When you are locked onto a target in Metroid Prime, pressing the jump button does a sideways dash. This lets the player easily strafe around a target and dodge incoming fire. This sideways strafe jump sets a horizontal velocity on the player that continues to circle around the target while locked on, but if you unlock the target just as the strafe jump starts, Samus keeps the horizontal momentum without the lock-on pull. This trick, which the game's speedrunning community called the Scan Dash, allows for a larger horizontal distance traversal than a normal jump. Using this momentum can let Samus catch the edge of the cliff beside her ship in the Landing Site and get the Space Jump Boots early upon landing.

According to programmer Zoid Kirsch, creative use of the game physics and movement that results in acquiring items out of order allows for creative exploration of the game world. While sequence breaks like this are a crucial part of the Metroid series, this trick would actually be patched out in later releases of the game.