Unabashed perfection. Samus' third game stands out as one of the top five must-haves for the SNES platform.
This bit continued throughout with the Sega Genesis and the Super Nintendo for a time... it was simply drawing it up to human imperfections, I think. Each game had meritable traits that made them enjoyable, but there was always some kind of flaw that kept them from being perfect.
It was only with Super Metroid, where I have come to encounter the first game I can truly describe as perfect in every way.
During the 16-bit wars, Sega started hyping up about its "blast processing" and how it came to play with fast-paced games like Sonic 2. Looking up on them now, one would find that most of it was a load of bull... the thing that the Genesis did have that made them able to market such a thing, was that its hardware was able to start processing data for the next frame of game while rendering the current frame on screen. And Sega's developers were able to develop code for the machine that it could run really fast while still able to make a functional, pretty game with them. Because of this, a lot of Sega fans came to criticize the SNES as a slow, plodding machine, which wasn't hard to do since a lot of the more popular games for the platform WERE slow, and deliberately paced.
This game came to debunk all the bull of that marketing hype, as it can be considered one of the more faster-paced games for the platform. Samus moves fluid and slickly throughout the planet of Zebes as she hunts the space pirates that stole the last living Metroid there, and even moreso when you acquire the speed boots in the game, allowing her to blitz through rooms at blinding speeds. And to keep your trigger fingers itchy whilst you play, there were several mini-boss battles littered within among the primary bosses of Kraid and Ridley.
Playing with the default controller layout can be a bit of a finger-contortion exercise, as you'll want to keep that run button held down almost the whole time (which was default to A), then still be able to jump (B), while able to shoot (Y), which kept a very fragile grip on the SNES controller. But once one is used to it, it becomes hard to try and re-adapt the control scheme, IMO.
Sound is very atmospheric thanks to the SNES's superior audio hardware for its time, with ambient music seemingly able to rock your subwoofers and subtle cues from enemies or lingering secrets nearby, in a world chock full of them.
This game may be short to play through, with many speed runs visible online for players demonstrating a run-through in just within an hour of very focused play, but therein lies a huge amount of the replay the game has... even if you've beat it several times, it compels you to keep playing, to try new things, and if you're into it, search for ways to blitz through the baddies and set your own personal best records.
Here's hoping that Super Metroid arrives on the Virtual Console, and soon! I need my fix again.