Genre: Action platformer
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo

Right from the title screen, Super Metroid makes use of all manner of Mode 7 scaling trickery, to go along with oodles of transparent fog, parallax scrolling, and other hardware pushing special effects. The character is superbly animated, and the enemies plus tile sets all ultra detailed, with some of the bosses evoking the Genesis's "Sword of Vermillion". Between the in-game visuals and the tab-filled pause menu, Super Metroid could almost pass as a 32-bit title.

The Super NES's DSP may be somewhat dull and muddy sounding, but those characteristics work in the favor of a dark and spooky game like this one: most of the tunes are dreary and atmospheric, while others are more melodic and upbeat. Some are mild remixes of songs from the original, with is fun. The game's sound effects are iconic, and the overall aural presentation went on to heavily influence the later "Metroid Prime" titles.

Super Metroid takes the nuanced platforming feeling and "morph ball" mechanics from the first game but adds crouching, and even diagonal shooting via the controller's shoulder buttons. Sometimes it feels like it's too complicated and uses too many buttons, creating a yearning for the simpler original title. Too much time is spent "stuck", and as there is no teleportation mechanic, re-traversing the same areas over and over becomes boring.

Just like the later "Metroid Prime" releases, Super Metroid really misses a quicker way to rapidly travel the world: while progress is being made the game is enjoyable, but the experience almost constantly bogs down in backtracking. The original title got away with it because it's short and sweet-- but Super Metroid is a long game, with tons of content. This reviewer got all of the upgrades but lacked the patience to slog through the rest. This release birthed the contemporary "Metroidvania", auto-map and all-- but it is a test of endurance, to be sure.