Super Metroid Beta Analysis

[Quietus]

The only thing I think is a bit iffy with Quietus' thought is that, despite understanding the noob tube better, unless the player had left Brinstar and explored, they wouldn't know what to do with the Grapple I'd feel.

I think that this applies anyway, even with the normal game.  In the normal game, any player acquiring power bombs must continue upward to see the missile lake, where they'd see the grapple blocks.  Whether the gate was where I suggested or not, this wouldn't change.  If they don't go to the missile lake, then it doesn't matter how they're looped back toward Crocomire and grapple, as they still won't know about using it to cross the lake.

Here's what it looks like with the gate.

The only problem with this is that the gate would serve no purpose, since coming upward is the natural route.  Players would just shoot it to open it, then continue onward.

[RealRed]

Here's what it looks like with the gate.

The only problem with this is that the gate would serve no purpose, since coming upward is the natural route.  Players would just shoot it to open it, then continue onward.

Think about the powerbomb door that closes behind you when you enter the elevator room. it (alongside the powerbomb door at the top of the elevator) traps you so you can't leave without powerbombs.
I like how you guys are reading in to it a whole bunch, but TheAnonymousUser's screenshot just fits too well, too easily.
I'm willing to bet this gate was here but removed because wave beam would let you exit that shaft without picking up powerbombs, lowering the player's chances of finding the room's secret (regular route would lead to most players having wave beam by this point). Well, that or powerbomb doors were added later in development than this picture was taken.

[Quietus]

Think about the powerbomb door that closes behind you when you enter the elevator room. it (alongside the powerbomb door at the top of the elevator) traps you so you can't leave without powerbombs.

That's what I was saying - a gate here would serve no purpose.

I'm willing to bet this gate was here but removed because wave beam would let you exit that shaft without picking up powerbombs

But it wouldn't, since the door to the right is locked, and already serves as a barrier.

regular route would lead to most players having wave beam by this point

Not true, since they'd need power bombs to get grapple to get wave. :razz:

[RealRed]

yeah, I had to take a few minutes to think whether or not you'd have wave... nowadays I usually have ice beam when I go pick up speedbooster (Thanks to mockballing I can freeze the red flying enemies to climb up, that way I don't have to go around), and go grab wave as an extra... The normal sequence is pretty blurred.
Speaking of blurred, I don't even get powerbombs from the red brinstar shaft... I just go beat up crocomire, since he's right there next to wave beam and speedbooster.

I guess I forgot to mention it, but my train of thought was that you wouldn't be locked in by a powerbomb door, only the gate. Powerbomb door replaced the gate because it just made more sense overall.

[CrAzY]

Wow, right after I said that I doubt we'd ever be able to guess where that gate was, TheAnonymousUser throws up a very reasonable possibility.

Not only does it fit perfectly with the existing map layout, it matches the picture.
I am confused as to why you guys are calling this gate pointless (if that's where it was).
The "normal" playthrough of SM has the player collecting Wave Beam anytime after grapple (as most first timers don't know about / utilize wall jump) & most people use powerbombs to obtain the grapple beam.

The gate is pointless compared to the two powerbomb doors (which do a much better job of locking you in & reveal to you that you need to find something in this small area to continue forward).

Here is my guess. The bottom left door wasn't a powerbomb door yet, only the one at the top of the elevator was. The gate was in place instead, & effectively did the exact same thing the powerbomb door did, except worse (as if any "sequence break" occurred, the player could easily escape while never locating the powerbombs.

That, or both the gate & the powerbomb door were there, forcing Samus to backtrack past her ship & through Crateria again (which would allow her to see beginning areas again with a bigger arsenal). I think that would be the coolest option.

... They can now only go right, into the long room with the crabs.  This leads into a small room with a broken pipe (hint for a later objective!), and more crabs.  The player can go right from here, but they get stuck in a difficult room with sandfalls.  Should the player go in the sand, they can escape by rolling left and shooting upward (convenient!).  From there, they can only go back to the left, and down through the hole in the floor.  Here, they can access the map terminal (again, convenient!), or exit to the left, all of which has shepherded the player back toward the glass tube, and the entrance to Norfair, where the player should be heading for Grapple... :study:

Even if the gate was always a reverse green one up there, I might have to change it to a blue one like you're thinking, as I do like the idea, & I've already messed around with letting the player access Maridia the "wrong" way. I fixed up the unused door in 7D340, & doing this allows you too get to the door above the main tube. If this door remains blocked, then Samus has no way to get above the Maridian tube without breaking it. I noticed this because if you enter Maridia through the entrance to the right of the wrecked ship, & head towards room 7D340, your only option is to take that strange Maridian vertical tube thing. This leads to the sand rooms, as well as forces you to go past the busted tube with crabs, access the map room, & exit through the green gate exit. They added another reverse green gate to the bottom right room of Maridia's main street just so that Samus had no way of getting above the tube before breaking it.

Either way, with all of my changes, I'm gonna need to make only the top door of the tube room to trigger an event where it's already destroyed/room has water physics.

[Quietus]

I am confused as to why you guys are calling this gate pointless (if that's where it was).

I only mentioned it was pointless because of the assumption that the yellow door was in place. :^_^:

The only reason it would then not be pointless would be if the original intent was to force players to loop back round half the planet, through Crateria and Brinstar, just to get back to the Norfair elevator, which seems unlikely with how the rest of the game loops you back round to where you need to go.

[CrAzY]

I am confused as to why you guys are calling this gate pointless (if that's where it was).

