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Super Metroid is an action-platform game that primarily takes place on the fictional planet Zebes, which is a large, open-ended world with areas connected by doors and elevators. The player controls Samus Aran as she searches the planet for a Metroid that was stolen by Ridley, the leader of the Space Pirates. Along the way, the player collects power-ups that enhance Samus's armor and weaponry, as well as grant her special abilities such as the Space Jump, which allows her to travel far distances. These abilities allow Samus to access areas that were previously inaccessible.

The game introduces several new concepts to the series. Among them are the ability to enable and disable weapons and abilities in an inventory screen, and a Moon Walk ability, named after Michael Jackson's dance move of the same name, which allows Samus to walk backwards while firing. The game also features the ability to combine Samus's weapon beams. In addition, the save system from Metroid II: Return of Samus returns in Super Metroid, which allows the player to save and restart the game at any of the save points scattered around the planet. The player can also save the game at Samus's gunship, which fully recharges her health and ammunition as well.

Super Metroid takes place immediately after the events of Metroid II: Return of Samus, and begins with a narrative by bounty hunter Samus Aran. Samus describes how a Metroid larva hatched from an egg and immediately imprinted upon her, believing her to be its mother. She brought the larva to Ceres Space Colony, where scientists learned that they could harness its power. Just after she left the colony, she received a distress call and returned to find the scientists dead and the larva stolen. The game begins as she follows the leader of the Space Pirates, Ridley, to the planet Zebes, where she searches for the stolen larva in a network of caves.

Along the way, Samus defeats four of the Space Pirate bosses, including Ridley, and arrives in Tourian, the heart of the Space Pirate base. There, she encounters the Metroid larva, which has now grown to an enormous size. It attacks Samus and nearly drains all of her energy before it realizes who she is, and then departs. Samus recharges her energy and confronts Mother Brain, the biomechanical creature that controls the base's systems. Mother Brain nearly kills Samus, but is then attacked by the Metroid larva, which drains it of its energy and transfers it back to Samus. Mother Brain recovers and destroys the Metroid in retaliation, but is in turn destroyed by Samus with an extremely powerful weapon created from the energy given to her by the Metroid. Afterward, a planetwide self-destruct sequence begins, which Samus narrowly escapes.

Super Metroid was released by Nintendo in Japan on March 19, 1994, in North America on April 18, 1994, and in Europe on July 28, 1994. The game was later released as a Virtual Console for the Wii in North America on August 20, 2007, in Japan on September 20, 2007, and in Europe on October 12, 2007.[14] It was given near-universal acclaim, receiving an aggregated score of 96% from Game Rankings, making it the website's 9th highest-rated game. When the game launched in Japan, GamesRadar noted that it was released "at the wrong place, at the wrong time". Struggling against more commercially popular games, such as Donkey Kong Country in 1994, along with the launch of the PlayStation and Sega Saturn video game consoles, Super Metroid sold poorly in Japan. With the help of strong marketing from Nintendo, Super Metroid sold better in North America and Europe. However, all three games in the Metroid series up to that point did not reach the level of commercial success that both the Mario and The Legend of Zelda series reached, leading Nintendo to stop creating new games for the series, until the release of Metroid Prime and Metroid Fusion on the Nintendo GameCube and Game Boy Advance, respectively, in 2002, eight years later. A year after the game was released, Nintendo placed it on their Player's Choice marketing label due to its critical success, despite its poor sales.

Super Metroid received several awards and honors. Electronic Gaming Monthly named it Game of the Month for May 1994, gave it an Editors' Choice award, awarded it as the Best Action Game of 1994, and named it the Best Game of All Time in 2003. In IGN's yearly Top 100 Games of All Time lists, Super Metroid was ranked 3rd (2003),10th (2005), 4th (2006), and 7th (2007). GamePro listed Super Metroid as one of the 15 Retro Games for the Wii You Must Play Super Metroid has had a lasting effect on the video game industry. The Castlevania series of video games borrows elements from Super Metroid, leading to the term "Metroidvania". Because Super Metroid gave players awards based on how long it took them to complete the game, it has become a popular choice for speedruns, a style of play in which the player intends to complete the game as quickly as possible for the purpose of competition.

The former British video game publication Super Play, which had three editors review the game, also enjoyed it. The magazine's Zy Nicholson noted that the game was better than his favorite game, Mega Man X, describing Super Metroid as "more of an experience than a game". Comparing the game to the 1986 film Aliens, Nicholson felt that the game was best experienced when played in the dark with the volume turned up. He found the game so compulsive that he was tempted to play "without eating or sleeping". The publication's Tony Mott named the game's atmosphere its best aspect, calling the game a mix of Turrican (1990), Aliens, Exile (1989), and Nodes of Yesod (1985). Appreciating the game's controls, Mott applauded Nintendo's ability to create a refined gameplay. He concluded his review by calling Super Metroid "undoubtedly the best game I've played this year so far", predicting that anyone who plays the game would be "playing a game destined for classic status". The third reviewer, James Leach, agreed with Nicholson and Mott that Super Metroid was what Mega Man X should have been. Concluding his review, Leach wrote that Super Metroid contained everything he looked for in a video game: "playability, hidden tricks, powerful weapons and steamingly evil baddies". After summarizing the reviews, the magazine's verdict was, "We all love this game. Super Metroid is absolutely marvellous and you should own it."

Chris Slate of the Game Players video game magazine thoroughly enjoyed Super Metroid, claiming that it "easily lives up to everyone's high expectations". He was satisfied with how Nintendo mixed complex gameplay with "state-of-the-art" graphics and sound. Slate found the newly added auto-mapping feature, which charts the player's progress through the game, something that players really needed, noting that it was the only feature in Super Metroid that the original Metroid should have had. Concluding his review, Slate stated, "Action fans can't afford to miss Super Metroid. [...] You'll want to play through again and again even after you've beaten it." Nintendo Power mentioned that the game "may well be the best action adventure game ever", calling it the "wave of the future". They praised the game's graphics, sound, and controls, while their only negative comment was, "Even 100 megabits of Metroid wouldn't be enough." In Electronic Gaming Monthly's review, they praised Super Metroid's graphics and dramatic plot, complimenting the "crisp and clear" controls, and applauding the many weapons available. Lauding the game's length, Electronic Gaming Monthly noted that the game "certainly does [Metroid] justice". Their only criticism was that the game's size felt smaller, and the magazine concluded its review by claiming, "Overall, no one should be disappointed with this incredible game." GamesRadar was pleased with the game's "phenomenal" soundtrack, complimenting it as "one of the best videogame scores of all time"

IGN called Super Metroid's Virtual Console version a "must-own", commenting that although the game was released nine months after the Wii launched, they felt that it was worth the wait. For players who have never played Super Metroid, IGN claims that they owe themselves as gamers to "finally find out about what you've been missing all these years". In his review for GameSpot, Frank Provo found it "absolutely astonishing that Nintendo let 13 years go by before making Super Metroid readily available again", but considered the most important thing was that players "can now play this masterpiece without having to track down the original Super Nintendo Entertainment System cartridge or fumble with legally questionable emulators". Despite admitting that the Virtual Console version was essentially "nothing more than a no-frills, emulated version of a 13-year-old SNES game" that was no longer cutting-edge, he was still pleased with it and reiterated his belief that Super Metroid is "one of the best 2D action adventure games ever produced".