Metroid + Saving

[snarfblam]

Metroid + Saving replaces the password system with a saving system. The file selection menu shows the player's equipment, and as an added bonus, the player's health is now saved. No need to grind for health every time you resume your game.

Added features include a scrollable map while paused, and the ability to combine the wave beam and ice beam.

Version 0.2



The source is included, as well as an IPS patch. People are free to incorporate Metroid + Saving into their hacks. There is one catch: Metroid + Saving is designed for an expanded ROM (the normal patch will actually expand the ROM), though in theory it should be possible to adapt it to an unexpanded ROM.

[altoiddealer]

This is pretty damn awesome.  You should totally submit this to romhacking.net

AWESOME work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Lunaria]

How do you save without dying?

[snarfblam]

Handy trick for both Metroid and Zelda: Pause, then press Up+A on the second controller to save without dying.

[snarfblam]

New goodies

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn2SjbSfsRI

A little scrollable map when you pause, and the ability to combine wave and ice beams.

[Weterr123]

SAVING ON THE NES METROID?!

This is genius.

Snarf, I salute you  :nod:

[passarbye]

loving the new features!

does the map only show what you've discovered so far, or just all of it?

[Parabox]

If you could also modernise the ice beam behavior, then that'd be awesome.

[xorxif]

MAP???? What...? How...?

That's not LUA.....

My jaw dropped.


Is the data for that in-game map easily user-alterable?!

Does wavy ice automatically combine, regardless of which you get first?

How much rom space do map routines use? How much rom space does map data use? Where, in the (I assume expanded,) ROM is it located?

Any release with this stuff soon?

OK I'll pick up my jaw off the floor now. MOST IMPRESSIVE!

[DemickXII]

At this point, DemickXII's jaw commences to drop to the floor in utter amazement at the sheer genius of snarfblam's hacking prowess. He exclaims:

I MUST DOWNLOAD THIS!!!

In retrospect, DemickXII realized he raised his voice a little too loudly, and his face turns a shade of burgundy. Yet, that was perfectly alright seeing as this was the coolest thing he's seen Metroid-wise in a long while.

[Qactis]

Qactis and 18 others like this

[Infinitys_End]

HELL YES, Snarfblam, you continue to churn out the most awesomest of hacks for M1.  Please get back with me on this and we will headline it on the MDb.
I am curious how one accesses Suitless Samus, though - do you have to beat the game first?  Same with accessing NARPASSWORD... are these just not able to be used anymore due to the system in place?  They don't make or break the game, I'm just curious is all.

[snarfblam]

The new version with the map and wave+ice beam has been released. Check out the first post.

I am curious how one accesses Suitless Samus, though - do you have to beat the game first?  Same with accessing NARPASSWORD.

It's dawning on me just now that some people may not realize how to properly access suitless Samus. For those who may not be aware, the JUSTIN BAILEY passwords are actually just a fluke with the password system. The way you're supposed to get suitless Samus is by beating the game in under three hours. This is still the case with the saving system. NARPASSWORD, on the other hand, is no longer accessible. If you really want to cheat, there are other ways to do it.

Is the data for that in-game map easily user-alterable?!

The map is stored as a simple tile map in the ROM. Also, the whole map is available from the beginning. This might be a drawback if the map feature is used in a hack.

[passarbye]

Updates are nice.

[Weterr123]

Qactis and 18 others like this

That made me chuckle. This is not Facebook haha  :lol:

HELL YES, Snarfblam, you continue to churn out the most awesomest of hacks for M1.  Please get back with me on this and we will headline it on the MDb.
I am curious how one accesses Suitless Samus, though - do you have to beat the game first?  Same with accessing NARPASSWORD... are these just not able to be used anymore due to the system in place?  They don't make or break the game, I'm just curious is all.

Never seen you here before Infinitys_End, hi there. I really enjoyed your Super Zero Mission review, I have linked it to many people  :^_^:

[Infinitys_End]

Never seen you here before Infinitys_End, hi there. I really enjoyed your Super Zero Mission review, I have linked it to many people  :^_^:

Thanks, glad you enjoyed the review.  I wrote it almost immediately after beating the hack, so I was really driven while writing it.
Yeah, I mostly lurk from time to time, I have my own forum I have to deal with.  I made a thread on MDbtroid a while back.  I know that this is Snarfblam's main outlet of choice for his hacks, though. 

[snarfblam]

Here's a little utility to edit the map displayed in Metroid + Saving. Might come in handy for anybody who wants to include Metroid + Saving in his hack.

http://snarfblam.com/files/MetMapMaker1.0.zip

[Odb718]

So I've tried to get the + Saves to work in my hack. So far I've had _some_ luck. The wave+ice beam combo works. The mini-map shows up. But my title screen is wrecked and so is the save screen. 
[spoiler]      [/spoiler]
Before the "SAMUS" shows up at the title screen the Log Entry Lost brown/green text is visible. During the game, if I die I'm brought to the Game Over screen. I can choose save, be brought to the main menu, and load my save like normal. If I close the rom, the save is gone.

If I try to use Editroid to launch the game from a particular screen it loads a blank screen and flashes 2x fast, waits a second, the does the same two quick flashes. Exactly what it does for the Metroid+Saves.nes hack.

