The Super Metroid Challenge

[ThatNewGuy]

The Download link is an attachment at the bottom. Please use the JU [!] headered Super Metroid rom for best results.

First of all, I'd like to say hello to the Metroid Construction community. I have always been a huge Super Metroid fan (it's one of my favorite games of all time), and as such I used to dabble in Super Metroid hacking which never really went anywhere. I never was much of a forum poster either, but I did find myself on sites such as this from time to time, where I have found many great hacks for games I love. But, I think it's finally time I contributed something to the community I love.

To elaborate, many years ago I began work on a challenge hack for Super Metroid. After a huge hiatus I decided to pick up where I left off. I discovered that my previous creation was definitely challenging, but the fun factor was very low as there were many cheap deaths, ugly rooms, bad design decisions, etc. Luckily, I was able to identify many of these things with fresh eyes, and what I hope I have now created is a Super Metroid difficulty hack that is both challenging and fun for players who want a fresh experience with the game.

I have changed none of the core mechanics of the game, but you will need to know them well. The thing you will notice most immediately is that you can not even complete Ceres Station unless you understand wall-jumping. As a warning, there are some tricks you will need to either know or learn to beat this hack. None of them are particularly difficult to perform or to learn, but they do include mock-balling, wall-jumping, and short-dashing (not super short dashing!). Each of these can easily be looked up online and learned in a few minutes.

However, I did not take the approach to difficulty that hacks such as Metroid Impossible have where you must rely on save-states to survive if you are any less than a Super Metroid God. I tried to balance it so that it could potentially be played on a legitimate SNES cart without too much frustration if in very competent hands.

Now I recognize that hacking Super Metroid simply to make it more challenging is not a spectacular thing at all. If you are someone who has already played 100 of these things, then you may like to pass up on this hack. However, and of course I have creator's bias, I think that the level of quality in this challenge hack is above average. Ultimately though, you all are the true judge. :^_^:

Things that are different include, but are not limited to:

-New challenges that will force you to think in creative ways.
-Less ammunition and energy.
-More difficult enemies and bosses.
-Some switched item placing.
-Removal of some (not all!) sequence breaks.

Now, for the reason I've dubbed it the Super Metroid challenge...
If you manage to beat this hack, then post here with your time, completion %, and whether you used save states or not, along with a screenshot to prove your victory. I'll put the time/%/username of every person who does this at the bottom of this post, and note that because of ammunition changes, the max percent will be much less than 100%. Most importantly, have fun with it. It's Super Metroid!  :^_^:

Anyways, without further ado, here are some generic screenshots I captured. (nothing spectacular, this is a difficulty hack after all)







Hall of Fame:

crimsonsunbird: 2:35 hours completion, 27% items collected

[Scyzer]

First, welcome to MetConst. It's always good to have more hackers around.

Just a heads up though: Difficulty hacks aren't too popular around here. Everything's been done, and more often than not, it's simply filling every room with spikes and acid, with the odd door colour change or crumble block (and from your screenshots, I can't say yours is any different). In case your hack is quite different from the original, then remember to show that in your screenshots! People will judge your entire hack by the screenshots they see before they even play it. If you've got something cool and exciting in a hack to show off, put it into one of the screenshots.
Don't let that discourage you though. Everyone starts somewhere, and it's a great way to learn how SMILE works. Though something different is coming out soon...
The more you use SMILE, the better you'll get at building rooms. Try different and weird things. Many of us have been here for many years; anything different and new is good.

[Metaquarius]

Try different and weird things. Many of us have been here for many years; anything different and new is good.

This ^^
Since you "love" the community so much, please do us a favor by putting some decent work in your hack in the first place. The most annoying thing is how little rooms have been changed. Sorry it doesn't feel "fresh" at all. Or maybe that's just me...

[Lunaria]

You know what, I'll actually give it a spin before judging it. This is the sort of stuff that was entirely acceptable for new people a few years ago to put out as their first hack, so I don't see any problem with that. BUT! Do entirely believe that you can do better and more impressive stuff with your next project! Aim a bit higher, but not too high! I recommend making a mini hack, usually the best format to experiment and learn in!


