Back in Ghavoran, the X-parasites have infected everything, and now the enemies are massively more powerful. Every encounter with them is non-trivial, now, and I have to be on my toes. Fortunately when they drop X for me to absorb, I get my health and ammo back, but if I’m too casual and don’t take caution to avoid unnecessary damage, they will wear me down.
I find a communications terminal and have a conversation with ADAM , who informs me that the X are here and have infested everything (yeah no shit!) but that thanks to my Metroid DNA, I have the power to absorb the X-parasite’s energy, which explains why they are life drops rather than deadly to me.
I find a Map Room for Ghavoran and get a sense of how big the zone is. I also have to take care to avoid the newly-reactivated EMMI that is patrolling this zone again. I make my way up and right into some new, unexplored areas that I can see on the map are leading to a Control Room where I’ll be able to regain the Omega beam power and deal with the EMMI.
Making my way through this area, fall down into a tall cavernous room where there are these organic-looking platforms that I have to jump on quickly, or they disappear, dropping me further below. This is tricky and I’m not used to it, so of course I fall to the bottom. There’s no way out except to the right, and I proceed the only way I can, by climbing a magnetic wall and exiting through a door. This leads me to a small, well hidden room where I find a save point. To the right of this, I encounter a huge crab-like alien creature who is invulnerable to attacks, but when it rears up to attack me it’s vulnerable to being hit in the belly. I can only pull off 2-3 missile shots while it’s attacking me, and I can’t seem to dodge it, so I just stand there and go toe to toe with it. I find that if I back all the way into the corner so that I’m almost disappeared into the doorway, it maybe can’t reach me. But by this time I’m already down to almost no life. One more hit and it’ll kill me, but I finally bring it down with a final missile, and it drops so much X-parasite that I’m renewed again.
Through this area, I find a new power-up: the Spin Boost. This is a double-jump power that will make it possible to escape the tall room — maybe.
I need the Spin Boost to jump back up to the platform and exit this room, but I’m immediately stuck again, as the Spin Boost doesn’t work underwater without the Gravity Suit, which I don’t have yet, and there’s a tall jump that I can’t make from a starting point in the water.
I don’t get what I’m supposed to do here. There’s some destructible blocks in the ceiling, but I can’t destroy them (they register as ??? blocks on the map, which means I don’t have whatever ability I need to break them. But even if I did, there’s still no way for me to get to the ceiling. I can’t climb, there’s no magnetic walls for me to latch on to, I can’t speed run or dash, the floor isn’t bombable, and I see no way to lower the water level to the point where I could effectively jump out. The description of the Spin Boost ability even seems to tell me that I can’t use it to get out of here. I eventually give up and look for the answer on YouTube, and find a video which shows how the jump is done: rather than to get more height, I use it to get more distance, from a ledge above the bottom floor of the room. This allows me to ledge grab on the left side, and pull myself up. OK.
From there, I proceed back the way I came, and make my way up and out of the area, until I come to a new point where I fall through the floor and into a battle with another Chozo soldier. This one is also X-infected, and has a spear, so I’ve dealt with his kind before. It’s still a difficult fight, and I die many times before I finally prevail. Again, dash moves and keeping my distance, rather than trying to counter the melee attack seems to work best for me, and in the end it amounts to making a special move using the melee counter to finish him off.
I’m getting to where this doesn’t feel hard, per se, but if I screw up at all I lose. If I’m perfect, I win, and I am getting better at knowing the pattern well enough to run it perfectly more often than not. The time I finally defeat him, I only get hit one time the entire fight. It all comes down to jumping over him when he’s winding up the spear attack and using a dash move to clear him and land behind him, getting as much distance between us, and turning around and hitting him with as many missiles as possible. When it comes to the finishing move, it all comes down to not over-anticipating the timing of the melee counter that is required to end the fight, and hitting both counters so that I can shove my cannon down its throat and launch a final missile.
Immediately after the encounter, there’s another save point, so that’s nice.