In 1986, Nintendo released Metroid on the
NES. It was nothing like the companyâs other
games: it wasnât cute and colourful and full of chirpy music. It was dark, and atmospheric. Bounty hunter Samus Aran felt truly lost and
alone as she explored an endless sprawl of dank, alien corridors. And it was fascinating. But it was flawed. It was way too easy to get lost, the world
all looked the same, and many secrets were hidden behind brick walls. It was the start of something cool, but it
needed refinement. The sequel, 1991âs Metroid II: Return of
Samus on the Game Boy, didnât really help matters. It was still dark and scary - and it had a
surprisingly impactful ending for such a formative game. But the monochrome screen made it even harder
to find your way around - despite the fact that the game is much more linear than the
first one. Weâd have to wait a few more years for the
real deal. And then we got it. In 1994, Nintendo released Super Metroid,
on the Super Nintendo. Finally, the idea behind Metroid was given
the proper execution. The game, once again, dropped Samus into a
lonely, alien world - the same planet Zebes as Metroid 1 - but this time, you could actually
get around without drawing a map, bombing every wall, or buying an issue of Nintendo
Power. The structure of the game is much the same:
just like Metroid 1, this game is about making a mental note of obstacles. Then finding items. And then backtracking to those obstacles to
either find goodies or the next bit of the game. But this time, things are different. The world is much bigger. The power-ups are more interesting. The bosses are more varied. And the designers take a much more active
role in getting you through Zebes - just, with far more subtlety than Metroid 1âs
overbearing remake, Zero Mission. How did they do it? Well, really, the only way to properly describe
how the game does this is to take you through it, step by step. Which is exactly what Iâm going to do in
this video. Letâs touch down on planet Zebes, once again,
and start the second episode of Boss Keys, Season Two. Just like Metroid 1, this game wordlessly
explains its set up in the first few screens. In the very first corridor of Zebes, we walk
past a bunch of doors that we canât get through. Pink doors that bounce away our bullets, and
tiny gaps we canât squeeze through. Eventually, weâll find the entrance to Old
Brinstar - which is actually the final and starting areas of Metroid 1. And here, weâll grab the Morph Ball and
Missiles. With no where to go, we can only go back to
where we came from. But now, these areas are teeming with space
pirates, letting us know that this is actually the right way to go. So in the first few screens, Super Metroid
says: this world will branch out at every point but many of those routes will be inaccessible
until you have more powers. And oftentimes, the path forward will actually
be behind you. So, we use those missiles to grab the bombs
and - woah! Heh, a good reminder that you canât rely
on expectations in this game. Now, with the Torizo dead, itâs time to
use these bombs to explore further. And if you donât know where to use them,
youâll soon learn about the virtues of the map - oh yeah, Super Metroid finally adds
a map screen to the franchise. And map terminals. Youâll find map terminals in the gameâs
five major locations - Crateria, Brinstar, Norfair, Maridia, and the Wrecked Ship - which
reveal some of the rooms around you on the map. Handy, when it shows you rooms that are hidden
away behind brick walls. That makes finding map rooms almost as useful
as finding a new power-up - and is one example of how Super Metroid is way more player friendly
than the obtuse Metroid 1 - but without being quite so aggressively hand-holding as Zero
Mission. The newly updated map screen shows a room
over to the left - giving you the hint to use your bombs and keep going. Here, weâll find the last point of interest
in Crateria. At the far end of an ominous tunnel is a great
golden statue depicting four bizarre monsters - one of which we faced in the gameâs prologue. Iâm sure weâll be coming back to that,
later. For now though, letâs hop onto the elevator
and make our way down to Upper Brinstar. So. Letâs take a break to map out the structure
of Super Metroid, at this early point. And to do this, we can use a dependency chart
- which is something I came up with during the first season of Boss Keys. On this chart, diamonds represent upgrades
that Samus can use, and squares represent the obstacles that she can overcome with those
upgrades. For this chart, Iâm also using triangles
to represent non-essential pick-ups like missile tanks and the map room. Not every single pick-up, mind you: just the
ones that can be found with simple exploration, or are found behind obvious locked doors and
obstacles. So these upgrades, locks, and pick-ups cascade
down from this horizontal line, which represents all the places we can visit right now. And the locks go below the upgrades. Iâve also put on some locks we can see,
