Thank you to QuentTheSlayer for giving me the final push that made me play through Super Metroid.

The Super Nintendo was probably the ultimate time of refinement for Video Games. So many game series, that are now held up as timeless classics found their definitive formula on Nintendo's second console generation. Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy and of course today's subject: Metroid. Super Metroid is still considered by many to be the peak of the metroidvania genre, and it's admittedly strange to realize that I had never played it. Even as a huge fan of the series, I just always put it off to the side. I'll get around to it eventually. After all: In the same amount of time it would take me to get into Super Metroid, I could just replay Fusion for the 50th time. I haven't played Prime 2 in a hot minute. What's that shiny new Dread game that just came out ? And so on and so on. But then in 2024, I set aside the excuses, committed, and I can now say that I have finally finished Super Metroid.

Its hard to put into words how much of a mindfuck my first playthrough of Super Metroid was. This almost 30-year-old Super Nintendo game has you in a chokehold the moment the title screen appears. The pan across a quiet, dark laboratory. 1994. Nintendo. Presents. Metroid 3. SUPER METROID. Right there, with the bodies of dead scientist strewn across the floor and the baby metroid trapped in a glass tube, the title of the game towers in gigantic, bold letters. It's one of the most striking introductions to a Video Game I have ever seen. A statement, before you even press a single button.

Of course this strong in medias res opening is only possible due to the fact that Super Metroid is the canonical third entry of the series, continuing on from the ending of Metroid 2: Return of Samus. And the game does an excellent job of catching you up to the events of the previous games. In a moody monologue, Samus recounts her fight against Motherbrain in her first adventure, her mission to eradicate the Metroid species for good and her sparing the last baby Metroid at the end. She brings said baby Metroid to the Galactic Research Station Ceres. There, the baby Metroid is supposed to be further studied while Samus is off hunting another bounty. Of course, she barely makes it out the door before receiving the call that Ceres is under attack. Ridley and his space pirates have decimated Ceres in order to capture the last Metroid. It's here where Super Metroid first gives you control over Samus in an action packed and atmospheric opening. She blasts through the invading space pirates and storms into an inevitable confrontation with long time nemesis Ridley. After an early sneak peek at this late game boss fight, Ridley flees with the baby Metroid in his claws. Samus follows in hot pursuit and lands on the planet Zebes. The setting of the original Metroid. This series story telling has always been and would continue to be very subtle, but even this opening stands tall among its peers in terms of how much you can get across just through a quick opening text crawl and pure gameplay. Really, the recap from our badass heroine is the only dialogue you will get across the entire game, and yet it still manages to tell an engaging story as you make your way down through the underground tunnels of Zebes.

Zebes is what all metroidvania maps should aspire to be in my opinion. Isolating, with long, winding corridors and  incredibly distinct environments. This map is so well-designed that I rarely felt lost or directionless even when I wasnt exacly sure what my next step was. The map screen is there, but it does the bare minimum to give you any general information on the environment. Because it doesn't have to tell you more. The drive to explore and the invisible hand of the developers guiding you are enough. Very, very rarely did I find myself lost as to where to go next and the few times that the game had me stumped, I can attribute to my general impatients I have been trained on due to modern video games. If I spend more than 30 minutes figuring out the way forward, then it must be bad game design, right ?. Fuck you, David Jaffe. By paying close attention to the game, you can always intuit where your way forward is. It's a masterstroke of game design.

