Retro Chat Weekly: Super Metroid

[Shorty]

No time to write a blurb this week, but since it's just hitting many of your shelves in the form of the SNES Classic Mini, lets chat about this awesome game, with controls and complexities ahead of its time.

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Talk about your memories of the game, waiting for it to arrive, where or when you played it. How much you anticipated it, whether it lived up to your expectations, if you ever beat it, if you've ever been back to it since. Many of these games you may have replayed on Virtual Console or remakes, but try and stick to your first experience of it.

[Londragon]

I always remember going to Boots, the only place to stock games in my town back then, and looking at the cool box (massive thing).  The box art blew me away.  Games back then were 50 quid each, and Super Metroid looked like a game that I would thoroughly enjoy, but it came at a premium price (maybe 60, i can't remember).  One I could not afford as a child, and one my parents were unwilling to pay for a single game.  So it passed me by.  It's a game I now own on Wii U Virtual Console, I have started and put about 2 hours into it (maybe more), got to Kraid, but it feels like I was missing a power-up or two and got repeatedly beat down.  I put the game down, and have never been back to it.  Maybe, just maybe, one day I'll play it again, and appreciate it for what it is.  But, without the nostalgic hook, I find the controls antiquated, fiddly, and unnecessary.  2D Metroid never gelled with me, Prime is where it's at.  *Ducks incoming barrage of criticism.

[Glen-i]

My first experience of Super Metroid was, as pretty much all SNES games, courtesy of @Dcubed (Yeah, yeah, what's changed since then? Heard it before) Of course, I was 4. And that title screen was enough to make me nervous. Couple that with the amazingly tense opening segment on the Space Colony, and little 1994 me couldn't play very far after the first amazing encounter with Ridley. It definitely left an impression. And it would be a whole 13 years before I finally played through it on the Wii VC.

Yes, I'm an amazingly rare example of an old-school Ninty gamer that hadn't played through Super Metroid in the 90's. (EDIT: Damnit @londragon, I thought I was special)

Since my first foray into 2 and a bit minutes of Zebes, I had played 3 other Metroid games, Prime 2 and the two GBA games. My word, the atmosphere definitely stood the test of time. Super Metroid still managed to give the feeling of isolation that I don't think any other Metroid has quite replicated since. Probably down to a mixture of the soundtrack and the setting. I managed to beat it with relative ease, but I loved it. It's also chock full of cool little tricks that I'm still discovering today. (Just two weeks ago, I saw a third way to beat Draygon here on this site)

The game isn't completely flawless though, the controls, while perfectly fine, felt a bit stiff after playing Fusion and Zero Mission. Especially Space Jumping. I still can't get the timing down for it.

Super Metroid is one of those games I'll just boot up on a whim and finish in about 2 days, and I think I will continue to do so for a very long time.

Seriously though, you'd think they'd colour Ridley purple on the bloody box art though.

Edited September 29, 2017 by Glen-i

[Hero-of-Time]

3 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Seriously though, you'd think they'd colour Ridley purple on the bloody box art though.

Could be worse.

 

I didn't play Super Metroid until a long time after release and by that point the game was hailed as some kind of second coming. When I did finally get around to play it I found the game to be too obscure and far too different from anything else I had played. So much so that I had a real dislike of the game and didn't think the hype over it was justified. Fast forward many years later and i'm still not a huge fan of the game. I've completed it a couple of times now and I still fail to see why the game is praised so much. For me, I think it's one of those games you had to play at the time of release to fully appreciate.

 

[Glen-i]

7 minutes ago, Hero-of-Time said:

For me, I think it's one of those games you had to play at the time of release to fully appreciate.

*Cough*PokemonRed/Blue*cough*

I totally understand where you're coming from, though. I can also see where the love comes from. I definitely think the praise is a little bit overblown, but in 1994, that kind of atmosphere was just not seen in games. It's gonna leave it's mark on a childhood.

I guess I'm lucky in that regard, I got the impact of that opening segment in 1994, but only played through it once I developed a sense of what I enjoy in a game. I'd be willing to bet I'm an abnormality when it comes to Super Metroid.

Edited September 29, 2017 by Glen-i

[Grazza]

I don't have an awful lot to say about Super Metroid, so I'll just stick to the main feeling I got about it.