I only mentioned it was pointless because of the assumption that the yellow door was in place. :^_^:

Ahh, okay, I feel dumb for mentioning that, as re-reading the thread cleared that up for me. I don't think the idea of looping you around is too far fetched, but maybe they removed it for that very reason. A "waste" of time backtracking. I'd also assume this is why Maridia is so closed off, as having to traverse multiple rooms without the gravity suit just isn't that much fun.

Being forced to backtrack would be good for letting players get back to Green Brinstar again to use the Speed Booster in the Super Missile sequence break room, use Powerbombs to reveal the Etecoons room, "Accidentally" discover the Speed Booster Buddies room while running along (in turn showing you how to shinespark "early" on), explore the area behind Charge Beam as well as the first yellow door seen in the game in pink Brinstar... Then the next yellow door right after in the green staircase room. It could have been like that... Or just more over-thinking things.  :razz:

[Mon732]

Regarding being on top of the noob tube and it being air.
There is door dependant FX1 which would allow water to be present when entering from that door.

[JAM]

My 2 cents.
Have you noticed the strange Chozo statue in WS holding Energy Tank? Why it's strange? It's the only standing statue that giving you the item (other 2 are just hold Samus' balls Samus in ball form). Do you have that in mind?

Well, I found an unused PLM that (after some modification) lowers the liquid in that room and removes the spikes from bottom (actually made them have air property).

So, there was planned another Chozo statue that lowers the liquid (possibly turning the pupms on) in the WS.

[CrAzY]

I have always thought that Chozo was strange, & I noticed you or someone else post about that PLM on here when I was digging through different posts. I am not sure what purpose this could have served though...

The developer's Super Metroid map drawing (SMdevmap) in my collection above has a strange looking layout for the room before the Golden Torizo. It doesn't appear to have the Chozo that lowers the lava & the floor plug, either. Maybe someone made the PLM to lower liquid & change some tiles types as some sort of demonstration & they just repurposed it for the Lower Norfair room instead. Or the Wrecked Ship had something down there at one point?

Maybe the Wrecked Ship was completely flooded all the way down to Phantoon at one point.

[Vismund Cygnus]

My guess would be either as Crazy said, that the whole Wrecked Ship was flooded and you had to take that way to get to Phantoon. If so the idea was probably scrapped in favour of having the Wrecked Ship power up once Phantoon was defeated.
An alternative would be that they'd originally planned to hide Gravity Suit that way perhaps, but scrapped it because they'd later use the same thing essentially to hide Gold Torizo. And so Bowling Alley was born and forever added 40 odd seconds to every speed run ever.

[Vismund Cygnus]

Double posting, however this is probably relevant.  :^_^:

[CrAzY]

Thanks for linking that thread. That is where I first heard about the plm that lowers water (possibly linked to the standing torizo in the wrecked ship.)

Also, I have been making a simple no doors hack for my pleasure, & in the process found that the "door out" data for room "7A0D2" (speed booster room with an energy tank pass the charge beam) has a door that isn't placed that is upward facing. This tells us that a door did connect to the room that used to be below, as seen in image 4 from my document. I already planned to do this for my Beta hack, but the evidence that they already planned to do just that is cool.

[JAM]

My guess would be either as Crazy said, that the whole Wrecked Ship was flooded and you had to take that way to get to Phantoon. If so the idea was probably scrapped in favour of having the Wrecked Ship power up once Phantoon was defeated.
An alternative would be that they'd originally planned to hide Gravity Suit that way perhaps, but scrapped it because they'd later use the same thing essentially to hide Gold Torizo. And so Bowling Alley was born and forever added 40 odd seconds to every speed run ever.

Oh there prorably planned to use 3 states:
1. Sunked ship with no energy
2. Sunked ship with energy (after defeating Phantoon)
3. Ship with energy and without water.

[CrAzY]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCroZCOG2LA

It would seem that JAM's mind wasn't deceiving him! Finally found the video showing the Charge Beam in Ceres, & not only that, it shows that Samus has no Long Beam yet. It also shows some of the same clips that the Nintendo service center video used, so I am guessing that these are random gameplay segments that the development team gave out for these preview videos.

You can get a semi - better view of the Metroids in Maridia, luckily. I just wish it showed more of that damn map screen.

Here is what I now believe about some of the plans they had for SM.

- The blue gate in the instruction manual was almost definitely in the spot TAU mentioned (Red Brinstar hallway before first Powerbomb). It makes sense they would want you to back track if you think about the equipment you're supposed to have by then. & reading the developer interview seems to hint that they wanted you to do just that.

- Tourian was located to the bottom left of Brinstar, & the bottom left door of the red Brinstar shaft was equivalent to the bottom left door of the Crateria shaft. Either that, or it it was a room that led to another room which had the Tourian escape door. I also assume that the Black palette version of the red Brinstar tileset was for the planned escape sequence. Additional evidence could be all of the breakable platforms in the room, which allow you to shinespark upwards if you modify just a few blocks to be breakable, yet there is no feasible way to have a shinespark stored in this room during normal play (no short charge). If the bottom left room is different from being an energy recharge room though, then that changes.

- The Wrecked Ship was flooded. I believe this because,
A.  It's flooded in the rooms to the right side of the ship already.
B. The water level is higher on that side.
C. The ship was multiple states for almost every room, even though most of those rooms are blocked off by the time they change.
D. The bottom room before Phantoon seems suitable to utilize the speed booster before hitting the wall blocking his door. If you had to drain the water out using the standing Chozo, then this would be the perfect way to block off Phantoon.
E. The standing Chozo statue didn't hold an item(read below)

- Here is a way out there hypothesis about the Chozo statues holding items / powerups.
Notice how the first of every pickup is in the hands of a Chozo (besides morph, suits, obviously)?
First thing you should also say is that the first energy tank isn't either. Why is that? Well, it would be a good guess that they wanted to pretty much hand the first energy tank to you so you know about them & can get some defense early on. But maybe they placed one earlier on in a Chozos hand?

