Stumbling through Super Metroid - Part 5

[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

Comments

[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.

[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.