It's Offical: Super Metriod's Creators Vote to Save the Animals

If you've ever watched one of the fabulous "Games Done Quick" charity streams, you're aware that on top of all the speed running, people use donations to vote for character names, special exhibition streams, and for streamers to do certain things in-game. And one of the most popular contests every year is the vote to either save or kill the animals in Super Metroid.

Let me explain: in the final stretch of the game - after you've beaten the final boss - you have to speed your way back to your ship to escape a massive explosion. But while you're on your way out, you can take a quick detour to use your super beam to destroy a wall, letting all the animals that were trapped on the planet escape (somehow) before you make your explosive exit. Some people say that the almighty frames are more important than the animals lives, while others say that speed is no excuse to let these poor animals die in a world-ending eruption. The vote for one or the other is always hotly contested.

Well, director Yoshio Sakamoto and composer Kenji Yamamoto, speaking with Nintendo on its official website, talked about saving the animals. And while they didn't bring up Games Done Quick specifically, their opinion on the matter of save-vs-kill animals was unambiguous.

There may also be people who played Super Metroid before who don’t know about that. I hope they will play the game again and help those creatures!

There you have it. Everyone who votes to kill the animals do so with the expressed disapproval of the game's creators themselves. As if they needed any other reason to be called monsters.