#torvus catacombs

[oktaviaslabyrinth]

Torvus Catacombs // Metroid Prime 2: Echoes (2004)

[neogandw]

Bi-daily doodle: Metroid

How do I draw aliens, help.

Metroid music recommendations:

When I go digging for music, I dig deep. Its often when I dig for the older games around the NES era that I find official, weird one-off arranged versions of tracks.

This is one of those cases, I like this version of Brinstar.

I may bring this back up again for Kid Icarus.

I really should play the Prime series sometime, I never really had a chance to.

To be completely honest Metroid isn't a series I touch that often (mainly played Zero Mission, Fusion and Dread), so I would love to try out Prime.

Speaking of Prime, Torvus Catacombs.

A remix of Super Metroid's "Brinstar - Red Soil Swampy Area".

Can I just mention that I'm confused about the Super Metroid soundtrack by the way?

Super Metroid's song titles are quite confusing since Nintendo does not seem to be able to settle on what "Theme of Samus Aran: Space Warrior" even is.

According to the original soundtrack, its this.

According to Smash Bros, its the credits theme.

According to dread its theme theme of super metroid/title theme.

I get it, leitmotifs and all, but these are 3 different arrangements that just get sort of named "Theme of Samus Aran", and having looked into the internal filenames for SSBB, SSB4 and SSBU I know for a damn fact that the english translation of the smash series soundtrack is bogus as hell.

So I have no idea of what do.

[priest-of-the-fortunate]

OC infodump: Havens

So I never talked about this but lemme introduce you guys to the Havens :)

Basically there was this period of time where I could really only cope by listening to music I like. And since I have such a strong connection to the songs I love I thought- well, why not make these into coherent thoughts? So I made characters out of them. Big infodump under the cut ><

I call them "Havens". They are created when a specific type of memory or bond is made with a song, whether it be good or bad. They come with a small dimension-like space and a being. A Haven is both its place and its person. Each Haven is marked with a different symbol that indicates what type of bond or memory they have with their Holder. (Symbol designs are a wip) A Holder is a person who creates Havens- for example, I would be the Holder of my Havens. So far, there are four types of bonds. Favored, favored but bittersweet, not favored, and inexplicable. (Though, there is only one Haven in the inexplicable category so far.)

Havens, either good or bad memory, are supposed to be safe spaces that their Holder can go to when needed. What the theme of a Haven is is dictated by the Holder's personal perception of a song. If it is related to the song's source or not, that is what the Haven will look like. For both area and being. (For example, I have a Haven of the song Waterfall from Undertale. Their area is very similar to the Waterfall area in the game since that is what I relate the song to.)

A Haven is able to take form as its being or as its area- if that makes sense. They can either be their person or their place, basically.

How a Haven's area works is up to you. You don't need logic, for it's to help comfort you. Like I have a Haven that is underwater, but y'know- since we can't breathe underwater I conceptualized it to where I could.

Now, onto the people. Each Haven has its own distinct personality and way of helping their Holder cope. (For me, I usually like to sleep so a lot of my Havens help me fall asleep.) Their names are not dictated by anything, and you can name your Haven whatever you please. Their names work like this: "Haven (Name)". Haven is in their name to indicate what they are, and their name helps differentiate who is who. They also have titles. It is usually dictated by what their area is like or what their memory is attached to.

They are able to leave their area and visit other Havens if they'd like, but they instantly return if their Holder needs. I haven't conceptualized a way that multiple Havens could speak with their Holder at once quite yet. I'll get there soon, though.

Now I think I've explained enough to help you understand..? If not then feel free to ask questions, I love this concept dearly and will explain everything as many times as needed (with pleasure).

Anyways, here's all of them so far- in a list. I'll post descriptions or drawings if anyone wants to hear more about them. In order is their name and title, pronouns, song, and bond

(will be updated as more are formed!!)

