A strategy guide / walkthrough for... ___ __ __ _ _ _ / __|_ _ _ __ ___ _ _ | \/ |___| |_ _ _ ___(_)__| | ~ SPEED GUIDE ~ \__ \ || | '_ \/ -_) '_| | |\/| / -_) _| '_/ _ \ / _` | 1:35 W/100% |___/\_,_| .__/\___|_| |_| |_\___|\__|_| \___/_\__,_| |_| Author: marshmallow Version 3.3 Long ago, I created a Super Metroid guide. However, I was a young, aspiring FAQ writer with very little experience. The walkthrough was short, not very detailed, and made me look bad. On this day, I return to salvage this guide and attempt to make it the best text-based Metroid guide on the Internet! If it wasn't one of my favorite games of all time, I probably wouldn't have done it. But, fortunately, I consider Super Metroid maybe the second or third best game of ALL TIME. Honestly, I usually power up my SNES and play this at least once a month, just for nostalgia's sake. Well, I've rambled on enough, so I think I better get to work, otherwise I won't get anything done! :p * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * T A B L E O F C O N T E N T S * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Chapter 1 -- "Revision History/Updates" Chapter 2 -- "Legal Disclaimers" Chapter 3 -- "The Metroid Legacy" Chapter 4 -- "Basics" Chapter 5 -- "Items & Power*ups" Chapter 6 -- "Speedy Super Metroid Walkthrough" Chapter 7 -- "Tricks, Tips, & Secrets" Chapter 8 -- "Minor Enemy Characters" Chapter 9 -- "Credits & Metroid Links" Chapter 10 -- "Contact Information" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1) REVISION HISTORY / UPDATES ======================================================================== Friday, March 10th, 2000 (Version 3.3): ----------------------------------------- The third "massive time-saving trick" was added to the chapter titled "Tips, tricks, & Secrets." I also added the person to the credits section. Go eat it up! ;) ************************************************************************ Tuesday, January 11th, 2000 (Version 3.2): -------------------------------------------- Another HUGE time-saving tip was added thanks to Magus (a fellow Super Metroid walkthrough writer). This tip explains how to get the Wave Beam before collecting the Speed Booster or Grappling Beams, and was added to the walkthrough (I also had to change a few things here and there so everything else would make sense, like the missile counts) as well as the secret section (right after the walkthrough section, titled "Massive Time-Saving Trick II".). How I missed this trick is beyond me! :) And, of course, I added Magus to the credits section. ************************************************************************ Saturday, January 8th, 2000 (Version 3.1): -------------------------------------------- I added a large, time-saving trick to chapter seven. It was received from a reader, and I added his name to the credits section. ************************************************************************ Wednesday, December 29th, 1999 (Version 3.0): --------------------------------------------- Major update, to be blunt. Changed the title, re-did practically every section, added a few more, etc., etc. I just wanted to do this game justice, alright? I think I have finally perfected my FAQ set-up, and I'll be using this for all of my future guides. ************************************************************************ Sunday, March 21st, 1999 (Version 1.0): ---------------------------------------- Minor corrections, spell check, and a few things like that. ************************************************************************ Sunday, February 14th, 1999 (Version 0.8): -------------------------------------------- First version released. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2) LEGAL DISCLAIMERS ======================================================================== This FAQ can only appear on the following sites: - GameFAQs - Cheat Code Central - GameSages Why? Because those are the only three sites that can keep my FAQs updated. GameFAQs gets away with murder, though, on account of the fact I send my FAQs there myself. Gamesages is GameFAQs sister site, so they share information. Cheat Code Central is great, because they always seem to have the most updated version without me having to tell them. Great job, guys and gals. This warning also appears in the legal section. I just hate it when people have outdated versions of my FAQs, because I get loads (e.g. 100+) of e-mails telling me to "update my FAQ" even though it IS updated, or they ask a question that has been answered in the new versions, or make additions that are already there, etc., etc. I've had problems with this with other FAQs, and I'm taking steps (e.g. this note) to put an end to it! Here are a few "do's" and "don'ts". Webmasters! Take note... WEBMASTERS -- DO NOT: ---------------------- Post this FAQ on your site directly. The only sites that this rule DOES NOT apply to are GameFAQs, GameSages, and Cheat Code Central, as shown above. WEBMASTERS -- DO: ------------------- If you are a webmaster of a site that wants to post this FAQ, what do you do? As you read above, you can not post it directly. Instead, link to the page at www.gamefaqs.com that lists all the FAQs for this game. Why GameFAQs? Because I said so. To clear up some confusion, you can not link to the URL if it ends in ".txt" or ".doc", you just can't use that. If it ends in anything else, such as the page where it lists all the FAQs for a game, you can link to THAT, but not to the actual FAQ. I'm only repeating myself, but I had to because some people have to be told something twice. If you have any questions on linking, notify me. To answer the most common question I'll get, you can not link to any GameFAQs URL that ends in ".txt" or ".doc" because it's in GameFAQs' legal section. So there. Any characters, names, places, or misc. objects are copyright their respective companies. I am in no way affiliated with Nintendo nor any companies that were/are involved with this game. This document is © 1998-2000 marshmallow All rights reserved ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3) THE METROID LEGACY ======================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------ METROID: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ All was happy in the Galactic Federation of the planets. That is, until something awful happened. A space pirate vessel discovered the metroid alien creature on planet SR388. But this wasn't just any extraterrestrial entity, it was unique in the fact that it could actually suck the energy out of a lifeform and use it as it's own -- this was how it fed and lived. The space pirates took one of the specimens, and returned to their home world, Zebes. They planned to rule the galaxy with them! The Galactic Federation sent in a special bounty hunter, one that was feared throughout the cosmos, Samus Aran. No one knew for sure who resided under the suit. Most agreed that it would have to be a cyborg of somekind, because of its super-human abilities. Samus battled its way through Zebes, the homeworld where the pirates were breeding the metroids. After killing Kraid and Ridly -- two large, monstrous beasts -- Aran found itself at the Mother Brain, the head of all the Space Pirates. After a long and furious battle, Samus stood at the surface victorious, it had destroyed Mother Brain and the space pirate's headquarters, Tourian. As the Galactic Federation thanked it, Samus Aran removed its pressurized helmet...the face of a beautiful woman greeted everyone's astonished faces. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ METROID II -- RETURN OF SAMUS: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After the fiasco at Zebes, a special squad was sent into SR388, the homeplanet of the metroids. Their mission was to kill every metroid on the planet so something similar to the previous game could never happen again. The troops were never heard from again. Since Samus knew how to handle them, she was sent in alone to do the job. At the end she found that the metroid she knew of was just one species, one of many! Each new species was more difficult to kill than the last, and the very last ones were near impossible! But after lots of fights she came to the final room, the one with the Queen Metroid. A long battle ensued and Samus once again stood on the brink of death, but she was victorious. While traveling back to her ship she noticed that her Metroid Meter was at "1." She found a single egg, and before her eyes it hatched and a larva metroid came out. It clung to Samus, but not with its tentacles, hungry for energy...but as if Samus was its mother...it had imprinted Samus and was tame. It thought Samus was its mother! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ SUPER METROID: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Aran turned the metroid over to the Galactic Federation, hoping that it could benefit humanity with it's energy saving abilities. She was right, the scientists there found that it could hold energy and store it away for later use. The possibilities for new technology and applications were practically limitless! As Samus' ship was pulling away from the Asteroid Field, she heard a distress signal, from the space station with the metroid! Docking into it she noticed that no one asked her to identify herself, or even ask for clearance. The doors opened and she gasped...the bodies of scientists hung from pipes, and dead doctors lay sprawled against walls! She looked for the baby metroid, but it was no where to be found. At the end of a long corridor, she found it...in Ridly's hands. After a battle with the thought-to-be-dead-dragon, the ship was set to self destruct and Ridly and Samus flew away. She followed Ridly to a rebuilt, and larger...Zebes. Home of Ridly, Kraid, the Space-pirates, and...could it be...Motherbrain? Only a trip to the planet's rotten core could confirm Samus' predictions. A long, and difficult trip, to be sure. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4) BASICS ======================================================================== You may enjoy the default control setting, but I suggest you turn it like this, it's a lot easier to control in my opinion: Jump: B button Dash: A button Item Cancel: Select Aim Gun Diagonally Up: R button Aim Gun Diagonally Down: L button Item Select: X Button Pause: Start Moving: D-pad Jumping Techniques: Pressing left or right while jumping will cause Samus Aran to perform a spinning jump. It's not as high as a regular jump, but it gains more air time and is more accurate for those platform jumping times ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Do The Wall Jump: As the Etecoons will teach you later, jumping on a wall and then pressing jump and the control pad in the opposite direction will result in a wall jump. Use this to climb long shafts with no platforms. It's easy to learn, but difficult to master. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Moon Walking: If you have the charge beam, charge it up and then press the opposite direction you're facing and fire in the same motion! If you did it correctly, you'll move backwards and fire. Although, I haven't found this terribly useful. Another, easier way to do this is to activate the "Moonwalking" option from the Options Menu. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Speed Dash: Press the dash button and Samus will run as fast as she's capable. This is good for running over disappearing blocks and for running away from trouble. This is also the way in which you activate the speed booster when you have it, although it takes some room to charge up. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Screen Items: Here's a tiny explanation of what the icons at the top of the screen mean. The number next to the word "energy" is the amount of energy units you have in the current energy tank -- each tank can hold 99 units. When it hits 0, you transfer to the next tank. You can have a total of 14 tanks. When you get a reserve tank, some arrows will appear next to the energy tank display. On the "Samus" screen, you can either choose manual or automatic. Automatic means that when you run out of energy, the reserve tanks will automatically kick in and re-fill your energy tanks (the amount depending on what is in the reserve). Manual, well, that's self-explanatory. As you gain weapons and power-ups, icons will appear across the top of the screen. From left to right, they are: missile, super missile, power bomb, grappling beam, and x-ray scope. When you press the item select button, the left-most icon will be highlighted in green, and you can use it. Press it again, and it goes one item to the right. If you want to go back to your regular beam weapon, press the item cancel button. You can also do this if the right-most item is highlighted and you press the item select button. Finally, the screen in the upper-right hand corner is a close-up of the map screen, and shows your location. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Doors And Gates: Doors and gates are all different colors, and it takes something to open them. Find out what in this list: BLUE - anything will open this. RED - five missiles or one super missile GREEN - one super missile ORANGE/YELLOW - blast from a power bomb GRAY - you must destroy all creatures in the room, or, the boss of the area. GATES - shoot the colored part of it, determine what to shoot by the color. The only colors you will find are blue and green, however. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5) ITEMS AND POWER-UPS ======================================================================== Missile: When you find a missile pak, your maximum amount of missiles will increase by five. You can replenish missiles by either collecting new paks, finding a missile station, or picking up missile items which sometimes appear after destroying enemies. A missile is rather fast, and causes an adequate amount of damage. Shoot them very quickly for the best results. The total amount you can have is: 230 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Super Missile: Super Missiles have the power of five missiles. They are fast, accurate, and best of all, lethal. Total: 50 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Power Bomb: Everything on the entire screen will be destroyed, unless the creatures are too strong for it. Will also destroy blocks that normal bombs can't. Total: 50 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Energy Tank: Each tank can hold 99 units, there are 14 tanks in all. They are hidden very well! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Reserve Tank: When the energy tanks are empty the reserve tanks refuel them to a certain extent. These CAN NOT be filled via an energy station -- you must collect the purple "energy balls" that enemies sometimes leave behind. Total: four. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bomb: Once you find this item you will have infinite bombs. They can blow up blocks and weak creatures -- you can only set them when you are in ball form. Found in Crateria, after defeating Torizo. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Morphing Ball: This allows Samus to turn into a small ball. Now you can explore tight passageways! This is the first item you can collect. It is found in Brinstar, out in the open. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Charge Beam: With this you can charge your beam attack into something more powerful by holding the shot button until Samus flashes. It is found in Brinstar. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Spazer: Increases the width and power of your beam attack. The main weapon for the first 1/2 of the game. This beam is found in Brinstar. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Varia Suit: With this you can go into hot areas, plus it cuts damage inflicted by enemies by half. And, thankfully, it gives your suit a more polished look, with red overtones. Found after defeating Kraid, the boss of Brinstar. