Base: Super Metroid · SNES · 2011 · Exploration Overhaul
Creator: SBniconico
A hack that rebuilds Super Metroid as a retelling of the original Metroid, importing Zero Mission's physics into the SNES engine through extensive assembly modification.
Metroid: Super Zero Mission, released in 2011 by the hacker SBniconico and updated as recently as 2021, is one of the most ambitious Super Metroid hacks ever completed. Its concept is a fusion: it retells the story of the original Metroid — and of its Game Boy Advance remake, Zero Mission — using Super Metroid's engine, its controls and its far richer toolkit. The technical work goes well beyond level editing. Substantial assembly modifications were made to the game's code in order to import mechanics from Zero Mission that Super Metroid simply does not have: the ability to restart a spin jump while falling, and shinespark chaining among them. The result plays mostly like Super Metroid but moves like a later game, which is a genuinely strange and satisfying combination. It is also brutally hard in places. The difficulty spikes sharply on arrival at the Space Pirate Mother Ship and Chozodia, and again in Tourian, and achieving 100% completion is notoriously punishing — one particular Missile Tank in Tourian is widely held to require essentially every advanced movement technique the game engine permits. A more accessible variant, Metroid: SUPER-SPEED Zero Mission, was subsequently produced to broaden its reach.