Super Metroid (Super Nintendo, 1994)

Just a few years after the release of Metroid II, the Metroid creators dish out one hell of a project. 1994 marks the birth of something great, something *ahem* Super.

Super Metroid is the direct sequel to Metroid II: Return of Samus. I certainly enjoyed that game and it's predecessor, but Super Metroid was no less than absolutely FANTASTIC. I will gladly elaborate.

Story

As I previously mentioned, this game follows Metroid II. It opens up with the voice of a man named Dan Owsen narrating these lines: "The last Metroid is in captivity. The galaxy is at peace." Then the game continues into a recap from Ms. Aran herself, talking about her previous journeys on Zebes and SR388. She goes on to mention that after the events of M2 she decided to throw the Baby Metroid into a containment tube and turn it over to the Galactic Federation so they could harness the Baby's power for the good of mankind. Later on she receives a distress call from the Ceres Space Station (where she left the Baby) and headed back there. Unfortunately she was too late and all of the scientists have been slaughtered and the Baby was gone. Samus explored further on and found the Metroid in the tube, on the floor. Seconds later she is greeted by none other than her arch-nemesis, Ridley. (WTF? I thought he was dead!!!) Anyways, she engaged him in a fight but got her butt kicked and Ridley took off with Baby M. Samus followed him back to Zebes. (Wait, what?!) She landed and began exploring only to discover that for a few years the Space Pirates were reconstructing and improving Zebes. She took a trip through Mother Brain's old chamber and even old Brinstar (the Morph Ball is in the same spot too! O.O), where she walked around and was discovered by what would seem to be a camera, because soon after trekking through that familiar place, there were Space Pirates everywhere. She then ventured into a new and improved Brinstar, overgrown with vegetation and plant life, as well as a fascinating pink area, a lower, red swampy area, and of course Kraid's lair, where the diabolical dragon was bigger and (not so) badder than before. Norfair was much bigger but hasn't changed significantly, except for a really cool green bubble room, and there was also an ancient ruins area where Ridley held Baby M captive. Finally, Tourian returns and is bigger and chock full of Metroids and a "bigger, better, more badass Mother Brain". (IGN Entertainment's 'Metroid In 5 Minutes') (How the HELL is SHE back?!?!?) There were quite a few new areas and bosses introduced, such as Crateria (the overworld), the Wrecked Ship, and Maridia (the water area). New bosses include Torizo Chozo statue, (Crateria miniboss), Spore Spawn (Brinstar miniboss), Crocomire (Norfair miniboss), Golden Torizo (Chozo statue, ancient ruins Norfair miniboss), Phantoon (Wrecked Ship boss), Botwoon (Maridia miniboss), and Draygon (Maridia boss).

Moving on, Samus beat the snot out of all of the mentioned bosses, regained her power-ups, tore Ridley apart, discovered that Baby M had vanished, then went into none other than Tourian to take out some cloned Metroids and go after Ma Brain (AGAIN). On her way though, she encountered a Torizo that was lifeless and turned to dust when she shot it, as well as various other creatures in the same state. A sidehopper appeared and then the rogue (and massive!!!) Baby Metroid showed up and killed the sidehopper, and apparently pissed off at Samus (or it doesn't remember her briefly), Baby M latched on and tried to kill it's "mother". Of course either Baby M remembered Samus or forgave her, cause when Samus was down to 1 energy unit, the Metroid let her go and showed obvious remorse and flew away in shame.

Samus luckily came across a recharge station and was in top condition for the fight with Mother Brain. She entered her chamber and destroyed Zebetites again, shattered Ma Brain's pickle jar then pelted her with missiles until she dropped dead...wait a minute...HOLY CRAP KJSAFASKDJAKSJDNFLKSJDNFKJSDZNFK SHE HAS A BODY AND IS TWENTY FEET TALL AND CAN FIGHT BACK!!!!! OOOH IT'S ON NOW!!!! *Cue epic final boss music*
Anyways, Samus spammed her with missile after missile until MB got super angry and blasted Sammy with a gnarly rainbow atttack that darn near killed her. Brainy was about to do it again and then Baby M rushed in and latched onto MB and killed her (or so we thought...OMG REALLY?!?). Baby M latched onto Samus and refilled her health while taking blast after blast from a stubborn and super pissed Mother Brain. The Baby fully revived Samus just in time because one more blast from Brainy was all Baby M could take. Baby M went down in a blaze of glory (NOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! :'( ) and bestowed it's "mother" with a final parting gift, the Hyper Beam. A saddened and vengeful Samus bid the baddie farewell and wasted her with Baby M's gift. Finally down for good! Oh shoot, time to get off the planet before it explodes! (Metroid Ball Z? I'm reminded of Goku trying to escape an unstable Planet Namek...) Samus tore through the corridors and shafts and managed to escape the exploding planet. You go, girl!

So yeah, pretty good story.

Baby M to the rescue!

