The Super Metroid Iceberg Explained

occasionally a game will come along that sets the tone for many future games to come some even take it a step further and become so ubiquitous that they define a genre let's examine the title that cemented its franchise in gaming history and help to spark the speedrunning community at large this is the super metroid iceberg not an update a common misconception about super metroid is that super metroid is an update of the previous installment this is because of the fact that words like super and ultimate were added to the titles of games around that time to signify that this is an improved version of the game such as with street fighter and mortal kombat the real reason behind the super in the game's name was because it was released on the super nintendo entertainment system which is similar to what nintendo did to the games by adding 64 or advanced to their games and in reality it's a third game in the series metroidvania super metroid is the game that alongside castlevania symphony of the night is responsible for the metroidvania genre the reason that super metroid is the game that is credited for the establishing of the genre instead of the first game in the series is because super metroid added a lot more in terms of content and strengthened the blueprint that was originally set in motion by the first two games thus super metroid is considered one of the best games in the series to the point that it defined a genre itself and that of course means that it inspired a generation of game developers and continues to be part of the core of the games that are released under this genre even today secret moves super metroid is known for harboring many secret moves that are not explained to the player as a result many players have beaten the game without knowing about their existence at all and those who did learn about them consider several of them difficult to pull off however once you master these special moves the game almost feels different when played examples of these moves are the wall jump bomb jump multi-bomb spread and even the ability to restore your health on the go if you have certain items that are required alien 3 parallels several aspects of super metroid are similar to alien 3 which is a parallel that is often spoken about for example both of the stories depict a bond between the female protagonist and the primary antagonist and both of the stories end with a sacrifice that gets rid of the enemy's species once and for all ironically enough alien 3 was critically panned yet super metroid is considered one of the best games of all time troubled development if you were surprised by the hiatus that the franchise went through before metroid dread came out you were probably too young at the time of super metroid's release the game came out almost a decade after the first metroid game although the second game exists in between it was a handheld only game and it took over a half a year for nintendo to approve the project because they were intimidated by how ambitious the project was and that's not all the game was nearly cancelled three separate times because of how many times it was delayed and the fact that nintendo did not originally believe in the game's potential success fortunately the company loved the game once it was completed and it went on to sell over a million units rumored behind the scene drama through believable hearsay it is believed that super metroid was meant to be the final game in the series and that's why there was such a wait between that and the following game in the series however once metroid prime was put into development it is believed that this became the reason for yashiyo sakamoto to start developing metroid fusion because he wanted to make sure that he's still involved in the series one thing in particular that supports this claim is that metroid prime games take place before super metroid in the storyline and with all that said and done yoshio sakamoto came back with metroid dread this year whereas metroid prime 4 is currently still in development hell godzilla sounds super metroid bosses use sound effects from godzilla movies the developers decided that the sound effects that they are making are not good enough so they sampled sounds directly from a number of different godzilla films and it's pretty noticeable once you listen to both of them closely this technique was pretty rare for its time so that's another reason as to what makes it special and unusual naked samus the early metroid games have been criticized in recent times for its sexualization of samus although thousands defend it too saying that it was an alright way of establishing the badass heroine's gender one way or another it's no secret today that you can unlock the ending in the original game where samus is wearing short clothing and the death animation in super metroid has her armor break which leaves her in nothing but a bikini before you recontinue the game however super metroid was originally meant to take things to the next level because samus was meant to be temporarily naked and she also screamed in a voice over recorded by monaco himano it was eventually scrapped because nintendo knew that american censorship would be against the idea and the voice recording unintentionally sounded sexual as well and of course in the recent games she has a blue suit that can be seen in the prime games intact when she dies and her armor explodes replacing the previous tradition of showing her bikini the birth of speedrunning super metroid is often credited as the game that kicked off the trend of speed running games which