Hyper Metroid Speedrunning

[squishy_ichigo]

This topic will be a catch-all for everything Hyper Metroid speedrunning related. Tricks, routes, experiences you want to share, etc.  As this topic is for speedrunning the game, there's no need to spoilertag spoilers, since everyone who comes here should already know the game fairly well.

I'll start off the topic by copy/pasting some stuff I wrote in the main Hyper Metroid thread:

Been working on a route, not as good as DMan yet at running, but I just got 1:22 IGT, which isn't TOOOOO bad.

I'm still having ALOT of trouble with Draygon. :S  Ridley kicked my ass more this playthrough than he has in some of my other runs, and after I beat him finally, I then go on to go the wrong way for my route, so I have to reload and fight him all over. @_@

No where near good enough for single segment yet, but hoping I get there sooner or later, I really enjoy playing Hyper, even if some of the bosses are a bit stupid hard during a speedrun.

[spoiler=current route]missile -> morph -> bombs -> charge -> hijump -> spazer -> wave -> gravity -> supers -> varia -> pbs -> plasma -> spring -> speedbooster -> spacejump -> ice -> screw attack

Can probably move wave after grav, not sure how hard maridia gauntlet is gonna be without it though, also, can probably skip a few gates until later, when I come back around to cleanup the area, with better gear, to get them faster?  Currently cleaning up gates as:

Norfair (skipping ice gate) -> Brinstar -> Crateria -> WS -> Maridia -> Norfair (ice gate) -> tourian[/spoiler]

[spoiler=speedrunning route]https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9331202/squishyroute.png

Route I have planned out, mildly altered a bit since my last run, haven't played it all the way through just yet.  I needed a bit more health, because I keep getting my ass kicked by late game bosses. When I start getting better, its easy enough to remove etanks/ammo from the route.[/spoiler]

And then I will end it off with my PB, 1:13igt, where I deviated from the above route, and grabbed spacejump after supers/wave/spazer/hijump.  idk if this is viable or not, opinions?  It's nice having spacejump that early, it helps you keep your momentum for rooms, and you can just hop around others, skipping entire sections.

[personitis]

So here's the route I came up with last night though after a quick run last night, don't feel like this is the fastest that exists. But who knows, that was just a first run. I also died at the brain cause I'm an idiot who loves taking damage. :>_>:
[spoiler=Late Speed Route]

Code Select Expand


Missiles
@ Gate 1
Morph
E-Tank (Crateria)
Bombs
* Torizo
Charge Beam
HiJump
@ Gate 2
Spazer
Super Missiles (Crateria)
Wave Beam
Gravity Suit
@ Gate 13
Varia Suit
@ Gate 11
* Botwoon
Power Bombs (Maridia)
* Phantoon
Plasma Beam
Ice Beam
@ Gate 7
* Gold Torizo
* Spore Spawn
@ Gate 4
* Kraid
Space Jump
@ Gate 5
@ Gate 3
@ Gate 10
@ Gate 14
Spring Ball
* Ridley
Speed Booster
@ Gate 8
@ Gate 6
@ Gate 9
@ Gate 12
* Draygon
@ Gate 15
[/spoiler]
I also made mention of a series of walljumps one can do that makes getting to Gravity Suit suitless a bit faster. Here's that:
[spoiler=Video!]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJaDv4t4YNY&feature=youtu.be[/spoiler]

[squishy_ichigo]

I was trying to get an exploit to work, where you go and fight draygon after getting plasma, which could save some time on backtracking to maridia later after speedbooster.
[spoiler=draygon skip]
[/spoiler]
I tried ice clipping, but I couldn't get it to work, not sure if I'm just doing it wrong, or if its not possible.
Amusingly, I also tried freezing the enemy, then crystal flashing on top of it, but you can't do that, since the pbs kill the enemy, and thus you don't crystal flash.

Also, on irc, I debated with person if going grav/ice/gt was better/possible with his route, cutting out ws until after kraid. He didn't seem to keen on the idea, since you'd have to do a heated norfair section, especially with GT.

Edit: ok, so I was working on this route, it seems ok:
missile > gate1 > morph > bombs > charge > supers > wave > spazer > hijump > gate4 > space > gate5 > gate2 > gate3 > grav > varia > gate11 > pbs > gate13 > plasma > gate14 > springball > speedbooster > gate8 > gate6 > gate9 > gate12 > gate10 > gate15 > gate7 > ice > screw

[Aran;Jaeger]

Well, I just checked that room that you mentioned, squishy_ichigo, and actually, provided one has e.g. Gravity and can freeze those flying bugs, one can simply clip through the ceiling using a slight variation of the old well-known crouchjump-through-a-ceiling trick to the left of that gate15 in the picture.

