Because I grew up with the later Metroid titles, coming back to Super Metroid takes some adjusting. The controls are floatier, the inclusion of a run button feels a bit odd, and navigation can get pretty obtuse at times, especially since the game does not mark doors on your map, meaning what you might mistake for a dead end, could actually be progress. There's still some semblance of ironing out the kinks going on here, and it isn't what I would personally consider as the perfect Metroid experience.
But if I compared to this to the original Metroid 1 and 2 instead, then Super Metroid is a humongous leap in quality, and the first Metroid game I would feel confident recommending to people. Moreover, after I tried the game with the "Super Metroid: Redux" romhack, my prior nitpicks quickly faded away, and I could enjoy Super Metroid for what it really was: A fantastic metroidvania, well deserving of its praise, and one that was very ahead of its time.
One thing I hold a lot of praise for is its cinematic quality. In an age where games primarily positioned themselves as arcade experiences, Super Metroid expands on what Metroid 2 was too limited to do within the confines of the Gameboy, emphasizing a dark and atmospheric ambience. The action of the introductory sequence is preceded by a quiet solitude, dead bodies strewn all over, creating a story through its visuals before revealing the ultimate cause of the massacre. This trick is repeated one more time afterwards, settling you into a desolate and familiar planet, allowing you to soak in how it's changed since the last time you were here, only bringing out the real threats once you have disturbed and alerted the entire planet to your solitary and vulnerable presence.
And I mean, then there's the ending sequence, which I would rather not spoil, but if we're talking sequences that give me goosebumps, Super Metroid's ending may be the earliest possible example of this. It's not about giving you the ultimate challenge, but rather, it's to reinforce one last time that though you may be a powerful and legendary bounty hunter, you are still one single person at the end of the day. It is to reinforce that Samus Aran may get as powerful as she wants to, but that doesn't mean what she's fighting against will be any less unknown and unpredictable. This was not an adventure, it was a do-or-die mission where survival was only just barely obtained. And the game portrays this in the most visceral and cool way it possibly could've.
The exploration of Super Metroid is deceptively open-ended, offering next to no guidance, and further cementing the feeling of being stranded and alone. Thoroughness is recommended, as is memorization of certain inaccessible locations to an extent. But more than that, you'll want to accept quickly that your only goal in this game is to just go where the flow takes you. Don't hunt for anything specific. Just get lost in these caves, and study their layouts, until the time finally comes when you know your way around it all.
The lack of guidance also means that there is no predictable formula towards how soon or late you get your major upgrades, which makes the abrupt discovery of them all the more exciting. They could be at any corner, under any crevace, and it's likely that getting just one of them will change the way you play the game, and grant access to many possibilities that were previously not available. This is of course, a granted for Metroidvanias, but Super Metroid was the game that truly popularized the satisfaction of this kinda game design, and so it deserves the dibs on redundant descriptions of a genre's staple.
There is one problem that I've found with the exploration, and while not a huge deal, it is one that persists through pretty much every Metroid game there is. It is what I call "the missile dilemma." Among the various unique upgrades, Missile Capacity Upgrades are the most common collectible you'll find in a Metroid game. They are a part of what makes Samus stronger just as any other upgrade, but comparatively, they are the least exciting upgrades in these games. The dilemma stems from the fact that missile capacity upgrades also tend to be some of the hardest upgrades to obtain.
For balancing reasons, there's plenty of them that are quite simple to procure, but some of these things are locked behind some of the hardest challenges in the game, ones that require more advanced execution of the shinespark technique. And, my argument towards that is, for all the effort these particular challenges want you to go through, wouldn't it have been more exciting if your reward was a unique upgrade, rather than... another 5 more missiles worth of capacity?
The dilemma is further complicated by the fact that if you were to start gatekeeping important upgrades by putting them into these shinespark challenges, the rate of people who would complete this game would notably diminish. At the same time, the rewards that ARE currently there are underwhelming and not worth the strenuous hassle and multiple attempts worth of practice to reach them. The missiles that you obtain by playing the game casually are plenty enough to get you to the end, so why waste time on obtaining 5 more through a tough shinespark challenge? Just to get 100%? Other than bragging rights, it ain't worth it. But I understand that this is not an easy thing to address, and it's probably for the best that things stay this way rather than the other way around.
Overall, Super Metroid is an oppressive experience, one where it's easy to get overwhelmed by its sense of freedom. But this is to its advantage, crafting a game where a cool thing could be around any corner. Metroid really found its rhythm with this entry, so it's a shame it immediately lost it for about 8 years due to a lack of a N64 title. At least 2002 would go on to make up for Samus's absence with two major games.
