NOTA: 8,25

Simplesmente fabuloso, a excelência de Super Metroid é nítida e conseguiu em 1994, elevar ainda mais a qualidade na transição do Nes ao Snes, com uma pixel art fantástica, trilha sonora que caracteriza a ambientação e uma gameplay desafiadora sem dúvidas.

Quando se pensa na franquia, eu diria que esse game é a cara dela, a exploração que ele exige é extensa, a jogabilidade é tão boa que não só jogos metroidvanias utilizam como a própria franquia sempre tem essa mesma identidade que Super Metroid desenvolveu.

Falando sobre jogabilidade, com a exploração como chave e a ação em segundo lugar, Metroid representa quase que um gênero nichado de jogo, fora a dificuldade que pode variar dependendo do nível de interesse/ Imersão e descoberta do player, muito do progresso principal de Super Metroid também é dependente de prestar atenção em tudo à sua volta e apurar cada skill obtida no momento, o que pode de fato afastar players ou fazer com que se apele à um guia, o que eu não acho nada errado, desde que não estrague a experiência por completo.

Sobre sua dificuldade e gameplay geral, os trechos de plataforma também são bem presentes e a fisica do game não é tão fácil de lidar, é um pouco imprecisa. Alguns inimigos e chefes tem movimentações bem rápidas o que exige bastante reflexo também e a troca entre os mísseis e outros elementos é muito limitada e dificulta um pouco quando é necessário usar algo específico para abrir portas ou acertar inimigos.

Por fim, acho que o game tem ótimos chefes onde é preciso entender um pouco suas mecânicas e tem bastante save points, por outro lado, acho que eles poderiam ser menos porém dar de volta refill de vida/mísseis já que mau existe no jogo e as vezes é preciso consegui-los na base de farm dos inimigos.

Concluindo, minha experiência com esse game e sotn de fato definiu o porque gosto de side scrollers e principalmente metroidvanias, como o foco do castlevania é mais na ação, acaba que prefiro ele, mas sem dúvidas Metroid vem logo atrás também devido às suas experiências em 3D que a Nintendo soube fazer transições fantásticas. Recomendo muito!

Super Metroid is an old game that shows its age not in the gameplay but in the overall level and world design.

As I continue my time checking out classic games I've always wanted to play, my reviews are getting a bit repetitive - this old game probably played way better when it came out than it does in 2023. Honestly the gameplay isn't all that bad - the shooting feels great, sprinting or rolling around to get through the level is fun, and platforming is mostly OK, though I do wish the jumping was a little less finicky. No, all that generally dated gameplay stuff I can handle. The most frustrating part of the game, for me, was the exploration and what it expects from the player.

Coming off of Symphony of the Night and the Advance Castlevania games, I appreciate how they handle their world design, their map design, and overall progression. While Castlevania likes to hide fun secrets behind hidden walls, Super Metroid locks mandatory progression and necessary items behind hidden walls throughout the entire game. I had to look up guides online to progress several times along my journey and the advice was always - when in doubt, just bomb everything. And that advice should be taken quite literally. The game expects you to shoot, bomb, or just attempt to run through every wall, floor, and ceiling in the game if you want to progress. It was absurd in Metroid and it's only marginally better in this game as helped by the clunky X-Ray Scope item that I never wanted to use due to the cumbersome weapon-cycling.

As a fan of the Metroidvania genre, I'm still loving going through and checking out the classic games that defined one of my favorite genres, but I honestly only recommend Super Metroid to enthusiasts of classic games or folks wanting to check out a game that defined generations of games to come.

+ Very cool seeing the origins of a genre
+ Great visuals with fun cutscenes
+ Good shooting feel

- Progression locked behind hidden walls
- Some occasionally frustrating platforming controls
- Can only see the map one zone at a time making it difficult to keep track of where you need to go next
- Cumbersome weapon swapping
- No fast travel makes for long backtracking

You know what? This isn’t just Super Metroid. This is Superb Metroid!

