[SM] Metroid Super Zero Mission

[Weterr123]

Yeah, but not in a smart-arse way lol, I was just meaning I don't consider it pointless.  :^_^:

[Quietus]

There was a vid somewhere of a hack that was trying to use it more.  I remember it showing the bomb spread being used to hit an underground switch, by having the bombs roll along a small tunnel that couldn't be passed normally.  I couldn't find the video, however. :neutral:

[Lady Aran]

[spoiler=It's like the game is trying to tell me something...]

"Good job getting here without Super Missiles! Now you can turn right the hell back around."[/spoiler]

Just when I thought this hack couldn't get better, it did. The normal version plays about the same, it's just been fine-tuned some (for instance, there are Screw Attack blocks now, and the "zipline" system in Kraid's area is much improved). It's noticeably better, though probably not worth a full replay unless you feel like one anyway.

But the hard version... big changes there. It's like a half-hack of SZM, making all the puzzles harder and changing the order you have to do things in. Where the normal version has one brief, skippable hell run, the hard version doesn't let you get Varia at all until after Norfair and Ridley's Area. Harder techniques are needed; you'd better be good at wall jumping and mockballs, and I'm pretty sure IBJ is required in a couple of places. It's an even bigger difficulty jump than Hard in the real ZM.

Since one of the hardest parts is figuring out where you can advance next (in fact, I originally asked for help in this post before getting unstuck on my own), here's a mini-walkthrough I updated as I went along. It's now complete.