but canât overcome - like some high up areas in Crateria, that will need the space jump. And a green door, which requires Super Missiles. Iâm going to use dotted lines, until we
can actually reach this stuff. So hereâs what the graph looks like at the
moment. So far, pretty simple. Letâs move on. When we get into Brinstar, weâll find a
lot of dead ends. A room that weâre too slow to travel through. Some weird symbols on the ceiling. A yellow door, which wonât budge. A green one, much the same. And blocks that donât blow up when bombed
- but instead show us an icon of some power-up that weâll need to attain if we want to
break through. Thereâs lots to explore here - but itâs
all dead ends. A stark message that weâre not strong enough
yet, and a reminder that weâll have to come back here later. We can do two things, however. We can fight the first mini-boss in the game,
Spore Spawn, and get the Super Missile. And we can get the Charge Beam. Thatâs hidden down here. Well, I say hidden: the game has two very
obviously different blocks, and the slight hint of a ceiling. Throughout Super Metroid, hidden areas like
this are pretty well telegraphed, with plenty of hints. Thereâs hardly any random bombing, like
Metroid 1. The charge beam is also one of many items in Super Metroid that are completely optional:
extra weapons like the charge beam, spazer and plasma beam, handy upgrades like the spring
ball, and the very useful x-ray beam - which makes it even easier to spot hidden walls
- are not needed to finish the game at all. Their existence is great though, as they can
be found at any time, making the game less linear. And they feel like genuine secrets that other
players might completely miss. Letâs update our graph again. So weâve got lots of dead ends, and only
a few things we can actually do. For now, Super Metroid is staying quite simple. After you open that green door with a well-placed
super missile, youâll come into this room. Youâll shoot this blue button to open this
gate, and exit to the next room. What you may not have realised, though, is
that the gate shuts behind you, and itâs impossible to hit the blue button with your
current tool set. Youâve just completely cut off access to
everything in the game before this point. This is for two very important reasons. One is that the next room requires you to
use a skill you might not even know you have: the run. And Nintendo doesnât want you to think you
donât have the necessary upgrade to get through this room and have you wander back,
trying to find some alternate route. No, youâre stuck here until you figure it
out. Read the manual, maybe. The other important reason? Well, soon after this room, the same thing
happens again. Youâll fall down this shaft and you canât
get back up. Again, thereâs no access to the world behind
you. All that stuff in Brinstar, with the yellow
doors and the funny symbols and breakaway floors? You canât get there anymore. And in this way, I think Super Metroid tries
to avoid overwhelming you with options. Remember that gripe from Metroid 1, where
you have so much access to the world that finding the way forward is dizzying? Not so much here. Because the world closes off behind you, you
only ever have a small chunk of Zebes to explore at once. Right. Weâre in Lower Brinstar now. And, first, you might notice that the map
screen has another treat for you: a secret room, just to the right of this elevator. Unfortunately, once youâre inside, youâll
realise that you canât jump up here yet. But look at that spooky face. Thatâs definitely worth checking out, when
youâre skilled enough. This is a classic example of using a really
distinct visual as a landmark, to cement it in your brain and help you remember to come
back once youâve got the right gear. The same thing happens with Ridleyâs lair,
sort of. And definitely with the entrance to Tourian. For now, though, the only other place you can go is down, into Norfair. Here, youâll find more dead ends - like
a room that youâre too slow to run through, and a room too hot to be in. And youâll also find another power-up: the
hi jump boots. Oh hey, now you can go back up here, kill
the first boss - Kraid - and get the heatproof Varia Suit. Yes, thatâs just how I pronounce it now. Oh hey, now you can go back to that superheated
room, and get the speed booster. Oh hey, now you can get through that first
room, and get the Ice Beam. By bouncing you back and forth between Norfair
and Lower Brinstar, Super Metroid is training you to know that your goal isnât always
in the immediate vicinity, like it was earlier in the game. Sometimes youâll have to backtrack a fair
bit, to a previous zone even, to find the next step forward. Itâs graph time, again! So hereâs Lower Brinstar and Norfair. You might remember that there are some obstacles
back in Upper Brinstar that we could now overcome with our new items, like the speed booster,
but - remember - theyâre up an impossibly high shaft, and behind a one-way door. We just canât get to them, meaning that
they stay as dotted lines on our graph. Once again, Super Metroid is reasonably straightforward
