Super Metroid Part 4 - Golden Statues

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          Last week, we obtained the morph ball bombs and conquered the Bomb Torizo guarding it. Except, in all the chaos of fighting the statue, we never got to try them out. With the boss fight out of the way, it's time to look at the new opportunities opened up by this new power.


        The first thing you'll have to do with the bombs is use them to escape the pit you got them in.

        It should seem pretty obvious to the player that they need to bomb these blocks, and it is entirely due to their placement. They block the only way out, and they occupy a tunnel only the morph ball can fit through, and sense bombs can be placed only in morph ball mode, there's an obvious connection to be made. It is important that players are able to figure out bombs can break these blocks since when they tried to shoot them earlier with the normal blaster, absolutely nothing happens. The moment when the player realizes that previously uninteractable blocks can now be destroyed by bombs here is very important. Right now there is no obvious way forward. Last time you got a new power, it opened up a bunch of obvious doors and tunnels, but this time there are none of those. If the game didn't take this moment to teach the player that bombs can destroy new types of terrain, they would be pretty lost.

          The only reason the player wouldn't be completely lost is the fact that there is still one awfully shady wall that's probably been bugging them from the very start.

         Luckily, the power of morph ball bombs lets us blow up this wall and finally progress to somewhere new. You can notice a progression in the way the developers have been hiding the path forwards so far. On your way to getting the morph ball and missiles, you travel down a shaft with a bunch of clearly gated rooms along the sides. This makes it easy to check out all of those rooms once you have your new abilities because they're all in a central location you have to pass by, and they all have clearly defined locks for the clearly defined keys you just obtained. Once you realize all of these rooms dead end, you're forced to backtrack a little bit and apply your new ability somewhere outside the immediate area. Now, you're given a tool that isn't as easy to apply as the others, its purpose is to destroy blocks, but the blocks aren't clearly marked. First you were taught the basics of opening new areas, then the concept of backtracking, and now the idea of finding secrets that aren't immediately identifiable.

         The mindset of a Metroidvania can be hard to get into for someone who hasn't played a similar game before. And back on the SNES when Metroid was busy pioneering this genre, it was safe to assume most people wouldn't be familiar with the style of game at all. While Super Metroid is supposed to feel imposing and cryptic (as we talked about last week), if it truly was as tricky as it wants you to think it is, most players would quit. Game design involves a lot of smoke and mirrors, and the teaching moments we've experienced thus far are an example of that. The developers obviously want the player to feel like they're the mighty Samus Aran, conquering the difficult planet Zebes on all their own. This feeling will only come if the planet is both imposing yet possible to defeat. The progression here subtly teaches players the skills they'll need to conquer Zebes while making them feel like they're figuring it out themselves.

         With the developers exposed, let's return to the game itself. There's a new kind of upgrade to be found just beyond the wall we just blasted. This right here is an energy tank, your way of increasing max health in Super Metroid. Each one will give you an additional 100 health to the 99 you start with. Your first energy tank will probably be your most pivotal one, as it will double your current health. Luckily that first energy tank is also placed on the critical path here so you can't miss it. 

          You're about to reach the point of the game where things are more open and you'll have the option to do more backtracking. Since half of Super Metroid is about uncovering secrets and finding collectibles, the developers want to encourage as many players as possible to actually try and find those secrets. As useful as missiles are, having five extra at any given time won't be much of a game changer. Energy tanks give the player a huge collectible to always hunt for. Even when you've collected almost all the tanks in the game, one more still means a good quantity of extra health, so there will never be a time where the player is bummed to find one of these. Energy tanks provide a real motivation to try to find new collectibles, and the placement of one here, on the critical path right before things start opening up encourages players to start looking for secrets in the hopes they might find something as useful as an energy tank.

          Following this very nifty energy tank comes a room full of a new kind of space pirates that can only be destroyed by missiles. This reinforces the idea that different weapons will have different effects on different things, but these pirates aren't that important. What is important is the the crossroads you'll find at the bottom.

          You're faced with two doors, one of them instantly more interesting than the other. You've got your classic blue door to the left, but to the right you've got a missile door. That already makes it seem a little more important in the player's subconscious, but more importantly, the door leads to a room that's not on the map. Now we've already discussed how the maps you're given don't show the entire area, but it is entirely possible the average player hadn't known this until now. When they notice that this door leads to something that isn't on their map, they are going to instantly want to see what's behind it. It creates this sense of mystery, which is good because the developers definitely want players going through this door.

         Enter the door and you can instantly tell something is up. The intense music that was playing cuts out, and you're suddenly in a foggy, mechanical room with red warning lights. One thing that I mentioned Super Metroid had to be good at was making the player remember important rooms. What we're about to see is probably the most important room in the game, and the developers are pulling out all their tricks to make sure it's remembered. This long hallway is a giant contrast from what you've been in previously. You go from dark, organic caves to this bright metallic hallway. There's one way to make it stick out. The music also cuts instantly from epic battle music to something quiet and somber, there's another way to make it special. Then this hallway goes on for quite some time too, just to give it even longer to burn itself into your brain.

