Super Metroid

This page details pre-release information and/or media for Super Metroid.

To do: Two screenshots from the Nintendo E3 1997 press kit CD. Numerous pieces of concept art.

Development Timeline#

1991

• During development of Metroid II: Return of Samus - The scene of the Baby hatching in front of Samus gives some inspiration for where Super picks up from.¹
• Before development begins - Yoshio Sakamoto goes on a business trip to Seattle, where Nintendo of America is headquartered. He gets introduced as the creator of Metroid at stores in a local shopping mall, and peoples' reactions show him how popular Metroid is in America.²
• Autumn - Preproduction of the game begins³, when Makoto Kano asks Yoshio Sakamoto to make a Metroid game for the SNES.

1992

• ~August - Full production of the game begins.
• August - A Gametronix ad in Electronic Gaming Monthly lists Super Metroid among other Super Famicom titles like "Super Megaman".⁴

1993

• June - Issue #49 of Nintendo Power mentions the game in its Pak Watch section.⁵
• "During the final six months of development" - The game's development reaches a very hasty final stage, with developers sleeping at the office and making it smell.
• December 25 - The staff is still working on the game on Christmas night, with Yamamoto angry at how the people on the news channel displayed on their TV are having a good time, and they aren't.

1994

• "Just before the game was complete" - Sakamoto has his wife and children playtest the game at their home.
• January 2 - The team returns to work on the game after New Year's.
• January 6-9⁶ - Super Metroid is shown off at Winter CES.⁷
• January - The game's map is apparently finalized.
• February - The game is apparently finalized.
• March 19 - Super Metroid is released in Japan.⁸
• April 18 - Super Metroid is released in North America.⁹
• June - Super Metroid is released in Europe.¹⁰

Concepts#

Game Development#

The developers on the Nintendo side relied on Intelligent Systems to verify that their ideas for what could be done in the game were possible on the hardware, through programming and art.

Samus Aran#

Yoshio Sakamoto and Toru Osawa cite actress Kim Basinger as an inspiration for the depiction of Samus in this game.

Death Sequence#

Originally, Samus' death sequence had her stark naked for one frame of her dying animation. This lasted "for one second out of sixty minutes", until the team seemingly did a double take and realized how poorly this could go with American audiences, and Tomomi Yamane gave her clothes on that frame. Minako Hamano attempted a voice sample for this scene, but none of the attempts amounted to anything desirable, with Osawa describing the voice as "lewd".

Story#

Metroid II's ending was a direct inspiration for the beginning of the story to Super. Additionally, Sakamoto saw the game as having the series "basically finished", citing the Metroids as "destined" to being exterminated. Doesn't seem like Nintendo ultimately agreed with this, though.

Sound#

Kenji Yamamoto did the game's music. His idea for the opening theme came to him while riding his motorbike home, which caused him to park in the nearest parking lot and verbally record it into his recorder for 10-20 minutes.

ROM Size#

Super Metroid is notable for being the first SNES game to reach 24 megabits (3 megabytes) in ROM capacity¹¹, but it was originally expected by the developers to be half that size. The "high quality music and graphics" ended up expanding this size.

Nintendo Power#

Various issues contain early screenshots of the game.

Issue 56#

Issue 56 seems to show off the same build as the German advertisement for the game.

Samus' gunship has an elevator that is missing from the final.

The Kihunter room before the Spore Spawn fight appears to be in its final state, but the minimap depicts a vertical room instead.

An unknown room in Norfair that doesn't appear in the final game. The minimap is different as well.

While Kagos do appear in Norfair in the final game, they never make an appearance in an area like this. It also appears to be floating.

Issue 58#

Appears to be closer to the final game, with some differences.

An earlier pause screen. The final game replaces Long Beam's slot with the Charge Beam, and the Maru Mari had its name changed to Morphing Ball.

German Commercial#

Watch on YouTube

Seen at 2:31 in the video, and includes a number of clips from earlier builds of the game.

Samus is shown fighting Ridley in Ceres using the Charge Beam, which is an upgrade that's unobtainable until after the fight in the final game. One of the Charge Beam shots is additionally shown vanishing before it can hit Ridley, possibly hinting that the Long Beam from the original Metroid still exists in the game's code at this point in development.

The lava appears to have different graphics than in the final game.

Metroids in an area with Maridia tiles. It might be a test room, as steep downward slopes do not exist anywhere in the final. The Metroids seem to have different mechanics as well.

Spore Spawn's room looks identical to the final with the exception of the Ripper, which isn't present in the final version. It appears to be using Spore Spawn's palette as well.

The map in the top-right has Spore Spawn's room as part of a vertical shaft. In the final, its room is accessed via a long horizontal corridor below.

The Fake Kraid area has a lower ceiling, more spikes, possibly filler tiles, and some "eye" tiles in the fences.

References#