This
first portion will only cover the game’s intro, which contains no upgrades or
branching paths, so the only thing to focus on is the mood. Luckily, the
beginning of Super Metroid is all about setting up the game’s isolated and
foreboding mood, and right from the get-go the title screen is there to give
you a taste of what kind of game you’re getting into. Unique atmosphere was hard to create on the
SNES. Sprites were blocky, music was chiptune, and there were some pretty hefty
hardware restrictions to work around. Super Metroid spits in the face of the
naysayers and its presentation oozes with atmosphere for the time. The title
screen starts with slow pans over an empty laboratory with dead scientists
lying on the floor. Everything is dark and still, except for one Metroid
contained in the center of the lab. Those who are familiar with the series know
how big of a threat that one Metroid can be, and those that aren’t will find
themselves wondering what exactly that floating gelatinous blob is. And of
course, there is the iconic haunting tune that slowly plays over the whole
scene.
If you aren’t the
average gamer who mashes the A button throughout the entire title screen and
sit back for a bit, the game will start to show you clips of gameplay of the
many different powers you will obtain on your adventure. You can see the speed booster,
grapple beam, and more on display on short clips. Interspersed between these
adverts for future items, there are quiet, eerie scenes where Samus doesn’t
really do anything, but instead the focus is on showing the desolate and
ominous planet. But all of these clips,
whether to get you looking forward to future powers, or to make the planet seem
more ominous, all end suddenly right before they should. Some cut out right
before Samus is about to walk through a door, others before her bullet is about
to collide with an enemy, none of the scenes end smoothly, and it makes it so
the entire sizzle reel is slightly off-putting.
It’s
not until you hit the play button however that the action really takes off. And
by “the action really takes off,” I mean you have to watch a short video
detailing the events of the previous two games. Samus will give a summary of
her past two adventures, her fight against the Metroids and the Space Pirates
that might use them for evil. Important moments are reenacted using Super
Metroid’s engine which gives you a good idea of what the game will look like
before you even begin playing. Whether or not the developers were anticipating
Super Metroid to become the hit classic that it is, this intro cutscene
certainly helps the game since most people now who play it haven’t played the severely
outdated Metroid 1, or the hard to find Metroid 2. The quick intro cutscene
makes it so all players can enter the universe of Super Metroid on a level playing
field. The review of the previous games also transitions perfectly into the
plot of this one as a direct sequel to Metroid 2. The last Metroid is in
captivity and the galaxy is safe. Things being great makes for a terrible game
plot however, so just as Samus is leaving the space station she left the
Metroid at, she picks up its distress signal. So she hurries back to
investigate what’s going on and ensure the safety of the last Metroid, and that’s
where you finally get control of the bounty hunter.
The
door to the next room is raised above the ground, and if you are to simply walk
off the edge of the last platform like your average, non-jumping loser, you end
up on this lower section of the ground, with the door painfully out of reach.
After burning through your supply of cheat codes and strategy guides, you may
attempt hitting the button on your controller that usually makes characters
jump, and surprise, it can make Samus jump too. Now that the design has forced
everyone to learn how to jump it can move on to other things.
Except
it doesn’t, and the next room puts another ledge in your way just to reinforce
the jumping skill you now know. Following that, it’s just a straight shot to
the next room. That next room is another vertical descent, although it lacks
the floating platforms in the previous descending room, meaning it is much
easier to climb back up, something that once again will be important soon.
Besides that, this room doesn’t teach anything new, but instead just helps to
prolong the tension of this opening sequence. You know something bad has
happened on this space station, but everything is eerily quiet, with everything
being colored with this dark and foreboding muted blue. One thing Super Metroid
uses a lot of is silence, which is pretty different from a lot of the games at
the time that focused on action. For this entire opening section so far, you
haven’t seen any signs of life, neither friend nor foe, and the heavy stillness
of the environment means there is nothing to do but let the anticipation grow
as you get deeper and deeper in, wondering what could have happened here, and
what could be waiting.
Luckily
it doesn’t take long to discover the truth. Players might have expected your
journey into the station to end at this room, but instead you travel through
another long hallway, once again ominously silent to maintain the suspense that the
previous room just built up. Then, once you enter the next room, the background
sounds cut out, and tension is relieved as you see a reassuring sight.
The Metroid is waiting,
safe and sound, at a dead end. It’s almost too good to be true, and in fact, it
can’t be true, players will realize, as it couldn’t have moved itself if it’s
still in the container. When you approach it, two bright orange eyes flash in
the dark, before slowly revealing the large form of the Space Pirate leader
Ridley.
