That seems dumb.
I guess this was true for Other M as well.
The idea behind it is probably not to penalize people for wanting to watch the cutscenes (in game sense), so that you don’t get cut off from one of the markers because you skipped it. Which makes some sense. Don’t penalize people mechanically for, you know, enjoying the game. The skip cutscene button is still there for those using real time (i.e. speedrunners).
Also there are already a few crazy sequence breaks out there. One that allows you to completely bypass the frozen Arteria, and the boss tied to thawing it
There is also an early grapple hook as soon as you get the Varia suit (no I’m not spoilering those, they have existed since Super Metroid and were obviously part of this game from minutes in)
I suppose, but how many players are going to go for a sub-4 time on their first playthrough, and how many will want to watch the cutscenes on a subsequent one?
Lol. It’d be hard to do on even a 3rd or 4th playthrough without being very lean, or using sequence breaks. I’m on my 3rd run, doing the ‘normal’ route, and will be a little under 4 hours with ~40% completion. My 2nd run on hard got to the final boss at 3:53 with 33%.
So, yeah, not a thing for the first time through ;)
Honestly? Some of them, yes. The boss ones particularly are neat. Maybe skip the final boss monologue or some of the Adam stuff, but probably not so aggressive about it.
And 3:38 with 42%. Probably could trim it down to 3 with more aggressive play and skipping a few of the optional upgrades. But much beyond that is going to require sequence breaks and memorizing exact routes and such.
Man, it is rare a game will have me make 3 consecutive plays like this. The moment to moment is just. so good. The best it has ever been in a 2D Metroid. Honestly for as good as Super Metroid was and is, there was still some rough spots and jank. I mean it came put 27 years ago, a new game should be mechanically better.
And its amazing, now that I’e had two runs through the game, I was able to blitz the final two bosses first time, in about 15 minutes including cutscenes. Once you get to that point, where the final boss that at first felt impossible and now is a sure thing? It feels great.
My very first fight against a Chozo robot on Hard Mode does not bode well for any of the later fights, especially the double robot fight. Yikes. That red sparking uppercut just has devastating reach.
Jump then flash shift over them.
Or drop to a platform below them.
Storm missles.
Done.
Edit: I can provide more details and tips if requested. By the end of my last game I could wipe them in under a minute with no damage. A far cry from my first go taking like 10 tries to get past one.
Yeah I know how it should work :)
For the first one I don’t have Storm Missiles yet, which is fine, the problem is still just my executing the dodge. The window is very small to time the jump and shift, because it can still catch you in midair above them easily—especially if they’re starting from further away. Dropping off platforms was always my preference in the double robot fight, but that’s not really viable in the first one. I got through it though.
Just finished normal mode at 10:29 with 48% of items. This was a darn good Metroid. I never felt like there was a right time to stop and explore for more upgrades, but health and missile ammo never seemed like a problem because each boss fight (eventually) taught me how to avoid all attacks and replenish ammo while I was at it.
The only part of a boss fight that I never figured out was how to avoid the final boss’s third phase solar waves while also avoiding their wide mega-beam blast. It seemed like I needed to spin jump to pass through the wave gaps, but couldn’t time it right to also mislead the blast tracking. Otherwise, the fight was super satisfying.
Hard mode is a nonstarter for me, but I had a lot of fun with this one.
super bombs, if you mean the golden attack. As soon as you see him charging the golden orb go to morph ball and set a power bomb, you should be ok to avoid the next attack.
The Experiment No. Z-57 “quick” kill was more difficult by a wide margin than anything else I’ve done in Hard Mode so far:
I absolutely do not recommend this for any reason other than personal satisfaction, it’s a way to end the boss fight early, but it’s much more difficult than just learning the rest of the fight, at least in my experience.
it has easier application elsewhere.
Namely Storm Missile and Cross Bomb bosses, where I actually performed it.
Okay I’m still confused. Continues after death do or don’t keep the clock running? Checkpoint restarts (manually selected) do or don’t?
I have a final save point at 3:31 on the game clock (just before the elevator to Raven Beak). It took me a long time to get back into the rhythm for the final boss, so I died and continued a lot. I didn’t pay close attention to how much real world time had passed.
But when I finally finished I had 4:08 on the game clock. Those continues must have been counting against me, right?
So thats the trick. My initial read on them was, it feels like yes. Forum discussions say no. But I’m not so certain.
At 3:31 you should finish at ~3:45 in game time. My last run I did it in 3:38 game clock, but my save was at 3:25. So maybe the forum posts I saw were wrong?
Given what you say, and my own experiences, I’m thinking the forum posts are wrong.
You called it!
That was a fresh load from my 3:31 save where I beat Raven Beak on my first attempt.
Knowing now that some amount of continuing is counted against your time, I’m sure I could’ve gotten close to under 3:00 if I restarted from a save on every boss that gave me trouble. Z-57 was probably 15–25 minutes of retries alone as I tried to pull off the shinespark.
Shame the rewards don’t stack, I guess I’ve got to do a third run on normal < 4:00 for all the gallery unlocks.
And full disclosure, the run I just finished was done following along with a play through on YouTube. No sequence breaking, just a direct and efficient route through the game that I followed along with.
Finished normal at 9:00:02 and 88% item collection. I think I could have gotten under 8 hours on the first try pretty safely, but I enjoyed the last around-the-world collection pass. Really liked the last boss and generally the boss design overall: everything was very well timed in terms of the patterns, signals, and avoidance tools. Boss deaths came close to catching up to EMMI deaths in the end, but I don’t think they quite got there.
Is Hard Mode mostly about damage adjustments (take more and/or do less), or are there more substantial changes?
No, that’s basically it. There isn’t any progression differences, it just demands better execution of the mechanics.
Great, thanks. Will give that some time for sure, then. The bosses all feel like you could dodge basically everything with perfect execution, which is usually a good fit for those kinds of hard mode adjustments.
For example, an end boss fight with like, barely any items or abilities. (YouTube link, spoiler tagged since it’s the end boss)
For sure. By the time I beat hard mode, I could reliably get to the last stage of the end boss at full health. When I completed normal mode again, I beat the final boss the first time through taking only a single hit. It was definitely a turn around from the first tries.