Japanese people who had the disk system were treated to this version of the tune, which is the true original.
Despite being the black sheep of the series, Metroid II: Return of Samus gave us some awesomemusic as well...
One of the series most iconic themes is also one of its most awesome: the Ridley Theme.
Super Metroid's title music, probably still the most ominous piece ever used in the series, even after all these years.
In Super Metroid, the "Crateria Theme" makes a dramatic return at a critical point in the final boss battle just after Mother Brain murders the Baby Metroid. There isn't a player alive whose heartbeat, EEG reading and adrenaline release rates didn't all immediately synchronize with the pulsing bass rhythm, prior to blasting the everloving fuck out of Mother Brain with the newly-acquired Hyperbeam whilst screaming the blackest curses in their vocabulary.
Metroid: Zero Mission right after the zero suit sequence. You've been hiding and running from space pirates when suddenly you get your power suit back and it's more powerful than ever. Cue the AWESOME music that makes you feel INVINCIBLE.
Which you pretty much are, at least for normal enemies.
DAMN STRAIGHT!!! You got a Screw Attack + Space Jump combo, a full beam which nearly kills ANYTHING, and whatever lives is frozen! Plus the Gravity suit makes you immune to EVERYTHING!!! Except damage, but it's pretty weak now.
Two remixes of Crateria's Caves in Zero Mission for clever purposes. During the "Solid Samus" portion of the plot, an arrangement similar to the Super Metroid version serves as the "!" music, while a sedate arrangement closer to the Corruption version plays after the guards stand down.
And if you didn't ever get spotted, you got this, which was a remix of this...
Mother Brain's theme song in Super Metroid as she's handing your ass to you on a silver platter. In a game full of brooding slow- to mid-paced tracks, this theme song manages to sound refreshing, if not outright sinister!
Prime took the already cool Lower Norfair and remixed it for Magmoor Caverns and it was promoted to pure Awesome.
Any player who had sat whistling the menu screen music from Metroid Prime was made endlessly happy by the incredible end credits music. And apparently it's in the Dorian scale, too, which makes it all the more awesome.
Glad to see I'm not the only one who whistled to it.
How about the theme for Tallon Overworld? It does an awesome job of setting the mood.
The theme for Flaahgra was glitched in the first US release for Metroid Prime causing it to repeat the first part throughout the whole battle. It wasn't until the normal English version, the Player's Choice versions and Metroid Prime: Trilogy came out until we got to hear how awesome it really was.
I don't see Chozo Ruins on this page. Why don't I see Chozo Ruins on this page? You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Now stop starving your ears.
Possibly because it is quite much Beeps and Boops, or because it was the graphically most awesome level (Tetris flood, glowy things and, for once in all those Metroid games taking place on half-abandoned planets, a massive sprawling city - there's few things not to like about Sanctuary Fortressin Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.
Metroid Prime Trilogy's menu theme is impossibly awesome.
Sounds like a little bit of the Terminator theme at the start too.
I don't see Pinball's version of Brinstar on here. FOR SHAME.
Hunters may not exactly have been the best game in the series, but it did have music that earned it's place with the best of them like the Final Boss Theme and Vesper Defense Outpost.
The Hive Totem battle music from Prime. Short, but oh-so-awesome.
Harmony of a Hunter, a two-disc tribute to the Metroid franchise as a whole. It features plenty of OverClocked Remix veterans, but of particular note is Sam Dillard's Into the Green World, an incredible symphonic remix of Green Brinstar. It doesn't stop there, however...
Sam Dillard's 3 mixes are among the best in the album. Besides into the Green World, he also did a medley of the ending themes, which was so well done that ACTUAL COMPOSERS COULDN'T TELL IT WAS MIDI.
Here are two other greats from the album: Desperation fittingly paints the picture of an heroic escape, while Melting Sun is a touching send-off to Rundas.