Any% in 8:16

This run is Metroid Prime 2: Echoes any% completed in 8:16. This is my first ever speedrun of this game. I've never actually completed this game in one sitting before, so there are a lot of mistakes in this any% run but overall I feel pretty good about it.

I'm new to this game and so I used a custom any% route. The first thing in my route is to go collect Seeker Missiles. I had to wallcrawl to Seekers by jumping through a hole in the ceiling of Hive Chamber A. So every room is inside of a box, and while inside this box you have normal physics and outside this box you float. By stepping into the box you can jump for 3 frames, so what I did is step in, jump and then step out repeatedly to gain height. After getting Seeker missiles, I wallcrawled to Agon because there is this purple thing that I can't get rid of yet. After getting to Agon, I collect Dark Beam, Light Beam, and Dark Suit. I think that it might be possible to complete the game without the Dark Suit but I felt like for my first any% run I should collect it.

After Agon I went to Torvus to get Supers and Power Bombs. I honestly have no idea how you're supposed to get Power Bombs. The door leading to it is located underneath the map in Hydrodynamo Station. Retro really needs to shell out 10 dollars for some QA.

"Hey guys, do you think we should make sure that all of the doors are actually accessible and not located outside of the playable area?"
"Nah it's fine, we don't need to spend 10 dollars making sure that the game is fully functional."
-actual conversation at Retro Studios

Anyways, in order to get past this developer oversight I actually had to go oob. If you morph while just outside the doorframe in the save station while the map is still centered on Hydrodynamo, the game just decides to put you oob. I wallcrawled to the Main Hydrochamber and then collected Power Bombs. Following this, I went and got Gravity Suit. It probably would have been possible to skip Gravity Suit with a better route, but I figured for my first any% run I might as well collect it.

It also gave me a good opportunity to refill my Power Bombs. Power Bomb management is actually incredibly tight in this any% run. In Torvus I need two PBs in Undertemple, one in Sacrificial Chamber, one in Training Chamber, and two in Putrid Alcove, and I need many more later in the run so I pick up two expansions which cost me 3 Power Bombs. Later in the run I need one in Oasis, one to access Sanctuary, one in Hall of Combat Mastery, and two in Main Gyro. Even with two expansions I still need a Power Bomb drop between Oasis and Main Gyro.

After collecting Gravity Suit, I went and collected Grapple Beam. Grapple could also probably be skipped but I opted to get it anyway.

I leave Lower Torvus and then go fight Chykka. After fighting Chykka, I decided I was going to go pop Poisoned Bog and Dungeon now instead of later, saving time since I won't need to pop them when I come back with Light Suit. I had to go out of bounds to pop both of them but I think it saved time in the long run. I then went and popped both of the key pods in Agon, and then traveled to the Sanctuary.

In Sanctuary, I immediately went and collected the WiFi adapter and Cobalt Translator. Now here is where I was being really stupid. After collecting Cobalt, I went and unlocked the cannon in Workers Path but then for some reason I thought that Screw Attack was that way. I remembered in Super Metroid that Screw Attack isn't actually a necessary item and so in order to save time I was just going to skip it. Turns out that Workers Path actually leads to Spider Ball, but whatever.

Anyways, I got lost in Sanctuary and forgot where I was supposed to be going and so I decided I would go to Vault. Now here is some excellent game design on Retro's part. They decided that in Watch Station Access, the Scan Point to be able to cross the gap should only be accessible from the other side of the room. Great game design right there. They really need to hire some QA. It gets worse though. In Grand Abyss, there is literally no intended way across the room. You're supposed to use Screw Attack to cross the Abyss but you don't have Screw Attack until you cross the Abyss. None. Really great game design. The game designers literally forgot to make it possible to get Screw Attack. Is 5 dollars of QA too much to ask?

"Hey, we should probably make sure that the game can actually be completed"
"Nah, it's fine. No one will notice if there is a game ending flaw."

Anyways, to get past Grand Abyss I had to go out of bounds in Sentinel's Path and then wallcrawl across. So dumb. After getting across I solved the puzzle for Screw Attack, but because I was autopiloting I forgot that Screw Attack was here, and I'd already decided I was skipping Screw Attack. This was probably one of the larger timelosses in this any% run. I could have saved 10+ minutes by never going to Vault. Anyways, to get back across the Grand Abyss, I thought I was screwed, but it turns out that you can abuse the robots floating in the room. By jumping onto the third robot and then jumping out to the invisible collision, I could bomb jump back to Watch Station. This trick is dumb because it doesn't look like the robots ever come back ever, but whatever.

