RTTP/LTTP(?) - Super Metroid - This game did not age well...

You attention whore seeking asshole.

jk

You would have gotten responses no matter what if talking about Super Metroid. Us old guys will always jump in a thread to think about this game again.
 
Super Metroid should get a remake in the dread engine.
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PSYCH BITCH! It aged fucking phenomenally! I haven't had this much fun gaming in some time!

To elaborate on the stupid thread title, I've played through Super Metroid several...yet somehow never beat it. And the last time was an eternity ago. Having been on another Metroid binge of Zero Mission, Prime 1 and AM2R, I was determined to finally beat Super Metroid. Thankfully, my old former-pothead brain had forgotten everything. Every single thing. It was incredible. Thanks to geriatric amnesia and drug abuse, I was able to experience this absolute masterclass of a game completely fresh. God is indeed real.

I know this game has been discussed to death but seriously, experiencing the actual ending for the first time is still exciting, fresh and amazing in 2025. I had the pleasure of playing this with really good shaders in Retroarch and it looked gorgeous. I forgot how cool these rooms look when the emulated screen curvature makes the backgrounds kind of "roll" over it. The game just feels passionate, clever as hell and fine-tuned to perfection. Also...what a sequel, damn.

I mean, fuck, 10/10 on every front. Gameplay, level design, sound design and music (!!). The only thing that I have to criticize about it are some aspects of the controls. They're a definite learning curve and can feel finicky, specifically the space jump/screw attack can be frustrating imo. I remapped Select to L2 and Pause to R2 which eliminated the pain of switching at least. That being said, I get it. They were ahead of their time and really crammed every detail into this game that it still feels shockingly modern to me. How cool and satisfying is the X-Ray visor!?

Nintendo at this time were unbelievable and this game deserves every ounce of praise in my book. It made me thoroughly happy.

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You got me, so I'll give it up.
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Still the best 2d Metroid by a country mile, Dread was such a disappointment.

Yea, Dread feels overhyped by people who were new to the series and the fanboys who always praise the latest product as the best thing ever. I can replay Super Metroid the umpteenth time and feel like there's new secrets I discover, whereas Dread didn't have a single optional secret that was exciting even on the first playthrough. Then add the lack of good music whereas Super still has insanely sick atmosphere.
 
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SotN can't hold a candle. Its progression is too backtracky in comparison. The Sorrow games were better IMO.

Super Metroid has so many nifty shortcuts you gain access to with each item.
I get why people would like SM more, it's a great game, I just love how SotN did it. The levels, weapons variety, rpg elements, soundtrack.
 
So many of these rooms are long corridors with no variation - I'm looking at you, Norfair.
The hell? There ain't two rooms in the whole game that vaguely resemble each other. Even flat corridors look unique in SM.
Plus, compare that to all those in-between corridors in Prime 1, which all look and play the same, and the difference is even more striking.
 
Just finished Dread and I'm praying Mercury Steam has been working on a sequel or another stand-alone title in the series. Would be great to have a Prime game one year then a 2.5D title the next
 
Yea, Dread feels overhyped by people who were new to the series and the fanboys who always praise the latest product as the best thing ever. I can replay Super Metroid the umpteenth time and feel like there's new secrets I discover, whereas Dread didn't have a single optional secret that was exciting even on the first playthrough. Then add the lack of good music whereas Super still has insanely sick atmosphere.
I absolutely love the save room's soft beep boop computing background noise. Even more so because it's usually heard before or after a boss. Like a calm before the storm, and a calm after the storm, it's so immensely soothing.
 
Honestly, of all the Nintendo franchises I'm gonna miss, I'm gonna miss Metroid the most.

There are many games like it (obviously, given the fact that it made a genre), but there's just nothing else like the real deal. Super Metroid is an absolute masterclass of game design, artistic achievement, and atmosphere. There's a reason Samus is such a beloved character. It really did feel like one girl against the world - a lonely, strange, and hostile world.

And Dread was okay. It was fine-ish.
 
Playing in widescreen spoiled the ending for me. It could have been wider than 16x9 as I was playing in a smartphone with a telescope controller, but I don't recall.
 
It sort of loses it's way for a bit when the gold enemies show up but I never had an issue with the controls.

I have 100% it in a reasonable non speed runner time.
 
The hell? There ain't two rooms in the whole game that vaguely resemble each other. Even flat corridors look unique in SM.
Plus, compare that to all those in-between corridors in Prime 1, which all look and play the same, and the difference is even more striking.

Not visually. Functionally. I looked up the worst offender in Norfair - it's the hallway bottom-left of the tall, green bubble room with a long-series of thin pillars and platforms to jump across, you progress impeded by enemies peeking from the lava. There are a chunk of rooms in Norfair like this, whose greatest offense to me is slowing me down (there at least to engage in SM's less than stellar combat; I don't remember the other enemy formations in other rooms), although looking again at the map it doesn't seem to be as bad as I thought. I was probably just bored enough that the bad experiences stood out.

The tube rooms in Prime 1 are a problem, and a limitation of how Retro was using their engine - their showoff rooms were too big, and placing two large rooms next to each other put too much of a strain on the game's active memory. They're all over the game, but the Chozo Ruins are the most memorable for some of the beginner rooms being literal tubes, even if they curve. Some variation is introduced - enemy scabs that swarm you from holes within, foliage to roll under, not actual tubes being used and instead seeing overgrown ruins or a flooded depression with a missile expansion behind a wall. Literal tubes reappear in Phendrana filled with bomb-dropping/energy spewing spheres, and how much you like or tolerate these rooms may depend on how much you like going fast as you can just Boost Ball through all of these rooms, around the enemies (which is something I personally enjoy).

Prime 1 has tons of design problems, like the three, consecutive trips over the same rooms you're forced to make through Norfair to get to Phendrana for Boost Ball, back to Tallon Overworld for Space Jump, and back to Phendrana again for Wave Beam and the first pirate base. Few overall shortcuts due to the world design. A low boss count. It's a game I love for its visual and audio aesthetic, the boss fights, puzzles, and some of what I can do with the game's mechanics, but the thought has crossed my mind that newer players could be just as underwhelmed by it as I am of Super Metroid.
 
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