40 Years Later, This NES Masterpiece Still Has Gaming’s Best Twist Ending

Published Sep 5, 2026, 11:30 AM EDT Bruno Yonezawa is a Gaming Senior Writer for Screen Rant. He's been practicing professional journalism for over 10 years, and is also a communications specialist. He's played games all his life and turned that passionate hobby into a passionate career, in an industry where he's worked as a writer, editor, analyst, and more. Sign in to your ScreenRant account There’s no underselling how much of a revolution the Nintendo Entertainment System, best known as the NES, was during its lifespan. On top of all the technical improvements it brought, consolidating the era of home consoles, it also served as a stage for dozens of games that would then lay down a foundation for what games would become. There are several NES games that broke gamers, blowing their minds. It was on the NES that both the Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda series were born, for example, even if they reached their pinnacle later on. The NES was also the home of the very first Final Fantasy game, which would then become a benchmark for what RPGs would look like for decades to come. The platform also set new standards for various things: how side-scrolling platformer games would work, how open-world maps are designed, and even how you can save progress in games. The hardest game level ever is on the NES, too. There’s so much that the Nintendo console made possible that it’s even hard to summarize its importance. Even so, there is one detail in one specific game that changed it all. Metroid Was Revolutionary In Many Ways, But One Stands Out In 1986, Nintendo released the action-adventure game Metroid, the first in the series, which would revolutionize the platforming genre. Mixing clever platforming sequences you’d see in Super Mario Bros. games with open-world exploration from The Legend of Zelda on NES, Metroid opened up a whole new avenue of possibilities for the genre. In fact, it’s the game that gave birth to what we know as the metroidvania genre – aided by the gameplay elements in Konami’s Castlevania franchise, which debuted on the Famicom and was then ported to the NES. There were a lot of things that Metroid did that were considered revolutionary at the time, but there was one plot twist at the ending that changed things forever. After going through the entirety of the campaign controlling Samus Aran, who fights Metroids, you discover that she is a female character – if you beat the game fast enough. Nowadays, it’s not news that Samus is a woman, much less is it surprising to have a female lead in a popular gaming franchise. Nevertheless, it was a whole deal back then. Samus Aran’s Identity In Metroid Changed The Industry The surprise of Samus’ reveal at the time was mainly due to the fact that female leads were extremely scarce in video games. Samus was not the first female character in video games, but she surely shook up the industry. Not only was her identity concealed until the very last minute of the game, but given Metroid’s commercial success, it exposed the possibility of having a woman as a protagonist in what was a mostly male-dominated field. It would have been only a matter of time before other female leads would start appearing and balancing protagonism spotlights in games, but it’s undeniable that Samus opened up doors for many of these characters. Lara Croft, Aya Brea, Terra Brandford, and Aloy would likely all exist one way or another, but Metroid’s release on the Nintendo Entertainment System showed the world that female characters were here to stay and make the industry much better. Released August 6, 1986 ESRB E for Everyone: Mild Fantasy Violence Developer(s) Nintendo Publisher(s) Nintendo Engine unreal engine Franchise Metroid