Super Metroid

"As One of Our Favorite South Park Characters Would Say: "It's Super"!"

Well, as I start off here, Super Metroid made by Nintendo is known as one of, if not the best Metroid Games of all time. It is also known as one of the best Adventure games of all time, and for its time in 1994, this was amazing. So like I always say: Lets light this candle.

Story: 8

Super Metroid is the third game in the series, and it takes place a short time after the events of Metroid II: Return of Samus. And our favorite little ass kicking girl in an orange metal suit has just killed all of the Metrioids, but she also found one that thinks she is the Metroids mother. So it followed her out, and Samus presented it to the Ceres Space Colony so the Galactic Federation can research it. And they discover that the power of Metriods can be "harnessed for the benefit of mankind".

So Samus leaves the station, but shortly thereafter Ridley one of the leaders of the Space Pirates arrives and steals the Baby Metrioid and returns to Zebes, the planet with a Space Pirate Base that Samus previously destroyed, but was now rebuilt. So Samus goes through the planet to find the Baby Metroid, while killing the Space Pirates, and their leaders on Zebes. In the end it all works out quite well, and although Metroid is not known for its plot, still a good enough story.

Gameplay: 10

I will start this off simply; this is what Metroid is supposed to be. Now... Super Metriod was on a 24 Megabit Cartridge, the biggest at its time, and looking at how much they did in here it shows. You are given a massive world to explore with tons of hidden areas. Everything is also very open ended, you get to go where ever you want, as long as you have the right items, and you can follow your own path to accomplish your goals, and collect the new weapons. And as I said, there are a lot of hidden areas, and there are also hidden items you can find as well. You also upgrade your beams with stackable upgrades that you can turn on and off [only Metroid Game you can do that in], and there are also several items that remain to this day like the Power Bombs, or moves like the Wall Jump.

Everything about Super Metroid was implemented so perfectly. And if you play, I need to tell you not to use a guide, it is so much more fun to explore everything yourself, unlike in the newer games where they hold your hand the entire way. In Super Metroid, they let you lose to explore Zebes to your hearts content, and the style of Game play of Super Metroid has been adapted for many 2D adventure/action games such as Castlevania. And you are also able to "Speed Run" the game, that means you try and do the game as fast as you can, the current record for a 100% Speed run [that I found] is 55 minutes, very impressive to the people who do this. Super Metroid, IS perfection. And it is a VERY hard game to beat [with all of the Exploration and whatnot], but it is so worth it.

Challenge: 10

Super Metroid is one of the hardest games I have ever played from the old age of gaming when they were made to challenge you. Unless you have a lot of free time, it is almost impossible for you to find every thing in this game, all of the weapons, all of the missile packs, energy tanks and all of the hidden powers you can use. It is a good enough challenge to go through the game on your way to kill Mother Brain, but finding every single item is going to require a map.

Controls: 10

On the SNES, you gained more buttons to perform more maneuvers, and everything works SO well in the game. You can now Aim in almost every direction, and you can crouch down, you can run, you can do so much and it makes the first Metroid feel so archaic when you compare it to this. It actually controls better to me than any of the other Metroid games I have ever played [Prime 3 may overtake it though]. The SNES Game pad works perfectly for this game, and it is easy to do everything. For a 2D game, everything controls so fluidly and you just need to try everything out in here.

Graphics: 10

Let me just start off by saying "wow wow wow wow WOW!” like I said before, Super Metroid is on a 24 Megabit Cartridge, which was the biggest for its time on ANY home console, and you can tell that Nintendo really worked their asses off to make the game look as beautiful as it does. Zebes has an excellent atmosphere, and every level looks exactly as it should, and you can spend a lot of time looking around at everything. I also found myself being amazed at how great Samus looked in this game, the Armor looked great, and with the upgrades you added to it changed [and if you only have the Gravity Suit on, and remove the Vaira suit it removes the bumps, but keeps it purple, great detail from Nintendo].

There is amazing attention to detail on everything, you can see Samus breathing, and you can see the enemies flinching around, and you can see the backgrounds being animated and the lighting changing sometimes. It all looks beautiful, well beautiful for a game that came out 13 years ago. And all of the massive bosses in here, like Kraid who had a growth spurt and suddenly takes up 2 screens, or Crocomire who turns into a pile of bones and collapses before your eyes, or Ridley who is just so cool looking he deserves a spot, or Mother Brain who is so big and has so many different attack animations the game slows down for me sometimes.

So why don't you just look at the screen shots for this game, they are all nice to gaze into them for a few minutes, just make sure a KiHunter doesn't find you and blow you away, because you might not notice it because you are staring at such a beautiful game it distracts you too much. And let me just say this too, the Hyper Beam will BLIND you, but the colors are so pretty. Hell all of this game is pretty. Even the PS3 fan boys would like this game, it is just that good, and it is some of the best 2D graphics of all time.

Sound: 10

Yet again the Composers at Nintendo prove why they are some of the best out there. Super Metroid has some of the best music I have heard in a game, EVER. But it is also not too catchy since that would distract you, but it does help add to the atmosphere that the beautiful graphics already created. But like always the Boss Battle music gets you pumped up for the fight, I always love the music for fighting against Ridley and Mother Brain. But the best song on the game has to be the Escape theme, very exciting to listen to.

And there are also the normal sound effects... there are footsteps that you hear as Samus runs across Zebes, you can hear so many sound effects for each of the items, like the speed booster which gives you a nice little whoosh that you hear. And there are the sounds of the beams, which sound great, and it is not annoying to hear them, and that is good since you will keep pounding on the weapon buttons for most of the game. But like I said, the sound is very fitting, the music is superb [check out "Metroid Metal" as well], and the items sound great, hell everything sounds great.

Atmosphere: 9

Super Metroid sets up everything very well for a game with exploration that feels like Sidescroller Zelda. When you play the game, you want to explore Zebes, the music really sucks you into the places you are at. It is actually very hard to explain, just play and you will want to explore for a while, that is all I really need to say.

Replayability: 10

There are so many places to explore in Super Metroid, there is so much that you can do, there are so many bosses to kill, there are so many items and missile packs and power bomb upgrades and energy tanks and special items to collect, there are so many endings you can obtain, there are so many records to beat... need I go on? This is one of the best games of all time and it never gets old PLAY DAMN IT!!!

Pros:

Great sound/graphics, a lot to do in the game, lot of items, open ended to explore the planet, incredible feel to everything.

Cons:

Hard to beat, exploration may be hard for some people, it ends.

Should you get it:

Have you been reading this thing?! Buy the game! Download it to the Wii Virtual Console when it comes out! Marry the cartridge! Just get the game! There is no way you can regret buying this game, and if you do not have a SNES buy one of those too, hell you should buy extra copies for your friends to play. Just get the game; I cannot make myself clearer than this!

Overall:

Super Metroid is one of the best games of all time with incredible exploration and it is the best Metroid game that I have ever played [before playing Corruption]. It is also the Metroid game that did the most with the fewest flaws, and that alone should be enough to buy it. But as I said before, if you play do not use a guide, it makes it more worthwhile beating the game if you did it all by yourself without your hand being held throughout the entire game.

10

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 07/26/07, Updated 10/10/07

Game Release: Super Metroid (US, 04/18/94)