I remember renting Super Metroid from the video store several times as a kid. I think it was the unique world sucked me in. I loved exploring the diverse environments and finding the well-hidden secrets and powerful upgrades. In the era where internet guides didn't exist it meant I had to fully explore this world if I wanted to get through it, and after a few rental periods I was eventually able to see the game through to the end credits. At that time, I considered Super Metroid to be one of the best games I had ever played, and it always held a spot in my memory as one of my absolute favorite games of all time.

Back in 2016 I replayed Super Metroid for the first time since I was a kid, and I wanted to see if it still lived up how great I remembered it being. Sadly, by the time I saw the game through to completion, I felt a bit disappointed. I still loved the overall gameplay, and I found the world design to be as interesting as I had remembered it being, but I found that I was continually annoyed by the game's lack of direction, and I missed some of the quality-of-life improvements that newer games in the genre had adopted.

This year I thought it would be fun to play through every game in the 2D Metroid series. I opted for the remakes for the first two games in the series (Zero Mission instead of Metroid on the NES, Samus Returns instead of Metroid 2 on the Game Boy), both of which I enjoyed quite a bit. Next it was time to play through Super Metroid. I was curious to see if my opinion had changed on it since my playthrough in 2016.

Honestly, there is a lot I liked about Super Metroid during this playthrough. The game looks fantastic! The sprite designs are beautiful and are well animated, and the world itself has a great look to it. Each new area looked completely different than the ones that came before them. Super Metroid's environments were a lot more varied than the ones in Zero Mission and Samus Returns. The game's soundtrack was fantastic too and it created such a unique tone from the very beginning right through to the game's credits screen. I'm honestly surprised that a soundtrack this good existed on the SNES. Another huge plus for Super Metroid was how Zebes (the planet you are exploring) was a much less linear environment than the planets you explore in Zero Mission and Samus Returns (this was both a pro and a con, but more on the con side in a minute). The planet is absolutely littered with upgrades and powerful upgrades to find, with some of them being incredibly well hidden.

While there was a lot to love in Super Metroid it wasn't without some faults, most of which were the lack of quality-of-life improvements that newer games in the genre have adopted since this game's release. First off, the game's map isn't great. It works, but the lack of simple things like the locations of doors is a bit of a nuissance. Also, the inability to add reminder markers to the map was a bit disappointing, but definitely not game breaking.

Secondly, I wish the game had offered more guidance on where you were supposed to go next. This lack of direction gives you more freedom to explore the world at your own pace, but it led to a few frustrating moments where I had no idea where I should be going. This led to me backtracking through the entire world in hopes of finding something I may have missed, and often these ways forward were incredibly cryptic or at least very well hidden. You didn't think to walk through the inconspicuous wall that shows on the radar as a real wall? Better go back through the world and hope you think to do that when you inevitably exhaust all other possibilities. Thankfully the X-Ray Visor upgrade helps alleviate some of this frustration, but even so it isn't a perfect solution.

Though I found that some elements of Super Metroid didn't stand the test of time as well as I had hoped they would it is hard to deny that this game is still incredible to this very day. The fact that this came out almost 30 years is astounding. The game's world is beautiful, it is fun to explore, and it is filled with unique (albeit hard-to-find) and powerful upgrades. The game also boasts one of the most memorable soundtracks of all time. Sure it's easy to get hung up on some missing quality of life upgrades that newer games in the genre have since adopted, but it is impossible to deny that Super Metroid still holds up incredibly after all these years. This game helped to define the Metroidvania genre, and it should be experienced by anyone that has yet to play through it.

Reviewed on Nov 16, 2022


Comments