Right, I need to get something out of the way immediately – I’m an Amiga guy. Always have been. Grew up with Sensible World of Soccer, Speedball 2, and the Bitmap Brothers. So when the Balding Gamer crew started arguing about the best SNES games, I initially stayed quiet because frankly, I thought the whole console war thing was beneath proper computer gaming.
Then I replayed Super Metroid for this article, and I’ll admit it: Nintendo absolutely nailed it with this one. Even my Amiga-loving heart can’t deny that Super Metroid is a masterclass in game design, atmosphere, and exploration. The rest of the crew got tired of me going on about it, but that’s because they’re all wrong and I’m right.
What Is Super Metroid?
Developer: Nintendo R&D1 | Released: March 1994
Super Metroid is the third game in Nintendo’s Metroid series, following the NES original and Game Boy sequel. You play as Samus Aran, a bounty hunter who returns to planet Zebes to stop the Space Pirates from weaponizing Metroids – energy-draining alien creatures. The baby Metroid from the previous game has been stolen, and Samus must explore a massive interconnected alien world to rescue it and defeat the Space Pirates once and for all.
The game takes the exploration-focused design of the original Metroid, adds the map system from Metroid II, and polishes everything to perfection. You start with basic equipment and gradually gain power-ups – missiles, bombs, the grapple beam, various suit upgrades – that let you access previously unreachable areas. The entire planet Zebes is one massive interconnected map with no loading screens, just seamless exploration.
The Atmosphere That Defines Everything
Here’s what Super Metroid understands better than basically any game before or since: atmosphere isn’t about graphics or music alone. It’s about how everything works together to make you feel a specific way. And Super Metroid wants you to feel isolated, vulnerable, and curious in equal measure.
The opening is perfect. You land on a seemingly abandoned space station. No enemies. Just empty corridors, flickering lights, and that unsettling ambient music. You find the baby Metroid in a laboratory. Then Ridley – the Space Pirate leader – attacks, steals the Metroid, and escapes to planet Zebes. The station initiates self-destruct. You have to run. That entire sequence teaches you the game’s tone without a single word of dialogue.
Once you reach Zebes, the loneliness sets in. There’s no hub town. No friendly NPCs. No comic relief. Just you, a hostile alien planet, and the creatures trying to kill you. The music is sparse – often just ambient environmental sounds. The areas feel genuinely dangerous, not in a “difficult combat” way, but in a “you’re somewhere you don’t belong” way.
Compare this to other games from 1994. Doom had atmosphere but was all aggression. Final Fantasy VI had grand storytelling but constant dialogue. Super Metroid trusted that silence and environmental storytelling could carry an entire game. And it absolutely worked.
Movement That Feels Like Freedom
The first time you get the space jump and realize you can basically fly across entire rooms? That’s when Super Metroid clicks. Movement in this game evolves from basic running and jumping to this fluid, acrobatic flow once you master all the abilities.
Wall jumping requires precise timing but opens up sequence-breaking possibilities. The grapple beam lets you swing across gaps and access secret areas. The speed booster lets you run through walls and build momentum for shinesparking – launching yourself in any direction with stored energy. Combining these abilities makes Samus feel incredibly mobile once you’ve gained enough power-ups.
The brilliance is how the game teaches you these mechanics naturally through level design. You see a ledge you can’t reach. You explore elsewhere. You find the high jump boots. You go back and reach that ledge, which opens new areas. No quest markers. No tutorials. Just observation and experimentation.
Coming from Amiga gaming where precision controls mattered – you haven’t lived until you’ve played Speedball 2 at tournament level – I appreciated how tight Super Metroid’s controls felt. Every jump, every shot, every movement responded exactly as intended. No input lag, no ambiguity. Just pure responsiveness.
The Map Design That Rewards Curiosity
Super Metroid’s map is a masterpiece of interconnected design. Every area – Crateria, Brinstar, Norfair, Maridia, Tourian – feels distinct visually and mechanically. But they all connect in ways that slowly reveal themselves as you gain new abilities.
Early on, you’ll pass rooms you can’t fully explore. A door that requires missiles you don’t have yet. A gap too wide to cross. A wall that seems suspicious but you can’t break through. The game teaches you to remember these locations, to mentally note “I’ll come back here later.” When you finally do return with the right equipment, the satisfaction is immense.
The game never tells you where to go next. There’s no quest log, no objective markers, no waypoints. You have a map system that fills in as you explore, but navigation is on you. This sounds punishing by modern standards, but it creates a genuine sense of exploration and discovery. You’re not following instructions – you’re figuring out the world yourself.
Secret areas are everywhere. Crumble blocks that look like normal floors. Walls you can shoot through that appear solid. Rooms hidden behind environmental obstacles. The game rewards curiosity and experimentation constantly. Got the X-Ray Scope? You can see hidden passages. But even without it, careful observation and testing reveals most secrets.
