Console: Wii U Virtual Console (originally SNES)
Genre: Metroidvania, 2d
This was my first time attempting and completing Super Metroid and I finished with an 87% in terms of item/upgrade discovery, so I think it's fair to say that I saw most of what the game had to offer. Overall I would say that this game is good, but it hasn't necessarily aged well. I'll break it apart into smaller domains below.
Visuals:
I really enjoyed the way that this game looked for the most part. The design was thorough and it was easy to see everything that was going on. There was a ton of detail put into the sprite work for Samus, the enemies, and the environment. When you find a breakable block, the game pretty plainly tells you what kind of weapon that you need to use to break it which is very nice. I think my only complaint in this department is the map. It's pretty bad. I realize that we've all been spoiled by way better maps in the many games that this one has spawned, but really, this map is pretty awful. It doesn't tell you where the door are that connect rooms (If the adjacent squares on the map are in fact connected), nor what kind of weapon would need to be used for the door if ti requires a revisit. It seems like it would have been a breeze to program and I can't imagine that this game is so big that space was an issue on the cartridge. Compared with something like Super Mario RPG (also SNES) it seems like they could have done better.
Audio:
Great music throughout! I don't think I will be looking up any of these songs on Youtube, nor did I catch any ear worms, but the tracks were very well suited to the areas where they were played. I remember noticing the music change each time I entered a new area and liking the first loop of the tracks. The subsequent loops were not offensive which is a pretty strong positive. Not many games can pull that off. The sound effects were similarly great! The door sounds were great, the missile shots satisfying, and the boss death rattles almost pitiful. I didn't like the lava noises because they didn't really convey burning, just that you were losing energy. Helpful, just not as good as they could have been. When you have the freeze gun equipped your shots are really irritating! I ended up not firing often when I had that gun because of how annoying the sounds were.
Game play:
This game is so freaking floaty. This was easily the worst part of the game to me. In a game that asks you to do specific platforming in order to progress or do well, it's pretty frustrating. I almost lost during the escape sequence after the final boss! I made it back to the ship with something like 10s left of the 3m given. Maybe I didn't mess around during my playthrough enough to understand why sometimes your jumps carry momentum and Samus keeps moving after you stop holding a lateral button and sometimes they don't, but it was sure frustrating to me. I could just be bad at games, I don't know. The underwater level made Samus even more floaty! It was rough. Otherwise though, I thought the game play was pretty great. I felt responsible for the directions that I fired and it was satisfying. The selection of beams for your gun, the differing missiles and everything else was good. When you found a upgrade you likely knew of a few places to try it out, which prevented you from getting lost which was nice. It would have been cool if you could have held down the Select button to return to your beam though, or if you could have switched between missiles on the pause screen or something. There were quite a few instances where I took damage while switching through weapons, but I think that's just me nitpicking.
Overall:
I think it's really easy to see how this game spawned a sub-genre of games. The game is really solid, but I don't think I would recommend it to people who didn't already enjoy the genre. There are a few rougher edges, but I think I feel that way entirely because I have played other games that refine the crap out of some of the things this game helped popularize. This game is enjoyable, but I don't think it's as great enjoying it now as it probably was when it first came out.
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