Metroid II: Return of Samus GAMEBOY

Metroid II: Return of Samus, released in 1991, sent bounty hunter Samus Aran to the Metroids’ home planet SR388 with an explicit, unusual objective for the series: exterminate every Metroid on the planet, rather than the more open-ended exploration of the original NES game. Progress is tracked directly by a Metroid counter, giving the game a clearer sense of completion than its predecessor.

The game also introduces the Metroid life cycle that later entries build entire plots around — you fight the creatures through multiple evolutionary forms as you descend deeper into the planet, culminating in an encounter with the Metroid Queen. The larval Metroid that imprints on Samus at the end of this game is the direct reason Super Metroid’s story exists.

Working within the original Game Boy’s small screen, the game leans on atmosphere over spectacle: sparse ambient sound, a claustrophobic cave layout, and a slow reveal of how much of the planet is still hostile made it feel more oppressive than its 8-bit hardware should have allowed.