After defeating the Queen Metroid on SR388, Samus stumbled upon a Metroid in the process of hatching from its egg. The baby Metroid showed no signs of hostility towards Samus, which in turn left her unable to shoot it. She decided to bring it with her and hand it over to scientists on the Ceres Space Colony. Not long after handing the specimen over and leaving, Samus receives a distress call – Ceres is under attack!
Immediately, she returns, only to find everyone slaughtered. She finds the Metroid in its container at the end of a ravaged, bloody corridor. In the dark, a pair of vicious eyes starts glowing in her direction. Then, a familiar shape emerges from the shadows. It’s Ridley, a Space Pirate commander thought to be dead after Samus defeated him during her first mission on Zebes. Ridley beats her within an inch of her life and makes off with the Metroid specimen. Samus struggles to escape Ceres Station as it starts exploding and falling apart around her. At the last second, she reaches her Gunship and sets course for the only place Ridley could have run off to: Zebes.
SUPER METROID sets the tone for what is to come right from the start – a moody, cinematic opening, an adrenaline-filled introduction, and a clear mission: find Ridley, take him down for good, and retrieve the baby Metroid. If METROID laid the foundation, then SUPER METROID is the prize exhibit built from these blueprints.
Genre-defining standards were introduced in this all-time classic which released in 1994 for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and Super Famicom. The automatic map-system, multi-level color-coded doorways, environmental storytelling, and invisible navigational directions are still being lifted directly from SUPER METROID’s design to this day. Introducing several now-standard gameplay mechanics such as the Wall Jump, Grapple Beam, and building a world allowing for progression-sequence breaks that alter the flow of the entire game, are just a glimpse into its legacy. Even the soundtrack to this game is so iconic that arrangements of its themes frequently appear in the subsequent entries of the series. After SUPER METROID, the series, the genre, and especially Samus herself remain forever changed…
SUPER METROID was developed by Nintendo R&D1 with programming support from Intelligent Systems. Yoshio Sakamoto returned in his role as director and created the scenario this time, as well. Kenji Yamamoto and Minako Hamano made their series debut as composers, and Makoto Kanō moved from design to serve as producer.