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ X-Ray Scope: This allows you to see through walls and see potential secret passageways or items. Although, some areas are still invisible. Unlike other weapons, you must use the dash button to use it -- therefore, you can not run with this selected. Like most of the important items of the game, this is found in Brinstar. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hi-Jump Boots: Samus can now jump nearly twice as high as before. Locate this in Norfair. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Speed Booster: With this, and plenty of room to charge it up, Samus can run at lightening fast speed. During this time you can mow down baddies and blow up special blocks. Found, also, in Norfair. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ice Beam: Freeze a creature and then blow it up! Or, maybe you can use it as a platform, or just plain ignore it. After a few seconds they thaw out. Find this cool item in the molten pits of Norfair! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Grappling Beam: Using this, you can hook onto certain blocks and swing yourself like Tarzan! Very useful. Obtain this tool in Norfair, shortly after defeating Crocomire. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wave Beam: Increases the area of the beam, it also goes through walls. You can open up gates from the wrong side with this, too! Combined with the Spazer, this will be your main weapon until shortly after the 1/2 point of the game, to before the end. Found in Norfair. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Screw Attack: Once acquired you can spin like a super charged buzzsaw, cutting through creatures and unstable rocks. Found in Norfair, after defeating the Golden Torizo. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gravity Suit: This makes you be able to go into water as if it weren't there (otherwise you can not do any special attacks), and it increases defense by 75%. It also allows you to go into hot areas, just like the Varia. You find this in the Wrecked Ship, shortly after defeating Phantoom. It turns your suit into a dark purple color, with extra shapes added to your arms and legs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Spring Ball: As a ball you can now jump. Find this useful, but un- necessary item in Maridia. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Space Jump: With this, when you perform a spinning jump, you will turn into a spinning blur and, with a touch of the jump button, be able to leap over and over in mid-air, essentially flying. However, this requires timing, and a knowledge of the area/enemies around you. Combine this with the Screw Attack! Find this in Maridia, after defeating Draygon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Plasma Beam: Firing a beam of concentrated plasma, this weapon can be found in Maridia, after defeating Draygon. Until the very end of the game, it is the most powerful weapon you can find. Combine with the wave beam for more power! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hyper Beam: Beat the game and you'll see, even Mother Brain is cannon fodder at the hands of this powerful weapon. Since everything is five times as powerful as the last, I'm assuming each blast has the power of five super missiles. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Save Point Pod: Take a wild guess what this does. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Map Computer: Gives you all of the maps of the particular level. However, some areas are still hidden until you find them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Energy Charge Unit: Refills all energy tanks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Missile Charge Unit: Re-fills all missiles, but NOT super missiles. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ NOTE: For the beam weapons (charge, spazer, ice, wave, and plasma), you can mix them together to get different attacks. The best include: Normal Spacer -- from the end of Brinstar to the start of Norfair Spazer/Wave -- from Norfair until the end of Maridia Wave/Plasma -- From the end of Maridia to the Motherbrain You can ALWAYS have the charge and ice beams equipped, except when you obtain the Hyper Laser. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6) SPEEDY SUPER METROID WALKTHROUGH ======================================================================== NOTICE: --------- This walkthrough was written to assist you in obtaining a 100% collection rate in roughly 1:35 (one hour and thirty-five minutes). The best time I have ever achieved was a blazing 1:27, so don't expect to break it anytime soon. This walkthrough will skip MANY, MANY un- necessary areas, and will look away from some easy items early on, because we will be coming back later to get them all. I have divided this walkthrough into sections, and here is a small table of contents for you... Section 1 -- "Space Station" Section 2 -- "To the Varia Suit" Section 3 -- "To Crocomire" Section 4 -- "To the Gravity Suit" Section 5 -- "The Great Collect-a-thon" Section 6 -- "Welcome to Maridia" Section 7 -- "The End of Norfair, Anyone?" Section 8 -- "The Last Hurrah" Other than small underscores telling you when we enter a new area (e.g. going from Brinstar to Norfair), there won't be anything to really assist you in terms of beating the game if you are playing the title for the first time (if you are a first time player and are having trouble, feel free to e-mail me, and I'll be glad to help you the best I can). There are a few things you need to know before delving into this fantastic race against time... 1. Hold the dash button ALL THE TIME. Only in a few select areas will you want to do otherwise (and I will tell you this beforehand). 2. Ignore most enemies, unless they get in your way, or there is a metal door to unlock. 3. Read each section a few times before attempting the feat, because it can get somewhat confusing. 4. Do not go out of your way to save the game, seeing as it will just waste time. 5. On a similar note, do not go out of your way to reach an energy/missile reload center, unless you are in a desperate need of supplies. 6. If you screw something up, reset the game and start from your last save point. 7. Realize that more time has passed in "real life" than what the game reads. If you've been playing for an hour, about half-an-hour has passed game time. Why? A combination of going from room to room and the fanfare from collecting new items (basically, if you can not control Samus, the game does not count it as time elapsed). 8. Follow my guide exactly, and have lots of fun playing one of the best shooters ever! **************************** ****************** SECTION 1: SPACE STATION ************************** **************************** The Space Station isn't a true level, it is mainly here for story- telling purposes. Regardless, I must include it. Space Station ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After the very informative introductory cinema, you find yourself in the bowls of the space colony where the metroid larva is being kept. Race through the darkened corridors, until you reach the room with the infant monster. As Ridly appears, the first boss battle of the game begins! ************************************************************************ Boss: RIDLY Now, there are two ways to end this fight (1) Keep shooting until he drops the baby metroid (which takes a mixture of luck and skill) or (2) Your energy falls to 29. Because this is a speed guide, you'll want to walk and/or jump directly into the dragon on purpose, to lower your health as fast as possible. As soon as it clicks onto 29, it's over... ************************************************************************ When you "defeat" Ridly, he will fly away with the metroid larva, and the ship will be set to self-destruct: you have one minute to escape! Go back, and avoid all of the explosions, falling ceiling tiles, steam jets, and all of the insanity, to reach the exit, and watch your ship fly away just before the space station explodes. Samus' ship then lands down on the desolate surface of Zebes, and our epic adventure, to put it lightly, begins. ******************************************** ************* SECTION 2: REACHING THE VARIA SUIT *************** ******************************************** Crateria: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Description: Crateria is comprised mostly of the surface of Zebes, and a few tunnels that go below. You won't find many items here, at least, not until you get many things late in the game that allow you to reach for the sky. The main item here is the BOMB, and the boss is the TORIZO. The first thing you want to do in the game is collect the morphing ball! To do this, go left from the ship, open the door, and enter. It is eerily quiet...no monsters...lightening thunders in the distance...nice effects. Regardless, go down the long, vertical tunnels, and you will reach an elevator shaft that goes down to Brinstar. Get the MORPHING BALL that rests on the pedestal to the left. Run to the right, through the door, and shoot the blocks in the floor until you reach a small hole -- go through this, open the door, and acquire the first MISSILE PAK , then return to Crateria. Everything is alive! Space Pirates cling to the walls and shoot lasers at you, as Geemers scurry along the walls. Jump up the vertical corridor, shooting Pirates as you go, until you reach the top. Continue climbing, until you reach the very top. Go to the right... You will notice a small space where you can use the ball near the door that leads to your ship -- go in there, open the door, keep going, and you will find a red door. Through this, is the BOMB ITEM. After collecting it, you will be forced to fight a monster hiding underneath a Chozo statue... ************************************************************************ Boss: TORIZO This bird-like creature will strike quickly, but his attacks do little damage (considering you only have one energy tank). His hand attacks are hard to avoid, but his crescent shaped shots can be maneuvered around with ease (simply jump). When he spits bombs, shoot them one after another, and collect the items they leave behind. To defeat Torizo, continually shoot him in the head and chest with your lasers -- and any missiles you pick up. Even when his head comes off he doesn't give up! ************************************************************************ Run past the fly-like creatures, open the door, and jump up and over the platforms to get to the top, where you can find several blocks -- use your newfound bombs to blow them away. Go all the way to left until you find a funny looking wall...blow these up with your bombs, and open the door behind them. Dash down the huge hill, continually shooting down to rid your path of Geemers. At the end you find your first ENERGY TANK ! In the next room, you will need to use your small supply of missiles to blow away the green space pirates. Wait for their explosions to end, and then collect the missile item they leave behind. At the bottom, ignore the red door and go through the blue one. Blaze through this small room, ignoring all the enemies, and use the elevator to go down into... Brinstar: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Description: Lying underneath the surface of Zebes, Brinstar is a sprawling maze, its walls being flush with exotic plantlife, and various, dangerous insectoid creatures fill its foliage. Although fairly straightforward, many different obstacles block your path, and behind the various barriers you will find awesome items, such as the Super Missile, Spazer Beam, Charge Beam, Power Bomb, and the elusive Varia Suit... As you enter Brinstar, fall all the way down the vertical shaft, ignoring the handfuls of doors. At the very bottom, shoot your scant amount of five missiles at the red door on the RIGHT. Go inside, and restock your missiles by shooting all the enemies you see. At the end, bomb the wall, and then run underneath the Metraskees, and through the door. In this huge area, you can either go straight or up, and you want to go up now. Make your way past the leaping side hoppers, hop over the green pipe, and open the red door. Inside, you find your first encounter with the dangerous KiHunters -- vicious insects that resemble praying mantids. Quickly shoot them down to open the metal door, and hop inside... *********************************************************************** Boss: SPORE SPAWN A huge venus fly trap connected to the background, Spore Spawn predictably goes back and fourth across the screen, releasing smaller spores that float from the ceiling. While avoiding the massive plant, shoot the spores to collect more ammunition. When his huge mouth opens, quickly shoot two or three missiles inside, then watch out, as he will become faster and faster with each hit. Soon, he will become so rapid that the only way to avoid him is to curl up into a ball. When he is defeated, his head serves as a platform, allowing you to reach the door above his lair. ************************************************************************ In the following corridor, jump onto the green pipe at the end, which will reveal a huge vertical drop, ending at a chozo statue. Break the ball, and you have found your first SUPER MISSILE ! Go into the next room, avoid the flying enemies, and shoot the green door with your first ever super missile shot. Break through the following room by using bombs and super missiles, and you will be back in the large area before Spore Spawn. Quickly run to the left, going down, and receiving a very much needed MISSILE . Bomb the nearby blocks to fall into a secret alcove with another chozo, this time carrying the oft-used CHARGE BEAM! Return above, use a bomb to bump yourself into the small tunnel, and use a super missile to blow open the green door. In this long, stair-case hallway, small insects will fly out of the pipes embedded in the wall. One in particular, however, is dormant, and is stuck in a high position. Use a single wall jump to reach it, turn into a ball, and follow a secret tunnel to a hidden stash of MISSILES . Continue, and you will soon see the power of the charge beam: the side hoppers once required three shots, but can now be brought down in _one_ charged shot. Very nice...shoot the gate, and go through the door at the end. Leap over the cacti enemies, and use your running abilities to clear the collapsing bridge. Shoot open the green door, and to a new area we go... This area is vastly different from any other region of Brinstar. What used to be lush forest has become dry, red dirt, and the music has become almost Hellish in nature. Fall down the various platforms, and you will come upon a yellow door. Shoot the floor to find a hidden path, and fall even further down. Ignore the green door, and take the blue one. Leap across the water, shoot the skrees, and into the next room. Here, shoot the clearly outlined block above the entrance, and do a tricky walljump to position yourself up there. Bomb the second pair of blocks, and shoot the green door. Inside you will find the SPAZER BEAM, which increases both the width and power of your shots. Return to the main path. After avoiding several snake like yapping maws and going through many doors, you will find yourself in an elevator room. Take the platform all the way down to... Norfair: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Description: A Hellish place that is located near the center of the planet, Norfair's brimstone covered walls flow with molten rock, and magma pours into almost every room. The creatures here have evolved to actually live inside of the boiling acid lakes, so you can be sure they are the most potent of all the creatures