Well, the Chozo to the top left of the landing site is holding one, & so is the standing Wrecked Ship one. We can forget about the standing one, as they seemed to have different plans for that, but would that mean that the first energy tank was the one to the top left of the landing site somehow? Or maybe it was the room past the bomb blocks on Crateria mainstreet that had the energy tank instead of a Missile expansion, yet not enough players went back for it & were prone to dying too easily.

Also note how after the first pickups, no power up is in a Chozos hand again besides Missiles. Well why is that? We see Missiles in their initial spot, the room past bomb blocks on Crateria mainstreet, & on the Wrecked ship. I have to hypothesize that these two(?)  extra Chozos once held powerups that were dropped from the game. Maybe one was Long Beam, the other was Boost / Spider Ball? Or my other guess is that they just wanted a reason to add more Chozo statues around the planet.

- Another big assumption. A Maridia suitless run was worked towards, but dropped for unknown reasons. The more I worked on my hack, I noticed a trend in enemy placement (mainly in Maridia) that are situated in a way to help Samus gain vertical progression. Even a fish that was re/moved, when placed back, is in a perfect spot to help with the suitless playthrough. It seems it was planned to be possible with at least Grapple, Ice Beam, Wall jump. Some of the Varia suit colored enemies are in areas that seem to aid a gravity suitless Samus, as well, which raises my suspicion.

Other random tidbits,

- Any user of SMILE will at one time or another open the main Maridian grapple room (7D0B9) & notice a door & some randomly placed bomb & crumble blocks off screen. Now toggle SMILEs "Show Type On Map" for tiles, & look at the area with the door now! It has a complete layout. Judging by tile placement, I am guessing a door was going to be beneath the crumble blocks & another on the right side of the screen.

- Two of the sandfall rooms (room 7D898) have a hidden morph ball tunnel in the middle, very strange.

- I talked about mini-phantoon on page 2 of this thread, & he materialized soon after... I r prophet.

Will update everything when I get time. The hack is coming along nicely & will have almost every beta element I have mentioned, besides some things like a flooded Wrecked Ship, unless I can figure out how to rig the Standing lowering lava Chozo in Lower Norfair to work there & set the right event, etc, or fix the broken PLM JAM mentioned.

Keep hunting! If you have any non-US gaming magazines / preview videos that contain Super Metroid footage, I'd love to see it.

[Mayo-chan]

This is a fascinating topic. I'm going to make a guess that the reason the enemy placements work so well for a planned suitless Maridia run was because most of Maridia was made before they made a Gravity Suit, and water physics to go along with it. Metroid 2 didn't have water physics as well. You may have needed to use the Ice Beam to make it to Crateria or WS via Maridia before they dropped it, favoring Brinstar or something.

[Hitaka]

I've noticed a few things not mentioned so far.

Image 10 shows that the room above Crocomire was one screen shorter, and had upward-sloping rooms on either side. I decided to extrapolate based on that, and came up with this:

Notice how if you replace the 4x2 lava room and the red pirate shaft with these sloping rooms, the doors link up perfectly. I think this is what central Norfair looked like at some point.

The off-screen tile arrangement in 7D0B9 is actually identical to the top-left corner of 7D5A7. What it's doing there, I have no idea.

The morph ball tunnel in sand pit room 7D898: This actually has a use, you can use it to fill in both screens of the map in a single trip down the sand pit. Maybe testers who like to complete the map (like me) complained about having to fall down and go around twice, so they put that tunnel in.

Another minor oddity is that in green Brinstar, in the firefly room leading to the missile recharge, there's actually a screen that's not on the map. You have to drop into the spikes in the bottom-right corner of the room. Looking at the hand-drawn dev map, this screen is drawn in. Presumably they took it off the in-game map because getting that map tile would require taking damage.

[JAM]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCroZCOG2LA

It would seem that JAM's mind wasn't deceiving him! Finally found the video showing the Charge Beam in Ceres

Thank you so much for finding it!!!

- Tourian was located to the bottom left of Brinstar, & the bottom left door of the red Brinstar shaft was equivalent to the bottom left door of the Crateria shaft. Either that, or it it was a room that led to another room which had the Tourian escape door. I also assume that the Black palette version of the red Brinstar tileset was for the planned escape sequence. Additional evidence could be all of the breakable platforms in the room, which allow you to shinespark upwards if you modify just a few blocks to be breakable, yet there is no feasible way to have a shinespark stored in this room during normal play (no short charge). If the bottom left room is different from being an energy recharge room though, then that changes.

It's definitely not in original planned place for it. I agree. If you join all areas as a puzzle pieces, then you'll have to make long elevators from Crateria to Brinstar and Maridia or Spore Spawn area will overlap the Tourian. Looks like, you're right with exit from Tourian. A good place to perform a Super Jump.

- Here is a way out there hypothesis about the Chozo statues holding items / powerups.
Notice how the first of every pickup is in the hands of a Chozo (besides morph, suits, obviously)?

I agree with the Long Beam location. A perfect place for it. Beat Bomb Torizo and get the Long Beam. About the Wrecked Ship statue... Let's experiment a bit.
1. Place the real statue one block above (this meaning deleting the pit statue stands in).
2. Change region to Norfair.
3. Jump to the hands of statue. "Hand" PLM (if you don't know, statue creates a PLM in certain position) is having exactly same position.

I'll help you making the completely working statue later, just need to work on my main project.

