Area 2
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I just found out that doing charged ice beam shots makes enemies stay frozen for longer. I got up those slippery walls by freezing a flying enemy just as it was swooping down at me, and used it as a platform.
lol wtf... I found a strange purple beehive thing, and I went to inspect it and it killed me like instantly. it's like this really powerful purple cloud thing that kills you as soon as you go near it.
Went a different way instead, and found another Aeion ability room.
Here we go... I bet this Lightning Armor is exactly what I need to get passed that purple thing. yep... it stays on you until you jump into the water... I bet it would also be possible to get through it without the Lightning Armor if you had enough energy tanks.
And I can also just run through the red vines with the Lightning Armor on... this makes navigating this area SO much quicker.
Found another upward elevator... This goes to another part of Area 2, where there's a bunch of waterfalls in the background.
Spikes blocking the rest of that big vertical wall... Lightning Armor doesn't let me go through them.
Some of these enemy groups are pretty tough when they gang up on you.
So now the atmosphere has changed to some sort of metallic tower structure.
That one Alpha Metroid battle was hard only because I can't jump very high in this shallow water. Had to activate lightning armor to survive.
Now I'm on some kind of outer wall structure... I really like how the background in this kinds of big open spaces really make you feel like you're in a vast open 3D space.
Area 2 has really opened up suddenly... now I'm back in that "overwhelmed by all the possible paths I can take" situation.
Got to an armadillo boss that killed me in like 5 hits, as I was trying to figure out the timing for parrying. oh wait I guess you can't parry this thing when it's rolled up into a ball... this boss is really cool. It kinda feels like a Megaman style boss. Also I remember definitely remember fighting this same thing in Fusion.
Died again... I'm still having trouble dodging it.
There, got the Spring Ball. This is mostly just a time-saving ability, since you can easily bomb jump in this game... but who knows it might be required for some things.
Oh yeah, I completely forgot about those wind gusts that suck/blow away your bombs... that's one way to make the Spring Ball needed.
Okay so now I'm exploring the downward along the other outer wall on the other side of this huge building structure. Oh, I see, this is where those red spikes were before that kept me from going up to the top... man, I can see there's gonna be a LOT more map squares to fill out once I get the Space Jump.
Left of that huge building structure, I found a teleport station, another downward elevator, and another Metroid fight room, with a convenient fodder enemy spawner to farm back to full health.
Actually, that door doesn't just lead to a single dead end Metroid room (I thought it did because I saw the larva shell there), but actually it goes to a whole big vertical cave section branching off into several doors...
Left of that huge building structure, I found a teleport station, another downward elevator, and another Metroid fight room, with a convenient fodder enemy spawner to farm back to full health.
Actually, that door doesn't just lead to a single dead end Metroid room (I thought it did because I saw the larva shell there), but actually it goes to a whole big vertical cave section branching off into several doors...
There's this huge creature in the background, dipping its long head in the water... Love these cool details.
Wow, actually this vertical shaft area is bigger than I thought too.
Found a hidden path leading to this yellow cube-shaped item... it's surrounded by red spikes and I have no idea how to get to it. There's also a light blue glowing tile that I don't know how to destroy yet.
Knocking out a ton of Metroids here at the bottom left part of Area 2. Also I found a hidden path with a missile, and there's this new type of enemy that crawls around everywhere and when it sees you it explodes similar to a power bomb.
Now I'm at 4 of the 8 Metroids needed to unlock the next area.... All the rest of the paths at the bottom left require Varia suit or other stuff I don't have yet... now to go into that one downward elevator I passed earlier.
Oh but wait, first... can I get through that spider ball path with the red vines using lightning armor?
Yep, easily... in fact, the Metroid sensor has started beeping, so maybe this is another path you needed to take.
Oh, damn... This brand of Alpha Metroid shocks the whole floor with its attacks.
Finally took the elevator down to the next section of Area 2.
This place looks like a really pretty water fountain temple sort of area. The floor of the temple is broken and goes down into a more cave like atmosphere... with roots growing out of the ceiling and stuff... Come to think of it, it makes no sense that there are all kinds of building structures and plant life this deep underground... but I guess that's just how this planet works.
3 Metroids left to find in Area 2... I've been exploring VERY thoroughly, so I'm sure the last 3 are in this section somewhere.
Sweet! I had a feeling the Varia Suit was coming up soon, what with all the red areas around here. Samus looks so much better in this suit too.
