I know that people love this game, and sure, being the first to popularize a great many fundamental aspects of game design as we implement them today is worthy of some admiration. But this is one of those games that has the Seinfeld effect that is only increasingly made more obvious in games because of the interactive medium; in television, the effect causes one to go, "this is what all the fuss was about? I've seen this a million times." Whereas in games, the effect is, "Jesus Christ, I can do this in every other game like this, why won't you just do what I want." And that's the way it is with EVERYTHING in Super Metroid: the wonky jumping collision is nowhere as tight as in something like Ori; the breadth and depth of the world is nothing compared to Hollow Knight; the hostility and overbearing wrongness of inhabiting the space is paltry compared to Overwhelm; the combat is finicky and unsatisfying in a way that Death's Gambit's combat never stoops to (even if you compare the fully kitted Samus vs. the starting outfit of Soren); the cleverness of its secrets are dim in comparison to Blasphemous; its artistic cohesiveness is one note and insipid next to Owlboy. There are other examples, and maybe one could make the argument that each of these games satisfy in one way only over Super Metroid, but I think a big thing in games criticism that diverts away from lit crit. or dance crit. is that games have kind of just gotten better: the way we understand our interfacing with them has become more coherent and expressive, the sincerity with which we promote, talk about, and design them has matured, and the limitations we work under with technology in developing them has become freeing as opposed to frustrating (the little room of Jack White as compared to a creative control contract with Phil Spector). I think Super Metroid is admirable, and impressive, and I wish I'd been able to play it at launch so these little burrs weren't caught in my craw due to modern fingers holding the retro controls - but everything it does well can be found done far better in another game and everything it has to teach designers today can be explained more cohesively in a text book than in the game.