VC Tuesday: Metroid's Japanese boxart is really great

by JC Fletcher { Mar 4th 2008 at 10:30AM }

The Japanese version of Metroid differs from the American version in four major ways:

It comes on a disk instead of a cartridge
Thanks to the Famicom Disk System hardware, that music has instruments that don't show up in the cartridge version
It uses a Zelda-style save screen instead of passwords
The boxart is amazingly awesome

The Virtual Console version doesn't come on any media, has no box, and, of course, uses the decent Wii savestate system, so that just leaves us with the music. Is better music a fair trade for getting the game seven months after we did?

As for Star Luster, the Japanese version differs from its U.S. counterpart in just one way:

It exists

Metroid (Famicom Disk System, 1 player, 500 Wii Points)
Star Luster (Famicom, 1-2 players, 500 Wii Points)

Tags: metroid, nes, star-luster, vctuesday

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jonathan Tran @ Mar 4th 2008 10:47AM

Well they gave away Samus' gender with the high-heeled boots, neh?

Randy @ Mar 4th 2008 10:49AM

Better music is not worth it IMO unless the original is soo bad that you have to play w/ the sound muted. Which is not the case w/ the original Metroid. Although I really hated the password games, it was such a PITA to enter those.

Cyantre @ Mar 4th 2008 1:12PM

I have the soundtrack to the Famicom version of Metroid and it doesn't sound better, it sounds worse in my opinion. I definitely prefer the NES sound-chip.