Wallcrawling Pro Strategies

Here are a few techniques and ideas which you may require in some of the more advanced campaigns which lie ahead:

.:Quick Links:.
:: Morph Ball Tunnel Mechanics
:: Crashed Frigate Doors
:: Door Dropping
:: Falling into Secret/Open-roofed Rooms
:: Door Warping
:: Avoiding Crashes
:: Bomb Jump Scaling
:: Rapid Infinite Bomb Jumping

.:Morph Ball Tunnel Mechanics:.
If you ever hope of succeeding in getting Morph Ball Bombs before Morph Ball or getting into the Training Chamber before Flaaghra or getting the Ice Beam before Flaaghra, you'll need to take a crash course in Morph Ball Tunnel Mechanics.

What we've learned about MB tunnels is that you have to try and convince the game that you're moving from room to room by either walking across the morph ball door from above or by contacting and interacting with something in the next room. For example, if you were in Piston Tunnel in a Secret World state and you wanted to dump Main Plaza and load Training Chamber, you would have to make contact with one of the pistons and push yourself into the room to convince the game that you're rolling towards TC. Of course, if you were to hit a piston which is nearer to Main Plaza, the game would not dump MP because you're very close to it. Instead, if you run into a piston which is closer to TC, the game will believe that you're headed towards TC and away from MP, thus dumping MP and secretizing TC. Confusing? It won't be in time.

Morph Ball doors are not susceptible to door jumps. There is no way to dump a previous room by jumping off of the morph ball tunnel. Instead what you must do is walk back and forth over a morph ball tunnel and do a bit of "map manipulating". In order to dump a room, the came can't think that you're in it, so by walking over the morph ball tunnel you can convince the game that you're moving from room to room. Once you've done this, continue on to the next room and run into it or shoot the enemies inside it and overall interact with it, but be sure to do this far away from the morph ball tunnel that would connect it to the previous room. By doing this, you should be able to dump the previous room and prepare the next room to be loaded.

An example of this would be the morph ball tunnel connecting CAW to Furnace. When you have CAW and Furnace both loaded, you need to walk over the morph ball tunnel repeatedly until the game thinks you're in CAW. Once that happens, walk all the way across the morph ball tube until you get to the open room of CAW and jump on top of the room. Furnace will dump because the game will now believe that you're headed towards Crossway.

The last technique involving morph ball tunnels is activating the doors to load the next room. Usually, just coming very close to a morph ball door, such as walking over it or floating past it, will cause it to open. Other times, such as in Energy Core, you have to try and interact with the part of the room which is close to the tunnel to convince the game you're headed in that direction. Or, in the case of Piston Tunnel, you have to actually get into the room and then exit it and get into a secret world state before moving too far away. Activating a morph ball door isn't the hardest thing ever, basically convincing the room that you're getting close to it will begin to activate it and load the next room.

.:Crashed Frigate Doors:.
There are three different types of doors in Metroid Prime: the normal doors, morph ball doors, and the Frigate doors. Now I'd like to cover the subtle differences in the Crashed Frigate doors from a Secret World state.

When you enter SW13-15 and head on over to one of the doors, you may notice that their collision detection runs far into the SW. Basically, they're much bigger and harder to deal with than normal doors. They make door jumping much more difficult and don't seem to co-operate very much. Thankfully, they are not integral to any wallcrawling endeavors and I will update this section once I find a real reason for having to deal with them... something which I'd rather not do.

They seem to have a habit of loading the next room while you're not even near the door and even instantly closing and dumping and doing all sorts of crazy things. Once I'm confident I've solved them, I'll be sure to come back with the results.

.:Door Dropping:.
A technique which may become necessary for some doors is the Door Drop. Sometimes, there will be obstructions or a ceiling above a door which will prevent you from doing a door jump. So in its stead is the "door drop." Instead of jumping, simply shoot the door, wait a second or so, then slowly walk off the door. The door will then turn blue again and the next room will secretize. Preferrably, since you're willingly falling into the secret world, you should strafe in the direction of the room which won't allow you to fall a great deal. An example would be door dropping off of the door between WFA and Furnace, when you fall off the door, move the control stick in the direction of WFA to prevent yourself from falling as far as you would in the Furnace.

This technique can also be used to dump the room which your map says you're not in. Simply move back and forth over the door until the map says you're in the favourable room, then door drop and the previous room will dump.

You may be using this technique more than you can imagine, and the toughest part is falling the least distance possible, so practise up!

.:Falling Into Secret/Open-Roofed Rooms:.
Door warping is not only possible in non-secret rooms, but if you come up to a room that is secretized and it has an open roof, then you're in luck! You can fall into those rooms!

When you come across a room with its boundaries loaded, you may often be able to easily drop back onto ground level using open ceilings. All that's required is that you (preferrably) skywalk over to where you need to be and turn into morph ball mode and drop right on top of where you need to be. You may never use this but using this idea, you can determine which rooms have no invisible ceiling that would prevent you from getting in or out. An example of this is Main Plaza, you can skywalk up from SW9 and drop down in morph ball form over to wherever you need to be. But, in some parts of the room, there is an invisible ceiling that keeps you from going up and down. Learn these areas and use them for all they're worth.