Despite having played several other metroidvanias in the past, I never actually tried to delve into one of the franchises that gave name to the genre, mostly because at the time I had a general avoidance of older games due to thinking they could have “aged poorly”…

But here’s the kicker! That past version of me from 2021/2022? HE IS FUCKING GONE (for the most part)! And it’s about time I came back to a genre that I was obsessed with in the past in some capacity, by going all the way back to the game that started it all!

The NES, short for Nintendo Entertainment System, is a video game console that, while I admire it, I don’t really like the idea of going all the way back to actually playing those games more than theorizing about them, the biggest reason is that for some of the more well known titles in the NES, looking back at them with the power of hindsight, though not as obvious as it is with franchises like Ultima, most of them just planted the seeds for what would grow into full blown trees with later entries, some of them ended up growing fast enough that they are still fairly solid like Castlevania and Super Mario Bros, but for others like Final Fantasy or Metroid… Yeah, I’ll pass.

And speaking of Metroid, its seed would eventually grow, but only in the NES’s successor for the next generation, the Super Nintendo, however, the seed that had grown into a small sprout with Metroid 2 on the Game Boy, would very suddenly grow into a Big Fucking Gun Tree, one so big that several people would eventually try their hands at getting as many fruits from there as humanly possible in a short amount of time, memorizing everything about the tree and finding out the most effective way to get through each branch and collect the most fruits as fast as they could, and to this day people still try their hands at such task, AKA speedrunning. But if that wasn’t enough, that tree would go on to inspire many, many other gardeners (or developers) to try and plant trees inspired by that one, even creating an entire genre (alongside Castlevania: Symphony of the Night) called Metroidvania. And yet, even if we try to ignore this game’s long-lasting cultural impact within gaming, this is still one of the medium’s finest touchstone classics.

But what makes Super Metroid so compelling in the first place? Well, there are many reasons for why, and by many, I do mean it.

Crateria: A Strong Introduction

As soon as Samus touch its foot on Zebes for the second first time, the game immediately manages to instill both a sense of curiosity and fear on the player, curiosity as it makes the player hooked and eager to explore this wonderful “new” planet, touching on the human desire to explore new worlds, and fear as the place seems completely empty of any life, as a foreboding track plays in the background, further accentuating the feeling of exploring the ruins of a desolate planet completely unknown to the player, not helped by the fact Samus just escaped from Ridley invading a research station to steal the Baby Metroid there, so on top of that there’s a sense of something lurking around in the shadows, waiting for your presence to then attack you. That’s until you get the Morph Ball where the first game ended, and something like that does in fact happen, and what was once ridded from life is now filled to the Brinstar brim with enemies ready to kill anything potentially invading Zebes.

Super Metroid nailed the introduction so hard it could probably pierce through marble pillars, not only by introducing some of the fundamental aspects of the core gameplay loop to the player, but also by excellently establishing Zebes as a setting in every way imaginable, but especially gameplay and presentation. And speaking of the latter…

Brinstar: A Phenomenal Presentation and Atmosphere

As it can be noticed in the first ten minutes of the game, the presentation is amazing!

First of all, this is one of the most visually impressive in the SNES, and that’s saying a lot. The graphical leap of the Super Nintendo, going from a 8-bit to a 16-bit console, really allowed the developers to bring Edson Samus Arantes, Zebes and its denizens to full life here, with the colorful yet dimly lit colors giving an extra edge to Samus and especially to the enemies, Ridley and Mother Brain especially look even more alien and menacing than ever, and every area standout from one another due to their unique environmental detail along with their stark color palette, there’s a reason why most renditions of Metroid’s most iconic characters, both within and outwith the franchise itself, use their Super renditions as their main source of inspiration for their look. And soundwise it’s also great, having a mix of eerily ambient tunes to accompany this game’s most atmospheric moments and catchy upbeat songs that complement this game’s more action-focused moments while keeping the player going forward.