Noah, The Haven of Forests - he/him - Heavens Tower by Naoshi Mizuta - favored

Abnus, The Haven of Lanterns - they/them - espial by Oliver Buckland - favored

Galene, The Haven of Sands - it/he - Eternal Hope by desert sand feels warm at night - favored

Endri, The Haven of Perception - he/they/it - Torvus Catacombs by Kenji Yamamoto - favored

Genesis, The Haven of Celestial Being - he/they - galva by Oliver Buckland - favored

Perpetua, The Haven of Production - they/them - Shop Menu by Saster - favored

Harbour, The Haven of Tides - they/them - Underwater Passage by Naoto Kubo, Shiho Fujii, and Koji Kondo - favored

Squall, The Haven of Zephyr - she/they/he - Uwa!! So Temperate♫ by Toby Fox - favored

Marrovil, The Haven of Bioluminescence - they/he - Hadopelagic Pressure by DM DOKURO - favored

Cascade, The Haven of Streams - they/he - Waterfall by Toby Fox - favored, but bittersweet

Hale, The Haven of Exhaustion - they/he - the insides of tears by Oliver Buckland - favored, but bittersweet

Tavarious, The Haven of Plumage - it/they/he - calc acerbia by Oliver Buckland - not favored

Minerva, The Haven of Neon - she/her - Relax by DanlyDaMusician - not favored

Vega, The Haven of Sinking - he/him - Break it off by PinkPantheress - not favored

Ottoline, The Haven of Malaise - he/it - Where Dreams Die by Leon Riskin - not favored

Rune, The Haven of Disorientation - he/him - Heretic by Oli XL - inexplicable

Thank you for reading <3

[danifart]

im not like ultra familiar with the metroid prime trilogy (ive watched a couple playthrus of prime 1 but not prime 2 and 3 in full. trust that i do know what happens in them lmao) and i didnt know that the torvus catacombs theme was a re-arrangement of lower brinstar from super metroid. and like. Wow i just underwent full enlightenment

[metroidprimepics]

This time on miscellaneous Metroid Prime trivia: dead things and/or molluscs, moth attraction strategies, and the crunge.

Incidentally, I updated the theme and added a tags page. If you’d like something tagged lmk.

Prime

Y’all seem to be super into Prime 1 specifically, so I wish I had more to say about it, but... I don’t. Sorry!

I’m sure someone else has noticed this, but... the eponymous Metroid Prime has more eyes than I thought she did. They’re kind of silly-looking, honestly? Like conch eyes. (Please google “conch eyes” if you’ve never seen them, they’re ridiculous.)

You can catch a faint glimpse of the crashed Frigate through the small cracks in the walls in Temple Transport C (which connects an elevator from Chozo Ruins to the Frigate Crash site.) Well...

Rather than painstakingly calculate what the player could and could not see out of the cracked walls, the good folks at Retro decided to put just a whole lotta environment out there. Everything outside the red is just set dressing. It doesn’t look like they put a ton of effort into it (which is good), but I kinda wonder about how it affects performance.

Echoes

A friend reblogged this post by @tallon-underworld​ about how the Torvus Catacombs aren’t named that for no reason. I figured I’d take another look at the “coffins” ingame.

Yep, there sure are some dead bodies in there. Based on size comparison with our handy Flashlight Forme (~1 meter diameter), these appear about the right size to be Luminoth. Maybe a little small? The legs might be curled up. The shape is certainly right - each larger end must be the head and torso.

Quick look inside. I wonder if there’s a different cultural meaning to shrouding the departed in silk, given that the Luminoth likely spin coccoons in adolescence...?

Speaking of Flashlight Forme, moths find it irresistible. This applies to the moths in a lot of different rooms.

If left alone, U-Mos will generate an orb of light in his hand, which also attracts them. If you can’t become a glowy orb, homemade is fine too.

Anyway, back to the catacombs. This save file I’m using is already at 100% item collection. And... and yet...??? There... sure is a missile expansion there!

I did it... I got 101% in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, something that is both normal to want and possible to achieve...

Missiles are nevertheless capped at 255, so it does absolutely nothing. Thanks, Echoes!

Quick comparison of grapple beam from intended perspective, and from...

...the side. It’s just a bunch of flat circles, plus the beam effect... I mean... Sure. If it works...?

Also note that it layers under the gun. I think the gun model has priority over everything except the HUD.

This hollow under the save station at the entrance to the catacombs looks pretty deep, right?

Nope, just pointy.

Deep??? Right???

