Super Metroid.
8.5/10
I never played Super Metroid as a kid; my first foray into the franchise was Prime 1. Thus, I have a somewhat different mindset for what Metroid's supposed to be. Granted, I have also played Zero Mission and Fusion beforehand, so I have something more similar to compare with.
Gameplay-wise, I like the way the GBA games go about it over Super. Since they didn't have as many buttons to work with, they stacked weapons to streamline the experience, something I think Super could have benefitted from. Cycling through all the alt weapons to get the one you want doesn't work quite as well as the one-button push the GBA titles did. Also the sprite simulations were smoother and more fluid than in Super; not a big complaint, but it's still one nonetheless. The biggest thing for me, though, was the relative lack of hard-to-get powerups in comparison to Fusion and Zero Mission. Those ones were outright devious with several of their powerups, requiring you to pull off near-herculean stunts. I didn't find any like that in Super, so I was pretty disappointed.
Story-wise: I love how this game went about it. After the beginning exposition, everything is told in-game with no dialogue needed. How you bully Crocomire into that pit and into his gruesome death, only for his skeleton to come back shortly after to scare the crap outta you. How you can use the shorted-out stumps of the turrets to fry Draygon with your grappling beam, only for his kids to silently and solemnly bury their parent right in front of you. How you learn the shinespark and wall jump by observing creatures in the wild without being told "This tutorial will show you how to ____" (I really wish more games did this). How you run across that lone soldier right before Kraid's lair which causes you to wonder about what happened to him. And, of course, how throughout all of Tourian you see the wreckage of the baby Metroid's rampage, see him attack that creature right in front of you and then go after you before running off once he realizes who Samus is, and then for him to come back to save you in the nick of time and sacrifice himself for you. I really think modern-day developers can learn a thing or two from how Super Metroid utilizes its surroundings to tell stories.
Music: Awesome. Though I still like the Prime subseries' tracks better than the 2D counterparts, what's found here is still quite stellar.
So yeah, Super Metroid. Stellar Super Nintendo game, though I'd still put others before it, like Chrono Trigger, the Donkey Kong games, Final Fantasy 6, Yoshi's Island, and Super Mario World. It's a lot like A Link to the Past, where like I can see the primordial form of Ocarina of Time in ALttP, I can see the primordial form of Prime 1 in Super Metroid.
