The Control Tower is a room in the Phendrana Drifts on Tallon IV, in the Glacier One base. It appears in Metroid Prime.
Description[]
The Control Tower is a rectangular, open room suspended between two towers, West Tower and East Tower, in the Pirate facility section of the Phendrana Drifts. When Samus first enters the room, the doors lock and several Space Pirates attack her, followed by some Flying Pirates that attack from the sky. On later visits to the room, the doors do not lock and there are only Flying Pirates. There are many crates in the room, some of which can only be destroyed by the missiles of the Flying Pirates.
On top of the East Tower, there is a window composed of ice. Late in the game, it can be melted using the Plasma Beam or shooting a big metal crate with the Wave Beam, depending on the game's Difficulty mode. Once it is melted or the crate is destroyed, firing a Missile through the window into the explosives next to another tower will cause it to collapse. This will cause a passageway to a Chozo Artifact to open. Once she has collected the artifact, Samus must climb inside the fallen tower and roll through a small passageway to get back into the room.
A Secret World can be found in this room: [1]
Connecting rooms[]
Samus engages a Space Pirate in the Control Tower.
- West Tower (via Purple Door)
- East Tower (via Purple Door)
Inhabitants[]
First visit[]
Later visits[]
- 4 Flying Pirates
Items[]
- Artifact of Elder
- Samus must melt the window of ice or detonate a big metal crate from on top of the East Tower using the Plasma Beam. She must then fire a Missile at the explosives at the base of the tower seen through this window, then use the Morph Ball to roll into the new passageway that this opens up, and claim the Chozo Artifact.
Scans[]
- Radion
- "There is a large fuel cell attached to the base of this tower. Energy readings detect rapid fluctuations in power levels. The Radion based outer casing of the structure appears damaged and unstable."
- Frozen window
- "The ice covering this opening can be melted with extreme heat."
Unused[]
An unused scan in this room has been found through datamining of Metroid Prime Remastered.
Development notes[]
An Elite Pirate present in the room via hacking.
This room is internally named 08_ice_ridley, seemingly indicating that Meta Ridley was intended to appear within the room in some form. It is possible that the cutscene of Meta Ridley from Phendrana Shorelines may have originally been planned to play here, or that a boss battle against Ridley was intended in the open room. The latter possibility may explain why there is no boss guarding the Thermal Visor within the facility.
There is an unused layer in this room known as 3rd pass enemy - Elite. This layer loads a third variant of the room that houses an Elite Pirate, an enemy which only appears in the Phazon Mines in the final game. Elite Pirates are also present on unused layers in Research Entrance and Research Lab Hydra, but were ultimately cut from all areas in the Glacier One facility. This layer likely would have been present on Samus's return trip to the Control Tower after encountering the monstrous Pirates within the Phazon Mines, serving as a powerful guard hindering access to the Chozo Artifact. Notably, this would have been the only Elite Pirate to be fought in an outdoor environment; in direct sunlight, the Elite Pirate appears much brighter than normal, and its features are more clearly visible.
Trivia[]
- In the original, New Play Control!, and Remastered versions of the game, it is possible to obtain the Chozo Artifact much earlier by standing on top of a crate, jumping over the energy barrier, and shooting directly at the explosives.[1]
- It is possible to skip the battle with the Pirates upon Samus's first visit to the tower by carefully jumping above the invisible trigger in front of the entry door. This can help with the previous Sequence Break, as the Pirates can destroy the crates. This trick is also possible in newer versions of the game.
- The two towers connected by this room are the highest points that Samus can reach on Tallon IV. The lowest point is the crashed Reactor Core in the Tallon Overworld.
- Along with the Observatory, Transport to Phendrana Drifts South, and the Reflecting Pool, the game's physics can be tested using the two Purple Doors. If Samus stands in front of one of the doors and faces the door on the other side of the room then fires at it (using any Beam or Missile, except for the Wave Beam), the shot will bounce off that door and then the other consecutively, back and forth until the blast eventually dissipates.
- Of the rooms capable of testing such physics, this is the only room that has no Missile Door Locks, allowing for Samus to repeat this physics trick an infinite number of times.
Gallery[]
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References[]