Gameplay

I thought the controls were pretty good and easy to use (I admit it took a little getting used to...) and the overall difficulty wasn't so bad. The boss fights were fun and reasonably difficult. I think Kraid got whacked with the Nerf Bat in this game cause he's much easier to beat. Yeah, he's 100 times bigger, but 4 Super Missiles down the throat is all it takes to drop him hard. The other boss fights were interesting as well, a couple of them you had to be careful what weapons you used. One gets angry and tramples you if you lay a Power Bomb, another gets angry and shoots waves of blue flames if you shoot him with a Super Missile. Still another one will catch missiles and throw them back at you! When you fight Ridley, you pretty much just spam missiles at him, and when you fight Draygon you can use a super cheap move to fry him, by destroying some electrical turrets and letting him catch you and carry you around until you can grab the exposed wires with the grapple beam and fry the boss. Samus takes a lot of damage as well, so be careful, but it's well worth it! The boss fights are pretty simple and fast paced. I personally enjoyed the Mother Brain fight this time around. Samus was a lot tougher than in Metroid 1 and the fight was more than just shooting at a semi-helpless brain until it dies while trying to dodge floating Rinkas. Mother Brain fired various beams and threw bombs so you had to be on your toes throughout the fight. The escape sequence was more intense and dramatic and Samus had an opportunity to rescue the friendly creatures that showed her how to shinespark and do wall kicks.

This game introduced many new techniques and weapons. It did ditch the Spider Ball from M2 but it kept the Space Jump, Spring Ball, and all of the other weapons and attacks from the previous games. This game introduced the Power Bomb, the Super Missile, the Speed Booster/Shinespark, the Grapple Beam, the X-ray Scope, Reserve Tanks, and the Gravity Suit. It also introduced the diagonal shot, running, area maps and an inventory screen. Awesome!

It's easy to get lost in Norfair and Maridia, especially Maridia. There is a spot in Maridia where you need to grapple across the ceiling and that's plain annoying, as well as certain areas where you get stuck in quicksand and while you don't die from it, it's super annoying to try to get out of.

The gameplay is so much fun despite those few annoyances. It's a lot of fun to explore through fascinating areas and go through obstacles to collect the items you need. I found it awesome that Samus was immune to lava after acquiring the Gravity suit.

After you escape Zebes, your completion time displays on the screen after Samus's ship zooms up close and personal. If you took longer than 10 hours, after the credits roll Samus will remain suited and give a thumbs up. If you beat it between 3 and 10 hours, she will remove her helmet and give a thumbs up. She looks like she has another head gear on under her helmet, so you really only see her nose and mouth. Hmm. :( If you beat it in under 3 hours, Samus will remove her suit and take down her hair, revealing a super muscular body in a black crop top and shorts. (She looks kinda Saiyan-esque...) She must be a Super Saiyan cause her hair is blond now where it used to be reddish brown. After that she will jump back and shoot the screen, then the infamous S-logo will appear in bright colors and then turn black and white. After this your completion rate will display. See you next mission!

The middle ending

Graphics 

For a 16 bit console, the graphics are top notch, pushing the cartridge to it's limits. Samus explores beautiful yet dangerous areas, and of course Tourian delivers yet again with the creepy science lab feel. The areas have visible, often animated backgrounds instead of a plain black background. All of the enemies and bosses were very well drawn. The Metroids were plain stunning with the detailed red nuclei and the glowing green exterior, and of course Samus took the cake with her beautifully detailed and rendered suits. Her power suit was yellow with small shoulder pads, her Varia suit was orange with large shoulder pads, and her Gravity suit had a nice shade of pink. The Speed Booster was pretty awesome when it shows a trail of 16-bit sprites following Samus when it's active. I loved the beam animations, and there is a vast improvement of the Wave Beam animation. Instead of some ball floating in a wave pattern, it actually animates as a smooth, triple helix pattern that has a pretty shade of blue when stacked with the Ice Beam. I was thoroughly impressed with the graphics, even compared to Super Mario World.

Samus and Baby M reunion

Music and Sound 

Once again Metroid delivers an excellent and memorable soundtrack just as it did in M1. This soundtrack includes the popular tunes "Green Brinstar" and "Red Brinstar". The former is an upbeat, catchy melody while the latter is a more intense but still fairly lighthearted tune. I favor the latter of the two, personally. The game seems to have more lighthearted stuff for the most part, with a few exceptions. I really don't want to blabber on too much about the music since it would turn into a book, so one of these days I'll just link some sound clips. Fair deal? :) I will mention that the Mother Brain fight features one of the most epic battle themes in gaming, and the ending credits theme was plain fantastic.

As for sound effects, they were awesome. Even the low health alarm was almost kind of cool sounding. (Really, there is nothing cool about low health...) It actually sounded like a low siren that wasn't overpoweringly loud and irritating, and it didn't blend into the music like it did in M2. The beam effects were plain awesome especially after getting the wave beam. It's kinda hard to explain, but if you have played the game you know what I'm talking about!

Overall 

What more can I say? This game is pure awesomeness in a cartridge. Cool story, excellent gameplay, beautiful graphics, awesome music and sound effects, just plain awesome!


Some of the cons are this:
Brief periods of difficulty
Quicksand in Maridia is a pain in the rear
There's an end to the game
The Baby Metroid dies. :(
It's really underrated. (Compared to other SNES titles like Mario and Zelda, this didn't sell well.)

Rating
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
10 out of 10, although I want to give it a 9.5 for killing off Baby M. :( But the game is awesome!

The best ending. See you next mission!