Stumbling through Super Metroid - Part 10

[davidn]

Celebrating ten parts! But this is, without a shadow of a doubt, the dullest video to produce that I've done in this entire project. After making what I thought was great progress for the last few videos, here I was reduced to running around the entire game in a very big circle for just shy of two hours, after which I asked Kjorteo to give me a pointer and through him I remembered about the giant scary face in the rock that had scared me off several videos ago.

This video is mostly me hoovering up secrets, messing about and getting frustrated. Once again, over two hours of gameplay have been compressed down into exactly fifteen minutes.

http://youtu.be/Fh2_50_qgFw

Comments

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

Oh my god, you're so good at the wall jump that you got out of the boss room without it forcing you to find out how to learn the space jump! XD I never realised how unbalanced the wall jump ability is...!! Do most people play it this way...??

And now you've noticed one of the things that disappoints me about Maridia -- after you beat the boss, all the doors unlock.... which is KIND of the idea all throughout the game, but, here they break with their tradition of giving you some new means of opening them,and instead just..... literally unlock them! It's functionally the same, but... a little too transparent? It worked in the Wrecked Ship because you were ostensibly restoring power to those doors, but.... here it just feels like a video game artificially gating your progress, instead of the identical-but-satisfying "hey I've found my own way forward, huzzah!" I only mind because they've done such a good job with it throughout the game, but then they just.... stop trying partway through?? It's odd!

"ALANNNN!" XD Oh godddd, davidddd XD

"a spoon and a lazer", MORE HEADCANON

OH MAN, YOU FINALLY GET IT, BUT IT'S AFTER YOU CAN EVEN USE IT! Hahah, oh well X3

OMG, you nearly pulled off getting the speedboostybird out! Not that it does anything at all (he just runs back and forth confused) because the programmers clearly didn't INTEND for him to get out, but.... it's still fun to do (https://miiverse.nintendo.net/posts/AYMHAAABAAD4UV51K9yW4Q) for the hell of it :D

"forgot I could fly" XD

aaaaaa david things I want to say but aaaaa

Afraid of slugs! I was wondering why you had that reaction to the SLOWEST ENEMY IN THE GAME, the first time :)

"this isn't going to go well when that dialogue box disappears" XD;;; You're Wile E Coyote with a placard :)

surprise samus XD;;

So, wait, who told you to look around the statue? There's nothing around the statue.... unless they just said that as a way to drag you back through the game to find other secrets?

Regardless, I don't know why you'd say this one was dull -- it's great watching you finally find secrets that you've been running past :D Running around the game with super powers is the most satisfying part! (Unless you just meant it was dull to edit it, which I guess I could see!)

[davidn]

Yes, I did get out of the boss room by running and doing a mighty wall-jump - the comment about being blocked by the openness that the wall jump gave me just a couple of minutes into this video was very true! Although even at that stage, I knew that I must be missing something - I swear I tried double-jumping in the boss room and couldn't do it at all. Even now, I'm not quite sure what the correct timing is, I can do three in a row and it'll suddenly seem to stop working.

I felt for a while that the game was surprisingly heavy-handed with its exploration, after all I'd heard - the first few abilities you get are just different grades of explosive that open different coloured doors (which sort of defeats the point of a door in the first place). After that it starts giving you more movement abilities or things that you can use to adapt the environment, which feels much more rewarding - actually, now that I say that, I imagine it was very deliberate to make the first few exploration upgrades extremely obvious and then gently fall into letting you work things out.

And yes, I am very afraid of slugs, and also worms (and very slightly less so of snails because at least they have some sort of solid mass to them). It's difficult to explain why, it's just that they're... entirely composed of slime (yes, I know) and alien and... blaaagh.

I imagine we're getting close to the end of the game now, I can't think of any obvious passages that remain unexplored or items that are unused... (watch me be wrong here). So you won't have to bottle things up for long :) The retrospective on the final post when it comes is going to be just amazing...

Yes, it was just the production process that was dull, metal-detecting my way around the entire game and making no significant progress :) Actually, editing the video to cut out the dull parts is the best part, it's much more enjoyable to edit than Hatoful was because I'm cutting out vast swathes instead of patching and feathering over slightly-too-long pauses and technical issues. This fifteen-minute video is the interesting bits from two hours of gameplay - I'm always glad to hear that I am able to get something good out of it :)

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

"The retrospective on the final post when it comes is going to be just amazing..."

I'm looking forward to the finale of the game for different reasons than a retrospective on puzzles... without giving anything away, the wordless storytelling once again shows itself to be excellent. And... well, the name of the entire franchise is "Metroid", based on the particular species of creature, not "The Adventures of Samus Aran" so even though she's one of the series' icons, you know that there has to be something special about the other one. There's a mystique about them and you haven't even encountered one yet! Those ones in Maridia were poor imitations created by the space pirates.

You experienced a bit of that anticipatory fear when you encountered the fakes, and said that you didn't want to let them free... And there's a reason the real thing is supposed to be frightening.

[budgiebin.livejournal.com]

Y can't Metroid crouch?

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

BECAUSE IT DOESN'T HAVE LEGS. (http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20100322225157/metroid/images/d/d8/Metroid4_07.jpg)

EXCEPT WHEN IT DOES. (http://watchusplaygames.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/metroid-2-evolution-artwork.jpg)

[budgiebin.livejournal.com]

Shame the life cycle of a metroid wasn't touched on in any other game in the franchise. I'd like to see at least a 3D remake.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

It comes up again (albeit briefly) in Fusion.

One thing I was never able to get, though, is why the iconic forms of them were called Betas, and yet the next evolutionary stage for them were called Alphas...in any case, though, that image does make the changes between forms make sense.

[budgiebin.livejournal.com]

Error in translation/lack of knowledge regarding the Greek alphabet?