|“|| The Light Beam is a truly mighty weapon. All of the Ing fear its power.|
Find this weapon, so its great light may blind and burn our foes once more.
The Light Beam.
|Featured in||Metroid Prime 2: Echoes|
|Effect(s)||Low range, deals high damage to creatures of Dark Aether, can burn enemies.|
|Special uses||Can energize Light Crystals and Beacons.|
|Obtained||Ing Cache 1, Dark Agon Wastes|
The Light Beam is a Luminoth weapon and one of Samus's beam upgrades.
Samus Aran recovered it from the Dark Agon Wastes during the events of Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.
The Luminoth first experimented with the idea of overloading Dark creatures with the Dark Beam, and when that failed, moved on to the Light Beam, which proved to be a far deadlier weapon in their war against the Ing, due to their weakness to the light energy in Aether's atmosphere. As with other Luminoth-designed weaponry such as the Dark Beam and Annihilator Beam, this beam uses a limited amount of Light Ammo, requiring 1 Light Ammo to fire a Light Beam shot. When Samus has depleted her supply of ammo, she can charge the weapon in order to fire a regular shot, so she can activate portals and open hatches. The Light Beam, when fired, resembles the Plasma Beam of Metroid Prime and Metroid Prime 3: Corruption in that it sets enemies on fire. The arm cannon itself takes the configuration of the Wave Beam from Metroid Prime.
The Light Beam can activate dimensional rifts on Dark Aether and greatly damages Dark enemies, such as the Ing. The Light Beam can also open White Hatches. It also has the ability to energize Light Crystals and Light Beacons; their dome takes on an orangeish color on the outside, while looking whiter and slightly digitized on the inside; any Ing caught within is severely damaged or even killed.
A charged mass of light energy is powerful enough to set many enemies alight. Unlike other charged Beam shots, the Lightblast fires multiple white-hot spheres, rather than one large mass of energy, in a scattershot fashion. These spheres will home in on locked-on targets and set them on fire if applicable. The number of spheres depends on the time the beam has charged, ranging from 3 to 10. Regardless of the charge time, the Lightblast always costs 5 Light Ammo to fire.
Once acquired from the Grand Windchamber, Samus can use the Sunburst, the Charge Combo for the Light Beam. Though it uses up 30 Light Ammo, as well as 5 missiles, it creates a slow moving sphere of light that burns passing enemies and incinerates them, making it useful for destroying slow-moving Dark enemies.
Metroid Prime 2 manualEdit
"This fires beams of light than can pass through enemies and set them on fire. It can be used to energise Light Crystals, and is effective against dark creatures. Charge it to fire a wide-dispersing Lightblast that will continually burn enemies. The Light Beam can open white hatches."
Behind the scenesEdit
Although not immediately obvious from its name, the Light Beam's ability to fire rays of light makes it most likely a type of high-powered laser weapon. This would make it similar in mechanism to the Nova Beam from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption- both weapons can pierce enemies and set them on fire, and share a similar Arm Cannon shape.
Although laser weapons are not commonly portrayed as using ammunition, some types of chemical lasers do consume large amounts of physical material each time they are fired.
- Ironically, the Light Beam can only be found on Dark Aether, while its Dark counterpart can only be found on the light world of Aether. This may represent Yin and Yang, which is the balance of Good (Light Beam) and Evil (Dark Beam) The rooms the beams are found in are also polar opposites of each other.
- This beam shares several qualities with the first Metroid Prime's Plasma Beam, including the projectile itself, its low range, slow fire speed, and its tendency to light enemies on fire. Likewise, the Dark Beam shares qualities with Prime's Ice Beam.
- Unused Inventory data mentions a material called Zafrite that can be melted by the Light Beam. This mechanic, while apparently unused in Echoes, appeared in Metroid Prime 3: Corruption in the form of metal alloys that could be melted with the Plasma Beam.
|Power Beam • Long Beam • Wave Beam • Ice Beam • Plasma Beam|
Charge Beam • Spazer Beam • Grapple Beam • Hyper Beam (SM/MP3) • Wide Beam
Phazon Beam • Dark Beam • Light Beam • Annihilator Beam • Electro Lob
Volt Driver • Battlehammer • Magmaul • Shock Coil • Judicator • Imperialist
Omega Cannon • Nova Beam • Zero Laser • Diffusion Beam
Arm Cannon • Paralyzer • "tractor beam" • Entangler • Lightblast • Disruptor