Metroid Fusion 1% Run
Behold the mighty reference map, and all it's glory.
Let your mind boggle at the sheer wonder of this impressive graphic, the result of hours, nay, DAYS, of labor by a thousand monkeys at a thousand typewriters
Anyway, round abouts now I figured something like that would be useful in my commentary, now instead of saying "the vertical shaft with the pirates" I can just say "H". Oh isn't that lovely? Mmmmm? The wonders of technology.
Now then,
To Eyeguy
That's right, Eyeguy. Eye Core X or Core Eye X or whatever sounds funky. Join me as I watch the run and discuss my thoughts, room by room, with the bold letters obviously corresponding to that room on the reference map.
Now before i do anything in SRX, I had to actually get there. Now doing any kind of speed or low percent run is a learning process. You learn things as you go. What works and what doesn't.
Saving before the computer doesn't. Yeesh.
SRX was filled with random elements not under my control, which I will get to. But imagine that Arachnus boss door times 10. And every time I restarted the segment, I had to go through the computer again. And again and again.
No, it's definitely a better idea to save AFTER the computer dialogues. Put them at the ends of segments. I was too anxious to save after that Arachnus fight. I should have saved in SRX.
Alright, I scroll through the text, we see the SA-X (boogy boogy boogy) long elevator rides, more computer text, and we're done. Now to the meat of it.
A: If you jump at the tippy tip edge of the ledge as you enter this room, you can keep from landing on the floating platform and go straight to the ground. That saves time, because every time you land, you slow down. You move too fast for the zombie freaks to get you.
B: If you want to get through without getting hit or slowing down like I did, you have to memorize the position and location of each of the.... blue.... things... MEMORIZE. And shoot them accordingly. You have to make sure you're somewhat level with the green X barrier before shooting off your missiles, because they have to hit the core or they will just bounce off.
C: The first of many atmospheric stabalizers. The position of these things are random and that is bad. At least for me, who is trying to go fast for you people. I still haven't gotten any e-mails about this run from my adoring fans either, so I'm assuming you're all just shy. Anyway, I basically had to hope that when I got down to it, it would be lined up in a good position for me to fire off all my missiles and have them connect.
Fortunately there's an automatic door at the ends of these rooms, which means TIME. Until it opens there's nothing you can do, so you can goof off, read a book or two, grab a snack, or if you're like me you take this time to refil your missiles by grabbing floating X's. Remember, as long as I don't get hit all the X's will be green whenever I need 'em, so not getting hit is a very important part of not running out of missiles in this sector. Until you get the charge beam, missiles are worth their weight in gold.
D: Oh I'm particularly proud of what I did here. Landed in the gap between the hornoads I did, and shot the 5th hornoad so it wouldn't be in my way. That took some practice, you have to know just where to jump as well as at what height to fire the missile. Don't try this at home, kids.
E: Just quickly pass on through
F: You like how I took those blocks at the start of this room? You like-a the juice. The juice is good. Just fire diagonal down twice as soon as you enter the room and then forward twice, all while running. All 4 blocks will crumble like a cookie.
Then I went a bit button mashy, hopeing to hit each hornoad at least once. It takes 2 shots to kill one, so if I can hit them once while they're hopping, I can shoot diagonal down when I come up to them to kill 'em off without having to slow down. Fortunately, I managed to hit them both twice while they were hopping. That was pure luck, and it didn't make things faster, but it did look cool.
On the second floor when I fire diagonal up I actually fired a bit too early. That first shot was meant to hit that break-away ceiling. Oh well, I just hit it when I got under it instead, only lost a fraction of a second so I let it slide.
Shoot diagonal down at the hornoad and take a short short hop over the crumble blocks to catch the edge of the X and get some missiles back. Knowing how to refill missiles without slowing down is uber paramount in doing something like this.
3 shots to the X, grab the missile refill and out I go
E: I actually goofed a bit here as well. I meant to do a mightly LEAP off the edge of the ledge and land by the door, cause like I said, every time you land you lose time. But instead I just kind of did a spin dive off onto the next platform. But nothing major I figure. What can you do?
G: Now I had a bit of a missile/speed issue here. Obviously I use 3 or 4 missiles if I decide to kill off those creatures, but if I don't, I am forced to jump over them. By what will now be known as Sesshoumaru's Law, since I am apparently so fond of using it, landing costs time! It is better to run than to jump, if given the choice. But I finally solved the dilemma, I was able to use my missiles to shoot the dudes and not slow down, thanks to...