The other side of gameplay besides navigating the game world, is combat and finding upgrades. Because Samus isnt badass enough already. That was Metroids bread and butter from the very beginning really. Super doesn't hugely change the formula, but still excels in teaching you its mechanics naturally. The game has you collect all the now famous Metroid tools like Super Missiles, the Grapple Beam and so on, while always showing you how to use them with a reward that seems just out of reach, right after you got that shiny new upgrade. Again, all without a single interruption or textbox. If somebody had to nitpick any aspects of the gameplay, it would probably have to do with Samus jump and the way you switch through different weapon modes. Firstly: Samus jump arc is a weird one to get used to for sure, since she gets an unusual amount of air time for a 2D platformer. The standard jump, which can also be altered into a summersault forward, seems very stiff as well. It almost feels like the Castlevania 1 jump arc as if some weirdo happend to turn on low gravity. Weird maybe, but those quirks still very much lend themselves to the often tubelike level design of Zebes and I rarely had any problems with jumping up to ledges or across platforms. The second, more annoying nitpick would probably be how you switch weapons via the select button. It's an awkward solution that had me often fumble around when I wanted a specific weapon equipped, but it's not a dealbreaker either, just something I wished was a bit better by default. Oh, and there is a run button. Never forget that you have a run button. It had me stuck for a bit and you will thank me later, fellow non-manual readers. Those minor flaws aside, the gameplay is incredibly rewarding to master and once you do master it, the real meta game of Super Metroid begins. Sequence Breaking.

Again: It's an aspect of the genre that Metroid is already famous for and its the game that popularized it, but Super Metroid does it on a whole other level. This game has one technique in particular, one you unknowingly have access to from the very beginning, that is designed to break the game's intended progression. It's a tricky one to execute, and the game will teach it to you in an organic way at some point. Once you fully master it, you might as well throw all preconceived notions out the window that this game was ever linear to begin with. Already deep into my second playthrough, I feel the effects of playing at a higher level. Upgrades and bosses, that seemed so far away in the beginning, can now be acquired basically as early or as late as you want to. The genius decision of teaching you this high level play during your first trip through Zebes does wonders for replayability. Pay attention and the game will infinitely reward you for it. You might of course go to areas you're not equipped for yet, but if you persevere, you get the best abilities incredibly early. Risk vs Reward, entirely on the player's own terms. Genius.

I honestly didn't expect to sing this game's praises so much, and I still haven't talked about the incredible sprite work or the god tier soundtrack. Two aspects I can not find a single flaw in, and talking about them would have me repeating myself again with only superlatives. The game is one of the most gorgeous games I have ever seen, it's like a immaculate painting. The soundtrack gives me goosebumps just thinking about it, and taking the elevator down the Brinstar for the first time is already one of my top 5 magic moments of all time. There you go.

Saving my credibility for reviewing video games, whatever that is even worth, I should probably still mention my one big rage-quit moment. As no game is perfect, but Super Metroid is damn close. Maridia. Maridia fucking sucks and seems to be the one area where the developers couldn't hold back the urge anymore to design a cryptic hell maze. Not only is getting to Maridia a bullshit ordeal all on its own, actually navigating this oversized fish tank with all its invisible walls is a confusing slog. And god help you if managed to come here without the gravity suit, like i did. Now, try to figure out how to get back to dry land while Samus jogs across the ocean floor in slowmotion. Or hope your most recent save isn't too far away. Hey, there is this giant purple tube you can go up and down through, that is clearly showing you an entirely different area in the middle. Well forget that. Ain't going there yet, no matter how hard the game implies it. Finish off the underwater journey with two really sub-par bosses. Please just end me.

Alright. Despite the grueling stretch through the sludge waters of Maridia, despite every bone in my body telling me that now this supposed all-time classic has finally fallen to the rose-tinted nostalgia glasses of fanboys across the globe, it shinesparked back up like a phoenix and stuck the landing. More than that, it destroyed the landing pad and drilled itself deep into my heart to become one of my favorite games of all time. I already know this will get more than one playthrough in the near future, because Super Metroid fucking rules. Go play Super Metroid you cowards!

