I actually had no intention of attempting an any% run at first, but tried anyway. My first few attempts were single-segment runs, since saving adds an extra 5 seconds to the final time due to the appearance sequence being included... so I thought if I could just go through well enough, it'd be beneficial.

First few attempts were in the 1:02-1:03 range, right around Radix' multi-segment run. I discovered it was theoretically possible to achieve a sub-hour single segment time by mere seconds if the run was perfect, so I kept trying. I finally managed to get a time of 1:01:26, but due to my crappy capture of it, didn't bother to post. A while later, I started thinking about ways to use the new trick brightstar discovered called "spider throwing", and it finally dawned on me that it was possible to easily make up for the time required to take it just by the first spider-throw trick. Everything after that just served to better the time.

So, I decided to do a 3-segment run using the spider throw. Only 3 segments, so the save time wouldn't be an issue. I separated it out to have the most difficult parts of each successive section first, so that they could be perfected without having to worry too much about finishing.

The 1st segment doesn't deviate from the standard route much. The only real difference is the order in which I tackle ruins 2, which allowed me to pick up the spring ball on the way out easily. The 2nd segment makes very good use of the spider throw, and although I did screw up some of the tricks, my luck in this segment was enough for me to keep it.

The 3rd segment actually took the most effort to finish. The first time I attempted it, I ended up with a final time of 1:01:22, which freaked me out by just how far it was from an hour... minutes aren't easy at all to make up. But after experimenting with new spider-throw techniques, and perfecting my omega fights, I managed to sneak it just under an hour.

This run is by no means perfect, and really should be treated as a baseline for future runs, since it's the first run (to my knowledge) to use the spider throw technique. So, there's probably a lot of new tricks to be discovered, and minor re-workings of the route. I honestly had no idea how much health or missiles I'd be needing for each section, so I had to take a few safety checks along the way which ate up time (like ruins 2). And of course, the platforming could be done better, but hey, I'm not a machine. ;-)

First off, thanks as always to the administration of SDA, both past and present. Of all the Archives of Speed Demos out there, this is definitely the best. ;)

"If I have seen further it is by standing on ye sholders of Giants." -Sir Isaac Newton, paraphrasing Bernard of Chantres

The above quote summarizes this run pretty well. Frankly, although I was the person who did this run, I deserve less credit for the end result than anyone. I came up with almost nothing in terms of routing or strategy; I was just the guy holding the controller. The following is a not-necessarily-comprehensive list of people who did the heavy lifting, so to speak, in terms of routing this and coming up with tricks both big and small, with their Twitch.TV pages if I know them.

-Brightstar
-Carlmmii
-JaggerG (http://twitch.tv/jaggerg)
-Giganotabehemoth
-Kronicsauce (http://twitch.tv/kronicsauce)
-Cardboard
-__sdfg (http://twitch.tv/uusdfg)

All of them, in one way or another, did more to produce this than I did.

I would also be remiss if I didn't thank my parents, who bought me an NES many years ago and tolerated my gaming addiction better than maybe they should have while I was growing up, and my wife, Silver (Or "Mrs. Emptyeye"), who continues to indulge my gaming/streaming habit to this day.

In any event, Metroid II seems to be the "forgotten" game of the series. This is really too bad, as it introduced a number of elements that would become series staples, like the Space Jump, or Samus's suit widening when she collects the Varia. The game also gets something of a bum rap regarding linearity. Yes, on a "macro" level, it's quite linear--the game is broken up into what Nintendo Power called "phases" back in the day, and you have to kill all of the Metroids in a phase before the acid lowers and you can move onto the next phase. Within each phase, though, on a more "micro" level, there's a surprising amount of freedom in terms of the order you choose to explore the area and kill the Metroids. And this goes without mentioning the one major "macro" level break about 35 minutes into the run.

Anyway, the run itself beats the formerly fastest run I know of in the category by about 1:55, and the incumbent SDA run by about 6 minutes. This is due to a variety of things--new techniques, improved Metroid fights, and a better route resulting in part from said new techniques. It's the result of working on the game on-and-off for about a year, until it all came together for me in March 2014.

On to the run! I'll be doing something a little bit different this time, referring to the number of Metroids left to kill (On the bottom-right of the screen) to give you an idea of where I'm talking about.

Now, let's exterminate a rare alien species and throw the ecosystem of an entire planet into disarray!

