I fear that I’m going to get flamed for saying this, but I thought that this was one of the most overrated games I’ve ever played. I know the game is beloved, and many have extolled its virtues. I’m going to offer a counterpart to this game’s well documented qualities.

Right from the beginning, the game seemed like it had second-tier audio and video quality, which surprised me. As a professional designer myself, I’m very sensitive to those kinds of shortcoming, and the game has many. The lead visual designer does not seem to understand or be able to apply principles of human perception effectively. There are a myriad of issues, from details that are unintentionally obscured, to all kinds of issues with depth perception, and issues with controlling and understanding foreground and background contrast principles. The end result is a myriad of “cheap” depths because of this, where the game demands you learn and memorize, because these design principles are inconsistently applied. Audio is underwhelming and also inconsistent, which also leads to “cheap” deaths when certain audio cues sound confusingly similar. Even worse, there are audio processing errors generating digital distortion in some areas, particularly the Crystal Caves. Controls also have a myriad of technical issues. The end result is a game that is way more difficult than it needs to be. Considering its accolades, I assumed this would be a much more polished experienced. The truth is that it’s a terribly inconsistent game. Certain aspects of game balance, like item and enemy attributes, are expertly well done. Most impressively, the scope and quality of the level design is staggering. Clearly an obsessive amount work went into this. But that level of effort or expertise isn’t evident in many other aspects of the game.

Lastly, the game has serious accessibility problems. It is the epitome of a “get good” game. Unfortunately for many people, we just can’t get that good. I was only able to get to 108 / 112%, and that took me over a hundred hours. I don’t see how I can do any better to see the real ending. Without going through my medical history, suffice to say, many individuals like myself can only move our hands with so much precision, and this gets worse for every human being as we age. This game has absolutely no accessibility settings. Not even a basic difficulty level. And even worse, completion has a major difficulty spike in the final few elements. Proper design should NEVER require the player to be young enough and free of complicating medical issues in order to see the true ending. The heavy difficulty spike content should be optional, with bonus content and lore.

To be clear, it is a good game. A very good game. But it’s not the great game many would have you believe. Does it have one of, if not the greatest metroidvania map and level design? Absolutely. But it lacks the cohesive balance of quality in its execution to be truly considered one of the greats.

I can’t believe it took me thirty years to get to this. It’s look, feel, sound visuals and gameplay design were clearly among the very best of its generation. After all these years, it’s still a worthwhile sci-fi action adventure with horror vibes. When you consider it in the context of 1994, it’s a game that was way ahead of its time. Sure, there is some old school tedium, and sometimes it can be very unclear how to progress things. Some great ROM hacks can reduce those aspects, but the game is still playable in its original form. Highly recommended.