All of this combined makes for one hell of an atmosphere, one of feeling alone in a stranded alien planet while everything in there tries to murder you, and that’s what draws us into exploring those alien worlds, isn’t it? The idea of exploring worlds that would seem impossible to do otherwise in real life, ones that seem completely out of the ordinary, and then trying to get as much out of exploring it as possible, whether by understanding the inner workings of there or simply gathering every possible loot you can get…

Norfair: A Powerhouse of Mobility and Murder

But normal human beings can’t feasibly traverse the entirety of Earth itself, let alone a planet as dangerous as Zebes, they would probably die in one way or another.

Don’t worry, Samus Aran got you covered, and with some damn fine movement at that. Since we are talking about one of the games that established the Metroidvania, you slowly unlock Samus’s true power instead of immediately getting everything right off the bat, and with every major upgrade unlocked, it opens up a slew of new possibilities for you to go through every crevice of Zebes, and by the time you reach Mother Brain, you will have become a invincible god. There is one ability though that is available from the start that can fundamentally change the way you approach the entire game:

The Wall Jump

Where as in other games from the time like Mega Man X the wall jump is as simple as pressing the jump button against a wall repeatedly to climb up that wall, in Super Metroid that requires mastery, as you must be spin jumping against a wall and then go to the opposite direction of that wall and press the jump button WITH THE RIGHT TIMING! It’s incredibly satisfying to master the usage of wall jump, as it allows for the player to sequence break through levels that not only accommodate, but even encourage learning how to properly use the wall jump. And that’s not even the only hidden movement tech in the game either, there is also the Shine Spark which allows you to jump insane heights as long as you get enough momentum to use the speed booster.

And speaking of the upgrades themselves, they are all really fun to use in their own right. As I mentioned in the first paragraph of this section, they all open up new possibilities for uncovering secret upgrades in incredibly rewarding ways, but aside from that, a lot of upgrades make traversing the map incredibly fun as well, as you can just blast through every area at a quick pace to make backtracking engaging, with notable ones being the aforementioned Speed Booster which allows you to run at a insane speed as long as you gather enough momentum through running in a large straight line, and the grappling hook which, when latched onto specific blocks, will allow Samus to launch herself from larger gaps.

All of this lends for some of metroidvania’s, heck, even some of 2D platformers’s finest controls and movement ever seen, movement which many metroidvanias still haven’t quite matched. But here’s the kicker…

Maridia: An Incredible World and Level Design Chock Full of Secrets

You can’t simply make a game with controls as good as these without putting them to good use, don’t get me wrong, you can literally do that, but that would make it a pretty lackluster experience, wouldn’t it (isn’t that right Jedi Academy)? Here’s where I finally talk about the elephant in the room:

The level design

It has some of the most intricate level design ever seen. It manages to be both linear and open-ended at the same time, never feeling too confusing and always being pretty clear where to go but also open enough to encourage you to explore it to its fullest, and damn there is a lot to unpack here, there are a ton of hidden collectables, and by ton I mean so many that by the time I had beaten the game, I hadn’t even got 60% of progress in the game, and it was still fun as hell to find out all the upgrades I did find, since the game forces the player to fully learn how to best use every upgrade and movement tech and will make many concessions to the 100% Nutcases who want to get the most out of exploring Zebes.

Now about that “linear and open-ended at the same time” stuff, despite how big its levels are in comparison to any contemporary released at the time, the game still manages to communicate to the player where to go really well, not only in how the game generally teases you on what's to come with all the gateways (literal or figurative) locked behind different upgrades, but also in how the pathways are always cleverly designed in a way that the player still ends up knowing where to go but becomes willing to engage with what’s outside the main path towards the next major boss/upgrade, and even when you need to use a bomb to progress through, it’s often fairly logical where you need to use the bomb, all of that without ever explicitly telling you where to go (unlike some other titles in the same franchise).

Actually, I was going to reach the ultimate conclusion here but…

Wrecked Ship: A Interactive Painting Disguised as a Game

The reality is that thinking about Super Metroid started to slowly lead into a path that at first I wasn’t willing to consider talking about at all, but now I just cannot stop but think about this:

What separates video games from mediums like cinema, literature and music?

