Stumbling through Super Metroid - Part 1

[davidn]

Having now just about reached a point where I'm no longer utterly sick of the sight of Powerdirector, I've decided to open a new semi-grand project in the form of an extended Stumbling Through of Super Metroid.

This was inspired by the game suddenly landing in the hands of a large number of stupid people via its release on the Virtual Console, which led to a load of posts on Twitter by idiots who can't get past the first obstacles. Or so it seemed - to prove or disprove this, I decided to play through the game myself to see if I could do any better. Wish me luck.

In this first episode, I learn the backstory, bumble around finding my feet, and then get eaten by a fishbeast.

http://youtu.be/bYskLMl1jS8
To disclose fully: I have played this game before, but it was in fifteen-minute bursts on a train on the way in and back from work, and consequently I could never remember what I was supposed to be doing or where I had been or where to go next at any time. Just about everything that I see this time around honestly seems new to me.

Comments

[dr-dos.livejournal.com]

Honestly in retrospect I'm unsure how the point of no return became a point of no return. There are very few places you can go from there. I'm wondering if it was just the 2 day rentals since that's the only way I played it as a kid.

Watching a blind play is interesting as you do get to see everything you've been taking for granted. It's been years now since I've played this game without doing a "speedrun" of it, with plenty of sequence breaks. Then getting frustrated at the horizontal shinespark to get to the wrecked ship without the grapple beam that is annoying as usually where I end up quitting.

[kjorteo]

So far, I'm finding this fascinating and impressive at the same time; it's interesting to watch what happens when someone plays this game without the mechanics knowledge I've been taking for granted for ages, but so far David has been outstanding at figuring it out. There are people who got stuck on how to use bombs to get out of the pit in Crateria where you find the Bombs, and meanwhile David has worked out the color coding on Missile doors, Super Missile doors, and doors that require something else he hasn't acquired yet, without even being able to visually distinguish the latter two without a phone app! He even bomb jumped to get through a narrow passage that was off the ground! I'm so proud :'D

Which reminds me, I have no idea how far David intends to go with this, but I really hope he sticks with it all the way through and finishes the game. The story is incredibly minimal ("Find the Metroid Larva!" is pretty much it, really) but still manages to have one of the better and more memorable resolutions in video gaming history, and the first/opening/intro/whatever you want to call the not deeper part of Maridia is one of my favorite songs of the SNES era.

[davidn]

When I started on this plan I wasn't sure where I was going to stop either, but it's going so well(!) that I think I plan to play it all the way through, yes :)

I found out the bomb jumps by accident, which was sort of nice.