Yesterday I said that "Metroid II is really a culmination of all of the events of the original Metroid, as well as the launching pad for the rest of the series." That's true in a narrative sense, but in a gameplay sense, everything that was released after Super Metroid owes some sort of debt to this game. It's a monumental, life-altering achievement, on par with Ocarina of Time and Super Mario Bros. 3 as one of the company's finest games.
For the Super Nintendo, Super Metroid is quite cinematic. This of course means it's still nowhere near the "cinematic wankery" of most modern games, but nonetheless, it does have a very effective introduction that catches up the audience on the Metroid saga. For one, Samus has a pretty extensive speaking part at the beginning of the game, essentially outlining the plots of Metroid and Metroid II (and in the opening credits, this game is simply called "Metroid 3"). When we left the bounty hunter in Metroid II, she had just brought back a baby Metroid with her in her spaceship. Here, we see her giving that metroid to scientists on the colony Ceres who then go on to perform a number of tests on it. Apparently, they discover some amazing things about metroids that could save everyone. Alas and alack, though: when Samus leaves, all hell breaks loose, and it's up to her to fix this mess.
The set-up is great because it follows through on the story of older games in a meaningful way. Nintendo isn't really a company to do proper sequels, but the Metroid series allows them to follow an actual narrative thread, which is really interesting to see. It's also great because the team decided that the game would return to Zebes after the Space Pirates steal the baby metroid, and because this game has great, detailed graphics, the player finally gets to see Zebes in all of its glory. Super Metroid is a brilliant looking game, full of highly detailed pixel art on the SNES.
I think it's become pretty clear to me that the Super Nintendo is my favourite system of all time, primarily for games of nearly this caliber which seemed to get released on the system all the time. Super Metroid is an epic undertaking. It feels less hostile to play this game than the first two Metroid games, for sure, but it's still an incredibly challenging game. Zebes isn't overly confusing (and the map system really, really helps), but the intensity of the action has certainly been dialed up, especially in the game's many (and awe-inspiring) boss battles. Meta Ridley and the Mother Brain are especially intense in this game.
Gameplay is standard Metroid fare at this point, but Samus is souped-up to the max. Several new powerups can be found in this game, including some that haven't been seen elsewhere in the series (except maybe the Prime series, I guess) like the Moon Walk. Samus is extremely limber, too. She can now wall jump, which is an extremely important addition to the series for one reason – it pretty much birthed the Speedrunning culture. Super Metroid is the game of choice for Speedrunners everywhere, mainly because the game can be played in dozens of different fashions. There are ways to play this game that are way outside of the way that the developers completely intended it to be played, and the complexities of these different playstyles actually blow my mind. I watched a Nintendo Weekly episode recently where they had the world champion Super Metroid speedrunner, and playing the game in that fashion becomes a virtual ballet of movements and quick decision making.
I think this is because the game is so self-contained as a videogame (outside of the opening) and builds everything around the core conceits of its videogame-dom. If one could describe a "pure" videogame experience of the highest caliber, I think that this game would have to be considered one of the very best. I've resisted commenting on Metroid: Other M up until this point, because I want to play through the whole thing before making up my mind about it. That being said, there's no denying that it takes this element of Super Metroid and kind of flushes it down the toilet.
I'm of the opinion that Samus and the Metroids have always been best served by letting the gameplay do the talking, and Super Metroid doesn't just let them do the talking – it lets them yell out in full force. This is such a confident, bold step forward for Nintendo (as was a lot of their SNES-era games) that no wonder Super Metroid is considered such a classic. It is a classic. The fact that it took the company nine (9!) years to make any sort of followup should attest to that. Beating this game is an epic undertaking and beating it again for this review was a total treat.
If you haven't played Super Metroid, seriously. What's wrong with you.