The SNES is actually a goldmine for amazing retro games, whether it's A Link to the Past, the Donkey Kong Country trilogy, Super Mario World, or the masterpiece that is Chrono Trigger. If it's on the SNES, you'll likely be playing a high quality game. The same can be said about Super Metroid, which is just an outstanding game from start to finish. It feels like they cranked everything by eleven to create what is rightfully called the definitive Metroid experience. The best part of this game hands down is the atmosphere. The environments and music compliment each other extremely well and it creates a lot of feelings of dread. The movement isn't entirely perfect since it can be a little clunky at times and the Space Jump is less lenient than ZM or SR but the game still plays pretty well overall. There's also a lot of secret things you can do with beam combinations and other techniques that really spice things up despite how niche some of them are. The game is pretty challenging, but it's fair overall. The only part that really troubled me was the Ridley fight in his lair which was really tough. The set pieces are also extremely well done and I love the storytelling without the use of words, mainly with the stuff revolving around Ridley, the baby, and Mother Brain. The finale surprisingly had a pretty emotional moment, at least for it's time and for something without dialogue. The music is also amazing, the Brinstar themes especially come to mind with how perfect they are, though there are some tracks meant to be more creepy due to the vibe and not catchy, but I don't mind that. The areas have a lot of visual cues of what to do like where to bomb and such, though there are some cases where it's pretty hard to tell. Still though, the experience was pretty fun and I definitely see why people love this game as much as they do. Overall, Super Metroid doesn't disappoint in any areas and serves as another quality SNES game and Metroid game.

Relatively few games from the 1990s can claim to have aged so well that playing them in the current era requires little to no adjustment in the expectation of playability. Even fewer games from the 1990s can claim to set the standard for their genre. And of course, there are only a small percentage of those games which continue to BE the standard for their genre 30 years later. Super Metroid is the standard for the search action (aka Metroidvania) genre.

The first two Metroid games, on the NES and GB specifically, were highly ambitious experimentations of the platforming genre. The end result was a bit messy in both cases, for their own particular reasons. I feel it's safe to say this was not due to a lack of talent, rather a disparity between ambition and technical limitations. I think this is part of the reason why so many struggle to return to those entries, despite their satisfying gameplay loops when you're able to adjust your expectations. Outside of some awkward button mapping, again a result of technical limitation, Super Metroid plays just as well as modern search action titles. Hell, it plays better than a majority of them, possibly all of them. It does this through incredible map design, steady progression of strength, and unnerving atmosphere. This is gonna be a bit rambly, but I do want to talk about each part of these individually.

If the first Metroid was a game about being lost and alone (It was), Super Metroid is a game about pretending to be lost and alone. The first hour or two of the game, depending on your play style, is quite linear. There's a certain order a new player will go through the various biomes of Planet Zebes. The player slowly comes to grips with the twisting structure of the map, the variety of weaponry at disposal, and the floaty platforming. As you build Samus into the warrior the games tell us she is, the game is slowly and comfortably guiding you into learning its rules, so that when you get to the point where the game opens up, virtually all of the tools and tricks you need are a part of your repertoire. Once the game does become more non-linear, the scariness of such an adventure has ideally melted away.

This is amplified by how quickly you gain power-ups. A lot of modern search action games have pretty slow openings, with very gradual, almost sluggish growth. Not the case with Super Metroid. You are constantly barraged with new movement options, beam types, subweapons, and suit variations super quickly. It’s constantly reshaping how you view each individual room and the combat encounters therewithin. Not to mention how perfectly the game is structured to force you into retreading areas in order to progress to new places and unlock bonus upgrades littered throughout the map.

And everything I’ve just said about progression can be thrown out of the window on a second playthrough, because you’ll have likely learned some hidden tech, that being wall-jumping and shinesparking. The first of which you can use from the first frame of the game. These techniques completely change the landscape of the game, as they allow for access of areas you will need special abilities for without them.Wall jumping alone will allow you to get a ton of upgrades well before the traditional path. And I’m not talking about glitches you can perform to mess with the game’s sequencing. I’m talking about intended mechanics the game simply doesn’t tell you about. They aren’t required to beat the game (Unless you fall into a pit in an optional room where some NPCs “teach” you), so it’s entirely possible to never figure out about them. And I would imagine quite a few people didn’t on their first playthroughs! I certainly didn’t. Finding out what a shinespark was years down the road was fucking mindblowing. Especially since I played multiple other Metroids not knowing about it. All of those confusing parts of my childhood with unreachable speed booster blocks suddenly clicked. Crazy stuff.

