Super Metroid

Super Metroid is a video game that consists of 7 releases

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Super Metroid is the third in the series and the first Metroid game on the Super Nintendo. It was the first 24mb cartridge and featured beautiful 2D environments, a very illusory soundtrack, and lots of action.

Overview

Title screen featuring the Metroid Hatchling
Title screen featuring the Metroid Hatchling
Super Metroid is a game developed and published by Nintendo, and the third installment in the Metroid franchise. It was initially released on the Super Famicom (Super Nintendo) in 1994, but has since then been re-released on the Nintendo Wii's Virtual Console.

Like most games of the series, Super Metroid is an action adventure games with platforming elements. Players take the role of a female bounty hunter known as Samus Aran as she explores the deadly planet Zebes and collect an arsenal of weapons and gadgets, which will in turn let her progress into areas that were previously inaccessible.

Super Metroid was the largest and most graphically-impressive game for the console at the time of its release. Even today, its gameplay quality still holds up and the game is considered by many to be one of the greatest games of all time.

Super Metroid is also famous for the unintentional ability to "sequence break" the game. This means that although there is roughly a set path for Samus to follow, skilled players are capable of reaching ledges or getting past barriers before they have discovered the power up that is ordinarily required to get there. For example, by mastering a maneuver known as the 'mockball' players can get the power bombs very early in the game, when they enter Brinstar for the first time. This curious mechanic had many people struggling to see who could find the fastest path and order to take to complete the game, making Super Metroid one of the first games surrounded by the 'speedrun' phenomenon.

Plot

The famous line
The famous line
Super Metroid opens with a short summary of its predecessor, Metroid II: Return of Samus on the Nintendo Game Boy. After she eradicated the Metroids from their homeworld, SR-388, Samus Aran finds a Metroid hatchling, which believed her to be its mother. Unable to end its life, Samus brings the Metroid larvae to the Ceres Space Colony, so that scientists could study the mysterious power of the Metroids.

However, just as she leaves, Samus receives a distress signal coming from Ceres. She immediately returns, only to find everyone dead. After a short treck through the Colony Samus encounters her nemesis, Ridley. They have a short battle which ends with Ridley taking the Metroid Hatchling in his possession. She then escapes the space colony as it self-destructs and tracks Ridley to a nearby planet, Zebes.

Power Ups

Samus' suit can be augmented with a number of power ups that grant her new powers and abilities. Each element can be configured on or off in the suit equipment menu. There are a great deal of power ups to collect scattered throughout Zebes and each one that you collect, along with map squares discovered, increases your completion percentage which is displayed at the end of the game.

Miscellaneous
Samus firing multiple missiles into Kraid's mouth
Samus firing multiple missiles into Kraid's mouth


Suits


Boots


Beams


Abilities


Locations


Ceres Station


Super Metroid begins when Samus receives a distress signal from this research station shortly after delivering the Metroid hatchling to the scientists there. Her visit is brief as her nemesis Ridley sets off the self-destruct sequence as he exits with the metroid hatchling in hand.

Planet Zebes
Planet Zebes
Planet Zebes


The majority of the game takes place on Zebes, the same planet Samus visited in the original Metroid title, as well as her former home when she was being raised and trained by the Chozo. Zebes contains a variety of environments that Samus explores as she tracks down the stolen Metroid hatchling.

Crateria


Crateria is the area Samus lands in when she arrives on Zebes. Not much time is spent here, as it is more of a route to the deeper locales Samus explores. The atmosphere here is dreary and ominously quiet for the duration of her visit, either raining or cloudy most of the time. Crateria also houses the ruins of Mother Brain's original hideout, Tourian, which self-destructed at the end of Samus first mission to Zebes. Samus finds the Morph Ball Bombs here.

Brinstar


The starting point of the original Metroid title, Brinstar houses 5 unique environments: a blue-hued environment where the Morph Ball is obtained; a lush, green, jungle-like environment; a pink, plant-filled environment where the Charge Beam resides; an area consisting of red-colored soil where Samus finds the Spazer Beam and X-Ray Scope; and a combination of green plants and metallic structures where Samus battles the gigantic reptilian-like creature Kraid to obtain the Varia Suit.

Norfair


The fiery Norfair leads Samus the areas closest to the planet's core, which include caves composed of what seems like cooled igneous rock, deeper caves filled with treacherous lava pits, a small area filled with hardened green bubbles of some sort,  and ancient Chozo Ruins that Ridley has claimed as his hideout. Samus can find many power-ups here, such as the High-Jump Boots, Speed Boots, Ice Beam, Grappling Beam, Wave Beam, and Screw Attack.

Wrecked Ship


The Wrecked Ship consists of the haunted ruins of a crashed space vessel (presumably the destroyed Space Pirate mother ship from the conclusion of Metroid: Zero Mission). Samus must defeat the powerful ghost Phantoon here to restore power to the ship and obtain the Gravity Suit.

Maridia


The eerie aquatic environment of planet Zebes, Maridia, is filled with a number of marine-based areas such as water-filled chasms; damp, sand-filled rooms and a flooded metallic area presided over by intimidating crustacean, Draygon.  Samus finds the Space Jump, Spring Ball, and Plasma Beam power ups here.

Tourian


After conquering every dangerous corner of planet Zebes, Samus comes to find out that the Mother Brain's base of operations, Tourian, has been relocated and rebuilt and is once again filled with the energy-siphoning Metroids. If Samus can trek through the deathly corridors and defeat Mother Brain once and for all, she can finally bring closure to her once beloved home of Planet Zebes that the greedy Space Pirates invaded so long ago.

Game Name Super Metroid
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Original US Release April 18, 1994
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Aliases Metroid 3
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