Metroid: Takeover

[Spedimus]

Mechanical Takeover(Name is subject to change) is a hack I've been working on for a couple of months, starting with a pretty 'meh' alpha.

This hack aims to have:

   
• Changed tilesets or new palettes for every area
• A mostly new map and new routes
• Chozodia is now the Submerged Cavern
• Increased difficulty and other changes to bosses and mini-bosses
• Crocomire, because why not
• Sequence breaking

Current Progress for version 1.0:
[spoiler]

• Map progress

   
• Minimap: 80%
• Brinstar: 95%
• Crateria: 99%
• Norfair: 95%
• Kraid: 95%
• Lower Norfair(Ridley): 80%
• Space Colony(Tourian): 80%
• Pirate Tower(Mothership): 80%
• Submerged Cavern(Chozo Ruins): 80%


• Misc progress
• Beam sprites: 80%
• Palettes and tiles: 100%

[/spoiler]

Useful patches/programs used in this hack:
[spoiler]

   
• Biosp4rk's Unknown Items patch & gfx, MAGE
• Captain Glitch's starting items patch & palette fix
• Trunaur68's Crocomire hack

[/spoiler]

A few screenies for your viewing pleasure:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

I've attached a demo to this post. The demo includes Brinstar, Kraid, and small parts of Norfair and the Submerged Cavern. (Small note, wall jumping and bomb jumping aren't necessarily required for this hack, but should be kept in mind when exploring. Also, there are many unblocked doors in Norfair and Crateria, so be mindful of crashes or unexpected results.) I appreciate any feedback on the level design, map layouts, bugs, whatever. The planned initial release is set for sometime in 2019, probably Q1.

1.2 Released

[spoiler]Ver 1.2 - 592 DLS[/spoiler]

[Cpt.Glitch]

In terms have having other bosses, a couple fusion ports exist on the main site. For importing music, the program you'd use is called Sappy. However ZM has different sound samples so you'd likely have to modify the samples used so it sounds good.

[alexman25]

Woah, them some big screenshots!

[Spedimus]

Hah, yeah it may or may not have been 2 am when I posted this. I just figured it was good enough.

For the Serris patch I would have to change the appropriate pointers so that they wouldn't conflict with the Croco sprites, yeah? Shouldn't be too hard. I'll look into Sappy. Thanks.

Turns out it takes a bit more effort than that. Whoops. I'll probably leave out Serris for this hack in particular since I'm so far into it. Ah well, maybe for another hack.

[Keaton]

Hello I was playing the hack and I came across a softlock. The room it is in is the room before bombs. There are a couple of ways to fix this. 1: Adding refill bugs to the room or 2: Removing the crumble blocks. Other than that it looks pretty cool.  :^_^:

[Spedimus]

Alright, I've removed the crumble blocks in the room before bombs. Thanks for the input. Glad you enjoyed the demo.

[Spedimus]

New Years Update!

The new Cavern is coming along well, with it being around 40% complete.

[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

The path to Croc is also finished. However, the entirety of Ridley and Norfair are still far from finished, moreso with Ridley.

[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

[spoiler]

[/spoiler]

Unfortunately progress has slowed overall but that probably won't affect the release time frame too much.

[Spedimus]

Quick Update:

Version 1.0 is almost finished! Just need to finish up a few rooms and beam sprites. The wait should be at most 1 week.

[gotrice]

Any reason why the hack was removed?

[Spedimus]

Any reason why the hack was removed?

Sorry, I haven't uploaded it yet. Give me a bit and it should be uploaded. I'll attach the full hack to the main post if anyone wants to play it right away.

[gotrice]

lol i replied to the wrong forum but thanks anyways

[gotrice]

I believe there's a softlock in the Sunken Caverns at this part here, once I drop in here, I can't get out.

https://i.gyazo.com/3124f3b1a088e55b09de613ae773932e.png

[Spedimus]

I believe there's a softlock in the Sunken Caverns at this part here, once I drop in here, I can't get out.

https://i.gyazo.com/3124f3b1a088e55b09de613ae773932e.png

Noted. It'll be fixed in 1.1.

[caauyjdp]

5h33m 74%. At least one hour of it was failing space boost in chozodia. Good thing that route is not actually required for plasma :)
Great hack. Ties for the 1st place in my heart with OtherZM.
Tried to figure out what were exactly the things I liked and put them to words but failed miserably.
[spoiler=Praising is hard, so here's the few issues I found instead.]

It's possible to get stuck in the room before ridley/kraid statue heads if you don't have power bombs. Can't get into the statue room without pb because of yellow door, and can't go back because door is locked until you look at the statues.

There are few places where "enemy" sprites get corrupted probably after item pickup. Iirc it happened to a geemer after missile pickup in chozodia, in vertical shaft just left from brinstar elevator. Happened to one of the space jump or gravity blocks at some point but don't recall where. Most likely the same issue with morph ball launcher after crocomire. Mecha ridley too, but that's likely a known issue already.

Space pirate that spawns in doorways when there's an alert has different vulnerabilities than the rest of the pirates.

In chozodia, going left after getting mecha opens eye cutscene, in the room left from the save room, shutter gates are in closed state unless there's an alert. Might be intended, but caused me to waste some time looking for a different way in. Two rooms up and to the right from this room, there's a small room with a missile iirc, and a crumble block that seems like a leftover from vanilla. Might not be.