None of this could be accomplished to the degree they are without the impeccable atmosphere the game curates. The term ‘dripping with atmosphere’ is one I try to avoid using because it sounds a bit lame, but there are only like, 7 games I can say that for. Super Metroid is one of them. It immediately sinks its teeth in the title screen as a camera pans through scenes of a recent Space Pirate attack on a research facility. A chilling track plays in the background as you’re shown dead bodies on cold, metallic floorscapes, eventually centering on the titular Metroid. Soon after beginning the game, in this same facility, you come across this room. It looks exactly the same, but the Metroid is missing. Searching further, you come face-to-face with Ridley, who is much bigger than he was on the NES. He retreats from battle and the ship gets set to self-destruct. What a fucking start! It goes from creepy to scary to shocking to intense in like, 4 minutes tops. The only downside is the unskippable narration from Samus at the beginning of the game, which is way too long tbqh.

Further areas continue this trend, whether it be the dense jungle maze that is upper Brinstar, the cramped corridors of lower Brinstar, the intense action in Norfair, or the stressful yet serene Maridia. The game is constantly doing what it can to evoke intense feelings, and it’s all jammed into such a small package. Zebes isn’t that big, especially when compared to some of the maps you see in search action games today. Every room has meaning and value in Super Metroid. The color palette is quite dark in order to assert dread. Similarly, sounds in the game have this almost fuzzy quality to them, never bombastic until it needs to be, always lying in wait until those blaring tones hit when something crazy happens. The soundtrack contributes to the mood with some downright juicy tunes. They are all incredible in their own specific ways, so I’m not gonna highlight them (especially since a decent chunk don’t really work out of context) other than my two favorites: The Brinstar themes. They both kick ass out of context and kick even more ass in context.

The problem with discussing a game as highly respected and analyzed as Super Metroid is that I don’t think I’ve said anything new about it. Usually I try to supplement it with personal anecdotes from my life which the game reminded me of, or how the helped me through a period of time, either through playing it or thinking about it. But I legitimately can’t do that with Super Metroid. Sure, I can say it evokes a special type of joy which few games have been able to achieve, but Super Metroid got there without needing to handle any particularly special baggage. It’s just a masterpiece of a game that I continue to return to over the years. It’s crazy how no game has really comfortably topped this within the 2D search action genre. I like Hollow Knight better, but it’s still a much messier game. Super Metroid is legitimately peak gaming, and even Nintendo has been unable to replicate it’s quality.

A completely artless, impressively non-representational theme park experience. The sensations are simple and physical. Your hands and brain are told what to do and feel, and they do and feel. A game "about" mastery of spaces and mechanics in the same way chess is "about" winning chess games. Pretty trite commentary that would fit just as well under all manner of Nintendo games, sports games, shmups, etc., but this fact feels eerie in the wake of Metroid II. The cold metal machine paves ahead in her bloodiest, gaudiest outing yet. Again. Again. 5 Stars.

The vibes? Checked
Exploration? Completely intuitive
Boss battles? Incredible
Storytelling? Perfectly subtle
Controls? Great and expressive when you get used to them

10/10

Very good, not quite perfect.
Bosses don't take damage from every attack, so your combat options are limited in a way that's just slightly annoying and makes the (intended) later bosses feel very similar to each other.
Once you've got a good grasp on the controls, it feels amazing. Unfortunately, you will probably not have a good grasp of the controls within one playthrough.
I have one or two nitpicks, but the above two are my main negative opinions. This game is still a masterclass in design, with good visuals and a soundtrack that should get annoying but never does. Except the map screen beeping. That one sound sucks.

