The History of Metroid

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A series that lived in the shadows of giants

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.