After doing that, I went and fought Caretaker Drone in Main Research. I'm really not sure why I did this, I think I was just kinda getting lost. I really should actually learn the any% route for this game for my next any% run. After fighting Caretaker, I went and popped the key pods in Hive Dynamo and in Hive Entrance. In Hive Dynamo, you can do a similar glitch as in Hydrodynamo and get oob. Then you can just wallcrawl all the way to Hive Entrance.

The fight with Quadraxis isn't that bad, but the game is really stupid. The developers literally forgot to make it possible to leave Sanctuary Temple. The gap between the center platform and the door leading to the Sanctuary energy is too large to cross. In order to get across you have to dash and land on this tiny pole. It's so dumb. This part is the main reason I collected so many E-Tanks. You have no way of getting more health until you leave. And you have to do this dash twice. Once after killing Quadraxis and again after stealing the planet's energy. This is a poorly designed video game. There are so many places where the developers literally forgot to add an intended strat.

After stealing the planet's energy, I made a minor mistake and forgot to return it, which cost me a few minutes. After returning the planet's energy, I went and entered the cannon in Workers Path from out of bounds. Entering the cannon while the map is on the wrong room causes the room to unload and you get stuck with the Cannonball state. Cannonball causes you to become invulnerable while morphed and have a death radius around you that deals 500000 damage per frame. This probably wasn't strictly necessary for completing the any% run but I figured it would make it easier to pop the key pod in Ing Reliquary.

After popping all of the key pods in Temple Grounds, I made a really stupid mistake that cost me several hours. I accidentally went into Hive Chamber B and then lost all of my items. Honestly I probably should have reset, but I was really close to finishing my first any% run and so I decided I would just power through it. Luckily for me, I had Annihilator Beam equipped while entering the Item Loss sequence and so I could still use it. Unfortunately, because I lack Light Beam or Dark Beam, I don't have any ammunition and I'm forced to use half charged normal shots.

I went and collected the Light Suit which was relatively easy, but then I needed to go to Sanctuary. Unfortunately I no longer had Light Beam which meant that I couldn't go there inbounds, so I used the Sanddigger to get out of bounds and then wallcrawled to Sanctuary. Once I got to Sanctuary, I went to the minigyro and went from the wrong side to get out of bounds and wallcrawled to Screw Attack. Because Screw Attack alters your hitbox, it is actually really useful for getting out of bounds. Unfortunately, Screw Attack is a broken piece of shit and doesn't fucking work like 95% of the time. It's RNG whether or not it works in any given room. The developers literally forgot to make the item fully functional. Anyways, I then used Screw Attack to get out of bounds in Sanctuary Temple and then got Cannonball. Cannonball actually gives you the ability to use boost as well, which is really useful for going fast. After getting Cannonball, I went back to Agon and collected bombs. Killing Bomb Guardian is tough with just Screw Attack but it's fine.

Collecting both of the Agon Keys is stupid. The key in Battleground requires Space Jump and the key in Oasis requires Light Beam, both of which I lost when I accidentally entered Hive Chamber B. To get around this, I did a bomb jump in Portal Chamber and then used Screw Attack to get out of bounds. I had to do that twice, once for Battleground and once for Oasis. After that, I went and collected some of the keys in Temple Grounds. Accursed Lake is literally free, but Ing Reliquary is kinda dumb without Light Beam or SJ. You have to do a retarded bomb jump in Phazon Pit, and then use Screw Attack to get out of bounds, wallcrawl past the Light Beam door, then collect the key, use Screw Attack to get out of bounds again, and wallcrawl back. After doing that, I rode the light rail back to Sanctuary and fought Spider Guardian.

Collecting the key in Hive Dynamo is literally free, but Hive Entrance is SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO dumb. Because Screw Attack is a broken piece of shit and doesn't fucking work, you can't cross the pit and then use the light rail in Hive Entrance. Instead, what you have to do is get out of bounds in Hive Dynamo and then wallcrawl all the way to Hive Entrance. Unfortunately, I was dummy and lost Dark Beam and so I can't force load Culling Chamber, so I had to hit the load trigger instead. And double unfortunately, the load trigger is the elevator hologram which is located inside the room and can't be accessed from out of bounds.

