Item Loss Skip

Item Loss Skip (ILS) 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 by MilesSMB

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

Skipping Dark Suit is significant as it skips collecting the three Dark Agon keys, as well as Amorbis himself. The most common way to skip Dark Suit is by going to Torvus Bog via Abandoned Base.

Abandoned Base is Retro's method of requiring Dark Suit. It requires a long auto-scrolling puzzle without safe zones which make it impossible for Varia Suit Samus to survive, even if she has every intended energy tank up to this point. However, by doing a ghetto jump along the right slant, the player can skip the puzzle and immediately jump to the portal to the Light World.

However, the player also takes significant damage with each attempt to ghetto jump. Thus, it is very easy to die when attempting this trick, despite the ghetto jump itself being very easy. It is recommended that the player practice the ghetto jump with the Dark or Light Suit before applying it in runs.

An example video of Abandoned Base is available here

Other methods of skipping Dark Suit are merely different choices in route, including:

• Wallcrawling from Agon to Transport to Torvus Bog, then to Torvus Temple, via the Sandigger Secret World
• Having an early power bomb and accessing Sanctuary Fortress from Agon, after collecting Dark Beam

Echo Visor

Skipping Echo Visor is a subset of skipping Annihilator Beam, except returning in-bounds before Quadraxis, and then fighting Quadraxis. Echo Visor skip is primarily useful for 100%, as it is significantly faster to get annihilator beam before echo visor. The entire point of the wallcrawl is to simply bypass the echo lock before Hive Gyro Chamber.

Follow the guide on skipping Quadraxis to get out of bounds. There are two options you can take here from Hive Gyro Chamber:

1. The recommended option is to jump by the blue door at the right time to let Hive Temple Access load around you. You can then skip the Ing Hive Keys and trigger quadraxis in-bounds. This is recommended as you can more easily collect the health drops, and then screw attack to Quadraxis, as you don't take damage from the dark world while screw attacking.

2. Wallcrawl to Hive Temple Access, fall to the bottom of Hive Temple Access, then simply walk towards Hive Temple to trigger the Quadraxis fight. Triggering the fight like this will not let the music play.

Annihilator Beam

Skipping Annihilator Beam is the equivalent trick of skipping Quadraxis

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