LogFAQs > #894296937

At the very least, Nintendo seems to have learned its lesson from Other M, where the perfectly reasonable action of running back to a known save-point, completely screws up the game.
http://metroid.wikia.com/wiki/Pyrosphere_door_glitch

Blatantly railroaded Metroid games may well be a thing of the past. SR is linear because it's a remake of a linear game, but it doesn't really push "foreward only" outside of a few small sections.