Super Metroid Appreciation Station

[SecretAsianMan]

Um...no! That sounds weird. I didn't get taught to wall jump, I just accidentally did it a couple of times and realised it was a thing.

 

There are two sets of animals in Super Metroid that teach you hidden techniques.  Their names are Etecoons (3 little imp like creatures) and Dachora (the ostrich creature).  Etecoons teaches you how to wall jump and Dachora teaches you how to shinespark.  You can encounter them in hidden areas of the game.  They teach you the technique by doing it themselves first and encouraging you to follow.  There's also a secret ending to the game that involves them.

After you defeat Mother Brain and the escape countdown begins, there's a room you can revisit on the way to your ship.  If you enter it, you'll find the creatures inside running around.  You can then blast the wall open and give them a way out.  In the ending, just after the planet explodes, you can see a small shining spot that indicates they managed to escape.  They're also an important plot point in Metroid Fusion.

 

This secret ending is the entire basis behind "Save/Kill the Animals" at every Games Done Quick marathon.  The room where they're located isn't on the most direct path to your ship, thus it takes extra time.  There's always a bid war for the Super Metroid runners to either save them or let them die, with the difference being a few seconds on the run.  This past AGDQ was the first time that "Save" won.  Over $200k was raised by Save/Kill alone, including a last second $10k anonymous donation that pushed "Save" over "Kill".

[Sno]

Beyond those, and beyond various well known glitches, there are also tons of other weird tricks in Super that aren't really useful in any particular context, but are kind of fun to play around with.

Try charging your beam and then switching to a morph ball while the beam is charged, for one.

Even less useful - to speedrunners at least - are the secret beam combo attacks, where you have to go into your inventory and disable all the beams except for a combination of the charge beam and any one other. (Also, yes, you can selectively enable and disable power-ups.) Then switch to power bombs as your sub weapon, but don't go into morph ball mode, simply charge up the laser to spend a power bomb on a powerful special attack.

 

[SecretAsianMan]

Even less useful - to speedrunners at least - are the secret beam combo attacks, where you have to go into your inventory and disable all the beams except for a combination of the charge beam and any one other. (Also, yes, you can selectively enable and disable power-ups.) Then switch to power bombs as your sub weapon, but don't go into morph ball mode, simply charge up the laser to spend a power bomb on a powerful special attack.

 

 

Actually there is one beam combo that was part of the route for AGDQ.  The wave beam charge combo is used to kill Phantoon (the ghost boss of the Wrecked Ship) extremely quickly, but it requires rather precise usage.

 

One of my favorite hidden techniques is the Crystal Flash.  It requires you to have less than 50 energy and no reserve, and at least 11 power bombs, 10 super missiles, and 10 missiles.  You have to hold L, R, the weapon button, and down on the d-pad while placing a power bomb.  The bomb will explode and then engulf Samus in a white ball and refill her energy at the cost of weapon ammo.  The technique is shown in the attract mode but there aren't any instructions in the game itself on how to perform it.  The four power bomb beam weapon combos are also shown in the attract mode.

 

 

Another neat trick is a technique known in the speedrunning community as the 'mockball'.  It involves moving forward, jumping in the air, then quickly going into morphball mode and holding forward before hitting the ground.  If done correctly, Samus will continue to move at the same speed she was before entering the morphball.  This does not involve activating the speedbooster.

[Badfinger]

It's so cool that so many of the "hidden" tricks you can do are developer-intended interactions. Super Metroid you're the best.

[eot]

If you let the game sit on the title screen for a while it goes into a demo mode that shows off a lot of those things.

[Sno]

Take a second and think about the fact that Super lets you disable and enable equipment at will.

Instead of a fairly straightforward progression of beams, Super has to support every possible combination.

There's a reason the GBA games got rid of equipment toggling.

[SecretAsianMan]

Take a second and think about the fact that Super lets you disable and enable equipment at will.

 

 

I really love that its in the game, I just wish it actually played a role beyond very specific edge cases.  In a standard playthrough, there's zero reason to turn anything off besides just wanting to mess around.

[SecretAsianMan]

Actually there is one beam combo that was part of the route for AGDQ.  The wave beam charge combo is used to kill Phantoon (the ghost boss of the Wrecked Ship) extremely quickly, but it requires rather precise usage.

 

 It's actually a good example of just how right and wrong the tactic can go.

[Griddlelol]

So thanks for the help, I managed to keep going, and killed the two bosses then stopped.The second had a mechanic that I figured out by chance from dying like 100038972983 times to it. I thought the actual mechanic itself was good, but I didn't like how there was no single clue to tell you how to do it. I only figured it out by trying to shoot everything and anything which isn't really how bosses should work in my opinion. 

Grappling the single electric thing and electrocuting the boss to death

[Merus]

Yeah, that's an Easter egg. You can also beat the boss by filling her with missiles like everything else.