in its structure, and pretty compact in its world size. But hereâs the thing: Super Metroid is a
game that will hold your hand tight, when it wants to. And let it free, when it wants to. And at the beginning, the game holds a pretty
firm grip: this early part of the game keeps you stuck in a very small location, and uses
one-way paths to keep you locked into just a handful of rooms at once. And with each power-up you get, thereâs
a very limited number of places to actually use it. After you get the Varia Suit, thereâs only
one superheated room to explore. After you get the speed booster, thereâs
only one room where you can use it. After you get the bombs and super missiles,
thereâs just a couple obstacles that you can now overcome. And so on. If Super Metroid kept up like this, I think
it would grow tiresome and be way too easy. But thatâs not the case. Because, now, this is the moment that Super
Metroid shifts. So youâve just got the ice beam. And almost every time you get a power-up in
Super Metroid, youâll be trapped until you use that power-up to get back out, giving
you a handy tutorial on how to use it. But, also, that room will give you hints about
where that power-up can be used next. Like, after getting the ice beam youâll
need to freeze this enemy to get out. And where else have you seen these enemies? Oh yeah, right here on that shaft you fell
down into Norfair. So now, you can get back up, use your hi-jump
to hop up here, and grab the power bomb. And itâs here that Nintendo lets go of your
hand. if you follow the path forward, youâll head
up here, jump off this ledge, and realise that - hey, youâre back at the start of
the game! You just did a full circle of Zebes. But things are very different now. The spooky, ambient music⌠has been replaced
with a bombastic, heroic tuneâŚ. Samus is now kitted out in her iconic orange
varia suit. And the path forward is⌠uh, well, I donât
know. Because at this point, you can now explore
a huge amount of Zebes - including all those old areas that were previously locked off
by one-way paths. And thereâs a massive number of obstacles
you can now overcome. By my count, there are about seven places
you can power bomb, two places you can use your speed booster, and one place you can
use your high jump. And none of them are calling out to you as
the obvious next step. So after a very straightforward and somewhat
guided route through the game, Super Metroid says itâs now time to explore for yourself. Sometimes youâll find handy upgrade. Like, remember this speed booster room in
Brinstar? You can now go in there and get a reserve
tank. Sometimes youâll find dead ends, like a
room where you wonât be able to advance without the grapple beam. Sometimes youâll find some weird animals
- more on them, later. And eventually, youâll find the path forward
- itâs actually down here, in Norfair. I really like this. Remember that end game item hunt from Zero
Mission? It was fun, but kind of awkward: you basically
leave the intended path at the very end of the game and take a huge detour to do a victory
lap of Zebes. but in Super Metroid itâs slap bang in the
middle of the game. You donât know where to go, so you just
have a wander and see what you can find. The game takes a break from linearity, to
let you just explore for a while. And then thereâs that sensation of simply
stumbling upon the next area. Thatâs a really potent feeling that some
Metroidvanias do well - this feeling of organically discovering some massive new area filled with
unseen stuff. Itâs a feeling weâve seen in previous
episodes of Boss Keys, and itâs a sensation that weâll definitely come back to in a
future episode of this season. Oh, and during this exploration of Zebes you
might revisit this room and find that one of the statues has turned grey - reminding
your that your ultimate goal is to kill four bosses - well, three now - and then come back
here to finish the game. The next step is to kill Crocomire, who has
the most metal death in all of video games, and get the grappling hook. This is a really fun item to use. And the game has a really nice loop in the
level design, after you get it: instead of asking you to just boringly backtrack to the
start of the area, thereâs a whole bunch of rooms that bend back on themselves and
bring you right back to the elevator in Norfair. From here, Super Metroid again asks you to
explore. There are about seven spots where you can
use the grappling hook, and theyâre dotted all over Zebes. Some lead you to new power-ups like the wave
beam, and x-ray beam. Others lead you to upgrades like missiles
and energy tanks. And one leads you to the wrecked ship, where
youâll continue your adventure. Here, youâll face the second boss of the
game: Phantoon. And after this, Super Metroid starts getting
a bit cheeky, and introduces more of those obtuse brick walls from Metroid 1. Like, to get to the gravity suit, you need
to bomb through here. To get through maridia, you need to get into
this little hole. And to get into Maridia proper, you need to
drop a power bomb in this glass tube. To be fair, all of these things are telegraphed. Before getting the gravity suit you can see
