Metroid Samus Returns - Tricks, Sequence Breaks, and more. [SPOILER WARNING]

[personitis]

After finishing up the game and collecting 100% items, I came across a few occurrences that got me thinking "hey, we should log all these cool things in one location." Thus I began a text document of tricks, sequence breaks, and other similar "oddities," as the thread title states. I'm unsure where would be a good place to centralize this information, or if there is one currently (no Google searching, call me lazy), so I figured it couldn't hurt to do so here on MetConst. Here's the second to last warning you'll get (the last being the spoiler box below)
there are spoilers ahead.

[spoiler=Spoilers, last warning]
MSR Full Map - items not specified on map
First off, a map provided by Cosmic, humulos, and myself from the MetConst Discord. We're working toward adding doors, items, and Metroid labels to the map. May be a few days.

Confirmed stuff

High Jump Boots and Spring Ball skips
YouTube Video
Credit: Shoutouts to ShadowMario3 on YouTube who's found quite a few things already.
Notes: With some tricky bomb jumps, it's possible to skip Spring Ball. Infinite bomb jumps (IBJ) make Morph Ball Bombs obsolete High Jump Boots right out of the box.


Alpha Metroid Quick Kill
YouTube Video
Credit: ShadowMario3
Notes: Apparently this specific Metroid in Area 2 is killable with just Ice Beam rather quickly when it's near off-screen. Checking out other Metroids wouldn't be a bad idea.


Alternate method for Area 4 Power Bombs
YouTube Video
Credit: ShadowMario3
Notes: These are not early Power Bombs! Just a method you can use instead of Power Bomb jumping to acquire an expansion. :(


"Checkpoint Warping"
Twitch VOD
Credit: jarvitz
Notes: This one is a bit nutty. In the VOD, jarvitz ends up dying to cause this glitch, but it can also be triggered by using "Load from Checkpoint" in the pause menu. In order to do this, this Gamma Metroid's checkpoint in Area 3 has to be set first. Reloading first puts the player outside the room, then doing so a second time (without setting another checkpoint, I assume that will ruin the glitch) will load the player inside the Gamma's room, behind the gray Beam Burst plant. From here you'll only have access to a warp station and a grapple block.

However, this is interesting because it's has potential currently, as I'm sure no one has checked every single checkpoint in the game using a method of setting a checkpoint and then reloading twice. I'm not saying it'll be easy work because good lord is there a lot of potential checkpoints in the game. As far as I'm aware, checkpoints are set...

• when save stations are used
• when elevators are used
• when warp stations are used
• when Metroid/boss battles are started

A task made much easier when multiple people work on it for sure.


One-walled Walljumping
YouTube Video
Credit: dram551
Notes: Seriously Nintendo, just give us proper walljumps back. :( This is a bit tricky at first, but the mechanics behind it are simple: walljumps work like Fusion in that you constantly move forward and can't turn around until you either release the jump button or you reach max walljump height. Turns out that breaking spin with a shot while not holding a direction kills horizontal speed. Inputs are a bit more complicated, but this is what I've gathered:

• Initiate a walljump
• Release the circle pad to the neutral position
• Press and hold jump to do a walljump and then shoot to break spin (you don't need to hold a direction to walljump, and you can preform both of these actions at the same time as far as I've tested)
• Push circle pad back toward the wall
• Repeat

While cool and all, I don't see this being very useful since double bomb IBJ is actually rather speedy, not to mention the existence of IBJ to begin with. Still though, I feel like it's not something worth losing and could potentially have fringe uses.


Shooting through walls
Credit: -
Notes: Aran;Jaeger brought it to my attention that he saw some guy (on Twitch?) discover shooting though walls without Wave Beam so I went and tested myself. Setup is as follows:

• Get flush against a wall, facing it
• Turn around and crouch
• Using free aim and aim behind Samus

At certain angles, some bit above/below 45 degrees from the horizontal plane, it's possible to put shots through walls. The thing is though, from what I've tested, is that this is not an angle that can be "held"; it only happens when transitioning between two angles which can be held on the circle pad. I could be wrong though, feel free to disprove. My specific thoughts/talk on this from the MetConst Discord in the spoiler below.
[spoiler]
[qoute]
9/18/17
[12:53 AM] personitis: I've also managed to shoot through 1-tile thick walls without wave, but I'm unsure if it has any uses yet.
[1:10 AM] personitis: So the thing about shooting through walls: it seems like the angle that work aren't angles you can hold on the circle pad but "transition angles" between two points on the circle pad. I can't seem to be able to hold an angle and continuously shoot through, as I'm only successful while moving the circle pad while looking for the angle.

[1:12 PM] personitis: So going back to shooting through walls...
[1:12 PM] personitis: It appears it's not just one tile thick walls.
[1:13 PM] personitis: There's just a certain angle that causes shots to ignore collision within a wall.
[/qoute]
[/spoiler]
Of extra note is that the angle is too high/low to reach Wave Beam doors through their walls. I've tried shooting through locked doors and that does work as well, but they cannot be opened from the improper side with this trick as of yet. Could be potential here as well.