 

Like @londragon, my first memory of it was seeing the huge box the SNES cartridge was packaged in.  However, I never played it in the '90s and instead opted for Yoshi's Island (the other game with a huge box + guide).  I didn't actually play it until Wii Virtual Console.

 

It's a good game, but like @Hero-of-Time I didn't quite get what all the fuss was about.  I'd played and loved Fusion and Zero Mission, and by comparison Super was missing a few things I'd become used to.  I remember thinking it was quite easy in terms of combat (which I did like), but obscure in terms of exploration.  One thing I really do still like is the graphics - gorgeous, colourful sprites that I still prefer to 2.5D any day.  As I say, it's a good game, but I think its reputation as an amazing one is due to the huge leap it was over the NES and Game Boy Metroids at the time.

[V. Amoleo]

Super Metroid is my favourite game of all time and it was the first Metroid game that I played.  I first got my hands on it on my now brother-in-law's SNES in the 90s.  I played it many times over back then and now play it once a year or so via the Virtual Console.

I remember the first time I played it I felt a genuine rush during the intro when trying to escape the space station.  When I finally got to the planet and kept finding new places to explore as I progressed I honestly thought that games would never get bigger than it. 

The music is cracking.  I still find myself whistling the tunes.  And some people have made very good covers of them.

The sprite work is excellent and it still looks really good to this day.  The story and atmosphere are amazing.  Yes there's not much in the way of story segments after you get past the intro, but that's all you need to know.  If you try to put too much in you end up with Metroid Other M.  It's very much an example of less is more.

There are a couple of gameplay functions that have aged a little.  For example, the later games have had the ability to hold onto ledges and don't get me started on space jump timing.  Both of which annoy me when I go back to Super Metroid now.  This is going to sound a little like heresy but if MercurySteam were to remake it in Samus Returns vision, I think I'd be okay with it.

I firmly believe that without this game we wouldn't have the awesome Batman Arkham series.

[Jonnas]

My first Metroid game was Prime. I then played the GBA games, Metroid II and Metroid Prime 2. All of this to say that, by the time I got to Super Metroid (through... free means), I was already well acquainted with how the series worked. Indeed, the first time I played Super Metroid, it seemed to be not any different from what I played before, and I was annoyed at some obtuse things in it (saving the animals, breaking the pipe, etc.).

A few years afterward, I came upon an article that talked about level design in the first half of the game (which was until you run into your ship again), and got the itch to play it again, this time with a more critical, attentive look. And then it clicked. Instead of rushing through the game with a shallow view, I actually paid attention to my surroundings, made note of places to revisit, and allowed myself to immerse in it, and was not disappointed. It's a game that rewards dedication, and now I could see that.

Nowadays I highly respect Super Metroid (the only SNES game to make it to my N-E Top 10 list), and I genuinely believe it to be an ideal that every Metroidvania and Adventure game (any exploration-based game, really) should strive for.

Except for the pipe. That one's still bull.

[RedShell]

Add me to the list of people that weren't overly impressed with Super Metroid. I played it back in the day, but the only things that really stuck with me were the intro (which was very atmospheric), and that incredibly hype inducing escape sequence! Man, the music during that section combined with Mode 7 rotation of the stage was just.. wow!

Tried to replay it a while back on the VC, but couldn't get into it. I can see why the game is so revered, but it's just not my bag.

Remember this?:

 

[killthenet]

I knew of the existence of the game growing up but my oldest brother had the SNES and never bought Super Metroid so it passed me by when I was a kid. I don't recall ever really thinking about it in the intervening years but I remember hearing a lot of buzz about it during the Wii days so thought I'd check it out when it was 30p in the early days of Wii U. I played it for a bit then but didn't get very far, it seemed a bit too obtuse to me and so I didn't put any more than half an hour or so into it. 

Fast forward to last year and I was in a phase of clearing my backlog so decided to give it a proper go. Like HoT I didn't have the nostalgia for it but it was also the first Metroid game I played through so that probably has some bearing on my reaction to it but I found it to be incredibly atmospheric, the game instilling you with a sense of dread and isolation right out the gate that never leaves you. The fact that they managed to create this chilling atmosphere with 2D sprites and limited audio capabilities makes it even more astounding and despite not playing it at the time I can still appreciate how groundbreaking it was. I don't have enough familiarity or distance from my play through to be able to say it's one of my favourite games but it's certainly one of the most intense gaming experiences I've had and I look forward to revisiting it on the SNES classic.