SuperMetroid: --I fail at leaping! Help! ;w;

[Dragonheart91]

Actually, I watched videos and read all about Super Metroid to the point that I felt like I had played it, but I never did until after I had played everything else. (Except Echoes and M2 because for some reason I can never track down either at a low enough price.)

It looked amazing and reading what everyone said convinced me to finally buy it. But, once I did, I was INCREDIBLY disappointed. I was used to Fusion, Zero Mission, Prime/Corruption, or hell even the original. All of those had better controls than Super Metroid. The ridiculous button inputs and finger contortions required to play were astounding and the stupid ability shuffling required to beat bosses confounded me. Everything about it is counter-intuitive and even things that should be simple like wall-jumping and bomb-jumping become a pain in the ass because everything controls poorly and feels jumpy and low friction at the same time.

Yes the exploration is good, and yes there are a few good cinematic events in it. Heck, even the graphics and music are incredibly memorable. But, the controls are so incredibly awful that it really ruined the experience for me. The game was not any fun. A great example of this is the simple problem that the OP has here. What should be a simple jump requires you to hold down a direction and a button while pressing another button with correct timing, and all of this is just to jump over a gap. (And heaven forbid if you should have to try and shoot an enemy while doing a sequence like this. It's like playing Twister with your fingers.) Sure it's easily doable after a few tries, but why should jumping over a hole in the ground require multiple tries. Shouldn't that level of effort be reserved for actual item collection and/or bosses? Don't get me wrong, this game isn't terribly hard. (On normal settings.) It's just frustrating for all the wrong reasons.

And something else that is a personal pet peeve of mine is all this fanboyism over Metroid: Redesign. It is basically just Super Metroid with a much bigger map and greatly increased platforming challenge. Super Metroid is NOT a platformer and turning it into one is a terribad idea. Between the borderline broken controls and the mediocre -at best- physics, Super Metroid wouldn't even make my top 1,000 platformers list. Metroid is about atmosphere and exploration. The fact that it has some good shooting segments and boss fights is a great bonus. (You could remove all of the fighting and make it a pure avoidance game and still come out with Metroid and have it be fairly fun IMO.) The platforming has never taken center stage in a real Metroid entry for good reason.

[mowan259]

Yep, I agree the controls and character physics are better in Fusion/ZM than they are in SM. Of course, SM was the "first" of the genre, so it's hard to fault it for that.

And all that said, SM still has the best ambience and mood out of all the games IMHO. Super Metroid's content is epic; it's hard to say the same about ZM and Fusion.

[Opium]

Super Metroid has the best controls and physics in the entire series, imo. They made Samus super agile, allowing for a large number of special tricks - many of which weren't even anticipated by Nintendo. Unfortunately, unforeseen things like that are viewed as mistakes on Nintendo's part, and that is why we haven't seen controls that loose on any game since.

[VGMStudios]

^ seriously! The controls are tight and precise. Its the first in the series to have these types of control, and I think they did a pretty good job. I actually thought Fusions controls and the way Samus moves was horrible. And if you are having a difficult time jumping over a simple gap in the game, there something wrong with the player, not the game.

VGM out...

[mental]

I've never had much trouble with Super Metroid's controls for essential moves, although walljumping and chained bomb jumping are a lot harder than I like. The default button mapping can also be a bit thumb-breaking, but I'm fine if I remap the buttons so that I can more easily hold run while doing other things.

Edit: I wonder if this is a generational thing? I mean, my first game console was one of the home Pong clones that proliferated in the 1970s; each controller had only a single analogue knob and no buttons -- and I liked it. Uphill barefoot in the snow both ways and all that.

[Ridley-R-Awesome]

I didn't have much trouble with the controls either BUT I played Super Metroid on the Wii VC the first time. I used a gamecube controller. That might have made a difference.

