The epitome of 2D in the 16 bit era.
Play/control 10-10. The controls themselves are pretty responsive, and it's only certain special moves that can be a little tricky at times. Oh yeah, and hope you like jumping, 'cuz it wouldn't be a Metroid game without lots of jumping from level to level and finding secret passages everywhere. It gets a little tough trying to climb up a massive shaft with aliens shooting at you though, so it'll take patience.
Audio 10-10. Ah. Hip Tanaka (if indeed it was you who handled this part of the game), once again you bust out with the perfect soundtrack, even more so than the original! Not only are there more tunes in this game but..well..hmmm..how should I say this..Well, the music just seems perfect for this game and no other, and the places where each tune is used couldn't have been more perfect. The battle themes are all tense and fast-paced, with the only exception being the battle with Spore Spawn, whose theme is a little bit..weird? The music is of the kind that if you were to hook up your SNES to a TV with Home Theater capability, would sound even greater, particularly the explosion SFX. The music is just perfect, and the SFX are even cooler, and pop up at exactly the right time. So perfect is this aspect of the game's sound that on occasion it'll probably scare the crap out of you. The first time I played the game for instance, I was in that space colony after reading the opening story, and I got to the room where the little metroid was..players of the game will know what I mean here. Anyway, once you enter the room with the baby Metroid, the sound of the Space Colony's engines will cease and be replaced by silence, broken by the occasional cry of the Metroid. Then all of a sudden you hear a piercing cry and the tense boss music plays as you fight Kraid..Noooo!...It can't be!!!Yes, it is! Another time you'll probably get a nasty shock is when you destroy Mother Brain. She'll explode just like in the original game, then silence. Then you hear this huge roar and the final battle theme plays and you fight this big giant dude! These are just examples of how well they handled the audio in relation to various parts of the game's story. I for one was positively amazed!
Story 10-10. After Samus Aran's successful battle on SR388 (Metroid 2), peace settled over the galaxy. Samus, not having the heart to kill the tiny Metroid that had hatched from the egg of the deceased Queen Metroid, took the creature instead to a research station where its powers could be studied more closely, and possibly a way could be found to use the Metroid's powers to benefit civilization. But the Space Pirates weren't through yet. Samus was just leaving the research station after dropping off the metroid, when a distress call came in that the station was under attack. Samus knew that there could be only one reason for this and hastened back to assess the situation. There she met an old foe and barely managed to escape with her life. So now it is once again your task to travel to the natural fortress planet of Zebes and destroy an enemy whom you thought destroyed for good, the revived Mother Brain..but she has a secret that will only be made clear to you when/if you reach her lair.
Overall 10-10. By far, this is the best of the series in my opinion. I think that the added RPG element of equipping and unequipping certain items is part of what makes this game so entertaining and what makes it doable. You'll sometimes find that while you are wearing certain suit upgrades you can't progress because that upgrade's function contradicts what you need to do. Say you were wearing the high-jump boots and the place you were trying to jump to was..let's say a small opening in a wall that you would miss completely while wearing the boots. You can remove items that you don't need to use for a while, then put them back on later when you need them. I don't know how easy this game is o find, but if you can find it, give it a try.