Boss FAQ - Guide for Metroid Prime

                   __  __  ___  ____  ___   __  __  ___                    *
                  (  \/  )(  _)(_  _)(  ,) /  \(  )(   \ 
                   )    (  ) _)  )(   )  \( () ))(  ) ) )
                  (_/\/\_)(___) (__) (_)\_)\__/(__)(___/

                            __  __          _
                            |_| |_| | |\/| |_
                            |   | \ | |  | |_


This game is BAD ASS!!!


Parasite Queen (Boss)
---------------------
Recommended tools: Charge Beam
Difficulty: 1/10
Reward: The need to get yourself out of the ship quickly.

Yawn... Next!  As will all bosses, you should scan the queen beastie before
doing anything.  This will allow you to lock on to its mouth.  Basically, lock
onto its mouth and fire away once the force field lines up to form an opening.
Charged shots are the most efficient way to kill it, though regular shots will
do fine if you prefer to rapidly tap the A button as opposed to holding it.
Strafe left or right while charging/firing so that you'll avoid the energy
blasts it spits at you, at to keep up with the opening in the force field.
Eventually it'll die.










Totem Hive (Mini-Boss)
----------------------
Recommended Tools: Power Beam
Difficulty: 2/10
Reward: Missile Launcher

Not a very difficult boss.  Water will fill to trap you on the platform.  Then,
a group of war wasps will fly out of the hive and spin around the platform.
Lock and shoot them once they stop spinning (if you manually aim, you can hit
them while they are spinning).  Once they are dead, a red weak spot will appear
on the hive.  Lock on and fire at it until it bursts.  The hive will spew out
more wasps.  Rinse, lather, and repeat.  This is more an exercise in firing.
Try to kill the wasps as quickly as possible so that you don't get stung too
often.

Don't forget to scan the ram war wasps an the hive mecha (aim underwater to
scan the hive mecha)!










Plated Beetle (Mini-Boss)
-------------------------
Recommended Tools: Missiles
Difficulty: 1/10
Reward: Morph Ball

This is a very easy boss.  Lock on, and hold left or right while tapping the B
button so that you do quick side dashes.  The object is to get behind the boss
enough so that you can see its glowing red butt.  It will eventually charge
forward, giving you a good shot, too.  Once you have a clear shot, you can do
one of two things.  If you'd like a nice long fight, shoot it a lot with your
power beam.  If you'd like to make this quick, use your handy missile launcher.
You'll see this beastie as a normal enemy later on.










Incinerator Drone (Mini-Boss)
-----------------------------
Recommended Tools: Fast reflexes
Difficulty: 3/10
Reward: Morph Ball Bombs

This battle can be frustrating.  Make sure you scan the drone AND the wasps;
they aren't normal wasps. Dodge the fire (strafe while locked on, duck under it
with the morph ball, or jump the flames.  Wasps will come out of the hive.
Shoot them to get energy power for when your health gets low.  When the red
spot on the drone appears, blast it until it torches the wasp hive.  Repeat the
process.  You may or may not have to kill all the wasps in the area before the
red spot appears. I'm not sure, as I always killed the wasps immediately.  As
you attack the drone, it'll malfunction and shoot the flames at an angle.  The
high flame will pass over you and you can jump or avoid altogether the low
flame.  This battle is really a test of your ability to react to too many
things going on at one time.










Flaahgra (Boss)
---------------
Recommended Tools: Missiles (Lots!), Charge Beam, Two Energy Tanks
Difficulty: 5/10
Reward: Varia suit

This battle is rather difficult, but mainly for its annoyance factor.  Having
two or three energy tanks will help you worry less about getting damaged.  Make
sure you scan Flaahgra, and one of its tentacles.  They are considered separate
creatures for some reasons.  Flaahgra likes to shoot energy blasts at you.
He'll also lunge forward at you with its scythe-like claws and drop a line of
poisonous flora to block you way and cause you damage.

First things first, notice the reflective dish that shines light on it.
Sunlight is its source of energy.  Part of each dish sticks down.  At the
bottom of this part is a red dot, which should suggest that it is a good place
to attack.  Normal beam attacks will eventually cause the dish to flip up and
stay up.  However, this is a horrible way to do this.  The more missiles you
have, the better (I had 40).  Our goal is to fire missiles at the weak points
of the solar dishes.  Once all solar dishes are no longer pointing at Flaahgra,
he'll fall over, and his tentacles will retract.  Quickly roll into a bomb,
roll down one of the little tunnels, and plant a few bombs at the end.  This
will damage Flaahgra.  Four such bombings will kill it.