i think this game changed how i think about video games forever. you have to understand what it was like playing this shit as a young child who had gotten his opinions on video games exclusively from gaming youtubers, who thought mario games were the pinnacle of interactive fiction and that he, Super Mario, was Mr Video Game himself. it was like if you fed a victorian child one of those flaky sugar cookies that would send a diabetic into cardiac arrest. this was insane, man. never been so captivated by each individual facet of a game, the world and level design, the music, the atmosphere, FUCK, the atmosphere ... i don't think there is any video game environment i love as much as early crateria with the low pitched choir and bit crushed thunder in the background. to have a game just throw you into the frying pan like that was so alien to me. i'm not going around looking for stars or anything i'm just ... exploring. i don't even know what i'm doing. sometimes i find something hidden in a room and it lets me move onto the next area. i don't know what these golden statues are but sometimes i fight bosses that look like one of them. everything was just so modular and segmented enough for it to click for me. some people call Super Metroid a guide game but I disagree. I think it was wholly the developers' intention to have you spend so much time running around Zebes. lord knows i did. maybe like seven, eight laps around the map before I figured out what to do. is this supposed to be boring? because even as a kid who was probably way outside of this game's target audience, whose main source of entertainment was watching youtubers with coloured hair play shitty unity horror games, i did not find it dull. it wasn't always "fun", but it was something else. but games are supposed to be fun, right? else why would i bother? that's what reggie said. that's what all the skit reviewers parrot. what's going on here?

when i finished this it was like my entire world was flipped upside down. like holy shit, game design. this is actually a thing. at first i thought i liked this. then the more i thought about it i liked it even more. then i realized i loved it. nowadays i would probably consider this to be my single favourite video game ever. everytime i play a new metroid or just a metroidvania i'm general i'm always like "yeah, this is great, but i don't think it tops super metroid for me". but i don't think anything ever will. and you know what? it's okay to be worse than super metroid. greatest of all time.

Hard to think of what to say except for this is the most enjoyment I’ve ever gotten from a Metroidvania. Right from the title screen and space station intro, the capabilities of the SNES are well shown off with actual cutscenes and detailed sprites flying towards the screen. The game still saves plenty of cool moments for the whole runtime, especially in the final area.

Music and sound effects were great. Exploration, movement and combat were consistently fun, and I finally abandoned my suspension point crutch because of how fair save points and the general difficulty were. I now see where Zero Mission got most of its ideas for bosses and items from. I also managed to avoid guides entirely, except for how to beat Draygon (a gimmick takes it from the worst boss to the easiest) and use the grappling hook, because I’m dumb and didn’t realise you can extend it.

I remember as a kid playing the 5 minute demo on Wii U Smash Bros over and over again, trying to figure out what was going on. You’ll definitely appreciate the story more if you’ve already played Metroid 1 and 2, so I’m glad I did. The game does a better job explaining the series’ plot than the games themselves did, so even if you’re new you’ll be pretty up to speed.
Yeah not much more to say except great game. The fact that I’m not a huge Metroidvania fan and I enjoyed every minute should be a decent sell. They also made Mother Brain good what the hell

i know i am far too late to having anything truly interesting to say about Super Metroid, and any real insight i can provide would be in comparisons to games that aren't actually named Super Metroid. instead, here's 4 thoughts that i might turn into a larger essay one day

1. we talk about making characters fun to move and super metroid is THE case study on making a character feel good to move within the context of their own game. every power up, new area and enemy type enhance controlling samus in a unique fashion. think one of my favourite examples is how much easier walljumping feels once you get space jump! it means we can discuss how good it feels to control Samus in Super Metroid and the context surrounding it, something i think games look over. it's deluxe feeling control is amplified by how samus interacts with the world of super metroid, not how her environment interacts with her

2. super metroid is like a pill for guys like me who haven't played metroidvania's to get why there are so many metroidvania's. i fully understand why people ONLY play metroidvanias now. it's exploration rewarding model of non-linear game design is enough to fill a bucket's worth of video games to play. i definitely want to check more out and find what differentiates a good metroidvania from the rest now

3. think something that sat quietly in the back of my mind is the believability of super metroid's planet zebes. definitely helped by building on a previously visited location and saying "what would happen if samus returned here?", and also helped by the fact i've watched a friend speedrun metroid zero mission for a few months, but it's true trick is that it works WITHOUT that prior knowledge. the placement of the six major areas in the game (brinstar, crateria, wrecked ship, norfair, tourian and miridia) all makes sense, and you can tell the developers tried to make sense of what the planet SHOULD look like layout wise early on in development. when travelling to and from each location (i hope everyone who thinks backtracking in games is lame at least thinks about whether it's lame in a world that feels realistically connected, if not we can't be friends) the magic trick works perfectly. of course norfair is where it is, and of course crateria is where it is. it's wonderful.

