Super Metroid Built the Future of Games

or, still undefeated

I’m e rathke, the author of a number of books. Learn more about what you signed up for here. Go here to manage your email notifications.

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I’m fighting Ripley for the fifth time when I come to the realization that I simply do not have enough super missiles or regular missiles. Maybe I would if I never missed the big dragon alien swooping across the screen but lmao come on.

When I die, I look over the map, which is just a sequence of lit up squares that reveal nothing about where I may have missed upgrades.

I do what I almost never do anymore: I look up a walkthrough.

Because this game is thirty years old and has not had a remake, most of the reviews were also written 20+ years ago, which means they’re almost all completely text. Which is a nightmare. So much of a nightmare that I realize I’d rather just start the game over rather than try to make sense of these walls of texts in relation to the map of glowing squares.

And so I set it down and walk away and thirty months later I’m writing this sentence.

I love this game.

Super Metroid is dripping with atmosphere. And this characterizes not only the world, but also our protagonist.

What kind of person journeys into this strange, terrifying labyrinth of monstrous aliens?

Samus, baby.

On my podcast, we discussed how Mega Man’s music helps characterize the world and its characters, and they do this with such grace and beauty that we feel who the characters are through the music the same way we feel Mario through his jump.

Metroid uses level design, music, and color palettes to drape its story. I talked about this on my podcast too and I make at least one Big Controversial Gaming Statement.

But let me speak more, here, in text about one of the all time best games. Never for a moment do we confuse a Metroid game for the light buoyancy of Mario or even the pixelated wonders of Dragon Quests and Final Fantasies.

And the design of this place is crucial. The game is a massive maze that we traverse, encountering new challenges as we progress. We’re also not given any direction and our progress is often halted by a barrier we cannot overcome.

And so we backtrack and find a new way.

We become bloodhounds for secrets, for sniffing out any alternative path. And along the way, we discover new powers and abilities that make previous deadends into new avenues.

While Metroidvania is a portmanteau of Metroid and Castlevania, I think we could just call all of these games Metroid-likes and be done with it. When Castlevanias begin Metroiding their design, I don’t think they significantly change anything that Metroid did all the way back in Super Metroid for the SNES.

And that was 29 years ago, baby.

Rather, they adapt the design and put on some Gothic paint.

I love it!

But the innovation was done here, in Metroid. Super Metroid perfects this design, I think, despite my own issue with the impenetrability of the map once you’ve sniffed out most of the paths. Because it’s not like Castlevania made it any easier to navigate where you missed something either.

Even new Metroidvanias like Hollow Knight don’t solve this problem, though guides are more recent and therefore given in video format, which makes it easier to find what you missed.

But I think it’s telling that even Hollow Knight, that celebrated game, is nearly identical in labyrinth design to Super Metroid (I have more to say about Hollow Knight and how it improved other aspects of the genre), which came out thirty years ago.

Super Metroid is pristine.

It’s timeless.

You can pick it up today—right now—and it feels as good to play now as it did thirty years ago. There’s nothing clunky or obscure about how to play or what to do.

There’s a learning curve, yes, but any difficult game has that.

And Super Metroid is difficult.

In fact, I’ve never beaten it. Though I think I’m excused something for being, like, seven when I was previously attempting to beat it. Back then, in truth, I don’t think I ever even made it to Ripley.

But I remember distinctly the ickiness I felt playing the game as a child. It felt dirty and grungy and grimy to play. It didn’t even really have music. Just ambient soundscapes.

Super Metroid, more than almost any game of its time period, was a game you inhabit. You live inside this labyrinth full of aliens. You become Samus. And every time you die, you know exactly what you did wrong.

You may not know what to do right but you have learned something.

And it’s that fairness of the design that keeps this difficult game of branching paths where you may get lost from becoming unpleasant.

It’s something that many games are still trying to catch up to. And even though Metroidvania is possibly the most popular genre for indie games, I don’t think a single one that I’ve seen has really outdone Super Metroid.

Some are more difficult (Salt & Sanctuary) or grosser (Axiom Verge) or more fun to maneuver through (Hollow Knight) or more stylish (Castlevania: Symphony of the Night), but all of them are retreading the ground Samus washed clean of aliens back in 1994.

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My novels:

• Glossolalia - A Le Guinian fantasy novel about an anarchic community dealing with a disaster

• Sing, Behemoth, Sing - Deadwood meets Neon Genesis Evangelion

• Howl - Vampire Hunter D meets The Book of the New Sun in this lofi cyberpunk/solarpunk monster hunting adventure

• Colony Collapse - Star Trek meets Firefly in the opening episode of this space opera

• The Blood Dancers - The standalone sequel to Colony Collapse.

• Iron Wolf - Sequel to Howl.

• Sleeping Giants - Standalone sequel to Colony Collapse and The Blood Dancers

Some free books for your trouble:

• Military SF

• Treasures of Darkness

• Ominous Twisted Tales

• SFF Mega-Giveaway

• Spooky SFF for Halloween

• SF&F Bundle

• Free SF&F