How do I do the wall jump in Super Metroid?

Solution 1:

There is a trick to the timing, that I only just discovered (after having played this game for years).

When jumping towards the wall, you do not push away and jump at the same time (which would make sense). Instead, you have to push away from the wall, and then push jump, about 150-250 ms later.

The trick is to watch for Samus's sprite to change from somersaulting to this:

The instant you see that sprite, push the jump button.

Solution 2:

Maybe it'll help to look at it from this angle: "What is one of the most common pitfalls that causes you to screw up walljumping?" In my experience, once you accidentally hit up or down on the D-pad, you lose the ability to walljump. So be careful to ONLY push left and right.

Once I adopted this habit, I found I rarely ever screw it up anymore.