The Metroid shells aren't as easy to notice in these red tinted areas...
Here's the first Gamma Metroid... it broke out of its Alpha shell and evolved again.
It's actually pretty tough. The Alpha ones were getting too easy. This one has a laser beam attack, and charged ram attacks that are harder to avoid, and a shockwave area attack that is very easy to avoid... It's also much harder to hit its weak spot. It also has a 2nd phase, where it stops flying around and starts crawling toward you on the ground instead, and while it's in that phase you can't attack it at all, and all of its attacks are harder to avoid than when it's flying... but it's not electrified when it's on the ground, so that's your chance to use parry on it.
Damn, that was hard, it took like 5 tries. It does SO much damage, and seems to take way more hits than the Alpha. Once I got the parry on it though, it was toast. I decided against using lightning armor, cuz it seems very wrong to use it in boss battles. I think it's best used only for backtracking in order to speed up going through areas you've already been through.
Now back above the floor of the temple ruins... In this room with a weird floating cube structure, got the Wave Beam. Sweet, this is also a bit stronger than the normal beam in addition to shooting through walls. Also there's a "wave beam door" that you get to demonstrate it on right away.
Some of the normal enemies that were a bit tough to kill without parrying or using missiles, are now like fodder enemies that go down in 2 or 3 Wave Beam shots.
I remember there was still a few red areas I needed to check out at the far left side of area 2... and I wanted to check to see if the wave beam could destroy those light blue glowing tiles, but I kept finding more and more hidden paths going west of the place where I got the wave beam, and now it seems to be almost looping around back to the first section of Area 2... and also going down from there into a lower part of the map.
I then ended up going to a hidden side room with a bunch of slippery walls, and falling down to the bottom. So many ways to go even here... This lead to another Chozo room. Got the High Jump Boots.
And then I found ANOTHER hidden path in the floor of that Chozo room... it just keeps going... I didn't even get to fully explore the path I came from yet... it's insane how huge this is... and it's just Area 2... of like, how many areas in the game total?
Oh okay, that hidden path only leads to a Missile... I'm now at like 78 missile capacity.
wtf is going on... now as I go back up that hidden room with the slippery walls using my High Jump boots, the background scenery starts falling apart, and the pipes in the background start leaking...
The path that I was on before I found the hidden path to the Space Jump, continues and seems to turn back towards the lower left... I had to use lightning armor to pass by another one of those killer poison swarms. The atmosphere now looks like this watery cave with some unique structural designs in the background that I haven't seen before... Its amazing how often the background scenery changes throughout each area.
Found a 3rd energy tank way down here... I'm starting to think this whole path might be optional, and the 2 Metroids I'm missing or back over at the far left at the areas where I needed the Varia suit... that wouldn't surprise me if the high jump boots were optional, considering how hidden away they are.
Finally, this huge side-path ended, it didn't loop around and create a shortcut like I thought. Good thing there's a teleport station nearby.
With the teleporter, I can see that my map completion % for each area is:
Surface - 57.1%
Area 1 - 35.7%
Area 2 - 44.4%
Again, I'm not gonna do any backtracking in previous areas unless I get stuck somewhere, or I get to the point where it seems like I'm near the end of the game.
Went back to the bottom left corner of the map... I confirmed that I still can't do anything to get that yellow cube item with the wave beam or high jump.
Got to a big lava cave that goes along the bottom of the map. I'm clearly on the trail of at least 1 of the 2 Metroids I need here.
lol I'm definitely not gonna be checking these lava pits for hidden paths right now. There's another teleport station down here at least.
Got all 8 Metroids, without ever returning to the Chozo Seal to get hints. I think I've finally fully explored everything I can now in Area 2 with my current abilities.
Went back to the first section of Area 2... which was deceptively small compared to sections 2 and 3... Drained the poison water... the path below is a bit of a weird morph ball maze that uses your lightning armor a bit.
This block with a bright red light, I can't destroy with missiles... maybe this needs super missiles.
I guess I'll go down to Area 3 and stop at the first save point.
lol wtf... I found a strange purple beehive thing, and I went to inspect it and it killed me like instantly. it's like this really powerful purple cloud thing that kills you as soon as you go near it.
Went a different way instead, and found another Aeion ability room.
Here we go... I bet this Lightning Armor is exactly what I need to get passed that purple thing. yep... it stays on you until you jump into the water... I bet it would also be possible to get through it without the Lightning Armor if you had enough energy tanks.
