Sky Temple Grounds

Sky Temple Grounds
Planet	Dark Aether
Environment	Mountain Dark twist
Sub-Areas	3 subareas: South area North area West area
Bosses	Dark Samus 3 and 4
Key Items	Three Sky Temple Keys
Connected areas	By light shaft: Sky Temple By portals: Temple Grounds
Distinctfeatures	Very damaging atmosphere No Save Stations
Map	[1]

The Dark Aether version of the Temple Grounds, the Sky Temple Grounds is the area surrounding the Sky Temple in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes. It is a very dangerous place, as its atmosphere is very damaging, even with the resistance offered by the Dark Suit. Many Ing guard the area, making sure that none obtain the temple keys hidden throughout the land. Samus battles Dark Samus here at the end of the game. It hides three Sky Temple Keys.

Areas and main rooms

Like its Light Aether counterpart, this area is divided into three subareas. Each of these subareas contains one of the three Sky Temple Keys located here.

South area

This subarea is very small, consisting of only three rooms.

Main rooms

• Plain of Dark Worship
• Accursed Lake

North area

This subarea is bigger than the south area, and contains large quantities of Phazon in some rooms.

Main rooms

• Phazon Grounds
• Profane Path

Ing Windchamber

Isolated from all other rooms is the Ing Windchamber.

West area

This is the largest subarea in the region. It contains Ing in some rooms.

Main rooms

• War Ritual Grounds
• Defiled Shrine
• Sky Temple Gateway

Differences from the Temple Grounds

This area is probably one of the most different from its Light Aether version:

• It has three different areas that are not linked, as they are completely isolated from each other by mutated Ingworms.
• It does not have the Splinter Hive subarea (explored in-game).
• It does not contain any signs of the GFMC Task Force Herakles (as they land on Aether after the creation of Dark Aether and all die before learning about the dark dimension).
• It contains large amounts of Phazon in some rooms, of which there is very little on Aether.

Music

• Main theme (named Dark World Temple): [2]
• Theme for the Phazon region (PAL and Metroid Prime Trilogy: [3]

Trivia

• The Sky Temple Grounds are the only area in the game without a Save Station. Even the Sky Temple itself has one (somewhat inexplicably, in the context of the game's lore), though this may be because the only two areas where Samus can save do not have Dark Aether equivalents (there is no Splinter Hive, and her Gunship naturally does not exist on Dark Aether).
• Early in the game, Samus travels through a Portal in Hive Chamber B to a Portal Site on Dark Aether that is never seen or explorable in the game again. Unlike the Light Aether version, this room is open and has a wall of Phazon opposite the Portal. This room contains a Light Crystal, indicating that the Luminoth have explored this area. As the room is only seen in a cutscene and the Portal disappears after it, it is impossible to determine at all if the "Splinter Hive" exists on Dark Aether.
• Odd particles rise from the ground in many sections of the Sky Temple Grounds, perhaps due to the especially poisonous atmosphere in this area. These particles strongly resemble those that appear on Samus's Power Suit as she is being damaged by the atmosphere in any part of Dark Aether.

See also

• List of rooms in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes/Sky Temple Grounds