I don't know if it's the best Metroid, but this one sure is inventive, fun, and extremely challenging.
The Bad: For once Gamespot was right, it's been far too long for this classic (13 years? wtf? !@#$%&#%!@&!); the game is hard to the point of being too hard, i.e. impossible to find items, invisible walls, etc.
Metroid is the most screwed-over franchise in the history of videogaming. Seriously people. Let's take a look.
The first Metroid didn't enjoy high enough production values to get a battery backed save system, so when The Legend of Zelda came out the same year as it did, it was instantaneously destroyed. The best it could get was the second-best game of 1987. There's a good title to have.
Metroid II: Return of Samus was in black and white and never got brought into color. Link's Awakening did, sure, but not this one. Plus it came out when A Link to the Past and Link's Awakening did, so everyone was focused on them.
Satan took control of this franchise from the start, I swear to God.
Even Super Metroid, which changed the franchise forever, was screwed because it came along so late in the life of the Super NES. Yet, for sure, it's the best of the original series (excluding all games with the word 'Prime' in the title), and possibly the best including those. So why am I reviewing this game?
Simply, it's the most overlooked game, in the most overlooked game franchise, ever. Zelda is plenty famous, and Mario even more so. Yet Metroid, which is the home of Nintendo's first lady, as far as I'm concerned (yeah, she pwns Peach and Zelda), isn't.
That's too bad. The gameplay itself is absolutely amazing. Shooting, jumping, switching out missiles and the X-ray visor, charge beams, the much, MUCH better aiming compared to the original two, it's all freaking awesome. I for one even praise the secret wall jump move, which makes the game much faster and easier, but is hard to pull off. There are a ton of items and a lot of exploring to do, and the vague idea that there's a plot.
The graphics are pretty lame now, but I can definitely tell they were good in the day. They look about as good as A Link to the Past, so I think they must have been good. No points docked there.
The music was wonderful. Later Metroid games use them rather often, and it's easy to see why. They help make the game atmospheric and rather dark for a rated E game, and simply fit in perfectly everywhere.
The length is interesting. It's ten or twenty hours if you speed through, but there's plenty of replayability for two reasons. One, it's fun as all get out. Two, more items and faster times mean you get to see more of the lovely Samus Aran herself at the end!
My only complaint that docked some points for it was this: it's too freaking hard to get all the items! I don't think fake walls are fair to gamers. Sure the X-ray visor offsets that sort of, but it comes so late in the game you have to explore everything again, a TON, to get the stuff, by which point your time is screwed.
Still, it's plenty of fun, and not to be missed for anything. ANYTHING.