Project Base 104% Technique & Movement Guide

This is a Mini Guide to some of the not so apparent time saves in Super Metroid: Project Base. The categories of movement will be listed and then a small summary and where they are used in the run will be listed below that.

*Guide Written by StuntCoyote*

TECHNIQUES:
1. Moonfall
2. Spin Jump Respin
3. Speed Booster
4. Speed Keep
5. Slope Speed
6. Back Flipping
7. Damage Boosting
8. Mock Jumps
9. Spring Ball
10. Missile Sparks
11. Back Door Draygon
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WHAT THEY DO / WHY THEY'RE USEFUL:
1. Moonfall:
Moonfall is a newer strat introduced to the game that can save up to around 12 seconds if all of them are done optimally. Moonfall can be done be turning on Moon Walk in the special abilities sub menu in the Title Screen menus. How it's done is by standing on the edge of a platform facing away from the edge and holding a charge to moon walk backwards while angling up or down.. then quickly press jump and the direction towards the edge where you're falling. As long as there's nothing to hit as you're falling, your falling speed won't be capped and you'll continue falling and gaining speed until landing on the ground. WARNING!: If done in some spots that are high enough, you can potentially get stuck in the ground or fall right through the floor and off the map. There aren't any spots in Project Base where this can really happen though. Also, if you are to Moon Fall and go into ball and then unmorph as you're falling, you'll bounce back up to where you started dropping. This can accidentily waste time and isn't useful anywhere except for a meme. :D

*4 areas where they can be used to save time are...
1. Crateria Climb Shaft (down right side)
2. Area in Brinstar leading down to Early PB's.
3. Long shaft with the Animals after Early PB's.
4. Long shaft leading down to Supers after Spore Spawn.
*Two optional uses that save some frames include...
1. Map Missiles in Wrecked Ship down through door.
2. Turtle Room in Maridia after acquiring the E-tank.

2. Spin Jump Respin:
This functions much like the Gameboy Advance titles "Metroid Fusion" and "Metroid: Zero Mission" where you can tap jump while in standing pose in mid air and Samus will perform another spin jump. This is very useful for helping to chain speed booster segments together or if you happen to mess up wall jumps so you don't fall down.

*HELPFUL NOTE: If you are in a standing pose on the ground and hold the run button and tap jump, she'll do a free standing spin jump straight up.

3. Speed Booster:
There's not really too much to say about the item itself, but there are a lot of capabilities it has that are very helpful, which will be covered in the video tutorial. However, things to mention about Project Base's version of Speed Booster are that it takes exactly half the frames to acquire echoes and the shine squat timer lasts twice as long, making for a lot easier experience with using Speed in smaller spaces.

4. Speed Keep:
Speed Keep is a gigantic factor in learning how to optimize Samus' movement throughout the game. In the Vanilla build of the game, no matter what, the only thing you can really do with Shinespark squatting is press down, get your charge and then spark in a direction. However, in Project, you are able to do what's called Speed Keep. If you're running and get echoes, you can press down+forward to continue running with your echoes intact and keep them for as long as you don't bonk a wall or spark. You can continually reset your echoes by pressing down+forward as well and essentially keep your speed squat timer lasting forever until you either stop resetting it or spark. During the speed keep phase, you are invincible (like Blue Suit) and can't be hit by anything. You also have echo properties meaning you're basically in a Pseudo Screw Attack as well.
This move is particularly useful in chaining speed booster strats together so you don't have to stop and short charge and get your echoes built again. It can be used to break through bomb blocks as well.

5. Slope Speed:
Much like the GBA Metroid titles, Samus can begin running again after speed boosting into a slope. This is very useful as it cuts down the amount of times Samus would just bonk into doors by a huge margin. This is also useful because you can manipulate an error in the coding and actually gain speed by hitting slopes with a shinespark and hold the direction into the slope and run incredibly fast. This is done by holding the direction into a slope once you hit it, but not pressing and holding run. This will allow Samus to keep full shinespark speed while running and save a good chunk of time throughout the game where you would be doing the same thing, only going slower if holding run. Learning where to utilize this mechanic and hit certain slopes and increase speed will help you save a handful of seconds in different areas and rooms.

6. Back Flipping:
The backflip is a completely original addition to Project Base. It acts as an artificial damage boost of sorts and can propel you in a certain direction at will. Unfortunately, once you acquire Speed Booster, this mechanic becomes far less useful. To do a backflip, all you have to do is be crouching and holding run. Then simply press and hold jump and hold the direction you want to backflip in. Note: You can only backflip in the direction you're facing away from. So if I were wanting to backflip to the left, I would need to be crouching and facing right and press and hold run, jump and left to backflip in that direction.
This mechanic is extremely useful in a few spots.. it can be used in other places too, but it's not required by any means.. One location where it is required is to perform a trick called "BT Skip" or "Bomb Torizo Skip". Basically once you acquire bombs from Torizo, you have a 3 frame window to backflip left and out the door before the fight officially starts, successfully skipping the fight and saving 15 seconds. This is 100% useful and mainly required in all categories to save time, unless you're doing RAMBO (Reverse Boss + Mini Boss Order.)
The other spot where it's extremely important and may as well be required unless you want to do a completely old and unoptimized route that loses 45 seconds is "PBK's".
PBK stands for "Power Bombs Before Kraid". Back Flipping can be used to clip through crumble blocks that are above Samus. We use a backflip to clip through the crumble block at the bottom of the green Brinstar elevator room to gain access to the Power Bombs on the right at the top of the long, vertical shaft where the Etecoons are located. This allows us to skip some back tracking in red tower by not having to get the Power Bombs in the top right room next to red tower elevator.
One other spot back flipping can save you time is by clipping the crumble blocks out in the room before entering Spring Ball hallway with Shaktool. This saves having to go up and around in the previous room.

