Super Metroid (SNES Review)

Super Metroid
Platform: Super Nintendo Entertainment System
Released March 19, 1994
Directed by Yoshio Sakamoto
Developed by Nintendo
Included with Switch Online Subscription (Standard) 

I don’t know if I would go so far as to call this one of the great opening sequences, but I’ll say that Super Metroid is pretty dang good at seamlessly incorporating cinematic sequences into the live gameplay. The finale does this even better.

Back in 2003, Electronic Gaming Monthly named Super Metroid the greatest video game ever made. IGN has ranked it in the top 10 a few times. Me? I’m not really there. Oh, don’t get me wrong, as I’m certainly not going to argue against Super Metroid being a masterpiece. It’s absolutely an all-timer and one of the best Metroidvanias ever made. Super Metroid is a milestone in world building, level design, enemy design, boss design, and pacing. But being in the G.O.A.T. discussion, though? I don’t see it. There’s just too many games that also act as milestones in the categories I mentioned while also offering something Super Metroid almost never offers: intuitive controls.

I liked this screen cap because it looks like Samus is posing with the newly-slain unholy abomination.

This was my third time playing all the way through Super Metroid and I still found myself fighting the controls. Nintendo knew this would happen, too. The game offered full button remapping options well before the days of emulation. I experimented with various configurations and came to the conclusion that it’s not possible to comfortably shoot, run, and jump at the same time. Which is a shame because I found plenty of situations where doing all three would have been helpful. By the end of the game, I was still struggling to perform the type of jump I intended to, and it was always jumping without the flips. It’s especially annoying when you intend to do a somersault so you can do a wall jump and the flipping part doesn’t happen. Jeez, as if the wall jumping isn’t awkward enough. I’m going to guess a lot of games that feature intuitive wall jumping studied Super Metroid on what not to do.

“Okay, I’ve seen Mario do this a hundred million times before. I’m sure it’ll be painless…….”

The only knock I have on the level design is that a tiny amount of the layouts aren’t optimized for platforming. It’s not so much “frustrating” as it is “exhausting.” There’s one specific jump early in the game that basically requires you to hold RUN down while jumping, which I didn’t prioritize with my control scheme so that kind of sucked. Thankfully, nothing like that really shows up again. Unfortunately, something even worse shows up: an area based around quicksand. You sink too quickly in it and get no height on your jumps unless you’re directly on the surface. It’s forced button-mashing, and this in a game where controls are already problematic. Thankfully it’s not all over the entire “level” for the lack of a better term, and I’ve basically run out of meaningful things to complain about.

Still plenty of nitpicks, though. The Space Jump and later the Screw Attack are awesome when they work, but the timing and angles feel fickle sometimes. I had a ton of moments where it seemed like I lost my ability to continue jumping for no reason. Though I’ll easily take this game’s Space Jump over Metroid: Zero Mission’s. It’s not even close.

The good news is that Super Metroid still holds up in every non-control way, even thirty years later. Zebes is one of my all-time favorite 2D settings. The ecosystem feels alive, which is pretty impressive for a 1994 game. Part of the reason this works is that you’re introduced to the planet in a state where it’s seemingly dead. The destruction from the original Metroid remains intact. While there’s some scattered life near the surface, when you return to the gigantic shaft that you had to escape from in the NES game, it’s in a state of decay. Okay, well, it blew up so presumably the fire sterilized it. Except, even the area where the Morphing Ball is shows no signs of life. That is, at least until you grab it and leave the area. After going back up the elevator you just came from, suddenly, there’s alien life everywhere and it all wants you dead. It’s like the planet itself played possum with you.

If I had made it far enough in the original Metroid, I probably would have appreciated this fake-out battle with “Kraid” more. For the record, I played the Metroid franchise in the complete wrong order and I’m pretty sure the only one I’ve ever played all the way through at launch was Metroid Prime, which was my first Metroid (and one of the games of my childhood I was the most hyped for when word started getting out that it was really good). Prime 2 was my second, then I played the two GBA games. I’m fairly certain Super Metroid was my fifth Metroid game, or sixth if I played the original Metroid first. If I did, it doesn’t matter because I shut it off very quickly, and I don’t remember ever finishing the third Metroid Prime game either. I still haven’t finished the re-release of Prime, either. I might never, actually. I played Prime when I was 13 and was blown away by the world building and attention to detail much more than I was the gameplay itself. I think it’s safe to say that Prime didn’t age as well as I thought it would have because so much of my enjoyment the first time was based around the presentation, set dressing, and bestiary.

Super Metroid was such a massive jump from the NES game that it might as well be a complete franchise restart. The room layouts are much smarter. There’s still a few single-block platforms, but the jumping physics are more generous. So is aiming your arm cannon thanks to the shoulder buttons. The combat excels, even when you have the ice beam equipped. Funny enough, I would have given anything to be able to toggle it on and off on the NES game, but I never bothered with the SNES game. The Ice Beam didn’t feel like it added sponge. Now my annoyance with combat was that you can’t Screw Attack frozen enemies late in the game. How does that make any sense? What about being frozen solid (which, in theory, should be lethal by itself, right?) prevents the energy that attack emits from working? And I’m not picking nits, either. I’m being dead f*cking serious over here, because it kind of messed with my immersion. Yes, really! I’m going there! I mean, how powerful can the Screw Attack be if it can’t even knock the ice cubes loose from the tray?

