davidn

Insomniacs' special!

Thanks to everyone for providing the clues that I needed to get out of my situation in the last part (or rather, shouldn't have needed because all it took was going down an incredibly obvious passage) - in this episode, we have a lecture on observation, a lot of progress without a lot of big events (but some big explosions), and a strange obsession with toasters (I missed a dose of thyroid medication today). It's incredible even to me that I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to say in these before I do them.

The episode ends with me stuck in completely the opposite way from how I started it, free and wandering all over the cave system trying to remember where I've seen yellow doors or things that look like they might need to be cooled down a bit. I've made a couple of laps of the game, but haven't yet found the one that'll actually allow me to progress.

http://youtu.be/sHNcPwi3RTw

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

xaq.livejournal.com

And in honor of you figuring out the most practical use of the Ice Beam on your own, I present to you this relevant and humorous image (http://gelbooru.com/index.php?page=post&s=view&id=969484).

Which, if you'd seen it earlier, would have been a dead giveaway. XP

From:

xaq.livejournal.com

Also, HUGE congrats on figuring out how to wall jump on your own!

From:

dr-dos.livejournal.com

Yeah I beat the game the first time without knowing it even existed. Well done.

Also colorblindness strikes again in Norfair when you said "I know there's a million yellow doors around here" right as you fell past one.

In all but a very few cases special colored doors turn blue when you go through them.

From:

davidn

Ah, I forgot about that rule...! I must have thought the door was the green one that led me to the metallic tunnel again. That's one of three different potential routes that I noticed just by editing the video - it's unintentionally a nice replacement for a perfect memory.

From:

davidn

Thank you :) It must be said that I knew about the existence of wall-jumping, just not how to do it - the slow movement in the water showing me the clinging-on and a happy accident when battering the jump button to get up on to that platform combined to show me what I needed!

From:

kjorteo

Better yet, have the entire collection from back when that was a meme.

(Queblock's is my personal favorite, though you'd probably have to have been American in the early 90s to get the reference.)

From:

crassadon.livejournal.com

I'm pretty sure I thought similiarly to you on the route to get the ice beam: it's just a shaft that enemies come out of.. no reason to look any more into that. It's really quite generous that the game keeps you locked in that room until you solve the puzzle.

I think it's interesting how, after you get the ice beam, the game really opens up into a lot of different paths, so the route you take is quite different from where I might go when I play. Although there's rationally a correct sort of a way to go, as your kind of noticing. Even though you've run all around the area available to you, and seem to be confident that you've tried to go everywhere, it's interesting that there's still quite interesting places in that area, which you haven't been to yet.

Yeah, it's also interesting that you've managed to wall jump. And then used it to go up an incredibly narrow shaft to a room that. . .looks. . . pretty familiar, I guess. Did all the comments that have been posted help you figure out how to do it?

It is really interesting watching you play. Strange, though. Maybe because I always rented the game, it feels like I spent a day in each one of the rooms in it; I have so many memories, I even remember when I went to the top of that elevator shaft and thought "a yellow door.. uhmm. . hmm. . ." I really have memories from every room. It's just sort of weird to think on them.

From:

davidn

That's right... and in many other games, it really could be - but this game really does tell you a lot through its wordless storytelling, I've gradually found that you have to pay attention and learn its language.

After escaping the area of Norfair where you're trapped for a long time, it really does feel like you're free again and the amount of exploration you have to do, piecemeal finding the bits of the game that you can now enter, can be overwhelming...

I was aware of the wall jump, but not exactly how to do it - doing it by accident when I didn't quite make it to that platform was a nice introduction!

And I'm very glad to awaken people's memories :) Everyone has their own way they went through this, and it must be strange to see someone new to it after all this time.

