]?
Osawa: Yes, if I remember correctly.
Well, although it didn’t come out at the conclusion of the last interview, with regards to the naming of Samus Aran, it might have been a reference to the real name of Pelé [Edison Arantes Nascimento], the god of soccer…
Kiyotake: Ah ha ha ha! That’s right. Even the name of the protagonist could be put together in this manner, and if I wanted to give someone a strange name, I could refer to Pelé’s name. However, I could be mistaken…
I want to know if we’re mistaken! (Laughs)
Sakamoto: Kiyotake, If you check if Pelé’s real name was “Samus Arantes”, that’s a little incorrect. He’s called “Something” Arantes Nascimento*, and only “Aran” matches. (Laughs)
Kiyotake: In reference to that, I made her name sound like his. Nevertheless, personally, I thought “Samus Aran” would get changed, but how appropriate it was put together in that way. If someone thought to change it partway [through development], then it remained that way and was released [like that]! (Laughs)
Sakamoto: Even as regards to true names, among other things, development would move forward! (Laughs)
Kiyotake: In addition, “SR388”, the planet on which the Metroids were discovered, comes from a bike engine! (Laughs) In Yamaha’s bikes, there is a series called SR400, and in those days, while it was called 400cc, you didn’t have any choice but 388cc, but it was written like that for the time being, and that’s how it came out! (Laughs)
Mr. Kiyotake, what kinds of thoughts did you have when making Metroid?
Kiyotake: About that time, I would just make the kinds of images I liked because I was just joining the company, so I didn’t have any thoughts like, “This is how games should be.” So I thought it was ok to make what I wanted, and the company also gave me the liberty to do so. In those days, the game characters of big hits like Super Mario Bros. had only two or three frames of animation for the head and body. Because of this, I wanted to make something that felt a bit more realistic, and although I felt I could manage to do that when I began making Metroid, today it doesn’t look realistic at all! (Laughs)
Didn’t you do the design of Samus, Mr. Kiyotake?
Kiyotake: That was in the original Metroid.
When Metroid came out, I recall people were greatly confused by the map.
Sakamoto: Although different staff was in charge of the map, it was attacked by everyone with reckless abandon. They would say such things as, “This isn’t interesting!” or, “Players won’t understand it!” Because of that, the opinion of part of the development staff was that we should rebuild the whole thing. Moreover, regarding Samus’ running, although they truly felt Samus should be made to run even faster, if it were done that way, she would immediately arrive at the edge of a platform. Nevertheless, if at all possible, we wanted to make Samus run faster, and so the map became more expansive.
The Origins of Metroid - IGN Sep 2010
http://www.ign.com/articles/2010/09/07/the-origins-of-metroid
IGN: And how about the other key features of the Metroid series? What was the development like back then?
Yoshio Sakamoto: Almost all of the elements which now define the Metroid series were decided in the first Metroid game. Back then, we didn’t have enough time, we didn’t have enough resources, but we still had to make this game. And we had to work fast! A young designer came up with the very basic structure and we knew our game would come out for the Famicom Disc System. But even before we started working the launch date was decided. We weren’t able to increase the amount of memory we had for the game and we were not allowed to make major changes to the core engine - but we had freedom in terms of game structure. In a way, we were stuck; stuck between high walls and we had to think of a way out. This is the feeling we also put in the game. Maybe, you could blast a little hole in the wall? This might lead you to another room or corridor. This is how the basic structure of the game came about.
So we could blast a hole into a wall. That got us thinking – what else could we do, can we perhaps go up? So we came up with the ice-beam. The ice-beam is also the result of rational thinking. We had very limited memory. So we decided that Samus should be able to jump on frozen enemies and use them as a platform. And that was a great help for saving memory. All we had to do was change an object’s colour and by simply changing the so-called collision-check the former enemy suddenly becomes a stepping stone; a really nice gameplay element that hardly requires any memory at all. So the original Metroid was the result of a lot of hard work and many of the features were hit upon by coincidence.
IGN: You surprised players all across the world when you revealed that Samus is actually a woman at the end of the first Metroid in 1986. Was Samus’ gender fixed from the beginning or was it more of a spontaneous idea?
Yoshio Sakamoto: When we were almost done with the development of Metroid, one of our staffers casually suggested “Why don’t we make Samus Aran a female character to surprise the player?” Back then I thought it was a nice idea, but I couldn’t foresee what a huge impact this would have on the future of the franchise. Up to this day, I’m thankful to the person that came up with this idea, although I honestly can’t recall who actually made the suggestion.
Metroid Zero Mission Developer Roundtable - IGN 2004
http://www.ign.com/articles/2004/01/30/metroid-zero-mission-director-roundtable?page=3
Sakamoto: It is true that in developing the original Metroid, we were partway through the development processes when one of the staff members said, “Hey, wouldn’t that be kind of cool if it turned out that this person inside the suit was a woman?” So that’s how we decided on that.
Samus has been described as a bounty hunter in all of the Metroid games until now, and we haven’t really followed up with that in the storyline. A lot of that had to do with trying to present Samus with a cool bounty hunter background. Obviously if we tried to take that into another game, it would be an entirely different style of gameplay. But just because she’s described as a bounty hunter isn’t generally the focus of what she does, and it’s certainly not the defining characteristic of Samus Aran.
A Conversation With Hip Tanaka - 1UP.com 2012
http://www.1up.com/features/conversation-hip-tanaka
Hirokazu Tanaka: Metroid is more like a drama, like a movie, so that’s why the music naturally became more complicated, because of the image of the game.
The theme that I had for Metroid when I was creating the soundtrack is that I wanted the people who played the game to feel like they’d accomplished something. I wanted them to feel rewarded for clearing the game. Because of that, I wanted people to feel the music and the atmosphere to be dark and gloomy, to give you a sense of feeling afraid and unsure about things. You’re not confident. And then after you clear the game, you feel rewarded and happy that you cleared the game. So the soundtrack for the ending is the most happy song in the whole game. But I felt like starting the game off like that would make people feel a little down, so that’s why I made the beginning music a heroic theme. That track, as well, doesn’t have a melody to it. It’s a heroic theme, but it doesn’t have a distinct melody.
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