Volume 2: The Scourge of Online Emulation

I know that I said it in my first column, but sitting down to choose the next game for this go-around was far more challenging than I was expecting. I wrote out a rough list of games that I’ve been meaning to play, canvassed friends for their thoughts, and wracked my brain into the early hours of the morning to drill down for something good. After a week of frustration, and playing a certain game released at the end of last year, I settled on yet another game that many would consider essential: Super Metroid. 

It was a choice made in the heat of the moment; having just finished Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, I needed a cleanse that would hopefully restore my faith in the series. Having cut my teeth on Metroid Dread in university, I thought it’d be a good idea to go back and see why people sing such high praise, as well as playing the game that heralded an entire sub-genre of platformer. 

After having sat down and beaten the game, I can definitely appreciate the foundations that it laid for far greater games to come later. Super Metroid soars when talking about atmosphere and exploration, but really feels like a first draft in other places, especially combat. Which is ironic, given how this game essentially exists as a realisation of what Metroid was originally meant to be on the NES. 

Now this isn’t necessarily the game’s fault, and might be the start of a far bigger conversation, but I can’t lie when I say that I think my experience was somewhat hampered by the Nintendo Switch Online experience. Call me a purist, or a gatekeeper, but I don’t appreciate it when a game constantly reminds me that I can rewind to an earlier point without any cost. One strange hallmark of the Nintendo Switch Online apps is a notice that tells you to hold ZL and ZR in order to suspend the game and rewind a few seconds if something goes wrong. 

This comes alongside the usual suite of features that define emulation apps, being the ability to change visual filters, aspect ratios, and choose to save and load specific points in the game outside of whatever in-game save system exists.  I’m certainly no advocate against quality-of-life features being included in modern releases, but there’s a line between enhancing and tipping the experience into a mess of rewinding without any consequence.

For me, it was a real distraction that impacted how I ended up feeling and playing the game. I had to physically stop myself from pressing the button when I failed a platforming challenge. I had to fight to let myself feel some weight in what I was doing and what I was achieving.  This is an issue that impacts every game on the Nintendo Switch Online service, but was a rude awakening here. These are the most accessible ways of playing classic games, and they’re diluted by features that actively tell you that “we know this old game might be a bit rougher compared to new ones, it’s okay”. Most of the time, it isn’t even rougher! New platformers don’t come with rewind buttons, why do these ones?

It’s only “old” games that are given this crutch. I’ve not heard of any other game having built-in features to eliminate all weight and consequence.

Looking at Super Metroid as it is, there’s a very clear and intentional ebb and flow that is totally disrupted by having these additions. Save rooms are purposefully placed to cut tension and offer brief periods of respite in an otherwise unknown place, unless you save state before a boss room, then rewind every time you get close to death.  I wish I could turn it off. Not having the option there taunting me in the bottom right corner would be more than enough, but it reads like someone offering solutions to every piece of friction. 

Games can have friction. It’s okay!

Ironically, the remaining friction of Super Metroid is down to its convoluted world design that is unresolved by simply rewinding. No amount of redos will tell you that you can go through an invisible wall that is completely invisible. Smart environmental telegraphing is an art, and it’s one that Super Metroid flirts with regularly. I found that, even without the guidance of an objective marker, I was generally able to make pretty decent progress without the temptation of a walkthrough. 

This made the occasional roadblock that much more frustrating; the world of Super Metroid is vast, interconnected, and not that friendly if you want to just travel the critical path. For the first go-around, there isn’t really a clue as to where things might be. On the one hand, great for exploration! On the other, not so great if you’ve forgotten the One Important Room that progresses you. This happened more than once in Super Metroid, and might be down to me, but I appreciate that modern Metroidvanias generally have the decency to make a note of what you need in specific places.

I give Super Metroid credit for its world design and the exploration within that world; there is a lot of flexibility that only really shows when you know the main path. The wall jump is a nightmare to use, but it can really push you to think differently about how you work around challenges, until you get the Screw Attack. 

Unfortunately, the combat often feels totally unnecessary and awkward. Enemies are arbitrarily immune to particular beam types, requiring you to throw your entire arsenal at them before they take a slither of damage. Most of them also have the luxury of decent air mobility, where Samus operates like a tank with legs. I could lose myself for hours in the corridors of Zebes, but the second that the game asked me to shoot something, it tore me out of the experience and forced me to fight with some seriously sluggish movement. Again! An issue that isn’t fixed by sticking a rewind feature in! 

For someone like me, this is the most convenient way to experience classic libraries, and it feels like that potential has been compromised by an overcorrection to history. I said it above, and I’ll say it again: it is okay to keep things as they are. 

Coming off the back of the modern Metroid experience, I left Super Metroid feeling fairly satisfied. I just wish publishers wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss their own history for people who were never interested in the first place. Sometimes things are designed that way for a reason. 

This will probably be the only time I spend such a long time bellyaching about “quality of life”, because I’m going to make the effort to play classics elsewhere from here on, however that may be.  With that in mind, keep on playing, it’s never too late!