"The Invisible Hand of Super Metroid"

[personitis]

http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/HugoBille/20120114/9236/

I ran across this about a hour ago and gave it a read. Being from Gamasutra (since we've had someone from there stop by here for an article) it caught my eye and, while reading it, it opened my eyes to a lot of things I didn't notice before effectively blowing my mind. Granted the article is a year and a half old by now and was previously posted in the Z-Factor topic by Shadow96, if you haven't read this yet, I highly recommend it.

I :<3: Psychology.

[Quietus]

I agree with most of the article, and agree that the designers did a wonderful job of guiding players, but there were still some very dud sections as well.

Firing Super Missiles at the wall to access Kraid's lair is unlikely to come to most players for some time, as it's not been done before this stage.  Only when leaving Spore Spawn's area do you use them on a block, but it's used on a very obvious block, which stand out from the scenery since it has an obvious tunnel behind it.  Similarly, using a Power Bomb on the glass tube is not made obvious to the player.  Then there's the Gravity Suit's protection from lava.  It's never known, and isn't something that a player is likely to test, so the entrance to Ridley's lair can be out of bounds for some time.

Oddly enough, I felt that there were more things that could have been mentioned in the article, but weren't.  The heavy Grapple usage through Maridia, which can be followed by using it to wipe out the boss; the ability to escape sandpits in Maridia if you're unable to jump out of them; the Plasma Beam room, which locks you in with invincible enemies, and can only be escaped once you've collected it.

Either way, it's still a great article. :^_^: