Stumbling through Super Metroid - Part 11

[davidn]

Thank you for making the last video about Super Metroid the most-discussed thing in the history of this journal (beating the previous record holder Symphony of the Night by some margin). I still have about a squillion comments to reply to, but for now, here is part 11!

I hesitate to say that things "heat up" in this part because as we all know that would be bloody stupid, but in the lower regions of Norfair, the action noticeably raises a tier - here, two very tough bosses get defeated and I acquire an extremely enjoyable new ability that I briefly thought I had in the last video. I know that I must be close to the end of the game now - will part 12 be the final one? We'll see...

http://youtu.be/wNqOyvnGEKQ

Comments

[budgiebin.livejournal.com]

What an interesting concept, the "bone pterodactyl" being a fully grown metroid. If you decided to look at the image charts in the last post (assuming you recorded after they showed up) then you might notice that the design isn't *too* far off from being dragony!

I also love how you call the little capsules Kinder Eggs. I might have to start using that term now. I wonder what Samus does with all the chocolate she picks up during her adventures?

[budgiebin.livejournal.com]

I ALSO HOPE YOU NOTICED THAT ENERGY TANK IN THE ROOM YOU ENDED IN.

[davidn]

I'm glad to introduce new terminology :) It only occurred to me that they were like them during the eighth video or so and now I can't stop!

I did notice the energy tank, but it took me until I watched the final render of the video! I'm not sure why I glanced past it before, even when looking directly at it with the X-ray vision.

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

You know, while I never really made the (fantastic) connection to Kinder Surprise, I always did think of them fairly literally as eggs - like something incubating the power-ups inside. I wouldn't be surprised, though, if that was intentional from a design-perspective. Especially as the series goes on and the Chozo technology begins to seem.. either very bio-organic or very "solid energy" in nature. Or both!

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Well, as he pointed out, Samus apparently hadn't had anything to eat in over 17 hours...

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

Obviously, while she was waiting for the barbecued remains of Ridley (not going to speculate on how much it takes it to cook something that seems to practically be immune to heat to begin with) she's just been tiding herself over on the delicious, dual-coated pieces of milk and white chocolate, guiltily imagining a recurring warning from her adoptive Chozo parents about ruining her appetite.

"I'm a powerful bounty hunter now!" She thought to herself. "I have enough ordinance to blow up a small moon (if it's made of power bomb blocks anyway) so surely I'm mature enough to manage my appetite and still eat what I want, when I want!"
And yet as poor Samus stood over Ridley's body she realized she'd had so many power-ups and expansions, and thus so much Kinder chocolate, she couldn't eat another bite. Her meal thoroughly ruined, she thought sadly of her Chozo-parents before setting out once more to find the Metroid larva, and hopefully make them proud.

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

You keep forgetting about the charge beeeeaaaam! ;)

Aaa, I've never seen that bird baby attack XD

WHAT biscuits?? XD

"That was IMMENSELY satisfying." The secret of metroid games :D

A heart shape! Most people say Mickey Mouse :)

Did you just decide to be cautious and thereby avoid the save point ;)

For the record: fully-grown metroids are A MILLION TIMES SCARIER than ridley bone pterodactyl ;)

Oh my god you got through the fight with like ten health left XD

...... DAVID!!!! DAAAAAAAVIIIIIIIID DID YOU REALLY MISS THAT
YOU ACTUALLY SAW IT, YOU WERE ACTUALLY LOOKING RIGHT AT IT AND IT WAS ON SCREEN AND VISIBLE
I can accept that you missed it during gameplay, but..... surely you caught it during editing? :)
(not a HUGE deal to miss, but.... you saw it and then missed it anyway! X3)

[davidn]

YES yes I did see the energy tank (though it took me until I watched the final video) - somehow my eyes were on the centre of the room and not that pocket even when I was X-raying it.

I got through that fight with exactly ten health left! I couldn't believe it when Ridley finally exploded... does it always happen that way, grabbing you and then drifting about before exploding, or was that just a coincidence for me? It seemed an unusual end, when I thought I had just died.

The baby bird attack shocked me as well! It didn't happen the time when I got past that boss... just twice on my third attempt to finish me off. I've no idea what triggers it, I don't remember taking particularly long on it that time or anything...

And, well, I'll look forward to the climactic battle that's no doubt approaching!

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

It does! When you kill Ridley, he grabs you, flies about, then explodes and drops you! For maximum dramatic effect I guess :) "WITH MY DYING BREATH.... I...... SQUEEZE YOU A LITTLE......"

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

A gesture sadly overshadowed by Crocomire's earlier, much more dramatic attempt. You know, where it melts to death in bubbly lava/acid and then breaks through a wall of spikes to come after you as a skeleton.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Nicely done against the Chozo Statue...that being said, though, there's one thing I'd like to mention in a way that you can actually pick up (assuming I wasn't screaming at the scream so loud that it actually carried over to the other side of North America)....

USE THE CHARGE BEAM, FOR GOD'S SAKE!!

Seriously, that would have made that battle insanely easier for you; Charge Beam shots carry about as much punch as a Missile and are the one weapon he can't dodge/catch.

[davidn]

As you're no doubt aware, I picked up the Charge Beam and then forgot about it about four seconds later! It was only out of desperation at the end of this video that I remembered about it...

No doubt they're better than nothing, but does the large amount of time needed to charge a shot make them better than the Super Missile refilling strategy that I accidentally went with?

[ravenworks.livejournal.com]

It doesn't take as long as you'd think, especially compared to the time it takes to fire TWO super missiles since he'll catch the first one.... and, you can charge it while you're hopping about dodging him anyway; most bosses don't let you just stand there and constantly unload... you get the hang of leaving your finger down on the charge beam, and so there's almost always one ready by the time you've got an opening!

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

I've found that it can be awkward to use against bosses that only have a limited window of vulnerability, such as Kraid or Crocomire, at least if you're lacking the skill to compensate for it, like me.
I mean, I thought I was skilled at the game, but I kept missing Kraid's mouth and hitting that damn hand he puts in front of it, and that was with missiles! Then - admittedly I tried the power bomb thing with Crocomire to see if it made it significantly more challenging, but I really did have difficulty with it! It's getting into a rhythm as much as anything, but he gained a lot of ground on me. It seems like, if he gets you past the door, he becomes more aggressive and harder to push back. Unless, again, that was just my incompetence!

[kjorteo]

Normally, no, a charged beam shot is roughly as powerful as a normal missile and is therefore mostly meant as a weapon of last resort so a boss isn't literally unwinnable if you run out of ammo. If all else fails, you at least still have that, is the basic idea.

However, against that boss, the charge beam is good because he catches super missiles, goes 3D to dodge regular missiles, and has no answer whatsoever to the charge beam except to just take it in the face.

[dr-dos.livejournal.com]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrNOrNyEWo8

A charged plasma beam shot however, is a lot stronger than a missile. I don't have damage numbers, but I know Spore Spawn takes multiple _super_ missiles to kill.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

I can give a good idea about it: On a full-blown cheat run, I just went up against Kraid.

Super Missiles: 4 hits.

Fully charged Plasma Beam: 3 hits

Fully charged Plasma+Ice+Wave Beam: 2 hits


So, at bare minimum, a charged shot of the Plasma Beam by itself is 33% stronger than a Super Missile, and a charged I/W/P shot is between 100 and 399% stronger.

[xaq.livejournal.com]

Not just against that boss; the Charge Beam would have come in helpful on many an occasion. (As would the Spazer that we were all basically screaming at you to go back and get from time to time; I imagine the wider shots would have proven quite helpful to you early on, as well as the added damage.)

For example (this is hardly a spoiler since you now have the Screw Attack), if you do a spin-jump with a fully-charged shot ready, Samus basically goes into pseudo-Screw Attack mode (I believe the technical term is "Charge Attack" ) and can tear apart most minor enemies that she would run into.

(Of course, you'd have learned to hate the Charge Attack pretty quickly since it screws up a Wall Jump.)

Well, if nothing else, it might be interesting to see the results of a second playthrough and see just how much actually knowing some stuff about the game improves you from your cold start.


...OH. It might be a while before this becomes pertinent, but...when you finish the game? Be sure to watch the credits all the way through.

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

I was screaming at him not to find it. . :)

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

There's a whole bunch of interesting stuff you can do with the charge beam! Most of it is discoverable by accident, but still extremely easy to miss.

And then when David did find the Spazer I'm sure we were all screaming at him not to use it, given how completely obsolete it was by then!

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

Isn't it great how they create such am ominous atmosphere just by having the broken container in the room? Especially given that your entire mission has been to find the metroid larva, which is easy enough to forget as the driving force behind the game - or it would be if they didn't remind you of it on the title screen and every time you die.

And then there's that sneaky hidden energy tank, which is particularly mean for several reasons:
A) It's immediately under the door, which isn't really the first place you'd think to look, and might not consider at all,
B) It's in one of the only dead-end rooms in the game that could believably be empty, because the whole point seems to be to show, in a minimalist way, that the Metroid has been released,
C) Even though you've been trained to expect a reward after a boss, they're usually progression power-ups and your status screen shows that you have them all at this point (right?). Also, the boss rewards have all been more or less in plain sight up until now.
D) It's at the very end of a very long route in an area of the game that players aren't very likely to revisit.
E) Maybe it's just me, but I think the game hints heavily at Ridley being the penultimate major boss before the final showdown with - well, whatever's under that statue - and you kind of expect to have (or to have had access to) all the secrets by that point. Particularly because you've explored everywhere else.

Anyway, you found it - kind of - thanks to the ever-useful X-Ray Scope.

As has been pointed out, the charge beam is very handy, and also the only way to damage a lot of bosses if you've run out of missiles. It's a bit slow to use, what with having to charge it up and all, but it's useful. Oh, and a full charge is going to freeze/kill most non-boss enemies in the game at this point.

You're doing well. I won't give any further hints as to the game's remaining length, but you're in good shape to face what's next - keep up the good work. Now you finally get to see what's underneath that mysterious statue.

[davidn]

That's right, the story takes an extreme back seat, especially after you've travelled around the planet several times incrementally unlocking slightly deeper bits of it. It's quite a shock to just have the remnants of the goal lying there, and realizing that your mission has now taken a turn...

It's a nasty/clever place to put an energy tank, but rest assured that I will get it when I start the next video ;)

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

You really did commit comment (and IM, to include myself in this) suicide by neglecting in the description that you saw the energy tank, didn't you!

[lupineangel.livejournal.com]

Are you going to start in Norfair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Kill the pterodactyl that's there,
Or just drown in alien slime?

Lava burns you sometimes (or not),
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Possibly because it's quite hot,
Maybe you'll survive it this time...

Ninja pirate mantis go home!
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
I really hate the Metropolis Zone;
Slicers are a bugbear of mine.



Here's a room that looks like a heart!
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
But look again, it'll give you a start -
Majora's Mask! It's almost a crime...

I'm a missile-countering bird!
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Three dimensions aren't so absurd,
Dodging shots is really sublime!

Now the Metroid larva's escaped,
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme,
Nuke the site - ensure it gets vaped,
Or else they'll go and make Metroid: Prime!

D.F.

[davidn]

I love you so much :)

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

I wanted to reply in a way that was worthy of this, but I couldn't come up with anything so I'll just say: That was marvelous, and you just introduced me to a song that, perhaps surprisingly, I hadn't heard before.

[crassadon.livejournal.com]

In honour of you, I ate a whole bunch of carrots while watching this video :)

Since you've found what I consider to be an above average number of secrets in this game, giving you lots of health and ammunition, I'm surprised it took you more than one attempt to take down Ridley Bone Pterodactyl; I've always considered it one of the easiest bosses, actually, and have probably had more trouble with the two ninjas a few rooms earlier, though I had never realized you were invincible to their attacks while screw attacking. Though, for a reference, I think even a not-quite-fully-grown Metroid would be stronger than the boss you just faught.

So, hey, congrats on killing it~!! . .And congrats on missing that energy tank while staring directly at it! Oh, DavidN. . .

[rakarr.livejournal.com]

"(beating the previous record holder Symphony of the Night by some margin)"

And we haven't even had the benefit of padding from trying to guess the bosses that Kjorteo likes, this time!

Although given the admission I made about a certain encounter in the game, that is the sort of thing that could easily backfire. Maybe I should be quiet!