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I beat *Super Metroid* as part of the Video Game Book Club thing, and I finally got around to actually write a blog post about it.

Super Metroid

Super Nintendo/Emulated

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This game needs no introduction, I'll just write my thoughts on it. Keep in mind that this game is half a decade older than I am.

Wow, Super Metroid still holds up pretty well. *The game is very balanced and is pretty fun even by my modern standards, and way ahead of its time*. I've played Axiom Verge before, and I thought that game was pretty original - I didn't realize that it took *a ton* of inspiration from Super Metroid - the controls, the atmosphere, the art style, everything.

Link to image

For some reason, the alien "bubbles" are the number one thing that always reminds me of similar the two games are. Except the bubbles in Axiom Verge are animated, and destructible. It's no surprise that the game that came out two decades later is more polished, but only slightly.

My main complaint about Super Metroid is that occasionally I couldn't tell where to go next and had to look at a walkthrough.* I'm still salty about the "Noob Bridge", aka "the bridge that you can only cross by dashing, except the game never tells you that you can dash, so I got stuck thinking I needed a special item for it, like an idiot".

A walkthrough can fix these problems, but obviously that ruins the immersion. And it's hard to give a rating to this game because of this. With a walkthrough, I'd say this was an 8/10 experience. Without it, things would be much worse. So ultimately, I'm giving it a *7/10* rating.

I'm trying to be objective here, so I'm not adding any bonus points for being "ahead of its time", this is judging by modern standards, and a 7/10 is amazing for a 20+ year old game.* But also, judging by modern standards, I think Axiom Verge is the better game.

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I'm not much of a retro gamer, but maybe it makes sense to look at some older titles, as they really fit the "Low Spec & Linux gaming" theme. Linux is really good at emulation, and Super Nintendo games can be played on practically any device at this point.