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I like turtles.
Haha, twenty years ago?  The game isn't that ol - oh wait yes it is

:|
Edit history:
Prime Hunter: 2011-09-01 09:33:37 pm
Prime Hunter: 2011-09-01 09:32:18 pm
Prime Hunter: 2011-09-01 09:31:09 pm
Yep, 1991. Hard to believe the original three are 25, 20, and 17 years old now.

And yeah, I don't remember much about how everyone else can run this game, but my best is 1:41 and I got that about 6 years ago according to what I have written down. Seeing as I managed to somehow get a 1:44 the other day when I ran through it again simply for speed, and that's with a few errors on my part, it's actually put me in a speed running mood as far as ROS is concerned seeing as I'm so close to my record.

I'm guessing that's because it's one of the games I've run the least in the series at this point even though I've had it for years, so it didn't get to the point where I can easily breeze through it like most of the others have. I mean, even Gammas give me a hard time during most of my encounters with them, so my skills aren't anywhere near as perfected here as they are elsewhere, and that's actually a point in the game's favor right now.


It's too bad though that so many Metroid fans missed this one or don't hold it as highly as the others. SO many elements that are common to Metroid these days originated from here. (Items specifically - think about how many new powers Samus got in ROS that are still in use today compared to anything that came after and it's quite surprising. Super is the only other one you can say has a similar effect on the games that come after.) Plus it's kinda important in that it introduced the Metroid evolutions, the Larva, and it effects all events that comes after it more than nearly any other game in the series.

That, and it's a lot of fun as a standalone Metroid experience.
Unfortunately, the main effect it had on the story of the later games was making it so that any possible obligatory reappearances of Metroids always had to be cloned from the one survivor... which hasn't been particularly healthy for the series.

It's fun regardless, though.
Very true. It seems crazy to think only the second game in the series already had a story about the bounty hunter attempting to exterminate every last one of them on their home planet. Guess they just didn't know how successful the series would become.

I may start running this game again for a bit of fun after seeing some posts here. I can't remember what my times were in the past but I think they were in the 1 hour 30 minute range.
Well, other than Mario and perhaps Mega Man, were there any other series going strong in the early 90s that had already had several sequels? A long running game series wasn't really a reality at that point. I don't see the same thing happening these days because it seems everything is getting at least one sequel, often enough two to make a trilogy out of something, and you'd think developers would try to avoid huge story altering elements like that nowadays.

But yeah, if there had only been the first three games in the series taking out SR388 wouldn't have become as big a deal for the story as it is now. They actually made a pretty good trilogy from a storyline perspective and wrapped up things well if you look back at them.
Edit history:
TheOthin: 2011-09-02 04:43:48 pm
Yeah, even as far as Super Metroid was concerned, it worked fine; getting the rest from the one survivor was okay once. After that, looking at it now, I feel like it would've been much healthier for the series to have done away with the Metroids altogether, or at least for the most part. I mean, looking at the Prime trilogy, you could take out the Metroids and all you'd need is a new name for the main villain. Fusion pretty much didn't have the Metroids anyway; they just appeared for a couple of cool scenes that didn't matter much.

The series might have gotten a lot farther story-wise by this point if it just had a different name. Or hadn't been so concerned about staying true to the name it has.
Holy cow! Shocked I have no idea I how managed to pull this off, since even though I ended up skipping a lot more secondary items than I ever have before I thought I had royally screwed up in the area with the Zetas. (I fear Gammas and Zetas more than the Omegas, go figure.)

01:23, 4 Energy Tanks, 140 Missiles (My personal record at this game!)

I skipped the first Ice Beam, Wave Beam, Spazer, the four beams in the Zeta area, Spring Ball, and Screw Attack by the end, and took a few small shortcuts for the first time as well that bypassed some bomb/spider ball segments. It's amazing actually how well you can do without some of these, the power beam especially because I was killing things a lot faster than I expected to with just that.

How accurate is the timer at the end of the game, anyway? It felt A LOT longer than that when I was playing, most likely because I was starting to get extremely frustrated at the 2nd and 4th ruins areas because of how I had boxed myself into a corner with low missiles and/or energy, which forced me to play those segments quite a few times before I managed to get through them.
the timer doesn't remember seconds when you save ... it's possible to get a clear time of like 1 minute or something. the real time will be longer. sda runs are realtime due to this.
So anytime I die or turn off/on the Gameboy I could theoretically be cutting off 1/2 a minute or more for each save point I use? That might explain things this time around, although I did die/reload a fair number of times on the other two runs I've done recently so it sounds like part of it is simply playing better this time around.