From:

ravenworks.livejournal.com

"An ice beam! That should help cool things down." Booooooo XD

"Should have this lava dealt with in no time and then we'll have a skating rink..." I love these videos. XD

omg, I will forever be imagining that in-universe, Samus is just stepping into ancient zebesian blowdryers just to freshen up a bit

AAAA DAVID STOP FINDING THINGS I DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT
This is why I wanted to see someone else play it -- I've got such a muscle memory for the things I know, that I've stopped exploring for other things :)

Okay yeah -- you found the "freeze the turtles to climb back up" method, AND you found the wall jump ON YOUR OWN -- you are beyond needing our help :) Also, you can forget the warning I gave you about avoiding a save point -- that section just teaches you the wall jump, which is notoriously difficult to do, but if you've ALREADY got the hang of it then you don't have anything to worry about. USE SAVE POINTS WITH IMPUNITY!

omg, flippers.... I want to see Samus trying to equip Zelda equipment XD

well now the ship will forever be a toaster to me XD I'm getting all these new memes overlayed onto this game!

"that would explain why my toast's always so soggy", aaaaaa XD

Oh, David, the dark rooms.....! Daviiiiiid, I don't want to say too much, but you are making those rooms harder on yourself XD I didn't say anything the first time, but it's been twice now and you haven't caught on.... X3

99 factor suntan lotion XD

You've always been able to do the wall jump, for the record :) At least as far as I know. I generally avoid doing it XD

Also "with a pineapple" usually means because a pineapple would be a very abrasive object to be.... *ahem* never mind. :)

GEEZ YOU'RE GOOD AT THAT WALL JUMP!! I never realised how many places you can get with it!!

"I don't know how I would have worked that out except I did" XD Yes, Metroid is like that sometimes :) (But no, for the record, you're kind of sequence-breaking here ;) )

I love how thrilled you are every time a power bomb goes off XD

Anyway, I'll say this much -- the way forward isn't something terribly obscure or anything; you just have to keep wandering until you stumble back onto it. (I'll give you one slightly bigger hint, it isn't actually on the MAIN highways, it's off a room somewhere -- but it IS something you've previously noticed, you just have to remember it was there.) I'm willing to bet there's a map hint to it also, because I remember being stumped here too just recently, and then I remember seeking out the correct path somehow but I forget why, so, it's probably the map...... but anyway! Explore! You're SUPPOSED to be wandering lost in these games, that doesn't mean you're getting it wrong, that means you're playing Metroid :)

From:

kjorteo

I TOLD YOU WALL JUMPING WAS USEFUL RAVEN

maybe not for the reason I actually said but STILL

From:

ravenworks.livejournal.com

I stand corrected X3

Though I maintain that it still isn't NECESSARY. ;P

From:

kjorteo

No, but for optional stuff, it's more handy than Shinesparking. :P (Including the fact that, rather impressively, David just used a secret optional technique to get around having to use another secret optional technique, by wall jumping up a Shinesparkable shaft.)

Edited Date: 2013-05-25 04:15 pm (UTC)

From:

kjorteo

Though at least we can all agree that, as far as optional moves and their relative usefulness go, the absolute bottom of the list, the "wow, we all just completely forgot about that one because no one cares and it's not used for anything at all ever" one, is still the Crystal Flash.

From:

ravenworks.livejournal.com

I am seriously wondering if they just put that in so that they could have something to hint at in the attract mode, without it being useful enough that it would be cruel to only hint at it in the attract mode.

Wait, how the hell were we supposed to figure out how to DO that move, anyway? Does it say in the manual, or is that just a "this should sell some subscriptions to Nintendo Power" thing?

From:

kjorteo

"I know! Let's put in a move whose ammunition requirements are so absurdly specific and whose use is so narrow that no one will ever be in a situation in which it would come in handy, make the input more arcane and complicated than most actual cheat codes of that era, make it the one optional move (unless you count bomb jumping) that does not have any sort of demonstration from local critters, and then make it look really cool in attract mode and make it a key plot point in the Nintendo Power comic!"

It says something that, of all the techniques Super Metroid invented, Shinesparking became a series mainstay and was even enhanced (no more energy loss, the diagonal slope rule, Ballsparking), wall jumping came back but in a nerfed form because it was too useful otherwise (like how the Spider Ball became "*on applicable preordained Spider Ball Tracks only" when jumping to the Prime series--it just would have been too impossibly game-breaking if they hadn't done that), and the Crystal Flash never showed up again, in any other game, at all, ever, because ... eh, well, they can't all be winners.

From:

davidn

Ballsparking

Now we're getting into abilities that I'd prefer to avoid!

From:

crassadon.livejournal.com

Congratulations, DavidN, you've now turned that into a sexual thing for me, every time I will see that ability.

