Metroid Dread Speed Booster tricks you need to know

Learn the Speed Booster and Shinespark tricks required to collect all of Metroid Dread's items.

Samus has access to a wealth of powers in Metroid Dread, but the game won’t teach you all of them. If you’re aiming for 100% completion, you’ll need to master a few Speed Booster tricks in Metroid Dread. The basic system of Shinesparks and boosts will be explained to you, but there are some extra tricks needed to solve the tougher Speed Booster puzzles in the game.

Metroid Dread Speed Booster tricks

Metroid Dread Speed Booster tricks shinesparks
The Speed Booster is one of Samus' coolest abilities, but it's also very tough to master. 
© Nintendo

First, a quick updater on how the basic Speed Booster works. While running, you can click in the left analog stick to start charging the Speed Booster. Run in a straight line for long enough and Samus will start Speed Boosting with a flash. You can jump and even wall jump while Speed Boosting, but if you hit a wall or change direction, you’ll stop. You can continue a Speed Boost run in morph ball form by double tapping the ZL trigger when running.

While Speed Boosting, you can press down on the left analog stick to convert your Speed Boost into a Shinespark charge. Samus will pose dramatically, then glow purple. You then have five seconds to unleash the Shinespark by pressing B without any direction on the Analog stick. Samus will pause briefly, then dash in a straight line in the direction you hold, only stopping when she hits a wall. You can also activate Shinespark dashes in Morph Ball form.

Speed Booster trick one: Aerial Shinesparks

The first trick you’ll need to learn for many of the Speed Booster puzzles is how to perform Shinespark dashes in midair. This can be done by pressing B and Y simultaneously while airborne. Crucially, you can’t be holding any direction on the analog stick while activating this. So jump, let go of the stick, press Y+B, then hold the direction you want to boost. As far as we can tell, You can’t perform Aerial Shinesparks while in Morph Ball form.

Speed Booster trick two: Chained Speed Boosts

The second Speed Booster trick Metroid Dread doesn’t really teach you is that you chain together Speed Boosts using sloped surfaces. If you perform a Shinespark dash into a sloped platform, Samus will transfer smoothly into a Speed Boost run on it. By this manner, you can sustain a Speed Boost through several stages, repeatedly Shinesparking onto sloped ledges to refresh the run.

With those two tricks and quite a bit of wall jumping, you should be able to solve pretty much all of the Speed Booster puzzles in Metroid Dread. We can help you get started with a breakdown of the Cataris puzzle, All the Dairon Speed Booster puzzles, and a guide to all the Ferenia Speed Booster puzzles. Otherwise, head to our hub page to see all the guides we've got for the game.

Associate Editor

Henry Stenhouse serves an eternal punishment as the Associate Editor of AllGamers. He spent his younger life studying the laws of physics, even going so far as to complete a PhD in the subject before video games stole his soul. Confess your love of Super Smash Bros. via email at henry@moonrock.biz, or catch him on Twitter.

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