Zero Mission is filled with shortcuts and secret routes, many of which will allow you to acquire items like the Screw Attack early. What really stood out, though, was the fact that Nintendo basically built sequence breaking into the game's design. This was a big deal in the pre-Virtual Console era, when the only way to play an old NES game was to dig up an old console, play a GBA port, or emulate it. It was an experience much more in keeping with Super Metroid, effectively capping off what had become a de facto trilogy and giving those fans who had gotten into the series with Super Metroid a chance to see where it had all begun (and even play the original Metroid, which was included as a bonus). A remake of the original Metroid, it brought with it a huge number of new features, including cutscenes, Zero Suit Samus, and ledge grabbing. In 2004, they released Metroid Zero Mission, which is now available on the Wii U Virtual Console.

Soon everyone was trying to record the fastest possible times in Metroid Prime and its predecessors, with sites like Metroid 2002 serving as a guide for the techniques needed to finish the game without all of the required items. Thus was born the concept of sequence breaking, which burst into the public gaming imagination with Metroid Prime, where the term was popularized. Metroid was like The Legend of Zelda in that it gave players the freedom to explore their surroundings and backtrack, but required specific items to advance. It was basically an open challenge to gamers to try and finish the game as quickly as possible - the home equivalent of the high score craze that dominated arcades in the '70s and '80s. When it was released in 1986, it was one of the first games to feature a completion time, with a special surprise for those who finished the game the fastest. From the very start, Metroid was built to encourage speedruns, even if that term didn't exist until a decade or so after it first came out.

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