I've tried the MetMapMaker. It works just the same for my hack.

I'm not sure how to use the asm to build it into my hack.

Code Select Expand


What I did was use Lunar IPS to create the "+Saves" version out of Metroid.nes.
I then used Lunar IPS to create an IPS file. I used an expanded version of Metroid.nes then used my hack.nes to create the IPS.
I then applied my new IPS over the Metroid+Saves.nes. ^^^ this should be able to be used by everyone to get the +saves data into their hack.

I think the problem is my title screen and "Emergency Order" screens. My Order screen starts with Mission Update. As you can see in the second image, it's starting to post that.

I'm thinking if I copy and paste just those "screens" in hex from the working metroid+saves rom it should be fine right? But I'm not sure where the heck that'd be at in the rom. Anyone know??

[snarfblam]

Hmm... first off, Metroid + Saving does not work with "Test Room." This is a known issue. Also, I recommend you grab the most recent version of Metroid + Saving, 0.3. It includes a couple of bug fixes. The reason saves aren't being retained is because versions 0.1 and 0.2 don't set the battery bit in the INES header.

To get it working with your hack, you can take one of two routes. You could try to revert/correct the bugged parts after applying the IPS. I think it would probably be easier to fix things by starting with the source provided. (If you do that, you'll need to manually copy the new graphics into your hack with a tile editor.)

Understand that Metroid + Saving works by replacing the "emergency order" screen with the file selection screen. The title screen and the emergency order screen share nametable (tilemap) and attribute (palette number) data. You've obviously edited this data, but I don't know to what extent. Basically, if you've changed the location or size of any of these pieces of data, that's probably going to cause a problem.

I can try to take a look at this tonight. Should I use the most recent patch you've posted for MBR?

[Odb718]

Samus:MBR, all of them, should cause this problem.
I did edit the pallet for sure. I believe the letters and numbers start at 2 different colors. So I _think_ I used Nesticle around 1999 to change them to all one color. I think I may have edited above the SAMUS graphic at the press start screen. Im not positive about that. It was soooo long ago.

I'll give a go at using 0.3. and post what happens as an edit.

----
It doesnt seem to save in my hack. I think it has to do with LOG ENTRY LOST. I may have a plan on what I can do to get around my messed up title screen using only lunar ips.

One thing I noticed with +Saves, is the Ice Beam is VERY strong. In the original Metroid, the regular gun takes two shots to kill, getting the Ice Beam takes 4, frozen-hit-frozen-hit. In +Saves it's just two for even stronger enemies. Enemies that originally took 8 shots with the Ice Beam are being killed in 2 shots. I'm just pointing this out in case it was unintended. It'd be better, imo, if it was this strong after the ice/wave combo. I like it this way a little better than the original so it's still a good addition.

----

Ok I've figured out how to get the hack to work on other titlescreen hacked metroids. I've tried it on Roidz, and my mod. My mod the title screen was perfect. Roidz has some graphical mess-ups. With Samus:MBR everything seems to work normal. I turned off the emulator and the save state still showed up.

http://www.sendspace.com/file/r3rnum
^^^ This is an IPS to use on EXPANDED hacks. Apply it to the hacked image and it should work.
All it is, is the difference between Metroid Expanded and Metroid+Saves 0.3. So it's just the hidden work Snarfblam did to the title screen and the graphics and everything else he's done. So when you apply it to a title screen hack, it doesnt change that info because it was the same between Metroid Expanded and Metroid+Saves.

It doesnt affect any of your graphical edits either. UNLESS they reside where the map falls.

Now that the Ice Beam doesnt suck I think I'll be editing my Samus.nes yet again :P

[snarfblam]

One thing I noticed with +Saves, is the Ice Beam is VERY strong.

Hmm... the intended effect was that the ice beam would be twice as strong as whatever it was combined with (normal or wave), so that enemies don't take more hits to kill with ice beam. If it's four times as strong as the normal beam without wave, then that's a bug I need to fix, so thanks for the head's up!

[snarfblam]

So this happened:
[spoiler][/spoiler]

I still have a little more work to do for the next "official" version, but here it is in its current state. Metroid + Saving + Wavy Ice + Corner Map + Pause Map + Wall Jump.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/12027218/Metroid%20Saving%200.4.notdone.ips

[Odb718]

OHSHI!! Nice!
Would you be able to make wall jump a power up? I think that'd be pretty cool.
One suggestion on this awesomeness would be to put the map in the right corner. It'd also be pretty cool if there was a "map room" where you get it as a "power up".

I havent tried it yet. Does it expand, or show in the center, if you hit pause?

[snarfblam]

I realized after the fact that, where I copied and pasted this post from another forum, out of context it might look like I'm taking credit for something I did not do. I did not write the wall jump or corner map hack. I modified them to be compatible with Metroid + Saving, and updated the corner map to use map data from Metroid + Saving. The original wall jump hack and corner map are by Parasyte (and are posted on the metconst wiki).

Would you be able to make wall jump a power up? I think that'd be pretty cool.

I actually made a proof of concept for that a while back.

Does it expand, or show in the center, if you hit pause?

When you pause it shows the same old 7x7 scrollable map in the center.

[Lunaria]

Did you decide to go without the dotted empty tiles after all? :p