in the game. The coolest items can be found in the hottest places, as you can pick up the Ice Beam, Wave Beam, Grappling Beam, Speed Booster, Hi-Jump Boots, and the awesome Screw Attack within Norfair. Crocomire, the Golden Torizo, Metal Clad Space Pirates, and Ridly -- the dragon whom stole the larva metroid at the start of the game -- can all be fought here. Drop down to the very bottom of the vertical shaft, and shoot the red door on the left, and go inside. Collect the energy tank , and run over the blocks on the left side of the room to find a false one, allowing you to go into the tunnels below. Shoot the blue door, shoot the divider (near the top), and easily collect the HI-JUMP BOOTS, which will -- obviously -- allow you to jump much higher than normal. Return to the previous room, shoot the fire creature to open the exit, and collect the MISSILES on your way out . Jump to the top of the shaft, board the elevator, and return to... Brinstar: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ In the elevator room, turn to the right-hand side wall and plaster it with super missiles to reveal a huge, hidden antechamber with a horrifying statue of some grotesque monster. Make sure your hi-jump boots are equipped, and leap up into it, and through the door. Kraid's Lair: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Description: Constituting the very bottom of the wrecked ship, Kraid's Lair is very small, and not much to talk about. From the looks of it, some of Kraid's Lair still remains from the NES version of Metroid. Shoot the grating beneath your feet, and bomb the wall across the metal door to reveal a tunnel that leads to another door. Inside, an armada of KiHunters are waiting, so make short work of them with a flurry of missiles. In the middle of the room is a black spot in the floor; shoot this, and go through the door at the bottom. As the music changes to "pre-boss" mode, run across the corridor, shooting the space pirates. At the end is mini-kraid, again returning from the original Metroid. Four or five missiles and he's gone! Collect the super missiles he leaves behind, and enter the now flashing door. Jump over the spikes, walk over the dead body that is crawling with flies (a previous bounty hunter perhaps?), and shoot a super missile at the Eye Door to open it immediately. Inside, a huge earthquake occurs, an awesome music score begins, and a huge, red-eyed, reptilian head arises from the floor... ************************************************************************ Boss: KRAID At first, you can only see his upper-body (and it still fills the entire screen!). Quickly shoot him in the face, and he will roar in agony. Time it right, and you can shoot a super missile directly into his mouth. After this, another earthquake occurs and Kraid''s ENTIRE body is released from the ground, and he moves farther into his chamber. Jump onto the platforms, avoid the spinning projectiles, and continue to shoot Kraid in the face. Four more super missiles into the mouth will kill him for sure... ************************************************************************ Run into the next room, shoot the ball, and gleefully collect the VARIA SUIT! Now you can go deep into Norfair's fire rooms, which would once fry you almost immediately... ************************************* ************** SECTION 3: TO THE CROCOMIRE ********************* ************************************* Kraid's Lair: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ As you return back to the elevator room, shoot open the flashing door. Once inside, five parasitic creatures will immediately leap upon your body. Shoot a single super missile to destroy them all. Shoot the ceiling, and you will find a hidden ENERGY TANK . Once back in the elevator area, take the disc all the way down... Norfair: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Drop down to the first door on the right-hand side of the tunnel, and shoot it to enter your first ever fire room. Run through the blazing walls, shooting the huge enemies that come at you, until you reach the red door. In the next room, shelled gerutas will fly at you from the ceiling. Several thin columns separate different lava pools...in the lava pool right before the exit door, shoot the wall on the right to reveal a MISSILE cache . You will have to roll up into a ball to get it. .......................... Legend: . . . = Wall or column E .. .. .. . E = Entrance . .. .. .. . ED = Exit Door . .. .. .. . * = Missile (shoot the wall under . .. .. .. ED the lava to reveal it) .______..____.._____....... ___ = Lava pool ....................* Then, simply exit the chamber. Now you are in a long, lava filled corridor, with dragons spewing acid, and small creatures climbing all over the place. Make your way to the right, avoiding all of these obstacles, to reach the bubble room (as anyone would call it upon seeing its wall). Immediately run to the far right-hand side, and you will fall through an invisible pit. Bomb the floor (or better yet, shoot it) to fall into a small alcove with a MISSILE PAK in it . Climb back out, and go to the center of the room, with the many blocks. Bomb down, into the small maze of tunnels, and keep bombing until you reach the area with two blue doors. Shoot -- and enter -- the one that is located in the ground. Fall down to the very bottom of the vertical tunnel, and enter the door. The creatures living in the lava will attempt to spit clumps of acid at you, but if you are able to fake them out (which is very easy) you should be able to avoid their blasts with relative ease. Exit into another chamber that contains blue balls floating around on walls...exit stage right. Here, run and jump across the platforms, as hot magma slowly fills the room. Roll into a ball, slide into the tight tunnel, shoot the ceiling, and jump to the top of the section, as eyeless heads spit blue fireballs at you. Wait on the bank of the acid river, and a green ferry will soon arrive. Squat into a ball to avoid the overhanging spikes, then jump on the columns, wait for the next ship, get on, and let it carry you to the exit. Here, shoot the large dragons that leap from their underground burrows, and carefully dodge the bouncing red balls that rebound everytime they come in contact with a wall. ************************************************************************ UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!! I received the following letter from a fellow FAQ author... "Hey Marshmallow, you've got an extremely kickass walkthrough. You've put in so much effort man, you rock! You do have the best text-based walkthrough on the net. And personally, your previous walkthrough wasn't bad at all. Look at mine then.... Also being a fellow Super Metroid walkthrough writer (you can find it at GameFAQs), I've got a tip for you. When you've got the Varia Suit and going into that green bubble maze [marsh's note: on your way to the speed booster], you can get the Wave Beam without the Grappling Beam and therefore save some more time. Get to that Wave Beam room (the long shaft which goes upwards, I'm sure you'd know where it is), jump across to get the missiles, and then jump as far as you can to the right. Yes, you'll take some damage, but it's worth it. Use the Wall Jump to get up to the ledge, and the Wave Beam is yours! Pretty early in the game, huh? And to exit easily, fall into the middle of the spike row, it should break and let you through. Hope that was a good tip! And keep up the great work." - Magus (shinra9@yahoo.com) That should DEFINITELY cut off some major time... UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!!UPDATE!!! ************************************************************************ Shoot open the red door, and go inside. Here, you must carefully jump on yellow platforms that sink as you sit on them, all the while avoiding fireballs being shot at you. If you fall to the ground below, you must backtrack and try again. On the other side is a gate, so shoot it, and collect the MISSILES . Use the trick described above, go inside, and collect the all-powerful WAVE BEAM. Now, not only is your fire-power almost doubled, but you can shoot through walls, and open blue gates from the wrong-side! Return to the shaft with the dragons that leap from the ground, and go to the very top, and through the door. As the screen appears, you realize we have gone in a COMPLETE circle, arriving back at the bubble room, except at a much higher -- and previously inaccessible -- area. Climb the stairs, shoot the cacti for a super missile if need be, and enter through the green door. Though this seems like a dead-end, you can find another door if you shoot the ceiling and use the overhead tunnel. In this looooong corridor, run all the way to the end, crossing collapsing bridges, releasing deadly enemies, and nearly avoiding a dip in some boiling acid. Before entering the red door, shoot the ceiling above it to reveal another cache of MISSILES to plunder . Enter the door and steal the SPEED BOOSTER from the Chozo. Then, suddenly, an earthquake strikes, and lava starts to seep into the corridor. Uh-oh... As fast as you can, exit the chamber, and run at full speed. Within seconds, your newly acquired speed booster kicks in, sending your body flying at hyper-sonic speeds, your image being blurred so much it appears as if there are three Samus Arans on screen at once. Just before the lava fills the entire area, you make it to the end and blast open the exit. *Whew* Back inside the bubble region, fall to the bottom, at the start of the imaginary circle trip. Bomb the blocks, go down the tunnel, and again find yourself at the two blue doors. This time, however, take the door that is embedded in the wall, to the left. Speed-dash, and your body will blow across blocks and several parasitic creatures, ripping everything to chunks and sending it flying. At the end, blow open the door, and you will see your first Save Point of the game (yes, I made you skip about 10 already, but that was to save time). * Save your game, then reset your system. Go to the file select screen, * and look at your file: if 20 minutes or so have gone by, you're on * track for the 1:35 time. Isn't it amazing, though? You've been * physically at the TV for almost 40 minutes, yet the game records it * as 20. Hmmm...oh well, I'm not complaining! :p Continue left, and you will enter the shaft at the start of Norfair that contains the elevator that leads up into Brinstar. Keep going up, and shoot the green door with a super missile, and head inside. Use the eye melting speed of the speed boost to blast by the closing gates, and you will find yourself at a blue door. Enter it, cross the acid pools using the green platforms, and then you enter a large, metallic room full of heads that spew hot fireballs. Make your way to the top, but before exiting through the door, shoot the tube beneath it, curl up into a ball, and fall down. You will notice several blocks...and a secret tunnel within them! Fall over and slide inside, go through the door, and snatch the ICE BEAM from the chozo statue. Return to the metal room and exit via the top door. Freeze the small creatures that leap from the acid, and use their frozen bodies as platforms to the other side of the room. Fall through the various floors, get into a ball, go through the tunnel, and exit back into the elevator room. Use the platform to go back up into... Brinstar: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Go through the door on your left, and keep going through various rooms and chambers until you reach the long vertical shaft with the flying turtles. Freeze them, and use their bodies as platforms to reach the top. With your hi-jump boots, you can now reach platforms you could only see before! Up there, freeze more enemies and keep going up. Shoot the ceiling, and leap into the door. In this room, spikes, flying insects, scuttling spider mutants, and man eating flowers are EVERYWHERE, so take your sweet time going through. Enter the never-before-seen elevator room, and shoot the huge blocks in the floor. Keep shooting the floor, and you'll find a green door. Inside, use your ice beam to freeze the annoying creatures, and you'll find your first clutch of POWER BOMBS within the chozo's grasp. Lay one, and the entire wall behind the statue will crumble, revealing a pedestal with some MISSILES . Ignore everything else in the elevator shaft (because we will return here) and backtrack alllllllllll the way back to the Norfair elevator, and go down. Norfair: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Pretend like you were going to go get the ice beam again. When you use the speed booster, you will blow away some blocks that hide a flooring that can be blown away using some power bombs -- so do so. Deep inside the tunnel, blow away the powerful enemies, and carefully walk into the next room... This shaft is full of platforms, but they collapse as soon as you stand on them. From your starting point, shoot the wall across from you to reveal a clutch of MISSILES . A very good way to get them is to freeze the monsters climbing the walls, and use them as a platform. After collecting the missiles, fall down to the bottom, go through the door (you may now de-equip your ice beam, seeing as you won't need it for awhile) and use your speed booster to BLOW through dozens of enemies, walls, and collapsing bridges. You find several doors at the end, but the only one you want to shoot is the green one, on the floor... ************************************************************************ Boss: CROCOMIRE Is anyone but myself totally infatuated with this boss music? Well, er...anyways, this boss truly proves what a messed up mind Nintendo has, or at least their boss designers. A six eyed, six legged, screaming monstrosity with skin that oozes off its skeleton...mmmm...yummy. The idea of the fight is to shoot the Crocomire in the mouth with weapons, which will drive it back towards a pool of boiling acid. The more powerful the shot, the faster it goes backwards. Because of your limited amount of super missiles, I suggest using charged spazer shots (which are actually more powerful than a single missile). Everytime it opens it mouth, shoot in. Occasionally, it will spit rocks at you. To make sure your shot still goes it, try to shoot the nose of the beast, and your spazer will still go in. At the end, it will fall into the acid, and you will watch as it screams in agony as its skin literally boils off of its face. Then, all goes quiet...you return to the spiked wall, and it is ripped down as the skeleton of the monster runs at you in a last attempt to kill you, but then collapses. Sweetness... ************************************************************************ And so goes section three... **************************************** ************ SECTION 4: TO THE GRAVITY SUIT ******************** **************************************** Norfair: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ After defeating Crocomire, head left and through the door. Fall to the floor before, and through the door in the floor. Fall down the long shaft, and head into the red door. Carefully make your way through the rising acid, and find yourself some MISSILES . Return to the tunnel, and fall all the way down, and through the door. Lay a power bomb to clear all of the blocks, and destroy all the enemies. Power up your speed booster, and press DOWN on the digital pad when you start getting echoes. Get out in the acid, and press the jump button to perform an ultra jump straight up, and receive some more MISSILES . ......................... Legend: * . ... = Wall or floor ^ ....... ___ = Acid pool ^ . < < = Direction you run ^ D ............ X = part where you must ^ .. < < < < < < leap (a few feet _____._______.