Fan


 * This article is about the obstacle in Metroid: Samus Returns. For other uses, see Fan (Disambiguation).

Fans are an obstacle in Metroid: Samus Returns.

Description
Fans are found in vents embedded in walls, floors, and ceilings throughout SR388. These machines, most likely built by the Chozo, are always active and cannot be disabled or destroyed. Each fan generates an air current (approximately three blocks long) that pulls nearby objects into the vent. This air current is not strong enough to affect Samus Aran or any other creature. However, it sucks up Bombs and Power Bombs, pulling them into the fan and destroying them before they can automatically detonate.

Therefore, fans are placed in strategic locations to create puzzles that cannot be easily solved by planting Bombs. They are almost always found near Bomb Blocks, although they may be placed in areas where Bomb Jumping or Turbo Bombing would be useful. Samus needs to find an alternate route around these fans; usually, the Bomb Block turns out to be a quick exit. Although Power Bombs are also destroyed by fans, their blast radius is large enough that they can be placed outside the air current's range, circumventing the fan's effects; however, there is a puzzle in Area 7 that requires a Spider Boost, making it necessary to first move a Pull Block to cover a nearby fan that would suck up the Power Bomb.

In the subterranean caverns of Area 2, several fans are found near walls covered with yellow goo. Since the fans destroy bombs and the goo disables the Spider Ball and Wall Jump, these obstacles are intended to prevent Sequence Breaking. If Samus does not already have the Spring Ball and High Jump Boots (which were originally optional in Metroid II: Return of Samus), then she needs to backtrack into the area's Chozo ruins and locate them, since they are required to bypass these obstacles.

Fans serve a secondary purpose in wordlessly teaching the association between air currents and sucking up bombs. This visual cue becomes relevant during the boss fight against Diggernaut in Area 6, where it uses its wind vortex attack during its second and third phases. While performing this attack, Diggernaut will be damaged if its wind vortex sucks up any Bombs planted by Samus.

Trivia

 * Although fans are intended to prevent Sequence Breaking in Area 2, it is still possible to place bombs at the very edge of the air current and perform precise Bomb Jumps to bypass these fans. This effectively allows the player to skip the Spring Ball (and therefore, the Arachnus boss fight) and High Jump Boots.