This might be a generational thing. I am one of the youngest people around here (I'm 16 now). I grew up with the consoles that used joysticks more than the D-pad (N64, Gamecube). I found SM's controls a little clunky in the beginning, but when I got used to it I was running through Zebes like I was playing Smash Bros (and I'm pretty good at those games ).

I guess some people have a harder time to get used to a game's controls.

[mental]

A great example of this is the simple problem that the OP has here. What should be a simple jump requires you to hold down a direction and a button while pressing another button with correct timing, and all of this is just to jump over a gap.

For the record, having to do a running jump to cross a gap is a pretty standard thing for games of the era and even the era before (c.f. Super Mario Brothers, even). It's only fairly recently that game designers decided that having a separate "run" button wasn't worth it.

[RoyboyX]

I think the running isn't as fluid as it could be.

[Angel of fire]

Yeah, as I have the virtual console SM, I also have to strain my fingers. It's not that bad, just irritating at times.

[Darkus Triforce]

did dragon heart just say the ORIGINAL metroid had better controls than super?!?!?!?
DragonHeart, i feel sorry for your poor taste in video games.

[Vesko]

I didn't have much trouble with the controls either BUT I played Super Metroid on the Wii VC the first time. I used a gamecube controller. That might have made a difference.

This might be a generational thing. I am one of the youngest people around here (I'm 16 now). I grew up with the consoles that used joysticks more than the D-pad (N64, Gamecube). I found SM's controls a little clunky in the beginning, but when I got used to it I was running through Zebes like I was playing Smash Bros (and I'm pretty good at those games ).

I guess some people have a harder time to get used to a game's controls.

That's kinda weird actually, considering I'm 13 and my first console was an SNES. Actually, I try to view every controller these days as an SNES hybrid.

[Azure Dragonius]

I didn't have much trouble with the controls either BUT I played Super Metroid on the Wii VC the first time. I used a gamecube controller. That might have made a difference.

This might be a generational thing. I am one of the youngest people around here (I'm 16 now). I grew up with the consoles that used joysticks more than the D-pad (N64, Gamecube). I found SM's controls a little clunky in the beginning, but when I got used to it I was running through Zebes like I was playing Smash Bros (and I'm pretty good at those games ).

I guess some people have a harder time to get used to a game's controls.

That's kinda weird actually, considering I'm 13 and my first console was an SNES. Actually, I try to view every controller these days as an SNES hybrid.

Same here. If I want a new controller for, say, my GCN, I try to find a good one. Namely, Wavebirds and the original controller.

[Opium]

I've experimented with Super Metroid's control scheme for years, and finally settled on the follwing configuration using a Logitech Dual-Action Gamepad:

L1-dash/x-ray
L2-Aim diagonally down
R1-rapid fire (optional, you could just as easily fire manually)
R2-Aim Diagonally up
Select-fast forward (so you dont have to listen to the fanfare every time you obtain an item)
Start-Map/Inventory screen
X-Item select
Y-Item Cancel
A-Fire
B-Jump

[Azure Dragonius]

I've experimented with Super Metroid's control scheme for years, and finally settled on the follwing configuration using a Logitech Dual-Action Gamepad:

L1-dash/x-ray
L2-Aim diagonally down
R1-rapid fire (optional, you could just as easily fire manually)
R2-Aim Diagonally up
Select-fast forward (so you dont have to listen to the fanfare every time you obtain an item)
Start-Map/Inventory screen
X-Item select
Y-Item Cancel
A-Fire
B-Jump

That's only if you emulate it, though.

That fast-foward button's a boon.

[Opium]

I think it's safe to say that the game is so old now that most of the play its been getting is via emulation. This might not be true since the VC release, though. Besides, the SNES console practically sucks compared to ZSNES and Snes9x. The number of enhancements the player gets via emulation are vast - not sure why everyone focuses on the relatively few options which grant an advantage in finish time (TAS features). Being able to fast forward, enhanced graphics filters, recording - none of those particular features give the player an otherwise 'unfair' advantage over console.