Thanks for the info though. Sounds like I need to try and reduce the amount of times I save the next time I play and see if I can still get a time close to what I just got.
It might be a good idea to go single segment with this game then. That way you could use and rely on the in-game timer I suppose.

Well done for getting 1:23 Prime Hunter. I remember getting into the 1:20's myself before; and yes Zeta's are a bigger challenge compared to Omegas; At least they always were to me. I think it's their smaller size and faster movements. It's a good strategy to stop their downward swoop with a missile shot to stun them in place and point blank, unleash hell on their upper torso or head; Same with Omega's.
Edit history:
Opium: 2011-09-03 09:26:30 am
Quote from Behemoth:
It's a good strategy to stop their downward swoop with a missile shot to stun them in place and point blank, unleash hell on their upper torso or head; Same with Omega's.



Do they get hurt more/less if you hit different parts of their bodies?
I think Omegas take triple damage if you hit them in the back. Don't remember anything about Zetas having any weaknesses, though.
Yeah, Omegas don't give me nearly as much trouble as Zetas do because I can often get 3-4 missiles into their backs when I have a good fight against them. Zetas move around so much that I end up taking a ton of damage against them because I can't get off that many shots before they're swooping to some other spot, usually something that doesn't line up with the terrain that well and forces me to jump and try to fire at a much slower rate. I'm not sure, but when Zetas get hit in the back they seem to have a different animation than if you hit them in the front, but I don't know if that does more damage or not.

And I was thinking about trying a Single Segment run of ROS, but I haven't tried SS with any of the other games before so I'm worried how much trouble it would give me and how frustrated I'd get if I kept failing. But I could always do what I have in the past with the NES Metroid and simply wear my watch and use it as a stopwatch while recording the individual times of each segment and add them up in the end. It would be an interesting test to say the least and could help me determine how much time my others runs are off by.
Opium - I just meant upper torso and head because that's where they take damage; It seems from the stomach downwards on their bodies, all shots pass through. You can align the zeta or Omega to be stopped right in front of you and mash the missile button as fast as possible. During the barrage you can even get a lucky shot just as they begin to swoop again to stun them once more. I've killed Zetas and Omegas very quickly before using this. But it does have some luck involved.

But I didn't realize until after reading TheOthin's post that different body part shots offer different damage values on Omegas. Good stuff !
Ah, ok.  I was hoping that you meant that they take more damage in some spots because that would be something I would really want to know.
Well just to add weight to TheOthin's post about back shots doing triple damage to Omegas. I scanned over a walk-through on game faqs and it is said to be true. Omegas normally take 40 shots; But if all shots are back shots then it'll only take 14 !

The same cannot be said for Zetas though unfortunately, though they do only take 20 shots.
40, seriously? I know they don't fall easily, but it never felt like it took THAT much effort to take one down. I'd always thought it was 30 or so, which is still a ridiculous amount when you have 4 of them right at the end with no missile recharge between the 4th ruins and the final one before the queen. Guess I get in more shots to their backs than I thought then, because I was able to take down the final 3 Omegas with just over 100 missiles on my most recent run and still have about 10 or so left over if I remember right.
For some reason I can't open up the page that lets me watch the any% run on SDA. My PC just seems to freeze. On you-tube I can only find the 100% run (done by the same runner) and a TAS that is also a 100%. Both runs are awesome and has provided me with some speed tricks but I want to see an any% to have a definite route planned and maybe look for some improvements.
Edit history:
Behemoth: 2011-09-06 01:48:07 pm
Well anyway I did an any% run in single segment. Omitting some of the more stupidly positioned missiles that 100% needs to get and I got 1:12.

I made a big error in the Zeta area whereby I forgot a Zeta and had to scale a huge rock face again by space jumping. I can definitely sub 1:10, but man this makes me want to watch the any% on SDA now; He got 0:59 aiwebs_014
Edit history:
Prime Hunter: 2011-09-06 11:15:26 pm
Prime Hunter: 2011-09-06 11:12:47 pm
Prime Hunter: 2011-09-06 11:12:20 pm
Yeah I went looking there the other day to see what they had, but didn't watch any of them. I could probably learn a bunch from them, but I've never been able to consistently pull off a lot of the tricks I've seen in the faster runs of any Metroid game before so I don't think I'm missing too much overall.