39 Left
-Right off the bat, I use a number of techniques. First off, at the start of the game, rolling (2 pixels/frame) is faster than running (1.5pixels/frame), which in turn is faster than moving through the air horizontally (1 pixel/frame). It is important to take into account morph-unmorph time (You don't move horizontally at all, except if you unmorph in mid-air), though, so you want to morph on longer flat stretches. Also, in general, continued horizontal movement is more important than optimizing the time you spend in the air, at least at first. As an example, I could make my second jump a crouch-jump (More on that later), but elect not to.

-I unmorph and then remorph because, if you hit the ground as a ball from a height greater than one block, you do a short bounce into the air, which loses about a quarter second (Since you're now moving through the air horizontally).

-I get some good RNG on the first big drop through the blocks. Incidentally, outside of the Metroids (More on that later), this isn't a very RNG-dependent game. However, this is one of the places it can bite you.

-Sniping that frog enemy just looks cool, and saves a bit of time besides.

-Some notes on Alpha Metroids: They take 5 missiles to kill, and they home in on you in brief bursts. Alphas (And Gammas, the next mutation) have some RNG relating to where they go after you blast them--most of the time, they'll move in a certain direction based on where you hit them...but not always. This makes Gammas in particular frustrating to fight--Alphas are weak enough that this is usually not too big a deal when fighting them. Alphas are also the only mutation you can damage with a missile before they'll actually activate, either as I do here, or just hitting a "pre-mutated" Alpha before it moves. Missing the last shot, then having my second attempt somehow just not count, was unfortunate.

38 Left
-On the way back from the Metroid, you can snipe the second frog enemy in the air, but it's very difficult.

-A note about switching between missiles and beam: Doing so at the wrong time can cause the game to throw (Or NOT throw, which can be even worse when a floor is just not there and you fall into Garbageland and softlock your game) arbitrary tiles in front of you. The safest time to switch is when the screen isn't moving, so I try to limit my switching either to the start or the end of screens.

-Climbing up the shaft, you'll notice the damage boost jump being used for the first time. When you take damage, your jumping state gets reset and you can jump again in midair, even if you've already jumped without hitting the ground. We'll use this to great effect later on.

-Morphing and then unmorphing was the controller (Actually a GBA SP) acting up--the idea was I'd morph and then roll along for a bit.

-Doing that quick roll through the acid is the fastest way to navigate that particular section. Not long after, we get our first "Beep%" experience, where I'm running around with low health (In this game's case, below 50).

-Damage boosts! Note that I'm not sure doing so in the way I did was actually faster than just damage boosting off the fly, then climbing normally.

-Sometimes the second damage boost in the next set will hit you twice. If that had happened here, it was run over.

-Morphing before the big drop before Bombs lets me get into the passage leading to them slightly quicker.

-Bombs are the first major upgrade we pick up. Additionally, the Missile Tank (One of 22 I'll be grabbing in this run) serves as a bomb tutorial of sorts. I move into the crevice to avoid being launched in the air by the bomb and losing some time--throughout the run, I try to avoid getting launched in the air, so presume anything I do moving away from a bomb is for that reason.

-I generally crouch-jump up the shafts here just so I can make the next jump a little more quickly. The exceptions are the last two jumps--on the first, I hit my head on purpose to reduce my time in the air; on the second, I have to go right anyway, so I just do a full jump. Your maximum jump height at the start is 4 blocks. By crouching before you jump, you reduce this to 3 blocks, putting you back on the ground and into your running (Or rolling, if you so choose) more quickly. Note that up to about 2.5 blocks, you have precise control over your jump height (More or less); above that height, it's full jump or nothing.

-I managed to avoid getting "subpixel'd" on the statue just before rolling through the wall. Sometimes, you'll jump on the statue, morph, and the game will just decide "Nope, you're not QUITE in the right position to be able to roll through the wall!"

-An Unmorph Jump occurs when I grab the first Energy Tank (There are 6 in the game, even though you can only hold a maximum of 5). Similar to damage boost jumping, the game gives you a free jump regardless of where you are when you come out of a morph.

-This is actually not quite the fastest method to collect the two missiles where one is on top of the other, but it's much more consistent for a very slight time loss. The actual quickest method involves shooting out the top block, grabbing the bottom missile, then timing a jump up such that the top block reforms just as you hit it, damage boosting yourself up into the space. Shoutouts to JaggerG for showing me this method.

