Hacker News Reader

Comment by aabajian | Hacker News Reader

I agree with the content of the article, but there's one key secret that seems next to impossible to find without cheating. To my knowledge the entrance to Kraig is the only place in the game where there's a secret in an elevator room. If you fail to explore the elevator room, the story won't ever move forward. Here's a picture:

http://cdn.wikimg.net/strategywiki/images/d/df/Super_Metroid...

Shooting a super-missile at that block eventually leads you to Kraig.

View on HN

It's been years since I played it, but if you look at the minimap in that screenshot, it seems you can get the area map before discovering that entrance. The unexplored blue area is a huge clue.

Yes. And if I remember correctly, if you bomb the block, the super missile logo appears on the block.

If someone was as bomb-happy as I was when exploring, the game would tell you a super missile is required to proceed when a bomb explodes. Bombed blocks change to show what smashes them.

The part that tripped me up when I was younger was using the power bombs to shatter the glass pipe to gain access to Marida. It looks like a piece of background, does not respond to any other weapons, is not colour coded or have any breakable indicators, and does not react to the X-Ray beam.

There are other ways into Maridia, though. I don't think you are actually required to bomb that glass.

IIRC, breaking into Maridia early doesn't even let you proceed. You don't have the gravity suit yet, so all you can do at that point is slog around a few rooms and then go back out the way you came. It's mostly just an Easter egg.

I think the instinct is to bomb that corner, because by this point the game has taught the player that secrets often are found by bombing a corner block and either rolling forward, or going up. When you bomb the corner, it tells you the type of device needed to destroy the block.

While I had that instinct most of the time, the fact that it's an elevator room made me miss this one, as elevator rooms are always 'in-between' spots to me. It's possible that playing Metroid Prime first might have played a role though, as in that game elevator rooms never contain secrets or important pathways.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com