a room here, so itâs a case of looking for some way of getting in there. You can see enemies coming out of this hole,
letting you know it exists. And the smashed tube here should give you
a clue that you can smash this tube, over here. But in all of these cases - as well as some
other easy-to-miss passages later in the game, it can be a huge issue if the player thinks
theyâve hit a dead end and goes off looking elsewhere. This is when players can start getting lost
- and frustrated - in Super Metroid. Anyway. The underwater world of Maridia is a bit of
a maze, but itâs also very contained. After exploring all of zebes with the power
bombs and grappling hook, youâll likely stick to this one zone until youâve finished
off the third boss of the game: Draygon. Lke Zelda: A Link to the Past and Dark Souls,
Super Metroid has a changing structure - with some bits that have you making quick forward
progression, and other bits that have you exploring in a more open fashion. And thatâs what happens now. After getting the space jump. thereâs a bunch of places where you can
use it - like for getting the spring ball and plasma beam in Maridia. Or getting some goodies in Crateria. But the place you actually need to use it
is down in Norfair, to get to Ridleyâs lair. The entrance to Ridleyâs Lair is a bit weird,
actually. So for one, itâs got three locks in a row. You need a power bomb to get in. Then the gravity suit to withstand the lava. And then the space jump to get up to Ridley. If you come all the way back here after getting
each power up, youâre gonna leave disappointed. Twice. Also, this imposing head would be a very distinct
landmark to put in your noggin if you just found it while exploring Norfair. But because itâs behind an unremarkable
yellow power-bomb door, youâre less likely to file this in your brain under âvery important
roomsâ. But back to the adventure. So you explore Lower Norfair, find some more
cheeky areas - oh, we can just walk through walls now, can we? okay - get the final power-up, the screw attack,
and kill off Ridley. With the fourth boss of the game finished
off, we should hopefully know itâs time to return to that ominous room in Crateria,
and enter the final zone of the game. This is almost identical to Metroid 1, only
with four bosses instead of two. And the rest of the game is pretty familiar,
too: we kill off Metroids with the ice beam and missiles. We fight Mother Brain in a jar. We - oh my. Thatâs a bit different. We have an escape sequence. Donât forget to save the animals! And we escape an exploding planet Zebes in
our spaceship. The end. Mission complete. Job done. Genre⌠defined. So letâs look at that dependency graph again. If we put in a red line for where the game
lets us pass back over that point of no return, we can see a pretty sizeable shift. Suddenly, the game gets very wide, as there
are loads of places where we can use items, and we can backtrack to every point in Zebes. And I think splitting Super Metroid into two
distinct acts like this is a really good idea. We get almost a tutorial at the start. And then - once the game is satisfied that
we get how things work - the reins are removed, and weâre asked to fend for ourselves. But I do think the game struggles a little
in this second half. Super Metroidâs Zebes is actually quite
tricky to navigate, with spindly corridors and a somewhat confusing layout, making it
slightly tedious to get from one end to the other. Plus, Norfair only has one entrance - this
elevator - despite the fact that youâll need to repeatedly return there. That makes getting around more difficult than
it needs to be. Oh! And until you find the wave beam, which lets
you open those blue-button gates from the other side, the world has some annoying one-way
paths that will need to be circumnavigated. In its favour, though, is that each elevator
room branches off into a bunch of different zones: effectively a hub and spoke system,
that makes for easy transport. And also, almost every single room in this
game looks completely unique in some way, making it easier to remember their layout
- especially compared to the very samey Zebes from Metroid 1. Another way the game struggles is that the
map screen is pretty unhelpful at times. You canât see doorways between rooms, so
two connecting areas might not actually join up. There are no icons for coloured doors. Secrets have the same icon whether youâve
found them or not. And, you canât see the map for an area that
youâre not currently stood in. All of this would thankfully be fixed up in
the GBA games. Also, I think itâs a shame that Super Metroid
is still completely linear in this part of the game. I feel like this would be a great time to
let players go off and kill the remaining three bosses in any order you like: but the
game still makes you fight Phantoon before Draygon, and Draygon before Ridley. This is not the end of the world - despite
what some people seem to think, I donât think linearity is necessarily a bad thing. But maybe a missed opportunity. And it would help players who got lost if
