The Metroid series is among the most influential in the video games medium, but it hasn’t been without some struggle. Debuting in 1986, the first game broke ground as not only one of the first games to allow full sidescrolling exploration, but the first game released by a major company to star a woman. Samus Aran is often referred to as the first lady of gaming, and her games make up half of the celebrated Metroidvania genre, a portmanteau of Metroid and “Castlevania: Symphony of the Night,” which was inspired by “Metroid” and further evolved the genre.
Every Metroid game, ranked
From ‘Prime’ to ‘Other M’ and everything in between — except ‘Pinball’
After last month’s “Metroid Dread” release, I revisited several games in the series to reflect on its varying qualities and impact on the medium. This ranking is based on three factors: influence, innovation and whether the game still holds up today. As you’ll see, some of these games haven’t aged well, and the series has constantly surpassed itself. As an aside, we’re not counting “Metroid Prime Pinball,” the 2005 Nintendo DS game, simply because it’s not a Metroid game, it’s a pinball game (albeit a very good one that you should still play).
Without further ado, here are the best Metroid games ever released.
13. Metroid Prime: Federation Force (3DS, 2016)
Even if we’re adamant about not including “Pinball,” it’s hard not to include this multiplayer-focused misfire. The early 2000s saw the Metroid brand flailing about for any kind of relevancy in trying to catch up with its first-person peers, resulting in a confusing series of branded games that barely count as a Metroid experience, including this multiplayer-only title. While “Federation Force” was fun with friends, there’s little doubt this game was a haphazardly thrown together project made to chase a trend.
12. Metroid Prime: Hunters (DS, 2006)
This was the first foray into the Metroid Prime brand entering some sort of weird arena shooter phase, and it’s just as bad for it. There simply were not enough buttons to support the kind of fast-paced shooter gameplay both of these titles hoped to achieve. “Hunters” only squeaks it out because it had a dedicated campaign starring Samus Aran. To be fair, it was stuck on the Nintendo DS, which didn’t have a traditional button layout to support a first-person shooter. “Hunters” tried its best, but it was a victim of form and format.
11. Metroid: Samus Returns (3DS, 2017)
The first Metroid game by Spanish studio MercurySteam was a success. It was an excellent proving ground for the studio to eventually create “Metroid Dread.” This 3DS title is only so low on this list mostly because of its nature as a remake to the Game Boy sequel, “Metroid II: Return of Samus.” Its best ideas were gameplay iterations like the melee counter, all of which are done better in “Metroid Dread.” Also, this is yet another handheld Metroid game that suffers from hand-cramping gameplay. It was a solid remake, even if it lost its horror soul for a more bombastic, space-faring adventure.
But “Dread” has rendered this version rather obsolete. It served best as a resume builder for the studio in its audition to Nintendo and to the fans. “Samus Returns” houses many small innovations, most importantly allowing Samus to finally aim in any direction at any point, not just eight during certain circumstances. The addition of the melee counter also moved the series toward a far more action-heavy direction, one that was pioneered by the next, much-maligned entry in this list.
10. Metroid: Other M (Wii, 2010)
This placement hurts me, because it is easily the most despised of the mainline entries of the series. Long considered the black sheep of the Metroid series, “Other M” was produced and directed by the original creators but developed by Team Ninja, who steered the game toward character action, like the studio’s previous game series Ninja Gaiden. The action part was solid. This was the beginning of Samus Aran finally being portrayed through cutscenes and animations as the unflappable, agile and powerful bounty hunter we know today.
But on the flip side, its story fell short. While it’s the first game to properly portray and mine her past trauma (mentioned only in manga and instruction manuals until then), it was just the wrong context, taking place in the wrong part of the timeline, featuring uninteresting and boring characters, and functioning mostly as a lore dump for the overall story. I’m one of the few Metroid fans who believe the ideas of “Other M” are worth resurrecting, especially when it comes to navigating Samus in a 3-D space outside of a first-person lens. But not like this, not again.
