Nintendo E3 preview

Nintendo.com put up a few previews of games that will be shown at E3, although nothing that hasn’t already been announced.

The Metroid Prime 2 screens that have been circulating print magazines are now online, and the first details about Metroid Prime 2 have been revealed.

“In this highly anticipated sequel to Metroid Prime, become the bounty hunter behind the visor once more and travel to a planet torn into light and darkness. Hunted by a mysterious entity and a warring race called the Ing, Samus Aran must explore the light and dark worlds of this doomed planet to discover secrets and augment her suit’s weapons and abilities.
And now, for the first time in the history of the celebrated Metroid franchise, up to four players can battle each other as they search for weapons, grapple across ceilings, and turn into Morph Balls to make their escapes. “

Could this mysterious entity be what remains of Metroid Prime?  Sounds like they’re moving on from Tallon IV and to a new planet with a new threat, and I guess Samus totally destroyed the Space Pirates so they’re probably out of the picture for now.

Is the full title for MP2, Metroid Prime 2: Echoes?

Metroid II: Return of Samus

 

On the final game of my recent Metroid series playing spree, I’m halfway or more through Metroid II: Return of Samus. (I’ve finished Super Metroid and Metroid Prime and will have to write about them later.)
After playing Super Metroid, I originally got Metroid II for Game Boy to keep me occupied during a long 6 hour vacation ride. I played through the entire game on my original Game Boy on the trip and finished it when the ride was over about 6 hours later. Playing Metroid II again now, the problems brought up in this review are apparent. Metroid has come a long way since Metroid II, and now that I’ve gotten enough experience with the original Metroid, I can see how the sequel deviated from the original’s design.

Maybe I’m just getting tired of playing Metroid games at the moment after playing them all, but I think Metroid II’s roughness is getting to me. Compared to the original Metroid, Samus feels slower, specifically in her floaty jumps. I haven’t found the High Jump boots so that might be some of the problem. The design of SR388 is kinda linear. Although you can return to the ship to refill missiles and energy (but not save!), you have to climb all the way back to the top to the planet’s surface, where in later games the ship is in a more central location accessable from other locations.

The most annoying part of playing Metroid II again has to be that everything looks the same. Spoiled by the beautiful graphics of recent game like Zero Mission, Metroid II being limited to the original Game Boy’s shades of grey and not much uniquness in the way of room layouts, the reuse of many rooms, and of course not having a map, makes navigating through the game a bit frustrating. I usually just reexplore rooms to make sure they are cleared of Metroids, and eventually stumbled upon a path that leads to a new area.
The music in this game is mainly restricted to the main hub level that leads to the different levels that the Metroids infest. I never get tired of that theme. It’s always a welcoming feeling once an area is cleared and the theme plays as you return to the main hub, as to announce your progressing through the game, after going through the levels that contain a more sound effect filled tune lacking melody to create atmosphere.

I got a pleasant surprise from what might be called an unofficial “miniboss” in the game, Arachnus. I describe him as a miniboss because he gave me some trouble. This enemy was reused for Metroid Fusion, and was first boss you fight in the game, the one that you gain the morph ball ability from. I couldn’t remember exactly what part of Metroid II this boss was from, because the last time I played Metroid II, I had missed it. Turns out you fight him for the Spring Ball jump abiltiy. Instead of the spring ball, the Chozo statue has this enemy curled up in a ball. The only way to kill it is to morph into the ball and lay bombs when it unrolls, while dodging the projectiles it throughs. I had low life at the time and just couldn’t get away from his shots at first, so I had to run around the room a bit. I believe there were a couple of Metroid II enemies that were used for Super Metroid as well.

Considering this is a game for the original Game Boy and is over 10 years old, its fairly good. It’s just the rough flaws of the old hardware that bring it down compared to recent games, and make it frustrating and slow to play through today. I would love to see R&D1 remake this game, along with the original as an unlockable of course. I wouldn’t mind if it came out a year after Zero Mission’s release as long as they have enough time to complete it. Seeing as how the game appears to have less unique, distinct, and interesting graphics and levels than Metroid, they could pretty much redo the entire game I bet. The SRX area, and inclusion of enemies and the Omega Metroid in Metroid Fusion give a taste of how colorful a redone SR388 could be.
————–
The fact that I had missed the High Jump Boots was making me miss out on my maximum jumping potential, so I consulted a map after wandering around aimlessly, and discovered it was right by the Wave Beam. Passed right over it in the vertical block room, not to mention you walk through a false wall.
   #*%!

Progressing in Metroid Prime on Hard

Friday, April 16th, 2004

Currently playing the excellent Metroid Prime again for my recent Metroid series addiction that started with Zero Mission. After about 7h 40m with 54%, I’ve reached where I left off on my last try through Metroid Prime on the Hard difficulty, the Phazon Mines. The whole guantlet of space pirates to get through with no save point on the way frustrated me so much from trying again and again that I quit playing, and I had enough of Metroid Prime at the time.