That isn’t picking nits. Complaining about this one-time set-piece taking too long? THAT is picking nits. The idea is you have to not kill this critter and let it destroy this otherwise indestructible wall in this corridor that’s roughly ten billion miles long, give or take. This whole room could have been shortened by 80% and still worked as intended in a puzzle sense. It’s not like there’s other things hidden in the room that necessitated this length. The only challenge is not firing upon the enemy for working too slowly, which in fairness might actually be the toughest aspect of the entire game. So very, very tempting.

I had to keep reminding myself that Super Metroid is only five years younger than me. The settings are just so elaborate and cool, and then they do things with those settings. A crocodile boss has a legitimate jump scare fake-out. Bosses have corpses with bugs feasting upon their flesh nearby. One boss has its babies drag off its lifeless corpse, which made me sad until I thought about it and realized they were probably going to eat it. But even that boss has a clever, genuinely immersive aspect to it. You COULD just pump missiles into it like you’ll do for every other boss. Or, you can do this with the normally less-lethal grappling hook:

“Well, at least the kids will be eating tonight, assuming the whole planet doesn’t blow up in about an hour or two.” By the way, I assumed when I first played Super Metroid in 2007 that this was the same species as the Parasite Queen from Metroid Prime, but apparently that’s unconfirmed or non-canon. I mean, they have the same shape and everything.

And electrocute its creepy ass. Now if this were the only way to kill it, meh, it’s just a slightly atypical boss fight with a unique method of combat. It’s the fact that it’s an alternative way of killing it that impresses me. That’s how you create a sense of immersion that you’re a resourceful intergalactic bounty hunter. Heck, the game even hides an easter egg during the final sequence that allows you to free the helpful creatures of Planet Zebes if you take a last second detour during the escape.

“Thank you for rescuing us. Can you point us in the direction of the breeding population of our species you no-doubt already rescued before you caused the chain reaction that blew up the entire planet?” “Beg your pardon?”

Super Metroid is so good at doing settings and set-pieces that it even does things that should be too silly or out-there for this genre really well. In any other game like this, I’d roll my eyes the moment a haunted ship shows up. “Ghosts? Really?” But Super Metroid plays it earnestly and it just works, partially because the ghosts feel organic enough that I’m willing to accept that they’re not really ghosts and just things using camouflage. In fact, my only real complaint about the scope of the game is how short the entire haunted ship section is. Part of that is the area surrounding the ship is part of the level. I imagine the justification was that it’s just a ship so it couldn’t be too big so they stuck it on top of a lake and made that part of the level. But the interior never feels like a spaceship from a layout perspective, and the outside lake area is probably the weakest themed area in the entire game. Thankfully they would do water better in the next level.

“Welcome back to ESPN’s coverage of the 20X7 Zebes Invitational. Bob Chozo was perfect through six frames but his last shot left the dreaded 7-10 split. The leftie has selected the Brunswick Samus. It must be new because I’m not familiar with this particular model of bowling ball. Either way, Chozo will have to settle for just the 7 pin and….. Hold on, what’s this? The ball has turned into some sort of robot with an arm cannon. It just shot the 10 pin. And now Chozo is arguing with the tournament director that nowhere in the rules of bowling does it state that you can’t use an intergalactic bounty hunter capable of transforming into a ball. Chozo’s opponent, Ivo Robotnick, seems nonplussed. The crowd thinks he should challenge but instead he’s reaching into his bag and changing balls. Wait, is that a bowling ball he’s holding or some sort of blue porcupine?”

Come to think about it, why are there two water-based sections in the game? Shouldn’t the lake have been part of the underwater area while the haunted ship got something more unique? I’m just bitching because the haunted ship is the most interesting area in the game. Well, at least when you first enter it, but I can’t say it was my favorite level because it’s just too damn short, and then the ghost theme goes away too quickly anyway. As soon as you beat the boss, which shows up relatively early once inside, it just becomes a generic building, really. The timing of when Phantoon is dropped is very strange, but then again, the timing for a large chunk of the middle of the game is weird.

It’s weird that such stock is put in these four bosses when there’s actually nine bosses total up to this point. The mid-bosses absolutely don’t feel like mid-bosses. A few of them are big enough and tough enough to be area bosses.

I almost wondered if there was meant to be one other stage before fighting Ridley. The pacing is never bad, mind you. The combat and layout is consistently good enough to overcome the strange structure of everything that comes after Kraid. If I have to complain, I’d say that I don’t think Super Metroid is exceptional at building a level to a crescendo. A few bosses feel like they’re just stumbled upon uneventfully. And no, the eyeball doors don’t count as “building-up.” I mean in the sense of tension and urgency. Even the placement of when the Baby Metroid attacks you in the final stage feels like it just sort of happens out of nowhere. They set up a few characters who collapse into dust, but the actual physical location on the map and the layout of the chamber it happens in feels, well, uneventful. This is the one and only area where I think Zero Mission is the superior game, as its level design properly builds up the big story moments and boss encounters.