-Doing a quick damage boost tap jump after bouncing off an enemy actually reduces the time you spend in midair.

-I hesitate for a moment on my way to the Spider Ball shaft because, if I hold right without letting up for a moment, I actually miss the gap and have to Bomb my way up and through it.

-The Spider Ball is a very important item. Besides letting me climb walls in ball form, it's an integral part of a trick called the Spider Throw (Or Spider Fling). More on that when we come to it. It's possible, in a general sense, to Unmorph Jump out of the shaft after getting Spider Ball, but I find when I try it that I hit my head on an invisible ceiling and fall all the way back down.

-The next Alpha fight goes pretty well, with the last hit again being an exception. Emptyeye more like Chokereye am I right (More on this in about 55 minutes)?

37 Left
-You get a mini-preview of the Spider Throw as I go left.

-Bouncing off the statue directly is very slightly faster than waiting for the fireball, it seems like.

-I start firing like crazy to lag the enemies into appearing later. It doesn't slow Samus herself down any, and means I can jump over the last two enemies instead of having to stop and kill them.

-Morphing before the big fall is so I miss the platform to my left on the way down. Also, unmorphing just as you get hit does weird things with your gravity, sending you plummeting to the ground, which I use to save some frames before laying the bomb.

-Something I actually came up with independently! I'm not the masher that carlmmii is, so I switch in and out of missiles to instantly kill the enemies in the sand, rather than shooting multiple beam shots at them.

-You might think that doing a short hop just before the Alpha Metroid to manipulate his initial move is faster, but it doesn't seem to be. This was a bad pattern, but my execution given it was (For the first time in this run) as sharp as it could be.

36 Left
-Just an aside, missile sniping the floaty things is actually one of the trickier things to get right in the run, at least early on--like Super Metroid, the missiles start slow and accelerate; unlike SM, you can only have one onscreen at a time, so missing a shot costs several seconds and will result in you getting hit, possibly enough to cause a reset.

-I fire the missile walking across the Metroid shell because I feel like it makes the jump across the gap more consistent. Metroid shells slow you down and can lower the height of your jump; missiling mitigates the effect enough that you should at least consistently cross the gap (Although you may accidentally do a full jump).

-The Metroid bounces a little too far to the left, and I have to improvise as a result.

35 Left
-This is a pretty good fight, and I manage to not leave my initial perch, as a bonus.

34 Left
-There's a slightly quicker way to climb back up the first shaft, but I could never do it consistently.

-Moving WAY to the right after placing the bomb is me using "Enemies freeze offscreen" to my advantage--it manipulates the fly into a position where I can damage boost jump off of him, rather than having to jump twice to get up to where I morph. Also, the energy refill I take here is very important--we'll see why in a few minutes.

-The idea falling down the shaft here is that I'd hit the third ledge and do a spider throw off of it. That is...not what actually happens.

-After the "main" music resumes, the tiny hop you see is to avoid hitting the guy crawling along--go too fast and you actually bounce off of him and lose time.

-Damage boosting up the first half of the shaft after the music ceases playing is new to my runs here. The route change in this section (Up to collecting the missile when I have 26 Metroids left) is a big part of the improvement over the previous record (A 1:05:25 by carlmmii that for whatever reason never made it onto SDA).

-I do a short hop just before the Metroid to manipulate its position. I execute the fight as well I can given the luck with where it bounced.

33 Left
-You can damage boost off of the guy I missile to get up to that platform, but it's very difficult, and energy is a concern here. Plus, on console, it may not even be faster.

-After I collect the missile, we see a series of damage boost jumps (Why I needed all the energy) to get to Spring Ball early. Why will become clear in a moment. The slower, but safer, way to do it involves unmorphing and dropping down onto the enemy below you at the proper point, and damage boost jumping from there. What I do here, immediately unmorph-jumping out of the tunnel, is the quickest method, but the timing is pretty tight. At the top, the stalk's "petals" do 10 damage. The stalk itself does 30, and there's no guarantee you'll bounce in the right direction after hitting it, so I go for the safer route both in terms of energy and consistency.

-How Arachnus (The Spring Ball guardian) works is that, while you're facing him (Even in Morph Ball form), he'll fire at you. If you turn away from him, he'll jump. It takes enough bombs to kill him that a two-round fight is about as fast as it can be done on console (The TAS manages to kill him without him hopping a second time). As a bonus, I'm near the right side of the room when I collect the spring ball.