This time things were different. I started using some better techniques to dispatch the enemies in this game, like firing missiles at a fast rate by manually pressing A to close Samus’ cannon so another missile could be shot quickily, instead of waiting for the missile delay. The Ice Beam works wonders against space pirates, just manage to freeze one and blow it away with a missile. Against the wave beam pirates, I knew charging up the wave beam and then firing would stun them, what I noticed now, specifically with the boss fight with Thardus, was that the charged wave beam is ready as soon as the sphere appears. It doesn’t have to be fully charged to fire and be effective. So this way as soon as the wave beam pirate is free from being stunned, I can hit him again. The normal yellow pirates just take some evasive action and super missiles.

It was normally that by the time I reached the room with the invisible sentry drone, or if I was lucky enough to even make it that far, I’d die around that point. Perhaps my recent experience with Metroid, Zero Mission, and Super Metroid made me notice the clever construction of this room.

Like the infinitely respawining enemies that are used for refill stations in the original Metroid, so too were these platted puffers. Of course, this was why this area was giving me a hard time! This was why this long stretch of doom was so hard and there was no save point where there seemingly should have been one. Before I had just rushed through this room because of the puffer infestation and deadly gas, my energy count already being low. Unless your going for some mind exploding speed run through Prime it will take a while, but the puffers will give off 20 energy point refills and missiles. Now I shouldn’t have a problem finishing the game on hard mode.

Metroid

I beat Metroid on the Zero Mission cartridge last night. Since I started at the beginning of Norfair, and I had already picked up the Screw Attack and Wave Beam, I decided to go to Kraid’s lair first and take him out. I did terrible on Kraid, but ended up going all the way to the left side and shooting him from the side while jumping out of the acid. I destroyed him just in time because I had about 14 points of energy left from all the hits I had taken, and from being in the acid. When I headed back to Norfair, I found out I had been looking for the entrance to Ridley in the wrong place. I went down some path through Norfair, and all of the sudden I was in the elevator room for Norfair. I thought the area where you get the Wave Beam eventually lead to Ridley’s lair, so I was way off.

This version of Metroid the GBA seems to have a lot of slowdown problems when there are a lot of sprites around, at least I would think its worse than the original Metroid. For Ridley’s boss fight, the flames he throws move very slowly, so much that I can have plenty of time to wait until they get near, and then screw attack through them to avoid damage. The same with the final battle with Mother Brain. I tried screw attacking through Ridley’s flames and then hitting him with missiles, but finally resorted to getting underneath him in the acid and shooting him from below.

Tourian took forever for me to get through. I came there with 6 energy tanks and 230 missiles, I think there is 255 missiles in the game total. When I first got to Tourian, I was remembering how the remake level was, and in the original, they start you off right there with Metroids coming at you. When I got to the bottom of the first room there was a orange door, and it didn’t open after 5 missiles. I thought it was an event door like in later games, so I went up to kill the Metroids I must have missed, and then I realized that the Metroids respawn in the original. Although the mission is to destroy them all, you really don’t need to destroy them unless they block your path.

As an old NES game, the game seems to have glitches in the graphics sometimes. After I froze a ring in the last Metroid room, it unfroze and became a Metroid, and I was attacked by all 3 that I had froze.
The hard part of finishing the game had to do with getting to Mother Brain’s room and shooting out the Zebetites. After shooting that first door that took 10+ missiles, and taking out all of the Metroids on the way, I didn’t have many missiles left. So I did a lot of backtracking to take out Metroids and refill missiles and life. Missiles that Metroids leave behind give you 40, and energy gives you 30. I died at least 2 times on the Mother Brain, so I had to spend a lot of time killing Metroids to refill. The boss fight had plenty of slowdown, so to kill Mother Brain, I stood where the last Zebetite was and shot missiles straight across, and then moved out of the way of the rings that slowly came from above and below, then jumped back up.
The final escape was a little akward because of the GC’s control stick and Samus’ tendency to spin with her slow jump movement. I didn’t beat the game in 2 hours, but Samus did remove her helmet, so I did it somewhat fast.

Metroid is still an NES classic, and still plays well enough today although a bit stiff, but the remake, Metroid: Zero Mission, is certainly more enjoyable and fun to play.

Zero Mission 100% on Normal under 2 hours!