__X__. .............. from the ramp) .................... ^ = Part where you leap up D = press down to charge * = Missile pak Then, drop back down and begin another super dash, and as you reach the edge of the ramp, jump and you will do an INCREDIBLE spinning jump, sending you hundreds of feet in the air, and to the other side of the massive chamber. Open the door, and receive the humble GRAPPLING BEAM from the chozo statue. Use it to grapple onto the "X" blocks, and swing to the other side of the large water pools. After several rooms of testing it out, and opening a green lit gate, you find yourself back at the top of the vertical shaft. Go through the door in the ceiling, and then jump onto the yellow platform. When it lifts you up, shoot the flying turtle creature with the grappling beam, and use it to reach the red door in the upper left-hand side of the room. Inside, a pak of POWER BOMBS will be yours . Return to the Crocomire area, and use the grappling beam on the blocks to transverse the huge lava lake, and get another ENERGY TANK . Shoot the door in the ceiling, and go up. Keep going upwards, shoot the cactus, ignore the door, and go through the last door, on the left-hand side of the room. Keep going north, shoot the geruta, use the grappling beam to go across the lava, and collect some MISSILES . Shoot the green gate with a super missile, go through the door, and hey, you're back in the elevator shaft that leads to Brinstar! Once you arrive back inside the elevator shaft, take the door on the bottom (across from where you got the hi-jump boots). Save your game if you wish (reset the system -- surprisingly, only 28 to 30 minutes should have elapsed by now in your file. If so, you are on track for 1:35 or less game time). When you return to the bubble room, go up the path above and set off a power bomb so you can enter the main chamber. Use your ice beam to freeze one of the flying creatures, and then jump to the green door. Shoot it with a super missile, enter, kill the geruta, and collect the MISSILES . Set off another power bomb, and a secret passage will open, and a large column will raise, allowing you to get to the passage with ease. At the end is a door, go through it. Use your ice beam to freeze the ever-so annoying dragons, and use them as steps to go to the left. Blow open the ball to receive a RESERVE TANK , then shoot the block in the lava (a creature is circling it) to receive another stock of MISSILES . Exit all the way back to the bubble room. Brinstar: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Act as if you were going to collect the first batch of power bombs again (where you freeze the enemies, use them as platforms, and keep going up...). Along the way, you spot a yellow door -- it is time to blow that sucker open! Set a power bomb, let is explosion open it up, and go inside. The room you see is very long, filled with spikes, and several fire fleas. To prevent any light lose, be sure to freeze the fleas with your ice beam and go on. Then, use your grappling beam and swing like Tarzan, avoiding yapping maws that just barely miss you with their deadly claws, flying enemies, and razor sharp spikes. At the far side of the corridor is a red door -- inside, you will find the beloved X-RAY SCOPE! With this, you can see any and all secret passages, and even what it takes to destroy different blocks. Using this newfound tool, locate the exit, and bomb through it. Exit back to the main tunnel. Keep going up, and when you FINALLY reach the elevator that goes up to Crateria, blow away the green door, go inside, and destroy each of the giant sidehoppers using your powerful new wave beam. Now, get on the left-most side of the room, and situate yourself over the man eating flower. Set a power bomb, and its powerful explosion will rip apart the metal girder, and you will fall into the flower...but instead of getting chewed, you fall into a secret pit, and receive some POWER BOMBS ! Now go back to the elevator, and use it... Crateria: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Wow! We haven't been here in a LONG time, huh? Blow up the door using a power bomb, and leap into it. Keep jumping up, and shoot the floor. Now, go left, through the door, blast through the wall, and TADA!!!! You're back where you started the entire game, next to your ship. Get on top of it, tap down, and it will restore EVERY single energy unit (including reserve), every item (missile, super missile, power bomb), and then give you the chance to save. Do so, and then re-set your game, and look at the file: if less than 40 minutes ("00:40") have elapsed, you're in great shape! You should also have four energy tanks, 75 missiles, five super missiles, and 15 power bombs, the grappling beam, and the x-ray scope. Yeah, baby... *clears throat* Now, we need to reach the wrecked ship, eh? Backtrack to where you surfaced from the elevator area, except go to the right this time. Blow open the yellow door using a power bomb, and go right on inside. Use your grappling beam to collect some easy MISSILES , and continue, stage right, into the wrecked ship area, with new music and everything. Keep running to the right, and fall directly into the water. Your movements will now slow down drastically, but no matter. Keep going, until you hit the first metallic girder. Fall off the edge, and then go to the left. Shoot the wall to open a tunnel, and jump up and form into a ball in mid-air (because your movements have been slowed, you can do this in much less space then normally), and keep going left to find another cache of MISSILES . Now, get onto the banks of the river, and use your grappling beam to fly over the water, and you will eventually reach the entrance to the wrecked ship: a green door. A single super missile is all it takes... Wrecked Ship: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Description: This desolate derelict has been embedded into the planet's surface for untold millennia, its owners totally gone, and the only thing remaining inside are work robots and the ghosts of whomever controlled it. Although it is the smallest area in the game, it has one of the most important items -- the Gravity Suit. However, the ship may be wrecked, but its power cells are still functioning, yet all the electricity is being soaked up somewhere...and that somewhere, is Phantoom... Whoohoo! Listen to that creepy music! Nothing in the entire ship works - - not the map terminal, save units, or even its defense mechanisms. For now, all you need to worry about are the Koben -- twisted, grotesque skulls fused to each other that appear at random locations and attempt to hurt you. At the entrance, run all the way to the right, over the now useless conveyor belts. When you enter the main part of the ship, keep going down, and you will be able to bomb through a secret passage near the wall (use the X-Ray scope to find it). Don't worry about stepping over the spikes -- they don't hurt you now. At the end is a MISSILE ! Backtrack, and go to the very bottom, and use a power bomb to clear out the wreckage, enabling you to find a green door. Then, at the very, very bottom of the ship, go to the right and bomb the wall. Shoot missiles at the eye door, and enter the boss room. After an impressive introduction, you get to fight... ************************************************************************ Boss: PHANTOOM Sweetness! A huge, flying octopus, with a gigantic mouth full of pointy, sharp teeth -- and at the back of this dangerous mouth, a delicate eyeball. What a nice boss design... First off, you only have five super missiles, because we skipped so many side areas in sacrifice of saving time, so this boss is going to be much more difficult than it should be (whether this is good or bad, depends on your skill). To start, you can only hurt Phantoom when its evil eye is revealed, and when it does this, a huge shower of blue fireballs will rain from the sky. When this happens, take aim and fire a super missile directly into its eye! Then, it gets REALLY pissed off, and sends wave after wave of unavoidable blue fire. To not take damage, charge up your laser beam, and then do a spinning jump. It will mimic the screw attack, and allow you cut through the balls. Do this over and over, and you will go unscathed. Rinse and repeat...until you run out of super missiles. Then switch over to regular missiles. Thankfully, it won't get as mad when you use them. After tons of shots to the eye, it will violently explode. With an electric whir, everything on the ship will come to life... ************************************************************************ Now that the power is back on, every door in the ship can be opened, the save unit and map terminals work, strange, bio-hazardous creatures have been released from their glass prisons, and all the work-robots have begun work after centuries of being dormant. Return to the main area of the ship, and enter the flashing door, and collect the easy -- but desperately needed -- SUPER MISSILES . When you get back to the main shaft, use your X-Ray scope and you'll find that the wall opposite you is bombable; so do so. Here, kill the green balls by charging up your laser and blasting them. On the very right-hand side of the corridor, you'll find a wall -- blast it open using a power bomb, and then go through the small tunnel to find some more SUPER MISSILES . Return to the main area of the ship, and continue upwards, skillfully maneuvering around the floating balls. When you get to the very top, and it seems to be a dead end, shoot the ceiling to reveal another path, and another door. As you reach the top floor of the derelict, you will come upon a huge family of KiHunters, ones that are much more powerful than the green ones you faced in Brinstar. Charge up your wave beam and blast them, avoiding their swooping attacks, and the clots of acid they spit. When every creature in the area is defeated, both gray doors will become open-able. Go through the one on the far RIGHT side, shoot the work robots so they fall into the spiked pits, and grab the MISSILES at the end . Return to the KiHunters, and this time go through the door on the LEFT. Crateria: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Back outside, continue to the left, using the grass covered platforms as steps, until you find another of the flying jets. Jump on, and ride around until you find a large mass of land above your head. When the craft is going towards the right, and the land above you suddenly goes vertical, shoot straight up, jump, and grab the tricky MISSILES up there . Mmmm...triple digits. Fall down the floor below, and go all the way to the left. Use your X- Ray scope, and you will find a super missile block. Shoot it, and collect the MISSILES below , then get out, back into the ground. Go through the entrance a few yards to the right, go through the tight tunnels, and keep going right, avoiding several enemies, and back into the ship. Wrecked Ship: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Use your grappling beam to carefully go over the dangerous, sharp spikes below. Because of your low energy supply, avoiding these is a MUST! When you get all the way to the end, you see a Chozo statue standing up, with its hands open. Get in its hands, and morph into a ball. With a flash, it springs to life and begins to carry you back to the entrance, over the spikes. Eventually, the floor collapses, and it stops in a passage below, then releases its grip on you and returns to its eternal sleep. As you fall, ignore the door and bomb the floor, and go through the secret tunnel to the right. Use a power bomb to destroy ALL of the blocks, get up to the hall, and shoot the work robots to keep going, and grab the MISSILES from the bird statue . Lay a power bomb, and everything -- including the chozo statue -- will vanish, showing you a conveyor belt. Use your speed booster, hold down at the end, and do an ultra jump up the vertical corridor. Now all you have to do is go collect the RESERVE TANK ! Just be careful of the invisible pit before it... With these items collected, return to the door I told you to ignore, and go inside. Shoot the ball, and blissfully receive the GRAVITY SUIT! With this item, all attacks done to you will be cu by 75%, you may now do anything you wish underwater and not be slowed, and you have a nice, purple overtone all over your suit. Oh yeah, baby... ********************************************* *********** SECTION 5: THE GREAT COLLECT-A-THON **************** ********************************************* Now that we have the Gravity Suit -- along with a myriad of other tools -- we may now go back to Crateria and Brinstar to collect TONS of stuff, advancing our strength even further. I think this section was appropriately named... Wrecked Ship: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ With the gravity suit equipped, return to Crateria for a few moments, then back through the main entrance to the wrecked ship. Go down the hall, to the main area, and down to the final, flashing room, that contains a small lake and a green ball. Now that you can move normally in water, you can finally jump out of the liquid to the above door. Open it, and go inside. Skillfully leap across the falling platforms, avoiding every single spike in the room. In the next room, use your lasers to blast through the wreckage and false sections, moving upwards. Ignore the blue door and continue upwards, and shoot the red door and go inside. Use your grappling beam to move across the water, and use the yellow blocks as steps. At the end is a chozo statue, an ENERGY TANK in its hands . Now, backtrack alllllllllll the way back to your ship, on the surface of... Crateria: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Save your game in the ship, then reset the system and look at your file: if you have roughly 50 minutes ("00:50") elapsed, you're doing swell. In the ship area, there is a small hill in the ground to the left of your vessel. Do a speed booster, then press down when you are on top of this hill. Hold "R" and tap the jump button, and you will do a mighty, diagonal ultra jump and end up hundreds of feet in the air, landing on a piece of land above. Use a power bomb to open the door, and go inside. Avoid the rising acid and green dragons, and collect the POWER BOMBS at the end . Return to the ship. Now, from the door, start a speed boosting run, and at the very tip of the piece of land, jump, and you will do an incredible spinning jump, landing on the other side of the region. Jump in the air, morph into a ball, and set a power bomb to blow away a huge section of the wall (the same one that Samus blows away in the movie clips if you sit at the title screen too long). Go through the door, and use power bombs to clear the blocks, all the while avoiding the snakes, wavers, and boiling acid that rises and lowers every few seconds. Keep going left, and find an ENERGY TANK . Use another power bomb, and continue to the left. Keep going...blowing away passages...until you clear the "hot" areas, and find yourself in a purple block room. Shoot the walls to clear them away, and jump in the middle, revealing two columns of collapsing floor. Maneuver yourself so you cause both columns to collapse on the way down, and shoot the rocks around the approaching missiles. If done correctly, you can get the first MISSILES and the second MISSILES at the same time. If you screw up, restart the save file, as coming all the way back from the ship will eat up too much time. As you fall, use a power bomb, and you will be returned to the main path. Make your way to the elevator room, and go down into... Brinstar: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ah, re-united to that intoxicating music... As you go down the vertical shaft, go through the first, red door on your right-hand side. Inside, use your speed booster to rush past the closing gates, and open the red door at the end. Inside, collect the RESERVE TANK . At the bottom of the statue is a "pipe", and there is no cap on it, so morph into a ball and follow it to a secret room with MISSILES . Bomb the walls behind it to find ANOTHER batch of MISSILES . As you return to the room with the gates, you find yourself trapped, so blow a hole in the ceiling and kill the dozens of monsters that rush at you. At the end is a much needed SUPER MISSILE . Finally, stand on its platform, and it will collapse, sending you to the entrance of the room. Go back to the closing gates, and collect the missiles below the fragile flooring . Sheesh! We made out like a bandit here! :p Return to the main shaft... Fall ALL THE WAY to the bottom, and set off a power bomb to clear out the flooring, revealing a huge secret area below. Eventually you find a hallway with a lot of blue blocks...be careful! There is an invisible pit in front of the energy tank. You'll have to do a running jump to collect the ENERGY TANK . Shoot the green door, and collect the SUPER MISSILES inside . Fall through the invisible hole now, morph into a ball, and slide through the spiked tunnel. Now, you must shoot all of the parasitic creatures with super missiles while avoiding the flying insects and spikes! At the end, you find the three Etecoons, which will "teach" you the wall jump. Do as they do, and leap all the way to the top of the corridor. At the very top, run full speed towards the small tunnel, jump in mid-air, form into a ball, and squeeze in, collecting the POWER BOMBS . The next room will put you back into the elevator room, so go through the door, as if you were going to see the Spore Spawn... After avoiding the metallic creatures that attempt to skewer you, go through the door, and follow the path straight ahead, and use your grappling beam on the special blocks to collect some MISSILES . Set a power bomb, and go through the wall, behind the block that just disappeared. Inside the secret room, destroy the giant sidehoppers, and shoot a super missile on the funny looking part of the floor (use the X- Ray scope if necessary). There, collect the POWER BOMBS , then exit by shooting/bombing the various columns. When you reappear, go back up, to the yellow door, and open it with a power bomb. Inside, destroy all the sidehoppers. At the top of the room is a gate, but the side you have to shoot is on the other side. Solution? Use the wave beam! When it's open, use the wall jump to get up there (I think the grappling block takes too long), and collect another ENERGY TANK . Exit the room. Go back to where the charge beam is located, and set a power bomb -- the explosion will blow the cap off of the pipe, so morph into a ball and go through. Shoot the red door, and enter this water filled hall. Shoot the enemies, then start a speed boosting run, and blast through all of the walls, finally collecting ANOTHER ENERGY TANK . Return to the charge beam room, and continue to the pipe room. Inside of the green pipe room, jump up near the beginning to find a yellow door. Open it with a power bomb, go inside, and rush to the end, avoiding the giant sidehoppers. Blast the wall at the end, and collect the POWER BOMBS . Place a power bomb to blow away the next wall, and this next area should look very, very familiar (it's where you got the morphing ball at the very start of the game. Ignore the elevator for now, and head into the next room. Avoid the geemers, and open the red door. Inside, destroy all the enemies. Now, shoot the ceiling to reveal an ENERGY TANK . Then collect the MISSILES at the end of the room . Lay a power bomb to blow away the huge piece of rock, and you should be able to make out a tunnel. Do a speed boost run, and perform an ultra jump, leaping all the way to the top. Go through the door, and into the water filled room. Use your X-Ray scope to spy an invisible bridge, and run across as boulders crash from above. In the dead-end room, collect the MISSILES , then lay a power bomb to reveal even more MISSILES . Exit back to the elevator, and use it go back up into the lower parts of... Crateria: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ You remember these space pirates, right? Well, blast them all, and when you get to the door that leads to the huge vertical chamber, set off a power bomb, and go through the remnants of Motherbrain's old life support system to collect even more MISSILES . Inside the huge vertical corridor, keep going up, and go to the first step that is CONNECTED TO THE RIGHT HAND SIDE WALL. Set off a bomb there, and go through the yellow door that's inside the secret passage. Inside, equip your ice beam and freeze the tiny enemies for steps (hold "L" and jump repeatedly to do it really fast), then perform a speed boosting jump over them, and then do an ultra jump at the end, leaping hundreds of feet into the air, allowing you to easily collect some SUPER MISSILES . Use the grappling blocks to exit over the spikes. You are now at the top of the vertical tunnel, so go through the door at the very top, and into the first door on the left-hand side of the grass filled region. Inside, bomb the blocks, and collect the easy missiles from the chozo statue . Actually, you could have gotten these at the start of the game immediately following your encounter with the Torizo, but I wanted to save time :) Now, return allll the way back to the pipe room in... Brinstar: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Inside the pipe room, continue to the right, until you reach the red region. Keep going down, past the flying turtles, through the water filled rooms with snapping maws, and go towards the Norfair elevator...WAIT! You pass through a fragile glass tube...lay a power bomb, and with a shatter, the glass breaks into a million pieces, sucking you into a world full of water. With your gravity suit on, it seems as if the water isn't even there! If you wish to save (and I do suggest doing so, after collecting all of the crap), then there is a save room through the red door at the bottom. Reset the system, and check your file: you should be only a few minutes over the one hour mark ("01:05" and below is good). Progress up, and you will soon hit... *************************************** ************** SECTION 6: WELCOME TO MARIDIA ******************* *************************************** Maridia: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Description: Maridia...an aquatic world deep within Zebes, its sand filled floors and tricky puzzles will easily confuse any explorers, and some of the most awesome items in the game await to be collected, such as the Space Jump, Spring Ball, and Plasma Beam. However, its gigantic boss, Draygon, may have something to say about that...the most bizarre alien creatures in the game can also be found here, things that simply defy creation. Enjoy the creepy music... As you start off in this underwater realm, shoot the red door and go inside. Shoot the door as you enter, and kill ALL the crab monsters that scuttle along the floors and wall. Shoot the green gate. Finally, get on the opposite side of the room from the entrance, and do a super boost, and then press down to charge yourself just before you fly through the entrance. Back in the black-background room, quickly move yourself towards the largest plant on the ground, and position yourself so its leaves are on either side of your legs, then perform the most insane ultra jump in the game, which will send you hundreds of feet into the air, just BARELY missing dozens of tiny platforms, and slamming into a stockade of MISSILES . If you mess up, try again. If you screw up more than three times, start from your last save (which was only a few seconds ago, so it's no big deal really). Continue up, avoiding the strange creatures that pass by you, and go into the next room, which is lined with purple metal and grappling blocks. Morph into a ball, and slide down the purple stairs at the start, and fall off the green hill, and down the vertical wall. When you see a crab, hold left, and you will go into a secret tunnel, and collect the SUPER MISSILES that you could only see before. Now, when you come out of the hole (no, you perverts...not that kind of hole) you will fall onto a blue door. Blast this, and fall into a small chamber filled with purple fish and red space pirates that can not even be killed with super missiles. Find the secret passage next to the left-most pirate in the area (use the X-ray scope if need be -- remember, it's on the very ground level) and blast open the red door. Inside, jump onto the alien turtle's back, and let it carry you up. When you see the grappling block, use your grappling beam and swing yourself around until you can connect your body to the ENERGY TANK sitting above . Now, still dangling from the block, swing yourself to the RIGHT side of the room, and you will be able to stand on a small space. Set off a power bomb, curl into a ball, fall along the wall, and collect the small set of MISSILES sitting there . How could anyone could know those were there without looking in a strategy guide is beyond me... Back inside the red pirate room, go all the way to the right (using wall jumps if need be), and go through the blue door at the top, allowing yourself back inside the room with purple metal and lots of grappling blocks. Now...this part is a *REAL* bitch, and very frustrating. You have to use your grappling beam with the special blocks and make your way across the entire room, and if you make one mistake, you pretty much have to start over. Except, at the very end, there is a large green outcropping of land, and if you fall on that, you can take a running spin jump and be able to hook into the last block in the room, so don't fret. Legend: .......D.......... D = Door D `` ` ` ` D . = Part of wall . ` ` ` . S = secret hole that leads to a . *... super missile S . # = All those doors and little tunnels . ############# . at the bottom .................. ` = Damned grappling blocks... * = wedge of land where if you fall, you can still reach the final block and don't have to start over In the next room -- which consists entirely of purple metal and pipes -- take the upper passage, which leads to a sandy area. Go all the way to the right, ignoring the fact you walk through several false walls, and collect the MISSILES . Return to the entrance door, and jump up, and free yourself from the water. Take the door on the left-hand side, and keep going left, avoiding the pesky enemies that fly at you almost immediately, and the shelled creatures that burrow themselves in the sand. When you reach what seems like a dead-end, go through, and jump up to the high platform, through the door, fall to the very bottom of the corridor, shoot the enemy, fall through another secret hole, and collect the MISSILES and the SUPER MISSILES beside it . Return to the purple room... Set a power bomb to open the way forward, and through the green door we go. Set another power bomb, and fall through the passageway, to another, more odd purple room, crawling with snail like creatures that bounce around when you run into them. Do a speed boosting run all the way to the right-hand side of the room (still on the bottom level), and when you get to the last vertical shaft above your head, do a vertical ultra jump, sending you blowing through several speed blocks, arriving in a secret chamber with MISSILES and SUPER MISSILES . Fall through the collapsing hole (which is before the super missiles -- heh, watch out for them before collect 'em). Now, perform another speed boosting run to the left-hand side of the room this time, and stop in the area before the red door and before the passage you fell from to enter the area. You will spot a blue door -- enter it. This entire corridor is full of pipes and bizarre creatures called Motchroids -- similar to Metroids, but not nearly as powerful. They can be easily killed with a few laser shoots, or a single grappling beam blast. Keep shooting the pipes, revealing false floorings and such, until you've found the blue door. To get to it, perform a speed boost to break through the final pipe. Into the door... ************************************************************************ Boss: BOTWOON This eel is just begging to be blown into oblivion. Simply walk up to his face, hold "R", and shoot super missiles directly into his head. After he gets deep red and begins to move REALLY fast, shoot missiles instead, and he'll die very quickly. Hmmmm...with being roughly 80% through the game, you'd expect a more spectacular boss...oh well...that's just around the corner. ************************************************************************ In the sand filled room, shoot the worms. Then, do a running spinning jump, morph into a ball in mid-air, and squeeze into the tight alcove holding the ENERGY TANK . You CAN NOT, I repeat, CAN NOT get it anyway else, so don't try. Also, MAKE SURE YOU DO NOT FALL INTO THE SAND! OK, now use the speed booster to blast through the blocks, and go into the door. Use your grappling beam on the blocks to get to the top of the room, and into the final obstacle course that separates you from Draygon. This place is FILLED to the brink with Motchroids and evil grappling blocks, so exercise extreme patience here. At the end, blast the green door (ignore the blue one -- unless you may think you will die at Draygon -- there's a save inside ya know). This purple room has many spikes, but they are fake and won't hurt you. The first batch you should avoid, the second batch you should stand it, and use your X-Ray scope to find the hidden MISSILES in the wall . Return to the first spikes, fall in, and shoot the Eye Door, and go inside... ************************************************************************ Boss: DRAYGON Draygon is a twisted, grotesque monstrosity that makes everything else in Maridia seem normal by comparison. He swims in rapidly and will grab you, then slam his spined tail against your suit, causing massive damage. There are two ways to defeat this beast: (1) Shoot him in the delicate belly with super missiles and missiles until he dies. This is extremely difficult and time consuming, so I suggest you try...