"Metroid Prime" - Exploring Tallon IV Quiz

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. The site of the battle with Meta Ridley, with a hidden connection to all of the other answers.

Answer: Artifact Temple (Tallon Overworld)

Tallon IV (and "Metroid Prime" as a whole) follows a similar structure to "Super Metroid", which was set on planet Zebes. In both games, you land on a lush Overworld on the planet's surface. At first the Overworld seems empty, like a hub for the "real" levels. Only when you come back with more power-ups do you find its hidden depths, including - just like on Zebes - a wrecked ship and a gate that locks the final area of the game.

In "Prime", the keys to that gate are the twelve Chozo Artifacts, hidden in remote corners of the map. The Artifact Temple acts as the gate, and features clues to finding the other eleven (the first, the Artifact of Truth, is out in the open at the Temple). The first twelve answers to this quiz are, in no particular order, the places where the Artifacts can be found. The thirteenth, the Impact Crater, is the hazardous area sealed off by the Temple. You enter the Impact Crater to fight the game's final boss, the Metroid Prime.

2. At the top of this tall, crumbling room lies the Wavebuster.

Answer: Tower of Light (Chozo Ruins)

Your descent into Tallon IV starts in the Chozo Ruins, sandy remnants of a once thriving civilization. Despite how old they look, there are clues that the inhabitants died off relatively recently - this is our first clue to the destruction Phazon is capable of. In fact, the Chozo who lived on Tallon are an off-shoot of the Chozo that raised Samus Aran and gifted her the advanced tech she wields. (This explains some of the game world's video-gamey conveniences, like how so much of the world is activated by the Morph Ball. The Chozo designed it that way!)

Three Artifacts can be found in the Ruins. The Tower of Light distracts you with a tall, extremely annoying puzzle where you must aim your missiles carefully to break the tower apart, layer by layer, to get an upgrade to the Wave Beam. Hidden in the easily-missed pool at the base of the Tower is an entrance to the Artifact of Lifegiver.

3. This perilous chamber is where you'll first meet the namesake enemy of Tallon's core. (Also, it's the room where that remix of the Lower Norfair theme kicks in.)

Answer: Lava Lake (Magmoor Caverns)

Magmoor Caverns is a fairly uneventful subterranean area (it's the only area in the game with no boss fights). Whereas it seems dangerous at first traversing it to get to Phendrana Drifts, by the end of the game, you can literally take shortcuts through the fire and lava.

The Lava Lake is one of the panoramas of the Caverns - it's where you first meet with the snake-shaped, fire-breathing, lava-dwelling Magmoors. The Artifact of Nature is appropriately hidden in an unassuming rock pillar at the center of the lake.

The choral remix of the Lower Norfair theme comes from the penultimate area of "Super Metroid".

4. This room has a large Chozo statue that will launch you when you're in Morph Ball. It's the first room where you fight Chozo Ghosts.

Answer: Hall of the Elders (Chozo Ruins)

The Chozo statue is ripped straight out of "Super Metroid" (where, among other things, one of the Chozo statues walks you right to the room where you get the Gravity Suit). There are three different settings for where the statue shoots you, accessed by three different beams. You need the Plasma Beam to get the statue to shoot you to Artifact of World.

5. Four Chozo are depicted on the walls of this hall: a Shaman, a Philosopher, an Architect and a Warrior.

Answer: Chozo Ice Temple (Phendrana Drifts)

The point of your first, underpowered pass through Magmoor is to make it to Phendrana Drifts. Phendrana is the frozen outer edge of Tallon IV. There are three major sections to Phendrana, each with one Artifact. The first main section includes more of the ruins of the Chozo, culminating in the church-like Chozo Ice Temple. Melt the statue of the Chozo with the Plasma Beam and enter its hands in Morph Ball to obtain the Artifact of Sun.

6. At first this room appears to be a tiny holding the X-Ray Visor. Using that visor reveals a sprawling grotto.

Answer: Life Grove (Tallon Overworld)

After the Tallon Overworld has really opened up, the Life Grove can be found in a remote shaft, near the entrance to the Phazon Mines. One of my favorite moments in the game, and one that encapsulates "Metroid" for me: you enter this claustrophobic chamber, use your new power-up, and discover the chamber is actually huge.

This room also teaches you that the Chozo Ghosts are much easier to battle with the X-Ray Visor, since as with most things you can shoot them better if you can see them. Buried in all this plant life is a mechanism you can power to reveal the one and only Artifact of Chozo.

7. Deep in the hottest part of Tallon, this tiny room accessed at the very top of the Space Pirates' Monitor Station houses a hidden Chozo altar.

Answer: Warrior Shrine (Magmoor Caverns)

In fact, the Artifact of Strength is one of the earlier Artifacts you can access, as you only need the Space Jump to get it. Just outside this room is one of the Space Pirate's big bases in Magmoor, where you'll find log entries detailing their struggle to maintain operations amid unpredictable lava flows. On the other hand, except for the areas immediately beneath the Chozo Ruins, this Shrine is the only part of Magmoor Caverns the Chozo seem to have colonized. (I really have to wonder how the Pirates never found it...)

8. Atop the Space Pirate's icy research base, this room is heavily guarded by Flying Pirates.

Answer: Control Tower (Phendrana Drifts)

Explore further and you'll come to the Space Pirate's base on Phendrana, the only location cold enough to handle Metroids. (Per "Metroid" lore, the titular jellyfish monsters need to be killed with the Ice Beam.) This may have been a repurposing of existing Chozo structures, since the Artifact of Elder can be found around the Control Tower.

It looks to be in one of the other Pirate towers, though. Conveniently for us, the Pirates decided to attach high explosives to the tower, making it accessible.

