It’s impossible to listen to Super Metroid and think it’s anything but Super Metroid. It’s not Mario, it’s not Zelda, and it’s certainly not Final Fantasy. Yamamoto handled the music and sound effects, resulting in a unique cohesiveness that’s unlike any other game from the era. Here, Kenji Yamamoto’s work stands alone. Visuals are just one part of presentation, the sound is an often underappreciated, equally important piece of the equation. There’s so much more too, but let’s continue. Wall jumping even has two different “ready”animations, one with Samus facing the camera, and the other with her back turned to it. It’s not just pretty backgrounds and environments either, there are a ton of different animations for Samus: Running, jumping, spin jumping, wall jumping, and falling all have their own unique animations. That’s the case with Super Metroid, it stands to this very day as a great looking game, and the best looking game the SNES has to offer. Good pixel art will never go out of style, and when done exquisitely, it is absolutely timeless. The most immediate factor in Super Metroid’s long standing success is its immaculate presentation. Samus Aran looked amazing in the opening of Super Metroid. In light of my recent triumph, I thought I’d do a retrospective on why Super Metroid is still amazing two decades later. Not this time though: 10 hours and 59 minutes later, I had beaten Super Metroid with a 77%, and I only had to use the internet for that damn tube in Maridia. I went back a few times to complete Super Metroid, but something always came up before I got to Mother Brain. That’s not to say I haven’t played much classic Metroid, or Metroidvania style games, because I now own every Virtual Console release of Super Metroid, and Guacamelee is one of my favorite games of the last generation. It wasn’t until Metroid Prime that I had maturity and money at the same time, and could indulge in a fresh Metroid experience. I was scared of Metroid as a child, the original Metroid II was impossible to find in my town by the time I had a Game Boy, and Super Metroid was too expensive to buy, but too open ended to complete as a rental (pre-internet). I’m ashamed to admit it, but until recently, I’d never finished a single classic Metroid game in my life. Now that Metroid: Samus Returns has been announced, I took the opportunity to correct one of my long standing mistakes.
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