I wish I had listened to general fan wisdom and played Super Metroid first. Having played the original Metroid, then Zero Mission, this is my third romp in the planet Zebes, and I'm finding the game extremely redundant.
The original was a little tedious, but I absolutely loved Zero Mission. I appreciated the slightly more linear gameplay. Paired with the manga, it also had a surprisingly good story that establishes Samus as a character. In context with the manga, the Wrecked Ship segment where you lose and then regain your suit is an amazing piece of gameplay-driven storytelling.
And then Metroid II was just as interesting. A completely new horror-esque locale plus a really creepy minimalist storyline that makes you really question the orders forced on you by the Galactic Federation.
So I was expecting a lot more out of Super Metroid. So far, I'd say I'm about halfway through the game. I beat Torizo, the Spore Spawn, Kraid, and the Crocomire. Aside from a really stellar cinematic opening, there hasn't been any plot to speak of, just a nonlinear dungeon to explore without a clear path. I know that in development, Super was meant to just be a 16-bit remake of the NES Metroid game, but was later retooled to be its own game, so that might be why the story feels so barebones?
Everything feels like a rehash of the original. I looked up the wiki and all (Brinstar, Norfair, Crateria, Wrecked Ship, and Tourian) but one of the levels (Maridia) are lifted from the original game, and I've heard that one new level we get is considered the worst one. It feels like a remixed new game+ rather than a full-fledged game that stands on its own, and honestly, I'm bored. It kind of reminds me of what I didn't like about Castlevania after a while, that game after game took place in the exact same mansion.
This might seem a little unfair. Super Metroid came out first, so it might be more accurate to say that Zero Mission is just an asset flip, that it's the less original game -- which is absolutely true, but I played Zero Mission first. And nonlinearity isn't a bad thing at all and it's great for this genre, but since I feel like I've done all this before, I don't feel motivated to discover all of Super's secrets. Does it get any better, or can I skip to Fusion?
TL;DR I played Zero Mission first and read its tie-in manga. Now Super Metroid feels boring because it "reuses" all but one of its areas on the planet Zebes, and it has a comparatively barebones story. Should I keep going or skip to Fusion?
Super Metroid is the first game I really explored breaking the mechanics and routing of progress. Perfectly timed bomb jumps, wall jumps, etc to access areas early and such. I always found that to be neat.
More recently though, Super Metroid was one of the first randomizers and an early popular speedrunning game.
I think that'd why it's maintained a level of popularity not easily seen from the game itself.
Which, in one sense, is definitely cool. I get the impression that Super Metroid is a game with tons of replay value that encourages playing it in a different way each time.
In another way, to make this happen, I didn't think it was very fun for first-time players. Bomb jumping is kind of an awkward mechanic and harder to pull off than in Zero Mission, and finding upgrades seemed to rely more on pulling off complex techniques with perfect timing. I don't remember ever being required to wall jump in Zero Mission or 2. There's so many beginner's traps too, with the one-way doors and the noob bridge. In Zero Mission, I felt like upgrades were more clearly telegraphed to the player, so you could get more of them without using a guide. In Super, it's a lot of bombing random walls and stuff, and the X-Ray Scope feels really limited.
If I got stuck, it would be difficult to consult guides, because many writers seemed to put sequence breaks into the walkthrough as opposed to a "natural" playthrough.
While it might be true that Dread has a lot of "hand-holding" (I don't know because I haven't played it yet), part of me wonders if that criticism comes from experienced players who want a harder challenge than Super that lean even farther into advanced-level techniques. I guess I'll find out when I play it.