This game has a run page on SDA!

The Any% category for Metroid Fusion is the easiest and most straightforward category. The player does not need to worry as much about dying and missile management like in 1%, nor does the player have to worry about item placement and advanced room strategies like in 100%.

Thus, it is highly recommended for new players to start learning with Any%, as everything players learn in Any% can carry over to both 1% and 100% categories. This category forces the core basics and strats that all players should learn and practice for all categories.

Current Fastest Time

Unrecorded: 0:46 by Biospark

Leaderboards for Metroid Fusion Any% can be found here

Expansions

Due to the straightforward nature of Metroid Fusion's progression, there is no significant routing. Simply knowing where to go to beat the game generally follows the ideal route.

Routing differences in Metroid Fusion generally comes down to which energy tanks and missile tanks to collect.

Energy Tanks

The ideal number of energy tanks to collect is exactly one, as the others do not help with speed in any way.

However, it is strongly advisable to collect more energy tanks, especially in races, depending on your skill level. Considering that Biospark gets 2 energy tanks in races, and the next best players (kirbymastah, jaggerg, and dragonfangs) collect 3; new players should opt for several more. Below is a list of cheap extra energy tanks that the player should get, ordered by how much time they cost from less to more. In other words, the player should get the energy tanks near the top of the list until they are comfortable.

1. E-tank in sector 6, the room before the SA-X encounter, before Varia Suit. This costs less than a second to get as long as you plant the bomb before getting the e-tank, so the bomb goes off during the acquisition animation. This e-tank should NEVER be skipped.

2. First e-tank in the game, just before Arachnus, in plain sight.

3. E-tank before Yakuza, in the room with the space pirates, in plain sight.

4. E-tank in sector 1, in the toad room after the first stabilizer, in plain sight inside a morph ball tunnel.

5. E-tank in sector 2, just before Zazabi, in plain sight.

6. E-tank after BOX. Be sure to shinespark left in the hall above BOX so you can get the e-tank from above.

7. E-tank in sector 5, just before fighting Nightmare, in plain sight. Use the morph ball tunnel above to get it. If you can get this with the crumble block strat instead, then get this instead of e-tank #6.

8. Second e-tank before Arachnus. Shoot a missile at the left block of the right part of the ceiling to reveal a tunnel and climb through. This costs a lot of time, but gives you another early e-tank to work with for the rest of the game.

When starting a run, it is recommended to try collecting all 8 above in a run. The player should see how many e-tanks the player can take off, and remove e-tanks from the bottom of the list until the player is comfortable.

Missile Tanks

Standard

For any%, missiles early on save a significant amount of time. The optimal missile tanks to collect in a speedrun are listed below, which are six missile tanks adding up to 40 missiles.

1. Missile tank on Main Deck, in the dark shaft after getting Missiles, in plain sight on the right side.

2. Missile tank on Main Deck, in the room left of Missile Tank #1.

3. Missile tank on Main Deck, above the navigation room Samus stops at after obtaining Morph Ball.

4. Missile tank on Sector 3, notoriously named BOB as it is unskippable on console. You can't miss this.

5. Missile tank on Main Deck, on the bottom floor of the animals room, after saving the animals.

6. Missile tank on the Main Deck, found by speed boosting into the left wall of the Main Elevator that goes down to the sector selection hall.

The first three missile tanks give just enough missiles to reliably complete sector 1 and 2 without heavily relying on missile drops. BOB is unskippable. The only time missiles are really needed before Missile Tank #5 is during the meltdown segment, and having 15-20 missiles is more than enough. Missile Tank #5 and #6 are collected as they save time against Yakuza, Nettori and, Nightmare, and both missile tanks cost little time.

Back-Up

The missile tanks below are missile tanks collected if a certain strategy fails; they can also be collected if the player wishes to get more missiles than the ones above.

1. After fighting BOX, and going to sector 6 after, there is a chance that the player will not have enough missiles to take out the super missile barrier. If this is the case, and the player messes up shinesparking through the super missile barrier, then the fastest back-up strat is to bomb the wall to the left of the barrier and collect the missile tank there, rather than collecting drops and refills.

2. An extra missile tank can be collected, depending on the player's luck. On the main deck, in the dark hall with the spitter enemies in the ceiling, before returning to the ship after power bombs, if the player is unable to obtain a speed boost due to enemy placement, then it is faster for the player to simply power bomb the next room and collect the missile tank in the way. This is a good backup strategy as it does not require redoing the speed boost, and the extra missile tank saves time against Nettori and makes Nightmare slightly easier on missile count.

3. If the player wants another missile tank, there is one hidden in a morph ball tunnel in the space pirate room just before fighting Yakuza.