is one of the most well-known concepts of playing a game today especially on live streams and in physical events that usually contribute massively to charities the reason behind this is the fact that the game rewards players with different endings based on how quickly the player finishes it although other games had this trend too super metroid made this concept feel more intense because of how non-linear the game is and how it has so many hidden abilities that completely change how the game is played this led players to partaking in an early version of speedrunning and then turned into a habit that is now a major part of the gaming and speedrunning communities the third eye super metroid is filled with cut content and secrets of all kind but one secret in the game deserves a separate mention of its own which is the hidden third camera in the game's levels if you've played the game before you may remember the two cameras in the game that stare at samus and track her movements with a harmless yellow light on the surface of planet zebes you can find two of these cameras and they disappear after you collect mandatory upgrades and samus is attacked by the space pirates however there is a third hidden eye that cannot be found in a normal playthrough and is only discoverable if the player uses exploits although the secret was previously discovered it's not something that was known widely a youtuber named golden chorizo code eventually brought it into the public attention this year by using the exploits he managed to enter an early room and made the game believe that the player only has the morph ball as an upgrade and not anything else by doing this the player can enter a room that normally cannot be entered without certain conditions being met and inside a chozo statue that generally has an extra missile tank becomes a third eye camera by further breaking into the game through graphical exploits the statue eventually disappears and you can only see the camera itself by returning to the area in that state it is believed that this is simply a leftover item from the early development stages of the game and it was never removed because the player was never meant to find it and some fans also believe that this was supposed to be a main part of the game and simply scrapped because it was considered unnecessary or would have taken too much time to be relevant one way or another it's fun to see what's left of a game after they completely break it general secrets and glitches we've covered the stuff that deserves separate mentions now let's go over the general secrets and glitches that remain one interesting and notable thing about the game's glitches is that unlike other games that get fixed on its re-releases super metroid's glitches and exploits were typically left inside the game on purpose because the developers and nintendo both know how much the fans enjoy them and that it defines the way the game works especially since it contributes so heavily to speedrunning there is a special setting mode in the game's options and you can turn on the ability to moonwalk from there which lets you walk backwards while you shoot an enemy there is a hidden message in the game which says special thanks to genji kubota and all debut staff which can be found in the game's files a specific attack glitch in the game is called the murder beam which is often used by speedrunners and experts of the game in general if you charge the beam and go to the weapon selection menu to equip the charge ice wave or spacer and move to high jump boots you can press left and a at the same time to equip the plasma beam this gives you all five beams equipped at the same time and then once you return to the game face left and let go of the button and this will unleash an extremely destructive murder beam what makes this even more interesting is that the game will crash if you attempt to fire it while it's uncharged firing with a powerbomb equipped or face any direction that is not left and ironically the attack is most useful on the mother brain which is much later in the game and if you accidentally crash it you could lose hours of your time other notable glitches include the ability to stop zebotites from spawning standing up in the mother brain fight when you're supposed to be on your knees creating samus clones jumping higher than usual retaining the running speed while in the morph ball state disabling the detection of valid hits in various green gates across zbs and letting go of a charged shot during the final zb's countdown right after you exit the last door which unleashes a giant beam shot secret demo it's not every day that we sit down and look at idle demos of a game but that's a trend that used to be very popular back in the day and the demos that were played when you did not press anything while the game ran were also called attracts since then they are meant to make the player want to give the game a shot super metroid has three demos and most players have seen these at certain points however something that people don't often realize is that there is a fourth idle demo that plays if you beat the game at least once and it shows off hidden game mechanics that players have to figure out on their own secret addition to ending aside from the general ability to get different endings based on how fast you beat the game there is one detail that even some hardcore fans of the metroid series will often miss out on when you're escaping at the end while the countdown is in place if you don't go to your ship and instead go to the room where you first got morph ball bombs you can find some critters