- I talked about mini-phantoon on page 2 of this thread, & he materialized soon after... I r prophet.

Yes, you m prophet.

Keep hunting! If you have any non-US gaming magazines / preview videos that contain Super Metroid footage, I'd love to see it.

Alright. Room 7D913 have Treadmills with 84 in the top. Why? I don't have idea.

Another thing I found that all sandfall rooms have unused door transitions, so you probably can pass through them from the other side, like Grime did in Project Base.

[CrAzY]

I've noticed a few things not mentioned so far.

Notice how if you replace the 4x2 lava room and the red pirate shaft with these sloping rooms, the doors link up perfectly. I think this is what central Norfair looked like at some point.

Very nice. I came to the same conclusion about a month ago when I actually decided to see how the slopes would fit in the map layout.

The off-screen tile arrangement in 7D0B9 is actually identical to the top-left corner of 7D5A7. What it's doing there, I have no idea.

What the hell? Great catch. That raises even more questions.
Also, how did you find that out so fast? Have you noticed this off-screen tile arrangement before? Or did you make that connection after I just posted about that?

The morph ball tunnel in sand pit room 7D898: This actually has a use, you can use it to fill in both screens of the map in a single trip down the sand pit. Maybe testers who like to complete the map (like me) complained about having to fall down and go around twice, so they put that tunnel in.

Another minor oddity is that in green Brinstar, in the firefly room leading to the missile recharge, there's actually a screen that's not on the map. You have to drop into the spikes in the bottom-right corner of the room. Looking at the hand-drawn dev map, this screen is drawn in. Presumably they took it off the in-game map because getting that map tile would require taking damage.

Good call in the sand pit room. I'll be honest, things like that slip my mind as I rarely go for map completion. That would totally make sense.

& haha, wow, you just brought back memories I have of playing this as a child. I remember finding that off screen map square & thinking I had made some great discovery. Good job noticing that the dev map has the extra screen scroll. I would have never noticed that. Out of every room in Super Metroid, I am least familiar with that fireflea room in green Brinstar. It always seemed so pointless to me, which made me overjoyed when I found out it was a whole different area over there at one point.

Thank you so much for finding it!!!

My pleasure  :grin: Thanks for mentioning it, otherwise I might not have tried as hard to find it, since I was really doubting any more video footage was out there.

I agree with the Long Beam location. A perfect place for it. Beat Bomb Torizo and get the Long Beam. About the Wrecked Ship statue... Let's experiment a bit.

I'll help you making the completely working statue later, just need to work on my main project.

& I am not so sure where the Long Beam was, it's hard to tell. They were pretty good at having a demonstration of what each beam could do in the room it was collected, or right near it. I'm not sure if you'd need to demonstrate the Long Beam as its usefulness should be readily apparent, but maybe they had some clever shooting puzzle with some shot blocks, Idk.

I think room 79A90 held the first Energy Tank, after I started thinking about those extra chozos, & how the first Energy Tank in the retail game is not in a chozos hand. Retails placement is superior, yet it breaks the chozo power up tradition. I just recently took Long Beam out of the room in favor of that, still am contemplating where it should be, as it will be a huge game changer, & could potentially be the most important beam upgrade.

I definitely think it should be obtainable before Spazer, as the beams listing on the status screen goes downward of when they were collected, so that doesn't leave many rooms for placement.

Tested out the statue placement, & I see what you mean, it is the same height when out of its pit. Yet when I was fiddling with it, the "hand" PLM it created was around two tiles lower.
& I would be greatly appreciative if you could help me implement that, as it would really help change the Wrecked Ship into a different beast.

Alright. Room 7D913 have Treadmills with 84 in the top. Why? I don't have idea.

Another thing I found that all sandfall rooms have unused door transitions, so you probably can pass through them from the other side, like Grime did in Project Base.

My guess on the treadmills in that room & the one right next to it would be falling from a room above, or you could jump up there to be pushed down as some "neat effect" before they blocked it off for breaking game play flow, or they had waterfalls pushing you like falling sand at once? I doubt we'll ever know.

& about the unused door transitions for the sandfall rooms, I thought every door had to have a returning door even if it was forever blocked off? I doubt they intended going the Project Base route of jumping up it (although I do approve =P)
& right after I asked that, my mind was blown. How does room 7D6FD not have two returning doors for the sandfall room above it in its door out?

Also, one thing I haven't mentioned yet, image extra15 (Norfair map) doesn't show the save room at the top of lower Norfair's elevator, instead, adding that square to Crocomires room. Longer Croco fight?
I mentioned before, but I'll point out again, in the same image there is a room to the right of screw attack. Could be the Energy Recharge room, but I am guessing it was a personal room for the Screw. & Ridley's Energy Tank room isn't there.

Also, Spore had a Ripper, Botwoon had spikey goombas, Crocomire had... Stokes? Those last two are guesses, & stokes seem more likely to be in a preceding room to Croco.

I fucking love this game.

[Metaquarius]

Also, one thing I haven't mentioned yet, image extra15 (Norfair map) doesn't show the save room at the top of lower Norfair's elevator, instead, adding that square to Crocomires room. Longer Croco fight?

This is quite possible since Crocomire's bridge was meant to be one scroll further to the left. Its AI spawns falling block sprites on the 7th scroll which can't be seen since the bridge is on the 6th scroll.

Code Select Expand

$A4/9149 BD 56 91    LDA $9156,x             ; load X position
$A4/914C A0 9D 8F    LDY #$8F9D             
$A4/914F 22 27 80 86 JSL $868027             ; create e/r proj
$A4/9153 4C BA 91    JMP $91BA

$A4/9156  ; X pos array
80 07
30 07
90 07
40 07
B0 07
60 07
A0 07
70 07
10 07
50 07
20 07


[JAM]

Man... topics like this really backing me up to the life.

