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I want to make a point about Super Metroid level design that I have noticed has definitely vanished in later titles (Notably Dread and Samus Returns): Any room on the main path does not attempt to arbitrarily slow down the player's movement. Instead, the path from where you enter to where you exit is nearly always entirely open. Obviously, vertical movement means that level design needs to account for the player ascending without highjump, so there are a few vertical obstructions to the 'straight' path. But beyond that, there's VERY few instances of the player needing to deviate and zig-zag around an entire room just to get to the exit they need to. In fact, the only examples I can think of where Samus must take arbitrarily circuitous routes to navigate individual rooms are: Outside wrecked ship, on the way to get gravity after leaving Attic. Pink Brinstar, having to go all the way to the bottom left of the room, then right through a morph ball hole. Though, this small detour does highlight where Charge Beam is hidden. Pretty much every room in the game doesn't waste the player's time. It's a straight shot from entrance to exit, with allowances for platforms to jump from for vertical movement. Compare this to Samus Returns, or Dread, where many times over, rooms require you to follow circuitous paths around the entire navigable space, getting slowed down arbitrarily by needing to use morph ball, grapple, speed booster, etc. It feels like the level designers of later games believe every single room needs some kind of platforming or navigation/ability-based puzzle-solving, and that every available nook and cranny of a room must deliver such 'content'.

59:00 The reason I think sequence breaking in SM is so enshrined, particularly with techniques that the developers very much did not intend, (ie, anything that's not walljumping or shinesparking) is as follows: Super Metroid REQUIRES: - Morph Ball - Bombs - Missiles - Super Missiles - Power Bombs Every single other upgrade is optional, and can be replaced with combinations of other upgrades. BUT some combination of other upgrades is required. This, IMO, is what makes it such a peak example of sequence breaking done right.

Kraid's track playing when you were showing off the rest of the music was funny

Some of the best Metroid material I've seen on youtube

This is why Metroid Prime 2 is one of my favorite games in the entire series. It takes what Prime did great and shored up a lot of Prime's weaknesses.

Thank you for this video, fusion often gets overlooked imo. And you are absolutely right about the sector 1 theme, it slaps so hard and has always been my favorite!

how can u say there’s no version of a run in this game when u can boost around in the ball?

Bro where you been?! I’ve been excited for the next retrospective!

So far I'm only 4 minutes in, and I gotta say I kinda heavily disagree with you on the idea of comparing some game philosophies and design elements of the time to modern ones, and ignoring their context. I used to think this way, and as I've got older (30) I've realized context is EVERYTHING when it comes to gaming. I'm *just* old enough that in my early childhood, every 3D game used tank controls. It wasn't until just after the PS2 did more and more games switch away from it. The reason why I bring this up, is that the reason people used tank controls was because of how people generally viewed video games at the time. They saw it more like operating a machine, or driving a vehicle, and when projecting themselves into 3D space, they did so from the context of which way the character was facing, and not the direction the camera was facing. So people weren't stupid, and were just figuring out controls- their fundamental views of what was natural about navigating in 3D were different. So I think judging things based on the time they came out, and understanding their context is super important. Because it's with that understanding, I've come to have huge appreciation for those that come after to improve things.

Ironically, Fusion has the best randomizer. It oddly becomes very open when the randomizer. I ALSO feel like Fusion cannot be remade today with the same rating unless some serious (harmful) censorship. The GBA game already has censorship with the scientists becoming purple goblin things despite the X being able to mimic other species - AND SAMUS? - so well. I do want a remake one day where they go all in on how graphic this game should actually be.

I honestly like the brighter colors of the emulator.

Have you played to metroid fusion ?

One thing I would note is that when you talk about graphics, Metroid was designed for the disk-based system, whereas Mega Man was built for cartridges that contained MMC chips, memory mapping controllers, that allowed the cartridges to pull more sprite data to perform parallax scrolling, which Metroid couldn’t dondue to hardware constraints of being a disk-based game

0:40 you wanna share the link to that mouse pad?

Hey man, good video. Just one note. The burp was fucking disgusting, and not nearly funny enough for the nausea I now feel. Please never do this again. Subscribed.

This is always going to be my favorite Metroid game.

Come back you sonuvabitch.

The issues were how 90% of the games were at the time you can't compare 1986 to 1994 and thanks for the burping who raised you

Then why refer to the manual if thevappriach is 2023

The analysis about the questions that come up regarding - Are metroids really that dangerous? Are you doing the right thing in eradicating them? Would there have been another choice? - is wonderful. ...However I'm afraid that you're giving the average gamer a bit too much credit when you say that one is "forced" to reevalue their expectations during the game. Most people playing through the game probably don't spend a single thought on this.

It's crazy how well this game handled Adam dictating the players progress and trying to control her without it feeling bad in terms of gameplay or story... then somehow Other M fumbled this idea hard and it just felt really annoying in that game.

