Hyper Metroid is a Super Metroid fan hack by RealRed. In an Alternate Universe, Samus Aran settles down with her husband, Adam Malkovich, on a peaceful space colony. However, disaster strikes when Space Pirates destroy the colony, massacring everything in their path. Samus is the sole survivor of the disaster and tragically loses her child soon after. Samus goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge as a result, wiping out the Metroids on SR-88 after she learns the Space Pirates seek to weaponize them and leaving one infant Metroid alive to lure them out into the open. After Ridley takes the bait, Samus follows him to Planet Zebes, seeking to put an end to the Space Pirates once and for all.
This hack focuses on exploration. The goal is to unlock 15 gates to allow the player to access Tourian and kill Mother Brain. There are many paths the player can take through Zebes to achieve this goal. The map and ammo system have been overhauled and some quality of life changes made to the original Super Metroid engine.
The hack can be downloaded here.
Hyper Metroid provides examples of:
- Adaptational Angst Upgrade: While Samus's life was never pleasant, this game adds on to the horror by having her family massacred by Space Pirates again when she tries to settle down and leave the bounty hunting life behind.
- Adaptational Jerkass: In this universe, Samus deliberately let the Baby Metroid go unsupervised to lure the Space Pirates into capturing it for their experiments and has very little attachment to it otherwise.
- Adaptational Job Change: In this universe, Samus isn't a bounty hunter but rather the former lead engineer of an Earth colony. Her mission to wipe out the Space Pirates is completely personal.
- Adaptation Relationship Overhaul: In this game's universe, Samus and Adam were married.
- Crapsack World: There seems to be no Federation to keep the Space Pirates in check at all in this world. The end cutscene describes the Space Pirates as ruling over the universe and no one assigns Samus any missions.
- Desperately Seeking A Purpose In Life: Samus's fate at the end of the game has her head out into the vastness of space, looking for meaning.
- Escape Sequence: This game, like most Metroid games, has one. It's notable for being extremely long; the timer for completing it is 10 minutes.
- Ghost Ship: The Wrecked Ship returns in this hack and is just as populated by ghosts.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Samus's motivation in this game is revenge for all the hurt the Space Pirates have piled onto her over the years, precipitated specifically by the death of her husband and miscarriage of their child as a result of the Space Pirates' most recent attack.
- Schmuck Bait: Samus leaves the Baby Metroid on an abandoned space colony to lure Ridley into stealing it and bringing it back to the Space Pirate homeworld. Predictably, he takes it.
- Shipshape Shipwreck: The Wrecked Ship is partially submerged in this version of the game but is not much worse for wear compared to the original.
- Turns Red: A variation; Red Metroids are genetically enhanced Metroids that take even more ammunition to kill than the originals.
- Underwater Base: Tourian is underwater in this universe's Zebes, making it one.
- Universal Ammunition: Unlike in most Metroid games, this game's ammunition is universal, mitigating some of the frustration in the original Super Metroid about the wrong ammo dropping.
- Vengeance Feels Empty: Even after ridding the universe of the Space Pirates, Samus can never regain the family she lost and feels empty and lost.
