It’s been a while since we’ve had a Community Review that I feel like I’ve been able to properly take part in. Outside of Luigi’s Mansion 2, I haven’t really had time to check out any of the big new releases, and that was compounded by the fact I didn’t find any of them interesting. But this weekend I bought Super Metroid for 30 cents. 30 cents. And then I played it, remembering why this is one of the greatest games ever made.
I’d like to focus my thoughts on playing Super Metroid on the Wii U specifically, but if you guys and girls just want to talk about Super Metroid in more general terms, please be my guest!
It’s bizarre, but playing Super Metroid on the Wii U has sort of convinced me that the Wii U actually has a place in my life; a space in which it fits.
Previously my Wii U was literally gathering dust. After a quick burst of Nintendo Land upon its release, I hadn’t touched it since. I had high hopes for it — I wanted to love the Wii U for its ability to let me play while my wife was watching TV, or while friends/family were over using the TV for something I didn’t care too much about. This happens quite frequently in my life, so I hoped the Wii U would work as a solution to this problem.
But yeah. No games.
Or no games I really cared about.
I care about Super Metroid. I care a lot. When I first bought it my first instinct was to play it on the big screen but it looked terrible. Instantly I looked down at the Wii U controller and thought, ‘this is how Super Metroid is supposed to be played on the Wii U. The screen size was perfect. I plugged in some headphones, retreated to a corner of the living room and, as conversation continued in my living room, I pressed ‘mute’ on the world and disappeared into one of the most engrossing experiences video gaming has to offer.
Super Metroid on the Wii U was a genuine revelation for me. It gave my Wii U a new lease of life. It’s essentially being used as a handheld, but the screen is just a little bit bigger, and it’s being used just a little bit differently. Super Metroid has made me feel that if Nintendo just bring the right games to the console, and the right games to the Virtual Console, I might still get some serious use from my Wii U.
Comments
19 responses to “Community Review: Super Metroid On The Wii U”
Super Metroid is in my top ten of greatest Video GAMES EVAHHHH!
(I don’t own a Wii U)
The series has gone downhill for me as they’ve added more and more text etc.
The sheer simplicity of an opening movie and a silent ending is awesome.
I miss those days, just let the pictures tell the story, don’t bog me down with a tonne of text 😀
This is one of the only games of the SNES generation I missed and am now playing it for the first time. I absolutely love it. The sheer difficulty of having to find out how to do things myself rather than have my hand held like just about every game of the last decade. I was really disappointed by the XBone and it made me think that Perhaps Nintendo is the last console maker which is focussing on tht which I love most – games. I don’t care about new ways to watch tv, I just want great games (I don’t consider BLOps to be great). I was worries about my wiiu but I am now getting excited because I know the next Nintendo Direct is going to dish up details on new games that I want.
As a previous owner of all systems, I am strongly considering building a purely gaming-only PC to run parallel to my Mac and WiiU. I feel like I will experience the best games of the next 5 years with that setup.
I think you are onto something here. Sure the Wii U is copping a lot of flak at the moment and at this point I’m still not entirely convinced to get one, but Nintendo has always been a company that put its focus on games and usually a unique twist on playing them (Maybe the former is not exactly focused as much as they should be though but that argument is for another time)
So what if their newest console wont be as powerful as the PS4 and Xbone? The Nintendo 64 was on cartridges when PS1 and Dreamcast moved to CDs but alot of people revered the N64 as one of the best consoles of all time.
I too am considering moving to PC, at least just to play Steam games when they stop making 360 games and getting a Wii U when i believe its worth owning (an official Earthbound release is a great start)
I just feel like MS doesn’t know me as a gamer, if they ever did. I have thoroughly enjoyed my (7th) 360 but I don’t really like the move towards an entertainment device. I already have Foxtel iq and fta tv so why should I care about overpriced movie and tv ‘rentals’? Or the ads I have to put up with on the service I pay for?
My PS3 was just a Blu ray player. I lost interest in it when psn was down for a few months, then my Blu ray laser died and Sony refused to replace it unless I stumped up $186 (less than 2 years old). There was no acknowledgement that its a widespread issue and they refused to come to the party like MS did with the RROD. I could have bought a new ps3 for that price! So I just traded it in against my wiiu. I don’t think Sony really understands me as a gamer either, hence my intention to move towards the PC.
I’ve been thinking the same lately. I’m the sort of person that cannot help buying shiny new things, but this next gen (console wise) seems to be missing the point. I’ve always had console and a good PC. I’ve got a very good PC these days and Steam is just getting better and better. Big Picture mode is great and most PC games can be bought for a fraction of the cost if you shop at greenmangaming, game-lane etc. The PC really is so versatile and Steam is making it easier than ever to jump on board.