[spoiler]Start is roughly the same: morph ball, missiles, bombs
Grapple via Norfair as usual, except that you can't get Varia first
Kraid's area is no longer doable without either supers or Ice Beam; you can't get to Spore Spawn without "ziplines" this time, so back to Norfair for some hell runs
Finally get Ice Beam (note: the hell runs are very hard and several turn out to be pointless; expect intense frustration)
Head back to Kraid, activate ziplines, kill Spore Spawn, but NO SUPERS FOR YOU because there's suddenly bendezium power bomb blocks above him
Rest of Kraid's area works about the same, kill him, get Speed Booster
Without supers, you still can't get Varia, so time for more hell runs!
This time you can reach Crocomire -- hey, didn't he give you supers too in normal mode? Awesome, time to OH WAIT they're behind a GREEN DOOR
Keep advancing into Norfair, get Hi Jump
Head even deeper and get the Spring Ball by reverse-gating with a normal missile (IMPORTANT: turn off Hi Jump for this, I'm not sure it's even possible if you don't)
You can get even farther in the heated areas but can't accomplish much yet; for instance, you can technically get Wave Beam, but you can't get back out without Super Missiles or the very hard speedball trick discussed later
Instead, use spring ball to head for Ridley's elevator
There are two routes, one of which requires supers; the other has a gray door, but it's only enemy-locked, so just find all the hidden enemies
Time for heat runs in Ridley's area! (They're not that hard) Also, lots of shinespark trickery
This is where you finally, FINALLY get your first Super Missile tank
Rest of the path to the boss is about the same
YES, you are fighting Ridley in a heated room without Varia and maybe six supers. Have fun!
When you win, take the portal to the pirate ship
You'll find some changes here; for instance, opening L2 locks without triggering the alarm is no longer just optional, as a gate comes down to block it
With L2 unlocked, you can go back through Ridley's area, Norfair and such, but I'm pretty sure you have to come back and do the ship before going to Tourian
If it's still possible to get through the ship without tripping the alarms, it's much harder (the only way I can think of to get through the first laser room involves a height-losing IBJ, which is almost TAS-only)
Continue into Chozodia as usual
There's one extremely difficult room where you have to fall through a series of multiple-speed-block floors; the trick for doing it is covered below
Now a big change... instead of leaving Chozodia as usual, you have to go through the left half that's not usually accessible till after Tourian
Your goal is to reach the Golden Torizo and unlock L4 (yep, before 3)
The GT fight is unchanged; on Normal you have your full suit for this, but on Hard, prepare for pain
Open L4 via the usual speed trick
Of course, you'll want to go for the Chozo Test and get your full suit, but no good, it's L3-locked
Exit to the early Grapple/Bomb area of Chozodia
Now you can finally revisit all the other areas and item-hunt
(Side note: you still can't get Varia! It's behind a goddamn L3 lock! Arrgh!)
When you're ready, head for Tourian
Go meet the Metroids... who are JUST A WEE BIT DIFFERENT
The path through Tourian is easy enough to follow; hardest parts are some hell runs and a speedball without much room
As usual, Mother Brain herself is a sitting duck, but the room's heated and Rinkas do 100 damage (shades of Other M!)
Escape is little different, just be even more careful than usual about damage
Now it's right back to Tourian to face the special bosses there
Fight your way onward until you find your well-earned upgrade... the X-Ray Scope? AWESOME no wait he's got some evil plan for this, doesn't he?
Indeed he does, and it is too brilliant to spoil
After a couple of extremely difficult speed tricks (short-charge needed for both), you can finally unlock L3
Next stop is Chozodia, but do all the item-hunting you want first
In particular, Varia can FINALLY be obtained now -- if you have 26 supers (there are 27 blocks, but you can get one refill) Do this, as it makes your life much easier
Incredibly, despite an extensive search, I've been unable to find any other way back to Chozodia but taking Ridley's warp again
Follow the same basic route as before, through the ship and Chozodia
You'll have to repeat several of the tricks, but a couple of puzzles are mysteriously easier now, including "Chozodia 1" below (in fact, the missile tank is now a freebie -- apparently it just sucks to be you if you struggled for it earlier)
Remember that L3 lock you couldn't get through before? Botwoon awaits, and while his room is a pain now, he himself is still easy
Full suit at last!
Between gravity and screw attack, almost every route through the game is now open to you, but there's one obstacle left: power bomb blocks
As far as I can tell, the only way to get PBs is on the pirate ship where X-ray used to be, so it's time to find locks and take them out
Important note: shutters can be destroyed with your beam, but ONLY on ice/wave/plasma (there's no reason to expect this and I find it pretty annoying)
Blue and green locks are about the same as usual; yellow's considerably harder, requiring a space-boost-into-speedball
Red is not so much "possible but hard" as "impossible with occasional exceptions"; see notes
Go get power bombs
You can win any time now, but I recommend first taking your new PBs and breaking the rest of the game over your knee like Bane
And now one last twist of the knife: you can't reach the final boss with the ship's alarms active
The red lock on Normal requires avoiding alarms, and this is basically the same route
Start bottom-left of the ship; if you get here by taking the ship's door, drop down to Chozodia and come back to reset the alarm
Go clockwise around the ship to the top, space jump through the fleet of sperm shuttles, then take your PBs and do what comes naturally
See notes for the speed blocks right before the final boss
After you win, check the top right door; there's a room with a missile tank you can get if you've beaten every boss (I don't think any are skippable on Hard anyway)
I think the escape route is unchanged, but you only get three minutes
Pray for a true peace in space!
[/spoiler]

Here are some detailed notes about trouble spots.

[spoiler]
RIDLEY: He's got 12288 HP, and as usual, takes 600 damage from supers and 100 from normal missiles. You are dying from the heat. Charge beam is a non-issue; without plasma, it's worth about 150 damage, and you don't have the time. Do the math and if you can't kill him with your ballistics, go search for more. If you get all three super tanks in Ridley's area, you'll need about 110 missiles to finish the job. Remember that he does not die at 0 HP; he has to realize he's dead. If you're out of ammo, you'll have to either let him grab you (which does hurt) or wait a few seconds for him to die. You need about 150 HP left to live through his death sequence. As long as you have enough firepower to kill him, this fight is nowhere near as hard as the Ridley fight in Impossible, but you'll still be saving state a lot.

