Super Metroid (1994)
We had a Super Nintendo for about a month in my household. It belonged to my sister and while we clocked in many hours on Mario Kart (it's still incredibly nostalgic for me), she moved out fairly soon after purchasing it. And what game system did my older sister and I want, while former oldest sister was off in an apartment with her SNES, but a Sega Genesis. We didn't always have money for game systems, so we were only allowed one in the span of 5 years. The Genesis lasted us a very long time, until we finally traded it in for a Playstation. There were no other game systems in between. And still to this day, I find myself always a system behind. It wasn't until I purchased the Wii U that I finally felt caught up. This feeling will only last for a year, I know. And in no way would I ever knock the Genesis - the system provided me with great entertainment and gave me Phantasy Star 2, a game which has indelibly influenced me. There were plenty of classics I missed on that system as well. Just recently, I finally got to play Dynamite Heady, which is so playful and inventive with its visuals.
While I was in college however, I found an opportunity to go back and play some of those classic SNES games. Some of these are my favorites to this day. Earthbound, Yoshi's Island, Super Castlevania IV, E.V.O.: The Search for Eden, Zelda: A Link to the Past; they're all fantastic in their own right. But with the Wii U, I now have access to games that I never would have played before. I never would have considered playing the Metroid series, even though I love the design for the exoskeleton suit, even more so knowing that there is a woman inside of it. I love the morph ball too and imagine that Samus must be all curled up into a ball as well, constantly tumbling. Must be fun. Or nauseating. One of the two. I don't know why, but I assumed that the Metroid games were all about shooting and decided it probably wasn't for me, as I am notoriously bad at games where I have to be constantly aiming (though slap a rhythm game onto it and I become very good at it, ala Gitaroo Man).
So, last night, wanting to reward myself for a job well done on my Halloween costume, I stared at Super Metroid in the Nintendo E-Store. And I decided, why not?
I was instantly smitten with Super Metroid. There is such a sense of atmosphere in this game, as you plummet into the depths of planet Zebes with dimming light and giant clouds. There are small alien lifeforms that skitter away as you approach them. Even the plummeting itself is foreboding. I kept trying to catch myself on the platforms, knowing that no harm would come to Samus, but still fearing exactly what we were going toward.
The controls are incredibly responsive, too. I've played older games where it feels as though you're moving a truck. Or the character jumps a second too late after you've pushed the jump button. But Samus is always responsive to the controls. Nintendo even engineered the shoulder buttons to angle Samus' shots. The game is complex but everything has been simplified. For example, going into morph ball mode happens by pressing down twice. Changing between weapons occurs after pressing the Select button. It's these decisions that make Super Metroid so accessible to players, especially ones like me who don't like destroying the entire ecosystem of an unknown planet.
The Metroid games aren't actually about shooting though, and this is where the game has hooked me in the same way Xenoblade Chronicles has: exploration is key. The entire point of Super Metroid is to explore and discover. That's the joy of it. Finding hidden secrets feels incredibly special, as is seeing the new and bizarre lifeforms that Samus encounters. And even when you collect new power-ups, there's always something that was hidden in those first few screens that you know you have to go back and pick up. There's something very enchanting about the simplicity of this game play. Perhaps because I want to go back to it right now to discover more of Zebes.
What you can see in Super Metroid is pure ambition. And this is what turns me off of newer games, when they have all the technology possible to create film-like games that follow a linear story-line created by the developers (i.e. why I didn't like The Last of Us). There's so much ambition in games like Super Metroid and the way this lesser technology was used back then, to provide atmosphere, to give you a feeling of dread, is still effective because they worked off of feelings. Not clear-cut cinematic perfection. Still to this day, I prefer to play Yoshi's Wooly World rather than any of the newer games for the PS3. Why? Because Yoshi's Wooly World makes me feel happy. Clocktower is still one of the scariest games for me, even with its dated graphics, because it makes me panic when Scissorman's tune starts up.
Super Metroid makes me feel wonder. And that's why I love it, not even after an hour of game play.
(I also purchased Mega Man X, but have yet to delve into that; I should make a point to say that I've never played a Mega Man game before, much like I had never played a Metroid game before.)
While I was in college however, I found an opportunity to go back and play some of those classic SNES games. Some of these are my favorites to this day. Earthbound, Yoshi's Island, Super Castlevania IV, E.V.O.: The Search for Eden, Zelda: A Link to the Past; they're all fantastic in their own right. But with the Wii U, I now have access to games that I never would have played before. I never would have considered playing the Metroid series, even though I love the design for the exoskeleton suit, even more so knowing that there is a woman inside of it. I love the morph ball too and imagine that Samus must be all curled up into a ball as well, constantly tumbling. Must be fun. Or nauseating. One of the two. I don't know why, but I assumed that the Metroid games were all about shooting and decided it probably wasn't for me, as I am notoriously bad at games where I have to be constantly aiming (though slap a rhythm game onto it and I become very good at it, ala Gitaroo Man).
So, last night, wanting to reward myself for a job well done on my Halloween costume, I stared at Super Metroid in the Nintendo E-Store. And I decided, why not?
I was instantly smitten with Super Metroid. There is such a sense of atmosphere in this game, as you plummet into the depths of planet Zebes with dimming light and giant clouds. There are small alien lifeforms that skitter away as you approach them. Even the plummeting itself is foreboding. I kept trying to catch myself on the platforms, knowing that no harm would come to Samus, but still fearing exactly what we were going toward.
The controls are incredibly responsive, too. I've played older games where it feels as though you're moving a truck. Or the character jumps a second too late after you've pushed the jump button. But Samus is always responsive to the controls. Nintendo even engineered the shoulder buttons to angle Samus' shots. The game is complex but everything has been simplified. For example, going into morph ball mode happens by pressing down twice. Changing between weapons occurs after pressing the Select button. It's these decisions that make Super Metroid so accessible to players, especially ones like me who don't like destroying the entire ecosystem of an unknown planet.
The Metroid games aren't actually about shooting though, and this is where the game has hooked me in the same way Xenoblade Chronicles has: exploration is key. The entire point of Super Metroid is to explore and discover. That's the joy of it. Finding hidden secrets feels incredibly special, as is seeing the new and bizarre lifeforms that Samus encounters. And even when you collect new power-ups, there's always something that was hidden in those first few screens that you know you have to go back and pick up. There's something very enchanting about the simplicity of this game play. Perhaps because I want to go back to it right now to discover more of Zebes.
What you can see in Super Metroid is pure ambition. And this is what turns me off of newer games, when they have all the technology possible to create film-like games that follow a linear story-line created by the developers (i.e. why I didn't like The Last of Us). There's so much ambition in games like Super Metroid and the way this lesser technology was used back then, to provide atmosphere, to give you a feeling of dread, is still effective because they worked off of feelings. Not clear-cut cinematic perfection. Still to this day, I prefer to play Yoshi's Wooly World rather than any of the newer games for the PS3. Why? Because Yoshi's Wooly World makes me feel happy. Clocktower is still one of the scariest games for me, even with its dated graphics, because it makes me panic when Scissorman's tune starts up.
Super Metroid makes me feel wonder. And that's why I love it, not even after an hour of game play.
(I also purchased Mega Man X, but have yet to delve into that; I should make a point to say that I've never played a Mega Man game before, much like I had never played a Metroid game before.)