Brinstar/Norfair part 2
So yeah... next I'm going back through Norfair, to Brinstar, while looking for unmapped sidepaths and stuff that I needed speed for.
well yeah there's that right path near the beginning for one... it leads to an unmapped place where you need the ice beam to platform over lava with the morph ball... and a side path with the ice beam. oh wow, and that whole room was to introduce enemies that you can't kill and can only freeze... some genius level design...
Back to the bottom right of Brinstar... oh wow, there's the Spazer beam in a small upper ceiling path that I could've gotten before. I can now easily get back up that east Brinstar shaft I fell down, and go further up to more blue map...about to go up through to the 3rd Crateria elevator, but first there's an unmapped path with the Power Bombs... now do I go up or go back down for all the extra Power Bomb stuff including the Maridia tunnel? obviously...
lol just noticed the door back down where you came is yellow, so it locks you on into new path until you get the power bombs, but they still are possible to miss... also wtf that side area just before the Brinstar elevator, just a trap room that locks you out with a grey door until you defeat all the killable enemies? if you power bomb the floor here there are spikes and unkillable plant monsters with serpent tongues that grab at you... like no reason to be here at all looks like...
hah... I can get to that bottom-middle-ish blue Brinstar path with the power bomb now... and it looks like it might been possible to get across this long path of spikes by doing some fancy ice beam platforming on flying enemies... but it's really tough, got right near the end but died before I could get up to the pink door...
went to check out Maridia... oh wow this extremely slow underwater movement... it's really atmospheric too... I went up first... found a map room... okay so a bunch of side paths and large rooms north eventually join up and go east to a boss and to another Crateria elevator... the 4th one I think.
Just noticed how it's really cool that about half the areas in this game (or a bit more than half), take place underneath the surface/ocean of this planet, and the rest take place above the surface... but that's about all I can do here for now... the right dead end blue path is blocked off by underwater + sand physics... can't get to the upper large rooms either.
guess I won't bother re-checking Norfair just yet... going up the 3rd Crateria elevator now. come to think of it, overall it IS a good thing to backtrack a bit for that map at this point at least... I even think that bit of backtracking was intended at this point in the game by the designers.
I like how the next time you get back to this beginning area, you feel like you've made SO much progress since the last time you were here... the entire right side of Crateria, and probably also most of the Wrecked Ship and east path to ocean/Maridia is all open to you now... and you can also use your speed booster to get some stuff in west Crateria now... probably other stuff if you backtrack here too, won't go re-explore West Brinstar or Norfair for now though... don't want to get TOO overpowered.
Crateria/Brinstar part 2
managed to get to an upper left unmapped path by the starting point, by super jumping up to the top of the wall and bombing all the way down until I found an opening... this long-ish horizontal path is pretty hard. first of all you would've already lost some health due to super jumping to get here, and there's rising and falling acid that the varia suit doesn't help against.. and there are a ton of walls you need to power bomb while sitting in the danger zone... you definitely need at least the 2nd power bomb upgrade from the top right side of the starting area first.. oh and you need to go down this path a 2nd time because there are two missile upgrades here that you need to go down two separate one-way floors to get both...
oh yeah and the devs probably figured you might find this stuff on your first playthrough if you were curious about re-exploring the beginning section with your new abilities... as well as going to that unmapped part of Crateria that is not hiding the fact that it continues... it's likely a new player that was experienced at action-adventure games would think to go check that stuff out before continuing on east of Crateria... also noticed how I think the normal Space Pirates on this planet ONLY hang out at that west Crateria shaft near the boss statues, guarding the Mother Brain's lair...
OH WAIT, shit I forgot, looks like I can't go to east Crateria/Wrecked Ship yet... okay wtf now where do I go? I guess I'll check out west Brinstar again after all...
at this point in the game I'm at 50 missiles, 5 super missiles, and 10 power bombs... Varia suit, Charge, Ice, Spazer, morph ball/bomb, High Jump, and Speed Booster and 3 extra energy tanks... btw that Metroid 1 redux area is just a small dead end sidepath, no reason to ever go there again I think...
also it seems like non of the enemies in this early area give you any pickups anymore... or maybe they only give health and reg missiles, and since I'm maxed out on both of those I don't get anything...
went to check out some stuff I missed in west Brinstar.. wtf got a energy tank without energy in it... called the "Reserve Tank"... has "Auto" and "Manual" modes... guess manual mode is if you want to make it harder without avoiding getting the reserve tanks...
