---------------------[Playing on 'Normal Mode']--------------------
Took another shot at the Space Pirate Laboratory and this time played with more caution. Got through with most of my health and actually obtained the thermal visor this time. I've heard complaints that the thermal vision is too blurry and while I kind of concur with that assessment, in some ways it provides an extra layer of challenge. The player(s) must acclimate in order to handle to the Shadow Pirate who can go invisible and hide in the corner ceilings of rooms. Though what killed me on my last run were the sentry drones, but I was more prepared this time and managed a get passed just fine. This area felt sluggish in parts because the amount of scannable objects; understandably to flesh out more of world and give the player insight into the pirates goals but when you end up stopping mid-fight to go and scan computers the pacing grinds to a halt.
After escaping the Space Pirate Laboratory comes the Thardus boss. They've got some pretty cool attacks but man... it just drags on and not enough new attacks are introduced throughout to keep the fight interesting and certainly not enough to justify the excessive length. Though perhaps this is partially attributed to me not using the charge combo which may have been key to destroying his body parts quickly (It was only recently provided to you so making it a key component would make sense). Alas, I defeated Thardus anyway and acquired the spider ball.
Routing a new path through Magmoor Caverns its back to Chozo Ruins where in you receive the ice beam, I found the Chozo Ghosts to be more annoying than hard constantly teleporting and just take far too many shots to kill (though again charge combos are probably the solution; you're even placed next to a missile recharge station). I'm supposed to go over to Phendrana Drifts to presumably collect the Gravity Suit but I got sidetracked and explored the underwater station on Tallon Overworld. Obviously I'm gated off from exploring past a certain point without the gravity suit but at least I found an energy tank. Well worth the travel I'd say.