Boss Fights That Test Mastery
Each major boss in Super Metroid is essentially a test of whatever power-up you just acquired. Kraid requires vertical movement and patience. Phantoon demands precise dodging and timing. Draygon in Maridia combines grapple beam usage with environmental awareness. Ridley is a pure skill check – by the end of the game, you should have mastered Samus’s movement and combat abilities.
The final escape sequence after defeating Mother Brain is still one of gaming’s most tense moments. You have three minutes to escape a self-destructing planet. You know the path because you’ve explored these areas before, but now you’re racing against the clock. No checkpoints. No second chances. Pure execution under pressure.
The Soundtrack That Creates Dread
Kenji Yamamoto and Minako Hamano’s soundtrack is brilliantly understated. Most areas don’t have traditional “music” – they have ambient soundscapes. The Crateria surface theme is sparse and lonely. Lower Brinstar sounds organic and hostile. Maridia’s underwater areas feel alien and isolating.
The boss themes kick in with more traditional composition – urgent, aggressive, intense. The contrast makes them feel more impactful. You spend most of the game in quiet, tense exploration, so when the music suddenly becomes frantic during a boss fight, it heightens everything.
The item acquisition theme is iconic – that ascending fanfare when you collect a major power-up. Pavlovian response decades later, that sound still gives me a little dopamine hit. Smart sound design that rewards exploration on a psychological level.
Does Super Metroid Still Hold Up?
I played this seriously for the first time in 2018 – yeah, I know, Amiga loyalty kept me away from consoles for years – and it held up completely. The controls are responsive. The map design is excellent. The atmosphere is thick. The sprite work is gorgeous with detailed animations and environmental effects.
Modern “Metroidvania” games – Hollow Knight, Ori, dozens of indie titles – are all chasing what Super Metroid established. The interconnected map design, the ability-gated exploration, the environmental storytelling, the sense of isolation. They’ve added their own innovations, but the template comes from this game.
The SNES version is still the best way to play. The Game Boy Advance port is fine but the screen is cramped. The Wii/Wii U/Switch versions are emulated perfectly. There’s no reason not to experience this game today – it’s not a “product of its time,” it’s a timeless design that works as well now as it did in 1994.
Why It Belongs At Number Two
During our ranking arguments, I fought harder for Super Metroid than I’ve fought for anything gaming-related since arguing that Sensible Soccer was better than FIFA. The rest of the crew kept trying to bump it down because “it’s just an exploration game” or “the combat isn’t that deep.”
They’re missing the point entirely.
Super Metroid isn’t trying to be an action game with exploration elements. It’s an exploration game where combat serves the atmosphere and pacing. Every design choice reinforces the feeling of isolation, curiosity, and gradual empowerment. The game respects your intelligence – it trusts you to figure things out without hand-holding.
Tim wanted Chrono Trigger higher because he’s got this whole “fresh perspective” thing going. Joe kept pushing Earthbound because of his weird attachment to quirky JRPGs. Sam argued for Street Fighter II because frame data matters apparently. Carl had to literally mediate like we were children.
But I maintain: for pure game design excellence focused on a singular vision, Super Metroid is number two only because A Link to the Past exists. And honestly, some days I think Super Metroid should be number one.
The Speedrunning Legacy
Here’s something the casual crowd doesn’t always appreciate: Super Metroid has one of the most active speedrunning communities in gaming. The world record is under 40 minutes. Players have found sequence breaks, glitches, and optimization techniques that let them complete the game in a fraction of the intended time.
This isn’t a bug – it’s a feature of brilliant design. The game allows for multiple paths and creative solutions. You can skip major areas if you’re skilled enough. You can collect power-ups out of order. The freedom isn’t just in exploration – it’s in how you approach the entire experience.
Watching a Super Metroid speedrun after playing casually is like watching a jazz musician improvise after hearing the standard composition. The foundation is solid enough to support completely different approaches, and that’s masterful game design.
The Verdict
Super Metroid is atmospheric exploration done perfectly. It’s a game that trusts your intelligence, rewards your curiosity, and creates a sense of place that few games have matched. The controls are tight, the map design is brilliant, the progression is satisfying, and the whole experience feels cohesive from start to finish.
If you’ve never played it, play it. If you played it years ago, replay it and appreciate how well it holds up. If you’re making a Metroidvania game, study this one because it’s the blueprint that still works three decades later.
And yes, it absolutely deserved number two on our list. I will not be taking questions, but I will be accepting apologies from the rest of the crew who doubted me.
Rating: 10/10 – The definitive exploration-focused action game
John grew up swapping floppy disks and reading Amiga Power cover to cover. Now an IT manager in Manchester, he writes about the glory days of British computer gaming—Sensible Soccer, Speedball 2, and why the Amiga deserved more love than it ever got.
John grew up swapping floppy disks and reading Amiga Power cover to cover. Now an IT manager in Manchester, he writes about the glory days of British computer gaming—Sensible Soccer, Speedball 2, and why the Amiga deserved more love than it ever got.