However, each time he is damaged, one more dish will be added to the arena;
eventually there will be four.  


Flaahgra can flip a dish so that it is feeding it sunlight again.  The trick is
to flip them all without having to re-flip any.  The easiest way to do this is
to stun Flaahgra.  Lock onto Flaahgra and then fire a short volley of power
beam blasts at it.  Then fire a missile. This should stun the beast.  If you
have a lot of missiles, you can simplify the process by firing two, but this
is a waste.  Once stunned, quickly run and tip as many dishes as possible with
missiles (use charged beam blasts if you run out of missiles).  If you are good
at manually aiming, you can hit the dish tipper from a distance.

Pay attention to the path from which you exit this arena.  You'll need to come
back that way once you've got a spider ball (If that isn't obvious by the
spider ball tracks).

*Alternate Strategy: Lock on to Flaahgra, and then blast with missiles.  Circle
around him while he is dazed, maintaining the lock-on.  When you are directly
behind a dish, charge up the power beam and smack the dish to flip it.  With
the charge beam, there is no need to unlock, since the dish will be in the line
of fire.  Keep circling, tipping each dish as you come to it, even those that
he flips back over.  Missiles will often work on the dishes to, but because
they home in on their target, they can miss if Flaahgra is not stunned.  Jump
over any poisonous flora that Flaahgra creates in your path.  This strategy let
me escape the battle losing only 10 health on hard mode.










Sheegoth (Mini-Boss)
--------------------
Recommended Tools: Morph Ball Bombs
Difficulty: 1/10
Reward: Wave Beam

There are two ways to kill the beast.  The first way is to lock on, dash to
avoid its charge, and circle to avoid its breath.  Once it breathes its ice
breath, it will be stunned for a moment.  Use this time to fire a missile into
its mouth (not sure if charge beam will work).  Repeat this about 25-30 times,
upon which your hands will be tired from holding down buttons and dashing
about.

The other way is to roll into a ball, roll beneath its legs, and drop all your
bombs.  It is best to approach it from the rear.  Chances are you'll get
trampled a bit, and frozen occasionally, but it will die MUCH more quickly and
with less effort.  Make sure you have enough energy to take some damage.

You'll see a few more of these guys later on.  Bomb them or avoid them.










Thardus (Boss) ** Updated v1.1
--------------
Recommended Tools: Super Missiles (Charge beam + Missile Combo)
Difficulty: 3/10
Reward: Spider Ball

Thardus has a few attacks.  He can roll into a ball and smash you.  He can have
rocks fly at you, and he can shoot a frosty ground blast of ice.  His ice blast
can be avoided by double dashing (*TAP* the b button twice which locked on and
holding left or right).  His rocks you can avoiding by strafing away from them
or by destroying them.  If you need health or missiles, you can destroy the
rocks to get some power.  Do so from a distance since their explosions will
hurt you.

Thardus does not have obvious weak points.  In order to see them, switch to
your thermal visor and part of him will be glowing red.  With that visor,
you'll be able to lock on.  When you deal enough damage to this weak spot, the
resulting energy burst will overload your visor, so quickly switch to the
combat visor.  The spot will now be blue, and you can lock onto it again.  Once
you destroy this weak spot, you will have to switch to your thermal visor again
to find the next spot.  Notes: You cannot damage Thardus when he is preparing
to roll into a ball.  He'll raise his arms in a certain fashion when he's about
to do this.

After you destroy his third weak spot, he will summon a great blizzard, which
will make seeing him with the combat visor increasingly difficult.  However, it
must be done.  After the sixth weak spot is destroyed, the blizzard will end,
but he will roll into a rock ball at any given time.  Before this, he tends to
roll into a ball only after you deal a significant amount of damage to a weak
spot.  The best way to avoid the rock ball is to bosst away from it with the
boost ball.

For the harder to hit targets, I recommend that you use fully charged wave beam
blasts to target these (arms, legs).  Super missiles get the job done with less
attacks, but will frequently miss because other parts of its body are in the
way.  The wave beam tracks its target better, and therefore is the best weapon
to use.  For the larger targets (head, shoulder, chest), feel free to use super
missiles.  These area are often not blocked by other body parts, and so are
much easier to hit.  Be careful not to waste missiles by firing when he is
rolling into a ball.  Also, note that the rocks he tosses at you can still
block your missiles.