Edit: So I gave it a spin, I gave up in norfair sometime after I got varia, I just got tired of having to farm enemies for missiles and super missiles in order to be able to open doors! It's not fun, it's not difficulty, but it is tedious! Keep that in mind for future projects.

[TobiMikami]

This hack reminds me a lot of Hypermode. There's nothing wrong with a difficult hack so to say, but it's the fashion in which it's done. Adding a bunch of spikes to the vanilla game with no real level design or anything new or original isn't worth the time of you as the hacker or the player. Difficulty isn't just spikes, acid, and tediousness.

[Lunaria]

I think the screenshots might be a bit unrepresentative, but then, maybe that shows that people don't play. :^)
(Though, providing good screenshots is still key!)

I think the hack removes more spikes than it adds, surprisingly. (Unless it goes batshit insane with them in lower norfair/maradia or something.)

[ThatNewGuy]

Whether you enjoy it or not (most people seems not?) I'm thankful for those of you who have given it a try. I'll try to address a few things you've all mentioned.

Difficulty hacks aren't too popular around here. Everything's been done, and more often than not, it's simply filling every room with spikes and acid, with the odd door colour change or crumble block (and from your screenshots, I can't say yours is any different). In case your hack is quite different from the original, then remember to show that in your screenshots!

This is the reason for my disclaimer: Now I recognize that hacking Super Metroid simply to make it more challenging is not a spectacular thing at all. If you are someone who has already played 100 of these things, then you may like to pass up on this hack.
You are right that I probably could have some better screenshots. To be fair though, I tried to do much more than just add spikes and acid. At any rate, thank you for the warm welcome and proper heads-up (you were right on the money, hehe).

So I gave it a spin, I gave up in norfair sometime after I got varia, I just got tired of having to farm enemies for missiles and super missiles in order to be able to open doors! It's not fun, it's not difficulty, but it is tedious! Keep that in mind for future projects.

The ammunition totals are lower, but I actually made many enemies drop super missiles, missiles, and power bombs more often than vanilla, but perhaps I didn't boost it enough. At any rate, thank you for giving it an honest go before judging, I appreciate that a lot. :^_^: Though I believe the farming aspect diminishes as the game goes on and your ammo total increases. If I update this (which, I may as well at this point), then I'll boost missile/supermissile/powerbomb drops even more because I can definitely understand where you are coming from, and I was trying to avoid the tediousness you describe.

Fun fact: the original version of this hack before I revised it only gave you 1 missile ammo per enemy drop pickup. Thank God I changed that back!

I think the screenshots might be a bit unrepresentative, but then, maybe that shows that people don't play. :^)
(Though, providing good screenshots is still key!)

I think the hack removes more spikes than it adds, surprisingly. (Unless it goes batshit insane with them in lower norfair/maradia or something.)

You are probably right about the screenshots, and thank you pointing out that the spikes aren't all that bad (though there is probably more spikes than vanilla). To be honest, I didn't have a lot of save state places made and I wanted to avoid playing through the game again just for screenshots.

Since you "love" the community so much, please do us a favor by putting some decent work in your hack in the first place. The most annoying thing is how little rooms have been changed. Sorry it doesn't feel "fresh" at all. Or maybe that's just me...

Well, I suppose I failed if this is the general reaction. However, don't doubt my love for the hacking community. My goal was not a complex redefining of Super Metroid like you seem to have been expecting. I wanted it to still "feel" like Super Metroid, unlike most of the other hacks I have played.

Definitely looking forward to more opinions, positive or negative, and looking forward to adding at least one person to the list of people who finished it.  :heheh:

[Metaquarius]

You didn't failed, the point is there are many ways to freshen up this game without detracting too much from the original feel and it happens some of them don't require a huge time investment (i.e. palette changes) so no excuse for you. :razz: Play an older version of Project Base to see what I mean. :^_^:

[Lunaria]

If you press 'E' in smile while mousing over most tiles and you'll start quickmet in that room at that location. You'd need to configure quickmet with an path to your emulator of choice first though. (And probably configure what item set-up you spawn in with!)

