13 Points on Super Metroid - Nintendo - 1994 [SNES]

1. This game holds up. For real. It existed in my peripheral gaming vision as a kid but I never played it until I was all grown up and shaving.

2. Super Metroid looks great but its truly stellar aspect is sound design. The music is minimalist and memorable which fits the stark graphical design. The sound effects fit in perfectly and feel almost like part of the music. This is why I think game reviewers are constantly throwing the term "atmospheric" at this game as if that even means anything.

3. Control is a low point. The game does seem to behave responsively and consistently but the timing on some things is stupid finicky in a way that feels frustrating rather than challenging.

4. Number 3 seems like it's by design but that almost makes it worse.

5. So, yeah, I'm saying Super Metroid has bad controls and they are bad in both theory and execution. Sorry you had to hear it from me.

6. People pretend this game has a plot but it does not. You get a feeling of wonder from playing, you feel the desire to explore for the sake of it but the plot here is in the manual not in the game.

7. Nothing really wrong w/ number 6. Just sayin'.

8. Getting through this whole game w/o getting hints for the first time should take around twelve hours. Actually doing so takes closer to twenty. This is to say you will spend about eight hours aimlessly poking around, lots of "Hey kid, buy a strategy guide"-type secrets. Expect to go poking and prodding every wall in every single room in the game if you want to get through on your own.

9. Number 8 being said, you can beat it much, much faster than that once you know where everything is. Replayability is increased both by the fact that you can re-beat the game collecting only a fraction of a powerups and the fact there are so many available powerups that you likely missed at least some of them on your first run through.

10. Replayability is not helped at all by some very minor variations on the ending depending on your performance.

11. Super Metroid requires a lot of backtracking (see number 8) but lots of times you will want to backtrack anyway just for the fun of it. It is a backtracking-centric game. If you don't like that, don't play.

12. The last boss is pretty easy. The second to last boss is really hard. This always bothers me when it happens. Maybe it won't bother you. I'm not gonna tell you how to think.

13. I have a lot of nits to pick w/ Super Metroid but a huge part of that is I just like the game so much. If it were just some crappy game w/ some poor design choices here or there, I'd put it down and not worry about it. This is good enough that you can't help but over-analyze it. That's actually a good thing but it makes talking to people about it annoying.