If you are tired of avoiding his ice blast, notice how there are some rocks
piled up around the arena edge.  You can hop up onto these ledges and be immune
to the ice blast. it's a good point to lock onto Thardus from, and it'll let
you worry less about him.  You will only ahve to worry about his rock attacks.










Chozo Ghosts (Mini-Bosses) ** Updated v1.1
--------------------------
Recommended Tools: X-Ray Visor, Charge Beam
Difficulty: 3/10, 1/10
Reward: Chozo Artifact of Wild

The first difficulty is for fighting these ghosts without the X-Ray visor.
Find a nice spot that more or less has a wall at your back.  Be able to turn
left/right to look around.  This will help prevent a ghost from sneaking up
behind you.  Ghosts fire ghostly shots that scramble your visor, and make you
unable to attack for a bit.  They like to jump back and forth and phase away
from the visible plain.  Look around until you see one, lock on, and keep
moving to dodge its blasts.  Be charging up your power beam (the only weapon
that hurts the ghosts) before you lock on.  This way you can fire once you do
detect one.  Our lock vanishes once they phase out.  It takes some practice to
master fighting them.  if you have missiles to burn, use super missiles.  In
either difficulty, they will take down the ghosts in very few hits.

The second difficulty is for fighting these ghosts with the X-ray visor.
Switch your X-Ray visor on, and marvel at your ability to always be able to see
the ghosts.  Lock onto one, and just keep firing charge bursts or super
missiles until the ghosts die.  Focus on one at a time, and keep moving to
avoid other ghosts' attacks.  Hold your fire until after a ghost leaps.  You
should be able to get off two attacks.

You'll probably first fight these to get the Artifact of Wild in the
Sunchamber, but they are all over the ruins around this point in the game.










Elite Pirate (Mini-Boss)
------------------------
Recommended Tools: Super Missiles
Difficulty: 1/10
Reward: The joy of killing a big hulking slow creature.

YAWN...Next!  Fire super missiles at it when it's not charging up yellow energy
in its hands.  Two will do the trick.  Keep your distance (not a hard thing to
do), and double jump towards it to avoid its electric wave attack.  These
things are pathetically easy to kill.










Invisible Dynamo Drone
---------------------- 
Recommended Tools: Waveblaster (Wave Beam Combo)
Difficulty: 1/10
Reward: Power Bombs

You do have the waveblaster, right?  If you do, charge up your wave beam, and
trigger the combo.  It will automatically seek the drone.  Keep holding down A
until it dies.

If you don't have the waveblaster... use super missiles or charge beam.
Manually aim for it when it is preparing to fire.   Think two super missiles
will do the trick, if they hit.










Phazon Elite (Mini Boss)
------------------------ 
Recommended Tools: Super Missiles
Difficulty: 1/10
Reward: Chozo Artifact of Warrior

Use a power bomb to free it from the holding tank (its the first elite in a
tank that you'd have encountered in the mine).  After that, follow the Elite
Pirate strategy.  The only real difference is that it only uses the electric
wave attack, and that it takes more super missiles to kill.










Omega Pirate (Boss) ** Updated v1.1, 1.2
------------------- 
Recommended Tools: Super Missiles
Difficulty: 9/10
Reward: Phazon Suit

Just when you thought that the boss fights in this game are easy, they throw
THIS fight at you.  Hoo boy.  My first time, I survived with a whole 62 energy
left.  For sanity's sake, scan this puppy BEFORE the fight.

The Omega Pirate has four pieces of phazon armor that protect him: one on each
shoulder and one on each leg.  Target these spots (you'll auto target one of
them as long as you are pointed vaguely towards him).  Charge up your power
beam, and circle/strafe/run to avoid his melee attacks.  Jump over the electric
wave attack he'll use.  You should be used to such a thing from fighting the
elite pirates.  If you stumble into a phazon pool, jump out of it to avoid as
much damage as possible.  Once he isn't charging (yellow glowing hand), fire
off a super missile to blow away that piece of armor.  Once all four are gone,
he'll couch down, and then summon two or three beam pirates.