         Then, after this big hallway comes the room of import.

         There are four strange statues in this room, all piled on top of each other, with strange glowing eyes. That's all there is, there's nothing you can do in here right now. This room is obviously important, but the lack of any immediate use just makes the player wonder about it more. And we want the players wondering about this room because of how important it is. I'll let you in on a little secret the player doesn't know yet: this room is the entrance to Tourian, the game's final area. 

        When designing a game as open-ended and mysterious as Super Metroid, there are two problems you run into pretty early on. One, if you're planning on not using any dialogue or obvious exposition, how are you going to give the player a goal to work towards? And two, if area progression is a big maze of backwards and forwards and not just a straight path, where do you put the end-game? The statue room is the developers' answer to both of these. Metroidvanias are about getting stronger, but getting stronger cannot function as a standalone player goal, it has to be a means to an end. What is the point of gaining new abilities if there's no need for you to have them? Each of these statues represent a boss, and they are the end-goal of your power-gaining crusade. Although the player can't figure it out immediately, the statues work to let you know that your goal is defeating the four baddies that lurk in Zebes.

          The second question is a bit more of a complicated one to answer. In most games where the levels are laid out linearly, you just place the last level at the end of this string of levels. You could take that approach and apply it to a Metroidvania structure. Just take your final area, and connect it right to the end of whatever area the player is supposed to gain their last upgrade in. While that is something that can work, it's not something that works for Super Metroid. Having to defeat all four bosses would be meaningless if Tourian was past the last boss anyways. While it would be functionally the same, the player gets a lot more of a sense of progress and motivation from having the access be here, with the four statues showing you how far you've come.

        With this strange room certainly in the back of the player's mind, it's time to head on down the other path, and pretty soon we get to an elevator that takes us to a new section of Brinstar. And now the game is going to be starting for real.

          You might notice that this shaft design seems very familiar, and that would be because it is. Remember how earlier I was talking about smoke and mirrors and how the developers need to trick the players into thinking they're exploring and figuring things out for themselves? Well this is a good example of that. When you first find this shaft, it feels like a huge new world of possibilities, when in reality it's only a small difference in complexity from your last shaft. For one, there are only five doors over the previous three. The main difference here being that they're all instantly unlockable. There is no upgrade you need in order to access all of these different rooms. That initially makes it seem like this one is much more open, but thanks to what was put behind all these doors, you'll find it is actually still a really controlled environment, just one that's supposed to feel large.

         First off, all of the rooms on the left side are immediate dead ends, all of which containing some kind of resource room. The top left leads to a map room with this area's map, meaning if you choose to open that door first (which is likely since it is one of the first doors the player will see), you'll be given a sneak peak at what the rest of the rooms hold. The room below the map one houses a save station, something that will probably be useful, and then the room at the very bottom left leads to a new kind of room.

         This right here is a missile refill station, and is a lifesaver to all the players trying to explore this shaft. Since each red door takes five missiles, there is no way for you to be able to open all the doors in this shaft without having to refill your missiles, and this room lets you do that. The downside however, is if players waste all their missiles on other doors before this one, they'll have to go back and farm some more, the issue this room is designed to avoid. Thanks to its placement however, there is a good chance players will find it before they run out of missiles. Odds are, players will start opening doors either at the top or at the bottom of a shaft. Players who open at the top just see a door and want to open it, while others may want to explore the whole area before opening any doors, and thus end up at the bottom when they're ready to start exploring the branching paths. Later in the game when the player has a vast supply of missiles, not having enough to open doors will rarely ever be an issue, but in this early phase it's a necessity to include some kind of restock. Otherwise players would be forced to grind for ammo pickups, and that's not engaging and we don't ever want to make players do that, especially this early into things.

         Once we're done with this room and restocked on missiles, it's time to keep checking out the other rooms. First however, there's something interesting that'll probably catch your eye at the bottom of this shaft. There is a small room below the ground where a lone monster crawls around. This is a huge giveaway to some kind of secret, because there is literally no point for the camera to scroll down that far and for the small room to even exist in the first place if there's nothing there. Now you may have the urge to bomb this ground, since you were taught earlier that bombs can break certain blocks, even if they don't look breakable. Doing so, however, will not break the ground, but instead make them turn into the weird gray icon blocks picture above. Odds are, this maybe the player's first experience with these kinds of blocks, and like everything else so far, it's designed to be a teaching moment. It becomes clear that your current arsenal is not enough to break these tiles, and the icon most likely represents some kind of future power you don't yet have. This moment introduces you to the icon tiles, and you'll see more of them in the future for different powers, but it also introduces you to the second function of bombs. They let you reveal the hidden function of blocks. This sets the bombs up to be your go-to tool for investigation, exactly what they should be.