& I am not so sure where the Long Beam was, it's hard to tell. They were pretty good at having a demonstration of what each beam could do in the room it was collected, or right near it. I'm not sure if you'd need to demonstrate the Long Beam as its usefulness should be readily apparent, but maybe they had some clever shooting puzzle with some shot blocks, Idk.

Check the room 79A44. It have 2 states. Alternate is unused. Why? I just have this thing comes to my mind.
1. Remove all the bomb blocks from the original state.
2. Change all the bomb blocks from the alternate state to shot blocks (don't forgot to repoint the Level Data previously).

Now think that room 79A90 will change this state. Boom! And you're in trap without the Long Beam. You don't have the Bombs yet and to escape, you'll have to return to the room 79A90 and get the Long Beam (or perform Mid-Air Morph, but this is hard and I doubt that the devs were doing that. Purpose of that tunnel is speed up the player if he already have the Bombs).

I think the developers designed it like that originally:
1. You're in the room 79A44. Komas are sleeping for now. You may go to left or fight Bomb Torizo without the Long Beam.
2. You decide to go to the left and rolling through this tunnel.
3. You see the Chozo Statue holding nothing that will scanning you. Zebes is awake!
4. You'll return back to the room 79A44 and... got trapped! Komas' eyes are burning and path is blocked with blocks. You may shoot 1 or 2 without the Long Beam, but can't proceed (just try it with my Long Beam patch).
5. You'll have to return to the room with statue and now it's holding the orb!
6. You'll fire the orb and get the Long Beam.
7. Now you can pass the room 79A44 from the left to the right.

And also... this room is a perfect place for a fight with Stoke! Just give him the "platform" property and you simply won't pass without defeating him. And of course, you'll also need the Long Beam to defeat him. Note that though layout is the same, Enemy pointers are different in states.

Or you can...
1. Fight the Bomb Torizo without the Long Beam.
2. Go to the room 79A44.
3. Make status scan you.
4a. Simply escape through tunnel using bombs.
4b. See 4-7 from above.

I think room 79A90 held the first Energy Tank, after I started thinking about those extra chozos, & how the first Energy Tank in the retail game is not in a chozos hand. Retails placement is superior, yet it breaks the chozo power up tradition. I just recently took Long Beam out of the room in favor of that, still am contemplating where it should be, as it will be a huge game changer, & could potentially be the most important beam upgrade.

I definitely think it should be obtainable before Spazer, as the beams listing on the status screen goes downward of when they were collected, so that doesn't leave many rooms for placement.

See the gap between SUPPLY and BEAM frames? Frames on the right side doesn't have any gaps. So, this is where Long Beam supposed to be:

Code Select Expand


╔═SUPPLY═╗
║•mode[ ]║
║•reserve║
║█████500║
╚════════╝
╔═BEAM══╗
║•LONG  ║
║•CHARGE║
║•ICE   ║
║•WAVE  ║
║•SPAZER║
║•PLASMA║
╚═══════╝

So, all the beams are where they are, and LONG line replaces the BEAM line which is shifted above.

And my thought is that room 792B3 can be accessed earlier than in final version meaning modifing the landing site to access it. See 2 states again? Simply change acid to water and this room will not be so dangerous anymore. But room 7965B will have acid all the time, so you can't proceed normally. And later, when you will return to the room 792B3, it will have acid too.



Also, do you know that the game actually have Screw Attack blocks? Without the graphics, but the code is fully functional. Where it can be placed? See the rooms 792B3 (alternate state), 7965B and... 7AD5E. Even if you find the secret tunnel and all the block are screw attack blocks, you can't enter Lower Norfair backward. And no need of crumble blocks in the right part of the room. Also there were screw attack blocks in the rooms rooms 7B6C1, 7B457 and 7B4AD (right after obtaining Screw Attack), but later devs dropped the idea about these blocks (and you can enter Golden Torizo from the wrong side, using the green gate glitch =) ).



And... event $14 is unused at all, but event $15 was used. What was planned for this event? Rooms 7DC19 and 7DC65 have the alternate states based on this event, but nothing in the game will activate it.

about the unused door transitions for the sandfall rooms, I thought every door had to have a returning door even if it was forever blocked off?

Nope. It's not intentional.

Room 7D5EC doesn't have it too.

I assume that when this Reserve Tank was removed
they just added another Missile pickup in it's place (If you'll notice, the game has 46 Missile Pickups, 10 Super Missile Pickups, & 10 Power Bomb Pickups.
46 seems to be a strange final number, not that that is proof of anything, but 45 would seem much cleaner, in my opinion). [ 22 ]

But if add the Long Beam to the game, we'll have to remove something. 45 Missile upgrades are more logical than 46, but 220 Missiles at all looks better than 225.

What else... Have you noticed that wines in green Brinstar have the faded tiles never used in the game? Probably developers wanted to all green Brinstar looks faded after defeating the Spore Spawn (not just the Spore Spawn room).

[Hitaka]

The off-screen tile arrangement in 7D0B9 is actually identical to the top-left corner of 7D5A7. What it's doing there, I have no idea.

What the hell? Great catch. That raises even more questions.
Also, how did you find that out so fast? Have you noticed this off-screen tile arrangement before? Or did you make that connection after I just posted about that?

When you mentioned it, I looked at that room, and selected solid walls and "show type on map" to see if there was more to it than just the crumble blocks, and instantly recognized the shape of the walls plus crumbles and door.

