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

This was my introduction to the the great and holy video game genre that is the Metroidvania. It was truly an eye-opening experience; how could I have not known about a genre so divine for so long? I shall now make my formal apology to the Metroidvania genre for my years of ignorance of its qualities, such as its maps, its abilities, and its secrets. From now on, my heart is truly devoted to the Metroidvania genre and all the amazing games it has given us.

(im joking but this is an amazing game and it did introduce me to metroidvanias)

It’s 1996… 4 year old me can barely even play Super Mario World to a competent level, never mind a deep, complex game like Super Metroid. 1 or 2 hours was enough to get me to a point where I didn’t know where to go, so I would drop it.

Returning to this game nearly 30 years later, and I know see why it is considered a revolutionary masterpiece.

Stacking it up against games of the time and nothing comes close to how it looks, plays and feels.

The opening atmosphere, the game does an excellent job of making the player feel lonely and creating a desolate world. And the atmosphere through the game is top notch.

The sound. The shooting of the beam, the jumping and spinning sound, the music, the alarm sounds. Everything is on point and feeds the atmosphere, similar to the first Alien film.

The gameplay and power ups. Again, revolutionary for its time. Traversing the world is so much fun when you start to unlock some of the power ups.

The story. I had the benefit of having played Metroid: Zero Mission before this, so knew a little bit about what was going on. A simple story but a very effective one.

The outrageous, amazing ending. I loved it. So unexpected and exciting.

I couldn’t give it a rest. Super Metroid is one of those games where you just have to keep playing and want to find out what’s around the next corner. I didn’t even think about any other game whilst playing this.

I just can’t give it a 10. Mainly due to the confusion and the time it took me to figure out where to go at the end. This game does not hold your hand. And I know this is meant to add to the mystery of the world building and is meant to make the player carve his own path. But I just wish it gave you even a slight hint of what to do next. Near the end, when the paths become much more complicated, I felt a little frustrated at times. But it was satisfying when I did manage to carve a path. A minor gripe.

Overall, I’m so glad I have now experience this game in full. And I know see why people consider it a masterpiece.

After reading the Retro Gamer Super Metroid 30th anniversary feature, funnily enough, I fancied playing it. And play it I did. Absolutely soaked in unsettling atmosphere, and some great action platforming, it's a game that is not only brilliant in its own right, but actually made better by sequels like Prime and Dread.

I did have a few moments where I found it to be a little laborious. Some of the backtracking was a chore, and the wall jump and space jump were inconsistent, but I can overlook those as minor gripes in a game that I had a lot of fun with.

I don't really need to go over what's been said a zillion times already. Game good.

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.

This is my first Metroid game.

Samus movements are a bit clunky. First, I never became truly comfortable with the Spin Jump. I couldn't get used to the momentum of this move, and often ended up slipping off platforms.
Figuring out how to use the Wall Jump wasn't obvious at all. I had to train on a wall for a few minutes to get a good grip of it.
And worst of all, the Space Jump: Underwater, I was able to perform this move without any issue, but outside of that, I was never able to chain them consistently. The timing is just so weird and unintuitive, and that's the reason I had such a bad time in the last area, Ridley's Lair. You need to fly across rising lava as quickly as possible using this move, and that was terrible.

Also, this isn't the game's fault, but I don't vibe with the sci-fi/alien/futuristic setting... Different strokes, right?

There are some items that are fun to use. I liked being able to freeze the enemies to use them as platforms, thanks to the Ice Beam. Swinging myself around with the grapple beam was also kinda fun.

I didn't like the abundance of hidden paths. Having to stop constantly to use the X-Ray kinda ruins the pace of exploration. It's the biggest issue in the game for me.

I enjoyed the boss fights for the most part. They aren't too easy nor too hard. I do want to note that I was using save states. So whenever I died against a Boss, I could respawn in front of it and retry immediatly.
Crocomire was pretty cool, the fact that you need to push him into the lava rather than reducing his HP to 0. And the way he comes back as a skeleton to scare you one last time was neat.
Draygon was my favorite Boss in the game, and I also had a good time with Golden Torizo.

Using the Power Bomb in Maridia to break the glass tunnel was such an Eureka moment for me. I was stuck for so long, and it felt very satisfying to finally figure this out!

As I said earlier, I kind of had enough once I reached Ridley's Lair. I got stuck at the 2 Ridley's Guards.
I didn't have enough ammo to deal with them, and I was really fed up with this area, so I didn't have the courage to backtrack to gather HP & ammo. The lack of teleporters is definitely a deal-breaker.
So I stopped here and watched the rest of the game on YouTube.