A special case where this trick is useful in speedruns is in Electric Armor's room where the player has to climb up the room and shoot through a gap to open a locked door from it's open side. Instead, below the shot blocks leading up the hole and while standing on the small platform above the crumble blocks, the player can shoot through the right wall at an upward angle to open the door.


Space Jump skip
r/Metroid post
[spoiler=Image proof from thread (large image ahead!)][/spoiler]
Credit: SuperSaiyanGoomba
Notes: Being in line with skipping High Jump Boots because IBJ and general bomb jumping shenanigans exist, it makes sense that Space Jump could also be avoided. I am however not sure of the methods used at certain points to achieve this skip but am will to guess tricky bomb jumping is heavily utilized.

Space Jump skip for 0%
Gfycat Video
r/Metroid post
Credit: Flash-Light
Notes: 0% picks up no extra expansions (major pickups don't add to the percentage count like in Fusion) therefore the player would have a max of 99 energy by this point. These featured pond of poison water is crossed using double diagonal bomb jumps, the first off a frozen enemy and the second out of the poison water. Nifty!

Unconfirmed stuff


"Spider Clipping"
YouTube Video
Notes: This seems to be something a few people are experiencing but no one has been able to replicate yet, to my knowledge. It would seem that Spider Ball doesn't always play nice with slopes.
[spoiler=Chat log]

9/18/17
[1:29 AM] Dtexas: Heres a question for you all. I did a thing with spiderball and I haven't be able to recreate it and im sure what I did because it happened so fast. But with spiderball I was climbing on the ceiling, and I bombed right next to some of the slime/goo (or whatever it is that doesn't all you to spiderball up it or walljump on it) and it boosted me through it. Ended up getting the item that was nearby that clearly wanted space jump for it. This was in area 3 before space jump.
[1:29 AM] Dtexas: Does anybody know what happened or had the same thing happen?
[1:32 AM] personitis: I don't think anyone has reliabally recreated it, but I'm willing that this is caused by a similar glitch. -link to above video-
[1:34 AM] personitis: Do you remember exactly where this happened Dtexas?
[1:36 AM] Dtexas: It was a long room. The item I got was a missile tank that was blocked by a missile block. Had to fall and shoot a missile and grab the ledge in order to morph into it.
[1:37 AM] Dtexas: the item was in a square floating structure.
[1:37 AM] Dtexas: the ceiling had goo on it, both up the sloped left and right but not the middile part of the cieling right above the square structure with the item in.
[1:38 AM] personitis: Long width or height wise? Also, what's the closest symbol on the map to it?
[1:38 AM] Dtexas: long width
[1:39 AM] Dtexas: im looking at a map now.
[1:40 AM] Dtexas: yes okay
[1:41 AM] Dtexas: in area 4 the starting section, the long room to the left before the big room that ends up have two chozo locks in it.
[1:41 AM] Dtexas: It had an item at the far left that Im pretty sure was spazer.
[1:42 AM] Dtexas: the room has a 2x2 map tile section in it with an item.
[1:42 AM] personitis: Ah, okay.
[1:42 AM] personitis: Yes.
[1:43 AM] personitis: Time to experiement.
[1:43 AM] personitis: thanks
[1:43 AM] Dtexas: yeah no problem. Like I said ive tried to recreate, but no luck.
[1:47 AM] personitis: Well, I did just manage to get some "loud," repetitive audio of some sort. Didn't yeild anything though and I can't do it again.
[1:47 AM] Dtexas: odd
[1:49 AM] Dtexas: the only other thing I managed to do right at the start of the game after ice beam, was I froze one of those blue bats and I somesaulted to get on it and instead hit beside it, and I ended up somersaulting indefinitly next to it and the ground until i moved to the left (or I assumed until the enemy would unfreeze).
[1:49 AM] personitis: Which side did it happen on, the spider ball thing?(edited)
[1:51 AM] Dtexas: the left.
[1:52 AM] Dtexas: It happened so fast, so maybe I pushed jump button as a bomb went off and thats what did it.
[1:52 AM] Dtexas: I know I tried springing balling a few times to the square structure to try and stick to with spider ball

[/spoiler]
Being able to bypass blocks sounds pretty nice if you ask me... If anyone replicates this with accuracy, please say something!


Rumor: Spider Ball skip
Notes: I've only heard word of this and as such I'm kind of uneasy putting it up here, but my curiosity tells me otherwise. The first major obstacle I came to was the crumble bridge after Area 1's "Chozo gate" (the actual name currently escapes me). Even with passing that, I still believe there are other obstacles that are similar but not quite the same which would also need to be overcome.

[/spoiler]

Whew. Hopefully we can get some good brain power going, crack the game open, and hope Nintendo doesn't patch stuff. :x

[OneOf99]

Excellent post, do you mind if I copy this stuff over to the MSR speedrunning guide?

[danidub]

My first version of Samus Returns Map is complete.

[Cloud20]

My first version of Samus Returns Map is complete.

Great job as always Dani  :^_^:

Just a little misspelling :
[spoiler]It's written HIGHT-JUMP on the map[/spoiler]

[danidub]

Great job as always Dani  :^_^:
Just a little misspelling :
[spoiler]It's written HIGHT-JUMP on the map[/spoiler]

Thank you, the map is updated.

Edit: Forget version 1, version 2 is out (same link)