Note: As this route was written in December 2021 based off of a 1:58 record, it does not incorporate the ADM skip trick that breaks the Adam sequences for the remainder of the game. If you wish to learn this trick, you can study the mechanics of it and practice incorporating it into a run. It can save upwards of four minutes because of the routing change and the time not spent mashing through Adam sequences. The trick will be detailed, however, in the section below as an optional trick.
Head to the right and spin jump across the gap past the Infester to take the door as if you were going towards Corpius, wall jump up to the top-left Sensor Lock door, then navigate back up in the next vertical area again to the top-right Sensor Lock door. Slide Cloak through it again, then go all the way back down to the bottom right to reach the room with the Thermal Redirect Device again and proceed into the next room. The door above you is now open, so spin jump up and head left to grab the Missile Tank (021/275), then go back to the right and continue along the path. Bypass the Save Station in the next room to reach another vertical shaft with a Sensor Lock door to the right and Slide Cloak through this one as well. The next room is a wide-open area with many Plys flying around that can be hazardous to the next bit of aerial movement. It is possible to wall jump off the middle structure and Damage Boost to the top Spider Magnet track, but this is pretty difficult to time properly. Just make it easier and climb the left-hand wall, then ride the rail piece across the ceiling while taking out the Plys with your Power Beam fire. At the end of the path is a door that leads to a short vertical section with alternating fire jets that you can just wall jump past. At the top is an elevator that will take you to the fiery area of Cataris.
When you first arrive in Cataris, you can go either right or left. Going to the right only contains heated rooms, so ignore that path for now and blast your way through the rocks to the left. Head down the path laid out for you through the fire traps and enemies to reach the Power Beam door at the left that leads to a Network Station, then mash A to get past Adam's briefing about the area. Leave the Network Station via the door to the left and drop down to the very bottom of the next area and take the right-hand Thermal Door into the next room. Jump to the room above you and activate the Thermal Redirect Device here, then leave the room, drop down and shoot the wall to slide into the area with the Chozo Recharge statue. Climb up and rapid-fire to blast the red blob in the ceiling above you, then loop back to the left through the door at the top of the room. In here, again head all the way to the bottom left and take the path into the room that you will eventually fight Experiment No. Z-57 some random boss in and shoot the red orb to bring the Spider Magnet rail down to you. Ride it up and take the open Thermal Door in the ceiling, then head up and back to the left and use the Spider Magnet walls and rail system to ride up to the right. Once you're up here, jump up and head left, then go up to the door.
This area is superheated and right now you only have one Energy Tank, so you need to move fast to get through this section. Run left, jump over the lava and shoot diagonally up-left at the red blob in the wall, then drop down, take out the Ply for (hopefully) some health refills and single wall climb the Spider Magnet rail at the other side. Shoot through the wall here to the left and take the door to get back to safety. Climb all the cliffs here and you'll get to an E.M.M.I. Zone door at the top right.
Entering this zone will result in a short cutscene that you can skip where you cloak yourself from the sight of E.M.M.I.-03MB and learn that it can traverse Morph Ball passages. Skip the cutscene and head up to the door at the upper right. In the next room, continue along the upper path to another door at the top-right, then go into the next room and head to the right-hand side and take the door into an area with another locking gate. Run past it so that it closes behind you, then ascend the ledges heading up to the right, then to the left to get around the closed Thermal Door. Head all the way left through the door, then climb up this side of the room to reach the Zone exit at the top right.
This path takes you right to another Thermal Redirect Device; activate it and head left right back into the E.M.M.I. Zone.
This time take the path you just did in reverse to reach the area where the Thermal Door was closed a little bit ago. Now that it's open, head up into the new passage and take the E.M.M.I. Zone exit to the right. If E.M.M.I.-03MB is in the area, use the Phantom Cloak to navigate around it so that you can reach the door as fast as possible, or get yourself caught and perfect the Counter window. E.M.M.I.-03MB has a nasty habit of almost always being in your way, so pick your poison for getting around it.
Take the path here to reach a door at the upper right, which places you in a large vertical room with two moving sets of Spider Magnet rails. Jump over the large Autclast in the center and continue to the right. Slide past the Plys, drop down and head left through the Sensor Lock door by Slide Cloaking to reach a power station. Hit the orb with a charged shot to turn it on so that the platforms in the large vertical room are activated. Go back to the large vertical room from before and Melee Counter the Autclast while shooting down the Plys, then use the Spider Magnet rails to climb the path leading up to the left. Go through the top Sensor Lock door, then spin jump up to the ledge and keep heading left. Activate another Thermal Redirect Device here, then go back and down to the right through the Sensor Lock door into the vertical room and take the path directly below you to reach the other part of the room you were just in. Drop down here all the way to the bottom of the area and take the door through the left, bypassing the Save Station to reach a path back into the E.M.M.I. Zone.