It makes testing things and taking screenshots a lot easier, I recommend using it!

This recording of my playthrough of your hack as far as I got, with design thoughts as I go, might be something you want to watch! Don't delay too much if you want to do so though, IIRC Twitch deletes recordings after a short while. :V (Also you might want to turn up the volume a bit in order to hear stuff!) 

[ThatNewGuy]

Watching your stream has definitely alerted me to the issues of several of the design decisions. If I release a different version, I'll definitely be changing some things. Since otherwise, missing those 3 extra missile packs in crateria is way too big of a deal. (I didn't realize how hard it was to backtrack from that point and how easy it is to miss those extra missile packs). I might decrease the hp and/or damage of a few enemies as well to make it less stupid.

-Probably, either giving 3 missiles with the first missile pack or making red doors only take 2 missiles.
-only 1 bomb instead of 3 to kill the green space pirates. (although you can make them move towards you by shooting at them first)
-many other small tweaks to make things less ammunition grindy and annoying. (I'm trying not to be too spoilery here...)

I think the early game is definitely worse than the late game on this hack. It probably has to do with me changing much more of the late-game things than early-game things from my first version of the hack. I'll try to make the early game less boring, because in hindsight even I agree I should have done a lot more to spice up the early sections. And I can't really blame anyone for not wanting to finish it if I don't even do things to capture their interest for that much of the game.

Thanks for the stream and commentary, it gave me some decent ideas, and was just otherwise fun to watch. I'll even add a new sequence break in it's honor.  :^_^:

Edit: I may as well make the ice beam possible to get early too while I'm at it, because the basic beam is just way too weak at that point in the game. It's one of those poor decisions that kind of translated over from the original hack I started years ago, which I didn't quite think enough about looking at it again.

[TobiMikami]

Another thing is too, with the amount of stuff that's been done with Super Metroid, we've seen this 1,001 times so to speak. If you posted this in like 2008-2009 you probably wouldn't get the best reviews, but at least people wouldn't say "Pfft we've seen custom graphics, music, and bosses, hacks that have no resemblance to the original SM even USING SM's natural graphics and palettes" not to say your idea is bad, but I do suggest making things new, and by new, the way I was taught; leave no room that resembles how it did in the vanilla game.

[MetroidMst]

leave no room that resembles how it did in the vanilla game.

Best thing to do at all times.

[ThatNewGuy]

Yeah, I guess if I had actually finished it when I was originally working on it (many years ago) it may have fared better. But...I don't like leaving things unfinished so I decided to go back to it. I knew it wouldn't be loved by all or anything, but I was hoping it would at least be a fun little challenge/diversion/competition for people to play, maybe for those who have been playing hacks a lot and who have decided they want to play something resembling the actual game for once in a long time.

Oh well, the least I can do is make it a bit more presentable and put a second version since it's already come this far. It won't be the equivalent of a new hack or anything, but at least it will be more fun and less annoying than the current version. I legitimately felt bad at that green door Crys reached in his playthrough before he quit, and he had no super missile; because that's something that could be so easily improved if I had just given it a bit more thought.

[TobiMikami]

Many years ago you would have got that response, in 2014, you'd be better off learning how to use SMILE, how to work with tiles, visual flow, BTS, palettes, Either custom GFX or how to make good use of the vanilla tiles, at least some basic hex, maybe even some ASM, and in that order. It does take years, and it does take dedication, but that's what's going to derive the responses you're expecting, not to discourage you, if anything more to guide you. Also it helps to have more structure than "A difficult hack" how many hacks here have their difficulty sited as difficult? A lot.

[MetroidMst]

And truth be told, you still don't even need to get into anything hugely custom to make new and interesting things. Just a slight twist on a certain mechanic can pay dividends. And I certainly hope you aren't discouraged, everyone here wants to play fun hacks and make them too, so take any criticism with that in mind. We want successes.