Hope to see another video from you soon my dude! Your analysis of these games are wonderful and unique.

love the spoiler warning. still workin on my first play through. ill be back in 30 more years

I only grew up playing Metroid Prime and fusion. Can’t say much but fusion is so good I love that game

The backgrounds in this game give me comic book vibes and it really adds to the game’s charm

One of the GOAT games. The pacing, design, atmosphere, mechanics, music... it's all perfectly balanced. I replayed it recently. It keeps shining.

19:20: in my personal head canon, the events of the Prime Series can be a pretty decent explanation for Samus’s drastic change from righteous hero who saves Zebes to gun for hire who destroys the Metroid’s and Zebes for good.

1:33:18 As a woman, I've never minded Samus's glamour shots for beating the game. They're there to gaze but after Metroid II they've come off as less "sexy" and especially in Fusion it's just cool art to me, I do fully understand being uncomfortable with it though. That being said Metroid's gameplay loop of getting to know the map well enough to beat the game in an hour in your sleep is obviously very comparable to survival horror and action games like Resident Evil and Devil May Cry that reward you for beating the game quickly/beating harder modes with cool ending art and additional difficulties and costumes. I feel like Metroid 1 did it right for letting you play as Zero Suit for beating the game quickly and it's felt like a step back to be only rewarded with hot girl when completing the game since.. I'm a big sucker for additional stupid costumes as unlocks in games like these so tat's my preferred unlockable but even an additional harder difficulty or a NG= overpowered weapon would feel more worthwhile. AFAIK the only other Metroid that gives you an additional costume is Samus Returns and even then that's locked behind Amiibo. I've somehow gone three years being blind to Metroid Dread so maybe that has what I'm looking for? Idunno. Nevertheless I felt a little dumb expecting to be able to play as SA-X for beating Fusion quickly or expecting to be able to play in the Zero Suit in anything after Metroid 1 🤣 Rewards for 100% has always been my biggest critique for the series.

The audio in your video is garbage! Very distracting

Glad I’m not the only one who used the morph ball in a corner tactic in the serris fight.

1:00:48 This image goes hard.

Hey dumbass, you're a loser nobody TH-camr you can't "expect" for anybody to see parts 1-234987 of your dumbass TH-cam series. Make your videos self contained or don't complain about anything AND DONT YOU DARE ARGUE WITH COMMENTERS YOU ARE OVER BUDDY

I remember as a child getting literal chills when “Adam” tells you that there are no fewer than 10 SA-X’s on board. Lol

Metroid NES's/Metroid Zero Mission's Escape theme should have been a series mainstay instead of reusing Ridley's theme over for them in later games and I'm tired of pretending otherwise

18:06 I'm a man child I'm listening intently, then the guy burps and I fucking lose it

This is a very refreshing video. You're actually capable of dissecting, and you don't do bad jokes constantly. You just let your writing carry attention. Great stuff.

The scifi AI Adam is reality these days. Insane.

I literally just played and beat this in 2024 via an emulator on my steam deck. I was completely blown away and I thought it was a really really great game. I was shocked to later realize that the community does not like this game as much. I definitely liked it a lot more than Samus returns which I had played a month prior.

I believe that the grunts and death scream were done by Jennifer Hale. She was supposed to do an opening monologue as Samus so I would believe Nintendo would have her do the grunts too. I could be wrong though.

metroid fusion is my favorite

Also, Kraid and Ridley have a super convenient energy tank in each of their respective rooms. Anecdote: one time I almost died trying to face Kraid too early but managed to win by getting the energy tank in his room before finishing him off.

Wave Beam notes: makes finding hidden items easier, as well as hidden passages through walls. But to find it you need to be good at finding hidden items and passages through walls lol

My man just s*** on my favorite run of this game, I love low percent runs in this game 😂 He's right on one thing, the devs intended you to do a 15% run, which allows you to use super missiles Which is far less tedious

I got stuck and quit this game after i got the.... morph climb? Idk, bringing Metroid 2D into a 4 wall explorer got me sooooo lost 😂 The lack of color, even in the COLOR version really got me too

Metroid Fusion is my favorite metroid setting. On a space station in the vacuum of space, alone, everybody else is dead, and the areas all look incredible. This was the first metroid game I ever played back in 02 I got this and prime. I put prime down but I kept playing this. Went back to prime eventually and beat it, along with all the other metroid games.

If you like to know more about the music of the Prime series, take a look at the Korg MS2000 Synthesizer. It was used for the majority of the first games soundtrack.

12:10 I honestly don't understand how that could be a favorite. For the endgame cleanup, that is the ONLY song that plays and it is super repetitive to the point of being annoying

It's either my second or third favourite metroid game (samus returns top 1, fusior or zero mission top 2) The world is an awesome remake of nestroid, and the music and graphics are great too, the best tracks being kraids lair and norfair The only things I don't like are the new bosses (outside mecha ridley)

I love that fusion is so bright, it has a certain feeling to it, I don't care that the game looked differently on gba, it looks better with bright colors, nes games were also darker and people play them now with brighter colors and nobody complains, yet they have problem with fusion being bright

Interesting how this is one of the most linear metroid games as he points out, and metroid fans stereotypically HATE linearity, but I often find them sucking off this game. Not anything bad, just a funny hypocrisy