oh shit... after finding a new missile/supermissile upgrade along with the rtank, found an unmapped path at southwest Brinstar, using power bombs... and this long shaft has an unmarked grey door on the side... huh, wonder what that's about.. one way door maybe? found the classic energy tank hallway trap from M1 here... fell, got to a place where some animals teach you how to wall jump and you can go back and try to get across to the energy tank + green door again...
btw there's a lot of enemies at this part of the game now that you can only freeze and destroy with super missiles or power bombs...
oh man... that wall jumping mechanic... is REALLY hard to master... you need to make at least 3 consecutive wall jumps to make it up to the very top part, where there's a small morph ball tunnel... that I can't even get to yet without morphball jump? and then just an exit out the grey door from before...
aha... yes... after getting the energy tank and super missile upgrade from this dead end Brinstar path... I decided to try the wall jump again and beat it within my first few tries this time! then I used a bit of a running jump and morphball in midair (both new techniques introduced in this game (that I'm just now starting to appreciate again).. I made to a power bomb upgrade as well... now at 55/15/15 and 4 energy tanks...
oh shit... I forgot about this... I started running down along eastward Brinstar path and broke a part of the floor that required speed booster, fell down a long shaft, and found the animal that teaches you the super jump...
also power bombed my way to a small unmapped path leading to the little blue path that is separated from the rest of Brinstar up until now... but looks like I need the gravity suit in order to speed boost through here. OH WAIT WTF... you can actually power bomb through the wall a little bit northeast of this pink Crateria eastward path, to get to the Metroid 1 redux part of Brinstar... holy shit. but it won't help me much to go back up the 2nd Crateria elevator, guess I'll keep going and then explore more of Norfair.
Norfair part 2
welp, I think I just found the right way to go... power bomb and speed boosted my way through an unmapped bottom path... that looks like it branches to an unmapped middle dead end path north, a completely unknown unmapped path south, and further east probably rejoining with East Norfair. but I need grapple beam to go further that way, just like with that one Brinstar blue side path.... ooh, a save point in the north middle path... I must be going the right way now.
oh shit... so that north dead end path is a big room with lava and fire seahorses at the bottom and a grapple beam path to a missile upgrade at the top... gonna just reload my save and make it so that path stays unmapped and I can clearly see that I haven't gone there yet.
Then I went south through the green door and faught a little mini kraid-like boss.. it's either invincible or takes a ton of hits, but either way you're supposed to kill it by knocking it backwards by shooting missiles in its mouth, until it collapses the bridge and falls into the acid... there's a grapple beam path to the right where he died... then I go left, and get to a spiked wall, where suddenly an earthquake happens and the skeleton of that monster comes up out of the ground and opens the way forward, only to collapse... further on is a whole big southwestern Norfair section with a lot of areas that you need the Grapple beam for... fell down a one-way shaft.. seems like there's quite a few junctions here (although a lot of them are grapple beam paths)...
finally found the grapple beam!
later another unexpected unmapped path at southeast Norfair... found this path using power bombs, just as I was intending to go around the east path and loop all around the pink norfair path, picking up leftovers and heading back up the only elevator to Brinstar... but wait, looks like I can't get to Ridley's layer from here, only see it... the path to get there makes you go through boiling lava... probably need the gravity suit in order to make it through there fast enough without losing all my health... although, I have 5 energy tanks and a reserve tank now, it might actually be enough?
oh yeah... there's actually quite a lot of stuff I needed the grapple beam for in east Norfair... I guess you really are meant to go through all this backtracking in this portion of the game... really when you don't consider glitches and advanced tech, this game is really a lot more linear than it makes you think it is. also found the wave beam somewhere around here.
oh wow that was sneaky... a north-middle-ish path from east norfair that first of all isn't easy to find... I only found it cuz I have tons of power bombs now and am power bombing pretty much every dead end or suspicious corner... had a single missile upgrade after a pretty tough platforming segment over lava... and also another missile upgrade on that same map coordinate, hidden in a 1-tile breakable platform. they get really really tricky for some of the 100% stuff in this game... like, I really enjoy the fact that you can play through it in a natural linear order due by following the logic that the designers were trying to get you to follow... while still not limiting your ability to do the game in many different other routes.
okay and yeah... I'm totally 100% done with all of Norfair other than that Kraid area now... next I'll be re-exploring Brinstar with the grapple beam, then probably go and do Wrecked Ship boss/more Crateria, then start Maridia.
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