Chozodia 1: I mentioned a room with floors made of speed blocks you have to fall through. This is normally impossible, but you can do it in SZM with respin and a very, very obscure glitch called temporary bluesuit. If you break out of a speedball by unmorphing, you keep the blue-suit mode briefly (basically until your current movement ends). I know about this because of one of Cardweaver's hacks, Puddin'. There's a row of ground-level speed blocks which obnoxiously rises one block right at the end; it's meant to require Spring Ball, but if you unmorph right there, you'll break the block over your head and make enough room to shinespark instead.

In SZM, because of respin, you can extend this temporary bluesuit. While speedballing, spring, unmorph, and start spinning. If you do it fast enough, you'll be spin-jumping again at blue-suit speed. Most important, the spin-jump for some reason loses a ton of horizontal velocity, letting you control it better -- and if you break the spin by pushing the down button, you lose all your horizontal velocity and fall straight down in speed mode. Thus, if you manage to pull off this speedball-into-speed-spin-jump, you can fall down a vertical shaft of speed blocks.

It's a very hard trick, especially without slowdown. But it's the only way to advance, and you'll need it again later (especially if you go item-hunting).

(Note: For the room's first puzzle, you want the speed block floor on the left. The one on the right leads to a missile tank.)

Chozodia 2: Remember the spike shaft where you can fall endlessly until you manage to grab the grapple block? It's here, but without the grapple block. This stumped me for a while; what you have to do is damage boost off the right wall. If you don't know that trick, face right, and at the moment you get hit, press jump and left. You flip backwards so fast it's like a hidden move. Speedrunners use it when they have the HP.

Chozodia 3: The only way to reach the Bang rooms and GT is to jump through the horizontal laser. Do it in morph to kill your recoil, and as soon as you're hit, demorph and respin. You can just barely wall-jump in time. Now you're above the laser, but it's still hard to reach the door. I did it with a wall-into-bomb-jump (that is, wall jump, morph fast, set a bomb at just the right time so you hit it on the way down, and let it push you away, then respin in time to catch the opposite wall). It's hard, but good practice for the even harder one that's required for perfect stealth on Normal.

GOLDEN TORIZO: Floor falls out, spikes and acid everywhere. You have nowhere to stand. On Normal you can tough it out; on Hard, ha ha ha no. So how is winning even possible? You have to notice one little tweak: GT takes damage from uncharged shots now. Combined with respin, this means you can attack him between wall-jumps. So start jumping nonstop above his head level; his attacks will miss, you're out of the acid, and each time you jump, you can get a couple of shots in. It takes forever, but you'll win. I recommend switching angle-down to a convenient button before the fight.

(Side note: There's actually one safe spot in the room. The entrance door never locks. But the opening seems to be selectively one block high; if you re-enter the doorway in morph, you can't demorph. Entering it standing up seems to be impossible, so this isn't useful, just a curiosity.)

Metroids: If you haven't figured it out, they will freeze, but only after multiple shots.

MOTHER BRAIN: The challenge is mostly the heat. Whatever you do, don't try to take out the Zeebetites and Brainy herself in one go. Something else to note is that her glass case works a bit differently here; it's possible to kill her without completely breaking it. You don't want this to happen, as it'll be in your way when you try to leave, so angle a few of your shots. Remember to save at least one missile and super missile for the escape.

THE SUPER METROID: It kills you faster here, I think, and the opening in the glass is now just one block at ground level. You know what that means -- mockball. Switch your beam to spazer-only so it'll be slow, fire left, and start running. Shooting the metroid first may or may not give you a brief head start.

Yellow force field lock: This is the one under an E-tank that you have to speed-spring-ball to get. The lock itself is unprotected on Normal, but on Hard there's an invincible force field; you have to drop down from where the E-tank is. (In fact, this tank is a Bob -- you have to collect it to fall through the drop block underneath.) The catch? The final speed blocks are now one block high, so you need a speedball, but only at the last second or you'll fall through the gaps. Just space jump at full speed ("space boost") until you're past them. It's a bit easier than it sounds, but not much.

Red force field lock: There is a speedball on the way to this lock that only God knows precisely how to do. All the information I have is in this post and the ones after it. Good luck. By the way, the only alarm you need to worry about is the one in the lock room itself; the general ship alarm won't stop you like it does on Normal.

Entrance to final boss: With enough patience, it may be possible to work out a speedball that gets through this pattern of blocks, but the intended solution is clearly temporary bluesuit. (Ditto for the nearby PB tank.) You have way more room here than in Chozodia, but there are enemies, so turn off ice and blast away while you're running. Make sure you start the slow spin-jump before going through the door; there's not much room on the other side. Save state in the door transition, hug the ceiling, then carefully lower yourself. It'll take a few tries, but you'll make it.

DRAYGON MECHA RIDLEY IRON TED FINAL BOSS: Beams won't hurt him. Use screw attack liberally; it protects you from the cannons and immediately aborts the goop attack (this works on regular Draygon too). He doesn't change colour, but you can guess his HP by his speed. Compared to what you've been through to get here, this fight is cake -- have fun.
[/spoiler]

And one very important bug warning! Shortly before Ridley, there's a long heated room with a green gate. This gate is very finicky. Sometimes it'll open just fine; sometimes it'll ignore you completely. The problem is that you can't get to Ridley without passing through this room -- so if you find you can't win, you can go hunt for more items, but you can't get back to him afterwards. Make sure you save before this gate! (After you beat Ridley, the gate can be as cranky as it wants; L2 doors allow you to avoid it.)

Holy. Crap. And yet, I'm not at all surprised the hard edition of MSZM is this evil. I've beaten the normal edition a couple of times with about 80 percent of the items (I don't have the skill/patience for 100 percent sadly) so I thought I'd try the hard edition for shits and giggles. I'm stuck at this one part in Kraid that requires an awkward mochball - it's the area with the diagonal walkway and the power bomb door underneath it. At any rate, after reading your mini walkthrough (which I'm glad I found) I really think I may have to quit while I'm ahead sadly. Mochball I can do (except at the area where I'm stuck), one wall walljumping I can do, mid air morphing, yeah, IBJ and one time HBJ, yep. But some of the stuff you've described like speedballing and other stuff I've only seen done on TAS videos tells me this thing is outta my league. And this makes me angry because it makes me feel like I'm not as good a gamer as I think I am.  :cry:

At any rate, thanks for making me stop hitting my head against the brick wall that is Metroid Super Zero Mission - Hard Edition.  :lol:

[panchen]

So I've run through the hack a couple times now and watch a few TAS videos but haven't been able to answer a few nagging questions:

1. Is it humanly possible in realtime to sequence break the criteria super missles?

2. Is it humanly possible in realtime to sequence break the norfair power bombs?

3. When entering Chozodia from Norfair without gravity suit, how do you get past the gray crab?

[Quote58]

2. Do you mean the power bombs right next to the entrance to lower norfair? If so yes it is.

[panchen]

ya, those are the ones.  Man, I have yet to figure out how... I've seen a TAS do it, but even then it was on a earlier version (not 2.3) and the bomb blocks do not reappear.

[Quote58]

ya that was my first pack of pbs in my original playthrough iirc. It's tricky, but it was always so close I couldn't let myself continue until I got them.
(not sure if it's different in 2.3, I don't think it is but it's possible).

[GoldenTorizo]

There is one part of the game I can't seem to get down. It's in Tourian. There's a room that right past where you deactivate lock #3. I can't reach a missile tank because there a crumple block above and below me. I have no idea what to do to get to it. Any ideas?

[Aran;Jaeger]

GoldenTorizo, in room 7A56B (the room´s name in SMILE) which contains the glass tank around the Missile pack, you are supposed to lower Samus´ health until having less or equal 50 energy (with no reserves), start x-ray-climbing in the blue door-shell of that door facing the right direction (hopefully you know how to do that, although x-ray-climb using doors facing right is much easier than x-ray-climb using doors facing left) to get on top of the crumble-blocks at the ceiling. Then, there will be two 2-blocks-high tunnels and to get past them, there would be three different methods:
1.X-ray-force-stand (the same way as it is used for x-ray-climb and is the reason why x-ray-climb works) plus a jump-through-ceiling glitch: Roll beneath the tunnel, unmorph, press and hold Dash to use x-ray, turn around (while holding Dash for x-ray) and release Dash immediately to stand within that tunnel.
*Then do a normal, vertical jump in that tunnel and start holding Down immediately after jumping (if you jump without Samus facing the floor during the jump, then you will get stuck in a crouching position again). Even after landing and standing in that tunnel after the jump: Still hold Down. Then do another jump (while still holding Down) and immediately after jumping, press Forward (Left or Right, depending which direction Samus is facing) to get into a crouching position where Samus is sitting about 2 pixels in the ground.*
Now, release Down and execute another jump with which you can pass through the ceiling. Do it a second time to get through the second ceiling.

2.Using a Ceiling-Crystal-Flash and Grapple (which I will not explain here, since you will need a CF later).

3. Start a low spinjump outside of that tunnel into that tunnel and hold Down immediately after executing that spinjump. Try to get into a standing position within the tunnel like that. Then use the method I described between the stars (*...*) , but, after sitting 2 pixels within the ground, still hold Down and execute another jump to stand within that tunnel again, but some pixels further to the right side. Then repeat that process of jumps to travel horizontally within the tunnel until you reach a point with a at most 1-block-thick-ceiling above Samus to jump through it.

Now, roll to the left side, do a Crystal Flash in that little tunnel to get through that crumble-block.
Then, there is a little puzzle that requires loading a shinespark, shooting a missile into reflectors and using horizontal shinesparks plus the re-loading ability for shinesparks to be as fast as the missile which should hit a button to open a gate.

Then, there is a little crumble-block-bridge in a tunnel for which horizontal ceiling-ibj is required (a method to travel horizontally along the ceiling in morphingball form using a specific rhythm for laying bombs).{Edit: I noticed, that, provided that you have enough ammunition and Wave beam, you can skip/substitute this obstacle by shooting horizontally in crouching position (with appropriate distance) at the reflector on the right side to lose health again (after the first CF, since in this hack one cannot use shinesparks to lower Samus´ health to be able to use a CF again) and then do a CF on top of that little pillar right before that tunnel.}

Afterwards, you have to do a relatively easy short charge (24 blocks space, for TAS: Only 11 needed. For humans (using the keyboard) only 14 blocks space needed), and combine it with two things:
1. A super fast speedball (by going back to the left side and using the slope for a horizontal shinespark (to gain enough speed, using the re-load ability again (to have the velocity of the shinespark while running) and executing the speedball.
2. During this speedball, right after passing the tunnel with the spikes, you have to switch from speedball into temporary Blue-Suit by unmorphing while holding either L or R (to sit on the ground, still having the echoes). Then jump down through 8 layers of speed-block-floors. And then, you are pretty much done and can collect the missile pack.
I hope, this will help.
[By the way, if there are any questions about ANY tricks/glitches/techniques in Super Metroid, then I should be able to answer them, since I know pretty much every single one of them, and I would be glad to help; but I do not visit this forum too often, since I am still not done with major parts of my SM analysis]

Edit: These are the methods that I meant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo6YFLzAfaw

[cirric]

@Aran;Jaeger : I think this is the most expensive missile pack in metroid history^^

[Redhacker39]

Welp, I'm finally stuck. I'm at the very end with the pirate ship and have opened the blue, green, and red switches for the XRay scope. I don't know how to get to the orange switch though. I could just skip it and go to the boss but why would I when I've gone this far for the Xray already?

[Aran;Jaeger]

I do not know if you mean finding the room where the switch is, or the method to activate it. But, in both cases, I hope this will help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aubP9c8prk

[altoiddealer]

Im not sure its possible to get it at the end of the game.  Once you go hit the last switch, you'll come back to find xray still locked.

I tried everything and gave up.   If I play this hack again Ill be sure to get it early and skip the BS.