Finished Metroid: Zero Mission with 100 % item collection in under 2 hours on normal.  I didn’t see how this was possible and didn’t originally think they’d make you go through the game in 2 hours while collecting all the items. I almost thought I wasn’t going to make it and would have to try again.
Here’s how I went through the game. For the most part, I got most of the items on my way through each area. I went from the start, got the longshot and did everything normal until it was time to go to Norfair. After getting the Power Grip and coming back to Norfair to get the Ice Beam, I decided I’d try to use the long vertical shaft shortcut after the Ice Beam and see what I can get early. I considered going to Ridley and fighting him, but it’d take way too long. So by using the shortcut, I grabbed the High Jump Boots. So then I left Norfair and went after the Varia suit. That way I didn’t have to beat Kraid to get the Speed Booster and come back to Norfair to get the boots, and then go all the way back to Brinstar to get the Varia, and then come back to Norfair… saving a lot of time. After Getting the Varia suit and finishing that area of Brinstar, I went to Kraid’s hideout and beat him, going through the entire level collecting all but the 1 Missile Tank that required the Gravity suit to get. Then I headed back to Norfair and went to Ridley, before that of course picking up the Super Missile in Brinstar that required the shine spark. I decided it would be better for me to take the “backdoor” to Ridley’s boss room and to come back later after I got the powered up suit to explore the rest of Ridley.
Once I had gone through Chozodia and got the fully powered suit, I had planned to grab all of the items on the way down, but discovered there was one item that was blocked off by one of those Chozo barriers that fall once you get the suit, and the Power Bombs were needed to destroy it. So I had to make my way all the way to the Power Bombs, that I had to get anyways. I decided to go ahead and go through the chozo ruins again and grab that last item, then come all the way back, might as well get it done while I was in the area and had time.
Coming from Chozodia lead to Crateria where I got all of the items except for the one Power Bomb buried in the side of the cliff. So skipping that I headed to Tourian, then from there headed to Brinstar to get to Kraid for the one Missile tank I had left that needed the Gravity Suit and shine spark. Then I headed to the right and to the save room in Kraid that has an entrance to Norfair, so I could pick up the remaining stuff in Norfair and Ridley. Killed the insect miniboss in Ridley in one chase thanks to the amount of Super Missiles I had by then.

After acquring everything in Norfair and Ridley, one last challenge lay ahead, the Power Bomb in Crateria’s cliff. I figured this was best put off until the end because it takes so long for me to get it right. I have the process down of getting to it now. Just get the boost energy, jump on the rock sitting in the path and use the shine spark on it to save the energy longer, then hug the cliff while space jumping up. The hardest part is just using the shine spark dash at the right spot in midair, because Samus has to fit within two tiles to break the inside speed boost ones. This means trying over and over again with the shine spark, either hitting the spot slightly too high, or slightly too low. It was around 1:35 from about 1:30 when I cleared the passage for the first time on this run, and then to my dismay, I realized I needed a Power Bomb to blow out the rest of the passage, and I had used them up along the way and hadn’t gotten a refill at a chozo. So just for kicks I went ahead back to Chozodia and beat the game with 99% to see if I had enough time, as I had thought I wasn’t going to make it. It only takes about 3-5 minutes to get from Crateria to Metal Ridley’s room in Chozodia, and then about 2min to beat Metal Ridley with Super Missiles so I had nothing to worry about with my current file.
So to finish up, I restarted from my save point in Norfair, and boosted to the right in the first area, and headed up the green area and to the nearest room with the Chozo statue for a refill. I had kept destroying enemies but they weren’t giving any bombs. I repeated the process for the Crateria item and rushed to Chozodia which only takes about 5 mins or less, picked up the last Energy Tank right before the boss, destroyed Metal Ridley, and finished at roughly 1:45 with 100%.

My run through Zero Mission is probably a lot more exciting to watch then to for me to explain heh. 7 out of 8 endings obtained. Onward to the final ending for 100% on Hard in under 2 hours!

Zero Mission 100% on hard…

Went through all of Hard mode and got 100% item collection and…

Argh, foiled again. Got the same ending as before because I thought I had to do it again on Hard. I did the same thing before when I tried to beat both Normal and Hard in under 2 hours and got the same ending. Not having a actual guide book for the game to tell me the endings, I had to look on GameFAQs (couldn’t find it specifically on a Metroid fansite), but there’s like 7 different FAQs, some incomplete.
A FAQ by DEngel looks complete… The remaining two endings I need out of the 8 are:
- Beat the game in less than 2 hours with 100% item collection on normal.
- Beat the game in less than 2 hours with 100% item collection on hard.
Under 2 hours. 100%. Argh…
My Gamecube is still messed up. It seems like after taking the disc out and putting it back and playing with it, it’ll read the disc and be ok. But it looks like I have to do this every time I want to play. Reminds me of blowing on old NES cartridges and trying to get the game to not turn on with a white blinking screen. Something must be dying in the system or its just not aligned right, it doesn’t sound quite like it should anymore.