Item Loss Skip (ILS)

Item Loss Skip is a major sequence break in the game that allows you to skip the cutscene where the Ing steal the upgrades that Samus starts with at the very beginning of the game. As functionally, Samus starts with Missiles, Space Jump, Bombs, Boost Ball, and Spider Ball, doing ILS allows the player to essentially start the game with all five of those upgrades, and skip having to obtain them.

A step-by-step tutorial on how to perform the skip is available here, by MilesSMB - video

This trick is the most significant break in all metroid games, so all serious any% speed runs should learn to implement this trick.

• Tips
  • Before boosting into the crate, make sure that the morph ball is still and that you are holding the direction against the crate.
  • As Miles's video warns, do NOT boost anywhere else besides into the crate or else you will risk the high chance of the game freezing.
  • If all the crates are blown up, and you still have not gotten out of bounds, then reload the room again.

• Notes
  • ILS can not be done in the 100% category. There is a missile tank in Hive Chamber B (the same room as where Samus loses her items) that never appears until entering the room for the first time. Doing ILS means this missile tank is impossible to collect. Though the player can do the 101% trick with the missile launcher to still obtain 100%, the community defined category is to collect every unique upgrade.
  • Though the game says that Samus starts with Grapple Beam and Power Bombs, Samus actually does not start with them, despite there existing Guardian Bosses for both upgrades.
  • Metroid Prime 2 keeps track of percentage by what you collect, rather than what you have. Thus, by doing ILS, all five upgrades you start with do not count towards the percentage counter.
  • Discovery of ILS was a cumulative effort in the m2k2 community. Discussion of it can be found here

Dark Suit

Abandoned Base

Echo Visor

Annihilator Beam

Spider Skip

Despite ILS allowing Samus to start with spider ball, there is a sky temple key in the dark version of the room directly behind the spider guardian fight. Access to the sky temple key by normal means requires defeating spider guardian and collecting spider ball. However, with two short sets of wallcrawls, the player can skip fighting spider guardian and collect the sky temple key much more quickly. Both wallcrawls require screw attack, and the dark visor is needed to collect the sky temple key itself.

TODO: Videos and step-by-step instructions