More importantly is the idea of falling into a secret room. There is no specific purpose for this but it is an important technique to add to your arsenal. You must learn the outline of the room and scale your way up the walls and over to an open part of the ceiling where you can fall in. Once you fall into the secret room, you can interact with the room and collect items inside it... from its ssecretized state. An example of this would be climbing up Phendrana Shorelines in its secret state and it's possible to collect its missile expansions. It may have no real purpose, but some day this technique may be necessary to a wallcrawling endeavor.

.:Door Warping:.
Apart from dropping in from above on rooms, one of the easiest and best ways to make it back into the game proper is to force the game to load itself around you. It's pretty freaky to watch when you first manage it, but it's very cool at the same time.

As long as you haven't secretized the next room, skywalk over and slightly past the door you wish to warp into and the turn to face it. Now, morph and be VERY careful to judge how far you're about to fall. You speed up drastically after a second or two.

Unmorph when you're pretty much level with the door. Walk reasonably close to the door (but don't stand right behind it) and fire at the door. It'll go grey, the GC will whirr away and in a second ro two you'll be back in the game! Now, go back into the pervious room for a second and then back into the new room to get teh map working correctly.

.:Avoiding Crashes:.
Throughout your wallcrawling career, you may come across certain areas of the game which seems to be more prone to crashing than another. Basically, if you do something wrong and the game can't keep up with you, your screen will go black and shortly be followed by a horrible buzzing noise.

The two problematic areas seem to be Watery Hall/Watery Hall Access and Landing Site.

When you're 'crawling around SW 12 and make your way to the door to Landing Site, you must be aware of something. If you secretize Landing Site but do not load its graphics, take cautious steps, because if you shoot at a secretized Landing Site, your game will lock up... almsot 100% of the time. Why? I have no idea! It's the game's self-defense mechanism. It doesn't like what you're doing, so it stops you in your tracks.

Also, when crawling away from SW 17, if you go to Watery Hall Access and secretize Watery Hall, you must also be careful of where you shoot. If your shots find their way towards towards WHA and WH's graphics aren't on the screen, you can expect a crash a decent amount of the time.

I've yet to discover other areas like these, but I'm sure they're out there waiting to show their ugly faces. There's no need to be careful when wallcrawling around, just be careful if you start to do things that seem too ludicrous. The best advice I can give is to take your time when rooms are secretizing; if you try shooting them and loading them while they're not even in the game's system, you're asking for trouble. For example, as you're secretizing Crossway in the IBBF adventure, be sure to wait a few seconds to allow the Gamecube to finish what it's doing. If you start shooting towards Furnace or Crossway too quickly, you're asking for a crash.

.:Bomb Jump Scaling:.
Bomb jump scaling is a technique which is not necessary, thanks to floating, but is definitely helpful if you want to get around more quickly. Bomb jump scaling is just using the walls of a room to bomb your way up the walls and back to a comfortable height. This works best on a flat wall with no obstructions to block your path upwards. Simply jump into the wall of where you want to begin your bomb jump scale, and then morph into a ball. If you start to fall, try again, you have to get good and stuck to begin your trip upwards.

Once you're in that comfortable position, proceed to bomb jump your way up the walls while holding the control stick in the direction of the wall. You will notice that if you don't hold into the wall and don't bomb jump for several seconds, you will begin to fall. This is essential to get you out of an obstruction that prevents you from going further upwards. You can also combine bomb jump scaling with unmorphing for a bit of extra "cheating height" that you get from unmorphing. If you get to a point where you can't bomb jump upwards, try unmorphing and pushing forwards. Sometimes, you'll be able to overcome the obstacle and continue upwards.

For the moment there are no places where you need the bomb jump scale. I would say that the Sun Tower is the perfect place to practise it, but don't get too excited, there's a ring around the top of the tower which you can't get past. However, you may be using this technique when you get to Crossway in the IBBF adventure as it cuts out twenty minutes of floating by bomb jump scaling yourself to the top of the room.

.:Rapid Infinite Bomb Jumping:.
In case you think bomb jump scaling is too slow, you may want to try the quicker version of it. When you're pressed into a wall and bombing yourself upwards, you need to hold the control stick into the wall in order to prevent yourself from falling. But, if you momentarily allow the control stick to go neutral just as the bomb explodes, you will detach from the wall and spring upwards the height of a normal bomb jump.

Then, at the height of the jump, be sure to push back onto the wall or you'll be heading for a long trip straight down. You may find yourself using this technique in the Crossway to bomb jump scale up the wall. Instead of taking a minute and thrity bomb jumps, do the 'rapid' bomb jump scale and get up in half the time. However, I wouldn't recommend trying this technique until you're confident with the bomb jump scale.