        There is an issue the developers of Super Metroid must certainly have faced when they were crafting this game. When you have so many different abilities that all interact with the world differently, how can you make sure the player knows what to use where? This isn't much of a problem for the mandatory path of progression, it's pretty easy to signpost most abilities. The problem is when trying to hide a secret. If you were to be able to look at a wall and see some kind of marker that meant it could be shot, it wouldn't really be a secret. Marking everything immediately would give to many things away, but if they weren't marked at all, players would have to try each tool in their arsenal on a wall in order to find out which one would bust it open. The morph ball bombs act as a compromise. You an see something that looks suspicious, and then using bombs on it will reveal what it takes to open it. This way, unless you are bombing every single tile you come across, you still have to pay attention to the world to find something that sticks out. Then once you've identified it, there is no boring trial and error since you can then bomb it to find out what it will take to destroy it.

       With the useless half of this shaft explored now, we'll have to see next week what the last two doors may contain. To tide you over until then, here are some key takeaways from what we went through this week.

Key Takeaways:

• Players always want to feel like they're achieving something, and they certainly don't want their hand to be held the whole time. Any instance where a game can have the player uncover things themselves will be preferable to being told
• Good tutorials are ones that players will never notice. The game can continue teaching the player far after the starting area. Super Metroid is aware that it is a tricky game, so it takes the training wheels off very carefully, slowly increasing the complexity of the map so the player is never dumped in the deep end with no idea how to handle it.
• There's a very tricky balance between secrets being too obvious and too obtuse. Diligent players should be able to notice something off, but the solution should not be signposted in a way where nobody could possibly miss it.

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Super Metroid Part 3 - Returning (The Prequel)

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        Last week, things ended on kind of a cliffhanger. After exploring the desolate, blown-out ruins of the Space Pirate lair, players find themselves re-exploring the starting area of the original Metroid now retro-fitted with robotic security, but still no sign of life. After obtaining the handy morph ball and powerful missiles, it's time for the player to return to those destroyed ruins and explore new areas, while trying to figure out what it is out there that's watching them.

     

        The first subtle thing players might notice upon returning is that the background of this elevator room is a different color than it was their last visit. It now has a pinkish color, a stark contrast to the grays of the foreground, and looks more bright and active than the previous dull color. This is just a slight change that some players might pick up on, but the small details like this help sell the game's mood. Last article, we saw a transition in mood, and in a way that mirrors what we saw in the game's opening area two weeks ago. Ceres station started out dark and quiet as you descended it, and the planet Zebes too was completely lifeless until you triggered the security guarding the morph ball. You short foray into Brinstar was meant to feel disconnected from this mechanical area you're now returning to, making it so there was plenty of time for changes to happen there and you would have no idea what went on.

       With the potential of something waiting, you're don't really have anywhere to go but through this door back into the old final boss chamber from Metroid 1. And when you dare to venture through it... you're met with an anticlimax.

        There are a bunch of space pirates in this room waiting for Samus! But that's really about it. They don't do anything very threatening and all die in one hit to your blaster. They don't do anything scary to build on all the tension that was just created; they're just... there.

        Admittedly, this moment is where Super Metroid kind of drops the ball a little bit. While the game does a lot of things very well, it wouldn't be a true analysis if I just praised everything it did, and this is one of those moments where I feel that it misses a step. Everything that happened previously all works very well to establish a very slow and deliberate mood. First, you explore the silent, barren planet, looking for any signs of life. When it seems like you're all alone, you find the ruined mechanical fortress the space pirates used last game, but still nothing. It feels like you're completely alone on this planet, until you find out the space pirates have been working here when you uncover the remodeled bits of Brinstar from the last game. Then you find out you're not near as alone as you thought when you activate their security and begin being watched. It means you're not alone, just that whatever is out there is hiding and waiting. So once you return up the elevator to the mechanical area you're expecting something, the activating of the security marks a change that has taken place, and returning up the elevator marks your return to where things have most likely changed. So after all this eerie buildup, suddenly the space pirates are just there. It's kind of surprising at first just with how sudden it is, but that's all it is.

        The developers kind of worked themselves into a corner with this. At this point, so early in the game where you haven't even fought a real enemy yet, there isn't anything legitimately threatening they can introduce that would still be fair. Even if the space pirate appearance was all the only option the developers had for the climax of this suspenseful opener, there are still better ways it could have been handled to make this a bigger moment. Just something like seeing the shadows of creatures dart along the foreground while riding the elevator up, or having the space pirates suddenly jump in on you when you're halfway through this room would have given this part the dramatic oomph it really needed. But it is what it is, and we're gonna look at the game for what it is, not what it could possibly have maybe been.