This one is going to be a straight shot through a large portion of this Zone, so be quick and make use of the Phantom Cloak if the E.M.M.I. ends up being nearby. Start by heading to to the left side of the room and drop down through the Thermal Door.
There is a Zone Exit here to the left that will take you to one of the large piston rooms, and it is here that you would execute the Adam Save Skip trick if you should so desire. Successfully executing this allows you to not only skip activating this room's Spider Magnet rails, but it skips the next sequence where Adam speaks and tells you that you just ain't all that. The benefit to doing this causes all remaining Adam sequences in the game to not function properly, which overall can net approximately a four minute timesave since you skip it here and then never have to mash through his text again. This section will quickly detail what you need to do in order to pull off the skip before continuing with the main walkthrough. Continuing on past this little info block, the rest of this guide will proceed as if you had not done this skip until such time as it has been rewritten enough to incorporate the trick permanently.
To do the trick, you are first going to jump at the bottom of the Spider Magnet rail. Wall jump off to the right and use a Buffered Wall Jump (where you actually jump just before making contact; the result will be a slightly higher arc to your trajectory) to bounce off to the left. Buffer another wall jump off this wall to the right and at the peak, execute a Melee Counter in mid-air to reach the part of the wall that slopes down. Immediately after Melee'ing, press B to respin in the air and do a third Buffered Wall Jump right at the point where the slope meets the straight edge of the wall. If you did this correctly, Samus will arc higher off this jump to the left. Buffer your final wall jump off of the left-hand wall and your trajectory should carry you high enough to grab the Spider Magnet wall at the very top of the room. Once you get up here, you can continue on the path to the second Interactive Device to turn on the other piston room.
Continuing on past the Thermal Door, drop and fall fall all the way down to the bottom. Head left, slide under the wall and keep going this direction. Slide Jump over the gap as you keep going, and shoot through the walls in the next area. At the end of the path, go down and then left to reach another Sensor Lock door and keep heading left until you reach the next room. Here, single wall jump up off of the Spider Magnet walls, then go left and down the other side of the room to reach the Zone exit.
This room takes you to a large area with a statue of something that looks like a large lizard creature. Spin jump to the left to get on top of it and head through the door here, continue into the hallway and out into the next room, then jump up and take out the flying Plys before navigating the two-part Spider Magnet rail. Jump to the top one, ride it left, then drop to the one on the wall and ride it up. At the top, climb the ledges, avoiding the Caterzillas racing across the platforms as well as the Sclawk that is diving in and out of the ground at the far right, and head through the door into the Network Station. Mash A to get past Adam's wonderful pep talk about how you should accept your helplessness, then leave the room and drop down one level to reach another portal to the E.M.M.I. Zone.
Run to the right, drop down and slide through the low passages, then keep going all the way to the bottom and take the Power Beam door at the bottom right. Continue into the next room, slide under the low wall and go into the next room. Jump over the large structure in this area and continue on to the Zone exit.
Exiting takes you right to a Map Station; ignore it and head into the next room. The path splits again here, so take the upper path by way of the Spider Magnet walls, then turn and head left after clearing the slope to head right back into another part of this E.M.M.I. Zone.
This room is relatively simple to get through. Just navigate the path going upwards, wall jumping where possible to save time and you'll reach the Zone exit at the top right.
Exiting takes you to a long room where you need to take the bottom path. Take out the Plys in your way and slide past the fire jets to reach a large glass tube in the next room. Drop down and head left to reach more fire jets and a path to another device that you need to shoot with a charged shot. Once you do, the lava in this room recedes and turns it into an explorable area. Now backtrack along the path you took to get here all the way to the E.M.M.I. Zone portal.
Drop back down and take the exit to the left. If it helps for navigation, you are reversing the same exact path you took through this room the first time.
Once you exit, drop down and head further to the right to reach another area with Spider Magnet rails that you need to scale. Wall jump off of the rail sections to cross to the other side, which leads to a new section of the E.M.M.I. Zone.
Simply head up and to the right, through the Thermal Door and take the exit at the upper right.
Run past the Thermal Device you activated earlier through the Save Station in the next room to get to the other side of the room opposite the glass tube you came from. Head up, take out the Vulkran in the ceiling and shoot up at the ceiling on the left by the Spider Magnet wall. Climb up through here and take the door to access the now-cooled area. Drop down and slide under the low wall, then jump up to reach the platform with the Spider Magnet surface and pull it down to open the path. Now drop down and maneuver through this long hallway past the multiple Sclawks to reach the end. Take out the Plys above you, wall jump up to the top of the tube and slide past the Vulkrans to the right to reach the other side of the tube to claim an Energy Part (1/4). Now backtrack all the way to the start of this room and head up the slight path split near the entrance to reach the exit.
