During the production of this video, I learned that Spaghettios are a product of Cambell's Soup company, and not Chef Boyardee.

I just learn after 20 years, that you can heal using ammo.

That blow my mind.

Thank you for using the music of the game instead of some generic tunes and also changing the tracks; this made watching the video more enjoyable apart from learning about this glitches.

Sees him aiming towards the green gate from the other side

Me: There's no way

As the original discoverer of the ISP beam glitch, I initially sent a teaser Polaroid of a 107% run to Nintendo Power in the mid-1990s. They actually liked the photography of a different Polaroid and used it as an example of how to take a quality pic in the May 1995 issue. I also recorded some of it on a VHS tape years before unveiling the glitch to my website later in the 1990s.

My initial use of the exploit was done in the the first long vertical section you encounter early in the game, left of the ship, heading down toward the old Brinstar, but while still in Crateria, rather than the spot you initiate it from in the video. It actually works in nearly any long vertical section in the game, but it is most ideal to be near a door so you can hopefully avoid crashing the game.

Speedrunner here. The murder beam doesn't effect a single tile, but the entire column at it, above it, and below it. With mother mother brain fight, if you stand directly under her head when she's standing at the back, the beam will keep pushing her back and damaging her nonstop.
It can also be used against Kraid, Draygon, Botwoon, Crocomire (with some luring), but is absolutely useless against spore spawn because damage has to pass through the sides, due to the design of it's programming.
The murder beam in terms of "strength" is basically a charged powerbomb. The reason it attaches to ridley's tail is because his tail is made of blocks, not "enemy sprites". But because they aren't normally destructible, the murder beam tile/column gets stuck.
Fun fact: the hyper beam has the exact strength as a full charged plasma beam. If you use a game genie to give it to yourself from the start, it won't kill a majority of the bosses in one hit, but both can put crocomire in a permanent damage/walkback animation after you hit him once with anything else (it's an in-game flag). Any time he tries to open his mouth, he immediately takes more damage, basically one-shotting him.
The reason it does "so much" to mother brain is purely because of programming cinematics.
EXTRA FUN FACT: If you take the blue suit all the way to mother brain, and even if you used the time/space beam (you called it the reset glitch) to gain literally 300 energy tanks, if you shinespark into mother brain's legs you get stuck and can watch all those tanks disappear in a second. It's guaranteed death because you can't stop even if you turn off speed booster. No use, it's just fun.

The reason why only the left-gate glitch can be exploited (but not the right ones) is related to Samus own pixels. Unlike the vast majority of games, she has different animations (and pixels) when facing left or right. That's because they made it so that her weapon, which is right-handed, will be so even when she's turned left. Since her right arm is "behind" her frame when facing left, the glitch is possible.

I've never seen anyone mentioning this fun little detail/glitch I found when I was a kid. Basically, if you fire a charged beam and swap your selected beams before it disappears, the beam's graphic/palette changes. For instance, your charged Plasma+Ice beam can turn into a pink array of regular beams. This also works on charged power bomb attacks

I believe the "murder beam" holds onto Ridley's tail -- and inflicts continuous damage -- because the point on the end of the tail has a mechanic to "catch" Samus and pull her closer. That same mechanic will catch the "murder beam" block and (since it doesn't have a period of invincibility like Samus does) hold it until it kills him.


Just my programmer's brain coming up with a possible explanation. :)

the x ray climb almost feels like a successor to the morph-unmorph wallclimbing from the first game, though much slower

The last boss in this game gave me nightmares for about a year as a child and convinced me monsters could come up through the floor in my bedroom. All because my mother had me skip school one day and I watched her play this game when I was 5.

I see metroid I click it's just that simple 😄

Mach ball can easily be performed going through door transitions giving you a chance to buffer the down input going through the door.

Really good explanations!
The mockball (mocking or copying the run speed in the morphball, which I agree is a weird name) seems to be difficult mostly because it's hard to explain. Speedrunners use this trick so often it becomes second nature, so when they try to use words to describe it they miss important details. When I mockball, I release the run button completely and hold the JUMP button down. After you jump into the air, you'll stay in the running speed without holding the run button down. So I run and jump and release the run button, then press down, then exactly when I hit the ground press down and make the "hadouken" motion. The whole time you're rolling in the mockball at high speed, you can hold the jump button down but have the run button released. (Just disable springball if you have that collected)
I'm not a speedrunner myself, but I play a lot of randomizers. After a little practice, I can do the mockball very reliably even though I'm not particularly skilled.

I’m disappointed that “standup glitch” didn’t make the cut since it is popular in the randomizer and done in the 100% speedruns. It allows a player to shoot charge shots at mother brain during the period that the metroid is healing Samus.

Dude.  I have been playing Super Metroid since it came out, and have played it through it countless times.  I always did so on my own terms, no FAQS, etc.  Consequently, I had no idea that you could use the grapple shot to shock yourself and the boss at the same time.  Mind = blown to learn a new, legitmate tactic in a 25 year old game.  The glitches were cool too, but that was my major take away, lol.

Still the greatest game of all time. That music still gives me goosebumps.

The mock ball is also useful for obtaining the ice beam early, as it also uses a shutter gate for checking if you have speed booster or not.
And an addendum to the green gate glitch, there is a room in Pink Brinstar that usually requires the wave beam to pass a blue gate and find an energy tank, but there is a specific position on the far left side of the room where firing a super missile diagonally upward will clip through the blue gate, and open it. It's useful to reduce the backtracking in a 100% run, and also very useful for randomizer runs.

8:53 I've been playing an item rando lately and learned that there is an easier way to perform mockball. I use the door as an input buffer so the execution is less tight. Just need to make sure you don't hit your head on the door on the way in.

6:17 it's also worth pointing out that you'll need to do some other sequence breaking to even have super missiles without beating Spore Spawn