11.5.2019

In video games, it’s not uncommon for a genre of game to be named after a specific game that popularized a lot of the games core identifiers.

Rogue was an ASCII graphics based dungeon crawler that was hugely popular on early home computers. It’s gameplay loop had the player descending a procedurally generated dungeon, and employed a permadeath system, meaning the player would have to start all over from the beginning if they died in the game. The last few years have seen Rogue-like as a common descriptor for almost every indie game published. Dead Cells, The Binding of Isaac, and Cadence of Hyrule are just a few in, what I would consider, a slightly over-saturated market.

Demon’s Souls, an action-adventure title developed by Japan’s FromSoftware would prove to be an instant critical success. Inspired by old-school (80’s NES) game design with a crushing difficulty, dark fantasy aesthetics, and open ended character customization options, Demon’s Souls would go on to start an entire new genre known as Souls-like games. Demon’s Souls was the first of the genre, so naturally there were some quirky elements that didn’t really work, but those kinks would be ironed out by the release of it’s sequel. Dark Souls hit in 2011, and still remains the hallmark of the genre. However, that hasn’t stopped developers other than FromSoftware from using the formula, and doing interesting things with it. Salt & Sanctuary, Hollow Knight, and Nioh all have used the Souls formula in unique ways, to different, yet positive outcomes.

My personal favorite genre named after a game is the Metroid-Vania genre. Super Metroid was released on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System in 1994. Receiving rave reviews, right out of the gate, Super Metroid would go on to inspire many games, despite less than stellar sales. Combining, an interconnected, 2D open world, with back-tracking, and solid action elements, Super Metroid would be popular amongst speedrunners, thanks to a high replay value, and developer intended tricks to bypass a lot of the power-up based locked doors. Three years later, Konami, and more importantly, Koji Igarashi, would deliver a spiritual successor in the form of Castlevania: Symphony of The Night. Symphony took elements from the Super Metroid camp, like an open ended 2D world, doors locked behind character progression, and high replay value, to cement the genre, lovingly as ‘Metroid-Vania’. Popular games in this genre include Ori and The Blind Forest, Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow on the Gameboy Advance, and more recently, Guacamelee. In my opinion however, none have been as effective at immersing me, as Super Metroid.

Super Metroid’s opening moments are a slight point of contention amongst fans. The game begins with an unskippable cutscene. And quite a lengthy one, at that. It’s basically a ‘story so far’, which unfortunately was necessary given its predecessors’ lack of substantial story telling. Ironically, the first two entries in the Metroid series would sell substantially more than this third entry. Basically, this was a cutscene designed for newcomers to the story, but there hardly were any.

When you finally get control of the bounty hunter, you are back on the space station where the unskippable cutscene just took place. As you venture further into the station, sinister music blows out of the speakers, and soon, you descend upon the dead bodies of the scientists from the previous cutscene. Venture further and you come across a Metroid in a test tube. Walk up to it to reveal Ridley, a towering, bi-pedal bird, armed to the gills, ready to strike. Attack at once, or face certain death…kind of.

This part right here in the opening minutes of the game is one of the first slightly scripted sequences. You can’t kill Ridley. If you could, then boy, what a bummer of a game; over in 5 minutes, with 4 of them being unskippable cutscene.

After doling out, or receiving enough damage from Ridley, the pterodactyl like monster flies away with the Metroid larva, heading for its home planet, Zebes. When Ridley flees the space station, he also sets off a self destruct sequence, built into the space station. You as the player, now gaining control, have a mission laid out for you; get off this space station, follow Ridley, get that Metroid larva.

This is where the real game begins.

After a split second getaway from the exploding space station, Samus flies directly to the planet Zebes. Her now famous aircraft lands, and she ascends from it, on the surface of the planet, in the rain. This isn’t your typical Nintendo beginning.

Super Mario Bros. opens with one of the most upbeat songs ever composed, and a clear blue sky. Super Metroid opens with death, a seemingly impossible-to-kill enemy, and then cold, harsh, rain. This game is quick to let the player in on its stakes. There have been lives lost in the tutorial.