I'm mostly just confused right now. I decided to bite the bullet and attempt not only my first 100% run of the game, but my first SS run of any Metroid as well in the same attempt. Other than nearly getting myself killed by failing a bunch of times to damage boost my way up some of the more time consuming areas (got down to about 19 energy 1/3 to 1/2 way through the run) and then messing up a few times by trying to go down a route I wasn't ready for, I'm quite surprised at my final result.

01:28, 100%, SS (This includes ALL NINE beam pickups and the 6th E-Tank, even though they are simply extras)

When you compare this to my last run, my 01:23 where I know I lost a bunch of time with saving at nearly every stop along the way, it completely baffles me how I did so well. Not only did I go all over this time where as I skipped about 1/2 the pickups last time, but this was my first ever single segment so I was trying to be extra careful. Guess having a ton of energy and missiles and not having to grind for them at points pays off in the end, huh?

Oh, and one final note about this run: Those 2 missiles and the energy tank you have to bomb into the ceiling to get are SUCH a pain. The first missile in the 2nd ruins area I spent so long on because I'd drop from the ceiling while bombing up and have to climb back up there with the spider ball only to fall again, once when I had bombed all the way through and just had to roll up in there. (Curse standing up in mid-air and not being able to morph and reapply the spider before falling too far!)

Edit: This run actually gives me confidence that I could probably do quite well if I tried a SS of Super some day. It wasn't as hard for me as I expected, but I'd be stupid if I tried a SS on anything that gives me a lot of problems or has a lot of tricks I'd need to pull off in one go.
That sounds really good. I may attempt 100% after I'm finished with any%. Yeah those missiles in the high ceilings piss me off. One of the reasons I do any% for this game so I can gladly skip them, as well as other missiles; Like the pack in the secret passage at the bottom of the tube that takes you to Varia.



I found this any% TAS which you may or may not have seen done by cardboard. I watched it yesterday and was blown away. It makes great use of a move called spider throwing, and it's fairly easy to do but requires some practice to get the feel for it. The TAS has given me plenty of stuff to work with to use in my next run, except I won't be skipping hi jump boots like the TAS; As a console run can't optimize all the constant mid air un-morph jumps to reach high platforms, and would most likely make it slower in the end. I'm hoping to one day get a time of around 1:05 then I'll probably be happy and leave it. Again it'll be single segment due to the silly in-game timer but it's not too bad imo. This game is not that hard after several attempt. In fact the hardest part is staying alive through lots of intentional damage taking between ruins 1 and the beginning of ruins 2 to do some little sequence breaking/shortcuts.
Still nice to be able to say I've done a 100% run of the game though, even if it is a pain. It's actually not as bad as getting 100% in most of the others since the game is quite linear when you break it down and you never have to do much backtracking to get any expansions. It's mainly those two ceiling spots, that one near Varia you mentioned, and the long detour to get Wave/Hi-Jump and the expansions down there that can be annoying. I understand now why I'd miss the Wave/Hi-Jump area most of the time though, since it's kinda out of the way and hidden in a spot you may not think to check.

Thanks, by the way. From what I saw on SDA the record is around 1:05 for 100%, right? So being only 20 or so minutes off from that on my first ever 100% run, and given the fact that I don't think I've even run through this game more than 10 times ever based on what I have recorded, 4 of which have been in the last week or so, I'm quite surprised at how well I'm doing. Granted, most of this game relies on speed and efficiently taking out the Metroids in order to do well, and I think I'm getting the hang of Gammas at this point. Omegas give me practically no trouble at all unless I'm being stupid, and then there's those pesky Zetas. I'm glad there's only 3 of those in the whole game, or else I'd hate them even more than I do already.

Eh, I'm not doing much right now, so I may give take a look at that TAS in a bit. I've only watched a few speedruns throughout the entire series, so this will be completely new to me.
Edit history:
Prime Hunter: 2011-09-07 07:53:30 am
So... wow. A lot of interesting stuff in that TAS, most of which will never apply to me because I run it on the cartridge itself, but still cool nonetheless. I'm a bit confused as to why the game displayed 44 minutes as his time, but the video suggests 46:17 as his total. I thought that that time issue was supposed to be fixed by running this in a single segment, and yet they don't add up. So does that mean any SS run adds a few minutes anyway, or is there something special about this TAS that makes the times different?