(2) Shoot out all of the laser cannons in the room. Then, allow Draygon's gooey spit wads to hit you. When he picks you up, select your grappling beam, and shoot it into the sparking remains of the cannons. Although you will lose a lot of energy, Draygon will be fried almost instantly, the electrical currents arcing through you both. The massive creature falls to the floor as explosions surround his body, and the triumphant boss music...fades...as his minions carry his corpse away... ************************************************************************ In the next room, the glorious chozo statue holds the oft-used SPACE JUMP! With this incredibly useful (and original) item, you can jump again and again in mid-air, essentially flying if you time it right. Use this to escape Draygon's room, back through the grappling room (as of now, the grappling beam is completely useless -- just use your space jump) and return to the vertical room with the three Motchroids. Although the metal door is flashing DO NOT GO INSIDE OF IT YET! Instead, go through the door at the bottom. Plow through the blocks...remember when I told you not to go in the sand? Well, go in the sand now. You will go through a small, sandy pool with green spheres that try to kill you, then appear in another region. Keep going left, and you find a door -- go through, and BOOM! You are back in the huge purple room that preceded Bowtwoon's fight (the one with the snails). Go to the very bottom level, all the way to the right-hand side, and shoot out the floor. Go left, and SINK INTO THE FIRST SAND PIT YOU SEE. After some crazy green spheres, you end up in a room completely made of sand, with some more sinking sand near the bottom. Use your space jump to collect the MISSILES and the POWER BOMBS . Sink in the sand at the bottom...and you end up in a long, horizontal hallway filled with sand (the kind that sucks you down, but not into another room) and strange, very bizarre creatures that shoot bullets at you (they look like mini-Draygons). Go to the RIGHT, through the door, and STOP. Look up. See that cracked grappling block? Use your grappling beam on it, and a few seconds later it will disintegrate, revealing a passage above. Use your space jump to get up there, and keep going up, until you find a huge swarm of flying enemies. Continue on the other side, falling down the collapsing floors, until you reach a door. Go in. Immediately set a power bomb to clear the pipe, and do not hurt or be afraid of the huge metallic, spider like creature before you, as he will help you by digging a path through the sand. After forever, you finally reach the door. Inside, you can retrieve the incredibly useful SPRING BALL, which allows you to jump while morphed in a ball. Now, backtrack to the room with the mini-Draygons (called Evirs), and go left this time. Ignore the blue door, and lay a power bomb to blow away the girder, go up, and into the green door. After an INCREDIBLY long door animation (hey, it's a long tube :p) you will be in a sandy area. Use your space jump to go up into the vertical tunnel, and circle around, and use your space jump to reach the small ledge with the flashing door (because you killed Draygon -- otherwise it would be metallic). Inside, keep going up, until you reach a door. Inside, a small sac of eggs sit. It takes many shots to kill it with your wave beam...so ignore it and go into the final room, which contains several red space pirates, and a chozo statue that holds...oh, yeah baby...the PLASMA BEAM! With this, you can finally kill those dirty red pirates, and that egg sac you saw earlier will be killed in a single shot. The best part of the plasma beam, besides it's obvious power, is the fact it can shoot through several creatures at once. Now, backtrack to the sandy room... There are to blue doors: the one above the water level leads to a room filled with yapping maws (snake creatures that pull you down), and the other, the one on the bottom of the sea floor, leads to a flashing door. Go through the bottom one, and into the flashing door, with leads to the cactus area. Basically, you use your space jump while killing the cacti, and each one will give you a super missile power-up! Sweet deal if you ask me. At the end, you return to the room before Draygon, the one with the metal door I told you to ignore ages ago. Now, fall to the bottom of the room, go through the blue door, and fall into the sand, sink, go left through the blue door, and into the purple room with snails preceding the fight with Botwoon. Fall to the bottom level, go all the way to the right, and shoot out the floor. Go inside, and start going left...EXCEPT THIS TIME, IGNORE THE FIRST SAND PIT, AND SINK IN THE SECOND ONE. You will find a totally new sand room, where you will need to use your spring jump if you wish to have even the slightest chance of collecting the RESERVE TANK , which is the last of the game, and the MISSILES . Then, you fall into another Evir room as before, except a bit different. Instead of going right, go left this time, and follow the path until you find a cracked glass like thing that looks like the pipe we blew away awhile ago to get into Maridia in the first place. Use your X-Ray scope to discover the hole in the ground, and go down there. Ignore the red door, but go through the blue one. Keep going left...shoot the green gate...and fall back into... ************************************************ *********** SECTION 7: THE END OF NORFAIR, ANYONE? ************* ************************************************ Brinstar: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Whoo! Finally, we're back! Er...this will be short-lived, as we return to... Kraid's Lair: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Go into the room with the half-a-dozen or so KiHunters, all the way to the right-hand side, and lay a power bomb to reveal a MISSILE PAK. Use your spring ball to get to it, and boom, more MISSILES . Return to... Norfair: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hmmm...seems that the gravity suit can also stand up to intense heat... Go to the very bottom of the elevator shaft, through the door on the right, and save your game. Re-set the SNES, and look back at your file. If your file is around or less than one hour and 16 minutes ("01:16") you are fine, as we have 19 minutes to get a time of "01:35" with 100%. Continue, and do a super boost to rip through the blocks, and end up in the bubble room. Shoot the door in the floor, fall through the vertical shaft, and go to the room with the living magma creatures. Finally, you end up in the room with blue balls that float around. Go down, set a power bomb, and through the yellow door we go! In the infamous Ridly room, you must fall into the boiling acid (the gravity suit will protect you) and perform many space jumps, ending up outside the huge stone statue of Ridly's grotesque face. Run inside, and down the elevator... Ridly's Hideout: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Description: Whoa, this music is ****ing awesome!! Gotta love Nintendo. Anyway, Ridly's Hideout is near the very center of the entire planet, and the heat is so intense that not even the gravity suit can protect you from the magma here, and each room's very air is set ablaze, moving rapidly. This place is much, much larger than Kraid's Lair... From the entrance, go to your left and fly over the boiling lava, erupting columns of fire, and dragons that spit acid at you. In the next room, glide over the lake of magma, and set off a power bomb at the other end, revealing a chozo statue. Morph into a ball, and jump into its hands. In similar fashion to Metroid II: Return of Samus, the magma lake will disappear, allowing you to go deeper into this world. Eventually, you come upon a "beeping" room. Here, spin jump to get the MISSILES . If you mess up, and fall through the collapsing floor before getting them, restart from your last save, because going back to get them takes up WAY too much time. Finally, you get to fight... ************************************************************************ Boss: GOLDEN TORIZO Missiles do not come into contact with him, he can catch super missiles with his bare hands, and power bombs do next to nothing. Solution? Charge up your plasma/wave beam, and kick his bird behind easily! Because you have on the gravity suit, his huge array of complicated attacks will barely phase you! Hahaha! ************************************************************************ Inside the next room, shoot the chozo statue. Oh, pinch me...I must be dreaming...it's the SCREW ATTACK! Yeah, baby, with this you can pretty much become totally invincible while in a space jump, and you can tear through blocks, rocks, and practically every enemy there is, regardless of size or power. Before proceeding, return to the golden torizo room, and spin jump up to where he fell from, and you can find the last SUPER MISSILES of the entire game . The next few areas are rather linear, and allow you to test the immense power of the screw attack. After the room with rising lava and snakes, you will come upon a large vertical shaft with yellow space pirates. At the very top, where the exit is, shoot the ceiling, and a secret passage is revealed. In the side room, use your X-Ray scope to see where the collapsible floors are, otherwise you will fall into a previous room, and waste a lot of time getting back. Regardless, a secret batch of MISSILES can be found . Return to the main path. This mammoth sized chamber is the largest of the game, and will quickly fill with boiling acid. Briskly fly out with your space jump, skewing through the dozens of space pirates that try to block your way. In the next room, shoot the floor to reveal a side path. Keep going down, ripping the red KiHunters apart with your screw attack (and these are the most powerful of the game!). Ignore the blue door, and keep going down. At the bottom, it seems like a dead-end, but use a power bomb to see why that is false. Keep going, and down, through the yellow door. Here, lay another power bomb to reveal the path to the lower-left. Go through the tunnel, and blast through the MONSTROUS sized beasts that roam these corridors using your screw attack. At the end, lay yet another power bomb to blow away the statue. Before going down, however, go to the left and get the POWER BOMBS . Use the platforms to go through the spiked shafts, and you end up with... Metal Clad Space Pirates! I was contemplating giving them a boss section, but since there is no special music, I decided against it. Use the Screw Attack to waste time above them and when one of them stops shooting stuff at you fall down to the ground and take aim, they will jump at you and turn gold, fire off as many super missiles as possible. It will only take a few for each one. They are only vulnerable when they turn gold for a few short seconds, so it takes a bit of patience. When they are gone, it is relatively smooth sailing all the way to the eye door. Shoot it with a super missile, and go on inside... ************************************************************************ Boss: RIDLY Fire your entire complement of super missiles at this prehistoric monstrosity and he will barely turn red. Jump up and fire them, avoid his fireballs by spinning with the Screw Attack. While on the ground be careful of his tail, it has a long range. If he catches you push all the buttons you can and he'll let go. Continue to pound him with your missiles until he finally grabs your suit, and then violently explodes, sending various body parts spiraling through the air. You are now left with barely any weaponry at all, so be careful from now on... ************************************************************************ Go through the flashing door, and all you see is the smashed glass container that once held the precious baby metroid. Quite a twist, isn't it? We came all this way to rescue the metroid, and he's not even here... Using your X-Ray scope, quickly find the ENERGY TANK in this room as well . Return to the vertical hall filled with red KiHunters, and up through the secret passage, returning to the main path. Go through the door on the right. Set a power bomb to destroy the skull creature that shoots fire at you, and go through the passage behind him, collecting the final ENERGY TANK of the game . Go back to the main path and go up, flying past the boulders and fire balls. At the top, ignore the door and go through the wall on the left (curiously, the X-Ray scope can not see through this wall). Shoot through THIS door, go to the left, up, ignore that door, and go right, past the dragon creature that pops up. Collect the MISSILES , set off a power bomb, and go through the large amount of tunnels, then through the blue door to collect the final POWER BOMBS of the game . Return to the blue door I told you to ignore earlier, and fly through these corridors, and you will find several more red KiHunters. Below the first one is a platform -- set off a bomb here to find the last MISSILES of the game . After much blasting, you will be back in the bubble room of Norfair. We've done this twice already, so I'll spare you on how to return to... Brinstar: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ There are two ways to get back to our ship on Crateria: (1) Through the corridors filled with flying turtles (2) Through Maridia. I don't know which is faster, but I always go through Maridia (go up to the room with the grappling blocks, ad through the door in the ceiling, through the secret path, shoot the green gate, and you're in the second elevator room of Brinstar!). Crateria: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Inside of your ship, you will have all of your items filled to capacity, all energy and reserve tanks filled, and ready to go (M:130, SM:50, PB:50, ET:14, RT:4). After saving your game, re-set the system and check your time. If you have more than one hour and 25 minutes ("01:25"), I'm afraid you have failed, and will not -- or, more realistically, can not -- earn a time of 1:35. Don't feel bad, however, because the first time I tried this strategy I didn't get anything close to it. Regardless, let us continue. From the ship, go left, through the door, past the green creatures hanging on the ceiling, rip through the weak wall, super boost down the hill, bursting through dozens of enemies, into the hallway with green space pirates. Kill them in one shot, and go down to the red door. Shoot it with a super missile, run through the empty hall, and into the next room. Here, we see a beautiful conglomeration of golden statues, all of which are the major boss characters: Kraid, Phantoom, Draygon, and of course, Ridly. With all of them destroyed, the statues weaken, and after a grand cinema, the entire structure sinks, allowing us to reach the elevator that takes us to the final stage of the game... ************************************ ***************** SECTION 8: THE LAST HURRAH ******************* ************************************ Tourian: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Description: Filled with acid and metallic walls, Tourian is the nerve center of the space pirate operation, and home to their master -- Motherbrain. Who knows what terrible surprises lie in wait here... To no one's surprise, Tourian is crawling with metroids, all the offspring of the baby metroid we are trying to rescue. The first 1/2 of Tourian consists of killing these grotesque creatures, and here's how: freeze them with the ice beam, and shoot a super missile into their frozen body. That's it. If they latch onto you, lay a bunch of power bombs. In the acid sections, don't bother with the platforms, just run right through the boiling liquid. With your gravity suit and 14 energy tanks, the harm you will be dealt is meaningless. Eventually, you reach a room with two large, blue sidehoppers. Ignore them, and go into the next room. Ah! Wha~? It appears that a torizo has turned to sand...in the next corridor, the bodies of creatures litter the floor and ceilings, all turned to sand. Soon, we see a sidehopper appear. Out of nowhere, a titanic-sized metroid swoops in, snatches the creature, and begins to feed on it viciously! After its final death cry, the sidehopper is completely turned to sand, and suddenly disintegrates. Then, the monstrous metroid turns to you! Though you may run, resistance is futile, as the colossal beast sucks your energy down at an insane rate. Seconds before death, the metroid chortles, and then lifts off of you. The sound it's making...do you recognize it? It's the baby metroid! It has grown to nearly 10 times its original size! Talk about a growth spurt... Continue on, and you will have to shoot through a very strange barnacle like substance, resembling a spider web. Refill your energy with the energy terminal, and continue to the eye door. Shoot it with a super missile. In the next room, fall to the bottom, and shoot the red door with a super missile. Here, you must shoot through the red barriers to continue. Because we are pressed for time, use super missiles -- it only takes four, opposed to 20 missiles. At the end, you confirm your prediction...it is the Motherbrain that has been behind this entire fiasco. ************************************************************************ Boss: MOTHERBAIN Some games have great end bosses, some have awesome end bosses -- and others, like Super Metroid, have SPECTACULAR end bosses. Motherbrain first appears in her glass casing, just like in Metroid I. Shoot the casing with missiles, and when it shatters, use super missiles to pulverize the gray matter. Soon, all of her life support equipment will blow away, leaving her on the floor. Then, with