Super Metroid

Somehow, despite having played to completion: several Metroid games (not even counting the Primes); more than a handful of Metroid-inspired Castlevanias; and Shadow Complex, I hadn't until recently played more than an hour or so of Super Metroid. (Does that make me a bad person? Yeah, it definitely does.) Virtual Console to the rescue! But now I'm discovering that, for all its acclaim, Super Metroid has not aged exceptionally well.

It has some of the best level and environment design of any game -- not just puzzling or thrilling, but incredibly atmospheric (per the series standard). For a 16-bit sidescroller, it does an incredible job of convincing you that you're alone on a hostile planet, and the only way out is to scrape your power-ups together and blast a bunch of aliens.

But the controls are terrible. There are half a dozen weapons to switch between (including some that aren't even weapons, like a grapple beam and an x-ray visor), that you need to cycle through with Select, so getting the right one ready for a boss is way too many button presses. Landing jumps is unreasonably tough -- almost as tough as the wall-jump, which is just ridiculous. Then there's the quicksand, and the Samus-eating giant plants, and the lava seahorses, and, eesh.

And the map could be a lot more informative; sure, it's better than nothing, but neglecting to show where colored doors are makes backtracking more of a hassle than it needs to be. Not to mention, so many routes through the map are just overly lengthy and repetitive. I also feel like the routes I really need to take are hidden, because despite collecting most of my suit components, I've only encountered one of the game's four+ bosses. (Edit: Apparently I just fought the second one. Didn't think that was a boss.)

So I'm more frustrated by Super Metroid than I feel I should be. At the same time, it is a fun game when it works, and it's interesting to see how much it was copied by influenced Metroid Prime.

Progress: Got the Gravity Suit!