From:

davidn

It was the least I could do after the Fox's Creams Incident of 2011.

From:

ravenworks.livejournal.com

I was ready to agree with that until I remembered the beams' weird secondary orbital thingies!

From:

xaq.livejournal.com

Ummm...does David even know what a "Shinespark" is yet? o.O

From:

kjorteo

Of course not, or else I wouldn't have discussed it so freely. Giving him too much useful, actionable information is counterproductive to a Stumbling Through.

From:

davidn

Now I'm going to be looking through my weapons and comparing them to see which ones combined could produce a shine and/or spark.

From:

kjorteo

Good luck with that.

From:

davidn

This is like a foreign language to me.

From:

dr-dos.livejournal.com

After you've masted shinesparking we can move on to mockballing.

From:

davidn

Ballsparking, mockballing... there is a worrying similarity between advanced Metroid techniques and what happens in the basement of gay bars in Germany.

From:

davidn

Wow, a lot to reply to! I'm glad so many of my offhand comments stick in your mind - it's weird watching them again and listening to my stream of consciousness... (where did blowdriers and toasters come from? I never have any idea what's going to come up in the next video...) Speaking of which, I'm aware of the pineapple's, er, application - just that it didn't make any sense in the context of the stream of curses with which I had prefaced it!

Nice to know I'm free now - in fact, I'm a bit too free, as the game feels huge after spending a long time stuck down in Norfair! It's surprising just how many nooks and crannies there are to explore now, and editing the videos is very helpful for reminding me of places that I've bypassed or been unable to progress in (the yellow door I fell past is just one of three potential forward routes I've now noticed).

Out of interest, what did I discover here that you didn't know about? I love the idea that my own unique route is teaching even veterans things like this, just through my lack of... constantly aware direction of where I should go next.

From:

ravenworks.livejournal.com

In this video, it was the "hang on my bullet went through the wall" that led to the super-missile-on-the-wrong-side gate... although the fact that it opens on the other side might mean I've exited from there and just forgot where the exit was... this game gets twisty!

From:

davidn

Yes, I definitely get the feeling that I'll be coming at that from the other side... although whether that's also a secret (that I've just opened up a hint as to the existence of) or a necessary route through the game... we'll find out!

From:

dr-dos.livejournal.com

This series is doing a good job of making me want to play through the game again.

Would you be interested in maybe doing a group video where I'd speedrun through the game? (As best as I can, I'm no professional!)

I highly recommend you watch a TAS at some point after you've completed the game though. A 100% run is 1 hour 10 minutes. Or a 46 minute rever boss order run. Or a 21 minute glitched run...

From:

xaq.livejournal.com

Glad I'm not the only one that happened to...I managed to complete my first 100% run yesterday, actually! :D

Only took about 4 hours, not including the 32 minutes I spent on one particular Missile expansion (not saying which for David's sake, but everyone else probably knows exactly which one I speak of) that wasn't factored in due to save-state abuse or the hour and a half I spent checking items off a map...or however long I spent being dead-set convinced I'd missed 5 missile packs due to the final tally and a bit of innate geekiness. XP

From:

davidn

Yes, that sounds like it could be fun :) Especially seeing how efficiently it can be done compared to how, well, I do it - currently I'm at about 1 hour and 30 minutes of video, edited down from at least five hours of gameplay.

From: (Anonymous)

*JD from GFaqs, all the comments on these vids seem to be here so...*

I can't be the only one thinking this (well, maybe) but to keep things vague I think it is safe to say that you are getting close to being within range of having to do... something in particular in order to ultimately advance. It sticks out to me as it was one of those "collective knowledge" deals where I'd wager most who played the game when it was new don't have a particular recollection as to how we all figured it out, it just became known at some point.

Now while it is probably common knowledge at this point I... am unsure how you will figure it out. As mentioned I haven't the foggiest idea how even I figured it out. Of course based on this you will probably figure it out with ease while getting stuck on something rather benign.

At the very least I am looking forward to seeing how things unfold when you eventually have to come upon it.

From:

davidn

Interesting :) There is a point in the next video-to-be where I know I did something wrongly but managed to advance anyway... I'm not sure if this was what you were thinking of, but we'll see!