Missile Launcher

A Missile is a weapon in the Metroid games that has appeared in all of them so far. It is a more powerful weapon than the normal uncharged Beam. They are always acquired upon finding a Missile Tank, or in Fusion, through an "update" from the Galactic Federation. Missiles are useful in crumbling rock and Missile Blocks, and in the Prime games, can seek targets.

Original Metroid games
The 2D side-scrolling Metroid titles featured rapid firing missiles. In their ususal form, the Missiles had a rocket shape with grey colouring and pink stripes. The Missiles were very fast firing, and Samus could hold up to 255. Super Missiles were seperate items in most 2D games, which are larger, slower firing variants of the standard missile that are at least 3 times stronger than average Missiles.

Super Missiles are a more potent form of missile capable of opening Green Doors and clearing away Cordite. In the first Metroid games, early Super Missiles had their own separate ammo reserve. However, in the Metroid Prime Series a Super Missile attacks draw from ordinary missile reserves, using up five missiles per attack. In Metroid Fusion the super missile just makes normal missiles three times stronger.

Missile Expansions, sometimes called Missile Tanks, can be collected, which increase Samus's missile supply by 5 (on Normal difficulty), and 2 (Hard) in Metroid: Zero Mission and the Japanese version of Metroid Fusion.

Metroid Prime Series
In the Metroid Prime series, Samus must first obtain the Missile Launcher (which automatically provides a capacity of up to 5 missiles), then can further expand their Missile reserves by collecting Missile Expansions. Each Missile Expansion increases the maximum missile capacity by 5. There are several uses for missiles in the Prime series, and Missiles can be combined with other weapons for special attacks, though this feature was removed in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. Missiles in the first 2 Prime games were blue and were fired like energy from the Arm Cannon. Corruption differed from the other depictions and seemingly returned to the roots of the franchise by making missiles more simialr to the original designs. Missiles of the Prime series always feature the ability to home in on locked enemies, although they still may miss. Some enemies can have a jamming effect on homing missiles, causing them to become erratic and miss their target. A few Space Pirates in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption are equipped with sloped battle armor that simply deflect missile attacks, making missiles useless against them. However once their armor is broken they are vulnerable to missiles.

In Metroid Prime Hunters, the missile can be charged to deal more damage. The Missile Launcher is also Samus's Affinity Weapon. When Samus fires a charged missile, it deals more damage and gains a slight homing effect. Other hunter's missiles have no tracking effect.

Super Smash Bros. series
The missile is Samus' B&gt; attack in Super Smash Bros. Melee and Brawl. It is similar to the 2D appearence and function, but homes in on enemies like in the Prime games. However, unlike all of its apperances in Metroid games, it moves very slowly and will decelerate until it stops and explode after traveling for a period of time. By smashing B&gt;, Samus will fire a Super Missile rather than a normal one. Super Missiles inflict slightly more damage than normal Missiles, but lack a homing ability. When fired, it will initially move even slower than a normal Missile, but rapidly accelerates to a many times the Missile's speed. Instead of slowing down at the end of its flight, it travels at full speed until it reaches its maximum range, at which point it will immediately explode.

Types of Missiles

 * Normal Missile- The basic missile Samus gets at the begining of the game or finds later in the game. Does more damage than a regular un-charged Beam shot. Is only rapid fire in the 2D Metroid games.


 * Super Missile- A stronger version of the missile, sometimes a powerup to regular Missiles or a seperate powerup portrayed as a silver projectile with a enlarged green top. It appears in Metroid Prime as the Beam Combo for the Power Beam.


 * Seeker Missile- Yet another missile-based upgrade that only appears in Echoes and Corruption. This adds an additional 5 missiles to the maximum missile carrying capacity, and allows the ability to lock on to up to 5 different targets, then simultaneously fire a missile at each. A single enemy may be locked on to multiple times to expose a weakness or just do more damage at a time.


 * Ice Missile- A Metroid Prime 3: Corruption feature is the Ice Missile upgrade (obtained by defeating Rundas), which actually turns all normal Missiles into Ice Missiles, which have no negative characteristics or disadvantages over normal missiles and have the added abilities to slow down or freeze enemies, freeze liquids in the environment, and open doors protected by shields vulnerable to cold-based weaponry. It should also be noted that Ice Missiles appear in Metroid Fusion as well, due to the fact that the Ice Beam could not be downloaded from the Galactic Federation because of Samus' Metroid-infused cellular makeup at the time.


 * Diffusion Missile- Only appearance thus far during the events of Metroid Fusion. This upgrade adds a charging effect to the ice missiles which can cause their impact to freeze everything else on screen.


 * Hyper Missile- This is a powerful attack appears in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption and uses one standard missile, but can only be used in Hypermode. It has a large drain on Phazon reserves, but creates a very large explosion that can defeat many enemies in only one hit.


 * Charge Combos- Charging a beam and activating a missile will activate a Charge Combo, if that particular beam's Charge Combo has been added to the suit. There have been 7 different types of these (over the course of three games).

Trivia

 * It is revealed in Corruption by use of the X-ray visor that the reloading mechanism for the missile launcher is actually operated manually by Samus turning her hand inside the arm cannon, performing the turning motion of the open barrel seen every time Samus fires a missile. However, this action is not performed in Metroid Prime.


 * It should also be noted that there have been a total of three different ways the arm cannon morphs when using the missile launcher. In the first game, the arm cannon turns a turquoise color, the second is shown in all games besides Prime and Hunters in which the arm cannon has four small sections that rise up; it is revealed in Metroid Prime 2 that the arm cannon nozzle rotates when doing this. The third and last form is depicted in Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime: Hunters in which the nozzle splits into four pieces around the barrel in the form of an X.