The Swapper Captures the Essence of Super Metroid

There’s no arguing that Super Metroid is one of the most influential video games of the ‘90s. From Castlevania: Symphony of the Night to Batman: Arkham Asylum to Dark Souls, countless classic titles of the past 20 years have learned from Nintendo’s monumental achievement. But while those three aforementioned games feel inspired by Super Metroid’s design and mechanics, very few experiences have ever managed to capture the same sense of melancholy isolation that we as gamers felt from the moment Samus landed her ship on the planet Zebes.

Well, tucked away in the amazingly-loaded Indie Megabooth at PAX East 2013 was The Swapper, which just might be the closest thing to Super Metroid’s atmosphere that I’ve ever played.

You embody a nameless cosmonaut who, after a silent and heart-wrenching opening, finds him or herself stranded on a desolate space station. Just a few minutes into your 2D exploration of the beautifully rendered, quasi-claymation environment, you stumble upon a device known as The Swapper. This prototype tool allows the user to create up to four copies of themselves, and a bulk of the game revolves around the player utilizing these copies to solve an array of increasingly ingenious puzzles.

Tasks start out as simple as creating a pair of copies to weigh down switches to open a door. These relatively tame obstacles quickly evolve into predicaments that force you to pause the action and come to grasp with The Swapper’s unique grammar. Certain colored lights prohibit you from creating a copy, while others will cause a copy to disintegrate upon touch. And since your copies mimic your exact movements, you’ll need to use careful planning to maneuver through the sprawling space station. But about 30 minutes into your lonely adventure, you’re introduced to a new ability that allows you to swap places with one of your copies. It was at this point that the game opened up on a both a mechanic and narrative level.

Umm...so I guess we should go up?

While I initially viewed this titular mechanic as simply the hook of The Swapper, I soon began to question just what it was that I was doing with these copies of myself. The small team at Facepalm Games is wise to keep the answers to a minimum. Are these projections merely ephemeral products? If so, how do they contain the weight to move objects and weigh down switches? If they are in fact clones of the protagonist, do they contain a soul or any sense of self-preservation? When I create a clone over a chasm and watch it fall to its death, am I watching myself die? When I switch places with a copy in order to escape harm, am I essentially killing myself?

The wonderfully sparse narrative unfolds with shades of 2001, Primer, Moon, and Solaris, which just so happen to be four of my favorite science fiction films of all time. The sanity and backstory of your cosmonaut are left murky, and the consequences of your meddling with nature bring up some interesting moral questions that very few games ever really take the time to ask. You’ll stumble across computer nodes that deliver messages that blur the line between human and AI. And much like Super Metroid, The Swapper does an amazing job of creating an environment that feels like the ruins of some ancient civilization. Samus and her 21st century cosmonaut analogue come across to me as archaeologists trying to piece together the remnants of a once-great society that has long-since become a derelict nightmare.

I had to stop myself after about an hour into The Swapper because I wanted to experience the rest of it on a completely fresh run once it’s finally released. There’s no quicker way to my gaming heart than an experience that crafts an emotional, atmospheric world while delivering mechanics and narrative that treat me like an adult. Anyone who found themselves transfixed by Samus’ lonely journey back in ’93 needs experience Facepalm's brave new world.

Marty Sliva is an Associate Editor at IGN. His goal in life is to bring up the movie "Primer" as often as humanly possible. Follow him on Twitter @McBiggitty and on IGN.

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