Review by Jay Wilson
03/01/2024

One of my fondest memories of Super Metroid is actually watching my niece play it on the Wii Virtual Console over a decade after its original release. She started taking interest in old Nintendo games, and I, of course, showed her the classic Mario and Zelda titles, but there was something special about Metroid 3. I recall her panicking on the return trip to Crateria when she encountered the green crab-like enemies who take several shots to kill and deal heavy damage. They brought her to the brink of death, and her last save was a distant memory. I knew she had nothing to fear, as the very next door lead back to the ship, which would restore all health and ammo plus allow her to save her progress. But I didn’t tell her that. Instead, I held out my hand and said, “Give me the controller. Let me show you what Samus can do.”

Holding both shoulder buttons plus down on the d-pad, I dropped a power bomb and initiated the crystal flash, which restores all of Samus’ health at the expense of ten missiles, ten super missiles, and eleven power bombs. Her jaw dropped, and she exclaimed, “How did you do that?!” Earlier in the playthrough, she shot out a conspicuous block in the ceiling while venturing through Brinstar and asked, “Can I get up there?” “Well,” I answered, “there’s an item that makes you jump higher ... or you can wall jump right now.” “I can wall jump?” Indeed, Samus has a hidden arsenal of moves that the game hints at but does not tell the player explicitly until much later. Furthermore, power ups also possessing hidden abilities and properties that go unshown until after beating the game and even then only if the player watches the demo, which previously showed hints on where to go and what to do in case they hit a dead end.

Super Metroid captivated me in 1994 with its seemingly endless secrets to discover—dropping five bombs at once, bomb jumping, special charge beams, pseudo-screw attacks. That captivation continues to this day with glitches and exploits like fast shinesparks, machballing, and the murder beam—tricks that assist in speed running, sequence breaking, or getting Ridley to kill himself with his own tail. Every couple years, I come back and discover something new. Back in 1994, I never learned to wall jump; I had a turbo controller that let me flawlessly bomb jump. Hilariously, I could space jump forever right out of the gate thanks to my time with Metroid II, and wall jumping really isn’t that different. I can perform both effortlessly now, but it just goes to show when you have a crutch, you tend to use it even if you don’t need to. Back then, completing the game in under three hours for the post-credits easter egg felt like a herculean task where I had to sacrifice item collection for speed. Now not only can I consistently clock in at two hours and thirty minutes, but I can do so while picking up over 90% of available power ups, which is on par with my 4+ hour games of playthroughs’ past.

And while optimizing my routes, I’ve grown to truly appreciate the progression design of Super Metroid, which along with Link to the Past, Symphony of the Night, and Order of Ecclesia spaces its power ups out perfectly. Each item not only unlocks a new ability for Samus that lets her access new areas—the most obvious example being the color-coded doors (pink for missiles, green for super missiles, and orange for power bombs)—but they also unlock new routes to and within already explored areas, such as the glass tunnel you can shatter with a power bomb, linking Maridia to Brinstar or the wall you can destroy, also with a power bomb, connecting the old Metroid 1 Brinstar to Metroid 3’s. So even though the game only consists of six areas, I very rarely use the same route twice, especially when I take advantage of the plethora of one way exits only accessible via morph ball.

Granted, everyone’s first playthrough is going to be different because everyone gets stuck in different places. However, the potential to get new items that open up new paths is there, and if you replay any of the aforementioned games with at least a vague sense of where to go and what to do next, you realize they constantly offer something new—space jump, Pegasus boots, form of wolf, paries glyph. They give the player time to learn and get comfortable using these new tools and then immediately offer something else. Why do you get stuck then? You probably haven’t found either A. the right power up or B. the right place to use said power up. For me, it’s not uncommon on my first playthroughs to get, say, the gravity suit, which allows Samus to move normally in liquid, and then realize, “Crap ... where was that one room where I need to sprint through a bunch of speed blocks underwater?”

But that’s part of the fun: finding a problem, finding the solution, then remembering where you found the problem. Sometimes that involves staring at the abstract map screen to try and jog your memory. Sometimes that involves literally revisiting every single chamber because, in an effort to be more efficient, you said, “Okay, let’s eliminate places where it couldn’t possibly be and not waste time looking there.” Guess what? That’s where it is. Your memory just sucks. I did that when I first played Super Metroid. I did it again when I replayed it while battling Covid-19. “I need to kill Crocomire. I know he’s over here.” He wasn’t. I spent an hour meticulously searching the wrong place. I blamed Covid. (I also forgot that in Link to the Past the magic cape lets you walk on spikes and just ate the damage like an idiot, so definitely Covid.)

Anyway, even when you do get lost, Super Metroid still remains fun because old areas offer new things to collect—energy tanks, reserve tanks, three different types of ammunition—often within sight but initially out of reach. So, maybe you don’t have the grapple beam to reach the Wrecked Ship yet, but you do have the high jump boots and ice beam to reach those ledges you couldn’t reach before (not to mention power bombs, which unlock no less than four new areas in Brinstar and Crateria plus the path through Norfair which leads to Crocomire and the grapple beam.) And if you know what you’re doing, you can get the speed booster and just shinespark to the Wrecked Ship with an exploit ... or skip the speed booster and wall jump over there if you time it right ... or skip even the high jump boots to get a lower arc that lets you bounce off the ceiling instead of getting snagged on it.

But, lest you think the grapple beam is pointless—it is clunky to use and space jump renders it completely obsolete—you can kill one of the bosses with it in seconds ... right before you get space jump.

