Review: Super Metroid

This game has many names. "The pinnacle of platforming games". "The best game ever". "The game by which all other games are compared". All of them are correct - this game is insane. There are few things which I can nitpick, but I really have to stretch to make any sort of argument for calling this game anything other than perfect.

Story
Atmosphere is what Metroid games are known for. The developers have always captured that sense of feeling completely stranded in a hostile alien environment, but have rarely delivered story in any tangible way. Super Metroid is different though. The game opens with a single screen that intrigues and entices the player to start playing - a baby metroid is happily floating in a test tube with three scientists slumped dead all around it.

Holy crap. 

From there the story is delivered in an opening montage with text.  Basically what happened in the second game was your character, Samus, destroyed all the metroids in existence except for a baby which hatched in front of her, thinking Samus was its mother. Picking up where that game ended, Samus handed the baby metroid over to intergalactic scientists so they could study its power. Space pirates invade, kill the scientists and steal the baby metroid. Go get it back. 

That's the gist of the story and the majority of the game from there on out is action focused without much exposition, but the initial setup is more than enough to go on. Plus the atmosphere is so effing thick throughout the experience that you still feel like you're playing through a story, even though you're given no actual dialogue or story to latch on to. The story concludes in a fantastic final showdown which you probably already know, but I won't spoil here.

Design

Super Metroid is set up very similar to the other games in the series - a huge explorable map which you can freely explore. Lots of backtracking comes into play when certain paths can only be opened by certain upgrades or weapons, but it never feels forced. Your goal is to recover the baby metroid, and to do that you have to upgrade the hell out of yourself. From missiles to energy tanks to super bombs to space jumps, there are little treasures hidden EVERYWHERE throughout the world. Some are right in your critical path, while others you have to spend 10-15 minutes sniffing out on a side track. But you literally won't go ten minutes without finding something new.

Samus - Pimped the fu** out.

The biggest upgrade to the game itself from previous iterations is the map. Pause the game and you get a view of everywhere you've been, everywhere you've yet to explore, boss locations and rooms that contain upgrades. But other improvements include save stations, reload stations, selectable weapons and tons of other things. Basically, everything you wished had been included in the first Metroid is in this one. Heck, everything you wished had been part of any game is in Super Metroid. It's pitch perfect.

There are five or six distinct areas including a crashed alien ship, a hostile fire world, and underwater area and even a section of the map from the first Metroid game. Each one connects to the other through elevators or secret passages. Each one is completely unique and offers different challenges and enemies that give every area a flavor of its own. The only level that disappoints is the final one. 

The final march to the big boss is extremely short and given that everyone already knows the secret to killing metroids, it doesn't pose as much of a challenge as the previous two areas. I hoped that after the extremely difficult, super exploration-heavy prior level, that the final level would be enormous and super hard. Unfortunately it was pretty much a straight shot to the last boss without much challenge. But this is totally nit-picky and scraping for something to complain about.

Gameplay

If you've played a 2D Metroid game, you know the deal. The original game was categorized as a combo of Mario and Zelda - a side scrolling adventure like Mario, but free roaming and upgradable elements thrown in like in Zelda. The formula is essentially the same in Super Metroid, just better in every way. Everything is perfectly balanced - walking, shooting, rolling into a ball, jumping, grappling - it all feels completely intuitive and responsive.

The upgrades all feel hugely significant. Every weapon upgrade feels like you have gotten intensely more powerful. There are usually enemies that are impossible to beat right before you get an upgrade to your weapon and coming out of the Chozo chamber with your shiny new gun feels so satisfying when you blow the previously indestructible pirates to smithereens. 

Modifications to your suit and abilities feel important too. The varia suit upgrade allows you to walk around in extreme temperatures which were previously hazardous, the gravity suit allows you to walk and run in normal speeds under water, the grappling beam allows you to cross large chasms and so on. Each of these upgrades can be turned on or off and certain situations call for you to do just that, adding another cerebral level of puzzles to the adventure.

 Yous about to get screwed.

The other fantastic thing about the game is the number of bosses the developers throw at you. There are ten bosses in the game - each one has a different strategy to beat. Some of them are pushovers while others - like FREAKING RIDLEY - take several HUNDRED tries to beat. They are all eloquently designed and beautifully balanced. You usually know exactly what needs to be done to take them out, you just need to be quick enough and good enough to destroy them for good, and when you do, you feel like a beast. 

