After beating A Link to the Past, I decided that my next play-through was going to be Super Metroid. Oddly enough, I never actually played this one as a kid. I'd never even heard of it until Samus Aran was advertised as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Following on from that, my first taste of the Metroid series was Metroid Fusion for the Gameboy Advance.
Anyway, let's start with the story. The famous bounty hunter Samus Aran had been recruited by the Galactic Federation for a special mission; travel to the planet Zebes and destroy samples of the parasitic Metroids which had been seized by a group of pirates in a bid to develop biological weaponry (Metroid for the NES). Later, she is sent to the Metroids' native planet of SR388 to eradicate the species (Metroid II for the Game Boy). This culminates in encountering a final Metroid which thinks she's its mother. Unable to bring herself to kill it, she instead delivers it to Federation researchers. However, as she leaves, the facility is attacked by the pirates who steal the Metroid. Not wanting the creature to fall into the wrong hands, she travels back to Zebes to battle the pirates again.
Gameplay involves a combination of platforming and run-and-gun shoot-'em-up action, all of which takes place in an open-world featuring jungles, underwater caverns, volcanic areas, even a haunted spaceship. There is a lot of exploration involved, but access is initially limited by doors and other obstacles, requiring certain abilities or equipment to bypass, such as the Speed Booster or the Grapple Beam. The vast world often requires a lot of back-tracking. This, combined with the haunting atmosphere of the world, creates one of the most immersive games I've played in recent years.
Metroid is also one of the first franchises I've come across which actively encourages speed-runs. I don't really go for that kind of thing, and my play-through only yielded about 60% of the total items - I didn't even find the Spring Ball which allows you to jump while in Morph Ball form. Ultimately, I beat the game in about 7 hours - most of which was spent on a (thankfully optional) wall-jumping sequence or fighting the Space Pirates' (literal and metaphorical) dragon, Ridley. I cite those as the most frustrating parts of the game.
That said, I think Super Metroid is a contender for one of the best games on the Super Nintendo.
Until next time. I'm signing out.
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