And I can also just run through the red vines with the Lightning Armor on... this makes navigating this area SO much quicker.
Found another upward elevator... This goes to another part of Area 2, where there's a bunch of waterfalls in the background.
Spikes blocking the rest of that big vertical wall... Lightning Armor doesn't let me go through them.
Some of these enemy groups are pretty tough when they gang up on you.
So now the atmosphere has changed to some sort of metallic tower structure.
That one Alpha Metroid battle was hard only because I can't jump very high in this shallow water. Had to activate lightning armor to survive.
Now I'm on some kind of outer wall structure... I really like how the background in this kinds of big open spaces really make you feel like you're in a vast open 3D space.
Area 2 has really opened up suddenly... now I'm back in that "overwhelmed by all the possible paths I can take" situation.
Got to an armadillo boss that killed me in like 5 hits, as I was trying to figure out the timing for parrying. oh wait I guess you can't parry this thing when it's rolled up into a ball... this boss is really cool. It kinda feels like a Megaman style boss. Also I remember definitely remember fighting this same thing in Fusion.
Died again... I'm still having trouble dodging it.
There, got the Spring Ball. This is mostly just a time-saving ability, since you can easily bomb jump in this game... but who knows it might be required for some things.
Oh yeah, I completely forgot about those wind gusts that suck/blow away your bombs... that's one way to make the Spring Ball needed.
Okay so now I'm exploring the downward along the other outer wall on the other side of this huge building structure. Oh, I see, this is where those red spikes were before that kept me from going up to the top... man, I can see there's gonna be a LOT more map squares to fill out once I get the Space Jump.
Left of that huge building structure, I found a teleport station, another downward elevator, and another Metroid fight room, with a convenient fodder enemy spawner to farm back to full health.
Actually, that door doesn't just lead to a single dead end Metroid room (I thought it did because I saw the larva shell there), but actually it goes to a whole big vertical cave section branching off into several doors...
Left of that huge building structure, I found a teleport station, another downward elevator, and another Metroid fight room, with a convenient fodder enemy spawner to farm back to full health.
Actually, that door doesn't just lead to a single dead end Metroid room (I thought it did because I saw the larva shell there), but actually it goes to a whole big vertical cave section branching off into several doors...
There's this huge creature in the background, dipping its long head in the water... Love these cool details.
Wow, actually this vertical shaft area is bigger than I thought too.
Found a hidden path leading to this yellow cube-shaped item... it's surrounded by red spikes and I have no idea how to get to it. There's also a light blue glowing tile that I don't know how to destroy yet.
Knocking out a ton of Metroids here at the bottom left part of Area 2. Also I found a hidden path with a missile, and there's this new type of enemy that crawls around everywhere and when it sees you it explodes similar to a power bomb.
Now I'm at 4 of the 8 Metroids needed to unlock the next area.... All the rest of the paths at the bottom left require Varia suit or other stuff I don't have yet... now to go into that one downward elevator I passed earlier.
Oh but wait, first... can I get through that spider ball path with the red vines using lightning armor?
Yep, easily... in fact, the Metroid sensor has started beeping, so maybe this is another path you needed to take.
Oh, damn... This brand of Alpha Metroid shocks the whole floor with its attacks.
Finally took the elevator down to the next section of Area 2.
This place looks like a really pretty water fountain temple sort of area. The floor of the temple is broken and goes down into a more cave like atmosphere... with roots growing out of the ceiling and stuff... Come to think of it, it makes no sense that there are all kinds of building structures and plant life this deep underground... but I guess that's just how this planet works.
3 Metroids left to find in Area 2... I've been exploring VERY thoroughly, so I'm sure the last 3 are in this section somewhere.
Sweet! I had a feeling the Varia Suit was coming up soon, what with all the red areas around here. Samus looks so much better in this suit too.
The Metroid shells aren't as easy to notice in these red tinted areas...
Here's the first Gamma Metroid... it broke out of its Alpha shell and evolved again.
It's actually pretty tough. The Alpha ones were getting too easy. This one has a laser beam attack, and charged ram attacks that are harder to avoid, and a shockwave area attack that is very easy to avoid... It's also much harder to hit its weak spot. It also has a 2nd phase, where it stops flying around and starts crawling toward you on the ground instead, and while it's in that phase you can't attack it at all, and all of its attacks are harder to avoid than when it's flying... but it's not electrified when it's on the ground, so that's your chance to use parry on it.