Oh, and Save the Animals.
But if I compared to this to the original Metroid 1 and 2 instead, then Super Metroid is a humongous leap in quality, and the first Metroid game I would feel confident recommending to people. Moreover, after I tried the game with the "Super Metroid: Redux" romhack, my prior nitpicks quickly faded away, and I could enjoy Super Metroid for what it really was: A fantastic metroidvania, well deserving of its praise, and one that was very ahead of its time.
One thing I hold a lot of praise for is its cinematic quality. In an age where games primarily positioned themselves as arcade experiences, Super Metroid expands on what Metroid 2 was too limited to do within the confines of the Gameboy, emphasizing a dark and atmospheric ambience. The action of the introductory sequence is preceded by a quiet solitude, dead bodies strewn all over, creating a story through its visuals before revealing the ultimate cause of the massacre. This trick is repeated one more time afterwards, settling you into a desolate and familiar planet, allowing you to soak in how it's changed since the last time you were here, only bringing out the real threats once you have disturbed and alerted the entire planet to your solitary and vulnerable presence.
And I mean, then there's the ending sequence, which I would rather not spoil, but if we're talking sequences that give me goosebumps, Super Metroid's ending may be the earliest possible example of this. It's not about giving you the ultimate challenge, but rather, it's to reinforce one last time that though you may be a powerful and legendary bounty hunter, you are still one single person at the end of the day. It is to reinforce that Samus Aran may get as powerful as she wants to, but that doesn't mean what she's fighting against will be any less unknown and unpredictable. This was not an adventure, it was a do-or-die mission where survival was only just barely obtained. And the game portrays this in the most visceral and cool way it possibly could've.
The exploration of Super Metroid is deceptively open-ended, offering next to no guidance, and further cementing the feeling of being stranded and alone. Thoroughness is recommended, as is memorization of certain inaccessible locations to an extent. But more than that, you'll want to accept quickly that your only goal in this game is to just go where the flow takes you. Don't hunt for anything specific. Just get lost in these caves, and study their layouts, until the time finally comes when you know your way around it all.
The lack of guidance also means that there is no predictable formula towards how soon or late you get your major upgrades, which makes the abrupt discovery of them all the more exciting. They could be at any corner, under any crevace, and it's likely that getting just one of them will change the way you play the game, and grant access to many possibilities that were previously not available. This is of course, a granted for Metroidvanias, but Super Metroid was the game that truly popularized the satisfaction of this kinda game design, and so it deserves the dibs on redundant descriptions of a genre's staple.
There is one problem that I've found with the exploration, and while not a huge deal, it is one that persists through pretty much every Metroid game there is. It is what I call "the missile dilemma." Among the various unique upgrades, Missile Capacity Upgrades are the most common collectible you'll find in a Metroid game. They are a part of what makes Samus stronger just as any other upgrade, but comparatively, they are the least exciting upgrades in these games. The dilemma stems from the fact that missile capacity upgrades also tend to be some of the hardest upgrades to obtain.
For balancing reasons, there's plenty of them that are quite simple to procure, but some of these things are locked behind some of the hardest challenges in the game, ones that require more advanced execution of the shinespark technique. And, my argument towards that is, for all the effort these particular challenges want you to go through, wouldn't it have been more exciting if your reward was a unique upgrade, rather than... another 5 more missiles worth of capacity?
The dilemma is further complicated by the fact that if you were to start gatekeeping important upgrades by putting them into these shinespark challenges, the rate of people who would complete this game would notably diminish. At the same time, the rewards that ARE currently there are underwhelming and not worth the strenuous hassle and multiple attempts worth of practice to reach them. The missiles that you obtain by playing the game casually are plenty enough to get you to the end, so why waste time on obtaining 5 more through a tough shinespark challenge? Just to get 100%? Other than bragging rights, it ain't worth it. But I understand that this is not an easy thing to address, and it's probably for the best that things stay this way rather than the other way around.
Overall, Super Metroid is an oppressive experience, one where it's easy to get overwhelmed by its sense of freedom. But this is to its advantage, crafting a game where a cool thing could be around any corner. Metroid really found its rhythm with this entry, so it's a shame it immediately lost it for about 8 years due to a lack of a N64 title. At least 2002 would go on to make up for Samus's absence with two major games.
Oh, and Save the Animals.