The most obvious answer would be how a video game actively forced the viewer to engage with the work in a tactile level, and thus not only absorbing its sights and sounds, but also participating in the game world in some form or capacity, and a game will have roadblocks that will test the player both physically and mentally. What I think best describes video games as a medium though is that the developer is essentially a painter, the game itself is one big painting carefully made so that it portrays everything they want to portray in there, while leaving enough space for the viewer to play the role of a different painter trying to find new ways to fill in the blanks both literally, drawing new things and leaving those paintings marked with your own ideas, or figuratively, soaking up what’s already there and trying to find meaning to it.

What does all of this have to do with Super Metroid though? Well, the artistry in the game lies on how its world is structured, if you just look at it you can beat the game just fine, but the real deal is in trying to understand the inner workings of what’s present in that painting, or, to put it better, trying to get the most out of exploring every crevice in the game to then reach an ultimate conclusion to what’s actually there, and that also seeps into another major aspect of this game, its visual “storytelling”, where nothing outside of the opening cutscene is explicitly told to you, and because of that, this lends an extra layer of mystery to planet Zebes, as even after leaving it, it’s still unclear how the alien lifeforms found there actually behave, and then there’s also a sense of loneliness whenever exploring the planet as Samus doesn’t speak, and neither does the enemies as they are too busy trying to murder you, and then you get to Tourian and it’s probably, in my personal opinion, one of the most disquieting moments I’ve ever seen in any Super Nintendo game outside of Earthbound, as Samus trudge through the mechanical lair of Mother Brain, and hears a unfathomably alien ambient song, and as you think she is destroyed, she brings her true form to life, an demonically terrifying amalgamation of flesh and steel.

Tourian: A Definitive Conclusion

Super Metroid is one of the best and most influential games of all time, that should be obvious by now, but the reality is that not many games have even attempted to replicate most of what makes it such a iconic game in the first place, even other titles in the same franchise couldn’t quite capture what made Super Metroid the SUPER Metroid, and even after the release of so many great metroidvanias like Guacamelee 2 and Yoku’s Island Express, games that brought their own new spin to the genre by focusing on a amazing and varied combat system or even completely redefining how we traverse worlds in metroidvanias, this one is still one of the very best, I mean, there’s a reason why people have done so many speedruns of this game (and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night).

And if you somehow still haven’t played this, why are you slacking off from playing it?

I have to log and review this as part of my Retro Games Bucket List (if I don't then they'll detonate the collar locked around my neck), but let's be honest, there's nothing that can be said about Super Metroid that hasn't already been reiterated a hundred thousand times before.

Especially by me, a casual Super Metroid enjoyer. What could I possibly say? I don't even have a single "speedrun strat" committed to memory, I'm like a babe in the woods! You know exactly what this game is, you've probably reviewed it yourself. Zebes' labyrinthine structure is no doubt burned into your memory more clearly than it is my own, its secrets and winding tunnels more recognizable to you than the streets of your home town.

"It's aesthetically brilliant, eerie and atmospheric. The sense of isolation is superb" Dumbass. Idiot. Everybody says that. What are you even doing?

"Well, progress can be a little obtuse at times, and the controls feel a bit dated, clunky even, but it's still a lot of fun to play" ohhhh, well look who finally decided to show up to the party! Thanks for the input, George. This game came out in 1994, your grandma played it.

It's a good game. Everyone likes Super Metroid.

Metroid (NES) isn't great. It always felt like a cumbersome slog growing up, and I was perfectly happy to never beat it. (I have since powered through due to the rewinding magic of NSO) Luckily, Super Metroid feels like what Metroid wanted to be all along.

The SNES era wasn't just a technical improvement over the previous console generation, those enhancements came with the ability to put more detail into visuals and audio, finally allowing games to craft a detailed vibe, and Super Metroid's mood is its best feature. Sure, the controls are still great, the abilities are intuitive and open new ways to play, the exploration & map are well handled, etc. But ultimately, the game is so revered and memorable because of its presentation. The world that lives on this cartridge is enthralling.

