Super Metroid Game Study #1

Here we go; my first 2D Super Metroid game.

Intro cut scene

I don't usually study the intro cut scene but just... it sets the tone.

What the intro cut scene did for me personally and keep in mind, I had background noise playing as I listen to this;

1. It grabbed my attention with distractions going on around me, why did I have distractions going on around me? It's simple, a good beginning can grab my attention; an amazing beginning can grab my attention through the distractions.

2. Set the mood that this is going to be horror.

3. The creepy piano music along with the other musical elements setting in, soft, not trying to jump scare you like modern horror.

4. The menu for the beginning tells you EVERYTHING that you need to know (I think anyway). This beginning is much better than Axiom Verge 1 & 2 combined. This is a chef's kiss on how to open a cut scene.

5. It didn't rely on dialogue to grab your focus. It did the show, don't tell method!

This is one of the best beginning cut scenes to a game I've seen!

Save file select

The save file select having the Samus head look at you.

Story

Mother defeated after an attack, a Metroid in stasis.

A cut scene shown, giving some context so it's fine to do some telling here to show the kind of threats you'll be dealing with.

The Metroid given to a bunch of scientist after seeing how the creature was shown not to be a threat. That Samus being told it'll be used for "good" yeah, sure. To be fair, this was done before the trope was done so often but my guess it's not actually used for good but I could be wrong.

Samus tells us that she went to a distress signal. This gives context which is good, wish it gave us more of her personality.

It does show a cut scene of her going to the said station.

To note; I wish the scene used more of the show of images than just text to tell us, I consider the info from the pictures were more than enough to tell us what was going on and could've used a bit more visuals to do so.

None of the less it's good they did a show at the very least.

End of note.

Style of gameplay

Slower, taking your time and  setting in a sinking feeling.

Combat Gameplay

Goal of the combat gameplay; to make you feel out numbered and out matched with enemies feeling smart as you're set in an ambush and caught off guard. Your weapons not being strong and being limited.

Gun 

Fast small projectiles, you can angle shots. The projectiles make an impact on the wall creating a small explosion.

You can only have a few of these shots out at a time.

Held shooting is slow firing.

Weapon switching; you have to wait a second before you can switch your weapon for the given shot changing type!

Missiles (weapon switch)

Fast, hit hard and go boom!

The angled shooting has so far made my encounter with the green guys less and less of a scary encounter.

Enemies during gameplay

It feels kind of underwhelming to go from a boss fight that was difficult to enemies that did an ambush on Samsus, that was the great part! Then go to enemies dying to me in one hit...

Two enemies back to back die to me in one hit.

This feels like a whiplash when you go from Megaman X where enemies take a bunch of shots to kill to enemies that require one shot to kill expect for bosses.

Enemy number 3 small moth; dies pretty easy

Enemy number 4 Mama Moth; moves quick, hard to kill and is what I was suspecting with the enemy design! It uses your lack of mobility against you! Granted I am hoarding my missiles.

Enemy number 5 un-killable beetle; sounds like what I said, you can't kill it, nor slow it down.

Enemy number 6; drill bug; the beetle creature drilling down and moves towards you trying to hit you before it buries itself into the ground!

Movement Gameplay

Goal of gameplay; making each part play it's role how it's supposed to.

Jumping; the jump is insanely high and has an insane amount of control you can perform for the said jump.

Spin jumping; I could just be feeling as if the jump is different but truly feels different when you hold the jump button and move a direction for the amount of distance you're given for the actual movement, only by a small amount however.

Jump and spin jumping movement are slower than just running on the ground.

Morph ball; the morph ball you're not able to jump and roll around in said form.

The morph ball seems to be faster in movement.

Exploration Gameplay

You're given a map system that you have to slowly build as you're going through the game. Now I like this system for space games, not for things like Terraria.

The levels are designed around your abilities and to force you to use your given abilities and to give them a purpose, even when you don't need them to be used but to give a purpose to them in the first place so they're able to be justified and not just limit areas you can explore.

The game gives you two upgrades back to back which is strange but it makes sense if you got lost like me, for the average player who didn't get lost however, this is going to be a quick hit of dopamine.

Red doors take five rockets, you're given 5 rockets to fire. The game forces you to realize that you can't waste resources which is entirely smart on the game, though I already know the game let's you have up to 99 (correction, it's 230) rockets which it would've worked better if games like these gave you less rockets you could hold.

The game gives you more resources than your average space horror game but at the same time takes more away from you it would seem.

When shooting the red doors they flicker to blue implying that you're chipping away at the door.

The said room only gave me missiles -_-;

The exploration of the levels in of themselves are good at taking agency from you.

Correction; the doors stay blue once the red is broken off of them!

When jumping up when you see the said enemy you have it for the said encounter where I realized the enemies can fire out an attack! The encounter here in the vertical hallway making me realize I have to be careful when going up and be prepared.

Using the player view/ lack of being able to see show multiple steps/ multiple parts to a problem! The example being at first you can see you need the morph ball to go down the tunnel, only to go further to find out; you need another ability! That is perfect!

Third upgrade

Okay this could be because I'm an adult and I am breezing through this, not counting the notes I am taking along the way but it does give way too many upgrades for the amount of time you're spending going through the game.

Energy tank

When getting my first energy tank exploring that I had the "aha!" moment and saw that the wall was breakable, went to said area; explored it, got myself killed and picked up the energy tank the second time around and didn't explore said area.

The game does slowly get more hostile and I do slowly get less wary over time considering said area had a missile loading station to give you more missiles.