The most interesting part of this game is how all of these atrocities are shown, not told. No player needed Samus to stop at the room with the bodies, and spew some expository bullshit about, “I just talked to this man! And now he’s dead!”, or, “Oh, the HUMANITY!!!!”. Everything the player needs to know is conveyed in a background tile comprised of 20 pixels.

When you’re on the surface of Zebes, there’s a few places you can go, but only one of them is the correct way. Head right and you’ll eventually come across a wall that is unbreakable by your blaster. Your only other option is to head left past your ship. When you do, you’ll come across a door that opens from only one shot of your standard arm cannon. From here, there’s yet another two options of where to go. Down the first hole you spot, or another one just a screen away. Thing is, just like before, the first hole you spot is small, and Samus could only fit through it if she was crawling, or rolling through it. The other hole is big enough for at least two Samus’ to fall down.

This mirrors the rest of the game, while increasingly growing in complexity and difficulty. Find new area, see three possible doorways, only one of which do you have the proper tools to conquer, so that must be the way forward. This means as you go forward you go backwards. Backtracking is the phrase used to identify the Metroid-Vania genre, but that term is a little vague. The easiest way I can explain it is using what I call the three door explanation.

Basically, you are presented with three doorways, 1, 2, and 3. Door 1 is locked by a missile upgrade, Door 2 is up high on a ledge that is unreachable with your current jumping ability, but Door 3 is easily accessible. Enter Door 3, and it leads you to a missile upgrade! Hey, now you can check out what’s behind Door 1. You go to Door 1, and come across some Hi-Jump boots. Now head back to Door 2, which leads to the boss!

It’s a simple gameplay loop that feels incredibly rewarding because it relies on your memory of visual cues. When you access the Hi-Jump boots, the first thing that courses through your brain is, “wait, now I can reach that door!!”. It becomes even more rewarding, when the world is more complicated than 3 doors laid out in a straight line.

Another aspect to the allure of Super Metroid is it’s player base, which pushes the 25 year old game to its absolute limit. There are plenty of developer-intended, and non-developer-intended tricks that have been discovered since the games launch. These tricks can help you reach areas earlier than intended, and there is such an openness in the world design that there are plenty of pathways to take on subsequent playthroughs. An example of this can be found in the AGDQ 2019 Reverse Boss Order Speedrun by ShinyZeni. The runner plays the game in complete opposite order than most players will on their first playthrough. “The simple fact that something like RBO is even possible without exploiting major glitches is a huge testament to how much freedom you have in the game.” says ShinyZeni, in a TwinGalaxies article.

On my first playthrough, I bumbled around, often getting lost, and not feeling much ambition to progress. I accredit that to the device I played on, a Sony PSP that had been hacked, and running an emulated version of the game. After about a month of on and off playing, and once having to revert to an old save because of the emulator crashing, I finally persisted and finished one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had up to this point in my life. And that was on the small screen of the PSP.

The day that the Nintendo Switch’s Online Service added SNES games, I knew what had to be done. I booted up my console on the big screen, and was able to fully immerse myself in Super Metroid. I beat the game that day, my play time added up to roughly four hours. I was so amazed by how the game grabbed me this time around. I initially thought that I’d just poke around and see what the game was supposed to look like, but once seeing the incredibly fluid sprite animations, and the small details in virtually every screen of the first 10 minutes, my plans had to be changed that day.

It certainly helped that I had just beaten the game recently, but I didn’t count that as my first full playthrough. That was a test for what was to come.

Immediately after beating Super Metroid on the Switch Online service, I restarted the game. I just wanted to start poking around in this incredibly realized world. I wanted to hang out with Samus.

My second playthrough, I took my time, found more secrets, and lolly-gagged, just for lolly-gagging’s sake. I tried out some tricks I had seen on Speedruns. I milked that game, for every last drop of content it had, and when my bucket was full, I sipped that cool, unpasteurized, cream that we gamers call good game design. It was magical. It was the first game I ever beat twice in a row. It was the first game I felt compelled to beat twice in a row. It pushed me to open my brain up, and reorganize it into an Ikea Kallax unit.

Super Metroid will always be a masterpiece to many, and to me, it will be what set me on a course to enjoy games more thoroughly. Now when I play games, I don’t rush to the end. Although my four hour playthrough was fun, I enjoyed hanging out with Samus much more.



-Buzz