Dark Samus 3 & 4

Dark Samus 3 & 4 Strategy

By Solr_Flare

Contributors: Solr_Flare, Prime Hunter, a multitude of others

Dark Samus 3:

Weapon of Choice: Annihilator

1) To get from DS3 to DS4, you must first take off 1/4 of DS's life bar. Do not hold back because you don't need beam ammo for DS4.

2) The ideal weapon to use is Annihilator as it does significant damage. But if you are out of one or both ammo types, any other beam/charged beam will work. Annihilator regular shots can drop her to 75% health in about 10 seconds though.

3) Be sure not to attempt to damage her when she has a glowing "blue shield" around her, as you will not be able to hit her. Easiest is when she is stealthed and only visable via the echo visor. Missiles won't work, so save them for DS4.

Added by Prime Hunter

Also, when Dark Samus goes into the floating mode where she fires the phazon-like beam at you, I found that you can pretty much stand under her and not get hit by this: Easier to do than trying to dodge it in my opinion

"Added by Enddor"

To defeat her very easily, just use a sonic boom, instant change to Dark Samus 4. It is the best to use it when she gets closer to you (almost point blank), then it will hit easily. 'Note' you have to have the ammo! Also, you can save lots of time on Dark Samus 4 by doing lots of damage (enough so that it will not change to Dark Samus 4), then using a sonic boom.

Dark Samus 4

Weapon of Choice: Charged Power Beam, Super Missiles

1) DS has two different phases in this form: "Bubble mode" and "Not in Bubble mode"

2) Bubble Mode consists of 2 different attacks

- giant blue/white homing phazon particles that she randomly shoots

- small blue/white snowflakes that she shoots out of the top of the bubble towards you whenever her bubble expands

3) When she is in bubble mode, there is one wall in the room that does not have phazon against it. Back yourself up against the wall to give yourself room.

4) Begin charging your power beam while she is in bubble mode. Use dash jumps to the left and right to easily dodge the large phazon particles she shoots at you.

5) When she unleashes the "snowflakes" in bubble mode, you must suck 3 in like a vaccuum with your charging power beam.

6) Once you have 3 snowflakes sucked in, your charge will glow blue and sparkle. Quickly shoot that at Dark Samus to damage her lifebar.

7) Eventually her bubble will shrink and she will float to the ground. The instant she begins to stand up from her crouch, fire a Super missile at close range. This will instantly force her back into bubble mode.

8) Should you miss with the super missile when she lands, damage from any beam(annihilator prefered) can force her back into bubble mode again.

Now repeat this until you finally beat her. It takes approximately 5 to 6 snowflake powered charge beams in bubble mode to finish her on normal difficulty.

Added by Prime Hunter

When she is in the "bubble" mode, I also noticed that if you move inward towards her when she fires the large phazon particles (You need to be pretty close to her for this to work), you can easily avoid them. Just be sure to move back off a bit after it hits. This is so that when she expands the bubble for the "snowflakes", the expansion doesn't collide with you.

And one minor note here: When she fires the snowflakes out at you, be sure to manually aim at them instead of continuing to lock onto Dark Samus: Trust me on this one...

Added by CtrlAltDestroy

Just a minor note: Those super missiles she shoots in bubble mode are the easiest things in the world to dodge. You don't need to strafe dash to avoid them, or back against a wall for that matter. All you have to do is lock on to her and slowly strafe a few inches to the side as the thing is flying at you. It will fly right past you.

Added by Zxcvbnm

If you turn the sound on, you can hear an audio cue before DS fires a homing missile as opposed to Phazon "snowflakes," and dodge it. The missile is much louder and more mechanical-sounding.

Added by SamusAranLuver Discovered by: my cousin Arnold Yum

When DS is about to fire a missile the phazon bubble around her is normal, but when Ds is about to fire phazon snow flakes at you the phazon bubble enlarges. You can use both my stratige or Zxcvbnm's to predict DS's next Attack.

Added by Kirzath

While trying to grab the Phazon "snowflakes", jump while doing so, so if you miss one, it does not dammage you and make you have to wait for DS to launch more Phazon "snowflakes"

Added by DJ Grenola

While DS is not in bubble mode, her only means of attack is a melee-style phazon shield attack. You can prevent this easily just by space jumping backwards as she approaches (useful in a no-energy tank game).