- For other uses, see Dark Echo (Disambiguation).
Two Dark Echoes appear alongside the AU in a Diorama.
A Dark Echo is a copy of Dark Samus formed from Phazon energy. There are two types encountered in the game: the first one is a near-perfect copy (with subtle differences) created by 'splitting' from Dark Samus (much a cell undergoing mitosis), while the second type is a holographic-like copy projected from the eye of the Aurora Unit 313. They possess a simple Phazon-based copy of the Power Beam, along with some of Dark Samus's other moves, and a far smaller supply of health than Dark Samus, thus they can be destroyed easily.
One of their purposes is to act as decoys to distract Samus as Dark Samus drains Phaaze's energy in the final battle between the two, and to that effect, they can create the illusion of draining energy as well. Dark Samus will use once at first, but later can create two after taking enough damage. Their other purposes is to aid Dark Samus by amplifying some of her attacks and to have all of them attack at once, making it hard for Samus to not only target them one at a time, but also to dodge every individual's attacks coming from different directions. They will use (as stated before) Dark Samus's version of the Power Beam and some of her other moves. Dark Samus can also perform another move with the Echoes, in which she and the Echoes will levitate a few inches off the ground and spin around the room rapidly, making them difficult to hit until the move ends and causing damage when hit by them. Another attack they can create together is a large, spinning, double Plasma Beam shot from the center of the room in opposite directions (this is performed only with one individuals at a time). They can also temporarily fuse back into the real Dark Samus, but while they are fused with her, Dark Samus will be covered with a purple energy shield and will remain invulnerable until the Echoes separate from her after a period of time. If after an amount of time, the real Dark Samus has taken decent damage, both she and the Echoes will perform her energy-recovery move; however, if the Samus acts fast enough, the Echoes can be destroyed and the real Dark Samus can be damaged before recovering all her health, due to the Echoes' extremely low health. Other ways to tell which of the individuals is the true target is by switching Visors, as both the X-Ray Visor and the Scan Visor can differentiate them from the true Dark Samus. Echoes also have black visors, while the real Dark Samus has a bright blue visor. Destroying the Echoes will reveal powerups, such as Anti-Phazon Units.
Even weaker Dark Echoes are generated by Dark Samus when she is controlling the Aurora Unit 313. They will either shoot at Samus or, after turning into their Morph Ball forms, use the Boost Ball ability to speed across the arena in a zig-zag pattern in an attempt to ram her. They are fairly easy to dodge and subsequently, easy to kill for powerups. After some time, these Echos will vanish into thin air.
Scan
"Morphology: Dark Echo. Facsimile created by Dark Samus. Susceptible to Hypermode attacks."
Trivia
- They are presumably named after the game Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, which preceded Corruption. The New Play Control! variant of said game is "New Play Control! Metroid Prime 2: Dark Echoes".
- If a Dark Echo is near Dark Samus and is destroyed, Dark Samus herself will take additional damage from the impending explosion.
- The second type of Dark Echoes also appear in a Diorama along with AU 313, in the game's Extras menu.
- The explosion and sound effect when Dark Echoes die is similar to the way Metroids die in Metroid Prime, which suggests that they are Metroid-based copies spawned by Dark Samus identical to the way the Metroid Prime could spawn Metroids.
- Interestingly, Dark Echoes are never shown to physically split from Dark Samus. Dark Samus somehow duplicates herself seamlessly while cartwheeling, with Dark Samus and the Echoes going in different directions to further confuse the real Samus. This somewhat subtle split makes it nigh on impossible to distinguish which one is the real Dark Samus and which is fake at first, until closer inspection.
- When scanned, the pictures for the scan are warped red versions of Dark Samus's images, suggesting that their similar nature to Dark Samus made the Scan Visor malfunction.
- The Dark Echoes can be distinguished from Dark Samus by their darkened visors.
- Shortly before its "death", Metroid Prime also seemed to split into several copies of itself, although this is probably due to the instability it was undergoing at the time and was not actually a combat tactic.