-With the Spring Ball, we can finally see the full effect of the Spider Throw in action. How it works is, when moving left (It only works going left, I have no idea why), jump in the air in ball form, then activate Spider Ball. You'll move left at the same speed as you would be if you rolled. Incidentally, it looks like you're going even faster than rolling speed, but it's an optical illusion--I verified myself that it's 2 pixels/frame movement speed with the Spider Throw. Despite that, it's incredibly useful, and having Spring Ball itself saves having to bomb jump and/or Spider Ball in some places, to say nothing of the Spider Throw applications.

-Right away, we see the Spider Throw pay dividends, as I use what I call the Leap of Faith from the TAS to get over to an Alpha Metroid (Previous runs used a series of damage boost jumps off of lower enemies to make it up there).

32 Left
-The jump is to avoid damage, and to end up right at the wall I need to blast.

-Laying the bomb before whatever task I have to accomplish (Waking up the Metroid here, getting High Jump Boots in a bit) saves me waiting time for the bomb to explode. In general, you want to try and get Alphas and Gammas above you where possible. This is because A. the Game Boy has less vertical than horizontal resolution, and B. it's harder to force Metroids off the top of the screen vertically by missiling them. Ideally, you trap them in a small space and pump missiles into them. Which I screw up a bit here.

31 Left
-Shoutouts to Kronicsauce for showing me the "Get the Metroid trapped in the ceiling" method of dealing with the Alpha here.

30 Left
-Rolling into the Varia chamber is another small optimization--I have to stop and bomb anyway, so I might as well get some rolling speed out of it.

-The Varia in this game turns Samus into "Samus Payton". Besides giving her American Football-like shoulder pads, the Varia increases her running speed to 2 pixels/frame, the same as rolling or Spider Throwing. Because her in-air speed doesn't increase, precisely timing your jumps becomes even more important.

-Kronicsauce showed me this method of fighting the first Gamma Metroid. First, some Gamma Notes: Gammas take 10 missiles to kill, and they can't be hurt while doing their little electrical attack. Other than that, they attack similarly to Alphas, but their increased speed and larger hitboxes make them perhaps the most dangerous/random Metroids to deal with in a speedrun. I actually screw up the setup (The idea is the Gamma gets trapped in the alcove to the left) and have to improvise, which loses some time.

29 Left
-Generally, you want to Spider Throw when doing so will take you over more than one pit at some point in the room.

-Once again, I have a missile just decide to not count on a Metroid. Ugh.

28 Left
-This Metroid starts off annoyingly far away. Luckily, the bounces it took were actually quite good.

27 Left
-I can count sand, I swear. Yay stupidly lost time!

-Even more shoutouts to Kronicsauce here. I had figured out what the theoretical ideal way of fighting this Gamma Metroid was, but he showed me the method to get him into that position consistently. If you screw this up badly enough, he can still get behind you and into the sand on the right side, which I manage to avoid here.

26 Left
-Kronicsauce also came up with the method of climbing the shaft up to the missile tank. In general, if you think "Hey that looks cool!", just presume Kronicsauce came up with it. I did figure out that you don't need to be out of the way of the first bomb when you're bombing up to the missile tank, presuming you're near the right wall of the resulting "tunnel".

-Exiting the tunnel, I lay the second bomb down in case I fail the "unmorph-jump-shoot-down"--the second bomb will give me enough room to ensure I can easily do it the second time.

-I get unlucky here with the robot shooting the lasers--if you run into him while his "head" is down, you'll get bounced back to the left. If the head is "up", you'll get bounced right. I do a tap-jump after getting hit to save some frames.

-Exiting the room with the dropping platforms was also nice--it's difficult to jump on all of them without getting at least one bounce.

-In the first room after the music leaves again, I constantly unmorph and remorph because it's a tiny bit quicker than hitting the ground and bouncing after each drop. This is especially true if I can do the unmorph while I'm dropping but before I hit the ground.

-I haven't really found a good way to handle the room with the enemies that spawn from the pits. A brief delay before shooting each one seems to be the least-bad way to go about it.

-It was either JaggerG or Behemoth that used the strategy of bouncing off an enemy and spring-unmorph-jumping up to the platform after taking the missile refill (It also appears in the TAS, which doesn't need the refill at all). I did modify it to use the first enemy instead of the second, at the risk of the strategy failing if you get bounced left instead of right.