Good luck, and post if you succeed!

[Redhacker39]

I do not know if you mean finding the room where the switch is, or the method to activate it. But, in both cases, I hope this will help: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aubP9c8prk

Yeah it worked. Thanks. Oh and @altoiddealer do you mean the shutter that closes when you approach it? You just have to do a mockball-ish move running at it from the adjacent room. Just leave the room if you mess up and the shutter will reset.

[altoiddealer]

I hit all 4 of the switches, but the X-Ray was still locked behind 4 beams.  :?:

Although I was not playing the hard version as shown in the video.

[danidub]

Hey! I've made a new interactive map of the game.
I hope you'll like it.

[Quietus]

That map's pretty cool.  The only thing I wasn't keen on was when you highlight the Super Zero Mission logo.  The highlighting was fine, but on Samus, it looked weird that she shifted left, and had more of a highlight down the right-hand side, rather than her remaining still, and having a highlight all the way round her. :^_^:

[danidub]

That map's pretty cool.  The only thing I wasn't keen on was when you highlight the Super Zero Mission logo.  The highlighting was fine, but on Samus, it looked weird that she shifted left, and had more of a highlight down the right-hand side, rather than her remaining still, and having a highlight all the way round her. :^_^:

You were right, there was a glitch in my clip. Here you go.

[Quietus]

Glad to help. :^_^:

[Steel Sparkle]

Just finished the latest version of Metroid Super Zero Mission and i loved everything about it.. My favorite part was the fight against mother brains ghost(Phantoon).It was #2 on my top five fav Super Metroid hacks!(i will leave that list a secret :3)
took me over 10hrs lol and i got 67%.. I could have done better but i got lazy and wanted to beat it.

[Axatax]

Im not sure its possible to get it at the end of the game.  Once you go hit the last switch, you'll come back to find xray still locked.

It's possible.  There was an absolutely awesome YT video of navigating through the ship to get the X-ray.  It's gone now, sadly, as it was some of the most impressive SM gameplay I think I've ever seen.

That said, there are at least two ways I know of to get the X-ray in Tourian before you get to the pirate ship.

[Quietus]

It's gone now, sadly, as it was some of the most impressive SM gameplay I think I've ever seen.

If it's the one I'm thinking of, I'm fairly certain that it was tool assisted.

[Axatax]

If it's the one I'm thinking of, I'm fairly certain that it was tool assisted.

It definitely was, but was just a *fantastic* video.  I wish I would have D/L'd it when it was still up.

[potrzebie]

For those who wish to add a little more puzzle and less "getting absolutely destroyed" to the hack:
[spoiler]
Take the time to go around the yellow tripwires in the Pirate Ship. It may take a while to figure out the tricks, but at the expense of a bazillion Pirates in every room, with shutters closing o you left right and center, it's well worth it. Plus you get a nice prize at the end, which you would otherwise have to wait a while to get, and it makes things a LOT easier later on :D
[/spoiler]

I'm stuck.. I think there may be some speed booster trick that I don't know of?



EDIT: Solved it, but I can't get past a pirate, even if I kill him with speed booster he trips the alarm first :sad:. Am I supposed to go that way? Is there a walkthrough or youtube video for the pirate ship?

[Aran;Jaeger]

Is there a walkthrough or youtube video for the pirate ship?

Yes, I have uploaded max% playthroughs for a mass (roughly 200) of hacks already. Although I only have videos for the hard version of this hack, I hope the routes and strategies used in there can be applied to the easier version aswell if you are playing that version.
I guess the "sequence-break" discussed in here regarding the pirate ship is what I started doing roughly at 29:44 in the following video and that is honestly not TAS-only at all since a number of people (e.g. Kottpower, a speedrunner) managed to do that to my knowledge and the only other potential "TAS-only" things for this hack that I can think of would be parts of hoandizi´s TASes if at all:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ah44_slwDnU&list=PL5If8zSOO37ZPIEt2Sx20oL0CEJ3BD4fU&index=5