Players control bounty hunter Samus Aran, who travels to planet Zebes to retrieve an infant Metroid creature stolen by the Space Pirate leader Ridley.

Following the established gameplay model of its predecessors, Super Metroid focuses on exploration, with the player searching for power-ups used to reach previously inaccessible areas.

Alongside Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Super Metroid is credited for establishing the "Metroidvania" genre, inspiring numerous indie games and developers.

Super Metroid is a 2D side-scrolling action-adventure game,[2][3] which primarily takes place on the fictional planet Zebes from the original game—a large, open-ended world with areas connected by doors and elevators.

[4]: 18–19  The player controls Samus Aran as she searches the planet for a Metroid that has been stolen by Ridley, the leader of the Space Pirates.

[5]: 8–9 Throughout the course of the game, the player can acquire power-ups that enhance Samus's armor and weaponry, as well as grant her special abilities, allowing them to gain access to areas that were previously inaccessible.

[4]: 18  Super Metroid has three endings based on the time taken to complete the game, which determine whether Samus poses with or without her suit.

If the player chooses to rescue the Dachora and the Etecoons, friendly creatures encountered by Samus in the game, they are shown leaving the planet in the distance.

[4]: 5 After defeating four bosses including Ridley in various regions of Zebes, Samus enters Tourian,[5]: 109  the heart of the Pirates' base, and fights several Metroids that have somehow reproduced.

[13] The team wanted to create a large map, but found it difficult to organize the amount of graphic data involved, and so broke it into smaller parts.

Yamamoto decided that rich and expressive sounds, such as a female chorus, would be required to portray the setting realistically.

[23] A soundtrack album, Super Metroid: Sound in Action, was published by Sony Records on June 22, 1994.

[28][29] Super Metroid became available as a Wii Virtual Console game in North America on August 20, 2007,[30][31] in Japan on September 20,[25][32] and in Europe on October 12.

[33] In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, it is also one of the trial games available in the "Masterpieces" section, which uses Virtual Console technology to emulate older hardware and have time constraints.

Slate said that action fans will not miss Super Metroid, but also remarked that due to the large space available to explore and numerous secrets, the players will have to play through several times even after they have beaten it.

[64] Andy Robinson of GamesRadar was pleased with the game's "phenomenal" soundtrack, complimenting it as "one of the best videogame scores of all time".

Super Play critic Tony Mott cited the atmosphere as its best aspect, and described it as a mixture of Aliens, Turrican, Exile, and Nodes of Yesod.

James Leach agreed with Nicholson and Mott that Super Metroid was what Mega Man X should have been, containing "everything I look for: playability, hidden tricks, powerful weapons and steamingly evil baddies".

[57] Edge criticized the graphics and short length, but praised Super Metroid as "intensely playable" and "full of memorable moments".

[44] IGN called Super Metroid's Virtual Console version a "must-own", commenting that although the game was released nine months after the Wii launched, they felt that it was worth the wait.

For players who have never played Super Metroid, IGN claims that they owe themselves as gamers to "finally find out about what you've been missing all these years".

[50] In his review for GameSpot, Frank Provo found it "absolutely astonishing that Nintendo let 13 years go by before making Super Metroid readily available again", but considered the most important thing was that players "can now play this masterpiece without having to track down the original Super Nintendo Entertainment System cartridge or fumble with legally questionable emulators".

[66] In North America, despite receiving critical acclaim, Rus McLaughlin of IGN said that Super Metroid arrived at a time when the lifecycle of SNES platform was coming to an end.

[77] Richard George of IGN also ranked Super Metroid 3rd in its top 100 SNES games, crediting its "flawless action, impeccable level design, out-of-this-world atmosphere, a totally badass heroine and an enormous overworld to explore".

[6][16][86] Jeremy Parish of USgamer remarked that Super Metroid is a "game you can return to time and again and always come away with some fresh insight or observation".

[16][86][88] Super Metroid, alongside Konami's 1997 game Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, is also credited for establishing the "Metroidvania" genre.

[92] Several ROM hacks for Super Metroid were released by fans, which added new features that are not included in the original game.

[93] Super Metroid: Redesign, created by "drewseph" in 2006, features new items, expanded areas and modified physics.

[96][97] Nintendo did not release another Metroid game for eight years, as the series had not matched the success of the Mario and Legend of Zelda franchises.

[16] Yokoi left Nintendo in August 1996, amid the failure of the Virtual Boy, and died in a car accident in October 1997.