        So anyways, this space pirate "ambush" functions as your first real bit of combat. Ridley in the Ceres Station acted as a place to get down aiming and moving and shooting, but now you have real, kill-able enemies that won't stop attacking once your health gets low. The space pirates can crawl on walls, jump around, and shoot lasers. It only takes one shot from your trusty arm cannon to cause them to... explode, for some reason, so they aren't really much of a threat, but that's to be expected from early game enemies. The tight corridors of this room make it hard to maneuver, so some damage might be a little hard to avoid, feeling a little cheap, but it's not a lot of damage and that's the sacrifice one has to make by putting new enemies into a room that wasn't originally designed to hold them.

        Once you beat all the pirates, the door leading to the outside of this room finally unlocks meaning you can now return to Crateria proper and see what all has changed. The only thing standing between you and that now is that giant vertical shaft you went down way earlier. Based on literally every experience we've had with climbing vertical areas you originally descended, I wonder if you can guess how this is gonna go...

        If you guessed that climbing the shaft would now be a platforming challenge, but with some new element incorporated, you'd be right! This time, the challenge is dealing with space pirates now lining the walls of this platform-filled shaft. This of course means you have to try to avoid enemy fire while defeating space pirates and jumping up narrow platforms. It's not a terrible idea in theory, but the concepts of "avoiding enemy fire" and "jumping up narrow platforms" don't combine well together, especially when you factor in knock-back. If you get hit by a space pirate laser, you'll most certainly get knocked off whatever platform your on, and because of the strange way the platforms are spaced out, you could end up falling multiple screens down before finally landing on something. It can be frustrating, but since space pirates will stay dead once you kill them and it only takes one shot to end them, it isn't a ridiculous difficulty spike. The vertical nature of the room and the pirates on the walls also give players room to learn about diagonal aiming and jumping in order to line up their shots, since the tutorial area didn't have much space to teach them that. This also serves as the final challenge before you make it back to the collection of previously inaccessible rooms on the surface that are now yours to explore.

         Make it back up, and you'll discover that now all of Zebes has awakened. No more dark storm sound effects and dark empty caverns, now there's music and familiar Geemers crawling along platforms. What has just occurred is something in Metroidvanias I will refer to as "The Return" in these articles. You went to a new area, got trapped there until you reached a certain point of progression, and when you return to where you came from, things are different. Usually its your character that's different, with new abilities available, making the world your oyster, but in this case both you and the world has changed, you have the missiles and morph ball, and Zebes has dropped the facade of being empty and dead, meaning that now, the game has started for real. The concept of the Return is a powerful one because it is based entirely on the two strengths that make Metroidvanias inherently enjoyable: becoming more powerful and exploring new areas. Before your Return, there all sorts of areas you can see but can't reach, just gnawing away at your desire to explore them. In this case, it was all those rooms lined up on the walls of this cave shaft. Once you enter the area that houses the needed upgrades, you can find a whole bunch and be able to do all sorts of new things, so that when you finally emerge, you feel so much more powerful, and you feel like there is nowhere you can't reach. This Return here is very small of course, it's literally just three doors you couldn't pass before but this won't be the game's last time using this structure and this section let's us understand the basics so we can understand future iterations of it.

        Even though it is a small thing in the grand scheme of things, the player will still feel very empowered after this Return. The awakening of Zebes signify the fact that the game is starting full-speed now, done with the slow suspenseful mood-building it has been doing so far. And because the areas you have explored have been so limited and tight, the fact that you can now progress through every door you have seen so far means that you're gaining a whole lot of new territory relatively speaking.

(All map pictures courtesy of snesmaps.com)

         For the sake of saving words and picture space, and because I think it makes the game a lot more understandable, for exploration segments like this I'll use maps of multiple rooms edited together and simply label each room so there's no need to screenshot each one.

         The first room you can now explore is that one early that had a wall you couldn't pass due to the fact you weren't small enough to fit under it. Luckily, now that you have the morph ball... you still can't pass it.

         There are some blocks blocking your way in the morph ball passage, and since you can't shoot in that form, there is nothing you can do to break them. It foreshadows a potential new upgrade, but besides that its a bust for the player.

        The beauty of the Return, of course is that there are all sorts of paths, so let's check what's behind door number two. Right of the bat it shows more potential, it pits you in a hallway with a new type of enemy.

        These guys will fly high above your range, swooping down at you when you com close, and almost requiring diagonal shooting at this point. After dealing with them and making it to the next room, you'll find something strange.

       This room obviously seems to be one of important, with a strange machine as the centerpiece. So naturally, you do what any sane person would do with an unknown piece of alien technology and stick your arm straight into it.

        When you approach it, Samus will stick her arm cannon into it and apparently download map data from it. While it's real useful for the player, you gotta wonder why the space pirates didn't booby trap this machine while they were renovating the place. I mean, considering the way Samus interacts with the machine, they had a perfect opportunity to leave their greatest threat quite literally unarmed, but it is what it is I guess. Anyways, in a game where you're supposed to spend half the time getting lost, getting a map is a godsend. Except, in a game where you're also supposed to spend half the time finding secrets, it would ruin the point if everything was spelled out on a map for you, so the map you get only shows you some of the rooms of this area, and everything it does show is ambiguous and vague.