Missiles (I don't know why I thought it was an upgrade)

Ok I have been playing for an hour and the number of upgrades I've gotten in an hour is a bit much right now, and let me guess; boss fight, right? I would love it if that's the case because the other enemies, barring the area I stumbled into seem to be push overs.

Okay to be fair; you shouldn't have the pedestal guys holding a plain old missile container darn it!

Back tracking

These kind of games require a lot of back tracking, I now understand why the Roguevania genre was made now.

Asymmetry design

Even the most simple things like what's around the door isn't kept the same as to make sure nothing is mirrored for details and info and keeping each area unique in how it looks.

Desire to use abilities

The game actively wants you to use your abilities and to think of times when to use them. This is missing from a lot of modern games.

Enemy surprise encounter!

Turning an area that was originally safe, after traveling back from being disappointed by only getting the same amount of missiles back to open the door only to have faced off against the enemy for the given encounter along with the green space goo that was flying around being gone!

Enemy ambushes with being overwhelmed does seem to happen rarely as to keep you on your toes. That going into this as a game designer, that really isn't the case for me seeing that I saw this next encounter coming a mile away, it's not the fault of the game; it's why modern games use RNG based encounter systems for ambushes for enemies filled inside the room.

The surprise encounter with the boss wasn't much of a surprise for me because of the same design elements used for catching the player off guard where used just like in the Ridley fight. However the average player is going to be caught off guard by this and even be encouraged by this to make sure to stock up on health before going into an encounter with the boss.

Similar set up each time

Okay; this isn't bad but having it where you know where you're supposed to go and rinse and repeat the same set up of right away get the player to test out their new toys, I get it but I'm just not that big of a fan of it.

I could just be tired of it after playing for over an hour but it's not poorly designed I would say. However when you've been one shotting enemies all of the game it's just "meh".

Sound design

Shooting sound reverb

Missiles sound hard hitting

Enemies

Green guys; creepy

Music

Music #1. Creepy, unsettling, letting yourself be set with little to no noise but some ambience of sound.

Music #2. Creepy, horror, quire sound with the drums hitting (once your first encounter hits).

Art style

Sci-fi horror

A change of detail to make it seem like Samus is breathing when in all reality she is just having colors change on her armor, a nice illusion to look like an animation, could use some work but I'm sure it looked better for the original.

The sound design and empty rooms building up on the horror aspect with the cryptic and bizarre architecture of the levels settle you in for what you're able to encounter.

Cracked rocks that shown they're able to be broken and the newly colored rocks are shown from where new rocks were made.

Enemies seem to be animals (so far only mythical animals) and bugs.

Bosses

Ridley; a giant space dragon that towers over you, honestly feels like something I'd see in a fantasy RPG game. This took 1 attempt to beat.

Boss 2 Statue Alien; This took 4 attempts to beat.

Both bosses had a calm before the storm happen for the fight then the boss music kicked in of the "oh shit" moment. (and to think just when I thought it was getting to easy)

What makes them harder is in other games (more modern games) air movement is faster, not slower than the ground movement where the boss is trying to keep you in the air.

The bosses are much more aggressive and in your face in these kind of games, even compared to Axiom Verge where they want to be away from you shooting at you.

Boss 3 Spore Alien; this took 2 (only because I didn't realize I could sit in the corner to win)

The out thinking of the boss and with the annoying projectiles I can see why many people who talk about game design for these games only tackles things like the first boss because this boss was "meh" with the fact of sitting in the corner and jumping out to fire missiles at it.

That again; the over abundance of missiles and now being given super missiles has kind of "meh" it. I get the fact the gameplay is jump and shoot, I don't hate it just under whelming when you breeze through the bosses.

We went from a tough boss like the 2nd boss to... this.

Enemies

The aliens looking foreign and yet still human in design with their arms being far different.

Animations

Animation are kept to a limited degree for characters and for actions making it easier to do things like keep details consistent for aiming and movement.

Turn sprite

Angle up every 8 direction

Shoot

Fire

jump

Level notes

The Metroid is shown to be gone, the scientist killed.

The levels are kept very empty so far for enemies.

Areas are given distinct visuals and obvious markers for where you can and can't go.

The middle vertical hallway shown for the red door being shown to the opposite side versus the blue door with trying to go through the blue door showing that you can go through blue doors but not red ones. This is important because the faster you can teach the player important info the better.

The level design being combined with your first upgrade.

Beginning area Space station

For the top beginning area where your ship is you have it where to the right is blocked off for things you can't break, this forces me into the direction of going left.

Heading to the lower area

The going lower area being shown for where you defeated mother brain.

Lower area on planet (beyond the first elevator)

The first elevator and showing the creepy cave system for what's going on for the given areas you're traveling through and down.

Notes on level design and your weapon

Most of the level design makes use of your weapons to encourage you to use them it would seem. The idea being your weapons are given a purpose outside of combat as well, this changes the gameplay loop where a lot of the level you won't encounter an enemy.

33 minutes into the game and only encountered 1 enemy and that was a boss fight.

Boss fight

First boss fight Ridley

Ridley having a tail to hurt you if you're close up with it whipping around, the fire balls being spit out from it's mouth.

Upgrades

A single playing when you get it, a heroic sounding affect, the area forcing you to use your morph ball when you get it.

The name given to the upgrade when you pick it up with being told with info by the level design that you'll be using this said upgrade to escape the area.

Difficulty

For the difficulty it spikes in sections, mostly with the boss fights; the enemies are easy to beat once you understand their behaviors/ actions.

The bosses on the other hand are the most complex and given the best attacks in the game. Most of the time and effort were of course put on the bosses.

Player notes

I am an idiot; I am not used to having to shoot down at the said blocks in question.