As for Nintendo, they are going in their own direction (as they have been doing for a long time now) and once they get their big exclusives on the machine, more people will jump on board. With a bigger install base there’s a chance for even more unique and original titles that take advantage of the Wii U game pad. When the other 2 consoles are released around Christmas, Nintendo may actually have the best lineup going around….assuming they can get Pikmin 3, Mario Kart and the 3D Mario title out in time. Add in the VC and eShop titles and the Wii U will be killer. PC + Wii U is looking like a good combo. I’ll probably get a PS4 at some point for the Sony exclusives and PS+.
That being said, if Microsoft’s claim to bring 15 exclusives with 8 new IP’s in the first year is true, I might be convinced to buy the Xbone. But if its just more Gears, Forza, Fable etc and the 8 new IP’s are just Kinect Games, I think I’ll wait a few years until they are cheaper.
In the exact same situation as you Mark. Super Mario World, Super Ghouls n Ghosts and Super Metroid are all I’ve played on it and all while wifey watches Deadliest Catch. Those Virtual Console games are the saving grace of the Wii U.
I just want 30c SMW!
Yeah, over $10 was a bit steep.
One thing to try when you have company around is to play a couple of the competitive Nintendoland games, if you have a couple of wiimotes lying around.
With everyone on board, the luigi’s mansion, mario chase and animal crossing games are a blast.
You’re very lucky Mark 🙂
While my wife is awesome and is very understanding that I need my alone time to play games, and she allows me to do that, when we have visitors over is where she draws the line. Regardless of whether they are using the TV to watch something I don’t care about (which is most things on TV) or whether they are just sitting around in the loungeroom (where the main TV is) talking about something I don’t care about, if I try to retreat into the study to play on my computer, she’ll come in and tell me to stop being anti-social.
I don’t own a Wii U but it would be the same case if I did and I tried that strategy of yours, because she’s pretty quick to jump on me if I ever pull out my phone or tablet and look at it for more than 30 seconds in the same situations.
She does let me play games in most other situations though, so I can’t really complain, but when visitors come around, games (especially solo games – may get away with a multiplayer game that involves the visitors) are a no-go zone.
I’m playing it for the first time after being a fan of Metroidvanias for a while and playing the later games in each series. Some things are obviously a bit dated which is not the fault of the game but it just takes some getting used to since I’m familiar with later and more refined mechanics.
I’m liking the whole save state thing too (more slots would’ve been nice). It means I can start and stop whenever and I can save state just before a series of annoying grapple points so it’s less frustrating when I mess up.
Whenever I play an old school game that has save states implemented (or if I play on an emulator), I tend not to use them too much in that way. I consider that to be “cheating” in a way so will only use a save state at points in the game where I would ordinarily be able to save the game at normal save points.
That probably defeats the purpose of save states, I know 😛 They are handy for those times when you kinda need to drop what you are doing though.
I totally agree, but they are a life saver in many many ways.
It is fantastic to be able to just drop the game at any point, and also great for games that did not have saves at all (Mega Man X)
I’d argue that games that had no saves at all were designed that way. Putting saves in after the fact makes the game far easier.
I’m pretty sure it was a hardware limitation that worked it’s way into being a ‘thing’ for some series, but it’s clearly not a reasonable design choice by today’s standards, ever done a full MMX run? Your first time is going to be 3-4 hours
I think this shows that if Apple released standardised button attachments for the iPad, the handheld and TV-connected console wars would be instantly over.
This is such a false assumption by so many people.
Nintendo last year has one of their worst years of recent history with 9 billion dollars worth of sales. Rovio, makers of Angry birds, had their best year ever with 121 million dollars in sales, and about 150 million including advertising and merchandise.
In number of units mobile gaming is huge, but the games sell for $1 on average. Console games sell just as many units at $60. There is no way mobile gaming could support the budget of a AAA quality game right now.
I got it for 30cents and was really looking forward to it but being the slower 50hz AND having foreign subtitles on screen killed it for me. I was hoping for the faster 60hz version or even the ability to turn sub titles off.
REAL TALK – what are you NNIDs.
Back in my day, a save state was leaving a console on for several days and hoping to god noone touched that power button….
I got it on my Wii, but got stuck and never progressed that far. I beat Kraid and I have no idea what happened after that. I’m probably a bit on the younger side so I don’t play a lot of games that give you so little guidance. But after playing Skyward Sword and Pointer-Follower-RPG-X, it’s nice and refreshing to go back to something where you have more liberty to explore the game at your own pace.