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Super Metroid for Super Nintendo SNES
Super Metroid for Super Nintendo SNES sends bounty hunter Samus Aran back to the planet Zebes. Ridley has taken the last Metroid from a research station, and Samus pursues the Space Pirates. You explore a vast network of caves, shafts and abandoned facilities in a side-view action adventure. The route is not laid out as a sequence of separate levels: you seek connections between areas yourself and remember which passages remain out of reach for now.
New equipment changes how you move through that network. The Morph Ball lets Samus roll through narrow passages, bombs open certain floors, and the Grappling Beam lets you swing from special blocks. Missiles are both weapons and a way to open doors. You investigate suspicious walls and ceilings, check the map and revisit earlier rooms with new abilities. Extra energy tanks and ammunition expansions make detours useful, even when they do not lead straight to the next boss.
This is a single-player adventure using one standard SNES controller. You can customise the button layout and aim Samus diagonally upwards or downwards. At save points you record your progress on the cartridge; the game uses three separate files. The music, rain and sounds of unfamiliar creatures convey a great deal without long conversations. Between quiet exploration and major boss battles, you therefore need to keep watching, listening and learning your own way around Zebes.
Region and language
Our Super Nintendo SNES games are PAL editions, unless stated otherwise. This product contains a loose cartridge for the European market. A box is only included if explicitly stated in the product details. We note any different region in the product details. In almost all cases, the game is playable at least in English, and often in the other five common European languages too.
Manual
With Super Metroid for Super Nintendo SNES, you receive a loose cartridge. A box and manual are not included unless we explicitly state otherwise in the product details. This is the standard way we supply this copy.
The history of Super Metroid
Nintendo released Super Metroid for Super Nintendo in 1994. It was the third game in the series, following Metroid for NES and Metroid II: Return of Samus for Game Boy. The story follows on from the Metroid larva in that second adventure but brings Samus back to Zebes, the planet from the first game. The new world links familiar names and locations with a much larger underground route, new equipment and a map filled in as you explore.
Director Yoshio Sakamoto explained in Nintendo's developer interview that the project began around autumn 1991 at producer Makoto Kano's initiative. The team first needed time to learn the SNES's capabilities and limitations. Sakamoto wanted cinematic presentation and even made a VHS video to communicate the atmosphere of the opening. In the finished game, camera movements, short text passages and the timing of events create that effect, without a spoken narrator accompanying your exploration.
Kenji Yamamoto worked on music, sound effects and sound programming. According to the interview, the SNES allowed richer sounds than the NES, including choir-like tones. The Metroid larva's cries were also given different emotions. That meticulous sound design supports both the deserted rooms and the dramatic scenes. The original cartridge saves progress at save points; rewind and external suspend points from much later re-releases are not part of this SNES version.
Similar games for Super Nintendo SNES
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past on SNES likewise has you return to familiar places after finding new tools. Link explores Hyrule from above and solves puzzles in separate dungeons. Super Metroid builds its routes around side-view jumps, shooting and changes to Samus's movement abilities. Both reward you with opening a previously closed passage, but you read the space differently in each game.
Mega Man X for SNES, like Super Metroid, combines shooting, jumping and collecting character upgrades. However, X selects separate levels and takes weapons from defeated bosses. Samus traverses one interconnected planet and often uses her equipment to find a new route. Mega Man X demands more repeated precision within a chosen level; Super Metroid gives you more responsibility for remembering your journey's route.
Super Castlevania IV on SNES also offers side-view action in a threatening environment, with large bosses and dangerous jumps. Simon Belmont follows a sequence of levels, mainly using his whip and secondary weapons. Samus regularly revisits rooms you have seen before. Castlevania therefore focuses more on surviving the next obstacles, whereas Super Metroid also asks you to work out which passage your current equipment now makes reachable.
Demon's Crest for SNES lets you use new powers to reach hidden places, much like Super Metroid. Firebrand gains forms that change his movement or let him break obstacles. The game combines a world map with separate areas, whereas Samus travels directly through an interconnected maze. Both ask you to re-examine earlier places, but Demon's Crest uses a demonic fantasy world and attacks tied to Firebrand's different forms.
Super Turrican on SNES combines science fiction, an armoured hero and side-view shooting with places to search for extra supplies. Its pace relies more on progressing through separate action levels filled with enemies and governed by a time limit. Super Metroid lets you learn your way around a planet without that constant level timer. Looking carefully for hidden supplies helps in both, but Samus also collects equipment that permanently changes which parts of the world you can reach.