that helped you escape earlier in the game if you help them leave the room you can leave again and this adds a small addition to the ending where you can see that you save them this is what sparked the speed running debate between saving the animals or saving the frames to complete the game faster golden torizo room like most 2d games of that era the game has a debug code that the player can enter who has interestingly not discovered until around 2010 in the lower norfair area before you enter the room with the golden torso boss fight open the door and roll into a ball while holding down the four main buttons a x b and y when you enter the room with this method you will instantly have every item in the game aside from the screw attack such as 700 energy 300 reserve energy 100 missiles 20 super missiles and 20 power bombs you get screw attack quite soon afterwards anyway so that's probably the reason as to why you don't get it right away the game does have a normal debug mode too that can be activated through external tools such as the pro action replay and it allows players to spawn wherever they want and to use certain items and random sprites cut content there are three unused enemy in the game one of them is called bang and it grows bigger based on how much damage it takes eventually it explodes and deal all of the damage that the player dealt back to them it's a very dangerous enemy and that might have been why it was taken out of the game the second enemy is called the reflec and similar to bang this enemy reflects the player's shots back at them what makes this fun though is that when you shoot at it from certain angles it reflects the player's shots in different directions which was used in an element for solving puzzles in the fan made rom hack super metroid redesign it's obvious why reflect was scrapped since it's not useful in any part of the original game the third unused enemy is stoke and it looks like a miniature crocomier it has collision detection and basic movement but it doesn't always function properly the enemy was meant to be found in the criteria room where you tunnel through as a morph ball but it's unknown as to why the enemy was scrapped additionally there is a weird creature with only a mouth that was meant to spawn next to mother brain but its purpose is unknown and it has no programming and lastly there is the shack tool attack that is disabled in the game but can be re-enabled by using the game genie aside from the unused enemies and sprites there are two color palettes in the game that are unused which are the red criteria and the black brinstar color schemes then we have unused titles an unused title card and a couple of unused rooms such as the lower norfair edge a debug testing room with a bunch of tiles surrounding the player an unused recharge room a debug game over screen an unused shack tool room an older version of the golden chozo room and some regional content that was scrapped such as the aforementioned sexual voice and some other unknown voices theories one of the most notable fan theories is related to fan tune it is believed that fan tune is an aurora unit because we have seen ghosts exist in the metroid universe and they are often corrupted the reason behind this claim is that it looks like a mutated mother brain and haunts a crashed ship not only that but fantune has control over the power grid as well and this is further elaborated upon by the fact that fantune is much bigger in other m and you only fight him after the ending since he needs to absorb energy to grow stronger another commonly debated theory is aimed at the galactic federation's motives fans theorize that these space pirates are not truly pirates and instead they are simply people who don't agree with the federation and tried to use the metroids as just an energy source meanwhile the galactic federation could potentially be terrorists who try to use metroids to create weapons for themselves and just try to keep them away from others these are typically military power moves this theory is further strengthened by other m although how canon that game is will always remain a divisive topic debunked theory straying away from the plausible theories that might be entirely true here's one that lived on for some time and was eventually debunked officially later on in the remake of the original metroid called zero mission players saw a massive hq called the space pirate mothership which is destroyed by samus in the end a majority of fans thought this ship is the same as the wrecked ship from super metroid however in an official interview on the metroid zero mission website the director of the game confirmed that the two ships are different from each other many people weren't ecstatic to hear about this news but at the same time it's always good to know the facts over fiction even though the franchise has evolved and changed throughout the years its notoriety never waned and the world-renowned super heroine continues to excite fans around the world in more ways than one like and subscribe if you'd like to see more videos like this and let me know which topics you'd like to see covered next [Music]

Channel: Maker

Views: 285,139

Keywords: super metroid, metroid, metroid dread, iceberg, super metroid bosses, super metroid (ju), super metroid wall jump, super metroid speedrun, super metroid speed run, super metroid sprites, super metroid endings, super metroid randomizer, super metroid space jump, super metroid review, snes, samus, metroidvania

Id: tC_o0ciOB58

Length: 17min 41sec (1061 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 12 2022