9. Probably the game's single most convoluted puzzle, this room has a secret you can only find by climbing up a cliff, jumping on invisible platforms, then Power Bombing an unmarked rock wall.

Answer: Phendrana's Edge (Phendrana Drifts)

Hard to access even if you're in Phendrana, the wastes and cold caves known as Phendrana's Edge house one of the game's most cryptic puzzles. The Artifact of Spirit is at the very top of a tall chamber, and requires the endgame X-Ray Visor power-up to properly see (assuming you'd even think to look there). I would, in full sincerity, appreciate a PM from anyone who managed to find this without the use of a guide, so you can have my admiration.

The caves around Phendrana's Edge (which get an upbeat techno remix of the main Phendrana theme) have a few other secrets, including the Gravity Suit.

10. In the center of this lab, kept in cryostasis, is a mutated Space Pirate infused with Phazon.

Answer: Elite Research (Phazon Mines)

The last area of the game you can access is the Phazon Mines, the heart of the Space Pirate operation on Tallon IV. Exploring this area and reading its logbooks lets us see the depth of their villainy. The Space Pirates will attempt any experiment on any creature in their quest for galactic domination via bioweapons. That includes, as we see, their own kind.

The first Elite Pirate you encounter is as tall as many of the game's rooms. When it's not shrugging off your shots, it's probably using its shields to *heal* from your shots. Taking a cue out of "Resident Evil", the game later has you return to the Mines and, of your own volition, awaken another Elite Pirate. Your reward couldn't be more fitting: the Artifact of Warrior.

11. Just outside the room where you battle the Omega Pirate, the full length of this route constantly irradiates you.

Answer: Phazon Mining Tunnel (Phazon Mines)

The Phazon Tunnel is a long tunnel only accessible via the Morph Ball, in the deepest part of the Phazon Mines. The intention is for you to come back after you beat the Omega Pirate to get the Artifact of Newborn at the end. However, it's possible to get all the way through the tunnel if you've collected every single Energy Tank to that point... just don't mess up, or it's a long way back to the Save Point.

12. After you defeat the plant monster Flaahgra by cutting off its light, a giant flower remains in this room.

Answer: Sunchamber (Chozo Ruins)

The praying mantis-plant hybrid called Flaahgra is fought in this enormous solarium, the first boss in the game that actually provides some challenge. You need to shoot at its sun reflectors to make it vulnerable. Later in the game - as in, whenever your curiosity gets the better of you (assuming you got the Super Missiles) - you need to come back to its leftover flower to find the Artifact of Wild. Either this room or the Hall of the Elders will likely be the site of your first encounter with Chozo Ghosts.

While these wraiths are corrupted by Phazon to attack anything trespassing on Chozo land, they come around in the end - they finish off Meta Ridley and open the Impact Crater gate for Samus.

13. A dangerous underground chasm that's the source of all Phazon on the planet.

Answer: Phazon Infusion Chamber (Impact Crater)

The Artifacts and the Artifact Temple were made to hold Phazon corruption back as long as possible. Phazon, the radioactive chemical mutating Tallon IV, emanates from the Metroid Prime, which crashed on Tallon via a meteor. The final boss appears at first to be a spidery-crab monster, but once you fire enough concussive blasts into its shell, it reveals its true form: a ghostly, tentacled skull with a veinous interior resembling the inside of a Metroid. Oh, and it can turn invisible. Your reward for getting all the Artifacts is killing this thing, and restoring balance to whatever's left of the Tallon IV ecosystem.

Source: Author etymonlego

This quiz was reviewed by FunTrivia editor kyleisalive before going online.
Any errors found in FunTrivia content are routinely corrected through our feedback system.

Questions		Choices
1. The site of the battle with Meta Ridley, with a hidden connection to all of the other answers.		Tower of Light (Chozo Ruins)
2. At the top of this tall, crumbling room lies the Wavebuster.		Control Tower (Phendrana Drifts)
3. This perilous chamber is where you'll first meet the namesake enemy of Tallon's core. (Also, it's the room where that remix of the Lower Norfair theme kicks in.)		Chozo Ice Temple (Phendrana Drifts)
4. This room has a large Chozo statue that will launch you when you're in Morph Ball. It's the first room where you fight Chozo Ghosts.		Phazon Mining Tunnel (Phazon Mines)
5. Four Chozo are depicted on the walls of this hall: a Shaman, a Philosopher, an Architect and a Warrior.		Warrior Shrine (Magmoor Caverns)
6. At first this room appears to be a tiny holding the X-Ray Visor. Using that visor reveals a sprawling grotto.		Life Grove (Tallon Overworld)
7. Deep in the hottest part of Tallon, this tiny room accessed at the very top of the Space Pirates' Monitor Station houses a hidden Chozo altar.		Lava Lake (Magmoor Caverns)
8. Atop the Space Pirate's icy research base, this room is heavily guarded by Flying Pirates.		Hall of the Elders (Chozo Ruins)
9. Probably the game's single most convoluted puzzle, this room has a secret you can only find by climbing up a cliff, jumping on invisible platforms, then Power Bombing an unmarked rock wall.		Elite Research (Phazon Mines)
10. In the center of this lab, kept in cryostasis, is a mutated Space Pirate infused with Phazon.		Artifact Temple (Tallon Overworld)
11. Just outside the room where you battle the Omega Pirate, the full length of this route constantly irradiates you.		Phazon Infusion Chamber (Impact Crater)
12. After you defeat the plant monster Flaahgra by cutting off its light, a giant flower remains in this room.		Phendrana's Edge (Phendrana Drifts)
13. A dangerous underground chasm that's the source of all Phazon on the planet.		Sunchamber (Chozo Ruins)