       Rooms with something of import are marked with a small dot, but that dot tells you nothing of what may actually be in them, and rooms themselves are nothing but blank squares meaning the map won't tell you how to access them either. This sense of vagueness is very important for the game, because a lot of the game's fun is finding secrets. The map shows you enough to get a grasp of the area, but finding secrets will still require careful hunting for hidden rooms, and the ambiguous dots lets you look forward to obtaining something new without knowing what exactly it will be. Looking at the nearby areas, the map tells you three important things. One: the strange wall you encountered at the top of this shaft does in fact host a secret passage behind it, but you still have no idea how to destroy it. Two: the entrance to these caves that you used also holds some kind of secret if you drop down. And three: The final room you have to access in this shaft has a room marked with an S, which must mean something but you can't really tell what. You ship is also marked with an S and it is capable of saving and healing you, but the S could be for Save, Samus, Siberia, or anything. Since we were gonna look behind door number three anyways, it's probably about time to go do that.

         

         Unfortunately, it turns out the S did stand for save, as the only thing in this room is a capsule that'll save your game when you step into it. However, considering the last time you probably saved was when you landed on this planet, a save station is very welcome. You may be wondering why the game would put a save station here, when Samus' ship can also save and it's only a hallway away. The answer to that is because there is something between here and the ship that still needs to be explored, and chances are that the player might die while exploring it. The developers acknowledged the fact that a player could very likely forget how long they went without saving, and if they had the choice of checking out a new area or walking all the way back to their ship, the player would probably choose the new area. Especially since nothing has been really dangerous yet, and no one expects the unexpected difficulty spike. So this room is here as a safety net for players, to almost force them to save so they don't lose all of their progress in what's about to come.

        

        There is still no way to break open this sketchy wall, even though at this point you know there is something behind it. Even missiles don't do anything, so you're stuck checking the one other branching path you were shown on your map. On your way back down this hallway, you'll be introduced to a new kind of enemy: bats who hang from the ceiling before diving down. Once again, they're just fodder for your diagonal shot assuming you must certainly know how to do that by now. 

         Then, you're finally brought back to the first inaccessible path.This is the one I went on about how it was shoved in your face and that makes it something you'll remember to come back to. Even if you didn't remember walking over this ledge, the map also shows that there's something hiding in this room. Since the amount of world you have explored so far is currently very small, most rooms will be memorable just from the fact that you've only seen like ten of them. However, this bit is an important lesson to the player with huge training wheels on. You were immediately given access to three different rooms, but none of them held what you need to proceed. Say you somehow didn't remember this room and didn't have the map there to show you where the secret was, then you'd have no choice but to explore what you've seen until you make it back here anyways. That's how a lot of this game will work. When you gain a new power, you may need to use it on the opposite side of the map in order to progress so you need to keep in mind where suspicious rooms are so you can revisit them later. This small microcosm teaches the player that if they can't find anything in the immediate area, they need to look elsewhere in other areas. It also starts getting players into the mindset of remembering suspicious rooms so that they're be more apt to do it when they have a whole world to explore and no map showing them where to go next.

         Once you roll down the pit into the area below, you'll be stuck down there with no way out.

        Strange, unbreakable blocks prevent you from escaping from the right, and the ledge on the left is too high to jump back up to, let alone fit through in a morph ball. What you're about to witness, ladies and gentlemen, is the smallest version of the Return there is. You're locked down in this pit until you gain an ability that will let you break those blocks and get out. Functionally this really doesn't do much since there is nowhere you else you could go anyways even if you could freely leave this pit. The repeating structure of the Return however lets players know that they're about to obtain an ability. They know they cannot leave this area until they have a new tool in their arsenal, meaning the next upgrade is in here with them. It creates a sense of exciting anticipation that the game can play off of later. At the bottom of the pit, there's a door leading onward, meaning you're close.

        You'll be put in a hallway with a whole swarm of the diving bug fellows. You've already dealt with a few before, so this swarm is a nice escalation of the mechanic. Earlier they were pretty isolated meaning you could learn their attacks and then deal with them easily since it's a one-shot kill. Here, however, they're packed so densely that you can't kill them all before they start diving, meaning you have to adjust your tactics to deal with that. The swarm in this room also serves a double purpose, because the abundance of enemies will leave an abundance of health and missile pickups, meaning you should be fully stocked up just in case there happens to be a major encounter in the next room...

         But wait, what's this? Just an upgrade sitting there, nothing climactic at all? That's great because you were certainly looking forward to getting an upgrade so you can go rush on ahead and grab it. Although something certainly seems off about this room though, with the light fog over the bottom and, wasn't the last statue you found on a platform? Why is this one just sitting on the floor? And then why is the door raised up? It feels like you're in a pit with just you and the statue, like something should happen. But nothing does.