9. Metroid (NES, 1986)
The first game is probably one of the most influential Nintendo games ever that’s aged the most poorly. “Metroid” by Gunpei Yokoi revolutionized the sidescrolling format by creating a game about exploring a planet in any direction on the screen, not just the then-traditional “move right” design philosophy of “Super Mario Bros.” It established the template of finding special items to access areas, using these power to find hidden areas, and rewarding a player’s curiosity and memory through level design.
But this game plays terribly today, and the level design just doesn’t hold up. There are too many indecipherable secrets for anyone but the most seasoned “Metroid” player to enjoy and understand. As I’ve said before in my rankings of The Legend of Zelda games, this first game belongs in a Smithsonian museum, but not anywhere atop any rankings of the best in the series. With all due respect, the series has gratefully evolved past this first important, imperfect step.
8. Metroid 2: Return of Samus (Game Boy, 1992)
The Game Boy sequel squeaks past the original thanks to its focus on atmosphere. While MercurySteam’s remake was a solid update in gameplay, it completely ditched the original’s Dante’s “Inferno”-like structure of Samus going deeper and deeper into an unknown hell. Gunpei Yokoi, the series creator who also designed the Game Boy, understood the limits of his own hardware, narrowed the game’s screen space to create the most claustrophobic Metroid experience to this day.
7. Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (GameCube, 2004)
Make no mistake, “Echoes” is a solid sequel and in many ways improved on “Metroid Prime.” But its level design was less distinctive, which made it harder to follow. Its primary mechanic, switching between “light” and “dark” worlds, made this all the more confusing, and it made the world feel less diverse by adhering to that core gimmick.
Metroid games live and die by their environments, especially the first-person games, and “Echoes” just didn’t deliver enough that was different from the first and didn’t innovate much past fine-tuning some flaws, many of which weren’t exactly washed away. Finding temple keys throughout the game turned it less into an adventure and more of an extended, confusing scavenger hunt, and the game also made the regrettable decision to have expendable special ammo. Despite all that, the game was mostly enjoyable from beginning to end thanks to solid controls and encounter design, and is just another reason the Prime trilogy is among the best Nintendo has ever published.
6. Metroid: Zero Mission (Game Boy Advance, 2004)
This is the definitive version of the first game. “Zero Mission” took the streamlining lessons from “Metroid Fusion,” incorporates the ledge grab and built it on top of the foundation built by “Super Metroid.” This game proved that the first game was always excellent, but it just needed its early, rough edges chiseled out to make it almost perfect.
While the main quest is streamlined, the game was also built with “sequence breaks” in mind, the ability to play the game out of order if the player has enough skill and knowledge. And just when you think the adventure is over, the game switches gears to all new content, becoming a horror chase game with players pushing a depowered Samus through unfamiliar territory. “Zero Mission” is very nearly the definitive Metroid game, and it should be the first stop for anyone new to the series.
5. Metroid Prime 3: Corruption (Wii, 2007)
Outside of “Other M,” this is the chattiest Metroid game ever released. It opens with an explosive, all-out war scenario, with soldiers grunting and shouting all around Samus. But then, the game slows back down and reveals itself to be a sweeping epic that takes the series beyond its usual scope to other planets. This is the only Metroid game to do this, and it makes this entry so much more distinctive and fresh compared to the otherwise excellent “Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.”
You’ll realize this once Samus touches down on Elysia and its breathtaking SkyTown, where players navigate a floating city by ziplining between floating castles. This game achieved what “BioShock Infinite” tried, and it was only in its third level. Despite the game’s loud opening, the rest of the game is a Metroid Prime experience through and through. This is also the game that best justified the Nintendo Wii’s motion controls to a more dedicated gaming audience. First-person shooting never felt this good or natural, and puzzle solving felt genuinely immersive as Samus’s hand movements would match your own, whether twisting an alien key to ripping out armor pieces from space pirates with your left hand’s grappling beam. The third Metroid Prime game is one of the best games to ever justify the existence of the Wii — and probably the best motion-controlled game ever released.
4. Metroid Fusion (Game Boy Advance, 2002)
“Dread” begins here. This was the first game to finally fully embrace the sci-fi horror roots of the series. Faced with the shape-shifting X parasite, Samus is hunted by literal husks of her former self. This was the first game to introduce the ledge grab, which would become a staple for the series moving forward. But more importantly, it helped defined the series identity. Lessons from “Fusion” are apparent in “Zero Mission" and “Dread,” which speaks to the timelessness of the design. Its biggest departure is that it is probably the most linear of all the Metroid games, but that decision wasn’t made thoughtlessly.
“Fusion” used its linear approach to add even more detail into the game, which still makes this the most frightening game in the series. When Samus’s old armor tries to kill her, they would attempt to freeze her before killing her with missiles. Outside of being challenging, it’s also clever storytelling. To guard her from the X parasite, Samus begins the game by being vaccinated with the DNA of the Metroid species, an alien race she made extinct by freezing them before killing them with missiles.
3. Metroid Dread (Switch, 2021)
It’s new, but it also very nearly makes playing any other 2-D game in the series almost obsolete. “Dread” has the horror and attention to detail of “Fusion,” the speedrunning architecture of “Zero Mission,” and, on a minute-to-minute basis, more exciting and pleasurable gameplay than even “Super Metroid.” “Dread” doesn’t innovate," but it spit polishes the formula to near perfection.
Its environmental design still lags behind its predecessors, mostly due to the introduction of the indestructible EMMI robots, who will chase you through similar-looking laboratories. But the brilliance of the EMMI sequences is that it hard codes the chase and escape sequences of the early games inside the gameplay loop. Every EMMI chase are essentially kill countdowns to outrun. This is the hardest Metroid game to date, but it’s also now the easiest to revisit for many reasons.
2. Super Metroid (Super NES, 1994)
It’s long been considered one of God’s perfect video games, and that remains true today. Of all the games on this list, even the one above it, this is the one with the least amount of flaws. Besides a few hard-to-find secrets, “Super Metroid” is immaculately paced and remains one of the greatest games of the 1990s, all the while being one of the earliest prime examples of how the medium can weave gameplay and narrative.
The wrecked ship of Zebes demonstrates why “Super Metroid” stands above the rest, even in games that build on it. Early in the game on the planet’s surface, players will discover a wrecked alien rocket ship, inaccessible, mysterious and abandoned. As the player, you have to remember which tools were needed to return and explore this ship. Once inside, you find space cockroaches and burned-out wiring and, eventually, one of the game’s four main villains. The player would not only feel rewarded for remembering to return to this place, but they would realize that this was a necessary visit. The medium of video games hits its creative peak when gameplay and context rewards the player. “Super Metroid” is a game that hits this high constantly. No wonder it’s considered perfect.
1. Metroid Prime (GameCube, 2002)
To this day, there is no game quite like “Metroid Prime." Rather than copying the first-person shooter formula that remains popular today, “Prime” implemented a lock-on feature that accomplished many things, including allowing player freedom in movement during combat, narrowing the experience to dodging and movement rather than precision. This lock-on mechanic extended to the game’s visor scan, which became a far better way to convey environmental storytelling beyond the tired “audio log” trope established by “System Shock” in 1994.
That’s the brilliance of “Metroid Prime." It was a meaningful, polished innovation on immersive, first-person storytelling, all while retaining the character, action, mystery and pacing of a Metroid game. While a late-game treasure hunt hurts the game’s claim to perfection like “Super Metroid,” “Prime” exceeds that title in what it brought to table not just for the genre the series founded, but also for first-person storytelling. The Metroidvania genre has many games that have matched or even exceeded the best this series has offered, but “Metroid Prime” still stands distinct and unrivaled.

