Super Metroid

*POTENTIAL SPOILERS!  READ AT YOUR OWN CAUTION.  YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!

For the past few weeks, I find myself playing Super Metroid.  Maybe due to Metroid Samus Returns coming out for Nintendo 3DS, but I want to see if I can beat the game without a guide.  I find it to be a good game, I don’t know where I going or what I’m doing.

Super Metroid is a side scrolling action game developed and published by Nintendo.  Released on the Super Nintendo in 1994 and on Nintendo’s Virtual Console for Wii/ Wii U and New Nintendo 3DS.  I am playing it on my Wii U.  It takes place right after the Game Boy game Metroid 2:  The Return of Samus.  After Samus drops off the Metroid infant to the Ceres Space Colony.  She gets a distress call to return to the colony.  She finds the scientists are dead and Ridley took the infant Metroid to Planet Zebes, the planet from the original game.  Samus follows in an attempt to retrieve the infant Metroid from Ridley and the Space Pirates, who rebuilt and expanded the base from the original game.

One thing that I ever noticed until maybe several years ago, was the title screen.  Mostly the bottom of the screen:

The scientists have been killed and are dead at the bottom of the screen.

It was a cool detail that I can’t figure out how I didn’t see this that for the longest time.  It’s a detail that somehow also got overlooked during a time when video game violence and imagery was at one of many peaks and the ESRB (Entertainment Software Ratings Board) was forming.  You can see the bloodied remains of the scientists bodies.  How this one got overlooked is curious to me, since the ESRB formed in 1994, the same year that this game came out.  But a nice touch to say that Nintendo is not always for kids.

Right now, I’m having the same problems as I was when I played it before. I’m stuck somewhere in between after getting the Ice Beam and the section were I power bombed to get to the underwater section Maridia.  I can’t get past that area without a strategy guide or walkthrough online.  It’s a bit frustrating as like the original Metroid, I keep running back and forth trying to find out where to go.  Even with the map screen, I’m just lost all the time.  I don’t why it’s with these two games.  Metroid 2, Metroid Fusion, and the Metroid Prime trilogy I had no problem getting around.  I just don’t know why I keep getting lost trying to find another power up to get me to a new section of the game.  Thought I have seen what happens in the rest of the game and when you finish it, and played some scenes from Nintendo’s Greatest Bits.

The new power ups you can acquire in the game are fun.  I love the Speed Boost ability, Grapple Beam, and the Power Bomb.  Oddly, I am not that big of a fan of the Super Missile.  I find them to be redundant when you have regular missiles.  Also, you have the option to turn off power ups in the pause menu.   I never saw the point of this feature.

The game is very atmospheric and moody.  At the same time I don’t feel any horror or isolation in the game.  The detail and music is nice, just nothing to invoke a terror of isolation and fear in me.  I feel it’s because Samus is a strong character and determination to keep peace is what can keeps fear out of me while playing.  I’ve never felt fear or isolation in a Metroid game until Metroid Fusion, which i hope to give my thoughts about later on.

I like the throwback sections of the game.  It gives the game a similarity to the NES game that came out seven years before it and same nice new details to those original levels.  Having Several bosses are great.  It feels like the right amount.  The original metroid had three, too few and Metroid 2 has 40 bosses counting all the Metroids that you have to hunt down as bosses way too many.  Kraid and Ridley Return from the original metroid and new ones like Croromire and Phantoon.  All interesting and tough to beat, but satisfying when you do.  Especially the final boss, when you become so overpowered after you acquire the hyper beam.

If anything about this game frustrates me, it’s the wall jump.  I can barely do it.  It’s timing that I can’t seem to master.  How do those Etecoons do it so easily?  I just can’t do it.

Thanks for reading and any questions, comments, or thoughts that you’d like to know, Please leave a comment.