My Review of Super Metroid for SNES

While traversing an elaborate cave system filled with a multitude of bizarre and dangerous creatures who all want nothing more than seeing you dead, using your rockets you decide to clear a path through to your objective, a space pirate headquarter's, you storm in guns blazing taking out the first foe with a rocket blast, before his corpse can even reach the ground you take out a further two foes with one clean shot from your plasma beam, straight through both their skulls, but more keep showing up... you decide this calls for a swift retreat so you shrink down to your morph ball and make a quick escape through a nearby tunnel, you fall down a large chasm and now your waist deep in molten rock, searching the belly of a great cavern for your next upgrade... all in a days work for the galaxies greatest bounty hunter. Welcome to the world of Samus Aran.
                                ( North American box art )

For those of you that haven't guessed by now ( or read the title... ), the game i'm describing is Metroid, but more specifically Super Metroid which is quite possibly the best of the entire Metroid franchise has to offer, maybe even the best SNES game? Well in this review i go over why I believe this from both a technical and professional point of view but also my own personal thoughts.

                                          ( Samus exiting her ship ready for her new mission )

Super Metroid is one of the most polished games the SNES library has to offer as far as visuals and sound go, It's up there with games the like of Super Castlevania 4 and Megaman X. The best way of describing what kind of game Super Metroid is would be a Platforming/Exploration game with Rpg elements. The game is split into four main areas each of the areas you visit on your adventure has its own individual style and artistic direction as well as its own unique soundtracks, yet the game world holds together as one cohesive design. The music blends in an out seamlessly as you venture from area to area, new enemy types are slowly introduced the more you progress, and mini-boss encounters and new equipment pickups add a unspoken sense of progression through your quest.

 (samus finding the morph ball)
There are numerous Beam types, Rocket and Super rockets, Bombs, the Speed Booster and many more upgrades are available to collect through your journey, most are required to advance to new areas but there are a decent amount of optional upgrades; such as the charge beam, that don't have to be collected or even found by the player. As well as the upgrades there are collectible rocket, power bomb and energy tanks. All these items are completely optional pickups and there are numerous of each scattered throughout each area of the game, these items aid you in your quest by adding more ammo capacity and more bars to your life energy. Whats great about this mechanic is that it allows the player to set themselves challenges within the game such as complete the game with no rocket pickups for example, adding to the games re-playability.                                                                                                                                                


( Below are samus in her Varia and Gravity suit, they add new features such as extreme temperature protection and damage resistance. )

                                                     









                                                                             

                                                                                         
                                     




  ( Samus Vs Crocomire, one of the games many mini-bosses )

I like to think of this mechanic as a Risk/Reward system which presents the player with a choice, do I simply run through this room bypassing whatever upgrades might be hiding, or do I check out that strange looking lava pit to then find out its open bottomed an the lava is an illusion or do I freeze that enemy that's flying around up there an climb on his back to see if I can get up through the ceiling.




Samus using the Wave Beam

Spazer Beam



Charge Beam


As I mentioned earlier the game is split into four main areas Brinstar, Maridia, Wrecked Ship and Norfair each with its own boss, the great thing about the bosses in Super Metroid is that they are all completely unique in their own right.
From Ridley the Dragon-esque creature who's responsible for the deaths of Samus' parents, Kraid a giant reptilian beast who requires Samus to climb up to his head to even damage him, Draygon who resembles a Crustacean and the Ghost creature Phantoon who fights using flame projectiles.





Fighting Phantoon aboard the Wrecked ship, whats odd about this boss fight is that you defeat him before you can explore the rest of the level so its in reverse to regular format.

Kraid is your first true boss fight in Super Metroid.





Theres a trick to killing Draygon, in that if you destroy the wall mounted guns they reveal exposed electrical wires, when Draygon picks you up simply grapple beam the wires to fry him, careful though it hurts you too.

Ridley is the fourth and final boss to open Mother Brains lair, an there is a reason for that, he deals huge damage and he's a hard as nails, there's no real strategy to beating him, just fire all your rockets cuz he takes around 100 to bring down.



When you defeat all the Bosses you can enter the final area of the game and face the Mother Brain who leads the Space Pirates, although there's a twist this time.





This Bizarre statue can be found at the beginning of the game, each time you defeat a boss their portion goes grey and there jewel ceases to shine until finally a path to the final area is revealed.



Mother brain looked like this in Metroid.

But in Super Metroid She's got a whole new get up, what i've taken to calling Mecha-brain, not the official title but i like it.





 I mean WTF?! what is this, and the music, simply horrifying.
http://www.youtube.com/watchv=AqaNrWcIRYY&list=PLF44182750EB9CD84

Listen to it.....

In conclusion Super Metroid is one superb piece of gaming history and should be played by anyone who considers themselves a gamer, whether its from you era or not, regardless of whether you hate Platformers, this game just has to be played, its a classic.

Samus using the grapple beam and fighting a might chozo statue mini-boss.

So lets get down to it, the score.

+ Great atmosphere and Environments that just keep on giving.
+ Gorgeous soundtrack.
+ Multitudes of enemies and bosses.
+ Insane amounts of collectibles.
+ Hugely Re-playable.
+ Tight and Concise controls, even by today's standards.

- Can be a little overwhelming for some newcomers to the series.

All in all Super metroid is a Triumph of gaming well worthy of a perfect score.
10/10