I got bored and played through Super Metroid again recently. It's a great game for doing that with because when you're good and have it memorized you can beat it in only three hours or less. Yet it's still fun because it's such an awesome game. I ended up beating it with 100% item collection and 2:06 on the in game clock this time, which is a personal best. I'm a little disappointed that I came so close to being under two hours but didn't manage it, but whatever.
I'm not really one for speedruns. I enjoy watching them but I rarely care to do them myself. In my book, "perfect" has more to do with avoiding damage than doing things as fast as possible, and those two often don't go together. So, like with many other things, I prefer to play games at my natural pace and worry more about avoiding that next attack even though I can easily afford the hit rather than about how much time I'm taking.
Maybe it's because of this, or maybe it's for some completely unrelated reason, but my brother will often say, "Your speedrun!" in an almost agonized voice whenever I go out of my way in games like that. He makes it sound like I was going for the world record and then totally botched it or something. I can't help but laugh every time he does it.
But I digress. Back to Super Metroid.
As you all should know, I have a hobby of making game videos and putting them up on YouTube to show and explain strategies and whatnot. I already have videos for all the major Super Metroid bosses, as well as other games' bosses, but I've been thinking of expanding into full blown video walkthroughs. And if I can beat Super Metroid that fast with 100% item collection, I bet I could make a good 100% walkthrough for the game without having to break it up into too many segments. (Since YouTube only allows videos to be ten minutes long.) So that's what I've been planning as my next project after I finish the last two FFIV Advance boss videos that I have left.
Now, there are already full playthroughs of Super Metroid uploaded on YouTube—I think there's even videos of the world record 100% speedrun—but, just like I noticed with most boss videos, they don't actually explain how to do the things shown in the videos. So while they're good for going, "Whoa," at, they don't really help people much in getting through the game.
What I'm planning to do with my videos is play through at my normal pace (which is still pretty fast and easily manages to get the best ending), focusing on collecting items early to make the game easier and damage avoidance strategies rather than focusing on the most time efficient route. I'm going to write time-stamped notes to go with each video segment so people will be able to watch something, look at when it happened in the video, then read an explanation of how to do it. I've not seen anything like this on YouTube before so, like my detailed boss strategies to go along with their videos, I'm hoping it will be helpful and popular.