         It's certainly strange, but you can shoot the orb and get the upgrade no problem. And you get bombs that you can set in morph ball mode. Those must certainly be the trick to getting out of this pit. But suddenly, you have a new problem, and it's getting out of this room.

         The door locks behind you, so perhaps this extremely suspicious room was a trap after all. It is in fact, a trap, and as you jump around, helpless, for a few seconds, the statue begins to come to life.

         Just like that, the statue becomes fully animated and thus begins your first boss fight. The Torizo Statue, as its called, will walk back and forth in the arena, attacking with an explosive swipe whenever it gets close. 

        While the boss certainly is interesting, the fight itself isn't really what I want to analyze. The boss' placement is much more interesting. Whereas first bosses in many games are very telegraphed encounters, this one comes completely out of the blue. While you can tell that something is off when you enter the room, you have no reason to expect the upgrade statue itself to become a boss. The sheer surprise of this encounter, and the fact that it exists in what is supposed to be a safe space sends a clear message: Zebes is a hostile place and it's up to you to take it all down. Isolation is a major feeling in Super Metroid, but it isn't just being alone that gives the game a great atmosphere, it's the sense of being all on your own against all the trials lurking inside Zebes. You'll never be given assistance or a hint, even for the game's trickiest fights and most obtuse puzzles, and that's all part of the isolated atmosphere. Metroidvanias are all about growth, and one of the reasons Super Metroid nails the feeling so well is because of how imposing it is at the start. You're never told where to go, you never meet a creature not bent on killing you, and even "safe" rooms can contain difficult, surprise bosses. This feeling is a major contrast to how you feel at the end when you've unraveled the riddles of Zebes and are powerful enough to destroy any enemy in your path without batting an eye. This is what makes Super Metroid so good at capturing that feeling of growth, because it takes that feeling of being alone and against the odds in the beginning and flips it on its head when in the end, it was you alone who conquered everything.

Key Takeaways:

• A suspenseful moment needs to have a release worthy of its buildup. A ton of tense ambiance that ends in a small surprise will feel underwhelming.
• The feeling of returning to somewhere we've been before after undergoing a change is an intrinsically powerful one and can be seen in all kinds of mediums. Games can use this to their advantage by letting the player return to old areas with either new abilities or after new events have changed the area itself.
• It's important for games to know how much information they should give the player. Letting them know everything gives convenience, while withholding everything leads to things being obtuse. The correct mix of these two things depends entirely on what feeling the game is trying to create.
• Surprises can have great impact if used in the right location and for the right location. Putting a trap in a safe zone can catch the player off guard, and will make them more wary in the future, but unless it has a purpose it's just a cheap-shot

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Super Metroid Part 2 - Time to get the (Morph) Ball Rolling

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          Last week we began the journey into Super Metroid with the game's opening moments in Ceres Station. The three main focuses for this series will be mood, how rooms are made to be memorable, and the purpose of upgrades. The focus last time was entirely on mood, since there were no upgrades or backtracking to be introduced in that part of the game. This week however, we will still be focusing mostly on mood, but some of the more complex elements are going to start being introduced. Without further ado, let's pick up where we left off: escaping an exploding space station.

          
          After barely making it out of Ceres Station alive, there is no break for Samus Aran. After seeing the Space Pirate leader, Ridley, steal the all important baby Metroid in the game's opening, you need to chase after him and stop him from using it for evil. That means flying to Zebes, the planet the original Metroid took place on, and now the home base of the Space Pirates. Although returning to the locale of the first game may seem like a bit of a lazy move, the entire planet has been completely remodeled, and the concept of returning to the area of the first game is put to good use here.

         When you first touch down on the planet's surface, it's in a brand new area called "Crateria." Unlike in the original game, you get to explore some above-ground areas of the planet. This part of the surface is once again atmospheric and moody, with a great rainstorm taking place in the background. Things are quiet and ominous, only broken by occasional bursts of thunder and lightning in the background. Sound familiar? Because you're going to find these first moments on Zebes very similar to what happens on Ceres.

        Conventional game logic, and instinct, will tell you to head to the right, but you'll be met with not one, but two kinds of impassable barriers if you head that way.

         There is a strange wall that you cannot pass or shoot, but you can obviously tell it's not right with the way its texture fails to match the rest of the terrain. You're only form of interaction right now is shooting, however, and since that doesn't do anything, you're out of options. Then, above you, there is a platform that's just above your jump height. At some point you'll be able to bypass these obstacles, but until then you'll have to try the other direction.

         Heading left is a much more profitable venture and right off the bat you'll find something more promising. 

          There is a structure that seems like a door, but unlike those in Ceres Station, this one won't open automatically when you walk up to it. Those that played the first two games will know what to do, but those new to Metroid here may have to wonder for a second. And it will be just a second, because since the player only has one method of interacting with the world right now (shooting) they really only have on thing to try on this door. Doors in Metroid open upon being shot, which may seem like a silly idea to someone unfamiliar with the series, but as the player progresses, they will find many different kinds of doors, all opened by different kinds of weapons. Making it so the player has to shoot all doors to opens them means they won't be confused when they get to special doors, they'll be able to associate the doors of different colors with different weapons, and only weapons.