Phantoon being the most obvious example of that because, once you’re actually in the ship, it doesn’t take very long to reach it. On one hand, I kind of dig the unconventional timing of when they spring this area’s big boss on you. On the other hand, hey fellas, this is why you do mid-bosses! Because after defeating Phantoon, the level isn’t done. All the electronics turn on and you can get the map and the doors can be opened. But the element that made the level interesting, the ghost aspect, is done for good. By the way, Phantoon was the only boss that put me within a hit or two of death and easily the hardest boss in the game.

Even though I did sh*t on the controls, don’t mistake that for me saying Super Metroid controls badly. They’re clunky, but they still get the job done. Hell, some aspects of the controls even manage to soar. The grappling hook is fun and intuitive to use. The morphing ball controls like a dream and there’s something so satisfying about jumping as the ball when you get the Spring Ball. Also satisfying is building up your speed boots. So even Super Metroid’s biggest weakness has elements that are exceptional. I still think the issues with jumping and some of the level design that further works against that puts it just out of reach of the GOAT conversation, but I can also totally understand why someone would say “f*ck it, it has my vote anyway!” It’s such a rich, vibrant game. Even the worst stuff, like cutting and pasting the final room from Metroid, somehow works here because of the better movement physics. And that final battle with Mother Brain is delightful.

“Dear Diary: Today I attacked the gigantic brain. While I succeeded in breaking its jar, the giant brain grew a goddamned cyborg tyrannosaurs body out from underneath it that ultimately shot me with what I think could be described as a “f*ck around and find out” beam. Okay, time for Plan B, and the other bounty hunters think I’m insane, but hear me out. Since she’s a gigantic brain, I just need to get my hands on some 245 Trioxin……….”

So, while I’m not on-board for Super Metroid’s sainthood, I still really love this game. It feels like it sets the perfect template for what a Metroidvania should have. Awesome level design with distinctive, memorable level layouts that make navigation a breeze. Plenty of hidden rooms and items (I’ve still never 100%ed the game, scoring 83% for this review). Impactful-feeling combat that never gets boring. A much stronger cast of enemies than the NES game. Tons of one-off set-pieces. Boss fights that are so good and usually well-staged. I love that even the mid-bosses are given a sense of importance that makes them feel equal to the big bosses. All this in a game that’s never stingy with the health or missile refills. Most importantly, the act of finding your way around is fun by itself. No matter where you are inside the game, you’re bound to find something likable and fun. Yes, even if there’s quicksand.

If you need to know how important set dressing a game properly is, play this, then play the first Metroid. It’s almost hard to believe they’re from the same franchise.

The weird thing is, I remembered Metroid: Zero Mission being equal to Super Metroid. I mean, I was SO certain it was basically the Super Metroid II in all but name in every way that mattered. Maybe because I played Zero Mission first and enjoyed it so much that I got the Virtual Console version of Super Metroid. When I replayed Zero Mission last year, I still had fun, but I walked away thinking “boy, did my memory overrated this or what?!” It’s a small game that also feels noticeably padded. So going into this review, I was a teeny tiny bit worried I’d be let down and it wouldn’t live up to my memory. Instead, I walked away after having as much fun as I thought I was going to have playing Zero: Mission last year and then some. I also set my expectations appropriately because I remembered how frustrating Super Metroid’s controls can be, especially the jumping and the wall jump. I’d forgotten how stiff Zero Mission’s jumping is, but I’ll never forget how demoralizing Super Metroid’s wall jump can be.

So wait, does this mean you only fought a Baby Kraid in the original Metroid? By the way, the actual character design throughout is memorable and striking.

I think if Super Metroid is capable of disappointing anyone who has never played it, it’ll be for someone who sees the insane rankings critics give it and expects a literal perfect game or a life-altering experience. It’s not either of those, at least in 2026. Maybe it once was, but these days the controls are disqualifying. That’s just how I feel, and in fact, I wouldn’t even call it the best SNES game as I’d easily vote for Yoshi’s Island over this. I might even put A Link to the Past above it. That’s fine, though, because I’m also saying I find it unlikely anyone could dislike Super Metroid. I, for one, think it’s okay to say a game is historically awesome and a must-play, but comes up just short of making it into the GOAT discussion. Just short. And meanwhile, Kid Icarus is still waiting for his 16-bit overhaul that resurrects his career and sets him up as a legitimate gaming icon. He probably saw Super Metroid and was like “oh yeah? Well at least I was on Captain N: The Game Master!”
Verdict: YES!

I was going to make another joke here but their sprites look sad and now I feel like a piece of sh*t again. Oh well, they died like an hour or two later. See! Time heals all wounds! Time and planet-exploding bombs!