Route

This section will detail strategies for every single room in the Any% Route of Metroid Fusion. Each bullet point is one room (sub-bullet points are additional notes for that current room). Any line that starts with "Navigation Room" means step on the switch and go through the text from the computer.

Numbered expansions refer to those in the Expansions section

Main Deck Beginning

• After being beamed down by the ship, run left
• Run left into the next room
• This room is notorious for a complicated set of walljumps, dubbed the Sesshomaru walljump strategy. There are two methods to start the strategy:
  • Jump along the left wall then walljump at the peak, walljump off the adjacent yellow platform, walljump higher up on the same wall, walljump three times between three yellow platforms, walljump at the top left corner, then land on the second-top yellow platform
  • Immediately upon entering the room, walljump off of the left side of the yellow platform above, and land on the yellow platform to the left of it. Run left, then walljump off the top of the left wall adjacent to it, walljump three times between three yellow platforms, walljump at the top left corner, then land on the second-top yellow platform.
  • If the sesshomaru walljump strategy is too difficult, then feel free to simply do the first walljump of the second strat above, grab the ledge of the platform above and climb, do it again, then climb the ledge of the yellow platform to the left. This is a few seconds slower and not as sexy.
• Keep running left. Be sure to not shoot the ground out of boredom, as there are two breakable blocks that will slow you down if you shoot them.
• Keep running left.
• Navigation Room. Go left.
• Do two short hops to climb the platforms to the left, then two more to the right. Grab the ledge of the platform high above, hop off of it to grab the ledge of the top-left platform and climb it. If this is too difficult, then feel free to simply climb up the first ledge then jump to the second one, though this is marginally slower.
• Run off the ledge, then go into a spin before touching the left platform.
• Get on the second platform, then while aiming diagonally down, do a vertical jump and shoot a few shots. At least two need to hit the toad to kill it. Return through the right door.
• Climb up the left ledge of the center platform. Either walljump off of the left platform, or climb the ledge of the top platform. Walljumping is marginally faster if a proper unspin cancel is done on the top platform.
• Run off the ledge then immediately go into a spin to the left. Make sure not to press left while spinning or else you'll grab the ledge too. When you land on the left side, run right, doing a short spin jump to skip the gray platform.
• Navigation Room. Go right.
• Either walljump the right edge of the gray platform, or simply climb the right ledge. Walljump off of the top of the right wall to reach the higher gray platform, then go through the door on the right.
• Run right. If the toad somehow finishes spawning here, you're doing something wrong.
• Save Room. Run right.
• Grab the right ledge of the gray platform above and climb it. Jump right once, then jump high to grab the left ledge of the top gray platform. If the zombie is spawned on the right side, he will hit you unless you are nearly perfect with your execution; it is recommended to shoot it if it is on the right side unless you can consistently get past it without getting hit.
• Navigation Room. Just before the door transition on the right, do a spin jump.
• Jump up the steps and go through the top-right door.
• Take the elevator and go through the monologue.
• Go left.
• Run left until you see the ledge. Jump up of it, then do another jump to grab the ledge by the door.
• Run left through this Navigation Room.
• Get MISSILES.

• Run right
• Navigation Room. Go right.
• Jump across the two midair platforms and use a missile to blow open the hatch on the right. Run through the hidden path.
• Immediately fire three missiles to the right to destroy the barrier. Drop down the crumble blocks and hold left to grab the ledge of the pillar. Climb up of it, fall to the left and shoot the bottom left corner and run off of it. Spin to the right and fall down more crumble blocks. Run left and fall down more crumble blocks. After the crumble blocks, spin right then immediately jump to climb the ladder. Climb it, then fall to the right and spin left. Fall off of the following landing, and spin right to grab MISSILE TANK 1. Run left.
• Run left and use a diagonal shot to uncover MISSILE TANK 2 in the top block of the steps. Get it, then run right.
• Run right.
• Jump up the platform, shooting the two zombies in the way, and approach the eyedoor. Kill it, get the Red X, and run in.
• Do two walljumps to reach the top quickly. Fall down and spin left to walljump to the next platform. Get ENERGY TANK 2 and fall down the following crumble blocks to fight Arachnus. Defeat him to get MORPH BALL
  • If you want another early e-tank, feel free to get the back-up ENERGY TANK 8.

Sector 1: Charge Beam

Sector 2: Bombs & Hi Jump

Sector 4: Speed Booster

Sector 3: Super Missiles

Sector 6: Varia Suit

Sector 5: Ice Missiles

Meltdown

Save the Animals

Sector 5: Power bombs

Main Deck: Space Jump

Sector 2 - Plasma Beam

Sector 5 - Gravity Suit

Sector 4 - Diffusion Missiles

Sector 6 - Wave Beam

Sector 1 - Screw Attack

Endgame