Update!
I've spent about half an hour in Norfair. It's definitely the least friendly place I've encountered so far. There's lava and weird lizard things that spit at me. The little guys that latch onto you and suck health terrified me at first because I immediately panicked and didn't know WTF to do about it. Luckily I wasn't completely terrible and realized I needed to go morph ball to get them off.
In a decent sized room with lots of hidden morph ball tunnels (that aren't really hidden very well) I picked up another missile expansion. The Save Point was also connected to that room, so that was just convenient. I haven't discovered the map for Norfair yet, but I'm really not worried about it much right now because the pink areas on the map (the ones that fill in automatically because you've been there) keep ending up really solid after I explore in one direction. I'm not finding very many dead ends or areas that are in obvious sight and just out of my reach like I did in Brinstar.
I found the room with the Speed Booster, which was oddly simple to obtain. Oh well, I'm not complaining. I finally know what to do with all these arrow blocks I've been seeing all over the place. Now if only I could remember where all I'd seen them...
Nothing too major in this update, just wanted to stop playing and post before I forgot everything I'd done.
A few random comments:
I like the new and improved "fill up your energy and missiles" tubes that spit out fleets of harmless enemies at you rather than the old-fashioned one at a time.
I'm getting a lot better at hitting things that come at me from above while I'm running without breaking stride. It took me a while to get the feel down for the upward angle shot.
I'm still anxiously awaiting a chance to go back to the beginning (which is ironic, considering how I've moaned about the backtracking this whole time, and now I'm sad that I can't do it) so I can collect all the stuff I've missed due to not having the proper equipment.
Oh yeah, and I found another energy tank.
Status:
Missiles: 35
Energy Tanks found: 3
Powerups: Morph Ball, Morph Ball Bomb, Charge Shot, Hi Jump Boots, Varia Suit, Speed Booster
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I hate all ugly people, regardless of gender. ~ thundersheep