Shadow Complex Around the Complex

The Shadow Complex is, in a word, gigantic. There's a lot to see and do within it, so we thought we'd whip up an extra-Basics section of the guide, brief in nature, that will cover some of the ins and outs of what you'll find in the actual 'Complex' itself. You'll want to read our Basics section of the guide first, as this section of the guide assumes that the game's mechanics are known. Glossing over that allows us to talk about what the Shadow Complex itself has to offer to you.

The Shadow Complex is a base used by The Restoration, a group of rebels made up primarily of the American military and the American leftwing party, the Democrats. It's in the middle of the woods, and is both secret and well-guarded with a seemingly-never ending array of soldiers and mechanical devices keeping the place secure at all times. Intrigue galore is happening within, as the cooperative coup launched against the legitimate United States government has given soldiers control of prototype-stage weaponry, equipment and armor that gives them a leg-up on the competition -- Jason Fleming very much included.

The exterior areas of the Shadow Complex consist of the top fourth (or so) of the map provided in the game. The wooded area is rife with enemies, and is even complete with a few large bodies of water that will necessitate obnoxious travel from time to time. But it's what lay underneath the pristine terrain that's of real interest. Indeed, the Shadow Complex is a large, large base full of very angry Restoration soldiers.

The Restoration has four specific varieties of soldier. In the Walkthrough, we refer to them as, in order of strength, Rebel Soldiers, Elite Soldiers, Dark Soldiers and Heavy Soldiers. Rebel Soldiers are your run-of-the-mill grunts, usually armed with a pistol or a semiautomatic weapon. Elite Soldiers are distinct because they wear Nazi-like dusters and are usually equipped with assault rifles. These guys are a bit more obnoxious than your standard Rebel Soldier, but they blend in together relatively seamlessly. As for Dark Soldiers and Heavy Soldiers, well, they're of a whole different breed.

Dark Soldiers are just that -- dark-clothes wearing soldiers equipped with automatic weapons, a hookshot, and the ability to use grenades. When you run into these thugs, you'll likely find them attached to the ceiling with their hookshot, shooting ruthlessly down on you while peppering your position with grenades. Heavy Soldier is a moniker that covers several kinds of soldiers. Generally, this refers to enemies packing either a chain gun or a rocket launcher, and sometimes a defensive shield as well. As far as human enemies are concerned, they get no more obnoxious and difficult-to-defeat than the Heavy Soldier. But you'll find that, later in the game, even these guys are pushovers who can be killed with a single hit using the Inertial Element.

Non-human enemies come in the form not of aliens or monsters, but of those aforementioned Pentagon prototypes. The base kind of machine you'll run into we refer to in the walkthrough as Spider Droids, but are more properly named, in-game, as Bombas. Helicopters, mechs in the form of tarantulas, and even walkers that look like AT-STs are just some of the special weapons The Restoration has in store for you apart from the standard Bomba, and these conflicts, at least the first time you encounter each, essentially constitute a boss battle. Fighting these types of enemies will require heavier firepower than just your standard weapons. They'll require the use of grenades, foam and missiles to damage, and while even the weakest gun in the game can do moderate damage to these foes, the only way to take them out quickly and painlessly is with those special weapons you've been hoarding.

Speaking of those weapons, the interior and exterior of the Shadow Complex alike hold collectibles galore (coincidentally chronicles in the Collectibles section of the guide). To complete the game in its entirety with a 100% item rating, you won't only need to find the game's fifteen primary items (chronicled in the Inventory section of the guide), but you'll also need to find thirty Grenade Packs, twenty Missile Packs, twenty Foam Packs, twelve Gold Bars, twelve Passkey Components, ten Armor Packs and eight Health Packs. That will, of course, require a lot of searching.

Thankfully, the game has your back, because a Super Metroid (or SotN)-like map will show you the locations of items in rooms you've already visited. If a room has been ransacked of its items, a white dot will appear on your map. But if a room has a yet-unfound item, a question mark will appear there instead. This is usually the case, but there are notable exceptions, especially in regard to save rooms. Save rooms are represented on your map by red squares with white stars in the middle of them. Because of this, if there are items found in those rooms, the map can't tell you. To avoid any complications, you'll naturally want to use our guide to find whatever you're missing.