GameSpite Presents: The Anatomy of Metroid Vol. I is available for purchase as a print-on-demand book on the GameSpite Blurb store as well as a PDF on Gumroad.
You can acquire the books as:
- A large-format color paperback ($45)
- A large-format color hardcover ($63)
- A mini-format black-and-white paperback (coming soon)
- A PDF ($5+)
Or you can just read (most of) the content for free here.
Preamble
In the beginning, there was a girl, who looked like a robot, and who set out to destroy alien parasites and the evil biological computer-woman who sought to use the parasites to conquer the galaxy. From that rather weird germ sprouted not only a classic series, but countless fantastic imitators as well. Explore the design language and structure of Metroid, Metroid II, and their quirky cousin Kid Icarus in this 80-page survey of three 8-bit classics.
Jeremy Parish
January 11, 2014
In This Issue
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Metroid
- I. Welcome to Zebes
- II. Shafted
- III. Set up us the Bomb
- IV. Ugh, wrong way, slick
- V. Frozen assets
- VI. The six-billion dollar woman
- VII. Norfair’s secret
- VIII. The hard stuff
- IX. Eponymous
- X. Mother do you think she’s dangerous
- XI. Shafted again
- XII. Breaking badly
Kid Icarus
- I. Angel land story
- II. From hell’s heart
- III. Slippery slope
- IV. Up the long ladder
- V. And me without my thread
- VI. A new plane of existence
- VII. South side of the sky
- VIII. Gunners heaven
Metroid II: Return of Samus
Text and design © 2013-2014 Jeremy Parish
The works covered in this volume are trademark and copyright 1994-2014 Nintendo. No claim of ownership over the images is stated or implied. All screen images and artwork are used in the spirit of fair use, as this book represents a critical and academic analysis of these games and the visuals are used strictly to provide examples of the topics and design under discussion.
Images sourced from VGMuseum.com and used with express permission.
The content in this volume available freely online at www.anatomyofgames.com
Cover illustration by Jeremy Parish.