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

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

I stand corrected X3

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

[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.)

[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.

[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?

[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.

[davidn]

Ballsparking

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

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

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

[davidn]

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

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

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

[xaq.livejournal.com]

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

[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.

[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.

[kjorteo]

Good luck with that.

[davidn]

This is like a foreign language to me.

[dr-dos.livejournal.com]

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

[davidn]

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