Presentation

Super Metroid was released in 1994 - the twilight year of the 16 bit era. As expected, its one of the best looking games on the SNES. Special effects look great, the backgrounds are exquisitely detailed, often with floating particles or moving elements. Enemies are really well modeled and unique, bosses often spill over the edges of the screen - one of the first bosses, Kraid, is actually over three screens high.

Kraid is ENORMOUS

The music is RIDICULOUS. From the opening theme to the epic final boss tune, every track fits perfectly with the scene you're in. Sound effects are appropriately alien and foreign, bosses scream and growl with startling 16-bit clarity, enemies react to your presence with screeches and bleeps. 

All in all - there is absolutely nothing that takes you out of the fantasy. Often in games there is something that kills the experience - whether it be corny voice acting, poor graphics, or music that doesn't match the scene - Super Metroid suffers from none of those things. Once you start, you as the player are transported to that planet until you turn the game off. It's as close to reading a good, atmospheric book as you can get with video games. 

Stuff I Loved: 

• Atmosphere is pea-soup thick. 
• Controls and level design that should be studied in history books. 
• Tons of bosses, perfect difficulty, perfect length - perfect game. 

Stuff I Hated:

• Last level is somewhat of a letdown

This is technically best game I've ever played. This is one of those games that can be played over and over by anyone. It's a universally palatable design that anyone can pick up and play through. I can't think of a single thing that anyone could find wrong with it.

It. Is. Perfect.

Final Score: 3/10

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Review in Ten Words or Less: 

Perfect design, perfect atmosphere, perfect gameplay. A technically perfect game. 

Finished: Super Metroid

Completion Time: 6:15
Items Collected: 65%

Now I know what everyone's been going on and on about. This is one of the most finely tuned and wonderfully crafted gaming experiences I've ever had the pleasure of playing. In an era when the word "pacing" didn't really apply to video games, Super Metroid somehow achieved a level of pacing on par with Uncharted 2. And managed to do that in a game that hinged on backtracking through environments you've already seen.

You are constantly finding new items, bosses, upgrades and hidden alcoves. Seriously, I never went more than 10 minutes without a major discovery or victory. And the time in between discoveries was just as exciting with moody music and fantastic level design.

Oh man. What a great game. Review coming in the next couple days or so...

Taking a Break...

 

Hello friends. For the remainder of December, I will be taking a break from the Game Adventure to focus on finishing my Bible Adventure by December 31. In the past six months I have finished eleven games - just under two games a month. For someone with a full time job and two blogs, that's not too bad. I've also felt the need to go into GameStop lessen and lessen with each passing week. Believe me, I'm excited to finish and go out and play Mario Galaxy 2 and Metroid Other M and tons of other games. And Lord help me if I don't finish before Portal 2 comes out. But for now, I'm having a great time experiencing all that I've missed over the years. The levels that remained out of reach and out of sight until now are wonderful, eye opening experiences. 

If you have a big backlog, why not go back through a few games yourself to see what you'll find. Don't force yourself to finish a terrible game, but that Zelda DS game that has sat in your drawer, the last few levels of that PSN game you've been meaning to finish - go back and finish those babies, and use the money you'd spend on a new game for yourself for a gift for a friend.

So as I take this break, feel free to go back and read my old reviews, comment on some old stuff, and leave suggestions for what you'd like to see me play or ideas for what else I can do with the site.

So hold tight. I will return in January 2011 with one of the most revered games of all time. I'll give you a hint: 

Get ready. 2011 is gon' be inTENSE!

Review: Castle Crashers

Castle Crashers was part of 2008's "Summer of Arcade" initiative where Microsoft chunked all the high profile XBLA games together for the three months of Summer. I bought three of the 5 or 6 games offered during that time: Geometry Wars 2, Bionic Commando: Rearmed, and Castle Crashers. I had followed 'Crashers for years, all the way to when it was known by its beta name "Ye Olde Side Scroller". I had loved the developer's previous game "Alien Hominid" and assumed it could only get better from there. But you know what happens when you assume...

Gameplay
Castle Crashers is a throwback to the beat-em-up genre that was so popular in the 80s and 90s. Games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Arcade Game, Double Dragon, and Streets of Rage were all well revered beat-em-ups.  These games relied heavily on the 2-4 person co-op gameplay of beating up waves and waves of thugs and mudnicks, but were either extremely boring or excruciatingly difficult to play alone. Castle Crashers fits in that mold to a T, but adds a few little spices and extras to keep it fresh and modern. 

