Tag Archives: etecoon

We need more etecoons and dachoras in games

The following post originally appear on Geek Force Network, May 24, 2013. Media substitutions have been made in accordance with UWG’s guidelines.


Well, not literally. But bear with me here…

(And keep reading if that title makes no sense. I swear it will.)

I’ve been on something of a Metroid kick lately. Between writing about Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission on my own blog and watching the At the Buzzer’s Super Metroid Let’s Plays, I’ve been thinking about Samus and her adventures quite a bit. So much so that I just revived an old Super Metroid playthrough that I had started awhile back on the Wii, where I’ve just found the etecoons. Without spoiling too much for those new to Metroid, not everything in that universe wants to kill Samus. In addition to the “kind” Chozo statues (and Samus’s history with that race), the monkey-like etecoons and large birds called dachoras, exist in a couple Metroid games to help Samus.

Continue reading We need more etecoons and dachoras in games

Community Post: Sometimes the best secrets are in plain view

Image from Wikimedia Commons
Image from Wikimedia Commons

To know me is to know that I adore Super Metroid. When I first played the game, it was simply love at first sight. Everything about the experience was perfect and joyous…and maybe a little frustrating here and there, but who’s counting?  After that first time, I became hooked; and over the course of about a year and a half, I replayed the game several more times, each time becoming more meticulous about my advancement than the last.  It eventually became one of those games for which I kept notes. Like, handwritten, on paper. And once I started, I couldn’t stop logging my progress. I just had to keep track of ALL the missile expansions, energy tanks, secret passages, and boss battles, so that I was better prepared for the next time. And no matter how many times I played, each time I always wrote down at least one new thing that I hadn’t discovered before.

My notebook was pretty full before I finally figured out the secrets of the mysterious the etecoons and dachora. Now, these guys weren’t secrets, per se, but understanding their placement in the world of Super Metroid was. Mind you, this was before the Internet, when secrets were discovered on one’s own, through word of mouth, or in magazines. In this case, I had to interpret their raison d’être on my own.

Continue reading Community Post: Sometimes the best secrets are in plain view