As far as the run itself, I now understand why that one sequence break works and what makes it so useful to pull off. Didn't even think that the counter wouldn't care about which Metroid was killed before lowering the acid/lava. That alone saves a few minutes from everything I've done up to this point. The Spider Throw seems like it would be very useful as well. How exactly do you pull it off? The video had Samus moving so fast at times, being a TAS it can do that, but it was at the point where I couldn't tell what was happening half the time because of how quick and precise Samus' movements were. (And I'm assuming that the mid-air unmorphs where he jumps afterward aren't hard to pull off, but again are incredibly useful.) Oh, and WHAT THE HECK did he do on his way to the Gamma in the top part of Ruins 4 (10 left) where he morphed in mid air and came to a complete stop, only to jump and do it again to get up there without Space Jump?

The route is obviously more efficient than anything I've done, and getting Spring Ball seems like a viable option because I had skipped it on my any% run thinking that it took too long to get to. I'd say the time wasted getting to Arachnus and taking him out is worth the effort given how many small jumps occur later on.
It is a great TAS for sure. I think the video length is a couple of minutes higher simply because the video timer is counting the title intro and the end credits. So the in-game timer doesn't count these. If it isn't this then I do recall reading somewhere that the in-game timer doesn't count room transitions, which could be the reason.

The spider throw trick is pretty easy to do but unfortunately only works while going left for some stupid reason. Do a spring ball while holding the direction; During the takeoff or at any time in the air press down to go into spider form and then start pressing the left direction again and Samus will start moving more rapidly in the air covering greater distance.

For my route I'm going to be getting spring ball as soon as possible like the TAS using the shortcut by the creatures by damage boosting my way up there. This has proven to be a killer so far but I hope to get the technique down soon. It's better getting it soon because it means you can go to the metroid in the far top left of the ruins via a huge spider throw instead of scaling the rock face normally. You can then go down to collect hi jump, Varia, the finally go down to the metroid nest area with the spider throw trick at your disposal. The trick can also be done after a ball bounce when you fall from a fair height.

The mid-air unmorphs jumps are easy but he mostly does them because he doesn't have hi jump boots to get onto high ledges, and of course being a TAS means that he can morph super fast, do a little jump and unmorph and jump just enough to reach ledges. So basically it's frame precise every time. On console we can't match that speed and I think it'd be best to go down and nab the Hi jump just to avoid having to do this. There are places of course that we use the trick anyway: like exiting a small tunnel and we need to get onto a high ledge. So it's better than dropping down to the ground and then jumping up there.
Edit history:
Prime Hunter: 2011-09-11 03:23:27 am
Bah, there goes a pretty good SS attempt. Got all the way to the Omegas and the first one of the trio took me out because I was too nervous going into that battle with only an e-tank of energy left. (Somehow took too much damage between mid-Zeta area and there and didn't think that I needed to hit the recharge where the Gamma is in Ruins 4) From running through this a few times I'd say that Ruins 2 is arguably where I have the most slip ups because those two Gammas seem to give me more trouble than they should since I don't fear them nearly as much later in the game.

I'm also upset about an earlier attempt I made where I tried the sequence break through the acid for the first time. Not only did I forget where it ended so I stopped a bit early, but I ran into one of the most frustrating things in speed running. I got within a tile of the surface with about 10 energy left but didn't have enough height to get to the platform so I had to fall back down to to the right side of that shaft, which is 1/2 a tile BELOW the acid surface, meaning I died right at the end!

So yeah... not too happy with the game right now, but I do at least have a few tricks and some experience with attempting an any% SS now which should help the next time I play and make another attempt at it. (Seeing as I got to the Omegas in a little over an hour real-time based on the clock above our TV I was rather pleased with my progress.)

Edit: Ok... now it's just insulting me.

I finally got back to the Omegas again, this time better prepared on energy so I am able to blow through them with little trouble. I arrive at the Queen with around 3 e tanks and about 100 missiles. Figure there's no problem, since she hasn't been able to kill me yet since I started playing this again recently.

The Queen must have known I was doing an any% SS run, because she flat out refused to play fair. Normally she'll lunge her head at me once or twice and then try to take a bite out of me and I can get in for the bomb attack. This time, however, she rarely opens her mouth as my energy drops and I keep plugging missiles away at her. I manage to get in for bombs twice, and with how I usually fight I do enough missile damage so that she falls after the 3rd time. Never happened this time, and she wipes the floor with me mere seconds from being able to rush for freedom and finish this SS run.

I'm really starting to hate this game right about now.