How can you tell a first release of Metroid?
Start in Japan, count screws in America, and watch for a yellow label: Metroid’s first printings are a field guide in three objects.
"First release" means something different on every shelf of this series. The true original is a Japanese floppy disk. The American original is identified by the screws in its cartridge shell. And the modern anchors are limited editions whose print windows are documented almost to the month.
THE ORIGINALS
1986 to 1987The Disk Card · Japan, August 6, 1986
The first Metroid ever sold. Check the disk itself, not just the case: Disk Cards were rewritable at Disk Writer kiosks, and a card labelled Metroid should be verified as one before it is priced as one.
Five screws · NES, 1987
The earliest North American cartridges are the five-screw shells, flathead-fastened, from the NES’s first production era. Nintendo moved to three-screw shells with security bits later in the game’s print run; collectors count screws the way comic collectors count price variants.
The yellow label · 1992
Nintendo’s Classic Series reissue gave Metroid a yellow cartridge label and revised packaging five years after launch. It is a reissue, not a first printing, and the label is the tell at a glance. Player’s Choice reissues play the same role for Metroid II and Super Metroid: the band on the box means a later, larger print run.
THE MODERN ANCHORS
Documented short windowsTrilogy steelbook · 2009
Metroid Prime: Trilogy’s collector’s edition shipped in a steelbook in August 2009; Nintendo ceased shipping the game entirely in January 2010 and told buyers to look second-hand. Few Nintendo editions have a print window that precisely dated.
Dread Special Edition · 2021
Steelbook, 190-page art book covering the five 2D games, and holographic art cards of their covers. Complete means all three components plus the two amiibo sold alongside; the art cards are the piece most often missing.
Super Metroid, Japan · 1997
Japan’s last Super Metroid printing came through the Nintendo Power flash-cart service from September 30, 1997: games written to rewritable cartridges at retail kiosks. A curiosity with paperwork, and a fitting echo of the Disk System original.