Snes review: Super Metroid.

Super Metroid (Snes version) My rating: S

Ladies and gentlemen, you're looking at a masterpiece here. Super Metroid is a stellar game, being my favorite Metroid still to this date. Everything about this game reeks with gaming goodness. Excellent graphics, a wonderful soundtrack, easy controls, and gameplay so addictive that you'll need an intervention to get off playing it.

Super Metroid continues the storyline after the previous GameBoy title, Metroid 2: Samus Returns. After finding the baby metroid, Samus decides to take it a research station to allow scientist to study it. Satisfied with the outcome, Samus leaves to pursue other bountys but something terrible happens. A distress beacon is sent to her soon after she leaves, stating the space station was under attack. When Samus returns, she discovers all the scientist were killed by Ridley and also took captive the larva metroid. Samus follows Ridley to the space pirates home world, Zebes, to retrieve the kidnapped metroid and to finish off the Space Pirate army once and for all.

Like all Metroid games, You start off with very little weapons and items but in enough time you'll get all the bounty favorites such as the charge shot, morph ball, morph bombs, missiles, better suits, and the uber cool screw attack. This game also introduces the super missile, super bombs, and grapple hook (Which becomes useless after obtaining the space jump and screw attack.) You'll need all those weapons because the space pirates are some tough enemies. Samus deals with the occasion weak pirates and creatures but as you progress, you'll meet up with tougher creatures, martial-art style pirates, and of course, Metroids (Which are still tough to kill.)

Another big feature in Super Metroid are the bosses. Make sure Samus is stock up and your game is saved because the bosses in this game are hard. I personally hate the boss in the abandon complex of Zebes (Sorry, I forgot the name of the place but he is the boss the spits out blue flames.)

This is large, long game. There are plenty of secrets to be found on Zebes. The planet is broken into 8 parts, and believe me that it will take a while to fully explore each one. Just like the previous Metroid adventures, this game is all about backtracking, meaning you'll be using your map a lot to return to areas you couldn't go before. It's both a pro and con, it's great to revisit certain places but remembering all of them can be tough (Even with the map) and on some occasions, deadlier enemies may be present than the weaker ones before. If you didn't like the previous Metroid games of backtracking or collecting, good chance you might not like this game but you should give this game a try, it's highly worth it.

Overall, this game is nothing short of brilliance. It set the standard for action-exploring games (ala Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.) I fully recommend any gamer to give this game a play and to download it right away once it hits Nintendo's Wii virtual console.

Where can I get this game.
I would suggest getting this game on the Nintendo Wii virtual console (Prices range from $4-$10 per downloaded title) which is much cheaper than folks charging online but if you want the original cart, Check here for eBay prices and check here here for Amazon.com prices.