 

Character select screen

Aside from the expected walk-to-the-right-and-punch-everything gameplay, Castle Crashers also has some light RPG elements woven in. As you work your way through each level, every hit you land will net you experience points. Max out your experience gauge and your character will level up - this will allow you to upgrade your attack, magic, defense or agility by a point or two. The problem with this system is that you cannot implement those upgrades until you: A) die and restart the level or B) Finish the level outright. So as is the case with most RPGs you have to spend time intentionally leveling up your character or 'grinding'. In Castle Crashers, you will be forced - forced - to replay entire levels because your character wasn't strong enough. You can grind your character in Arena style events, but those are even more tedious than the levels themselves. So the pattern looks something like this.

- Enter level
- Level up! Yay! 
- Get about halfway through
- Die
- Upgrade stats
- Try again
- Level up again
- Die on the boss
- Try again
- Next level

It's extremely boring and provides absolutely no motivation to see the game through to its conclusion. Once you reach about level 25, this pattern loosens up a little bit and you're usually able to beat a level on the first go-round, but early in the game its a huge issue that makes the game drag.

 

All the unlockable dudes

On the other side of the coin, however, this game is a completionists dream. There are 30 characters, 70 weapons, and 30 animal orbs to unlock. Each character has unique attributes and magic spells, animal orbs are stat boosting assistants and the weapons range from something as silly as a fish to something as awesome as a flaming lightsaber. If you are someone who loves to invest the time to 100% a game, I could think of nothing better than Castle Crashers. Collecting everything however requires a SERIOUS investment. Most playable characters unlocks require you to beat the game with another character, while weapons and animal orbs are kind of random find-what-you-can. Throw in the fact that every new character you unlock starts at level 1, and you have a 100+ hour game on your hands.

Now to be fair, I was playing Castle Crashers by myself. The game is designed around playing 4 player. The game's subtitle is "4-Player Adventure". I am certain that playing with friends is much more fun than playing alone, but if you don't expect to have anyone to play with, don't expect to be thrilled about seeing the game through to the end.

Presentation
One thing I can't take away from the developers is the presentation. The lead artist Dan Paladin gets a full screen credit at the beginning of the game and he deserves every bit of it. The game's beautiful, hand drawn art delivers one of the most visually unique and stunning experiences on the 360 - downloadable game or not. Characters animate fluidly, enemies react to player movements in fun ways, the bosses are meticulously detailed and usually enormous beasts, magic spells and items pop and whizz with appropriate zing - its rapturously enjoyable just to watch. It's certainly a showcase game for your HD setup - while games like Gears of War show gritty detail and realistic models, Castle Crashers shows how bright and vibrant an HD game can be.

 

Huge, stylized bosses

 
The music is appropriately epic as well. Huge, swelling, orchestrated pieces accompany the big fight scenes while light, plucky tunes escort the character select and item shop areas. Looking at the credits last night, it appears that the music was a real collaborative effort with sound credits going to about a dozen different composers and bands and yet they all were able to deliver an end product that felt cohesive and whole.

Stuff I Loved: 

•  Ridiculously ornate visuals. It's clear a lot of time went into character models and refining and re-refining these environments and characters
• Old-school rebirth done right - just enough of the old sprinkled with the new to make it work with a modern market
• Light tone. In the days of Call of Duty and Infamous, its nice to see a game that doesn't take itself too seriously. Lots of in jokes and nerd-humor. 

Stuff I Hated: 

• Leveling system. Giving only one life with no mid-level checkpoints is just plain mean.
• Tedious progression rate. For all it does right, its one of the most poorly paced games of this generation. Boredom and tedium set in quickly.
• Monotonous gameplay. They threw in enough stuff to make it interesting, but really it comes down to mashing the attack button and they didn't switch up the pace enough to make me want to see more. 

I tend to support smaller developers and seek out the great games under the Halo and Guitar Hero radar. This is certainly one of those games. I love these guys' motivation and drive to make a good game for people like me. And while I wasn't the biggest fan of the game, there is a legion of die-hards out there who are certainly justified in loving it.

Buy Castle Crashers


Review in Ten Words or Less:
Beat-em-up done right, but pacing is off.


.

Finished: Castle Crashers

I did it...

Final Playtime: Somewhere around 6-8 hours

Character Used: Orange Knight

Max Level: 35

Yes. Glad to have this one off my plate. Towards the end of the game I actually started enjoying myself and I probably won't walk away from it with as bad of an impression as I originally thought I might. It's a solid throwback game that works on a bunch of different levels. 

Review coming in the next day or so...