A few more things about the dev map:
Room 7AF14 (lava lake) has an off-screen scroll area under the Ridley head.
7B4E5 (big rising acid) has one in the top-left corner.
7ACF0 (hall before Speed Booster) has the entire rectangle containing the room marked off even though much of it is empty, and seems to be the only room with large amounts of empty space drawn like this.
79E52 (green stairs) has the two screens above the bottom-right area drawn, and possible erasures or smudges in that area.
7A130 (Pink Brinstar, blue gate leading to energy tank) appears to have been much shorter with a slope leading all the way down from the ceiling to the right door.
7AC2B (Grapple) has an extra screen underneath, as said in the document. My theory is that the room was originally taller, and after entering you would drop down to the Grapple Beam, and then have to grapple your way back up. In retail, you can just grab it and leave immediately. Maybe they changed it so if you preferred to just wall jump back up the long drop room, you can leave more easily?
While Grapple has the extra off-screen area below the room drawn out, 794FD (lake right of WS) has none of the huge empty space over it drawn out. This would seem to indicate this extra space was scrapped from the room earlier on, before the map was drawn, but it's a huge waste of space, so why wasn't it deleted?
7D646 (the tall room leading to Spring Ball) is a weird room, in that the bottom-right section of it has its own duplicate room, 7D69A. You enter this sub-room if you enter from Shaktool's hall, or from the left side of 7D646. It doesn't seem to have much of a purpose except to waste space, as it's identical to the larger room, except for one thing: the water level is higher. I can't see much of a purpose to this, so maybe these two rooms were originally entirely separate. It also is specifically marked off on the dev map as its own room.
7968F (red zoomer bridge) on the other hand, is NOT specifically marked off as its own room, despite being such. Maybe it wasn't yet when the map was drawn.

7D340 has part of 7D387 in the top right, minus enemies. Not sure what purpose this serves, so maybe they were one room originally. Also this is the explanation to the mystery of why you hear a door open if you shoot that gray door with the wave beam. It's opening the blue door on the other side.
79461 may also have originally been part of 793FE for the same reason.

Also, I wouldn't put too much stock in the Nintendo Power maps, I remember some of them having minor inaccuracies even after the game was out.

EDIT: I decided to look at the player's guide, since they may have used a slightly earlier version of the game in order to make it by the time the retail version came out. So far I found this:

The scan quality sucks, but it's more clear in person. It seems our mystery missile chozo had a chozo orb in hand. While it certainly contained a missile, it's worth noting that in the retail game the only minor item that is in a chozo orb (besides reserves and the intended first missile, super, and PB) is the etecoon PB. Maybe it indeed had a major item at one point and they only removed the orb at the last minute, even though they already changed the item. Maybe the etecoon PB used to be a major item (spider ball?) or the 5th reserve tank, and they forgot to de-orb it later.

Also found this:

There's a row of garbage tiles along the top of this room, the ones that are the top of a yellow door. In SMILE, there's a row of normal WS tiles up there. These tiles aren't visible in-game. They seem to have used either a debug mode camera or editing program to get the maps for the player's guide, as backgrounds are missing from every area as well. Regardless, it seems this was a tiling error that was fixed before release.

[CrAzY]

Very nice, Metaquarius. I would call that some pretty compelling evidence that it was indeed a longer room. Don't you mean the bridge would be one scroll to the right, though?

With the help of Grimes Boss HEX tweaks document, I have made Crocomire's room one screen longer. I noticed some minor graphical glitches, though, that I am guessing are hard-coded into his AI. The first 3 blocks of his bridge always change to the cracked tile in the same spot, even though they are moved over, & the bridge in its new spot never shows the tiles cracking, they just fall like they normally should at the end of the fight.
I am sure more HEX tweaks are needed to tell the bridge tiles to crack when Crocomire is at a certain X position. Also, exiting & re - entering the room removes tiles from the spot where the bridge used to be, & I have no idea how to change that, as it seems coded to do this instead of being a different room state with the bridge tiles removed.


@Hitaka

The reason the rooms in Maridia were split (before plasma) & for the orange varia suit zoomer room & the one right next to it is probably due to engine limitations that needed to be worked around, such as having only 4 types of enemy in each room, & only one FX type (water, lava, rain, etc), & probably to make it run smoother on real hardware(?). The rooms that are cut off near the WS have different enemies in them, & one has water in it (multiple water levels aren't possible in a single room), & the orange zoomer is an obvious easter egg, & could even hint how Samus palette will change with the upcoming gravity suit. & the reason the orange zoomer room isn't separated into its own room in the dev map may be because this easter egg was created very late, although it's location in the room data doesn't agree with that idea. Why the room before Spring Ball is split like that, I have no idea.

I like your Grapple room idea, having to drop down one screen scroll & then being forced to use the power up instantly. I wonder if it was really like that & that they just lazily left the extra screen. Either way, the hack now has it. =P

& the room to the right of the Wrecked Ship is pretty weird. I guess that the top left squares were used at one point to connect with a door at the top right of the ship. Or they were simply copying the biggest room they made at that point (left side of Wrecked Ship) & using it as needed, but that seems pretty sloppy for them, so I doubt that. I truly believe there was another door for the Wrecked Ship, but maybe it was deemed useless, or more likely, confusing. If it existed, players might go to the right after the attic (top room in WS) & exit out that way, & somehow get confused / upset in the process.