Honestly, I had a good time in the first half of the game. Before I reached the last quarter of the game, I thought about giving it 3.5 stars, or even 4 stars. But it became really tedious near the end, hence my final rating.
I'm still happy I played such an iconic game, it was about time I played this series! I feel like I would have more fun with Metroid Dread tho?

----------Playtime & Completion----------

[Started on May 5th & stopped on May 7th 2024]
Playtime: 18 hours
I stopped at the 2 Ridley's Guards.

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?

THere's is a reason this is one of the most beloved titles ever released. The creator of the metroid-vania genre is a game that is able to stand out the test of time, no matter the circumnstances.

Super Metroid was an ambitious title: it took the atmosphere and the Alien-inspiration of the previous games in the series and turns a new leaf on it, creating a new atmospheric planet full of secret and dangers, that makes for an incredible exploration and it's able to amaze even years later.

There are some flaws: Samus' movement can be seen as clunky at times, the controls are not as refined as later entries in the franchise and there are some instances where you feel entirely lost just because you didn't notice the small hole on the ground that suggest the use of a bomb to open the new passage.

But aside from it it's a blast from start to finish: the environment are xtremely memorable, the upgrades always add a new spin to the explorations, all the bosses are memorable and are able to play with the respective stages phenomenally.... and the story while easy, it's incredibly moving, and able to convey a lot of emotions without the need of dialogue or facial expressions. It so much makes you want to hug the baby intergalactic parasyte you are sent to save.
The animals are to me one of the most underrappreciated things about this title: they are able to add a lot to the world, while also providing one of the first memorable instances of a Good and Bad ending (Save the animals or not save them?)

Super Metroid is a classic: there is a reason it's talked and replayed to this day. Other titles of the series are able to evolve its gimmicks and gameplay, but the charm and fun the original metroidvania provides is not to be underappreciated!

1994
A cry rings out. The room is engulfed in darkness, with just enough light to see the outline of a corspe as the camera pans over machinery.
NINTENDO PRESENTS
As more of the room is revealed, the music intensifies and grows louder as that same cry is heard again. We can see computers and the dead bodies of scientists on the floor.
METROID 3
The source of the cry is finally identified: a single baby Metroid, stuck in a test tube. We zoom out to see the entire room, while the music beeps louder and louder. Finally, we hear a somber, yet familiar tune, as the title fades in.
SUPER METROID

This intro alone is enough to tell you that this game means business. It is such an improvement from Metroid II that it's almost unbelievable. I'm not going to bury the lead here, Super Metroid is one of the best games ever made. It is perfect in every regard and basically flawless. every positive thing you've heard about it are true. it is an absolute monolith of game design in every sense. from the story, to the art direction, to the atmosphere, the gameplay, the level design, the music, it is absolutely fantastic.

I'm honestly kind of stumped because, what do you want me to say? it's Super god damn Metroid! everyone and their mother has already sung their praises of this game, justifiably so. do you need to tell me that the movement is impeccable, that the power-ups are all amazing and satisfying to use, that the progression really makes you feel grow more and more powerful until you become unstoppable, how the game is challenging yet never unfair, how the world is a joy to explore and feels like a real place while giving you the freedom to choose how you advance, how the soundtrack is fucking incredible, how the graphics are absolutely gorgeous yet never once slowed down, how fun the bosses are to fight, how satisfying it is to find out a secret after you followed your intuition, how cool it is to sequence break even by a tiny amount, how the game actually freaked out a couple of times and genuinely jumpscared me once?

there's a reason Super Metroid is cited as a pillar of the metroidvania genre, because every single game in the same vein has been trying to replicate it, with the single exception being Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I'm not really one to oppose differing game opinions, even if they go against the majority, but if you wanna start talking shit about Super Metroid you better have some air tight arguments because you're going up against one of the greatest, most focused, well-designed and polished games to ever exist.

"The Last Metroid Is In Captivity. The Galaxy Is At Peace..." - Results determined that was a lie.

Met-, sorry spoilers, I mean Sammy's third escapade with Nintendo is where her space adventures really hit their stride! As my first exposure to the series via the 3DS's e-Shop, I can see how it was a genre defining experience. It did Baby Yoda and Mando way before it was even a thing and this game proudly stands with Castlevania as the pioneers of the Metroidvania genre to this day! The set pieces and gameplay are still fun to play in.