Dread is fantastic and all, but I still to this day love Super at least a smidge more. Sure there's a tiny bit of jank to it, especially in the way Samus moves, but there's a very fair margin for error, especially later in the game as you stockpile energy tanks and upgrade the suit's defenses. Samus just hits a point where she can tank an absurd amount of punishment.

What Super absolutely excels in is its map design, which is ingenious with how it organically leads you around and rewards you for paying attention with being able to grab expansions and upgrades in a decent clip basically at all times, even if you're playing casually. There are so many great eureka moments like getting the grapple beam for the first time and realizing there was that one room - also in Norfair - that had a door inaccessible without grapple beam and it gives you the friggin wave beam.

That's another thing. You can miss so much in this game. Items that in other Metroids are 100% required upgrades are optional and missable in this one. You can go the whole game and never find spring ball, x-ray scope, plasma/spazer beam, and even screw attack. And that's just the upgrades you can skip without speedrun tricks. There's something very brave in designing a game where missing out on a lot of content is even possible. Again, especially since in most other Metroids, no upgrade is optional. I can only think of the beam combos in the Prime games.

Such a satisfying game to pick up for a run, I envy anyone who gets to experience it for the first time blind.

outside of the (understandably) on-the-nose coloured doorways nearly every instance of environmental interaction is rich and tactile. thirty years later it's still a wonder to grope and paw at every (Possibly Maybe) malleable surface and leverage every new upgrade toward greater structural manipulation and command

in ensuring how and when are given as much significance as what and where it forms a relationship between actor and environment that bears uncommonly personal patterns and markings as you learn to use Your body as an implement to interface with the world. sidepaths and back alleys that carve Under - Over - Through reshape the familiar thru layered mechanical discovery and shift the internal v external dynamic in turn; mastery of the self begetting exponential mastery of the other

a fitting problem then that the biocircuitry, plunging intestinal mazes, and gloomy dark ambient synthesis quickly become less something to endure so much as to dominate; the dissonance for show, and the brutality nakedly glamorous and one sided. so much of it exists in service to the pursuit of (Your) power, kneeling with its neck outstretched waiting to feel bones shatter for Your gratification. sure, I feel obscenely powerful, but I'd rather feel anything else

Excelente jogo.
Tem o level-design mais CABULOSO que já experienciei. Juntando isso com a atmosfera muito imersiva, a progressão extremamente satisfatória e as ótimas boss-battles, resultam num jogasso da Nintendo.
Parabéns aos desenvolvedores.

O único defeito dele é ter partes muito confusas, por não ter um indicador de onde ir; forçando muito o uso de guias externos. (Ao mesmo tempo que isso é ruim, agrega muito ao fator replay)

There is a lot to say about this one so buckle up.

Everybody has heard of Metroid and seen Samus. It's one of the most iconic main stay titles of Nintendo, or at least that is the perception I and many other people I know always had. But the more I asked around the more I realised that Metroid is a series that people tend to hear a lot about but at the same time never tried for themselves. I was one of those people and to finally discover what all that fuss over Metroid is about, I decided to go and try for myself. I started with the original, which is one of the only games I have ever abandoned. So my first impression went terribly. But I still decided to give the series another shot, skipped Metroid II and went straight over to this game. And oh boy oh boy I am so glad I did.

First up: for a game that released several years before I was even born I gotta say the game's graphics hold up surprisingly well, atleast on emulator. It has this sorta eerieness to it that I can hardly describe and fits well with Metroid's theme of science fiction coupled with horror. I dunno why but the graphics just did it for me. Espeically the first few hours feel very atmospheric, almost unlike anything I have ever seen before in a videogame. It has good controls and, comparing it to the original, a fucking crouch button (which was the least they could have done) and buttons for aiming directionally (which I didn't actively demand, but was still more than glad to take).

The gameplay is, well, what you expect from Metroid and what the series is known for. You run through levels, collect upgrades to access new areas, to then collect more upgrades, rinse and repeat. On top of that the game has also cranked the amount of secrets up to eleven. It's one of those games where you quickly learn to not trust walls. This makes exploration really rewarding, as you collect more ammunition or health upgrades, which strongly convey a sensible feeling of satisfaction that stems form the visible effect that collecting secrets has on your character. Especially considering that some of the bosses are really hard without extra energy canisters and missile containers. The main upgrades offer so much more freedom in the way you move through screens or make you so much stronger, that compairing Samus from the beginning of the game with Samus of the end of the game is a difference a clear as night and day and reflects how far you have come in your jorney through Zebes.

Lastly the level design. As a huge darksouls fan I love non linear level design. I back tracked every chance I got and I was never disappointed to find some new area I couldn't access previously with a hidden missile container in it. Some puzzles also required you to think outside of the box like that one puzzle in Maridia where you had to built up a super jump in one room and then bring it into the next room to be able to break certain blocks and get a missile container. I felt like my few years of Portal community maps experience have paid dividence. There were also several puzzles I outright cheesed by freezing enemies with the ice beam and then using those enemies as platforms to get to places I wasn't supposed to get to at that point in the game. A game that allows for that much freedom just has to be good.

Also, I softlocked myself by making the jump to kraids lair without the Hi Jump Boots, going into the next room, wasting my super missiles and then going back to find the super missile blocks to be back. I also couldn't make the jump a second time because the blocks were in the way and I couldn't build up enough speed to clear the distance a second time. Thank god there are cheats. But honestly the situation was, although really stressful, kinda fun and I look back on it fondly.

So to wrap up my ramble: There are emulators wink wink, there are Rom's wink wink, no need to sue me Nintendo wink wink. I highly recommend this classic, that made me find out, why there are so many Metroid stans out there. I'll be definately playing the other entries of the series. 10/10.