7. Damage Boosting:
This is a strat that is also in the Vanilla build of the game and can be used to propel Samus in certain directions. This is sort of like a backflip but actually done by taking damage by an enemy. If you press and hold jump and the opposite direction Samus is facing exactly 4 frames after she takes damage, you'll be flung in that direction. This is extremely useful all over the game. I won't get too into detail on this mechanic however because it's in the original and strats are typically in a freestyle fashion with this one. Everyone has their own D-Boost strats.

8. Mock Jumps:
In Project Base, the player can jump out of Mock Ball and in mid air, set up to land in a mock ball again. This is useful to not break speed when either clearing landings where jumping and/or standing would be harder to land or be inaccessible or aid in trying to pseudo screws enemies then continue in mock again if you have a charge stored. (This will be further explained in the tutorial.)

9. Spring Ball:
This sounds like a somewhat obvious thing to explain as it helps you just jump in ball form. That may be true for the Vanilla build of the game, but in Project, Spring Ball is broken! (In a good way). First of all, you can gain booster/ running speed in Morph Ball by holding run. This drastically increases your horizontal speed and can save a ton of time in areas like Norfair or Maridia where it's essential to drop a high amount of Power Bombs to either clear blocks or clear enemies out of your way while being able to move at running speed in the process. Spring Ball is also extremely useful in Maridia's quick sand as it isn't effected by it. You can just hold jump and she can bounce on the top of the sand, completely ignoring the sands slow down. This is a great item that, if used correctly, can shave off extra seconds in some very unexpected places.

10. Missile Sparks:
This technique is essential to clearing doors prior to shinesparking through them. Doors in Project open in exactly half the frames it would take for a door in Vanilla to open completely. This allows for more strats to spark through them to be possible. The idea is you'll want to have a spark charged and ready to go, you'll then (in air) shoot a missile and then 3-5 frames after, spark in that direction. You'll follow a few tiles behind the missile and see the missile make contact with the door you're trying to pass through and open it in time for you to make it through. This is extremely useful in such locations as...
1. Ice Hallway
2. Ocean Fly
3. Bowling Alley Entrance
4. G4 Entrance
5. Wave Beam rooms (there and back)
Learning to optimize the use of this mechanic will save seconds at a time as you won't be bonking doors and have to restart and set up another shinespark.
*Note: This same idea can be relative with Plasma Beam shots as well.. as missiles and plasma travel at similar speeds.

11. Back Door Draygon:
This is the Ultimate Trick that can save you up to A FULL MINUTE and defines which route you take with 104%. If you learn and do this trick in your run, you can skip fighting Botwoon early and have access to Space Jump not only for the Draygon fight, but most of the Maridia clean up. If you opt out of this strat, you have to go all the way around and kill Draygon from her intended door and get Space Jump after the fight... meaning you'll have to back track out of her front door and back across the Colosseum and then to Cactus Alley. This alone, with the back tracking and extra door transitions, costs you up to 45 seconds and just overall opens up the floodgates for more error as you're having to clear more of Maridia without Space Jump.

*WHAT DOES IT DO?*
The basic idea is entering Draygon's room from the backside and getting Space Jump early.

*HOW DOES IT WORK*
So there is a small section of steps behind the Draygon room where Space Jump and the Chozo holding it are located. There's a large spike pit exactly to the left of it as well. Right below where the Chozo is, is a Super Missile block that the player can shoot and move through a 1 tile tunnel that connects the Space Jump section of the room and the left side with the steps. You'll want to drop a Power Bomb here to clear a block that's blocking that small tunnel before beginning this next section.
What you'll want to do is what we call an SSC.. or a "Segmented Short Charge". The idea behind this is to start short charging on the top step going left and jump and face right and land as far to the left side of the bottom step as you can and get to get a spark ready in the small space. (This will be further explained in the tutorial).
From here you need to scroll the screen a little left to properly line up the screen so that when we perform the next part of the strat, you'll be able to shoot the Super block and not have the Super Missile go too far off screen and despawn.
To scroll the screen, (while you have your spark stored) jump a little bit to the left and take a hit from the spikes then jump back to the right into the small opening that we made when we dropped the Power Bomb. From here, you'll want to crouch and have Super Missiles equipped. What you need to do is shoot a Super and then immediately on the next frame press angle up and jump to diagonal spark up right and the 2 pixels you scroll to the right from the spark is JUST enough to keep the Super on screen and hit the Super Block allowing you early access to Space Jump, the Draygon fight and eliminating back tracking.
(Strategy discovered by Linkameister)

I really hope this technique and strat guide helped you to better understand what goes into the run and where time can be saved. I may update this later if I either forgot something or we discover anything new. Enjoy.. and happy gaming!

-Stunt and the Project Base Community