Retro Reviews

I thought it would be fun to have a thread where we could post our own reviews for retro games. I enjoy writing them, and I enjoy reading them. So, please, if anyone wants to post a review about a game, (I’m thinking more retro games since most of the current games get their own thread) feel free to.

Before I go on, I just want to explain real fast my rating system. First, I like to go on a % scale for certain categories of the game then give a final score. For me, %50 is average, and %100 is NOT perfect, since nothing can be, so it just means that it ranks up there with the best for that category. Anyone else, please feel free to rate things however you want.

I’m not going to get real in depth about every detail in a game, and I’m certainly by no means a writer, so please don’t expect to be wowed by my literary skills!

My first review I would like to post is for the SNES classic, Super Metroid!

Released in 1994, Super Metroid was the sequel to the Gameboy’s Metroid 2. It continued right from Metroid 2’s ending, where Samus ended up with the last, newly born, Metroid. I’m guessing most of us know this by now, so I’m going to dive in to my own rating of the game.

Gameplay- %97

There really isn’t much to complain about here. Samus controls almost perfectly. There’s a lot of things crammed onto the SNES control pad, but it all works pretty intuitively. The only reason I knocked off %3 is that some things get tricky with her more complicated moves, like wall jumping.

Graphics- %90

I have no genuine complaints about the graphics. The mood is eerie and atmospheric. The animations are done well and the bosses can be massive. However, I just can’t say they were the best out there at the time. This was my own perspective, I just recall thinking the game looked good as a whole, but no one screen really blew you away.

Sound Effects- %85

The sound effects were all decently used and serviceable. They had something “Nintendo” about them that’s hard to describe. What I will say bad is that it had the terrible trait of some other Nintendo titles where, if your energy was really low, a constant noise could be heard to let you know. Thanks, but I don’t really think I needed that.

Music- %85

A quick note I want to make is that I truly value a good soundtrack in a video game. So, I give music its own category separate from sound effects. I’m also particularly hard on them, so an %85 like I’m giving here is pretty good.

The music in Super Metroid, is for the most part, excellent. The tunes get stuck in your head and fit the areas really well. They really helped build the atmosphere. I suppose my main complaint is that, since it had a relatively small amount of tunes, there just wasn’t much variety, and there were a few that, while added to the environment, really don’t stand out.

Value- %100

This kind of a special category I like to use. What I mean is how much content is in a game for your money. Even if the content in a game isn’t really enjoyable, I would count it towards the value of the game.

For Super Metroid, there’s no shortage of things to do and find. There are people who could blast through the game in under 3 hours, but how enjoyable that would be I can’t say. I generally like to take the games slowly and explore every pixel. It took me about 12 hours my first time to beat this game. By 1994s standards, that was pretty good unless we’re talking RPGs. And then I may have only found about %65 of all the power ups possible. I am sure I’ve spent countless hours searching for every last damn missile power up to get %100.

Overall Entertainment- %98

There were few games I thought you could take more entertainment from. Metroid’s style of finding power ups that allow you to explore further into an alien planet was ingenious and I’m still kinda surprised how underused the premise is. The Metroid series was really unique in that way, and Super Metroid pretty much polished it up to near flawlessness.


Well, that about wraps up my first little review. This was a pretty glowing review. Next time, if anyone seems to be interested in the thread, I’ll make a review about something I’m not so crazy about.

That's a good review. The wall jump makes me want to stab people. Not really, but it is a bad control problem.