I rarely use missiles for anything besides opening doors and killing Metroids/Mother Brain/Zeebetites

If you don’t the the wave beam I think it’s be unnecessarily hard not to use them on all the though enemies in Ridley’s hideout.
I know what Zeebetites and Etacoons are called, and I too forget the name of that ostrich. The praying mantis aliens are the Space Pirates, btw.

You don’t get the Spazer before Kraid? It’s on the way. Do you also fight him without the high jump boots?

All the bosses and mini-bosses are in the manual except for the mini-boss of Meridia, which makes it a cool surprise.

The concept of “reserve tanks” never made sense to me. They’re just more energy tanks with some weird mechanic that’s only a window dressing.