Nintendo's stinking "nap room" for overworked devs haunted legendary Super Metroid director for years: "It’s quite sad only having these kinds of memories!"

Official Super Metroid art depicting Samus spiraling through the air while bosses like Kraid and Ridley look on.

You can't have a conversation about the greatest game of all time without discussing Nintendo's 1994 Super NES classic, Super Metroid. The game's intricate world design, alien atmosphere, and robust play mechanics cemented it as an instant classic, and its reputation and influence have only grown since then. Its development, however, sounds like it was a bit of a nightmare.

"During the final six months of development I didn't know where I lived any more," director Yoshio Sakamoto recalled in an interview for the July 2009 issue of Retro Gamer magazine. We republished that interview in 2021, and portions of it recently appeared in the Mini SNES Companion book packed in with Retro Gamer #287.