Metroid II: Return of Samus Walkthrough: Arachnus
Below is a strategy for defeating the optional boss Arachnus. It’s not required to take on the creature, but doing so will yield you one of the most useful upgrades in the game: the Spring Ball, which allows you to jump while in Morph Ball form!
Arachnus
With your spiffy new suit equipped, you’ll now want to make the long trek back to the waters at the very bottom of the Hydro Station where you entered.
Once you’re there, jump up so you’re directly outside the Station – go in and use the Save Station if you want, but after you’re done, exit back out through the left. Jump up to the ledge above the entrance and use your Spider Ball to start climbing up the side of the Station; either blast away or avoid any enemies you see!
You’ll eventually reach an upper ledge that has an entrance that a very-bombable-looking block is in front of, but ignore it for now and keep on rolling up until you’re at the very top of the Station. There’s a weird tree-esque enemy here called a Blob Thrower (is this the best enemy name in the series?) that’s shooting out little blobs that you can shoot for health if you need it, but if not, just jump over it.
Press forward a bit and you’ll see an opening on the roof. Fall down and head to the left. Blast open the red missile door and enter the new room. You’ll see the welcome sight of a Chozo Statue…. however, you’ll notice something looks a bit… off. Shoot the orb the Statue is holding and get ready!
Out will pop Arachnus, an armadillo-looking creature native to SR388 and a constant thorn in Samus’s skin! This isn’t a boss battle per say, but Arachnus can still give you some trouble if you don’t know what to do, so let’s dive in!
First and foremost, you will want to avoid Arachnus jumping around everywhere. It will usually jump in short, high bursts (maybe three of them give or take will cover the entire battle area), so don’t get caught under or around the shell while it’s airborne! Arachnus will also shoot out fireballs at you when you’re facing it, which can be hard to avoid. You can freeze the fireballs, but you need to hit them just right
Now, you’ll be rightfully tempted to combat Arachnus with your missiles and bombs, similarly to how you would combat any of the Metroids, but this is actually by far the least effective way to combat this monster. Arachnus will take a ton of missiles to even do modest damage, getting the missile to hit where you need to is hard, and you will take so much more damage doing this, chances are you’ll be seeing that Game Over screen before you can say “Hasta la Vista, baby”.
No, the key is to enter Morph Ball form and lay some bombs. When you lay a bomb, Arachnus will usually jump, so just position yourself to where Arachnus is going to land and lay your bombs there. By the time the space armadillo lands and re-positions itself to fire, the bomb should go off, causing Arachnus to jump again and giving yourself the time to position your next bomb.
Five bombs should do it, so if everything goes according to plan, this fight should take about 30 seconds. If you run into trouble, just try and reset and start the pattern all over again.
Once Arachnus is no more, you will acquire the single most underrated powerup in the series – the SPRING BALL!
Arachnus Route:
