Well, this is a little ahead of the usual schedule, but since the last book was a quite a bit behind schedule it all works out, I guess. I’ve compiled The Anatomy of Metroid, Kid Icarus, and Metroid II into a book that is now available on the site’s bookstore. My original intent was to get Super Metroid in there, too, but after I did a word count on the existing material I realized cramming in a fourth game would make this book unwieldily large and crazy expensive as a result. This one comes in at slightly larger than The Anatomy of Super Mario Vol. I, so it’s probably just as well to call Metroid II the cutoff point. Super Metroid (most likely along with Fusion and Zero Mission) will have to wait for Vol. II.

No separate SKUs for this one; you can order either the hardcover or paperback version from the same page. As usual, I’ve posted a PDF version on Gumroad for $5 as well.

Every GameSpite or Anatomy of a Game book requires a tradeoff between design and price. The more information I can cram into a book, the cheaper it becomes… but at the same time, it hinders legibility. The past few books have fallen much more on the side of density over readability, so I made a deliberate choice this time to make the layout of the new volume airier. This means I wasn’t able to cram in any sidebars or bonus material, but the book’s interior looks much nicer. Cleaner. More like a coffee table volume. It’s kind of nice not to have to strain my eyes to read, for once.

I’ll probably gravitate a bit back toward density in the future, but these books are always meant more as an amateur experiment than a top-flight professional work (hence their being self-published), so I hope you’ll bear with my shenanigans.

As usual, I will happily pass along any Blurb deals or coupons you happen to know about. Enjoy! And don’t worry, The Anatomy of Super Metroid will return very soon.