Another essential element in Super Metroid's success was its phenomenal soundtrack. Game musician Kenji Yamamoto made his debut to create a wonderful soundtrack, that to this day, is still regarded as one of the best videogame scores of all time.

Game magazines of the day praised Super Metroid's beautiful graphics and no-punches-held gameplay, dealing out perfect scores as if it were the Bioshock of its day. Super Metroid is still included today as one of the best games ever made in Top 100 lists across the world.

Unfortunately, the third instalment never did shake off the series tradition of releasing at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

Struggling under immense competition from the pre-rendered loveliness of Donkey Kong Country and the upcoming launches of the PlayStation and Sega Saturn, Super Metroid yet again bombed in Japan.

Strong marketing from Nintendo of America saw increased sales in the West... but not enough to stop it being overshadowed by the other releases of 1994.

And for Metroid that was three strikes - and it was out. All three games had failed to reach the stellar expectations created by the success of Mario and Zelda, and unfortunately in those days Nintendo wasn't too big on funding franchises solely for a Western audience.

Metroid was shelved. After the third game was released R&D1 and Intelligent Systems' worlds were turned upside down. The teams struggled terribly through the Nintendo 64 era, the Virtual Boy killed off half of its resources and founder Gunpei Yokoi - whose influence negotiated most of Metroid's internal funding - left the company and was later tragically killed in a car accident.

A total of six long years past before there was any further sign of Samus...

Intelligent Systems reportedly considered continuing the series on Game Boy Color, but decided against the idea under the logic that it wouldn't be able to surpass Super Metroid on the handheld's dated tech.

Then general manager Shigeru Miyamoto eventually claimed that ideas for a Nintendo 64 Metroid were being pushed around inside Nintendo and according to rumours a project was even started by the reunited Shikamaru team and swiftly canned.

But Metroid wasn't anywhere near the top of Nintendo's priorities. With the Pokémon boom gripping the world, the only chance fans got of controlling a 3D Samus was in all-star Nintendo fighter Super Smash Bros.

But the general public made their wishes known through the internet and at industry trade shows and eventually, pain-painstakingly they finally got what they wanted...