After a short amount of time, Mr. O will arrive at a pool of phazon to
replenish his aromor.  You'll need to switch to your x-ray visor since Mr. O
became invisible after he summoned the pirates.  Ignore the pirates and look
towards the phazon pools until you find the one in which Mr O is hanging out.
You should hear him reappear.  Keep the x-ray visor on and lock onto him.  Fire
a super missile at him to damage him.  If you have some insanely impressive
manual dexterity, you can hit him twice before he vanishes.  When he vanishes,
quickly find him in another pool and blast off another super missile.  Repeat
this process until he reforms his armor.

You'll have to repeat the process of blasting off his armor.  You can either
continue ignoring the pirates or destroy them.  Either way, Mr. O's electric
wave will eventually kill them for you.  Make sure you pick up any health that
they drop.  Four to six super missiles to his vulnerable form should kill him.










Meta-Ridley (Boss) ** Updated v1.1, 1.2
------------------
Recommended Tools: Plasma Beam, Charge Beam, Super Missiles
Difficulty: 8/10
Reward: Entrance to the Impact Crater

Meta-Ridley has two phases: his Flying Phase and his Grounded Phase.  Once you
knock off about two thirds of MR's life, his wings will be destroyed, and he'll
enter into his grounded phase.  You'll wish he didn't have a grounded phase.

Pound MR with charged plasma beam bursts when he's close to the arena and more
or less just hovering and attacking.  Lock on to him when he's flying in the
distance so that you can track him, and strafe/double dash to avoid bombs and
his plasma beam blasts.  At most, you'll lose around 2 energy tanks during this
phase.

When he is grounded, MR likes to charge at you, swing his head around, and then
swing his tail.  This can result in up to three hits!  He'll rear back before
he charges.  This is your cue to double dash away to him (always be locked on).
Then, turn, lock on, back away, and leap his tail swipe. Once you practice
this, it'll be easy to avoid him.  Constantly be charging your power beam
during this battle. He'll occasionally spit a plasma beam burst at you.  It is
easy to leap over this.  Every so often he'll open his mouth at you.  Use this
time to launch your charged beam at him since he doesn't keep it open for long.
He'll be hit in the mouth and will rear back, stunned and exposing his chest.
QUICKLY charge up and fire a supper missile at his stomach; this will damage
him.  The lower his life, the more quickly and frequently he'll charge.  You'll
need to be very good at double dashing, avoiding his secondary attacks, and
then being prepared to double dash again.

Added notes: The attack MR uses in his grounded phase might be dependant upon
how far away from him you stand.  If you are far, he'll almost exclusively use
his dash attack, if you are close, he'll swipe at you, and if you are at just
the right distance, he'll scream and allow you to attack him.  I have not
officially confirmed this.

Your right hand will hurt after this fight.

*Alternate Strategy: For those of you with a lot of missiles to burn (130+ on
easy, 250 on hard), MR's grounded phase becomes very very easy if you have the
wavebuster.  After he is grounded, charge up the wave beam and fire off its
combo as soon as MR opens his mouth, the beam will track to his chest and start
draining his life.  When he recovers, it should hit his mouth again, causing
him to expose his chest.  When MR is about to charge at you, the beam will also
hit his mouth, stunning him.  simply hold down the combo until MR is dead.
Sometimes the beam won't track his chest properly.  Just keep holding the combo
since starting it again will burn just as much missiles.  If you have fewer
than 150 missiles on easy, you will probably run out.  At that point, fight MR
as normal, but use charged plasma bursts to cause the most damage.  On hard,
even with 250 missiles, you will run out.  At that time, switch two charge
plasma bursts.  You should only need one os two more to his chest to finish him
off.










Metroid Prime (Shell) ** Updated v1.2
---------------------
Recommended Tools: Super Missiles, Ice Spreader, Various Beams
Difficulty: 6/10
Reward: An even harder boss fight! yay!


When you enter the Phazon Infusion Chamber, you'll see a big ugly face (One
that reminds me of the Mother Brain)!  It will soon unfurl itself into a crab-
like form.  First things first, its weak spot is its eyes.  The scan data calls
this its face.  Second, it can ony be damaged by a beam that shares whatever
color it has.  When it is yellow use power beam and its upgrades, when it is
purple use the wave beam and its upgrades, when it is white use the ice beam
and its upgrades, and when it is red use the plasma beam and its upgrades.

The battle will wage itself through several subchambers.  There seems to be a
pattern to the color changes in each chamber, but haven't had time to verify
this.