You can see this in the distinct areas of Zebes or in the Boss designs, you can hear it in the music, and the pacing of the game builds a sense of dramatic tension that rarely existed in games at the time. The reason I think Super Metroid still holds up is because all of this comes together to capture your attention and your imagination. This world feels real, and it's a blast to get lost in it.

Super Metroid is a magical game that I wasn't expecting to like nearly as much as I did. The atmosphere is brilliant and the memorable music only adds to it. It still holds up great 25+ years later, aside from some minor things such as the map and some floaty controls. I often find myself wanting to replay this game every time I think about it, and luckily it only takes one or two sittings to finish. I love how it teaches you how to use items through the level design rather than text, and it tells its own story without using text as well. Super Metroid is the perfect game for a quick burst of classic fun with masterful game design.

I’ll be having so much fun

Then boom

Maridia

Super Metroid is an action-adventure game developed by Nintendo in 1994 and published for the SNES. The game is the third game in the Metroid series and continues with the story of the first two games. Super Metroid is a Metroidvania style game. Super Metroid is a 2D platformer. By controlling Samus Aran, players explore a planet and fight the enemies they encounter. The game offers a very large world, especially compared to early 2D platform games. The atmosphere of the game is also quite remarkable, and the mysterious and menacing nature of the planet offers players an exciting experience.

The story of the game is a continuation of the second game. In this game we play as an alien hunter named Samus Aran. In the second game, he delivers the Metroid cub he received to scientists and they detain him for scientific studies that will benefit humanity. Later, Samus' returns to this research station with a signal. These dead bodies (a big step for Nintendo) will be met by the corpses surrounded by the fallen aliens. While trying to save the baby, Ridley and the Space Pirate are hindered by the Mother Brain, the leader of an evil group, and kidnap the baby. Then Samus tries to bring the baby back and defeat the Mother Brain. He sets off to the planet Zebes and thus begins the story of the game.

The game was first announced in Nintendo Power magazine. In the magazine, they introduced the pixels of monsters, the mechanics of the game. The game is the biggest game Nintendo has ever made with 24 Megabits. Super Metroid is a game that takes full advantage of the hardware features of the SNES. It is a Sony game specially designed for the soundtrack. It uses the SPC700 sound processor. As a result, Super Metroid uses the technical features of the SNES quite effectively and has become one of the most memorable games of the SNES console with the game's rich graphics, impressive sound effects and smooth gameplay. The first open map with rooms and lines world game.

The game draws you in from the very first. Beautiful cutscenes and voiceovers await you. Then you head towards Planet Zebes. It creates a wonderful atmosphere with silence and that eerie music. The design of the planet is magnificent. The design of the planet is so wonderful that I felt it was organically self-made. Miscellaneous It has sections. From the fire section to the water section, from the factory section to the underwater section, it is a game that reflects the ambiance really well. Also, each region has its own music. The gameplay is beyond the era with the zones you load on your outfit and the map's own legions. The game is based on acquiring a weapon, returning and using the weapon you obtained just like a key to switch to new zones. Although this perfectly reflects the feeling of exploration, it is boring to pass the same rooms over and over and kill the same enemies over and over again. ..You have difficulty in discovering the hidden compartments that they made it easier with the mechanic you will obtain in the future (fortunately, these hidden compartments became optional in the future games.). Therefore, I recommend you to proceed by looking at the guides. The save system is great frequently and in the right places. You can get bonuses such as bar missles.

