I, for one, don't really think there's much room for a video game to be better than Super Metroid. It might be the most ahead of its time a game has ever been. The lonely, somber, yet ominous atmosphere, masterfully crafted in the environments and soundtrack. The slow, gradual increase of power, the growing satisfaction of blazing through areas you had previously struggled with. All those secrets, hidden items and little details, gently beckoning but not begging you to come back some day and discover an assortment of things you hadn't before. It all fills me with childlike wonder.

It boggles my mind how intricate this is for a SNES release, even for the mid 90s when seemingly all the big names stopped pulling their punches and came out with pure gold. Even today, it stands out. There are tons of games nowadays trying to be Super Metroid, or perhaps Symphony of the Night, but it always seems to be missing that spark that makes these two, especially Metroid, so special. It's genre-defining. It's genre-codifying. And, if you ask me, it's a defining piece of the entire medium.

I don't like to suck off Nintendo - nor any other first or second party game companies, really - but this game is utterly magical. Just about everybody's played it, but for everyone else I just can't recommend it enough.