Topic: Metroid: Samus Returns

@JaxonH Yep and I've got a sinking feeling that it's gotten lost in the post.

Just beat Super Metroid for the first time, diving in to Samus Returns now

An amazing looking game. So sharp and colourful, and the scene setting artwork at the beginning was immense. I wouldn't mind some of that stuff hanging on my wall.
Up to now I'm a bit confused why a lot of the gaming press had the melee counter down as a kind of risk/reward calculation. I'm only very early in the game but it seems pretty hard to actually mess it up

Can someone help me out here please? I need opinions! https://www.nintendolife.com/forums/general_discussion/metroid...

This is definitely a good one to start out with. The game has a lot of mechanics that help ease newer players into the series such as Scan Pulse and map pins. If you have any interest in Metroidvanias, get this game.

Not to mention checkpoints and the invaluable sleep functionality of the 3ds, for when life intrudes, and you're miles from a save point☺

Funny enough, I'm actually having more trouble with the Gammas than I am with Zetas, their attacks are much harder to dodge and you can't deal as much damage to them through Melee Counters. They're especially hard before you get the Super Missile, which is just wrecking pretty much every Metroid type. That's another thing AM2R got right that this game isn't, AM2R did a good job of balancing the difficulty with the addition of the Super Missile.

Gammas were a much bigger pain for me over Zetas. After awhile, gammas I got the flow of, but part of the issue is gammas are hard to telegraph what their next attack will be. The only attack you can really telegraph is when they zap the ground because its a ridiculously long animation and their eyes glow for it. The rest, both in the air and on the ground, are pretty instant unless they're frozen, where you know their only move they can use is your parry.

Zeta on the other hand, it has lots of windows to catch on and avoid its flamethrower, acid (?) and once it goes on the wall you know exactly what pattern of attacks it going to do (and if not in order, the attacks are dodgable the same way).

Don't get me wrong, this game is actually hard and very punishing for blindly running around and making mistakes, but I think the goal was once you get upgrades, you begin to feel more powerful and smoother and that reflects with how much easier things become even when they're upgraded versions of enemies. I noticed killing metroids got way easier as you become stronger yourself, but they started spanning the time length between finding those metroids and making the labyrinths harder to navigate to make up for the combat difficult swing.

The only thing I hate about this game... is that it respawns you near where you died (usually before a metroid or boss) so if I'm on low energy, and get a surprise boss or enemy it practically loops me there instead of going to a save station (where I normally refill before saving). I think the worst case was when I had no Aeon to kill a giant flower, and right behind me was a sentry sniping me in one hit every time I respawned. I had to restart my game to get out of that situation because I had no resources to get around it.

I'm in area 2 and have NO IDEA if I missed some critical power or not. Im supposed to find like 10 Metroids to unlock the next Chozo statue, and so far I've only found two of them. And the second one was more difficult because I was in water and couldn't jump high.

Thing is, I did just find the Aeon electric shield suit. But that's not really an ability that helps your progress ( but it did save my butt from dying a far ways off from a save after finding a missile expansion that almost killed me, trying to get it and get back safely to water before this purple cloud stuff drain my life.

All I have is morph ball, bombs and ice beam. Oh, and charge shot obviously. But there are some sections that the only way I could progress was to get into a more full and bomb hop two or three times in the air to a platform. And I'm thinking that's not something the developers would have required players due to progress because it's a fairly skillful move. Maybe not for me because I've been bomb hopping for two decades but for others they probably don't even know how to time the bombs to hop indefinitely.

So it's left me wondering whether I missed some crucial ability I'm supposed to have, or if I missed some area of the map I was supposed to go to... Idk.

@JaxonH There are some things you get. The electric shield gets you through red plants.

Oh, and lines of red spikes you cant squeeze through until you get Power Bombs as the last upgrade and do the Spider Spark

Can anyone tell me how to open the yellow door in area 5? I've explored every inch of the area but can't for the life of me figure out what to do.

Edit: Never mind, turns out I'm just dumb... B)

@Araquanid You can just pause and go back to a previous save or checkpoint under System. Or say no when it asks if you wish to continue and reload a save that way.

@otterskateboard You mean a yellow shield door? You need Power Bombs to open those. Find another route if you don't have them.

@BLP_Software
That helps. I saw some red plants too. Does it suck your aeon down or do you just get to pass through for free

@JaxonH Any damage you take while using the armour (and maybe countering stuff with the enhanced melee) uses up aeon. But for the red plants the drain is very slow.

Ahaha... got the Varia Suit. Now we're talkin... and I see that yes, the developers very much do expect you to bomb hop to reach certain places.

@meleebrawler Yep thanks, I thought it was the last remaining route available but eventually found alternative.

@JaxonH Spider Ball? I think you need that before Varia Suit.

Yeah @JaxonH, you missed the Spider Ball upgrade back in Area 1. There's really no section in the game (or at least none that I've encountered, and I'm in Area 6) that requires Double Bomb Jumps. You're supposed to be using the Spider Ball to scale walls.

@Bolt_Strike @BLP_Software

Oh, sorry I do actually have Spiderball. But there were some sections I had to double jump in during Area 2. One was in this section with vertical walls and honeycomb on it so you couldn't Spiderball, and I couldn't figure a way to climb up without using the hop.

The other wasn't a double jump but required perhaps even more skill to pull off. There was a dead end, and hidden blocks at the top at the end of the wall. There was one of those little creatures that gets blown up in the air, then floats down. Had to use missiles from a very sharp angle to break the blocks away, and time it perfectly so that before they reappear, I could quick freeze the enemy, hop onto it and jump through the hole I blasted open with the missiles.

Took me an insane number of tries- I had almost convinced myself it was impossible to do, but then I somehow pulled it off.