Yeah, the Nintendo Power maps do seem odd, yet I think they are trustworthy enough. They even state on that page that these are early views of the map layouts & that they will most likely change by release. That being said, look at that NP magazine shot that shows all of the areas maps, & look at Crateria. The rooms leading to the map room & what we now call the mysterious room that leads to Missiles /Long Beam/Energy Tank/who knows, those two rooms were a single room with Crateria's mainstreet. I am not sure if that was ever accurate, but it is certainly another possibility.
Maybe it was changed when they wanted multiple States for the long beam, then they removed the long beam & put a missile there. Hahaha, there is too many possibilities. Would be funny if the way it is in retail really is the way it's always been.

I never thought how the Etecoons room's powerbomb was in a chozo ball... I wonder if that is significant.

Also, Thank You! I have always wanted someone to look through every variation of the Super Metroid strategy guide for anything that sticks out. I am surprised I overlooked what you found in the US strategy guide. Seeing those pictures made me go back & look at it, & I found another oddity that might clear up Crocomires room. In the strategy guide, it shows that the crumbling bridge in his room extended across all of the acid! So maybe his room wasn't one screen longer (although I still think it's a reasonable possibility.) explains why his AI would make his bridge crumble on screen 7, as Metaquarius pointed out.

Cool to see the "garbage" power bomb door tiles in what is most likely a picture made through the official game editor.

If anyone has the Japanese guide, or any other region, please look through it for anything that seems unusual.

@JAM

It's telling that you thought up a possible shot block puzzle in room 79A44, as I did exactly that, but couldn't come up with anything truly satisfactory. However, I didn't take into consideration that the basically unused states of these rooms, are in fact, unused.

Your idea for the appearing shot blocks is pretty cool, & seems supported by the weird eye camera in that rooms unused state. I am really tempted to move the long beam back to the room for that idea, even though I can already see it as an annoying possibility to have to basically make 6 room transitions to get on with your journey in just 2 rooms. I am not making this hack to be a speed runners dream, but rather accurately portray what may have been or could have been.

You also say you doubt the developers did the mid air morph, & while it's true that most probably didn't, one programmer is stated as having a completion time of 1 hour 6 minutes, which is pretty damn good considering he probably beat Spore Spawn & didn't utilize any other "glitches." Unless he programmed the Torizo debug code... Sly bastard.

& your theory on why room 792B3 has an unused state is really thought provoking. First of all, it is the second defined map in the game, so I assume it would be accessible instantly from the landing site, even though it's quite a hidden area in retail. Maybe an energy tank was the first power up possible to collect, & the bomb blocks stopped you from going left, & when going back into 792B3  it had lava instead. Maybe an eye camera was up there too & it was hinting at Mother Brain watching you & sabotaging you with lava instead of water.

Also, what I think is corroborating evidence with my assumption that room 79A44 & 79A90 didn't exist in Crateria till much later is that they are the last maps defined for Crateria (not counting the obviously Brinstar Statute room & hallway.) I made this earlier assumption based off image 21b. It's not in the mini map.

& yeah, you mentioned those screw attack blocks multiple times, yet I still haven't looked into them. All of your suggestions as to where they would be placed are exactly what I would imagine, except the room to the top left of the landing site. One thing I want to say from my personal view is that I am so glad that they omitted screw attack blocks in favor of mixing it with bomb blocks. I do want to use screw attack blocks in my hack though. Is it a certain BTS? I'll search Google for it later, as I know people have requested it.

Also, event $14 sounds interesting... Maybe you could go backwards from these rooms & the ash statue of the torizo would disappear if you already touched it, & the super side hoppers would turn into ash if you returned before seeing the Super Metroid?

Also, all the statue room pictures in there show that the statue sprite is definitely unpolished, & even slightly smaller than retails. Every boss on the statue gained more detail / changes.

Also, room 7D461 is built in such a way that entering from the left side with no Gravity Suit means you can't progress even half way through the room.... This would suggest that the weird Maridian tube (7D408) didn't exist yet, & that it was possible to traverse parts of Maridia with no Gravity Suit, yet be unable to obtain the Spring Ball.

So much stuff to mention...

& cool to know that doors don't need a returning one. Just tested that out, definitely useful as I already have a room that could benefit.

[personitis]

& the room to the right of the Wrecked Ship is pretty weird. I guess that the top left squares were used at one point to connect with a door at the top right of the ship. Or they were simply copying the biggest room they made at that point (left side of Wrecked Ship) & using it as needed, but that seems pretty sloppy for them, so I doubt that. I truly believe there was another door for the Wrecked Ship, but maybe it was deemed useless, or more likely, confusing. If it existed, players might go to the right after the attic (top room in WS) & exit out that way, & somehow get confused / upset in the process.

Food for thought: rooms using the scrolling sky can have the lightning flash if a certain fx bit (I forget which one) is ticked. However, the lightning flash will only appear once the player is 3 and a half screens below the very top of the room if I remember correctly. Maybe it was possible that that portion of Crateria was moved in place of the missile lake before entering the ocean to Wrecked Ship? If it were there, then the player certainly would have to put up with a bit more water before getting Gravity thus rewarding it more; though, this assumes the room was reworked a bit on both sides. It also makes a bit of sense to replace the room were it in that location to make the player use the Grapple Beam a bit more before becoming obsolete. Otherwise, such a replacement adds little purpose aside getting to the ship faster and more efficiently (being able to spark over the missile lake).

If I had to take a guess about the beta chozo ball off of Crateria main street, I'd say that was Long Beam. Doesn't make much sense to hold off such a useful item from the player for a long time, kind of similar to Charge Beam. As for the Ectoon Etecoon orb, I would like throw the idea of Spider Ball being there since mid-air morphing to such an item seems feasible, but I feel that's really early for such a powerful mobility item: almost equivalent to having Space Jump put there.

