This brings back bad memories of the flaming donuts in Torian utterly destroying me before I could destroy Mother Brain...but it was one of the best boss battles I ever fought. The first time I fought her I got wailed, the second time I came in with 4 missiles , and the third time I finally beat her.
Mother Brain is very easy... The whole game is easy... it was at first hard for my, but I know how to defeat the bosses. Now. And that makes everything easy... Kraid is easy... freeze everything of his weapon you can freeze then shoot with missiles like crazy, or bomb him. If you´re fighting Ridley, there is something funny. Because there is something like a bug (don´t know how it sometimes happens ;) ) sometimes it can be that he shoot´s the fireball´s that far away that you can stay next to him and shoot with missiles on him... If not, just freez them and than shoot at him... MB is the same like the 2nd tactic from ridley, freeze the rings and shoot at her. But I think it was the best old school game I ever played. :)
I was at Norfair, with all the items that I could get in Brinstar pretty easily at that point of the game.
For some reason, my memory was much better than the last time I played - I cruised through every room in Norfair, and got the screw attack, then went to Ridley.
I lost a few times because I jumped too far when I jumped over the fireball. Then I mastered it, and beat him, but died while going for the energy tank (I was hit while going through the door =/)
Beat Kraid pretty easily, after finally finding him. Just rammed myself into him and shot.
Then, Tourian. I died several times, but eventually memorized metroid locations, but always died from donuts.
So I decided that I needed to enter with 4 full tanks, and I'd heal to 100% with the metroids. Still nothing. Then I surfed M2K2 and saw that the Varia suit was in this game! I got it easily, healed, and beat Mother Brain pretty easily by just Screw Attacking the Donuts and then getting a few more shots in.
I always find Mother Brain to be the hardest part of the game. Many a time I've played all the way to the Brain with no faults and find myself getting my ass handed to myself. It's painful.
The hard part is that there's really no place to stand and shoot her. You can get on her ledge without her knocing you off, and the other ledge is Cherrio Capital USA.