“And, as in the original, you can’t advance until you defeat every metroid, as their lives are linked to the door controls.”

I was thinking that the “as” should be “unlike,” because the doors in the original Metroid require a missile barrage to destroy, as I recall. It’s the only place in the first game where you see those ten-missile orange doors, which, like the red ones, stay gone once they’re defeated. Thus you could theoretically freeze the Metroids and go on your merry way, whereas in Super Metroid, the doors are grey-ish and do that “kill everything and then I’ll open” thing.

On another note, is there any widely accepted explanation as to why the hatchling didn’t evolve into other forms like its brethren in Metroid II? I always wondered that as a kid, but I would assume that the beta radiation thing (which I had forgotten about completely) ties into it somehow, since the native ones on SR388 were just taking nature’s course. Thoughts?