Super Metroid

Pre-Ridley, I was able to defeat most of Super Metroid's challenges by relying on how overpowered Super Missiles are (or, in Draygon's case, by reading the interweb and discovering his actual weakness). But Ridley isn't as much of a sucker - he requires you to be very good, which I'm not, or to be very powered-up. So I took a lap around the map, collected all the energy tanks (again, with the interweb's help), and was then able to tolerate Ridley long enough to actually kill him.

The extra HP also made Mother Brain kind of a pushover. Ending was cool. Could have done a better job of tying into the introduction, though.

Super Metroid exists at the tail end of the punishing games era: when frustration was to be expected, and the only workaround was to ask for help from someone who'd already done it. But Metroid, as a franchise, shines brightest when the player is able to freely explore -- to discover secret areas without fear of losing track of the main objective; to experiment with a boss without fear of having to repeat lengthy gameplay sequences. (Getting back to Ridley over and over again was pretty lame.) Later Metroids have all done a fantastic job with this concept, and, I guess, they have Super Metroid to thank for pushing the original Metroid's formula in the right direction. But it's hard for me not to see Super Metroid as a relic of a bygone era.

I also have a hard time forgiving the jumping controls. They are just terrible. Just, terrible.

Better than: Metroid (in its original NES incarnation)
Not as good as: Metroid Prime, Metroid Fusion, Shadow Complex
A Zero Mission-style remake: would be pretty incredible

Progress: ~7 hours, 78% items