H: This room. A while ago a few of us were screwing around in fusion trying to discover ANYTHING that could be exploited for possible sequence breaking. I devised something I have dubbed the slow fall, because it makes you fall slow. The ingenius and intricate process by which I accomplish this is... a morph. Many of you have probably noticed that if you morph in the air, your falling is halted for a moment. I used my genius brain to deduce that if one morph makes you fall slow, more morphs will make you fall more slow.
If you try dropping down the right side of this shaft normally, and firing a missile ahead of you, you will soon realize that the missile does not in fact go ahead of you. You will hit any rogue pirates under you before it does, resulting in damage. Which is bad. BUT, if you shoot a missle down and then morph in the air, you will be slowed, the missile will move ahead, and pirates will be destroyed before you get to them. This lets you drop down the right side rather than land on platforms, which is faster (Sesshoumaru's Law, landing is bad).
What does this have to do with running out of missiles, you ask? Simple I answer. I found that in the normal course of things, if the pirates weren't too uppety, then I would encounter precicely 3 pirates during my drop down the right side. Now, if I happened to fire, morph, fire, morph, fire, morph, (3 times) all before I passed the first pirate, it wouldn't be a slow down, since I'd have to do that anyway, just later on. But doing it all at once real early lets me delay enough to catch the 2 x parasites from the first pirate I kill. 4 free missiles, baby. That's how I managed to justify using the missiles on those creatures in the last room.
And that's all there is to that.
I: I hate water. Yes I do. It slows you down and there's usually nothing you can do about it. That is all.
J: Sesshoumaru's Law: Ladders are bad and slow. Find ways to shortcut or skip them whenever possible.
"But I thought no landing was Sesshoumaru's Law"
Sesshoumaru's Law is like Sesshoumaru's Love: hard and fast.
Anywho, ladders are bad, so you should avoid climbing or crawling along them when there's a way to do so. And it just so happens that in this room there was a way, namely the wall jump off the side of the floating platform. That saves a second or three, but you need quick reflexes. Remember, the BOTTOM of samus must be against the flat part of the platform for it to work, so there's not much margin for error. I would recommend you not do this, cause more likely than not you'll fall into the pit, which will waste time, and that just misses the whole point doesn't it? If you choose to ignore this warning, good luck and have fun!
Another stroke of supreme luck, the atmospheric stabalizer X was positioned at the bottom of its cycle by the time I got to it, allowing me to not have to climb more ladder and saving yet more seconds. Phew. Grab a few refills and off I go.
K: Running is better than jumping. Which Law? Which Law? Kiff, which Law? Sesshoumaru's Law. So I shot the little green dude rather than jumping him.
L: This is the single most uneventful and boring room in the segment. Use this time to go grab some munchies.
M: The last atmospheric stabalizer, for this segment. Ladders are bad, shortcut when you can, so I wall jumped off the side of the pillar to skip some of it and save time.
In a final merciful act of supereme luck, the atmospheric stabilizer X was in perfect, sheer perfect position. I fired missiles as soon as I grabbed the ladder and they all hit! w00t
N: Sesshoumaru's Law: Getting Up is harder than Going Down. Fortunately, pirates are a big heaping bowl of missile refill, so I could use all the missiles I liked on 'em. And I did. This is another room that's semi-random, often I'd get here only to be shot with lazers or hit by a flying pirate body. Not this time though. I had to slow down a bit to kill off the pirates but I don't think I could have gotten up otherwise, much less with enough missiles for what was coming, so I like how I handled it.
O: Button Button, Who's got the Button. All gates may be handled by running and shooting diagonally.
P: I hate water and I hate ladders. This room has both. Shoot the crabs and move across. This is where I made my hugest mistake. Admittedly my nerves were on edge at this point, after getting all the random things to go just my way I was determined to not mess up. And of course, when you think too hard about not messing up, you have to mess up. That's Sesshoumaru's Law. But yeah, I missed the little tunnel on the left before the door, and had to jump for it a second time. Didn't cost me but a second, and hopefully no one is reading this, and therefore no one will notice.
Q: It's important to get to this room with 7 missiles or more, so you can kill the hornoads in R going to the save room, again coming out, and still have 3 missiles for the boss door. And I did. Yay. Go team.
R: Mmmm, fried hornoad.
S: And that's where this segment ends. S is for Save Point. No, I did not intend that. Isn't that freaky? :05 on the clock. I think that's probably good, I'm not as sure about that as I was about :02 though.