8 Wonderful Moments From AGDQ 2017

Super Metroid Rotation

One of the yearly highlights from AGDQ and SGDQ is the Super Metroid race toward the end of the marathon, and while that was great this year too, I wasn’t expecting to see the game also on its side. Earlier in the week, Feral5X performed a run of Super Metroid Rotation, which is just a mod of Super Metroid…on its side. There are a few tweaks to the game to make it doable (as there are a few rooms completely impossible sideways without some touch-up), but otherwise…yeah, sideways Super Metroid. Oddly interesting!

I’ve never played Super Metroid personally, but I’ve watched Super Metroid runs at several marathons past and have been educated as to its difficulty. It’s fascinating to see what challenges are trivialized, and which are made greater, simply by the rotation of everything. For example, a room in which normal Super Metroid runners must perform a treacherous and difficult wall climb is, in Super Metroid Rotation, reduced to a casual stroll along flat ground. You laugh, but then the Rotation runner does some insane wall climbing to get around weirdly-placed ceiling obstacles, and we’re all impressed again.