I tried to make my way back to the elevator to Artaria, but found that I couldn’t. The way I came, at one point I needed to slide through a low passage, and then dropped from a height, and there’s no way to get back up through that way. So I’m still exploring Cataris, then.
I look at the map, and see that there’s still that mysterious Control Room that was labeled on an unexplored area of the map that I got from the map data terminal. Now that I have the wide beam, I can get there. I plot a course and get there, and find another wimpy boss fight like I had in Artaria, with the eyeball robot thing. It has the same weak-sauce lazy lasers and rinkas, and it’s not at all challenging, now that I’m more powered up than the last time I fought this boss. You’d think they’d up the challenge level to match my new abilities, but this eyeball robot goes down just as easily as the last one.
Again, I’m upgraded to Omega beam, and the EMMI that patrols this area is alerted to my presence due to the increase in my energy signature.
This time, I know how to handle it, and I have a fairly easy time melting its face armor off with Omega stream shots, and then finish it off with an Omega blast to the face.
This EMMI rewards me with the morph ball. I’ve been wondering when I’d get this ability back. There’s narrow tunnels all over Cataris, which the EMMI had been using, and now I can too. As well, I know at least a few power-ups I should be able to get now.
I roam around Cataris, looking for Missile Containers and Energy Tanks that I had seen along the way and couldn’t get to previously, and pick up as many as I can. But it’s a big map, and even with checking it frequently to see where I am and note what’s around, it’s not easy to feel confident that I’ve gotten everything. So I take my time.
There’s a few regions on the map that are blinking, which indicates some secret is hidden nearby, but I can’t figure out what I need to do to uncover them. In Artaria, I managed to find one, and it was discovered by blowing open some destructible blocks, but I’ve tried shooting all over within these regions in Cataris, to no avail. I’d like to know what I need to do, but I haven’t figured it out yet. I’m sure in time I will.
As I explore, I discover a destructible wall that opens up a pathway that leads back to the elevator to Artaria, so I’m now no longer stuck in Cataris. I’m sure there’s a lot of things that I can backtrack to and get there now, too, so that will be my next stop.