Metroid turns 30 years old today

Metroid turns 30 years old today

Today marks the 30th anniversary of the Metroid series. The first Metroid game was released on the Famicom in Japan (The NES in the West) on August 6th, 1986. It was released a year later in the US, and another year later in Europe.

Metroid is one of Nintendo’s key franchises, the others including Mario and Zelda. Metroid was one of the first games ever to have a female protagonist. Although in order to reveal the identity of Samus Aran, players had to complete the game in under five hours.

Since 1986, Metroid has been re-released several times, most moteably on the GameBoy Advance and the Wii Virtual Console. It will also be included as one of the 30 games on the new NES Mini console.