More vanilla leftovers, in crateria, big room with water between ship and chozodia entrance. There's a super on top of row of speed blocks, but there's also what looks like a vanilla missile in the wall to the left, which corrupts the map slightly when you pick up two items on the same tile.

In the room where you start the game, elevator shaft up is not marked on the "revealed before visiting" map, so it took me a while to visit that room again(seemed like a dead end room where I already collected an item so didn't feel a need to revisit). Also, there's still speed blocks up from the elevator and bomb(or pb?) blocks below the elevator that seem like vanilla leftovers.

Hack has more pbs than vanilla, and zm doesn't allow new pickups to increase max pb count past 18, which also causes endgame percentage inaccuracy.

My only "design complaint", room with charge beam worm and two rooms left from it, are just too long and boring for how often you end up going through them. Can't probably do much with the worm room geometry because of connected rooms, but maybe different enemy set after some event if that's doable?. [/spoiler]
And again, this is a great hack. Thank you for making it.

[Cheval]

I've beaten Kraid, then blocked in Norfair. The only route I see is getting the power bombs in a lava bassin seems to break the progression considering how hard it is to get it and going back from it with wall jumps. There is my actual progression in Norfair:
[spoiler][/spoiler]
Am I blind?

[Spedimus]

There's an elevator in Brinstar you missed.

[Cheval]

I'm sorry to be an idiot, but, is there a fourth elevator in Brinstar? I've found the one at the starting room, leading to crateria, but there's nothing to do here (except grabbing an energy tank).

[Spedimus]

I'm sorry to be an idiot, but, is there a fourth elevator in Brinstar? I've found the one at the starting room, leading to crateria, but there's nothing to do here (except grabbing an energy tank).

Power Bombs are found in Crateria. It's on the same route as Plasma in vanilla.

You're not an idiot. Honestly, the current PB location is weird.

[Spedimus]

I'm sticking 1.1 on this post. Mostly just a bunch of bug fixes.


[spoiler]Changes List

• Fixed softlock in Brinstar room 9
• Fixed some softlocks in Submerged Cavern
• Changed Kraid acid palette
• Fixed some tile errors
• Changed Submerged Cavern to Maridia because I don't care anymore
• Removed Geemer in room 14 because of sprite issues
• Fixed Space Pirate Vulnerability Issues
• Fixed vanilla crumble block in chozodia
• Removed a gate in Tower room 5
• Fixed some tile issues in Pirate Tower
• Replaced some PBs with missile tanks
• Fixed tile issues in Norfair
• Changed some map tiles
• Removed a missile tank in Crateria
• Added Elevator map tiles in starting room for less confusion
• Changed some sprite sets in Brinstar
• Changed enemy placements in some areas
• Added some cool explosions in escape route

[/spoiler]

[caauyjdp]

Ridley first seems impossible, but getting gravity before varia is possible.
Also, ridley's room could maybe use some tourian acid in the moat to discourage cheese.

[spoiler=Some more tiny issues:]
Corrupt sprite after item pickup.


Eye gets corrupted during item text, fixes itself when statue closes its eye.


Two sets of shotblocks on the ceiling here.


Pre plasma room has a scroll issue, if you stand at this x position, screen starts scrolling right. Y position doesn't matter.


Just realized that this puzzle is probably broken. I'm assuming player is supposed go down the left shaft and use the tail of bomb chain to jump over, but there's currently nothing to prevent player from going the right path instead.


Kraid's room after his death still has some inaccessible speed blocks left from vanilla.
Also, in the room before kraid's gadora, there's two suspicious crumble blocks on the ceiling of the left side of the room, but those might be intended.

It's possible to go out of bounds in crocomire's room. The short vertical shaft above crumble blocks has no ceiling.
It also might be possible to get behind crocomire for easier kill(or skip, not sure if the door was locked), by jump extending to a wall above the crumble blocks and wait there for 20 seconds or so by walljumping.
Haven't done it this way myself yet, but it's easy with space jump(which you can't seem to get without gravity anyway, but crocomire respawns when you re-enter the room).
[/spoiler]

[Paulinho]

So, the hack is ready to play or this version is beta?

i'll give it a try :)

[Spedimus]

So, the hack is ready to play or this version is beta?

i'll give it a try :)

Yup. The initial release is on the main site.

[Spedimus]

Here's 1.2. Fixes most of the issues pointed out by caauyjdp.

[caauyjdp]

[spoiler=Can't figure out if this is an error or an actual secret.]
Missiles disappear even if I follow them. This could be an exit from the right side, but can't figure out why it'd be 3 blocks tall, unless it's a vertical shaft there that's not revealed by pb.
[/spoiler]

Also, if you intended a crumble jump into ball spark as alternative solution to one of the "puzzles", you are brilliant.

[Spedimus]

[spoiler=Can't figure out if this is an error or an actual secret.]
Missiles disappear even if I follow them. This could be an exit from the right side, but can't figure out why it'd be 3 blocks tall, unless it's a vertical shaft there that's not revealed by pb.
[/spoiler]

Also, if you intended a crumble jump into ball spark as alternative solution to one of the "puzzles", you are brilliant.

The missile blocks are definitely a bug, and the ball spark was intentional.

Ver. 1.3.1 is attached to this post. It includes some small touch ups, and extra missile tank, and some map fixes.