-Hitting the spike and jumping up is a tiny bit faster than just Space Jumping up.

-I elect to grab the E-Tank and missile on the way down because it's easier, and because I can quickly make my way back up the shaft with a series of damage boost jumps when I'm done with the Metroid below.

-This particular falling sequence seems to be the best, as I only touch one platform on the way to my destination, which puts the Gamma in an easily killable position.

25 Left
-Again, taking damage boosts up is quicker than Space Jumping.

-I'll deal with this Metroid later.

-This Metroid fight goes well, as I manage to stay near the right side. You can actually trap the Gamma in the entrance; the risk of doing that is that you can push it off the screen entirely, forcing you to exit, re-enter, and re-start the battle.

24 Left
-The flamethrower things are another of the non-Metroid RNG elements in this game. They do not treat me kindly here.

-I do the short hop before shooting the Metroid to hopefully lure it up into the corner. That's not what happens here.

23 Left
-My luck with the flamethrowers is slightly better on the way back.

-This is why I elect to deal with this Metroid now. This is a pretty consistent, quick setup. Sometimes it will go too far to the right, and then you have to improvise when you get hit.

22 Left
-Quickly damage boosting up this shaft is the fastest way up. Damage boosting like I did here may not be.

-If you try to do the second big spider throw from a higher position, you end up hitting the ceiling.

-Ideally, this Metroid goes straight above you after taking the first hit and you can kill it almost instantly. This is far from ideal.

21 Left
-While it's not the hardest or the most time-saving of tricks, the Pimp Damage Boost (Or PDB) off of the Alpha Metroid is my personal favorite trick in this run. It actually does save the time it would take to climb around the chamber in spider form, at the cost of waiting for the Metroid to descend on the way back.

-You may think that I would want to get onto the top ledge when fighting the Gamma, but it's less consistent than you would think.

20 Left
-What is with me and not being able to close out Alpha fights in this run?

19 Left
-Rolling is a bit faster than jumping over the low barrier on the way to the long drop.

-Just falling to the left and taking damage is the best way to set up this Metroid. A couple of bounces go further to the right than I would have liked.

18 Left
-Ideally, I wouldn't have gotten knocked where I did in this fight, although the Metroid's general position at the start of the fight means I can kill it pretty quickly anyway.

17 Left
-This is a modification of another Kronicsauce setup. His original setup worked on luring the Metroid up above Samus here. This takes less time and is reasonably quick.

16 Left
-This acid dive, what I sometimes call "Emo Samus", is the one major "macro" level sequence break in this game. This is actually the area you're supposed to go to when there are 15 Metroids left. The issue is that this is nowhere near either the actual 16 Metroid area, or the area you go to with 13 left (Which are right next to one another). So I do this first to save myself having to backtrack all the way here and then back to the 16/13 area. There are a couple other places you can do acid dives, but this is the only one that saves time--you'll eventually have to go back and kill all the Metroids you skipped anyway.

-Bad luck with the platform positions here; I should have stopped Spider Throwing sooner than I did.

15 Left
-One of the reasons the acid dive works is that there's an energy recharge here--the second and final non-E-Tank energy refill I take. The main reason it works is that, while you have to kill a certain number of Metroids to trigger an earthquake, the game doesn't care which Metroids you kill to do so, meaning there's magically no more acid in the tunnel.

-Getting the Gamma stuck in that corner is basically the ideal situation, providing you don't accidentally let him get beyond you.

14 Left
-I'll mention it now--running through the acid is a good deal faster than trying to deal with the little platforms.

-No, you can't make it under the guy I missiled.

-Don't try to spider throw through the first room with the guys who pop up from the lava. It will end badly.

-The second room with those same guys is a pain in the butt to get through quickly. I do a short hop before firing down at one of them so it doesn't hit me.

-There hasn't yet been a good, quick setup for this Gamma, so the strategy basically amounts to "At least try to get it near the entrance of the room". I do a good job of that.

13 Left
-The guys that swoop back and forth are more RNG, but going underneath them is rather consistent at getting you through without taking damage.

-Nice climb, Me.

-If the Metroid gets knocked to the very top, you usually have to jump to hit it or your missiles will just go underneath it.