Shoot the floor here to fall down, then maneuver past another Vulkran and take the door down and to the right. Jump up to the next area above you and run through the door to reach the area with the Thermal Redirect Device. Since the path is now open, jump to the left to grab the Energy Tank (02/12), then continue up and to the right and bypass the nearby Obsydomithon, then turn and head to the left now to reach another Thermal Redirect Device. Activate this one, head left and zig-zag through the next large room that is full of Autclasts, Plys, and Spittails to reach a Power Beam door on the far bottom left side. This path takes you to a Shuttle Zone that will carry you to Dairon.
Once you disembark the shuttle, immediately run to the left through the door and you'll see that Dairon is much more of an industrial area than Cataris or Artaria was. As such, many of the enemies you'll run into here are of the robotic persuasion. Start off heading up to the right, using the Spider Magnet wall to reach the top. Head left, shoot through the floor, drop down and avoid the flying Dropters as well as the wall-mounted Autsnipers, then head for the door at the bottom left. Bypass the Save Station and head into the next area, dropping all the way to the bottom as you navigate the twisting passages. You will contend with many Autsharp robots as well as Dropters, so ignore and get around them as quickly as you can. Take the path at the bottom left into the next room, then run along the bottom path and jump up to the platforms near the other side of the area to reach a passage into another room.
The next few areas are completely without power, so it will be a little bit darker than usual. In here, jump to the upper platform and head through the door at the bottom left, then navigate up the twisting platforms in the next very large room, avoiding the Dropters as you go. You will zig your way up and to the left, then zag your way down. The path ahead of you is blocked, so fire through the floor and take the hidden path down here to reach the next area. Here you'll find a power station that you can activate to restore the electricity to the area; turn it on and go back to the right, this time going up to the Power Beam door at the top. Make your way back up through this area to the top and head to the right towards the now-active Missile Shield. Head into this area, jump the gap and you'll find the Chozo Statue that holds the Wide Beam power-up.
Use your new upgrade to shoot a path through the floor to reveal a new Wide Beam door. Blast it with a charged shot and navigate back through the large room here to reach a Wide Beam box at the far end. Wide Beam boxes can be a little temperamental sometimes, so in order to trigger them the fastest, you should always hit them with charged shots. Blast this one to get it out of your way, then jump up and head back to the left, dodging all of the enemies in the way to reach an E.M.M.I. Zone portal at the upper left.
In this one, run straight down to the wall at the far left, then jump up to the ledge above you for a quick cutscene where you're introduced to the next E.M.M.I. that wants to kill you. E.M.M.I.-04SB possesses the Speed Booster, and it can move far faster than you can. Skip the short cutscene and immediately head to the right through the door. Jump up to the next ledge and make a quick jump over the yellow floor by the next panel to get by without triggering the lock and run past it to reach the exit. If you miss and trigger the lock, just take the upper path above you and follow the same basic route to get out of here.
Once you exit the Zone, shoot the Wide Beam Box immediately in front of you, then drop down and take the door on the right to reach a Save Station. Ignore it and run through to reach the first large room you encountered when you came to Dairon. Proceed to the far left and trigger another Wide Beam Box to open the path back to the Shuttle that will return to Cataris.
Once you arrive back in this area, head to the right into the next room, then shoot the wall ahead of you to slide through a small passage and keep going down to reach a Wide Beam Box below you. Blast it out of the way, then head down and left again to reach the portal back to the E.M.M.I. Zone.
Enter this area and run to the left side of the room, falling all the way down to the bottom. Head left through the Wide Beam door into the next room and jump up one level so you can use the Spider Magnet wall to wall jump all the way up to the top of the room. Run to the left and shoot the red blob part of the wall to blow it up, then head down slightly one level to reach the Central Unit Room.
This Central Unit is no different than the last one you battled. Continue to use Missiles and Dash Melee attacks on the Rinkas to gain refills until you have destroyed the shield, then attack the exposed brain itself. Use the Omega Cannon to melt the door shield and blast it open, then head out into the previous room to challenge E.M.M.I.-03MB.
As soon as you exit the room, slide forward under the low wall and start blasting the red blob in the wall to the right. Enter Aim Mode to finish destroying it and this should reveal E.M.M.I.-03MB facing slightly away from you. Start blasting it as it tries to turn around, then take advantage of how slowly E.M.M.I.s are at climbing small sets of stairs to blow apart its face shield. Once it reels back, charge up the Omega Cannon and let loose a blast straight to its eye to destroy it.
Defeating E.M.M.I.-03MB finally gives you the Morph Ball ability. Now that you can finally access small passages, take the lower left-hand path out of this room via the newly-opened Morph Ball tunnel in the wall. Roll through the tunnel in the next room, dropping down and heading left to reach another short tunnel leading to the room's exit. Right in your path here is another Missile Tank (023/275); collect it and exit the Zone.
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