Super Metroid was the third game produced in the Metroid series. Metroid producer Gunpei Yokoi oversaw the project, but owing to him being busy with designing the Game Boy Pocket and Virtual Boy, Super Metroid was produced by Makoto Kanoh, who had devised the original game’s storyline. The game’s early planning began in 1990 with Nintendo’s Nintendo Research & Development 1 (R&D1) headed by Yoshio Sakamoto. [Info from Wikipedia] Looking through old screens from the game’s previews, we can notice some changes in the development.

The Samus sprite had some differences in the beta version (top image) as you can see from this comparison with the final version (below). In the early build the graphic for Samus was simple and later Nintendo decided to make her more detailed; even the ship seems to have a couple of differences, but it’s hard to tell for sure.

The beta Samus sprite from the side

Final: 

The battle with Ridley looks almost the same (with beta Samus sprite)

Beta:

Final: 

Beta Hud (Map & Energy in different position)

 Final Hud

Beta

 Final 

Even this old screen of the Zebes map looks a bit strange (different colors / missing names), but i could be wrong and maybe it’s just like the final map at the start of the game. If you can confirm or deny this, please send us an email!

Beta Map?

Final Map

More random beta images:

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Tags: action adventure

This entry was posted on Friday, July 4th, 2008 at 10:30 am and is filed under NINTENDO, SNES. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.