they could go off, explore another part of the map, and make progress there instead. Then again, you can break this sequence. You can fight bosses in a different order,
get items before youâre supposed to, and skip some upgrades entirely. How? Well, when youâre exploring the world in
act two, you very well might come across these guys - a bunch of animals who will teach Samus
how to do advanced manoeuvres. One lets you bounce off walls. The other lets you build up speed with the
speed booster, and turn that kinetic energy into a massive jump. And this is really interesting because theyâre
not actually upgrades, like the ice beam or morph ball. These are just advanced manoeuvres that samus
can do - and could always do, you just didnât know about them. So next time you play the game you can use
these tricks to, say, get up here without the hi jump boots. Or to get over here without the grappling
hook. Unfortunately, you canât break the game
apart too much unless you start using glitches and speedrunning techniques that arenât
taught to you, like the mockball and bomb jumping. But itâs still something to make the game
more interesting on later playthroughs. This is something Metroid does well, but many
other Metroidvanias donât really incorporate. If the goal of a Metroidvania designer is
to find a balance between letting the player explore on their own, but also not letting
them get too lost and frustrated, then Super Metroid does a pretty stellar job. The game eases you in with a simple structure
and one-way paths, before letting you run loose when youâre more familiar with how
things work. It uses strong visual landmarks to help you
build a mental map of zebes. and there are plenty of tiny techniques to subtly guide
you forward. And it also nails one of the most exciting
sensations of a Metroidvania: by not always making the path forward obvious, you get the
thrill of organically stumbling into an interesting new area. You can really see why this game has been
so massively influential. But while itâs been copied by a million
indie devs, critically acclaimed by reviewers, and held up as one of the best games ever
made, it wasnât a huge hit at the time. And the Metroid franchise was essentially
put on ice. Weâd have to wait eight years for the series
to finally return, on GameCube. Luckily for us, though, something quite similar
came out in the intervening years. That's right! Next time on Boss Keys, we're putting the "vania" back
in Metroidvania, heading to Draculaâs Castle, and exploring the world design of Castlevania:
Symphony of the Night.
Although he mentions infinite bomb jump as an unintended technique, it's actually shown in a title screen attract mode demo, but only if you've already beat the game in a save file.
https://youtu.be/QsIBLOx12KU?t=4m52s
Glad he got rid of those mirrored edges on the side of the gameplay clips that he tried using in the first episode. They looked terrible.
I always enjoy Mark's videos.
Question:
When Mark started Boss Keys with Zelda series, he stated it was building up towards a GMTK episode utilizing the research gained in the Boss Keys series. Is that video still incoming or did Mark decide that Boss Keys already said everything he was planning originally?
Now I understood S. Metroid's appeal.
The first half acts as a great invisible tutorial, guiding you linearly, and as soon as it opens up (which that too happens organically), you are equipped enough and experienced enough to face the non-linear segments.
That explains a lot of explanation based games.
As always, a great video by Mark. I was expecting it to be a bit too derivative like his Dark Souls video, not offering many (if any) new insights, and while his observations aren't groundbreaking in any way, his way of structuring it makes it all click differently.
I want to focus on one of his arguments, and disagree with him a bit: how Super Metroid becomes truly great once it lets you off the chain, so to speak, right after the Power Bombs. While this shift Mark identifies here does happen, I have a personal dislike for exactly this moment not only because it led to some major frustrations in two of my playthroughs (once as a kid, then when I replayed the game many years later for the first time): There's only one correct path forward, with the rest leading only to nonessential upgrades.
You need to use the Power Bombs in the long corridor that really requires the use of the Speed Booster for the first time. And while it is true that the game drops you down into this section when you run through there, showing you that you have to use the Power Bombs here, this moment is not as distinct as, say, the entrance to Kraid's room (another argument made by Mark). This one, small, bombable surface that's like many others is the only way forward, and it is easy to forget that it was there in the first place, especially since now practically the whole game is â or at least seems â open to you. The correct place forward, in my opinion, needed to be more visually distinct. Even better, there should've been more correct ways forward.
