"Super Metroid is the joy of expansion."
-X & Y, horizontal & vertical
Metroid is X&Y. this could be why many gamers call super metroid the pinnacle of 2D gaming, or the pinnacle of the 'sidescroller' genre.
I was in New York recently, and I loved the way the city is laid out. If you look at a NY city plan it is a 'grid' structure; verticals and horizontals which are long and far-reaching. This gives the surreal feeling that you can keep going for a long time in one direction and never stop, but also have the choice to change direction horizontally or vertically at any time and explore any route. The feeling is pleasant, one of many choices and it makes you feel you can go anywhere. I was in a foreign place, just like in SM, scrolling up and down…Speed up, slow down. It's your choice. You can go anywhere and do anything.
-Samus is the vessel, you are the spirit ~ Zebes & your mind overlap – two labyrinths connect
I have an analogy for video games. The ('modern') video game is an alternate world similar to ours, but different. We connect to this world and 'log in' to it through the console and view and reach into it through the TV. We travel and alter the world and ourselves with the control pad.
The character of Samus is our vessel in Zebes, like our body is our vessel on Earth. Our mind travels in the power suit of Samus. Samus carries our mind through the labyrinth. Simultaneously we are experiencing and sensing and exploring this alternate world, but we are also exploring our own mind, and our own capabilities.
It is difficult to describe, but the way Zebes is constructed is similar to the way I think and the way I feel. I think in a direction in my mind, and I push forward in my thoughts, but at times I think in lots of directions at once. Metroid seems to tap into this and by clearly constructing horizontal and vertical corridors to run and jump in, my mind is at home in this alternate world.
I simulate the process my mind goes through when solving a problem or reacting to something. There is great rhythm to Zebes's X&Y labyrinth, just like there is a tangible rhythm that I found in the streets of NY.
The relationships in SM continue to become more complex though when you think of Samus's relation to her world. Samus grows and awakens as her world does. As she becomes more powerful, the world becomes more hostile. The deeper you explore the more things are hidden from you, until the world clamps up and becomes almost impenetrable.
You must unravel the secrets. It's all about hide and seek. Not only are the items hidden, but the world too. Exploring and finding secrets is fun and exciting. Every door you open in metroid is a present; tearing off the paper to get what's inside.
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I find that, perhaps due to the strong X&Y rhythms and lock/key door system, exploring SM is very similar to exploring my mind. And playing SM is very similar to drawing. The act of drawing is about not thinking, but letting your subconscious react with instinct and just feeling. You can beat SM by using the same thought process. However, when you get stuck you need to think. It's like when I'm drawing and discovering my self, I can only go so far in one direction before becoming stuck. You need to go in many directions and think in different ways to improve. It's the same in SM.
I love the momentum and fluid movement in SM – it's got a great sense of speed.
The design is very similar to Mario. It's fundamentally about platform gaming.
In 'Mario bros. 3' there is a curious mechanic that lets Mario fly for just a little bit. You have to press forward on the d-pad long enough for a meter to flash.
SM takes this concept further by giving Samus a special ability to run really fast along the horizontal corridors. You can smash into enemies and even walls, but also use the run as a build-up to a jump.
By the end of the game Samus is able to defy the laws of physics and gravity, but she is also a sort of battery, able to charge up energy and become a human/android rocket.
Samus also interfaces with machines and so it is suggested she is super-human (at least inside the power suit).
There is something drug-induced and psychedelic about it all; you walk into a room, and a strange bird statue offers you an odd item, "would you like to go faster?". you absorb the item into your body and then charge out of the room as fast as a train through a tunnel.
-Sound and image
Also worth mentioning is the delicate craftsmanship that has gone into the graphics and sound design. The artists have tried so hard to replicate nature and its transient beauty, and succeeded.
Most of SM is about travelling and going through doors. The graphics add to the feeling of transient level design by being about nature and organic life. Samus is a vagrant and a traveller; a nomad. You don't stay still and are always moving. This creates the feeling of fleeting life or transient life. This is also represented when you defeat a boss. The bosses slowly decay as you saviour their demise bit by bit, the life-force poetically being sucked away.
I think Japan has a thing for the so-called 'transient idea of beauty'. If you look at some traditional Japanese paintings they're often themed around the cycles of nature and there are Shinto and Zen Buddhism principles behind many of these. So it makes sense that SM has this in it. The hyper-powerful robot humanoid is also part of a more modern Japanese culture that I imagine stems from being completely decimated in WW2.
I also sense in SM a strong desire to connect to nature. The natural world is all around Samus, and it becomes a relief to the claustrophobic and often mechanic inner coridoors. However, Samus is still always isolated from that organic beauty (the power suit).
-Conclusion
I think all the metroid games are unique. You could label it a sidescroller and place it firmly in a hall of fame, comparing it to other sidescrollers, but all the elements I've described make metroid unique and so it almost becomes silly to compare or make it compete when it just wants to be itself. However, if you would insist, I would say it was a platform/RPG/racing game.
But SM is more than a genre and more than a game. It's not about the cartridge or the developer. It's about you, and your relationship with Samus and with Zebes. The player is the artist.
Objectively the game is supremely well-balanced. It has easy-access but lots of depth. It is open-ended but linear. The pacing is near perfect, and the syncing of Samus to her world creates a wonderful silent narrative without interrupting the joy of play.
SM defines 2D in a way. It is a very important and cherished game that many developers should learn from.
on a final note, my experience of super metroid isn't one of loneliness or solitude, but a life-afirming penetration of any and all restrictions, to the point where you've broken every barrier and reached your potential, ever expanding and reaching into the infinite.
this isn't metroid. this is SUPER metroid.