         Passing through this door gives you access to the inside of Zebes, which is just as dead and quiet as the surface. Bugs will scatter and flee off-screen when you enter, as if they've been there undisturbed for a long time. The interior of the planet is even darker and emptier than the surface, and right off the bat you're taunted with another area you can't reach.

          You have to walk over this piece of raised ground while you see what's obviously a secret tunnel running underneath. Unfortunately you can't break the blocks on the right side and Samus is too large to fit through the small entrance on the other. Instead this potentially important area is forced in front of your face while you have to pass it by. With how prominently the inaccessible area is displayed in this room, players are sure to remember it the moment they gain the ability to travel through small spaces. Since they can't do that now, however, they're forced to continue on to the right.

          To the right, you're giving another taunting obviously suspicious wall that you cannot pass, and are instead forced to descend a vertical shaft. The uneasiness that comes with the feeling of descending helps add to the ominous mood the game is working on setting up right now. Once again, you're in an area full of dark, muted colors and you're completely isolated. This planet seems to be entirely dead, but you know that can't be true, so where is everybody...?

         On your way down this shaft, you're giving another reminder of what you can't do. There's a door just waiting to be opened behind another gap you're too large to fit through. Seeing this door helps to build a kind of anticipation Metroidvanias can give as you see a bunch of areas you can't access yet, making you anticipate obtaining whatever upgrade will let you explore them and the rush of excitement from accessing all these new areas. The shaft continues with this as almost immediately you're introduced to another barrier you can't yet cross.

         You're put face-to-face with a fearsome red door, and unlike the blue ones, it laughs in the face of your puny bullets. It will take something stronger to unlock these gates. Luckily, there is a blue door right across from it, giving you a faint glimmer of hope reminding you there still are some areas you must be able to access.

         Unfortunately, that door is a blatant deception, as immediately past it is another tunnel you just can't squeeze through. And just like that, all the side rooms in this vertical shaft are completely inaccessible. Besides just having their dreams crushed, Super Metroid players have also just been introduced to a major room structure this game will use repeatedly: the shaft structure.

          In a game like this where the majority of rooms scroll horizontally, the developers have an issue when it comes to make areas with sprawling paths. Horizontal rooms can usually only accommodate two doors, one on each end. Since one is necessary for entrance, paths of horizontal rooms can't branch off or offer any illusion of choice. What the developers choose to do to circumvent this is create central vertical shafts full of many different horizontal offshoots at different levels. These shafts also let the developers create that aforementioned sense of anticipation and make the world feel larger than it is. Each currently door you pass in a shaft that can't be opened could potentially contain a whole new area inside, even if really it contains a single room. This makes it so that when you're finally able to access all these new paths, it will feel like you have an endless list of places to go even when there is really only one main way to proceed. The fact that this shaft is entirely inaccessible at first insures that the player can't get distracted or lost this early into the game.

          At the bottom of the shaft you're given a downward facing door, the first of its kind, and it's one you can open, meaning you get to further your descent into the heart of Zebes. 

         Going deeper also results in a change of scenery. Much like in Ceres station, the colors are now shifting. This time though, it's not to hype up the action, instead it's to convey the idea that wherever you are now is much more dangerous than where you were before. The red haze and fog conveys that and the sense of isolation very well. This vertical shaft is much less interesting than the one before it. There are no side doors or passages to distract the player, instead it's just a bunch of broken platforms in a shaft that takes way too long to descend. That long descent helps build the tension and the player's curiosity. Whatever you have entered now seems like some kind of ruined mechanical laboratory, a sudden change from the natural caves you were just in.

         At the bottom of the shaft is a door that leads you to the next room, where the door locks shut behind you. Some players may find this room familiar, because it is actually the the final boss room from the original Metroid. What was once a lava flooded, trap-filled obstacle course guarding the fearsome Mother Brain is now a desolate, blown-out husk after the original game's self-destruct escape sequence. You're forced at this point to keep going, and this room makes things all the more chilling as you're now travelling through what was the heart of enemy territory the last time you were here, but now it's completely abandoned. 

        After an uneventful walk through that room, you find yourself once again in a total change of environment. This time you're now in a pristine, mechanical elevator room. This wasn't here last time, and it certainly looks like a new addition. You have no choice but to go down the elevator, aware that at this point your past the ruins, and into enemy territory.

        This elevator takes you Brinstar, the first area of the original Metroid, and in fact it takes you right to the starting area of the original game, and not much has changed. Things still seem dead even though you should be in the heart of enemy territory, but by now you'll have the sinking feeling that that is about to change quickly. Heading right leads to eventual dead ends, and just like in the original Metroid, you need to head left here to gain your first upgrade. This entire section does well to play off the nostalgia of series veterans who last saw this planet an entire console generation ago. The cameo from the starting area also lulls these players into a false sense of security since they think they know what they're doing here, and think they know what to expect.