12 Left
-This route through this phase means I don't need to take an end-game refill before the final phase.

-Zeta Metroid notes: Zetas take 20 missiles to kill, and you can't shoot them from above or below. If you don't know how to deal with them, their swooping and fireballs make them probably the hardest Metroids in the game. If you do know how to handle them, though, they become some of the easiest. For two of them, as soon as they start to evolve, let go of the control pad and start mashing missiles, and they should fly into them every time. VERY rarely, in the middle of this, they'll shoot a fireball and break out of the loop; then you have to improvise.

11 Left
-This is the silly "Collect ALL THE BEAMS" section of the run. I won't say too much more about it, other than to note that it's a shame that, even casually, you don't use the Spazer Laser Beam and its satisfying "Pew pew!" sounds for very long at all (This is actually the second time you can collect each Beam; playing "normally", the Spazer and Plasma Beams are pretty close to one another, meaning you just use Plasma for most of the rest of the game from there).

-In the Ice Beam room, we see a harmless example of the Select Glitch I mentioned earlier.

-Spider Throwing on the way to the Gamma is kind of annoying in that, when on a "corner", the game sometimes gets confused about what direction it THINKS it wants you to hit to move. If I bounce off a spike once and then resume Spider Throwing, that is, while not necessarily intentional, far from the worst outcome in this room.

-Again, I haven't really found a good, consistent way of dealing with this Gamma quickly (Although the little jmp I do here may warrant further testing). It looks like you should be able to lure it into the top right corner, but I obviously don't do that here. Again, for now, the best you can do is try to stay to the right side of the room to at least reduce travel time after killing it. If you feel like gambling, you can roll into this room but stay in the entrance, forcing it to the right of you and trapping it there. There is a VERY high risk of you shooting it off the screen if you do this, though.

10 Left
-On the way back through the spiked room is a small time-saver dubbed The Gazebo Effect by __sdfg. Showing that people of all skill levels can contribute to the improvement of a run, he actually found it by accident by (And he'll tell you) being bad at the game. I happened to watch him do that, and went "Oh yeah, that's a tiny bit faster!"

-There's not a whole lot you can do with this Gamma either. It does go pretty quickly, at least.

9 Left
-This dark section is about as quick as it can be while still making sure I go where I'm supposed to. The Space Jump out makes it a lot easier to land on the platform with the E-Tank (No, you can't just fall through the Metroid shell to it).

-This is the Zeta that's not as easy to manipulate. MAJOR shoutouts to Kronicsauce for A. Suggesting getting the Screw Attack before fighting him, B. Giving me the confidence that I could actually pull it off (The idea had occurred to me, but I had dismissed it as being too hard), and C. Suggesting holding A/Spring Balling up through the gap that leads to the Screw Attack. As it turns out, this part of the trick, collectively known as the Zeta Zag, is the easy part. After the Screw Attack, the secret to manipulating the fight itself is to wait for the Zeta to swoop down at you before you jump into the entrance tunnel. Once you're back near the entrance, turn around to face the Zeta (Let go of the control pad) and mash missiles JUST at it starts to swoop at you. The fight strategy was taken from Behemoth's Any%; I would lure the Zeta there, kill it, then go get the Screw Attack before Kronicsauce came along.

8 Left
-The name of the game on this Metroid is "Don't fall down!" Any kill where you don't fall down on this Metroid (This forces you to restart the fight, as Metroids recover their health when you exit and re-enter their screen) is a good one.

7 Left
-Sometimes when you collect this missile, the sound effect will cut off and the stereo sound will be screwed up for a bit (You'll only hear jumping out of the right speaker, for instance). I'm not totally sure what causes this.

-Zeta EZ Every Day

6 Left
-That descent was..not so good.

-Bouncing off the enemy between Spider Throws is a tiny bit quicker than avoiding it.

-I take the right side in the descent to avoid an enemy on the left side.

-Taking the left path here is quicker than the right path.

-The Alpha fight was pretty good.

5 Left
-Beating that Metroid is the one time the acid actually rises. What you're supposed to do is go around the loop to find that you're trapped; you complete the loop back where you fought the Alpha and come across your first Omega Metroid. As it turns out, though, just unloading and reloading the area (By going to a place where the screen fades all the way out and back in) is enough to trigger the Omega to appear.

-Omega Metroid notes: Omegas normally take 40 missiles to kill, and like Zetas, you can't hit them from above or below. They have a weakness, though: Shooting them in the back makes them take triple damage, reducing the number of missiles needed to 14. Also, once they swoop down, they'll freeze for 2 seconds, plus invulnerability time (They become invulnerable while their legs are kicking; this is why I don't just shoot it as fast as I can). So the ideal strategy is 1. Lure the Omega into swooping at you into a position you can easily kill it in one round, while 2. Also getting yourself closer to the exit of the room.