He
roars menacingly, challenging you to try to stake your claim on his stolen
prize, and then begins Super Metroid’s first boss battle. And it is a cakewalk…
for Ridley. All you have is a simple blaster and the ability to jump, and his
movement patterns are erratic, and the arena small. Luckily, once Ridley brings
you down to 25 health, he flies away, activating the space stations self-destruct
sequence. This encounter does two main
things that the game will build and play off of for the rest of the experience.
First, it shows that you are weak. Your measly bullets barely seem to do
anything against Ridley, and he was able to slice through your health like
butter. Secondly, it gives players a main antagonist. No Metroid game before
has had this; in the two previous entries you were just traveling through a
planet until you stumbled across a big bad who you promptly blasted in the face
for no real reason. Ridley’s appearance establishes him as a major character,
even for players who didn’t see him in the original Metroid, and makes the
player hold almost a grudge against him, looking forward to, or perhaps
fearing, the eventual rematch.
After
Ridley leaves comes the classic Metroid escape sequence. The original Metroid
tasked you with an intense, timed climb out of the Space Pirate lair following
the defeat of Mother Brain, the final boss. Here, it’s similar, except much
easier, despite only having a minute. The main difference is the fact that this
is just backtracking through the rooms you just passed through. This escape
sequence is why I was so annoyingly insistent on the fact that the descent
rooms would be a lot trickier to navigate when returning through them, because
now you have to climb them with a time limit. The time limit is really mostly
an empty threat here, but it works wonders in making the following section feel
intense and scary, and in making you feel triumphant for conquering it, as a
real sense of panic sets in as you watch the seconds tick down.
During this sequence,
the space station blares to life, showing real colors and replacing all the
eerie blues with a dramatic red tint over everything, enforcing the sense of
imminent danger. The dark blues that coated everything during your descent into
the station helped make everything feel more dead and mysterious, but now that
the mystery has been solved those colors are ditched for ones that will make
the player feel the stress of this new predicament.
The second descending room, the one that simply
involved going down stairs with no potential falls involved, now becomes your
first ascending room, which means you can get a bit of practice with the
climbing and hazards before you do it with real stakes. Rooms have now been
retrofitted with bursts of steam that pop out at predetermined points, knocking
back Samus if you collide with them. They always occur in the same area, and
are very predictable, but due to the pressure of the ticking timer and dramatic
music, they’re a surprisingly tricky hazard for the panicked player. Even
though players have been given a large surplus of time to complete this escape,
getting hit by these steam geysers feel very stressful as you watch Samus get
knocked back, missing your jump onto the ledge, losing precious seconds of
time. You can get acquainted with that here, in this simple room before having
to do it again where the stakes are real.
You then pass through
the first hallway, which now has the added bonus of falling debris from the
ceiling. It doesn’t do damage, but boy does it hurt you as a player when the
recoil from it knocks you back, further from freedom and costing more of your
ever-fleeting time.
You then make it to the
imposing vertical room that marked your entry into this space station, and now
marks your escape. Except while before, you just had to fall from platform to
platform to traverse it, now you must jump up each platform, being sure not to
fall and lose crucial progress. Intelligently placed steam vents further the
stress and panic of this room, as it’s easy for a mistimed jump to put you
right back on the platform you jumped from. Just for kicks and giggles, to show
off the power of the SNES and probably to increase the coolness factor of
pulling off this harrowing escape, the entire room starts to tilt from side to
side while you make the final jumps.
As you can see by my time, it takes someone who knows what they’re doing only around twenty seconds to complete this whole sequence. But for a panicked player still trying to get a grip on how the game plays, it can get scarily close to the one minute deadline. This makes the player feel all the more accomplished when they just narrowly beat the clock and succeed against this harrowing escape.
With
this tutorial out of the way, next week we’ll start taking a look on the main
adventure that takes place on Planet Zebes. Since the rest of the game isn’t as
tightly scripted as this section, it should be easier to cover a lot more
ground in less space, so rest assured, not every week will be two thousand
words about less than ten minutes of gameplay. And if you have anything to add, about
Super Metroid and its opening, things I missed or should be corrected on, be
sure to let me know in the comments below.
Key
Takeaways:
- The title screen is the player’s first experience with a game. Many developers consider it an afterthought and just use it as a way to display menus, but ones with thought and subtlety put into them can help establish a game before players even begin playing.
- The colors, or lack thereof, in a game do a lot to subconsciously affect the player’s mood. Super Metroid starts with muted blues that make everything feel eerie and still, but when the action starts up the colors blare to life becoming vibrant and exciting.
- Adding a timer to something will almost certainly make it more stressful as long as it’s appropriately timed for the situation. Many games use things like scrolling walls of death, but there is something to be said for a timer counting down on you.
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