Speaking of bosses, Super Metroid only has five (ten if you count mini-bosses), which makes them feel more significant, as it places more emphasis on exploration than battle. Most enemies and environmental hazards pose no significant threat to Samus by themselves; rather, the danger lies in their collective ability to deal damage across time—those two lucky hits from dive bombing enemies, that collision with the spikes when you missed a jump, the dragons that pop out of the ground and spit fire, accidentally entering a super-heated room you weren’t ready for. It adds up. And the real danger becomes the mini-boss battles that can lurk behind any door. While Spore Spawn or Botwoon might not pose any challenge to a fully stocked Samus Aran, if the Zebesian critters and space pirates have sufficiently banged her up, she may not have the resources to survive once that door seals shut behind her. True bosses, on the other hand, are significantly more difficult (relatively speaking) but have a special entryway that inform the player to prepare. As a result, deaths feel incredibly fair, which is weird to say, but the first mini-boss happens almost immediately after landing on Zebes as the Chozo power up statue from previous games comes to life, letting you know that no room is safe, and the first boss battle has a full restore station near the giant door-covering eyeball that shoots plasma. So, yeah, if you die in Super Metroid, it’s your own fault.

A handful of bosses also allows each battle to feel more unique. The behemoth, Kraid, rises out of the ground, forcing Samus to ascend to elevated platforms where she can shoot missiles down his throat while dodging his projectiles. Crocomire (a mini-boss) is functionally a wall with infinite health that will push Samus into spikes unless she can beat him back into the lava. The ghost, Phantoon, disappears while dropping phantom flames and goes berserk when you hit him with super missiles. And Ridley seems almost sentient as he flies around, swoops in, pogos off his tail, breathes fire, and dodges your power bombs. While the bosses will likely kill a first-time player, once said beginner figures out the fight, the challenge melts which allows them to A.) miss/skip occasional items without crippling consequences or B.) sequence break. Do you think going from Kraid straight to Phantoon with only three energy tanks will reduce backtracking and save you time? You can try it. I did. I regretted it and will never do it again, but I survived. It’s possible to go straight to the Wrecked Ship from early Brinstar, but that requires a jump I have neither the skill nor the patience to attempt, not to mention facing Phantoon with one energy tank and no varia suit is a misery I choose not to inflict on myself.

Never-the-less, I still enjoying revisiting and rediscovering Planet Zebes because it offers a rich, intricately-linked world with six distinct regions further divided into sub-regions, each with its own terrain, lifeforms, and soundscape. Brinstar, for example, starts off with lush green flora that progresses to pink fungus and eventually evolves to a barren wasteland of red soil. The underground hellscape of Norfair goes from standard lava-filled caverns to green bubble-like crystalline caves as if emeralds boiled then solidified into a weird alien landscape which eventually leads to a command center nestled among ancient ruins, complete with gargoyle-like adornments, pillars, and glowing statues in the background that wave hypnotically in the heat haze. Save rooms, map terminals, and recharge stations aside, you can tell at a glance where any screen came from even if you don’t recognize that specific chamber. But the distinctions go even further with the very structure of these areas. The narrow corridors of the Wrecked Ship branch out from a central hub, making navigation effortless; meanwhile in Maridia, giant underwater caverns lead to more giant underwater caverns, creating the sensation of an expansive ocean one can get lost in, and with the quicksand and the pipe that jets you from one side of aquatic maze to the other, you will get lost in there. And some areas even have more than one state: Samus arrives on a seemingly desolate Crateria amidst a storm with no signs of life until sensors detect her, whereupon the surface awakens and space pirates crawl out of the metaphorical woodwork to ambush her. Likewise, Samus first explores a powered down Wrecked Ship, haunted by respawning ghosts of its doomed crew until Phantoon’s defeat, which restores functionality to the doors, save station, map terminal, conveyor belts, work robots and adds a continuous alarm over its foreboding theme music.

But it’s the subtleties that I adore—clusters of parasitic insects feasting on undisturbed, decaying corpses and abandoned technology, which disperse as something approaches; sparks dripping from severed wires and busted conduit that can damage Samus; and the saliva oozing from a monstrous Mother Brain’s maw, which serves no gameplay purpose but helps bring this 16-bit world to life. Plus Super Metroid adds to the atmosphere by hinting at a cinematic experience without pausing the gameplay: Samus enters a seemingly empty room as the war music changes to something ominous, then Ridley emerges from the darkness, first his eye and then his body as he roars and takes to the air for the penultimate boss fight. And during the dramatic entrances of the bosses and mini-bosses, you can position yourself however you want and (sometimes) get a head start by shooting them in the face while they roar. You’re never dropped in to a boss battle with no bearings on your position because an intro cutscene abruptly changes camera angles and teleports you to a different part of the room and then requires you to react immediately.

Again, deaths in Super Metroid are entirely fair.

The only time you do lose control of Samus is two phases in to the final battle where a scripted event has Mother Brain slamming Samus against the wall with an energy beam, draining her of even the ability to stand, but the entire game is effectively over (it’s basically over after Lower Norfair, anyway.) So I don’t mind passively watching the metroid larva remember Samus and then come to her rescue during the climactic finale. Super Metroid earns that moment. Especially since I rescued that larva with Samus in Metroid II. And even though I barely touched Metroid 1 by 1994, I still appreciated the return to Zebes and how Samus passes through the original Mother Brain’s chamber at the very beginning to acquire the first power up on the first screen of the first game.

In short, Metroid 3 pulls together all the threads of the first two games and perfectly ties up the trilogy, and it does it with hours of gameplay and barely five minutes of cutscenes.