What was the point of these?

>>3394247
A get-out-of-jail-free card for anyone not doing 100% runs.

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Ever seen the original Alien (1979)?

>>3394367
Wasn't that concept art? I don't remember that being in the movie

>>3394451
It's seen when they first enter the derelict space ship, right before they find the alien eggs.

>>3394452
Woah, that's pretty cool then. But the Chozos aren't involved with ridley or the metroids right? I thought their lair was only there in Super Metroid as you go through it

>>3394457
The Chozo created the Metroids artificially to fight the X-Parasite plaguing SR388.

After they fucked off to another plane of existence for mysterious reasons the Space Pirates found the Metroids they left behind and teamed up with Mother Brain to turn them into biological weapons.

>>3394247

If you are talking about the item, I think is more like a "conceptual" utility. Or even a psychology bakcup.

Only 4 emergency tanks, that can be considered like 4 extra tanks if you have all the life expansions (but, if you managed to adquire all of them, you are never going to need them); but in most cases are like "another energy bar that I cannot see".

Maybe the thing that you can never saw it while playing, makes that you have a great surprise when you are still alive with 0 life.

>>3394498

>but in most cases are like "another energy bar that I cannot see".
I just don't understand why this would be a thing.

>>3394247
You know, I was originally going to guess "Maybe it was for space purposes when it comes to the UI," but then I looked again. That big fucking "AUTO" takes up enough space for these to not be a thing.

I always assumed they were originally a direct copy of Megaman's spare tanks, until testing revealed that giving a player four extra health bars trivialized things even more.

easy mode basically
but then they made them pretty hard to find so who knows what they were thinking, maybe there was miscommunication or yokoi didnt really care that much and was like sure put them in whatever

>>3394503
They never used Reserve Tanks again, no?

So you know how useless idea was.

Fucking troll items that what they were. Super hard to get, but no reason to own em. By ridley I already had all the tanks and I never was troubled by any of the bosses to get down to zero.

I think question is why do the reserve tanks exist and those 4 weren't just normal E-tanks? I mean take out the "auto" sign out of the UI and you'd literally have space for those 4 extra E-tanks there?

>>3394367
i think he's talking about the reserve tanks bro

>>3395157
>>3394503
>>3394498
I think it was vestigial after last-minute changes. Like, originally, they were going to have to be manually activated, and maybe you have to sit still for a while to charge, then in testing they decided it wasn't fun or it was too hard and added the auto option.

If you want a wild theory, I think the last boss fight may originally have featured a screw-you moment where the drain attack reduces your energy to 1, without the scripted metroid recharge/supercharge. If you had your reserve tanks on auto, it would drain them, too, and you'd have to try and win the rest of a challenging battle with only 1 energy, but if you had them on manual, you could recharge yourself.

>>3394451
FUN FACT: The set is much smaller than it actually appears. Those are kids they used in those spacesuits.

>>3398598
If you want my crazy theory, the reserve tanks and the crystal spark are two halves of a single unfinished mechanic.

>>3398625
Oh, that plays well into the final boss screwjob theory, where you'd need ways to recharge after getting drained down to 1 (possibly more than once).

I think at some point the decision was made that rather than being the hardest, trickiest fight of the game, the final boss should just be satisfyingly active, so you still feel like it's something you did rather than a purely scripted event, but easy enough that you should beat it on your first encounter, so you experience all the surprises together with the final triumph. And I think that's a good choice, and resulted in the best ending of any Metroid game (provided that you don't fuck it up and die between defeating Mother Brain's original form and the credits).

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Part of the reason I like Super Metroid so much is that Samus' moveset is ridiculously huge. Yeah, the reserve tanks may not have been genuinely useful beyond a normal energy tank, but I'd rather have them in than not. I think they're a cool idea, even if not entirely developed.

Another thing I really like about SM is that you can toggle your equipment. It's something the later games completely subverted to make the game more simple and progression more predictable.

>>3398810

They had it in Zero Mission but dummied it out. You can reenable it with a cheat.

>>3398814
That's too bad, because at the very minimum you should be able to toggle the ice beam so you can kill enemies in 1 hit. If I remember, there are also graphics for all the different beam combinations that can't be had because of the lack of toggle and strict game progression.

>>3398832

That's right. You can see those combinations by reenabling the menu or using tricky sequence breaks.

>>3394498
>Or even a psychology backup

They had this effect for me. I always play much more cautiously when I'm low on health. The reserve tanks tricked my subconscious into thinking I was lower on health than I was.

Of course I doubt that was the intention. They're probably just leftovers from a concept that ended up not seeing the light of day, as these guys suggest >>3394949
>>3398598
>>3398625

>>3398625
That'd be pretty cool. A super hard fight and you need to blow through all your super bombs with crystal sparks

>>3398810
I agree.

>>3398602
Cool fact. I did not know that.