A Morph Ball Door is a special door in the Metroid Prime series. These doors open automatically when Samus approaches them in Morph Ball form. Sometimes they will open up into tunnels that will suck Samus in, such as in a Waste Disposal Unit in the Phazon Mines. Most of these can be found in Space Pirate areas such as the Mines, the Agon Wastes mining facility and on the Pirate Homeworld. In Metroid Prime Hunters these are identified as normal Doors, retaining their function and the ability to be opened with weapons fire.
Locations[]
Metroid Prime[]
- Main Plaza
- Energy Core
- Burn Dome Access
- Furnace
- Crossway Access West
- Training Chamber
- Piston Tunnel
- Quarantine Cave
- Quarantine Monitor
- Life Grove Tunnel
- Life Grove
- Security Cave
- Phendrana's Edge
- Waste Disposal
Metroid Prime 2: Echoes[]
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption[]
There are at least two specially named Morph Ball Doors on SkyTown, Elysia.
The first, called the maintenance level hatch, exists in the Aurora Chamber to the right of the corrupted Aurora Unit 217. When Samus attempts to interface with 217, the "SkyTown announcer" states that 217 is corrupted and requires repair, and opens the hatch. This hatch is primarily brown in color with a lighter amber border, and has a "target" symbol on it with a turquoise center. The hatch splits vertically from the middle and remains open.
The second, called an entry lock, is present in the upper chamber of the Powerworks. This hatch is locked at first, and must be removed by firing Seeker Missiles at locking mechanisms attached to an energy grid. This will lift the hatch and allow Samus to access the Spider Ball.
- "Entry lock active. Connections to energy grid are present."
Metroid: Other M[]
Development notes[]
The inclusion of these Doors was made after the first Prime game ran into issues whilst testing. Testers would travel too quickly through the Morph Ball tunnels and as a result, fall off the map.[1] The doors were added by Zoid Kirsch as hidden loading screens to prevent this.[2][3]
Gallery[]
References[]
- ^ [Metroid Prime :: Speed Run in 1:24:31 by Miles #AGDQ 2014] Sub-sub-sub-sub-hour run. Zoid. Retrieved on 2015-02-28.
- ^ Old Game Plus. Metroid Prime, Dev Interview Special. February 8, 2021. Retrieved August 7, 2022. https://oldgameplus.libsyn.com/metroid-prime-dev-interview-special (starts at 21:29)
- ^ Zoid Kirsch (ZoidCTF). "Metroid Prime Dev Stories #12: Tiny morph ball doors. If you move quickly through a morph ball puzzle or boosted through a ball tunnel, you may have noticed that sometimes there’s a little door blocking your way. 1/4
When we first started making the 2D styled morph ball areas, they were connected to various rooms with tunnels. They worked well until our testers started beating the load of the next room and would fall out of the world. 2/4
I had to go throughout the game and add these little morph ball doors into every tunnel that crossed rooms. This ensured that Samus won’t roll out of the tunnel before the room is loaded, otherwise she will fall into the void forever. 3/4
Ideally you shouldn’t see them very often as the load system tries to get the next room loaded. But if you are quick enough, you might bump into these little doors that help you stay in the world. 4/4" 14 November 2022 10:51 a.m. Tweet. https://twitter.com/ZoidCTF/status/1592183432662384642