Samus is off-center at the start of Metroid

[jb143]

I'm not sure what the problem with Samus standing like that would be. For a technical reason, it's probably because the character is 2 sprites wide so it's actually lined up evenly with the level that way.

But to answer your question, there's that weird off-center thing going on with the bottom of Mario 2's title screen.

[Aussie2B]

Samus takes up 4 tiles in a 2 by 2 square, so given that the space between the columns (or whatever you wanna call the floating vertical pieces of the terrain) is three tiles wide, she would be off-center no matter what. What doesn't make sense is that there are five tiles to the left of the platform she's standing on and four to the right. If they had just extended the platform one additional tile to the left and adjusted the left column accordingly, it would've been perfect.

The only possible explanation I can think of is that having more empty space to the left might encourage players to go that direction first and thus find the Morph Ball right away.

[fluid_matrix]

The only possible explanation I can think of is that having more empty space to the left might encourage players to go that direction first and thus find the Morph Ball right away.

I could see that, IF it were a spot in the game where little hints might help get past a level. But, you can't even get past the start area without the morph ball. So even if somebody goes right at first, which honestly is the natural direction we all probably went when we first played the game way back when, you'll end up turning around within seconds because of the wall that's in the way.