It's great that the game rewards you with missles when you have low health. If you have more health, it is awesome. In some rooms, you don't have any problems with bullet economy or health by contracting at the points where monsters spawn. Although the drawings of the enemies are great, they look like an organic way of life. It has a variety of mechanics up to wall jump and my favorite is genius to use them as a platform by freezing the enemies. It can be difficult to set the time when doing Wall Jump or Super Jump, you have to figure out how to use it yourself. It allows you to use the gadgets you get in various ways, especially if you experience this on the boss. It's great. Boss Fighs make the game even better with some of the bosses being second forms that are made great. The drawings of the bosses are very good to fight them. Spo is the strawberry on the cake in the twist Spo. Although the game doesn't tell you, there are Beam Combinations in the Game that are unknown to most of the Players. Don't forget to look at these combinations you made by combining them from the inventory. It will bring your awesome game experience to a whole new level. In short, Super Metroid is the best game of the series for me.

Kind of insane how well thought out this is for it’s time, or any time for that matter. It guides you on a loop around it’s map, then just lets go, has complete confidence in you the player to pick up on it’s many subtle hints and details to find the way forward. The world, atmosphere, music, are all top notch, the bosses are creative and interesting, and it tells a compelling story with next to no spoken words. All I have to complain about are like two moments where I think it’s a bit too obtuse (the secret wall on the way to Ridley’s for example), and that some of it’s platforming demands more precision than the game really feels capable of.

The original Metroid was lonesome, oppressive, alien. This sequel is atmospheric but friendlier, familiar. It’s less a hostile world and more a videogame space, domesticated by map rooms, recharge stations, and save points. This Metroid cares.

The player is guided through seemingly open environments at a steady clip, but without the threat of loss, without real risk, it’s just the same old metroidvania story: empowerment articulated through space. A world fit exactly to your need.

It’s a fine game, a thoughtful sequel, but a lesser experience. This may still be many players’ idea of great game design. It’s not mine.

The opening here does a great job at getting the mood of a horror game. Abandoned, clearly ransacked spaces and building dread. The game never really approaches a sense of mood that controlled again, and I think that's a slight shame. Past the opening, the exploration is the clear highlight, with lots of sequence breaking opportunities, and a pretty open map that can be exploited well. I loved the feeling near the beginning of being dropped into a massive map, with no real guidance of where to go and in what order. I think there's pretty big issues that hold it back a bit though.

Speaking of pretty big, you're huge. Samus' hitbox is massive, and it only further encourages you to just tank through all of the pretty middling boss encounters, which is still almost always the optimal strategy. The tool switching is annoying, and the movement is a little stiff, particularly with wall jumping being really annoying to pull off with any consistency. I think it's really a testament to the great visuals and fun hidden secret finding (which doesn't require you to shoot in the dark a bunch for the first time because of the visor) that I still think this is a really solid game despite all of its issues.

One of gaming's indisputable crown jewels, and a lesson in how to correctly structure a game with backtracking. Once you know how to and realize where you can walljump to expediently acquire items, Super Metroid transforms from a backtracking laden labyrinth into a mostly linear run&gun. And this is all before even including any of the other techniques that allow for further circumvention of the obvious path. This is why Super Metroid outshines all of its genre kindred that mandate players zip back and forth across their maps in order to acquire pickups. Hiding a secret more expedient path through the game that necessitates greater mechanical mastery is why I enjoy Super Metroid a bit more each time I play it, and Metroid Prime just a bit less when I return to it likewise.

You don't need any speedrunning exploits in order to pull off: SuperMissiles>Spazer>Varia>HighJump>WaveBeam>SpeedBooster>Grapple>IceBeam.
This alteration to progression enabled by walljumps is so fluid, and not especially taxing to execute, that I'm convinced this is the developer intended route for second playthroughs. It eliminates all backtracking until the journey to Ridley post-Maridia, making for a super smooth experience.

Pretty much every complaint I used to have has disappeared with my increased familiarity to the game. I advise all new players thusly: If you've entered Maridia without the Gravity Suit, leave immediately and search elsewhere.
- - -
Every legitimate complaint I can think of that someone may have:
The Lower Norfair false-wall does not properly react to the X-Ray visor.
Swapping between beam and missiles can be awkward.
The map system is more obtuse than its successors.
Tourian Save Room #2 is a point of no-return.
Lots of players get tripped up by the true entrance to Maridia.
Maridia. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀(tbh I like it now)

Ok, tinha feito um comentário mais cedo falando que tinha dropado o jogo, mas acabei conseguindo prosseguir no game e zerar ele, e devo dizer que estou bem decepcionado.

