The SNES is widely praised as one of the best video game consoles of all time, mainly because the beloved console had a plethora of legendary titles on it. One of biggest ones by far was that of Super Metroid. This was truly the game that helped propel the Metroid franchise to new heights. And a lot of people worked hard to make it something special, and this included Yasuhiko Fujii, a programmer who went the extra mile for someone in his life when he was working on it.
A recent translation of an old interview revealed that he actually wrote a love letter of sorts to his then girlfriend while making Super Metroid:
“Actually, before the fight with Draygon, the boss of Maridia, there’s a group of Evir enemies that do a little ‘dance’. Their movements actually trace out the letters of a phrase in English, ‘Keiko Love’! Keiko was the name of a girl I was dating at the time. I was busy with work all the time and couldn’t see her much, so at night while everyone at the office sleeping, I stole a moment and snuck that code in!
He was so good at programming it that no one caught it, including those who knew how the game was supposed to go:
That little Evir dance wasn’t written in the planning documents anywhere, so I remember my heart beating fast as I coded it, with the worry of it being discovered… but in the end, no one ever found it out. Now isn’t that a romantic story? (laughs)”
Romantic indeed. And while many didn’t notice the love letter, many did notice how great Super Metroid was, and many Nintendo Switch gamers are hoping for that level of quality with the return of Metroid to consoles via Metroid Prime 4.
