Firstly: Welcome to the new site. Secondly: I apologize for any weirdness in the formatting of this entry. New site, you see. Finally: Are the images too big? I like chunky pixels but maaaaaybe this is going overboard. I dunno. Edit: Yes, too big. Back to 512×448. By stepping into the vast stone maw of […]

The journey into Maridia marks a turning point for Super Metroid. Until now, the game has been half-adventure, half-tutorial. The caverns of Brinstar and Norfair (and to a lesser degree, Crateria) comprise an intricate interlocking puzzle, designed to send you retracing your steps in search of new tools and pushing a little further against the […]

Super Metroid‘s mapping system is really pretty brilliant. The auto-mapping feature is a godsend for keeping track of where you’ve been, but the map rooms deserve equal credit. They reveal most — but not all! — of the map for a given area. Certain rooms remain unshown, but the map programmers were really conscientious about […]

First, let’s begin with a correction: I stated a few entries back that the Ice Beam diminishes Samus’ attack power, but that was only true in the first couple of Metroid games. I wasn’t really paying attention and forgot that Super Metroid updates the Ice Beam’s mechanics so that you don’t freeze an enemy immediately […]

Because Super Metroid hails from the mid-’90s rather than the mid’-80s like most of the games that have gone under the Anatomy of a Game microscope, it follows slightly different rules. Games like Super Mario Bros. and Castlevania and even the original Metroid were, on some level, compensating for the fact that many people who […]