And perhaps the only time I needed quite so much health.
The difficulty with the Emperor Ing is that it’s an endurance fight. He takes so little damage that you really need to get those missile and ammo refills during the fight, and he doesn’t drop a lot of health alongside them. The “regenerative shell” phase is also your turn to get refills, if you want them: the tiny Ing that keep forming will give you a bunch of drops. On Veteran mode, I abused it. However, that wasn’t enough that I was able to survive the final stage. Here, I was barely down at all after the first stage, so I just used Power Bombs to take out multiple weak spots at the same time. It’d be really cool if destroying the shell sooner would result in the final phase having less health, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.
And then you have the true bane of a higher-difficulty playthrough: Dark Samus 4. The time limit doesn’t change for other difficulties, but her health increases massively. I never got this far, but I suspect I may have gotten a game over if I did. And then having to redo the Emperor Ing… I probably would have given up then, if I hadn’t already. Honestly, it’s not the hardest fight ever, but the time limit means you can’t just take your time whittling down her health. I’m glad that scan exists, though it might’ve been nice if there was a better prompt for scanning a second time!
Overall, yes, this is my favorite of the Trilogy. Metroid Prime 3 isn’t too bad, though: it was my first ever Metroid game! Obviously, I still wanted to play the series after that experience. But this is certainly one of the most creative entries in the series, and it’s a fun experience most of the way through, even if some of the boss fights feel frustrating at times. It probably helps that I really enjoy everything before and after Torvus Bog. It leaves a good first impression and ends on a satisfying note.