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Discussion Super Metroid turns 30 years old today. What are your fondest memories of the game?

ReyVGM

ReyVGM

Game Endings Master
Super Metroid was released in North America April 18th... 30 years ago!!

At the time, I was kind of bored of video games. Until I saw the game's commercial. That scene of Samus running with the speedbooster made my eyes bulge with excitement.

I credit Super Metroid with bringing me back into the gaming fold and I haven't left since.

What are your first or fondest memories of the game?


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I could talk about pretty much the entire game, or the music, or so many other things but for whatever reason the part of Super Metroid that always sticks with me the most is Maridia - the eerie underwater atmosphere, trying to figure out how to navigate it from the multiple entrance points, the difficulty, and just overall vibe of the place is so good.

And electrocuting the boss with the grapple beam never gets old.
 
8 year old me was too afraid to play the game so I only watched my cousin play. However I was obsessed with Ridley. That design struck me hard as a kid. The box art and both boss battles intrigued the ever living heck out of me. I would try to draw him from memory every chance I got. I would take my moms tin foil and make a Ridley tail out of it complete with that little arrow head. Ridley has been my boy for 30 years and now in Smash bros I represent him hard.
 
I rented Super Metroid the week it came out. I was so incredibly excited.

A few years later I bought it on clearance at Kmart for $6. Again I was incredibly excited.

It's one of the few games I'd call perfect.
 
How I got stuck due to that infamous tube bombing and had to give up.
I finally was able to beat it on the wii virtual console years and years later...
 
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My fondest memory was playing the game for the first time, not liking it that much, then replaying it and loving it, then playing Metroid Dread for the first time ... not liking it much because it wasn't more like Super Metroid, then replaying it and loving that too.

Top 5 game of all time. It really clicks especially when you learn sequence breaking. But more 'vanias should be based around atmosphere, exploration and player expression, especially in a non sequence breaking sense, like this game.
 
Played it in high school around 2011 or so for the first time, after finally finishing fusion and zero mission. And absolutely loved it. I was in the mood to get lost in a bigger intricate world, lost being the key word. And super did that perfectly for me. Definitely got stuck on the running and the maridia glass tube bomb.

However, the floaty jump isn't my favourite. Especially since I started with Zero mission.
 
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Eh, a regional release isn't what the age of a game is based on.

We already had the thread when it actually turned 30 a month ago:

famiboards.com

30 years ago, Super Metroid released

...in Japan! But hey, good enough for a thread. I first played this game nearly 20 years after release and still considered it a masterpiece. Ahead of its time in so many ways and revolutionized Metroid and Metroid-like games as we know them today. The spritework and atmosphere is also...
famiboards.com famiboards.com

That said, I don't think a better exploration adventure game has been released since. For me the games that have matched it are only Link's Awakening, Metroid Prime and Breath of the Wild.
 
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Incredible game! Where do I begin? For those that have never played it, fix that now. I will hide spoilers.

  • Title screen/opening
  • Escaping the space station and watching the corridor sway left and right. What???
  • Landing on Zebes during a storm and the crackling of thunder
  • Walking through the ruins of Mother Brain's old chamber. Gave me chills
  • First time running into Crocomire with that anxiety-ridden music. Scared the crap out of me!
  • Spookiness of the wrecked ship and Phantoon
  • Running into the full-grown baby metroid in Tourian. Almost had a heart attack
  • Final battle with Mother Brain and THAT MUSIC!! Talk about creepy and anxiety-ridden!
  • Baby metroid swooping in to save Samus and sacrificing itself.
  • The escape
  • Saving the animals!
  • Watching Zebes explode and Samus escaping

Overall/general lasting impressions:

  • The atmosphere is incredible and holds up superbly to this day
  • Graphics/Music
  • World design
 
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I have never played it yet, but my first 2D Metroid was Dread and had a blast, then I just recently beat Fusion on the NSO and had a lot of fun too, so I plan to visit Super Metroid on the NSO as well at some point ^^
 
I'd played a bit of NES Metroid and most of Metroid 2 (my save got corrupted late game) prior to Super Metroid's release, but it initially wasn't something that I found appealing thematically. That distaste was only compounded when I first tried playing Super Metroid and had to deal with the weird jumping and aiming mechanics. A few years later, I enjoyed SotN, and then Metroid Prime, Fusion, and Zero Mission. Super languished unplayed.

It wasn't until the SNES Mini/Classic that I gave it a fair shake, and although I still feel the controls are a bit rough (particularly for boss battles), I now am of the opinion that Super Metroid is a masterpiece and remains the pinnacle of Metroidvania/Search Action world/map/upgrade design.
 
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Super Metroid is another one of my top three games of all time. I honestly think it's as close to a perfect game as I've ever seen.

I remember my runs used to run into trouble when I got to Draygon, until the day I learned the cheesy way to beat him.
 
I didn't hate Super Metroid the first time I played it (when the SNES Classic came out) but I also wasn't really blown away

Then I replayed it when they added when the added SNES games to Switch and now it's in my top 5 all-time games

And now I kinda wanna replay Super Metroid again
 
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My fondest memory is probably my neighbor’s cousin teaching me how to Space Jump because I could not for the life of me figure out the timing to continuously do so.

A close second was my second playthrough and getting 100% item collection in (I think) two hours and 13 minutes (I’d have to check the exact time).

Anyway, Super Metroid is still a banger. Just going to quote my post from the Japanese anniversary thread:

Super Metroid is still my favorite game of all time. Item switching kind of sucks in retrospect. That’s the only negative thing I can say about the game, and even then, it was fine in the 1990s. I didn’t think about it until I replayed Super Metroid after playing other games in the genre including subsequent Metroid games. Everything else largely holds up.
  1. Simple yet effective story;
    • Still one of the best Nintendo has ever told.
  2. A+ presentation:
    • Graphics are great;
    • Music is great;
    • Controls are great;
    • Ideal difficulty curve/never felt unfair or too easy;
    • Trusts players to figure things out/guides players via landmarks (i.e. the glass tube);
    • Shows with minimal telling (only in the opening really).
  3. Doesn’t overstay its welcome:
    • No padding;
    • As long as it needs to be.
Click to expand...
 
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Never played it!

In my time with SNES, I had finished over 150 games through trades and rents. But I missed some crucial first party titles due to NoE's shitty SNES invetory policy, they allocated most of the first party games to the "big six" countries of Europe and the other countries literally got breadcrumbs. Our shelves were filled with third party stuff and first party games that Italy's GiG brought themselves (like Kirby). I knew some of the first party titles (Starwing or Pilotwings) through gaming magazines but ones that weren't featured in, I knew nothing about. We even went to Malaga, Spain for three summers and I don't remember seeing a lot of first party games in that VHS shop downtown either.

Super Metroid was one of the games I became aware of its existence when internet became a thing. Others: F-Zero, Super Mario Kart (one of my friend got an advert in Mario All Stars box but I didn't see it) and Super Punch Out. But I knew Metroid, just by name. Metroid 2 was pretty common in Game Boy trade community that I was a part of, but I couldn't get my hands on it either... First Metroid game I played was Fusion and I remember not liking it because of my monophobia so I ahve never bothered with Super on VC platforms. I will, one day, play the inevitable remake.
 
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Síriocaz said:
Whoah, you ok?
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This has come up in threads before, but the Metroidvania genre did not spring solely if not entirely from Super Metroid (as if Super Metroid didn't have its own influences and contemporaries). Symphony of the Night alone had multiple non-Metroid influences including Castlevania II.

And every modern Metroidvania takes inspiration and designs from far more than one game from 30 years ago.
 
Hailinel said:
This has come up in threads before, but the Metroidvania genre did not spring solely if not entirely from Super Metroid (as if Super Metroid didn't have its own influences and contemporaries). Symphony of the Night alone had multiple non-Metroid influences including Castlevania II.

And every modern Metroidvania takes inspiration and designs from far more than one game from 30 years ago.
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Well, yeah, but it's a super important game to the genre. I mean...it's half of the name of the genre! I wouldn't take this image too seriously.
 
Getting stuck on the Noob Bridge and not knowing that the tube in the water area could be broken by a power bomb and having Metroid fans call me an idiot for not knowing that.
 
DittoM said:
Getting stuck on the Noob Bridge and not knowing that the tube in the water area could be broken by a power bomb and having Metroid fans call me an idiot for not knowing that.
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We found the David Jaffe account!

this is a joke in case anyone saw jaffe getting stuck and flipping out around dread’s release. I do agree that depending on experience with the titles, you could get stuck at certain parts not knowing the one thing to do to get through.
 
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Obligatory reminder that Symphony of the Night, its sequels, and the vast majority of other so-called "Metroidvanias" actually have no meaningful influence from Super Metroid (and are infinitely poorer for it...)
 
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