Wall Jump

Artwork of the Wall Jump for Super Metroid.

The Wall Jump, also referred to as the Triangle Jump, Touch & Go, or Kick Climb, is a technique that speed runners use in the 2-D Metroid games to gain access to areas that would normally require a special upgrade such as the High Jump Boots.

In 2-D games

This is one of the most important techniques when mastering Metroid gameplay. It is not listed in the games' instruction manuals, but it is demonstrated in Super Metroid by three Etecoons in a secret room. The Wall Jump technique breaks down like this: Samus must Spin Jump (jump while running) at a wall so that she touches the wall. When Samus is touching the wall, the player must press and hold the control pad away from the wall. Samus should momentarily look like she is clinging to the wall. At that moment, the player must press the jump button again. If done correctly, Samus will spring off the wall in the opposite direction.

In narrow vertical shafts, Samus can bounce back and forth between walls by performing the move in opposite directions. In Super Metroid and Metroid: Zero Mission, this technique only requires one wall, allowing Samus to bounce her way up a free-standing wall. Once this move is truly mastered, Samus can explore areas and obtain items which are otherwise inaccessible without further upgrades. While the technique requires very precise timing in Super Metroid, later games in the series have been more forgiving.

Another form of wall jumping is known as the Continuous Wall Jump (CWJ) and involves pixel and frame perfect inputs, but allows Samus to Wall Jump off of the top of a column, while still going in the same direction. The most notable use of this can be going across the Interior Lake without the Grappling Beam, or Speed Booster, by wall jumping off of the column with the Missile Expansion to clear the second half of the room. This technique however, is very risky, and normally is only used outside of Tool-Assisted Speedruns to preform the Sequence Break mentioned above.

As Samus is already very acrobatic from her training with the Chozo, she can still Wall Jump while on her Zero Suit.

In 3-D games

Metroid: Other M

The Screw Attack in both Metroid Prime 2: Echoes and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption allows Samus to bounce between two special Wall Jump Surfaces, which looks almost identical to the Wall Jump of older Metroid games. The player only needs to press the jump button in these games, and Samus will automatically Wall Jump off of any other normal walls if she comes into contact with them while doing the Screw Attack.

Metroid Prime Pinball has a minigame called Wall Jump where the player must alternately press the buttons for the left and right flippers in time to scale both screens of the Nintendo DS for an Artifact, Extra Ball, or Special.

Metroid: Other M features the technique again, but using the alternate name "Kick Climb". The jump appears slightly differently when Samus is in and out of her suit. When in and out of her suit, she rockets off the wall with the help of the boosters on her back, with a pop sound also heard when the Speed Booster activates. In the Zero Suit, she does a spin jump through the air after bouncing off the wall. This time, it functions more like the wall jumping in the Mario series, as the game does not require the player to change directions on the control pad when jumping from wall to wall.

The technique also appears in Metroid: Samus Returns.

Official data

Metroid: Other M On-Screen Tutorial

KICK CLIMB
Press and hold [d-pad] toward a wall and press [2] with good timing to consecutively kick your way up. (Don't change direction with [d-pad].)

Metroid.com

Kick Climb

"Traversing vertical corridors is a cinch for Samus as she leaps from side to side with minimal effort, through elevator shafts and more."

Metroid: Other M manual

"If you press and hold [d-pad]* in the direction of the wall and press [2] with good timing, you'll kick your way up the wall. Note: You don't have to change the direction you're pressing on [d-pad]*."

Trivia

When Kick Climbing in Other M, afterimages can be seen.

• In Super Metroid, the Spin Jump will be cancelled if a Wall Jump is executed with a Spin Jump Attack. This is not the case in Metroid Fusion, Metroid: Zero Mission, or Metroid: Samus Returns.
• If timed correctly, if Samus takes damage in Super Metroid, the player can perform the same inputs for a wall kick in order to make Samus kick herself away from the hazard. This is known as "Damage Boosting".

Samus's Adventure Mode congratulations screen in Super Smash Bros. Melee shows her jumping off a wall in the escape shaft.

• In Metroid Fusion, when Samus tries to wall jump, she will jump away from the wall with a very large amount of force, making it impossible to continuously jump on one wall as in Super Metroid (without the Screw Attack). This is one of many changes made to the game to prevent Sequence Breaking.
  • While a similar thing happens in Metroid: Samus Returns, shooting right after wall jumping will stop all forward momentum, allowing Samus to spin back to the wall and jump off it again.
• In Metroid Fusion, Samus says that it was the Etecoons and Dachoras who taught her to Wall Jump and Shinespark (they can be seen demonstrating these techniques to her in Super Metroid). However, Samus has both of these abilities in Metroid: Zero Mission, and the Wall Jump in Echoes and Corruption.
• In Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the Bryyonian Labor Golem that Samus encounters in Falls of Fire is capable of wall jumping.

• Samus, Zero Suit Samus and Dark Samus are all able to Wall Jump in the Super Smash Bros. series. Ridley is the only Metroid character in Smash who cannot.

Appearances

• Super Metroid (first appearance)
• Super Smash Bros. Melee
• Metroid Fusion
• Metroid: Zero Mission
• Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
• Metroid Prime Pinball
• Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
• New Play Control! Metroid Prime 2: Dark Echoes
• Super Smash Bros. Brawl
• Metroid Prime Trilogy
• Metroid: Other M
• Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U
• Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

See also

• Space Jump
• Shinespark