If you, like me, find out that you can bomb the tube that leads to Meridia, you can get lost in a slow underwater section with no Gravity Suit, thinking its the correct way forward because the tube breaking apart was visually distinct, as is Meridia, and you can make progress â to a point. But you will reach a dead end eventually, leaving you even more disoriented and frustrated. Why doesn't this section in Meridia lead to a critical path, for example, and why is it only that one section that you may have last visited many hours ago that is the 'correct' one to visit?
This is, to me, what makes Hollow Knight such a spectacular Metroidvania, and the best of its kind when it comes to non-linear level design. Much like Super Metroid, you have a pretty guided first few hours, until you reach a very specific and visually distinct point: The City of Tears, the statue of the Hollow Knight, and a clear goal marked on your map. From there, it feels like you can go wherever, whenever. However, unlike Super Metroid, every direction you take feels important and like the right decision. Non-essential secrets in Metroid, like Missile Upgrades, actually feel non-essential; getting lost for a while only to find this as a reward at another dead end is not motivating, its deflating. In Hollow Knight, even if you don't find a huge new power, you'll find a new technique, or a great charm, or pale ore to upgrade your weapon. Every path forward, essential or not, throws either a platforming challenge or a boss at you and gives you a unique â and rare â reward for it. It's spectacularly well done.
That is, to me, the Metroid franchise's biggest flaw it still hasn't fixed (when it's as open as Super Metroid), making every path feel truly like the right one to take. After playing Hollow Knight, I think it would be best for the franchise to lower the number of collectibles, but make them bigger and more worthwhile. Instead of 5 more missiles per tank, make it 50 and hide them behind a mini-boss â now traversing the map feels easier than ever before, and you feel like a bigger badass for heaving explored the world on your terms, not worrying about where to go to make progress.
Instead of moving on to analyze Symphony of the Night, I wish Mark's next video was an analysis of the level design in the original System Shock. It's surprisingly familiar to Metroid, albeit more restrictive and utilized within a 3D space with a first person perspective. It was released the same year as Super Metroid whereas Symphony of the Night came there years later.
Very excited for this video series and this one in particular. What amazes me most about Super Metroid is that back then it was a masterpiece and way ahead of its time in a ton of ways, to the point where modern successors are only now starting to overtake it in design. Even the initial takes in the indie revival of the genre two decades later still didn't do much more than ape this game.
But beyond that as the video notes, it's taken on a second life in speedrun and other scenes using techniques both intended and unintended. The hidden techniques they intend in the game (infinite bomb jump, wall jump, shinespark) allow you to access a ton of areas earlier than you would on a normal playthrough. Other minor glitches allow you to accomplish even more than that to the point where a low % playthrough of the game is frankly ridiculous. A lot of that was designed, but it's a testament to the game design as a whole that it could encompass that much.
I have been watching too many speed runs and metroid randomizers. everytime he would say "its currently impossible to do this" I keep thinking "bullshit".
This was the video that made me so excited to see him talk about Metroid next. Super Metroid is probably the first game I can recall playing (Or rather, watching my Mom play and then get too scared of the Space Pirates to play for more than a few minutes) and it evokes such a sense of wonder and also intimidation that was unlike the bright and cheery games that also defined my adolescence. It's still one of my all time favorites and despite it being confusing to navigate at some points, the open nature of the game halfway through is what puts it above most other games in the series.
Also, I can't wait for him to talk about Hollow Knight. I finished the game two days ago and it's sky-rocketed itself into an all time favorite. Removing the nostalgia I have for Super Metroid, I would say it does just about everything Super Metroid does a great deal better. Hollow Knight is such an open game that there's probably thousands of different orders you can go through the game in. Not to mention the story is intriguing enough to keep you going and the areas are absolutely GORGEOUS. Seriously, I was so sad that Cuphead became the indie darling when it came to beautiful art-direction rather than Hollow Knight. Cuphead is amazing visually, but Hollow Knight's world design is on a whole other level.
Here's hoping he talks about Symphony of the Night as well as the La Mulana and it's recent sequel. Both are great examples of Metroidvanias that do things in their own way while still keeping what makes the genre so good. I didn't even consider he would cover games outside of the Metroid series this season, and now I'm excited to see what interesting games he'll tackle.