Metroid: Zero Mission

Metroid: Zero Mission takes place on Planet Zebes, a large, open-ended world with areas connected by doors and elevators. The player controls Samus Aran as she travels through the planet's caverns and environments, hunting Space Pirates. Along the way, the player collects power-ups that enhance Samus's armor and weaponry, as well as grant her special abilities. These abilities allow Samus to access previously inaccessible areas, so that the game can be played linearly or non-linearly.

For example, the player may come across caverns that bypass certain sections, a method termed sequence breaking. To save their progress, players can enter either Save Rooms or Samus's ship on Crateria. As a remake of Metroid, Metroid: Zero Mission's layout bears a resemblance to the original, and various powerups and items make reappearances from previous games in the series, with similar uses, effects, and appearances, but it adds items, areas, and mini-bosses, as well as a new area named Chozodia.

Space Pirates attack a Galactic Federation-owned space research vessel and seize samples of Metroid creatures. Dangerous floating organisms, Metroids can latch on to any organism and drain its life energy to kill it. The Space Pirates plan to replicate Metroids by exposing them to beta rays and use the Metroids as biological weapons to destroy all living beings that oppose them. While searching for the stolen Metroids, the Galactic Federation locates the Space Pirates' base of operations on the planet Zebes.

The Federation assaults the planet, but the Pirates resist, forcing the Federation to retreat. As a last resort, the Federation decides to send a lone bounty hunter to penetrate the Pirates' base and destroy Mother Brain, the mechanical life-form that controls the Space Pirates' fortress and its defenses. Considered the greatest of all bounty hunters, Samus Aran is chosen for the mission.

Metroid: Zero Mission was directed by Yoshio Sakamoto, who had worked on every Metroid game but Metroid II: Return of Samus (1991). He was the only member of the original Metroid (1986) team to work on Zero Mission. While working on the concept for the next Metroid game after Metroid Fusion (2002), one of the developers suggested porting Super Metroid (1994) to the Game Boy Advance, but Sakamoto decided to port the original Metroid instead. The development team decided to return to the roots of Metroid gameplay by creating a game based on the NES original.

Sakamoto, noting that Fusion's gameplay and structure were drastically different from previous games, wanted to "show people who had never played a Metroid game prior to Fusion, the roots of the Metroid franchise, that this is what Metroid is, this is the style of gameplay that Metroid sprang from [...] at the same time, retell the story of Samus's original mission".

Metroid: Zero Mission received "generally favorable reviews", according to Metacritic. Several reviews named it one of the best Game Boy Advance games. The Japanese magazine Famitsu gave it a score of 34 out of 40. X-Play and GamePro enjoyed the game; X-Play said it was "perfect for blasting space pirates on the go", and GamePro was "constantly surprised" by it.

GameZone said it surpassed the "style and addictive action" of Metroid Fusion. Nintendo World Report called the game a masterpiece and the perfect example of a Metroid game, saying it mixed all the best elements from the other games and layered them on top of the original Metroid level design and concepts. Eurogamer appreciated every minute of the game and said it was one of the best games for the Game Boy Advance.