I thought I was completely hosed, but it turns out there is a way past this. If you get stuck inside the collision and hold left on the control stick, it causes you to build up angular momentum exponentially. After building up angular momentum for 55 seconds, your angular momentum gets set to NaN. If you boost while your angular momentum is NaN, it causes nearly every collision check in the game to return True and the game thinks you're touching the load trigger and it loads the next room. Now using this causes a glitch called lightshow. Having NaN angular momentum causes you to have NaN angular speed and if you unmorph while your angular speed is NaN, it causes your camera bobber and ultimately the translation portion of the camera matrix to get set to NaN. The end result of this is the screen becomes a garbled mess of geometric shapes.

Wallcrawling while the screen is like this is one of the more difficult parts of the run. You can't see really anything while you have lightshow so you have to rely almost entirely on the minimap. Luckily there is a single blue triangle that conveys some form of information about your camera's angle relative to the shape that appears when you press the L button. This allows you to tell if you got an Aether Jump. I wallcrawled to Culling Chamber and then used Screw Attack to transition to Unseen Way (I love this room name). I then wallcrawl to Hive Reactor Core and then to Hive Reactor Access. Hive Reactor Access is a crappy room. The Aether Box is way larger than it needs to be and there is Flashing Pink Shit all over the screen. Also hitting the load trigger for Entrance Defense Hall is dumb. You have to get stuck to the left edge of the room and then slide along the side until you hit the load trigger. Transitioning to Entrance Defense Hall is dumb too. You have to land on Entrance Defense Hall and then slide along the ceiling until you reach the door frame. There are also Scarabs which can kill you if you're not careful, and if you fall off then you have to Aether Jump back up Hive Reactor Access.

After transitioning to Entrance Defense Hall, I Aether Jumped up Hive Reactor Access and then float up to the height of the key. After collecting the key, I transitioned back into Hive Reactor Access and then door warped into Hive Reactor. Getting to the Save Station is scary. After you morph, touching one of the purple things can crash the game and opening the map can also crash the game. This means I'm completely blind after I morph, and had to bomb open the door, transition to the Save Station, and then walk into the save. Walking into the save resets the camera matrix and allows you to see again.

Collecting the keys in Torvus isn't particularly difficult. I had to wallcrawl to reach the key in Dungeon and wallcrawl again to get out. Also I had to wallcrawl out of the key in Poisoned Bog. The secret world is dumb but otherwise it's fine.

Emperor Ing 1 is bad. Because Screw Attack is a broken piece of shit and doesn't fucking work, I couldn't use it to kill Emperor Ing 3. And because he otherwise requires Dark and Light type energy to deal damage, I'm forced to use fully charged half shot Annihilator Beam to kill Emperor Ing 1. Luckily having Cannonball can kill some of Emperor Ing 1's hentais, but only when they aren't in the spinny animation, the light portal hentai animation, or the dark wave animation. Emperor Ing 1 takes 59 shots to kill, and you can only land about 10 per round, so this fight takes a few minutes and is pretty bad.

I had Cannonball and that made Emperor Ing 2 completely free.

Emperor Ing 3 is really bad. It takes 9 shots to stun it and it takes a total of 84 shots to kill it. You can only really land 1 or 2 shots between each attack so this boss takes an incredible amount of time. It also almost never drops any health and this makes the boss way way harder. Luckily, later in the fight it starts doing attacks that allow you to land more shots, but it's still not good. As for his attacks, his laser beam attack sucks because there is almost no visual cue and you almost have to predict when he will do it, his jump attack sucks because it has an invisible hitbox, his charge is alright, his other charge is ok, his dark beam is pretty bad because it does shit loads of damage and if you're too close it's impossible to morph in time, his light beam is really bad because it has the same problem but also does a shit load of damage over time. This fight took quite a long time.

Luckily Dark Samus does not require Annihilator Beam, and so I could switch to Power Beam after killing Emperor Ing. Unfortunately, Dark Samus becomes invisible and because I lost my visors, I wasn't able to see and had to shoot blind. To be honest, getting centered probably saved time in this run. After getting centered 4 times, I was finally able to kill her.

This any% run was really far harder than it needed to be, but I think it was really fun to do. I might do more any% runs with a route similar to this one in the future just for the fun of it.