How was Super Metroid made?
Two studios, one motorcycle, and the biggest cartridge the SNES had ever held.
Super Metroid began in late 1991 with a problem: R&D1, the series’ home, was committed elsewhere. Nintendo brought in Intelligent Systems to build the game alongside them, put Yoshio Sakamoto, the original’s character designer, in the director’s chair, and Makoto Kano in the producer’s.
THE BUILD
1991 to 199424 megabits
The finished game shipped on a 24-megabit cartridge on March 19, 1994 in Japan, the largest Super NES game of its time. The size bought six large, dense regions of one continuous Zebes.
The humming composer
Kenji Yamamoto composed much of the score by humming themes to himself while riding his motorcycle to work. Minako Hamano composed alongside him. The brief, inherited from Hip Tanaka, was dread first and melody last.
Release order
Japan first, on March 19, 1994; North America followed April 18, Europe July 28. In Japan it was the ninth-best-selling game of its year. In the West it landed late in the console’s life, to raves and restrained sales.
The handover
Super Metroid is the moment the series changes custodians: Sakamoto, a designer on the 1986 original, directs here and then directs or produces nearly every 2D Metroid that follows.