A primeira metade do jogo é muito boa, realmente bem gostoso de explorar e divertido, mas depois achei que o jogo ficou muito pouco intuitivo, ao ponto de que tive que ver um walkthrough no YouTube pra conseguir zerar (inclusive tomei spoiler do final de Final Fantasy VI por causa disso, obrigado Super Metroid) e isso deixou a experiência cansativa demais, além disso tem muitas partes frustrantes durante todo o jogo, e isso inclui a maioria das boss fights, que além de frustrantes tbm achei quase todas uma merda inacreditável, e tudo isso acabou só me fazendo ficar além de cansado, extremamente estressado enquanto jogava esse jogo, foi realmente uma experiência muito negativa, mas apesar disso curti bastante o visual do game, trilha sonora, design dos bosses e inimigos, e acho que tudo isso agrega pra caralho pra atmosfera do jogo que é ótima, e achei a gameplay do jogo muito boa também (quando funciona), e como eu disse no início, eu genuinamente me diverti muito na primeira do jogo.

Não vou ir muito a fundo nessa review, é simples, eu não gostei muito de um jogo que quase todo mundo ama e é super aclamado, mas devo dizer que mesmo não tendo gostado tanto de Super Metroid ainda sim entendo o porque das pessoas gostarem tanto, mas infelizmente comigo não rolou, e não coloco a culpa totalmente no jogo, acho que uma parte disso é por eu ser bem burro também, reconheço isso, mas genuinamente acho que o jogo tem sim falhas que fizeram ele ser uma experiência muito meio bosta pra mim.

De qualquer forma ainda pretendo jogar os outros jogos da franquia, estou curioso principalmente com o Metroid Prime.

A game so amazing that it was one of the responsible to create an entire new genre that includes the name of the franchise. From the atmosphere, from the level design, from the boss fights, from the gameplay, everything in this game has been very well-thought-out to bring the best possible experience for the player to explore the rich world of this game, and it manages to be even more fun in different playthroughs after you learn to do wall jumps and other more advanced techniques to gain access to items that you didn't even imagine were accessible without the use of some specific upgrade. There are still some things that bother me about the game, like it not showing the items you've picked up on the map like in future games in the series, after you save in the last save point of Tourian you can't go back to previous maps, and Maridia is a very boring map to deal with because you need to use X-Ray in every corner, but even so, nothing that really diminishes the great value that Super Metroid has, it deservedly remains one of the best games on the SNES, and one of the most important games of all time.

Super Metroid was one of the first Metroidvanias I’ve ever played, alongside that, it was the first Metroid title I’ve ever played as well. I first got it on my 3DS back I think around 2017, and I remember absolutely loving it. I mean, it’s Super Metroid, what more is there to say on the matter? I wanted to replay Super Metroid now that I’ve gone and played the other major 2D Metroid titles, sort of coming back to where I started in a way. And even still, Super Metroid I still find to be one of the best Metroid titles, and I absolutely loved my time with replaying it.
Though I don’t play them as much as I used to, Metroidvanias are one of my favorite genres when it comes to videogames, and Super Metroid is one of the games that help create this genre. With that in mind, I bring it up because an important part of Metroidvanias that they all need to get right is level design. Metroidvanias are mazes, simply put. They’re large explorable mazes, where you can find upgrades, secrets and methods to unlock new paths and shortcuts. Making the entire world a maze provides a difficult challenge though, as it leaves you asking one important question. “How do you direct the player where to go next without outright telling them?”. And I like to think that Super Metroid does a really good job at doing so. The typical method of indirectly telling players where to go that Super Metroid does is placing enemies behind walls. I remember seeing so many rooms that I’d normally think impossible to go to, but then I see an enemy and think “that was put there for a reason”, thus I know I can probably go up there. I also remember a room where there’s a secret path in the middle of it, but you can only tell that it’s there as an enemy crawls out of it. The more I played Super Metroid, the more I noticed these subtle cues to where the game tries to direct you and I find it really impressive.
Another major aspect of Metroidvanias is the list of abilities and upgrades you can get along the way. And I don’t think I need to elaborate too much here, Samus’ list of abilities, especially in Super are downright iconic. The Morph Ball, Power Bombs, Grappling Hook, The Varia Suit, The Gravity Suit, The Screw Attack? These are practically all staple aspects of Samus’ abilities, and from what I remember, they persist from this point onwards. Super Metroid is where Samus really gets going in this regard. What I will say though is that later games do get better at the switching between Missiles and regular shots, and I do like how Super Missiles eventually become an upgrade to Missiles, instead of their own ammo source. Though then again, I love how busted the Super Missiles are, being able to destroy a lot of bosses really easily.
Speaking of bosses, Super Metroid I’d consider to have the strongest collection of bosses in the entire series. I don’t think there’s any bad bosses in this game at all, though there’s ones that are at worst, unremarkable. Though probably due to me having played this game before, I found the bosses quite easy, I only ever died once in a boss fight throughout the entire game. Even though they’re pretty easy, I still find them to provide a really fun challenge, and there’s some great presentation found in the game as well. I love how the Kraid fight is presented especially. There’s this fake out with a Mini-Kraid before you actually get to the boss arena, but when you enter the actual arena, Kraid is absolutely massive, to the point where you can never see its entirety on screen. I also really like the Crocomire fight, it’s a particularly unique one compared to the other bosses in Super Metroid, and I really like the bit that occurs after you actually defeat it. Phantoon is a fight that I love for its presentation, especially with how weird Phantoon is as a creature, but after all this time I still don’t understand how I’m actually supposed to dodge its attacks. I kinda just damage tank it. Draygon is another really fun boss, but I’ve never actually fought it then normal way. I use the secret method that requires the Grappling Hook that makes the boss ridiculously easy. While sure I’d love to fight the boss the normal way and see how it’s done, I also really like knowing this secret method. And of course of the last major bosses, Ridley is as iconic as always. Much like Phantoon I don’t really know how to dodge his attacks, but the general presence of Ridley is so threatening, and I love the build up to actually getting to the room where Ridley is at. And Sure some of the mini-bosses aren’t of particular interest, but each major boss is done in a way that I absolutely love.
Super Metroid, and Metroid as a series is particularly interesting when looking at the story of the games. In particular, aside from opening monologues, there’s very little actual dialogue within the games, but there’s still impressive stories. That really becomes noticeable in Super Metroid, with a lot of what it’s able to do. Super Metroid is able to really convey its story through music especially. The music is of course meant to set the scene, but in certain aspects, it helps convey Samus’ emotions. I find this to be very noticeable in the last part of the final fight with Mother Brain. The baby Metroid is dead, sacrificing itself to save Samus, and Samus attacks Mother Brain over, and over, and over. Mother Brain is not given time to act, she killed Samus’ child. And the music, it isn’t anything glorious or motivational, there’s barely any music at all. It’s solemn, empty, sad. Even if she defeats Mother Brain, Samus lost her child. And only now having replayed it after all this time have I fully understood this moment of the game, and it’s an absolutely amazing moment.
As I said earlier, Super Metroid was the first Metroid game I ever played, and I wanted to replay it after I played the other major 2D Metroid titles. Now that I have, I still feel as if Super Metroid is still one of the best that the series has to offer, even though it’s not particularly my favorite. There’s so much polish and care put into Super Metroid, and truth be told it felt like I was playing the game for the first time all over again. I finished the game with a pretty nice 69% completion, which is probably the best I’ve done in Super Metroid. I really enjoy not finding everything in a game, because if I ever replay it, there’s a sense of discovery finding something I never found before. Regardless of that, I’m glad I finally got around to replaying Super Metroid proper, it’s still a wonderful game.