🟢[5/5]︱Super Metroid Review

13 Oct, 2026

Warning! This section of the blog contains spoilers for the following: Super Metroid. Please ensure that you have watched/played the material in full before proceeding.

I gotta say, Super Metroid is a genre-defining masterpiece. The "Metroid" of the Metroidvania genre, a genre that blends platformers and adventure games with a gigantic, interconnected map where areas are locked behind items that you need to find in other places to progress through. Backtracking is usually involved, and sequence breaks are a treat to experienced players to skip parts of what would be considered "The intended route." Super Metroid wasn't the absolute first game to do things (not to mention it's not the first game in the Metroid series), but it's the one that suceeds what has been done with primitive, outdated technology and cranks what it done to max, with a deeply rich atmosphere that tells you absolutely nothing, a masterclass in environmental storytelling.

For someone that's been introduced to the series through the two Game Boy Advance entries Zero Mission and Fusion, Super Metroid didn't click to me much particularly because the physics of that game are a lot more floaty than these two. It's got a little more float akin to Fusion, and performing tricks like wall jumps a bit harder to pull off. It not telling you anything makes getting lost a lot more apparent, and getting through this game was a little easy due to my experiences, but there's been some parts where I'd ask a server I'm in for assistance. Super Metroid and Metroidvanias in general have this problem that most modern Metroidvanias (at least for the ones I've played) stayed absolutely true to, and I'm so thankful for ones like Zero Mission where they give a bit of a hint on where to go, but it's not absolutely giving you a linear way of progression similar to Fusion.

As with most story-rich Nintendo games, the Metroid series has a chronological timeline to go with it as well, with Super Metroid taking place directly after Metroid II: Return of Samus or Metroid: Samus Returns depending on which one you've played. Following the rescue of the last Metroid found on Planet SR388, Samus has sent it to the Space Colony where Galactic Federation was using it for research, and departed only for her to receive an immeidate stress signal that said station was under attack. She arrives there and Ridley captures the baby before a self-destruct sequence has acitvated. Luckily Samus leaves the Colony before it explodes, and she heads to Zebes where Ridley and the rest of the Space Pirates lie.

She arrives in Zebes and heads to the old Base of Tourain where it's in shambles like last time, but after receiving the Morphing Ball in Brinstar, cameras activate watching her, showing signs of activity here. She leaves brinstar, and Space Pirates start showing up with Tourain getting slowly rebuilt. She then finds the entrance to a new Tourain which is guarded by a giant golden statue that features the heads of Kraid, Phantoon, Draygon, and Ridley and she goes all around Zebes to fight them off and enter the new Tourain where the rebuilt Mother Brain resides.

Before she enters the final room, a Space Pirate attempts to attack her, only for the last Metroid to come out much grown and sucks the life of the Space Pirate and Samus herself before stopping to realize that it's actually her. The last metroid and Samus then enter the room where Mother Brain is and defeats her only for her to be completely mechanized, and after getting shot hard by the hyper beam, as she was on her last legs, the last Metroid viciously attacks Mother Brain, putting itself above Samus' life, grants her Mother Brain's hyper beam and ultimately defeats Mother Brain once and for all, and another self destruct sequence activates.

Samus quickly makes it to her ship, and flees from Zebes. and the world is saved.... Not much, though. During her adventures, she comes across three Etecoons and a Dachora that teaches her walljumping and the Dachora later on teaches her the abiliy to Shinespark with Speed Booster. During the last escape sequence, they're held captive in the Bomb Torizo room, and when backtracking all the way to the top of Crateria to that location, Samus can shoot the wall to save them from exploding within the planet, and while it doesn't change the outcome, when Samus leaves the exploding Zebes, a small dot can be seen escaping alongside her, which are the Dachora and the Etecoons.

The story for Super Metroid is indeed very short to follow through, but in the case of this game specifically, its strongest suit was the environmental storytelling that this game has through the evil wildlife that resides in Zebes in coupled with the soundtrack giving into the overall flow. The first location that Samus goes to is upper Brinstar and with an upbeat lively song to go with it, the jungle-esque environment goes very well as a starting place. The enemies here are light on the player, but there's some areas that look impossible to go through at first. These places either point to other spots to progress through Zebes or items such as expansions to existing gear like Missiles, Super Missiles, and Power Bombs to strengthen Samus' Arsenal.

I won't go too much into the other areas since at a time where Metroid is gaining revealance and players are going to possibly experience Super Metroid for the first time, the games better at conveying its atmosphere better than somebody else like me giving it out to you, but one area that I'd have to say is my personal favorite would be the wrecked ship. The song is comprised mostly of bass drum hits and organs and it sounds perfect for the spooky enviornment it entails. Not to mention its the place where Phantoon resides in, granting the Gravity Suit upon defeating it. Lower Norfair is another one of my favorites, with it being the most intense area backed with probably the most "lively" song in the entire game, and it's theme has gone off to be the inspirations of other locations in the other Metroid games suceeding this one.

Super Metroid is one game I've played and shelved countless of times because unlike Fusion and Zero Mission, I wasn't able to really capture the flow that I'd usually get from these two games. It's nonlinearity coupled with how it doesn't give you any hand but the entire canvas to explore was something I wasn't used to at the time, but after going through it with at least the knowledge of exploration I've gotten from Zero Mission and other indie games (Blaster Master Zero, Hertenheld, and Valerie) and getting help from others, I've finished the game and declare that this game is a cinematic masterpiece of not only from the console its on, the SNES, but what a perfect definition of what a platformer adventure game that's now mainly referred to as itself along with another genre defining one should be like. This game and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night were perfect candidates and reference points for countless indie games that've came out in the past decade, and to this day, we still have many more to come and appreciate for, and I'm all in for it.