         As expected, the morph ball is sitting to the left, but when you go to grab this power-up, something unexpected happens.

        Suddenly things spring to life, nearby statues turn red and face you and a security camera shines an ominous beam of light that focuses on Samus. This obvious and familiar upgrade placement was clearly a trap and now the Space Pirates don't just know that you've arrived, they're now watching you. It turns out that this planet isn't as dead as you though, and now you're being watched. Perhaps the worst thing is nothing happens yet. The devices turn on and start watching you, but nothing leaps out to confront you. Whatever is watching you is biding its time and waiting, and you don't know when it might show its ugly face.

        You now have to use the morph ball to escape this small room, making sure that new players know what this ability can do before they have to use it while making a connection to all the small tunnels they saw earlier. It's not time for those tunnels just yet, as there's still more to be explored to the right. Before we head over there though, we really should take just a second to examine this fancy new ball technology.

        Originally created due to sprite limitations on the NES, the morph ball is Samus' version of a crawl. By double tapping down on the d-pad, you're able to shrink into a rolling ball that's only one unit tall, meaning you can fit through many small tunnels. That's all the morph ball can do on its own, so for now it's really just a fancy key, with the one block tall tunnels being the really fancy locks.

         With that out of the way, now it's back to exploring Brinstar. To the right, you'll find a room with another one of those red door dead ends you ran into earlier. But the blocks here are obviously suspicious and shooting them with your blaster will destroy them, teaching the player an important lesson. Parts of the map that stick out or seem strange will almost certainly give way to some kind of secret if you know what to do with them. Falling down this room now reveals a new passage you can only access with your fancy morph ball tech.

         In this next room you get a pleasant surprise, another upgrade, immediately after obtaining one. This time, it's the missiles, a much-needed enhancement to your firepower. Missiles come with limited ammo you can refill with pick-ups occasionally dropped by enemies. They deal much more damage than your current beam, but you start out with only five, meaning they're a limited commodity, for now. Missiles have another purpose besides being extra firepower, and that is acting as keys for red doors. It takes five missiles to open a single door, which is a heck of a lot at the beginning of the game. This means you have to be very careful when you choose to use missiles for offensive purposes in the early game; it makes them a valuable commodity. Even though in the grand scheme of things missiles are pretty weak and later in the game you'll be able to spam them at almost everything, you feel like they are incredibly important early into the game because of how limited your supply is and how many it takes to open a single door.

        With missiles now in tow, it's time to return up and see what you can do. Before you can do that though, the platforms that you originally just destroyed and fell through now form an interesting challenge as you try to climb up. You must shoot some blocks to destroy them while leaving enough to have a platform for yourself. It's nothing much, but it is a nice little way for this room to offer a completely different challenge ascending than descending.

          At this point, the developers had a challenge to face in their design. They somehow needed to get players to figure out that their missiles will open red doors, and without breaking immersion to tell them if possible. This must be why they chose to have it so all doors must be shot by the player to be opened. Here, you see the red door, with missiles fresh on your mind after obtaining them, and you know that it has to be shot somehow to be opened, but your normal beam isn't enough. That should be enough to prompt players to try shooting at least one missile at the door, and doing so causes it to flash, but not open. That reaction should lead to successive missile shots until the door is open and the player's missile stock depleted. Luckily, past this door is a long hallway with a missile tank at the end, giving players the capacity for five more missiles. Unfortunately, due to the fact that a missile tank looks the exact same as the missile unlock and uses the exact same text upon collection, and collecting this tank will put you right back at the five missiles you started with, this may end up fooling players into thinking the only way to replenish missiles is by collecting these upgrades. Once they defeat enemies and obtain missile pickups this won't be an issue, but it still can lead to some confusion.

        And now, the player has explored all they can here in Brinstar. They have no choice but the return up the elevator to the desolate Crateria and wonder what might happen...

Key Takeaways:

• Taunting the player with a bunch of passageways they can't yet reach will fill them with a sense of anticipation as they look forward to gaining access to those areas.
• In addition, placing those unreachable areas in one central location, like a shaft, it means that when the player is able to pass those gates they'll be able to return to one area and have a lot to explore, instead of having to backtrack for longer, losing momentum.
• In a lot of games, new items or abilities really just function as fancy keys for fancy locks; they don't change much about the game besides letting you bypass very specific obstacles. The standalone morph ball falls prey to this, but the missiles, despite being more obviously keys for locks, don't due to their dual-purposed design.

Of course, if there is anything you'd like to add or comment on what I had to say this week, feel free to do just that and comment. I promise we really will start covering more playtime with less words soon, but the game's opening linear path has a lot of details to be mentioned. When the game opens up the focus will become more on world design than on individual rooms so much.

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