4. super metroid is slow and methodical. it's own genius is evident when samus has to crouch to shoot a block, or use her x-ray scope to find a hidden block, or use the triggers to aim diagonally. these movements don't just happen, there's no auto aim. it makes enemies more threatening (especially the super fast metroids late in the game!) and it's more powerful because of it. a fast paced super metroid just wouldn't work, exploration wouldn't make sense and the world would feel smaller.

again i'd like to explore these ideas more one day in a bigger essay but here's my basic thoughts. game rocks.

metroid and its sequel were both ambitious games marked by how adventurous they were, but fell short due to console limitations. both games are barren landscapes, with the former suffering from it, causing frustration, and the latter benefitting from it. in many ways, super metroid is what both of its predecessors wished to be, and combines the best parts of both to make its mark.

one of the greatest improvements super metroid makes is the map (FINALLY), which assists greatly in navigating zebes' many different sections. there's still no true hand-holding here, though, as i distinctly remember being pissed off thinking i softlocked myself the very first night i booted the game up. that's the beauty of super metroid, though; you are never truly lost. there's always new areas to explore and think of ways through. when i got here, i thought i was stuck because i had entered norfair far too soon. yet, some simple exploration taught me that i was far from stuck, and the path i took was one of many viable ones.

i could seriously gush about this game for hours. it is an enduring classic that drives the player to explore every little nook and cranny, because every area has it's true purpose. there's heart in the gameplay, the story is at its peak thus far, and i've never been more excited to play the next game in the series. spectacular.

now did i STILL use a guide to get the last 20 or so upgrades i was missing just so that i could check off for mastery? possibly. but some of those rocket placements were bullshit and i won't be convinced otherwise

A game that feels so close to perfection if it were just a little clearer. Super’s map design is great, with really nice looking sprites and environments, fantastic use of atmosphere, and really good level design.

Honestly anything I could say has already been said over and over again. Movement feels great (albeit hindered by emulating, thanks Switch Virtual Console), item progression feels satisfying, level design is strong and teaches you how to both keep an eye out for the game’s many secrets (though I admittedly have some gripes there) and how to master its mechanics, god Super is such a strong benchmark for the genre. Super is the kinda game that gets better the more you replay it as you build mastery and become familiar with the map. There’s so many positive things to say, I don’t really have much new I can add.

With that said, god I wish it sometimes was a little clearer or less cryptic about its item locations. Granted, I don’t think it's the biggest problem for Super, because you can find enough missiles and the upgrades you need just playing casually and more often than not the level design does a good job showing you where secrets are and cluing you in to keep an eye out. But sometimes it really doesn’t, or an item location feels so unintuitive. The X-Ray helps with this, but it’s still slightly an issue for me. There’s plenty of really cool secrets, but sometimes finding a certain item just feels annoying without knowing ahead of time.

I HIGHLY recommend Super, it’s a genuine classic and a masterpiece of a game.

It is unfortunate I did not enjoy this game as much as I thought I would. The first few hours were excellent. I liked the atmosphere and level design quite a lot. However, once I obtained the grappling gun I felt like the entire game fell apart.

I feel like this game has terrible controls. It never felt like Samus would do anything that I wanted her to do. She is floaty and unwieldy. The moment to moment gameplay is simply not satisfying enough. It was not fun to platform or shoot enemies in this game at all.

People claim they love these types of games because they love to explore. Walking into a room and bombing every square inch of it is not exploring or clever design. Some obscure bomb placement is either going to give you 5 missiles or the required powerup I have been trying to find for half an hour.

However, this game still has a lot of really good elements that I enjoyed. It had a fantastic beginning and ending. The game looks and sounds great. The world itself was very interesting to walk around in. Some moments of this game were truly brilliant and I respect the game designers for the work they did in making the map feel cohesive. I understand why people love it, but it was not for me.