When it comes to classic games, one of the most interesting things about them is that we play them, we enjoy them, and then, later on in life, long after they were released and revered, we learn little details about them that make them all the more special. Take, for example, the very first Metroid title on the NES. It was released in Japan on August 6th, 1986, which means that it just recently celebrated its 39th anniversary, with next year being its landmark 40th anniversary. Anyway, to celebrate that special date, the game’s composer, Chip Tanaka, decided to make a special Twitter post about the game.
Specifically, he made a post about the game’s literal ending theme, which is one of the more iconic sound beats for the entire series. You might think that there was some truly long, complicated trial-and-error process to try and make the game’s final theme feel “just right.” However, as Tanaka revealed, the inspiration for it came from a debugger finishing the game for the last time:
“The final debugging stage of Metroid’s development was quite memorable for me. We had one staff member that was older than us, and wasn’t an active member of the production team. All of the other staff gathered in one room; we were watching and rooting for him to clear the game. I composed the ending theme specifically because I wanted him to feel deeply moved after completing the game. This is a true story.”
That’s pretty special, and you can understand why he would want that theme to feel special, not just for this particular debugger, but for the fans who had similar experience levels going into it. After all, when you’re a full-on Q&A member for a game dev team, you know the ins and outs of things and how to make things work, but as Tanaka noted, when you’re outside of it, things are a bit more tense:
“I think people who have played the game understand, but even if you manage to rush through defeating Mother Brain, the escape sequence is surprisingly tough, lol. The alarm is loud, it makes you feel overwhelmed, and you end up falling. For the sake of one debugger, we kept switching to a bigger monitor and making the sounds louder and louder, creating such an amazing atmosphere. All of the staff was having so much fun debugging.”
Hearing such stories now truly makes the original game more special, and it makes us hungry to get the newest entry of the franchise when it drops later this year.