Pointy. I think it’s safe to assume most deep things in these games are actually just pointy. If it works!!!

Corruption

Just to hammer home the titcam thing, here’s the biohazard scanner in the ship (like I said, this ship has a lot of buttons), which you are ostensibly looking straight into...

...from the PED. OK.

The pirates have put up some cool art of Ridley on the wall in Command Station, presumably as a reminder of what will eat them if they fuck up.

A couple views of the cargo-carrying critters that flit about the landing sites on the Space Pirate homeworld.

Well. “Critters” is... Not... Uh, correct, technically speaking. I...

Ok look, there’s no easy way of saying this. This... is... a Space Pirate. See the head inside? Looks just like the standard Pirate Militia in this game. Yeah... yeah.

The exact scenario here is unclear. Is this is a standard Pirate Militia member surgically implanted into a drone? Or, was she grown that way from the start?. To me the entire thing looks like it could be carapace, but... who knows. Either way, uh, this is happening, and it’s weird!

Anyway. Bryyo has these chains holding the spiky round things in the background, right? (The chain links have surprisingly detailed textures because of course they do...)

They get incredibly thin and distorted in the distance. This looks like a shit photo but it’s impossible to get a decent one because they’re so tiny. I imagine this is to sell the illusion of greater distance without taxing the poor Wii even harder by actually making the background that big.

You might have noticed that this shot of Bryyo has rain. Bryyo has a weather cycle; if you idle in a room long enough, it’ll start raining. This never happened to me while playing, but it takes me a while to set up a shot sometimes, so... yeah. Seems to reset when you change rooms.

Hunters

Did you know that Metroid Prime Hunters is a real video game for the Nintendo DS that you could even play? (Whether or not you should is another matter.) I don’t post pics of it on this blog often, but I do have a soft spot for it and it doesn’t look bad.

Well, it doesn’t look bad when you view things at full resolution, anyway. Above is a screenshot of the single-player version of this room, on emulator.

Now, those of you who have never played Hunters might be asking, “Wait, is this screenshot for real? Is your computer trash? Is the emulation bad? Why does it look so terrible?” WELL,

There’s no error. It looks like that because it’s Metroid Prime Hunters for the Nintendo DS and there just aren’t enough pixels on that tiny screen. Above is an approximation of this shot on 3DS - which looks a little nicer imo, but still. You know. Crungy.

The point is, don’t be fooled into thinking anything posted on this blog is accurate to The Real Metroid Prime Hunters Experience, TM. I do bump up the resolution quite a bit for all games I post, but the improvement with Hunters is massive.

Bonus picture of Sylux that I think is funny. (The green dot in the background is their back. I promise.)

[beevean]

Metroid Prime 2

Torvus Catacombs

[bizarrobrain]

"Torvus Catacombs" by Kenji Yamamoto - From "Metroid Prime 2: Echoes" OST (2004)

[tallon-underworld]

I just discovered something in Metroid Prime 2...

Ok, so you know how there’s that one room in Torvus Bog called the “Catacombs”? I always found this name weird, since it didn’t seem like there were any bodies buried in there. But then there are also these weird platforms that can extend from the walls, but don’t seem to have any purpose other than for Samus to jump on them. …

And if you look inside one of them when extended, you’ll find these three, indistinct shapes… 

Now, you might know where I’m going with this, and think it’s just another dark, far-fetched theory, but then a friend looked at the internal data for these objects, and found their name: 

These aren’t platforms at all.

THEY’RE  GRAVES.

(Shout-out to @cryophase and @bearborg for helping provide the images and data that led to discovering this)

[justmonicca]

Dark Torvus catacombs > Phazon Mines. I don't make the rules lads

[tannersdreamjournal]

12/11/19

I was on my way to perform some ritual/consecrate a shrine of the Wildmother with MIX. We were accosted by a nasty group and a flying, winged purple worm; the others were incapacitated. I had to use my silver tongue to take out the enemies so we could finish the ritual.

Later, I was with a different group in a large chamber reminiscent of the Torvus Catacombs room with the spinning platforms, except instead of water there was void. The platform itself was also like the large one on Norion before the shaft fight with Ridley. I was very afraid of falling off.