Super Metroid - Final Stand is one of those SNES games that just sticks with you. You start off in that eerie, quiet ship—no music, just the hum of machinery—and within minutes, you're dropped onto Zebes with nothing but your arm cannon and a creeping sense of isolation. The way the world slowly opens up as you find power-ups is genius; one minute you're stuck backtracking, the next you're blasting through walls with the wave beam like it's nothing.

The atmosphere is thick—those moody alien caves, the sudden rush of a boss fight kicking in, the way your heart pounds when you barely scrape by with a sliver of health left. And the controls? Perfect. Samus moves with this satisfying weight, and once you get the hang of wall-jumping, you feel unstoppable. It's the kind of game where you'll get lost for hours, but in the best way possible.

If you've never played it, you're in for a treat. If you have, you already know why it's still talked about decades later. Either way, it holds up.