[FPzero]

If nothing else, I'm glad to see you're taking criticism positively.  Think of this as a starting point.  You've learned how to place tiles and change some basic things like drop rates and FX1.  Now try changing some room layouts.  Make a "half-hack".  Making hacks is a learning process and I think almost everyone here started with a half hack, even if they never released it.  Once you've made some rooms that start to feel different, post them in Room of the Week.  There's plenty of good advice given in there even if you don't win.

Other biggest thing I can mention is, don't be under any illusion that hacking this game is a fast process.  Some of these hacks take years to make as evidenced by various members here.

[TobiMikami]

It's good practice to make a hack, but never even announce you're making it, usually once you make a hack topic is when you feel you've made a strong amount of decent progress with the hack, you know what you're doing, and there's a strong probability you will, or at least will be able to release a final version. Starting with a half hack is a great suggestion to coincide with this, a full hack takes a lot of dedication and is usually what takes the longest time to make, which is usually about 3-4 years, with some exceptions with certain hackers like the infamous 2032 release date on MST's hack, which is in all likelihood, a possibility. Not because he's a bad hacker or because he doesn't know what he's doing, because that's how long it's going to take him to make everything the way he wants it, which is another thing to consider, hacking is about what YOU want, we criticize based on how it looks as far as visual flow and enjoyability, not based on what you want it to be about or how the layout is or anything else, we've got some pretty crazy hacks that are really damn awesome, main point though; originality to you = good, originality to vanilla straight out of the RAR Super Metroid = Bad.

[Vismund Cygnus]

I'd like to mention here that keeping the rooms and route the same doesn't make the hack bad necessarily (see Project Base), just as using custom stuff doesn't make your hack good necessarily (see Sidehoppers, SLT, countless other even worse ones). The most important thing to keep in mind is to keep gameplay fun, difficulty fair (which is not always the same as easy). It's all about coming up with clever and fun ideas and rolling with them. In my opinion, if you play through your own hack and don't find it enjoyable, or god forbid you need to use and abuse savestates, your hack is fundamentally flawed.
I haven't played your hack (from what I can tell it sounds like a fine, if somewhat samey, halfhack) so take this at face value, it's not strictly aimed at you, just hackers in general.  :^_^:

[Quietus]

I gave up in the mini Kraid room, maily because I was tired of farming.  Making a hack as a challenge is not bad by definition, but it's about degrees.  Altering any one aspect of the game makes it harder - reduced damage, increased enemy health, reduced energy tanks, less ammo, fewer pickups, and extra hazards, but when you change ALL of those things at once, it just becomes frustrating.

[Lunaria]

Indeed, my first hack I released was a half hack, and it was utter tosh! 5ish years later I released my expansive SM sized full hack. But that was not before making several small hacks for learning experiences in the middle of production! (Hmm, the release dates for these hacks on the main site is a bit off...)

The more practice and experience you get, the better your hacking and designing skills will get! Obviously you have already learned something from this project. And honestly, I'd recommend starting with your next one rather than trying to fix this one, it's after all not really that interesting of a hack even if it's more balanced. :P

[MetroidMst]

So I just finished this over a couple of days, because I couldn't handle the whole thing at once. The hack itself reminded me a lot of why I dislike halfhacks, as it takes any part of creativity used for actual mapping and building, and that is all put toward making a challenge to the point where it isn't fun, it is just a chore.

Now that being said, I believe you can still make good stuff, just focus the creativity towards making a brand new world and an interesting item progression instead of challenging the player to do silly things.

[crimsonsunbird]

'm playing the hack, and so far I'm liking  :^_^:

[crimsonsunbird]

Very fun hack  :^_^:

[ThatNewGuy]

Thanks a lot for playing.  :^_^:

I'll add your time and % to the original post. By the way, that's a good time you got there, a lot faster than my test runs!  :wink:

[JAM]

(Hmm, the release dates for these hacks on the main site is a bit off...)

Tell me the real release dates, and I'll fix that.

And honestly, I'd recommend starting with your next one rather than trying to fix this one, it's after all not really that interesting of a hack even if it's more balanced. :P

Disagree with you at this point. I'd play a fixed version (without permastuck). Maybe it's just me, but I don't like hacks released only once (without fixing and polishing the stuff later).