a shudder, a monstrous body rises from the floor, connects to the head, and her single eye opens. With a deafening shriek, the battle of the galaxy is on! She now has three attacks: shooting three blue rings, an eye pellet, and bombs. To avoid the rings, jump up in the air. However, be aware that she will often shoot you in mid-air again with the lasers. As soon as she lays a bomb, wait a few seconds, then jump into the air, as fire will spread across the entire floor. After wasting all of your super missiles into her, start with your full supply of missiles. Soon, she gets a new attack: a concentrated blast of fire will rip from her hands. If you get hit, three (!) energy tanks will be taken off of your life meter. Keep blasting away, and before you run out of missiles, Motherbrain will start to gain energy in her head. With another shudder, a monstrous beam will fly from her face and slam your body against the wall, making you totally helpless. Within seconds, half-a-dozen (!!!) of your energy tanks will be gone, and Motherbrain will begin to charge this insanely- powerful attack again. When you are on the verge of death, the baby metroid will once again come out of no where, latch onto Motherbrain, and suck her energy out like an oil-well, severely weakening her. Within seconds, the Motherbrain's body becomes twisted, and turns into what looks like a chozo statue stance. Then, the metroid turns to you, and begins to refill your energy to the top. However, the Motherbrain is far from dead. With a drooling cry, she begins to slam attack after attack into the metroid. The metroid tries one last time to destroy the Motherbrain, but she is too quick, and the metroid violently explodes and turns to dust -- this dust, in turn, falls on you. As you stand up, you flash, and yes, 'tis true, you have the HYPER BEAM!!! With this, you will turn the Motherbrain into ashes very quickly. ************************************************************************ The Great Escape: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don't break out the champagne yet, as the entire planet is going to explode within three minutes (3:00)! Though you are probably on track for 1:35, I will tell you great tips on how to escape from the planet with at least 1:58 remaining on the time bomb clock! In each room, the time I give should be the time that is on the clock as you ENTER it. First room -- 3:00 Shoot the columns with your newly acquired hyper laser and run through, and into the door. Second room -- 2:57 Fall down the right-hand side, and shoot a laser beam down. Not only will this open the door, it will kill a pesky space pirate. Third room -- 2:55 Ignore the path with the space pirates, and take the very bottom path. Speed boost all the way to the right, and then do an ultra jump straight up, bursting through the floor beneath the exit door. Next... Fourth room -- 2:48 This one is tricky, although there are no shortcuts. Jump up and shoot all the space pirates out of your way in one motion; just keep running and running, and then acid will start to fill the chamber. Space jump to the top. Shoot the exit, and RUN into the next room... Fifth Room -- 2:24 We are now back in the long vertical shaft that is part of Crateria. As we run in here, you will have a speed boost & their echoes by the time you reach the shaft. It is very possible to do a very impressive ultra jump and leap ALL THE WAY TO THE TOP of the shaft, cutting off nearly a full minute of work. Legend: .^ ' . + = The door from Tourian .^ ' . . = walls/floors .^ ' '. ' = regular ol'e platforms .- . D = Metal door .^ ' '. X = The area you perform the ultra jump +....^ ' . ^ = The path you take +....X....D - = Curiously, there is a small platform here, but you seem to burst through it perfectly when you do the ultra jump. If you were to bomb it, you would no speed booster blocks in it. Strange... With this huge trick, you can shave off nearly a full minute of hard work. If you can pull this monstrously impressive maneuver off, don't accidentally cream your pants -- both girls and guys. I know it's hard to resist, and I almost did as well the first time I did it, but try and hold back, OK? ;) The rest of the escape should be easy enough. It is possible to get to the surface of Zebes with 2:00 left on the clock!! What We Missed of Super Metroid: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Because this is a Speed Guide, we missed many areas (although they contain no useful items). The largest areas are listed below, where you can find them, and a small description of them. # 1 - Areas to the right of Crocomire's area: When you do the huge speed boosting section, and end up at the door to his area, there are two doors to the right. One leads to an awesome grappling area where you go over a lake of acid, spikes, AND yapping maws. The other is a cool little area with red space pirates and geemer like creatures, along with more dragons. # 2 - Crateria to the right of the Wrecked Ship: When you got the energy tank in the Wrecked Ship after obtaining the gravity suit, go through the blue door, and you will find a huge area of Crateria that we skipped over. It has lots of water, some more of those bee hive enemies, and a small maze that leads down to... # 3 - Parts of Maridia from the above Crateria Area: This is my favorite of them all, and coming here brings a huge rush of nostalgia to my body. Years ago, when I first got the game, I was puzzled on how to get into Maridia, and when I finally found this area, I was really excited, especially because of the new, strange creatures and creepy music (gotta love the Maridia music). However, coming here is more of a dead-end, as you can not get to Draygon from here. However, you can get the Spring Ball rather easily... ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7) TRICKS, TIPS, AND SECRETS ======================================================================== ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MASSIVE TIME-SAVING TRICK III: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I received the following e-mail message from one of my readers... "I'll have to agree with you that it's one of the greatest games I've ever played.. and that's a wonderful FAQ you wrote, too! Just one thing that I've found out: Well, first, the hyper-boost jump (the one where you plow through things and eat up massive amounts of energy) is really cool, because you can go in any of 5 directions... just after you jump, if you do it from a standstill, you'll hang in the air for a split second... if you do nothing you'll go straight up, but pressing R will make you go diagonally, and pressing sideways will send you in that direction. You don't have to do it from a stop, though... you can dash, duck, and while you're powered do a spinning jump, then when you let go of the directional keys you can then press up or R to go in one of the upward directions." "Anyway, the cool thing is this: in the ship screen, after you have done the diagonal jump up, gone and gotten the power bombs, and come back out, if you dash along the hill, instead of doing a spinning jump, you can instead duck right on the end, powering yourself up. Drop to the ledge below and immediately do a power jump to the left; you'll break through all the blocks that you could have power bombed, and crash into the door. Open the door, drop back to your ship, and repeat (but don't leave the ship's room). You'll power jump /through/ the door and simply bust through the entire first screen of blocks. Eats up LOTS of energy, but it's cool and it saves time (I think), and your ship's right there, after all... I checked just now and to do the two diagonal jumps and the two horizontal jumps takes about 5 energy tanks off. If you thought the power jump up through the last vertical tunnel was cool... " "I just tested it out in the sequence, and here's a good way to do it: After you save, do the R jump to get to the top ledge of the screen. Use a power bomb to open the door, but do not enter. Instead, go back to the tip of the ledge and dash towards the door, pressing down the instant before you enter it. You should finish your duck in the next room. Jump and immediately press right, and you will dash through all the jumping dragons and crash into the right wall; jump out of the acid and get the power bombs. Return to the previous screen, try not to get hit by the acid. This time, dash out to the left and duck when you reach the tip. While you're flashing, walk off the ledge to the left, and when you land below, jump and immediately press left, crashing across the screen and into a door. Open it, but do not enter. Go to the right and drop back down to the ship, and do the R jump again to get to the top ledge. Again, dash from the door to the tip of the ledge, power up, drop off, and power jump to the left. You will go through the door and crash through the next screen, making it to the energy tank with about 60 units of energy to spare. " - Daniel Church ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MASSIVE TIME-SAVING TRICK II: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I received the following letter from a fellow FAQ author... "Hey Marshmallow, you've got an extremely kickass walkthrough. You've put in so much effort man, you rock! You do have the best text-based walkthrough on the net. And personally, your previous walkthrough wasn't bad at all. Look at mine then.... Also being a fellow Super Metroid walkthrough writer (you can find it at GameFAQs), I've got a tip for you. When you've got the Varia Suit and going into that green bubble maze [marsh's note: on your way to the speed booster], you can get the Wave Beam without the Grappling Beam and therefore save some more time. Get to that Wave Beam room (the long shaft which goes upwards, I'm sure you'd know where it is), jump across to get the missiles, and then jump as far as you can to the right. Yes, you'll take some damage, but it's worth it. Use the Wall Jump to get up to the ledge, and the Wave Beam is yours! Pretty early in the game, huh? And to exit easily, fall into the middle of the spike row, it should break and let you through. Hope that was a good tip! And keep up the great work." - Magus (shinra9@yahoo.com) That should DEFINITELY cut off some major time... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ MASSIVE TIME-SAVING TRICK: ------------------------------------------------------------------------ I received the following e-mail from one of my readers... "For some reason no one else seems to have found this strategy except me. It saves a TON of time (it eliminates the detour into Norfair just to get the high-jump boots). Try this: The first time you get to that looong vertical shaft in Brinstar (the one with the Rippers above you guarding the passage to the first cache of power bombs), use super missiles to completely destroy the Rippers (you will probably need to Triangle Jump to get to the last one) and then use the Triangle Jump to ascend the shaft to the Power Bombs. It'll take at least two trips, one to destroy the ceiling (after which you fall) and another to get up to the top and through before it regenerates. It's not easy (I practiced my Triangle Jumping long and hard before I could do it consistently), but it's very possible and if you pull it off, you now have access to the first power bombs WAY WAY before you're 'supposed' to get them--before you fight Kraid and before you even get the high-jump boots! I'm sure you can understand how much backtracking this eliminates and time it saves. Initially you will waste more time than you save until you know the process well enough to do it without falling, but since you're already tearing through the game in record time I imagine you'll learn it quickly. Please try it out and let me know how it works for you. I think you'll want to add it to the walkthrough." Dave Connoy ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Special Beam Attacks: There are four secret weapons in the game. Here's how to activate them. Make sure the power bomb icon is highlighted and that you have at least one of them. Equip the charge beam and ONE other beam. Charge the charge beam and the special attack will occur. Here's what you can get. Ice: You are protected by an ice shield, anything that touches it will be damaged. Plasma: Four balls of plasma circle you and then blow away. Spazer: Large beams fire away from you like shrapnel. Wave: Four balls circle you and then blow away. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Turbo Bomb Technique: If you have the morphing ball and some bombs try this out! Morph and then set bombs, when they blow up you will bounce a few feet up. If you time it just right you can make yourself go several hundred feet up. Using this technique you can get many items earlier than you're supposed to (the Power Bomb, for example). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Five Bombs at Once: Charge up the charge beam and then morph into a ball, you will lay five bombs at once, spread out. This is useful for taking out lots of blocks at once. It would be cool if you could do this with power bombs :) ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Charge Attack: Charge up the charge beam and then do a spin jump, you will become a weapon. It's kinda like the Screw Attack, just not as powerful. Strong enemies can still hurt you, but weaker ones will be sliced to bits. Useful against Phantoom. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Grappling Energy: If you need some energy and weapons get in front of those pipe creatures and let them come out at you, grapple them with the grappling beam and they will be killed. You can also pick up the stuff they leave behind! Cool, huh? ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ultra Jump: Power up the speed booster so you're running at full speed, push down and then jump. You will rocket into the air until you hit something! Although this uses energy, the longer air time means more energy taken away. You can also jump diagonally using R and L. This move is critical if you want to finish the mission...or at least get 100% items. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Crystal Ball Flash: This is top secret! It will refill all of your energy tanks by meeting certain conditions. You MUST have 29 or fewer units of energy remaining, 10 or more missiles, 10 or more super missiles, and 11 or more power bombs. Select the power bomb, turn into a ball, and hold the L, R, and shot buttons down while press down on the pad. Useful if you can't find any energy stations. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Better Endings: Finish the game in better time and you will see more and more of Samus...kinda like strip poker. Seriously though, it is. The best ending (under 3 hours I believe) lets you see Samus Aran in a bikini...whoohoo! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Better Endings II: It's pretty stupid, and it really doesn't give you a better ending, it's just a neat thing to do. When you're escaping from Zebes go to where you picked up the Bomb item, you'll find your buddies: The Etecoons and the Dachola. Shoot out the right wall and they can escape. If you haven't noticed, when the planet explodes in all of its mighty glory, you can just make out their ship escaping to the right of the screen. Not very much, but still. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bunch of kick ass glitches: Go to http://www.classicgaming.com/mdb/met3faq.htm#terms It's at the Metroid Database, the best metroid site on the net! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8) MINOR ENEMY CHARACTERS ======================================================================== Geemer Description: Porcupine like creature Found in: Crateria/Norfair Notes: The basic creature, it walks around floors, walls, and ceilings. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ KiHunter (pronounced KEY hunter) Description: Flying mantises Found in: All areas Notes: They will charge at you, shoot them a few times and they will lose their wings. In this mode they will spit acid at you, try to destroy them before they have time to take aim. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Space Pirate Description: Humanoid Aliens with claws Found in: All Areas Notes: There are some many variations, it can not be described. Some shoot lasers, others breathe fire. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Side Hopper Description: Huge monstrosities that hop side to side Found in: Brinstar/Tourain Notes: Their unpredictable movements make them dangerous prey, take cover and shoot your most powerful weapons. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Small Side Hopper Description: smaller version of the above Found in: Brinstar Notes: Just shoot ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Reo Description: Moth like creatures that swoop down Found in: Crateria/Brinstar Notes: Slowly move the screen until you see a small portion of their body and then shoot! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mellow Description: Fly like creatures, only a few pixels wide Found in: Crateria Notes: Just dash by them, very easy to avoid but a pain if you get caught. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Waver: Bird like monsters that bounce off walls and get in your face Found in: Crateria/Brinstar/Norfair Notes: They are hard to shoot because of their erratic patterns. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kago Description: Green bee hives Found in: Crateria/Norfair Notes: Shoot them and then the stuff that comes out, takes a few sots, Great way to get some ammo. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yapping Maw Description: Worms with big mouths Found in: Crateria/Brinstar/Norfair/Maridia Notes: If they get a hold of you they will suck your energy, freeze them and move by. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Boyon Description: Floating yellow balls Found in: Crateria/Brinstar/Norfair/Maridia Notes: Freeze them for steps ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Skree Description: Bat like aliens with big red eyes, hang out on ceilings Found in: Crateria/Brinstar/Norfair Notes: Get close and they will dive bomb into the ground, shoot diagonally and don't ask questions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Metaree Description: Skrees with metal plating Found in: Brinstar/Norfair Notes: These guys are too tough for normal beams, run past them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Zebbo Description: Bees that come out of pipes Found in: Brinstar/Maridia Notes: Shoot them for lots of power ups ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fire Flea Description: Hovering little lightbulbs Found in: Brinstar/Norfair Notes: If you shoot them the room will get darker, but if you let them be they might hurt you. Freeze them and everything will be O.K. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Ripper Description: Flying turtles, basically Found in: Crateria/Brinstar Notes: They fly back and fourth, back and fourth...freeze them for steps in narrow shafts. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Red Rocket Ripper Description: Ripper with rockets! Found in: Norfair Notes: Take them out with the screw attack ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Cacatac Description: Walking cacti Found in: Brinstar/Maridia/Norfair Notes: Every few seconds they will shoot out a stream of spines. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Zero Description: Worms that cling to walls, resemble slugs Found in: Brinstar Notes: Who made this creature? They suck! Too easy. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Puyo Description: Thin worms that bounce Found in: Norfair/Maridia/Wrecked Ship Notes: A pain if you're low on energy, shoot from afar. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mella Description: Flying fire balls Found in: Norfair Notes: Norfair's version of the mella ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Alcoon Description: Exotic looking dragons that hop out of the ground Found in: Crateria/Norfair Notes: Shoot the second you see them, they shoot well aimed fireballs ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Scisor Description: Basically a crab Found in: Crateria/Maridia Notes: They're slow, shouldn't be a problem. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Choot Description: Very thin creatures that sway back and fourth Found in: Crateria/Maridia Notes: Not much to say except stand back and blast ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Beetom Description: Squids with a single green eye Found in: Crateria/Brinstar Notes: A pain in the neck, among other places. They appear when least expected, they can jump several yards and will suck your energy before you even know what's happening. Shoot them as quick as possible! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Zeela Description: Little green bugs that crawl on ceilings and walls Found in: Brinstar Notes: Brinstar's version of the Geemer ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Geega Description: Bugs with wings Found in: Brinstar Notes: They come out of their pipes and attack, good for replenishing energy and weaponry. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Zeb Description: Large bettles that fly Found in: Brinstar Notes: Read above ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Gamet Description: Huge red insects Found in: Norfair Notes: Read above ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Mini-Kraid Description: Guess! Found in: Brinstar, right before Kraid Notes: He may be smaller and weaker than the real Kraid, but his projectiles have more range. Charge with missiles 'a blazin. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Multiviola Description: Balls that bounce off walls Found in: Norfair Notes: Not much to say except watch out ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Geruta Description: Monsters with pincers that fly in circular patterns Found in: Norfair Notes: Be careful, they have a tendency to charge ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dragon Description: Horse fish shaped dragons, live in Magma Found in: Norfair Notes: They will surface and shoot three fireballs ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Magdollite Description: Magma with green eyes Found in: Norfair Notes: They will launch themselves at you according to where you are, duck! ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Viola Description: Blue Multiviola, they are like Geemers Found in: Norfair Notes: Like I said, like Geemers. According to Nintendo, they are larva of Multiviolas. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nahime Descriptions: Skulls in the wall Found in: Norfair Notes: They spit fast blue fireballs, find a way past them. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Fune Descriptions: Mouths that come out of the wall Found in: Norfair Notes: See above ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Desseega Descriptions: Norfair's version of the Sidehopper Found in: Norfair Notes: Very powerful, shoot lots 'o missiles or use the Screw Attack ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Bull Descriptions: Certainly not what it name implies, a green ball with holes in it Found in: Wrecked Ship/Maridia Notes: Charges without warning, shoot a lot ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Skultera Description: Purple fish Found in: Maridia Notes: They swim back and fourth, back and fourth...zzzz. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Menu Description: Small animals with a single eye Found in: Maridia Notes: They are like Mellows, small. They will charge in swarms and will knock you off platforms, very annoying. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Powamp Description: Large balloon type enemies Found in: Maridia Notes: Use them for grapple blocks. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tatori Description: A huge turtle like baddie. Found in: Maridia Notes: It tries to slam into you, only one exists ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Tatori, Jr. Description: Really small Tatoris Found in: Maridia Notes: They are just for decoration, really. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Yard Descriptions: Snails Found in: Maridia Notes: They make up for their size in stealth, they will come out of no where and charge. They also like to drop in from high places. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Holtz Description: Purple...things, they hover. Found in: Norfair Notes: They are one of the most powerful creatures in the game, too bad they aren't very dangerous. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Squeept Description: They hop out of the magma Found in: Norfair Notes: Ignore ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Sova Description: Red fireball enemies that cling to walls and ceilings Found in: Norfair Notes: Basically Norfair's version of the Geemer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Kobe Description: Skull ghosts that disappear and reappear Found in: Wrecked Ship Notes: Move around so they don't appear on top of you. They are the ghosts of the lost crewmembers. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Work Robot Description: Robots silly! Found in: Wrecked Ship Notes: Until power is restored they are motionless, when turned on they will slowly walk. Some even fire lasers when given the chance. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Zoa Description: Purple things that rise from their nests Found in: Maridia Notes: Like all of those other pipe creatures ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Owtch Description: They remind me of Spiny Guys in Mario 3 and Super Mario World. Found in: Maridia Notes: They pop out of the sand to interrupt your path ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Oum Description: Large shrimp like balls, very interesting to just look at Found in: Maridia Notes: They block your path, be careful, get too close and they will attack ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Evir Description: Large spiny creatures, similar to Draygon Found in: Maridia Notes: They will sink into the mud while firing shots at you, can be a pain while trying to get across a room. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Motchroid Description: Look like small Metroids. Found in: Maridia Notes: The Space Pirates first attempt at cloning Metroids. A good first attempt, but needs improving. Kinda weak. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rinka Description: Red rings of fire Found in: Tourain Notes: Freeze one and they will stop coming out to get you until it's destroyed ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Metroid Description: Jellyfish like creatures, cool looking Found in: Tourain Notes: The only way to kill them is to freeze them and then blast them with five missiles or one super missile. Another way is to lay a lot of power bombs, that's what you should do if they get on you, too. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Shaktool Description: A huge metal, undulating machine. Similar to a Sidehopper. Found in: Maridia Notes: It won't hurt you, it'll dig a path in the sand for you. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Etecoons Description: Little furry green rabbits Found in: Brinstar Notes: The trio will teach you the wall jump ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dachola Description: Ostrich bird, green too Found in: Brinstar Notes: The friendly bird will teach you the ultra jump. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Eye Door Description: Where the door should be is a giant eyeball. Found in: All areas, except Crateria Notes: This is the door right before a boss, shoot three missiles into the eye for it to open. It shoots energy balls at you, hard to avoid. ======================================================================== 9) CREDITS & METROID LINKS ======================================================================== Nintendo: Not only did they make the game, they made the official player's guide. A friend gave it to me a few years ago and I'm using it for this guide as well, just the info though. Dave Connoy : Sent in the massive time saving strategy found at the start of chapter seven. Thanks a lot! Magus : Sent in the massive time saving (number II) strategy found at the start of chapter seven. It explains how to collect the Wave Beam before the Speed Booster or Grappling Beams, effectively shaving off a few minutes. How I missed it...I don't know :) Daniel Church : For yet ANOTHER massive time saving trick. ======================================================================== 10) CONTACT INFORMATION ======================================================================== Feel free to contact the insane author of this FAQ, marshmallow, with any e-mail, corrections, adorations, admonitions, praise, damnation, condemnation, or death threats at: marshmallow@nintendomail.com. I still accept mail sent to m_mallow@hotmail.com, but I don't check it as regularly as my primary, Nintendonext account. Basically, there are five different types of e-mail I will receive on a daily basis. QUESTIONS: ------------ I will answer questions to the best of my ability, but not necessarily immediately. Who knows...you may get an answer hours after sending it, or maybe even weeks. Do not e-mail me telling me to "answer your questions", unless you like to be ignored. Also, please realize that I do have a real life outside the Internet. School, friends, what have you. Hey, sometimes I might not even get on the Internet for a few days if I pick up a hot new game that I enjoy. If you ask a question that has been answered in the FAQ, I will most definitely ignore it. If your question is poorly written (e.g. "Hez waz up, dawg? Got mez uh q!") I will delete it. Etc., etc... PRAISE LETTERS: ----------------- Hey, you mean people actually receive help from me and like to praise my work? Believe me, though I may not reply to it, I do appreciate your comments. Though, most people, if they praise me, do it along with a question, in which I might reply something like, "Yeah, thanks for the support. As for your problem..." HATE LETTERS: --------------- I've received very few of these, but it's happened. Chances are high that I may not reply, but if you present a valid criticism, I may acknowledge your critique. As for those less intellectual letters, heh, they're always good for laughs. JOB APPLICATIONS: ------------------- Though I can assure you I will be flattered, I will *not* work for your site exclusively (or even as a third party). I don't care how much money, women, or drugs you offer me, either. No means no, okay? CHAIN LETTERS: ---------------- No, I don't care about what kind of whore house your uncle runs. No, I don't know who Louie is and why he has a fetish for panties. No, I don't think a piano is going to mysteriously appear out of thin air and fall on me if I don't send a piece of sh!t letter to other people. No, I won't send you cash for a "dying" (yeah, right) kid who is infected with brain cancer, though sometimes I wonder if YOU'RE the one with brain cancer. No, I don't care about this new, amazing revelation about weight loss (my muscle to fat ratio is quite normal, thank you very much). And, finally, I will *not* make out with you! I apologize for the aforementioned subjects, because they had some questionable material. However, considering this is a FAQ for a T rated game with copious amounts of blood and violence, I assume you will not be offended by a little sexual innuendo. Sincerely, marshmallow ~ End of Document ~