Spider Guardian

The Spider Guardian was a Darkling Pillbug possessed by the Ing that stole Samus's Spider Ball, which Samus Aran retrieved by defeating it in the Dynamo Works of the Sanctuary Fortress.

Battle[]

The Spider Guardian does not actively attack Samus, and instead moves along an extensive, labyrinthine Spider Ball Track while shielding itself with a damaging magnetic field. Morph Ball Bombs merely stun it briefly, and it can only be damaged by forcing it to collide with Electric Coils. Because its movements are completely predictable, timing is everything against this boss.

There are six Electric Coils spread out over four stages, with the final stage containing three. Samus must stun the Spider Guardian until its shield turns green, after which the Guardian will move slower for a short time. She must then quickly reach and activate the Bomb Slots in each stage so that the Guardian's course is altered enough to drive it straight into a Coil. Once the altered path is set, the creature will glow red and roll faster. The second and third stages require the Boost Ball to traverse with. This may cause difficulty in avoiding hits from the Spider Guardian. Before the final stage, three boxes of Large Energy Capsules are present to recharge Samus's health a little. In the final stage, Samus must repeatedly use Bomb slots to "close" certain parts of the track, luring the creature to an above electric coil. If the Spider Guardian would appear stuck inside a blocked off track, the small gate it touches will open, forcing a repeat with the current Bomb Slot puzzle once more and resetting the creature back to blue.

Stunning the Spider Guardian while its shield is green will reset its slow phase duration before it returns to blue, in which the process must be repeated. If the Spider Guardian is hit by Bombs but not fully stunned, if it recovers from this then it will turn red until stunned again, making it harder to both attack and evade it. It is also possible to use the Boost Ball to boost past the Guardian while it is stunned. Its contact damage will inflict 30 units of HP (Veteran Mode, Trilogy)

After the Spider Guardian is defeated and the Spider Ball is collected, the tunnel instantly fills with Pillbugs.

Logbook entry[]

Difficulty[]

The Spider Guardian battle is infamous for its high difficulty, and is generally considered to be one of the most difficult bosses in the game. Multiple factors include the large distance from a Save Station, the great amount of damage the creature's energy aura deals to Samus upon contact (45 units on Hard/Hypermode), a limited amount of energy recharging, the patterns the boss moves in the last phase (with a much greater tendency to get in the way), and the need to do precise Bomb Jumps within a very tight time limit in the last part of the fight.

According to Mike Wikan, the difficulty level of the Spider and Boost Guardian battles was a last minute change, three days before Echoes went gold. Kensuke Tanabe, the game's producer, felt that the battles were not challenging enough and asked that they be made harder, but as a result they became extremely difficult.^[1] The difficulty was toned down in the Wii versions of Echoes, due to the smaller hitbox of the boss and the addition of both the Spring Ball and an easier Normal Mode. Wikan informed Tanabe that the development team of Trilogy was reducing the difficulty, and Tanabe conceded it was the right decision.

Development notes[]

Zoid Kirsch's scripting system was used as a foundation for the Spider Guardian battle, although he did not have a major role in the making of the fight aside from bug fixing.^[2]

Trivia[]

• The Spider Guardian is the smallest boss in the Metroid series.
• The Spider Guardian and Bomb Guardian are the only Sub-Guardians to not be fought on Dark Aether.
• The Spider Guardian is one of only two bosses in the Metroid series that is fought entirely in Morph Ball mode, the other being the Caretaker Class Drone. Both are from Echoes.
• The Spider Guardian can only be scanned prior to the battle, since Samus cannot come out of Morph Ball mode once the battle begins. She can scan it while it runs along a Spider Ball Track through a window by the hole in the room prior to the fight.
  • Because of this, it is one of five bosses that can be scanned prior to battling them in the Metroid Prime Trilogy, the only others being the "Caretaker" Class Drone, the Alpha Blogg, the Power Bomb Guardian, the Omega Pirate.
• If Samus attempts to exit the fight with the Spider Guardian by going through the hole where she entered the battle, and opens the door, the game will crash.^[3]
• The Phazon Pillbug, a corrupted Pillbug from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, resembles the Spider Guardian.
• In the demo, the Spider Guardian was called Spiderling.
• If Samus uses a Power Bomb on the Spider Guardian via Sequence Breaking, it will be instantly vaporized. However, it does not release the Spider Ball or destroy the electrical conduits, thereby trapping Samus in the room unless the battle is restarted.^[4]
• If the first Bomb Slot in the last stage of the Spider Guardian battle is activated at a precise point in the boss' movements, it will cause the Spider Guardian to collide with what is usually the "second" coil to be destroyed. Despite this, the camera will still zoom in on the first electrical coil during the cutscene while the guardian is taking damage. When the Spider Guardian later hits the "first" coil, the camera will zoom in on the empty space where the second coil was.
• If out of bounds, Samus can safely fire at the Spider Guardian. Doing so causes the creature to flail in pain but receive no damage. When returning to the battle inbounds afterward, the creature will not glow red when the bomb slots are active.
• Sequence Breaking also reveals that the Spider Guardian is not loaded in the Dynamo Works until a specific flag is passed after encountering the two Quad within the same room. Curiously until then, the door to the boss's tunnel is blocked by a locked Morph Ball door.

References[]