Super Metroid

"It's super, thanks for asking!"

This is probably one of the coolest games you can ever play. If you've ever played Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, you'll be somewhat familiar with how the game works. The game starts you out as Samus, and you must find the Metroid larvae on the planet Zebes, and there are five colonies you must go through, going back and forth between them all many times, collections powerups for your suit and weaponry, to be allowed into the sixth colony, where the main boss is. You must go through each colony, collecting powerups, defeating endless amounts of enemies, beat a boss, then go back to a previous colony, use your new powerup to get to a new part of the colony, defeat a new boss, go to a new colony, defeat the boss, etc.

It's really fun, though. It's fun in the same way as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and any of the Legend of Zelda games are. You strive to collect new items to get to parts of a place that you couldn't get to before, in Zelda you got new tools and items, in SOTN you got new relics that enabled new powers in you, and in this, you get suit enhancements, and weapon enhancements. Some of them are really cool also, for instance, the Screw Attack (Doesn't mean anything dirty BTW), enables you to do a constant summersault in mid-air and run into enemies, defeating them in the process. And like in SOTN, there are hidden rooms in the planet, and the hidden walls can be broken by different items, some walls can be destroyed by a regular shot, others need a Power Bomb, some need a Super Missile, etc. And there's another cool thing about the game. Some of your weapons include Missiles, Super Missiles, and Power Bombs, and there's a good amount you can get altogether, and your limit for number you can have increases by 5 with each new set of them you find scattered around in the planet, they can be hidden in walls, or be standing in the middle of a room in plain sight.

This game is kind of difficult, it's the kind that takes a little amount of time to get used to, but it's not a game where you can coast through every boss fight, the boss fights are hard, but not too challenging, and that's the type of battles I like the most. This also isn't really the ''pick up and play'' type of game if you saved a game six months ago and play again from that point, you won't remember what to do, especially if you're really far in the game. This is a game where you have to start a new game and stick with it in the long haul, and if it's your first time playing the game, it takes you forever to beat it, but the next time you play that it will take you at the most, half that long to beat it. And this game has a LOT of replayability, much more than SOTN, while SOTN will feel repetetive after you've beaten it, this game won't seem a fraction as repetetive.

The graphics in this game are really cool, they still look good even today, nearly ten years after the game's release. Each environment is well-crafted and unique, the designs didn't repeat, and they even change to different environments in some colonies, like in Norfair, you can be in a place that resembles the bowels of hell in one area, then go into another room and the walls all look like bubbles. That's what's so cool about the game. Maridia's really cool because most of it is underwater, and it looks like you're in a huge aquarium, the enemies look very aquatic also. The enemy designs are kinda repetetive though, a lot of the enemies later in the game are just earlier enemies either larger or a different color. But that's a minor thing that I barely care about. The bosses are unique, and really cool looking, and they all require a different strategy to be defeated. My favorite colony was the Wrecked Ship, it's apparently a spaceship that crashed into Crateria, and it looks really cool, it looks like something highly technological, but years and years of abandonment have made it look like a stage set, like when you first go into Melenam in 7th Saga. And that's what I love about it.

The music and sound is the only game's weak spot, and I use the term lightly. This is a case where the music doesn't have to be good to match the environment well. If you didn't like how in the Final Fantasies the music always stood out, and you wanted something with a more background music-like feel to it, this is your game. The music isn't catchy or memorable, and it's very simplistic, but it works well in the game. It matches, and I like how for different sections of each colony they used a different tune. The sound effects are average, but this was the SNES, and it's rare to see an SNES game with good and unique sound effects, so I'll let it go.

The controls are very weird to get used to at first, if you've played SOTN a lot, then it's pretty confusing, because the games are pretty similar, and subliminally you think they use the same controls also, it's like with FFVI and FFVII, they're similar games but use different controls. Once you get used to them, though, it's pretty easy, except for a few things, getting used to doing the wall jump, the space jump, or firing a missile in the right direction while jumping can still be hard to get a control on. But it's worth it with all those really sweet moves.

Doodleheimer Does the Scores!

Gameplay - 10/10 - Instantly addictive and fun.
Graphics - 10/10 - Kick ass!
Sound - 9/10 - A litle uncatchy, but it really works.
Control - 9/10 - Kinda hard to get used to, but totally worth it.

Final Score - 10/10

Doodleheimer's final thoughts.

GET IT. GET IT NOW! THIS IS EASILY ONE OF THE TEN BEST GAMES OF ALL TIME! IT WILL KEEP YOU ENTERTAINED FOR A LONG TIME! It is an extremely entertaining game, it will keep you busy for hours on end, trust me. It will take you a very long time to grow tired of it.

Street Price - $19.99

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 09/08/03