[Griddlelol]

I guess I kept missing then. She moves in a weird way that I wasn't used to and didn't notice her changing colour or anything. Plus it was awkward to switch back to the blaster to try and destroy all the glue, so I assumed I was doing something incorrect and gave up on that tactic.

[eot]

The boss fights are what I like the least about Super Metroid. Particularly Kraid, I can never do that fight without getting hit a ton.

[SecretAsianMan]

Kraid has a tricky quick kill.  If you shoot enough super missiles into his mouth at the start, you can kill him before he's even finished rising from the ground.

 

I dislike the spore spawn mini-boss.  It's not really hard, just annoying because you have to keep waiting for him to open his big dumb mouth.  There's a way you can skip the fight entirely if you get super missiles early.

 

[Bjorn]

You guys are making me want to play Super Metroid. 

[GavinTheAlmighty]

The boss fights are what I like the least about Super Metroid. Particularly Kraid, I can never do that fight without getting hit a ton.

 

For me it's Phantoon.  I don't know if it's random or what, but I always have the most trouble with that fight.  The spiraling flames from his eyes hit for so much damage, and they just never seem to stop!

 

Kraid has a tricky quick kill.  If you shoot enough super missiles into his mouth at the start, you can kill him before he's even finished rising from the ground.

 

I dislike the spore spawn mini-boss.  It's not really hard, just annoying because you have to keep waiting for him to open his big dumb mouth.  There's a way you can skip the fight entirely if you get super missiles early.

 

 

Is it part of the normal progression of SM to get the Super Missiles before Kraid?  I honestly can't remember at this point.  I could never mockball to save my life - I'm just not that good with the timing.

[coaxmetal]

I would like my appreciation of super metroid known, as it is one of my favorite games of all the games. I like to replay it every few years, the last time I did was about a year ago and what really struck me was how well it does atmosphere, and how well that holds up. I don't think many games of that era tried to create atmosphere at all, at least, not that I can think of. 

 

I also quite like both of the GBA metroid games, but have never been a big fan of the other metroid games, including the Prime games. I know a lot of people love em but they didn't do it for me, didn't evoke what I liked about the 2D ones, I guess.

[SecretAsianMan]

Is it part of the normal progression of SM to get the Super Missiles before Kraid? I honestly can't remember at this point. I could never mockball to save my life - I'm just not that good with the timing.

 

In the normal sequence, beating the Spore Spawn will get you the super missiles (hence why the door in the picture is green).  I don't totally remember either but I'm pretty sure you encounter it before Kraid.  It's hard to remember the "correct" sequence after watching so many speed runs.

[eot]

Yeah, you need the super missiles to destroy that sneaky wall that leads to Kraid. If you miss the Brinstar map room you can easily get stuck there, as there's nothing indicating that particular wall is destroyable other than the revealed map showing an unexplored area beyond it and there's no way for a first time player to backtrack to the map room.

[Sno]

You guys are making me want to play Super Metroid. 

You should play Super Metroid, it is completely natural to want to play Super Metroid.

 

 

I really love that its in the game, I just wish it actually played a role beyond very specific edge cases.  In a standard playthrough, there's zero reason to turn anything off besides just wanting to mess around.

 

It would have to be a very, very different game to make that work. It's kind of one of the weird things about Super though, that it has more ideas than it has need for. It's kind of overstuffed, but it's actually still keenly aware of what it is, and the things that needed to matter are absolutely the things that matter. It very easily could have felt bloated, but instead there's just all these weird little edge-case quirks around a very solid core.

You have to wonder why the game is like that though, the GBA games prune out all of that peripheral weirdness.

[GavinTheAlmighty]

Yeah, you need the super missiles to destroy that sneaky wall that leads to Kraid. If you miss the Brinstar map room you can easily get stuck there, as there's nothing indicating that particular wall is destroyable other than the revealed map showing an unexplored area beyond it and there's no way for a first time player to backtrack to the map room.

 

Wow, you are totally correct - barring some crazy wall-jumping skills and physics exploits, there's absolutely no way to get back to the map room once you drop down that long red chamber leading to the energy refill station/Spazer in Lower Brinstar.  I had no idea!

 

I do recall that wall that leads to Kraid now, right by the elevator.  

[JonCole]

Count me in on the wanting to play Super Metroid thing. Kinda considering doing a Metroid marathon since I also bought Metroid Trilogy today for the Wii U.

[SecretAsianMan]

I almost used my Club Nintendo coins on Super Metroid, but it was pointed out to me that it's the Wii version, which means I'd have to play it on my Wii U in the Wii emulated mode with a classic controller, which I don't have.

[Twig]

You'd get a cheaper price on upgrading it to the Wii U version, though, right? I think that's how it works.

[BusbyBerkeley]

Yeah, it's $1.50 to upgrade a Wii VC game to a Wii U VC game.

[SecretAsianMan]

What does that do?  Does it mean I can play it on the gamepad?