And finally, for your Crocomire block problem, that's likely due to different room states. I would just give each state a different level data pointer. Can't see why that wouldn't fix it.

[JAM]

With the help of Grimes Boss HEX tweaks document, I have made Crocomire's room one screen longer. I noticed some minor graphical glitches, though, that I am guessing are hard-coded into his AI. The first 3 blocks of his bridge always change to the cracked tile in the same spot, even though they are moved over, & the bridge in its new spot never shows the tiles cracking, they just fall like they normally should at the end of the fight.
I am sure more HEX tweaks are needed to tell the bridge tiles to crack when Crocomire is at a certain X position. Also, exiting & re - entering the room removes tiles from the spot where the bridge used to be, & I have no idea how to change that, as it seems coded to do this instead of being a different room state with the bridge tiles removed.

I just think that bridge should be longer and it should let (in theory) walk through it to the other side. But of course, Crocomiro is blocking your way.

& the room to the right of the Wrecked Ship is pretty weird. I guess that the top left squares were used at one point to connect with a door at the top right of the ship. Or they were simply copying the biggest room they made at that point (left side of Wrecked Ship) & using it as needed, but that seems pretty sloppy for them, so I doubt that. I truly believe there was another door for the Wrecked Ship, but maybe it was deemed useless, or more likely, confusing. If it existed, players might go to the right after the attic (top room in WS) & exit out that way, & somehow get confused / upset in the process.

Don't want to disappoint you, but I have to. Reason of making this room so tall is scrolling sky code. Make room 2 screens tall and water lake in background will be scrolling with the sky. They simply did that room that big to not write 3rd scrolling code and use code of room to the left from Wrecked Ship instead...

...but who said we can't use top room of Wrecked Ship to gain access to Chozodia? ;-)

I never thought how the Etecoons room's powerbomb was in a chozo ball... I wonder if that is significant.

It's a perfect place for a Spider Ball or Boost Ball. Every time you exit from this small tunnel, you'll fall unless setting a bomb and perform a single DBJ with good timing. And imagine you have a Boost Ball. You'll boost and have enough speed to not fall back to the shaft. Same with Spider Ball, but in that case you'll just roll though the ceiling.

Seeing those pictures made me go back & look at it, & I found another oddity that might clear up Crocomires room. In the strategy guide, it shows that the crumbling bridge in his room extended across all of the acid! So maybe his room wasn't one screen longer (although I still think it's a reasonable possibility.) explains why his AI would make his bridge crumble on screen 7, as Metaquarius pointed out.

Exactly. You just said what I was supposed above.

You also say you doubt the developers did the mid air morph, & while it's true that most probably didn't, one programmer is stated as having a completion time of 1 hour 6 minutes, which is pretty damn good considering he probably beat Spore Spawn & didn't utilize any other "glitches." Unless he programmed the Torizo debug code... Sly bastard.

1:06 without 100%? Any% run? It's defenitely possible and could be done in 90-s. You simply don't need So Many Missiles. I never perfmormed the Any% run these days, but my 100% run with any sector visited rule was about 01:40. Without that rule, I could be under 01:30 and if not collecting every item... Hmmm... 01:06 would be possible.

your theory on why room 792B3 has an unused state is really thought provoking. First of all, it is the second defined map in the game, so I assume it would be accessible instantly from the landing site, even though it's quite a hidden area in retail. Maybe an energy tank was the first power up possible to collect, & the bomb blocks stopped you from going left, & when going back into 792B3  it had lava instead. Maybe an eye camera was up there too & it was hinting at Mother Brain watching you & sabotaging you with lava instead of water.

Good idea for sabotage, but it's so cruel. 199 Energy without any suits except Power is so much. You will simply fry in about 2.25 seconds in the acid. If there is lava, then it'll be 4.5 seconds. I'd do that on hack, but I doubt that the devs were doing that.

Also, what I think is corroborating evidence with my assumption that room 79A44 & 79A90 didn't exist in Crateria till much later is that they are the last maps defined for Crateria (not counting the obviously Brinstar Statute room & hallway.) I made this earlier assumption based off image 21b. It's not in the mini map.

Yes, I agree with that.

I do want to use screw attack blocks in my hack though. Is it a certain BTS? I'll search Google for it later, as I know people have requested it.

It's just unused PLM code. To make BTS of it, 4 (or even 2) bytes should be written at the right place.

Also, event $14 sounds interesting... Maybe you could go backwards from these rooms & the ash statue of the torizo would disappear if you already touched it, & the super side hoppers would turn into ash if you returned before seeing the Super Metroid?

Wow... I did not even thought about of that. Most likely, it what they planned. And all they it is simply close door after you forever. In my hard hack I used these states to force player to defeat blue sidehoppers to proceed (to force player to collect all Super Missiles). And after returning to the room there'll be no sidehoppers. But your idea is the best!

And... person701 said the same I was thinking of. He just posted while I was typing, LOL. Long Beam in Crateria, Spider / Boost Ball in Brinstar.

EDIT:

As for the Ectoon Etecoon orb, I would like throw the idea of Spider Ball being there since mid-air morphing to such an item seems feasible, but I feel that's really early for such a powerful mobility item: almost equivalent to having Space Jump put there.

Who is Ectoon? Anyway, if think that to get this tunnel you'll need a Spring Ball (not just Mid-Air Morph as all of us do), then it makes a sence. Because, to get a Spring Ball you'll need Grapple Beam and Gravity Suit and Space Jump (as devs intended, though most of us simply can do a Single Walljump).

And thus, you'll get Spider Ball only after obtaining Gravity Suit, Grapple Beam and Space Jump.