4 Left
-Again, I descend down the left side in order to avoid an enemy. I roll beforehand for no reason at all.

-Spider Throwing on the small platforms is the quickest way across that room. By doing the last jump a bit more to the left, it is possible to just barely make it onto the platform, though I screw it up here.

-Omega number 2 behaves, thankfully.

3 Left
-Because you move faster on the ground than in the air, I try and hit as many of the little platforms as I can when going right.

-I think doing the bottom Omega first is a bit faster, since you can just fall all the way down.

-Omega Number 3 behaves too!

2 Left
-Sadly, the last Omega doesn't behave, so I Screw Attack into it to force it to swoop again into a more favorable position.

1 Left
-I love this whole section of the game from an atmosphere standpoint. It's very creepy to be so deep in the planet that it's not even supporting life anymore. It's just you, creepy music, and a looong walk to the endgame.

-On the first climb, I hit the "bigger" platforms because that's the fastest way up.

-Shoutouts to JaggerG for showing that, with proper timing, you can skip across the little pools without bouncing off the ground (I don't do a great job of it here, though).

-I jump over the bigger pools because they not only slow your movement, but there are hidden pits that drag you down to the level below--and once you fall through the pit, you can't just climb back up it, you have to go around the long way.

-OH NO AT THE LAST SECOND METROID LEARNED HOW BABBY IS FORMED. No word yet on whether Metroid also learned to crawl. More atmosphere, I love how even the music effectively turns against you here, rising in pitch just enough to be harsh and dissonant in your ears.

9 Left
-Larval Metroid Facts: You know em, you love em. You have to freeze them with the Ice Beam (Playing casually, there's one available in the "center" of the giant room before the music transition), then hit them with 5 missiles. There's not a lot to say here strategy-wise except for a few of them--the rest are basically "wait for the Metroid to come to you and freeze it just before you would get eaten." It is possible, though, to missile the Metroids too fast and have one not do damage.

8 Left
-You do have to run to near the edge of the platform to ensure the Metroid has the momentum to make it up to you. You'll also see this at 7 left and 3 left.

6 Left
-This timing can be a bit of a gamble. I freeze it a bit quickly here, but it's not a major time loss.

4 Left
-The name of the game on this Metroid is "Don't get nommed." I manage to kill it pretty quickly as a bonus, but again, pretty much any kill where you don't get grabbed first is a good one.

2 Left
-Minor flub as I somehow don't switch out of missiles right away. Oops.

1 Left
-Just a quick note that if the Metroid counter doesn't read "01" at this point, the Metroid Queen does not appear--instead, her area is covered in the little diamonds you need the Baby Metroid to eliminate, and you'll have to bail out into the area below (Which takes you into the aforementioned Ice Beam area).

-Metroid Queen Facts: The Metroid Queen has 150 HP. Shooting her with a missile does 1HP. Rolling into her stomach and hitting her with a bomb does 30, but you can only damage her in this way once per stomach trip (Even if you lay multiple bombs, only one has an effect). A hybrid method using about 60 missiles and 3 bomb cycles is the quickest way to do this battle. Five snaps is almost as good as I can ask for here; three straight snaps with an open mouth is ideal, but I've never actually seen that before, and a four-snap is very difficult (Involving basically "sniping" the queen's mouth in mid-air on the fourth snap). I'll take 5 snaps.

0 Left
-THE BABY THE BABY THE BABY! Also note that the Metroid counter was apparently not calibrated for cute Baby Metroids. The Baby behaves for the most part, not getting stuck on any ledges.At the end, I count to seven (More specifically, I sing the first line of Jesus Christ Superstar's "The Temple", which is in 7/4), which puts me near where I need to be to land in the ship. From there, there are two specific stars in the background I put myself between, which leads to the "slam dunk!"

-Note that I've actually gotten a 1:00 in-game time on slower runs before. Check out this post on Reddit for an explanation of why this game's in-game timer is complete garbage.

And that's about it! Thanks for watching, and for more Adventures of Emptyeye, you can check me out on the following:
Web: http://emptyeye.com
Twitch: http://twitch.tv/emptyeye
Twitter: @EmptyeyeDotCom