Damn, that was hard, it took like 5 tries. It does SO much damage, and seems to take way more hits than the Alpha. Once I got the parry on it though, it was toast. I decided against using lightning armor, cuz it seems very wrong to use it in boss battles. I think it's best used only for backtracking in order to speed up going through areas you've already been through.
Now back above the floor of the temple ruins... In this room with a weird floating cube structure, got the Wave Beam. Sweet, this is also a bit stronger than the normal beam in addition to shooting through walls. Also there's a "wave beam door" that you get to demonstrate it on right away.
Some of the normal enemies that were a bit tough to kill without parrying or using missiles, are now like fodder enemies that go down in 2 or 3 Wave Beam shots.
I remember there was still a few red areas I needed to check out at the far left side of area 2... and I wanted to check to see if the wave beam could destroy those light blue glowing tiles, but I kept finding more and more hidden paths going west of the place where I got the wave beam, and now it seems to be almost looping around back to the first section of Area 2... and also going down from there into a lower part of the map.
I then ended up going to a hidden side room with a bunch of slippery walls, and falling down to the bottom. So many ways to go even here... This lead to another Chozo room. Got the High Jump Boots.
And then I found ANOTHER hidden path in the floor of that Chozo room... it just keeps going... I didn't even get to fully explore the path I came from yet... it's insane how huge this is... and it's just Area 2... of like, how many areas in the game total?
Oh okay, that hidden path only leads to a Missile... I'm now at like 78 missile capacity.
wtf is going on... now as I go back up that hidden room with the slippery walls using my High Jump boots, the background scenery starts falling apart, and the pipes in the background start leaking...
The path that I was on before I found the hidden path to the Space Jump, continues and seems to turn back towards the lower left... I had to use lightning armor to pass by another one of those killer poison swarms. The atmosphere now looks like this watery cave with some unique structural designs in the background that I haven't seen before... Its amazing how often the background scenery changes throughout each area.
Found a 3rd energy tank way down here... I'm starting to think this whole path might be optional, and the 2 Metroids I'm missing or back over at the far left at the areas where I needed the Varia suit... that wouldn't surprise me if the high jump boots were optional, considering how hidden away they are.
Finally, this huge side-path ended, it didn't loop around and create a shortcut like I thought. Good thing there's a teleport station nearby.
With the teleporter, I can see that my map completion % for each area is:
Surface - 57.1%
Area 1 - 35.7%
Area 2 - 44.4%
Again, I'm not gonna do any backtracking in previous areas unless I get stuck somewhere, or I get to the point where it seems like I'm near the end of the game.
Went back to the bottom left corner of the map... I confirmed that I still can't do anything to get that yellow cube item with the wave beam or high jump.
Got to a big lava cave that goes along the bottom of the map. I'm clearly on the trail of at least 1 of the 2 Metroids I need here.
lol I'm definitely not gonna be checking these lava pits for hidden paths right now. There's another teleport station down here at least.
Got all 8 Metroids, without ever returning to the Chozo Seal to get hints. I think I've finally fully explored everything I can now in Area 2 with my current abilities.
Went back to the first section of Area 2... which was deceptively small compared to sections 2 and 3... Drained the poison water... the path below is a bit of a weird morph ball maze that uses your lightning armor a bit.
This block with a bright red light, I can't destroy with missiles... maybe this needs super missiles.
I guess I'll go down to Area 3 and stop at the first save point.
This area is so huge... I wasn't expecting the level design to get THIS big and complex. And this is still early on in the game...
Area 3 Introduction
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This place looks really cool.
AAH! WTF there's this sentry robot thing that targets me and shoots charged shots that do like a full energy tank of damage... I'm getting out of there.
Now I'm starting to see recolors of previous enemies. They're not just buffed though. This red version of the hopping enemy shoots acid at you.
The next Chozo Seal requires 10 Metroids.
Went through a door, and now I'm in some yellow tinted area, with like, mining pistons in the background or something.
I'm still loving this combat system... So far the only time I find myself waiting around to use parry is with the plated beetle enemies, because otherwise they're too annoying to kill normally... All the other enemies, I just go in with guns blazing, and only parry on reaction when necessary. It feels VERY fluid, like no waiting around at all... I could even see this game feeling faster and more satisfying than Zero Mission once you get really good at it, maybe.
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