I’ve played this game since only a couple of years after release, but on other people’s systems. I used to see people use Samus’ grapple as a recovery mechanism not just grabbing but my play style got too ingrained for me to really learn new tricks and I considered this too hard and never took advantage of it.

I want to learn it now and it seems like it should be simple but something’s wrong and I can’t figure out what. I throw hook towards a vertical surface, it seems to ‘latch on’ but I can’t figure out how to reel in after that. The hook just extends as samus falls until cancels out and she dies. I thought maybe I should be pushing the stick in the direction of the grapple hook, but it doesn’t work, I tried holding other buttons after the latch on animation begins but nothing. I’m using an Xbox series X controller with Dolphin on Mac OS. Am I just too stupid to figure this out, or is it a glitch to do with this configuration?

EDIT: Oh wait, nevermind. Even though I thought I wasn’t, I was unconsciously holding the grab button after the throw. As it turns out if you don’t do that, and you press A after the latch on, it works.