When you deal enough damage to it in its cuurent color, it'll rear back and
flash red.  It will then either break through to the next subchamber or it'll
charge to the otehr side of the current subchamber.  When it charges,  get into
morph ball beforehand, and into a groove.  Use the ball boost to get to its
other side.  Its tail may lift you up, but it probably won't cause any damage.
Using this dodge method, you'll probably have to try hard to get MP to damage
you during its charge.  When coming out of morph ball mode, you'll probably
automatically face the boss.

As far as  can tell, this is the general pattern:

Subchamebr 1: Starts as yellow or purple, then changes to the one it did not
start as.  After defeating the second color form, it will break through to
Subchamber 2.

Subchamber 2: He's got three colors: purple, white, and yellow.  He seems to
consistently go through only those colors in this chamber, though not
necessarily in that order.   believe his first color will match the first of
SC1.

Subchamber 3: He'll use all four colors this time, so be prepared for him to
charge you three times in this SC.  I'm not certain if there is a pattern to
the order, but regardless, you'll be using each beam once.

Subchamber 4: He'll keep color changing (I think randomly) until you finally
deplete his health.

Yellow Form: Lock onto his head, and fire off a super missile.  Add another
super missile or a few charged blasts to end this form. He likes to shoot a
straight beam from his mouth, so jump around like a chimpanzee and keep
moving.

Purple Form: Charged wave beam blasts are your key to this fight.  Maintain a
lock on its face and fire them off.  A few of these will end this form.

White Form: Lock onto its eyes, and fire off a nice ice spreader burst.  This
will freeze it for a moment.  Add a charged blast of ice or a few normal ice
shots and this form will end.  This is the easiest of the four forms.

Red Form: Lock onto its eyes, stay reasonably close, and just fire away with
normal plasma beam shots.  Charged shots tend to miss, and the beam is very
quick with normal shots, so the job will be done quickly.

His attacks: He will often shoot a straight beam from his mouth.  This is easy
to jump over.  His yellow and purple forms like to use this.  He can also fire
a spray of 3 or so purple homing electric missile things.  Jump/strafe to the
opposite edge fof the screen to avoid these.  They hurt when they hit.  He can
also attach a tractor beam to pull you towards him.  Lock to his eyes and fire
your beam constantly to both damage him and avoid getting too close.  Or use a
turbo controller feature if you are comfortable with using that.  He'll also
occaionally release two glowing orbs.  Lock on to each and blast them with a
charged burst.  They move slow but they hurt when they hit you.  They can give
you health if you are in need of some.










Metroid Prime (Core)
--------------------
Recommended Tools: Power Bombs, Visors, Power Beam
Difficulty: 7/10
Reward: One of the game's endings

This is not a very difficult fight once you get used to how she moves.  MP will
shift to various spectrums.  First, she will start in the visible spectrum; use
the combat visor.  Next, she will phase out and only be visible to the x-ray
visor.  Then, she will disappear and be visible only with the thermal visor.
This pattern will persist throughout the entire fight.  Its main attack is a
radial fire wave, similar to the elite pirate's electric wave.  Double jump
over it and learn to recognise when she's about to use it.  She'll rise up and
spread out her tendrils.  She will also try to ram you or swipe at you with her
tentacles.  Maintain safe distance.

Use whatever visor will currently allow you to see her, and lock on to her.
Use your power beam, as I believe you must have it selected to use the phazon
beam.  There is no need to charge it.  Jump over her fire wave when needed.
Every now and then she'll dump a pool of phazon onto the ground.  Our goal is
to stand in this pool, and fire at her as rapidly as possible.  The words
"Hyper Mode" will appear when you are able to fire.  When in hyper mode, your
power beam becomes the phazon beam.  This beam is the only thing that will deal
damage to MP.  Every now and then, she'll summon a couple hunter metroids or a
couple fission metroids.  Drop a power bomb when they are near you to get rid
of them.  You don't want to waste your time.  Hunter metroids are capable of
dealing the most damage.

This fight isn't all that hard.  Just keep moving, switch to the correct visor
when needed, and power bomb the metroids.  Alternately, the phazon beam will
kill metroids in one hit.  Learn to recognise the phazon pools with each visor.
Each phazon beam volley should drain about one eighth of her life.

Don't forget to scan this form of MP as well.  It is a separate log entry from
the shelled form.
_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-

Have a question? E-mail me at [email protected]