It would require freezing a bug at a (usually/at least in the original game) pixelperfect height beneath the ceiling to the left of the gate and Samus would have to be with the whole width of her body either 0, 2 or 4 blocks horizontally away from the gate (since those are the places in the ceiling that have these air blocks in it), then one crouches onto such a frozen enemy, jumps and presses (and holds) Down a little delayed after starting the jump
[if one presses Down too early then, since pressing Down shrinks the vertical length of Samus´ bodybox the most from above (aswell as from below), the place in which the collision-detection above Samus´ head while jumping will occur happens at a lower position that contains at least 1 row of solid pixels that are part of the ceiling which would cause her to bounce onto the ceiling and fall back down, which would not happen if Samus´ bodybox enlarges immediately after crouch-jumping far enough into the ceiling such that the collision-detection happens completely above the first row of solid blocks (and hence skips it) when not pressing Down to change Samus´ pose],
and then Samus will be crouching in the ceiling (since as I mentioned above, in that pose, Samus´ box also shrinks from below such that she can land onto the lower row of solid blocks instead of falling back through those) and by turning around or pressing Up, in both cases again the collision-detection will happen high enough such that the game allows her to stand up through the upper most row of solid blocks (the exact same way as the Low%Ice mocktroid clip in pre-Botwoon room is done).

So, if one neglects the  new movement features that this hack provides [that could add (and theoretically also subtract) some more options to get past this gate], in theory, using the known mechanics, these remaining local, theoretical options to get past the gate would exist:
X-Ray-Climb options (and yes, X-Ray can be used for a force-stand in here aswell but the timing seems less lenient if one does not turn off Gravity such that turnaround-animations happen much slower under water, since I tested that right now):
Starting X-Ray-Climb at the right door via either knockback or a precise vertical spinjump or a shinespark setup (provided one can enter that room from the right) to get stuck in standing pose in a left-facing-door; or freezing one of those enemies slightly within the red door-shell (freeze-walk principle) to walk a little into the shell and start climbing there (which could be set up at some other walls or the gate PLM itself aswell, even without Wave-beam).
Then there would be an option that uses obtaining Reserve-Mode [which would require an R-Tank and X-Ray (and preferably Gravity)] for a force-stand while getting damaged during a jump towards the ceiling next to the gate (using an enemy in the room to the left).
And if one does not have Gravity, then a via shinespark extended ceiling clip crouchjump using a frozen enemy again could work, and depending on if such gates would automatically open themslves if Samus gets too far into those, freeze-walking into the gate [either step-wise (or with sufficient speed, which does not seem to be possible in this case)] could work aswell but would be quite complicated.

But a ceiling-CF would not work even if combined with Grapple.

[danidub]

I finished my Hyper Metroid map.
Here it is :
[spoiler]Hyper Metroid Map[/spoiler]

[Fe]

I recorded another run, and uploaded it this time for those curious to see the route or whatever. 1:19:32 real time, 1:02 in-game time. Here it is.

Copy/pasted for relevance. Seems like this route may be outdated soon, though.

[RealRed]

I discovered a Super Missile shortcut trick.

[Fe]

I updated Red's route on the route document and put it up on Pastebin - as it had some errors. Find it here.

Also, if anyone's ever wanting to discuss strategies or routes or what have you on IRC, I'm usually idling in #hypermetroid @ irc.speedrunslive.com, so that could be some sort of dedicated channel I guess, though it's just me at the moment. We need some more active runners of this hack!

[squishy_ichigo]

After a very serious attack on my soul from the last run I did, I decided I was going to wait for the update that RealRed is working on before I do any more runs.  As for the irc channel, make sure to put anything good you find here! (that goes without saying, and I'm sure that was the idea anyways, but eh, I mentioned it anyways)

[Dessyreqt]

You can actually do the second skip with only one super, and it saves about 20 seconds. Nice find!

EDIT: I have started a theory TAS of this game. Currently I'm at Gravity at 12:19. Here's the route I've come up with and am going to start out with: http://pastebin.com/WBSZZyGk

Let me know if you find any fatal flaws with the route.

[personitis]

I updated Red's route on the route document and put it up on Pastebin - as it had some errors. Find it here.

I feel that I should note that I believe the delayed Spring Ball route is the fastest if only by a minute or so though it also hasn't been tested yet (to my knowledge).

I'm behind Squishy though, not being sure about what an update will bring and all that, so I'll hold off on any runs or attempts myself.

[Digital_Mantra]

EDIT: I have started a theory TAS of this game. Currently I'm at Gravity at 12:19. Here's the route I've come up with and am going to start out with: http://pastebin.com/WBSZZyGk

I wonder what sort of time the TAS will come out to. Love watching theory TAS', may be able to improve on my 5 segment 0:52

[squishy_ichigo]

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9331202/hyper%20metroid%20-%20spiderbomb%20grav%20skip.mp4
(voice any complaints about video format, or length to thedopefish, who was kind enough to export this for me)

So I did this today.... probably not helpful really, the trick is pretty hard to pull off, I've only done it twice.  But hey, sharing is caring!

Items needed: morph, bombs
though, an etank might be useful, and gotta grab a missile to get in to maridia

[Digital_Mantra]

If we're sharing that sort of stuff, here goes I guess:

www.digital-mantra.com/atleasttrybeforeibjstrat.wmv

this is consistent in a run: www.digital-mantra.com/20ammoneeded.avi

squishys is sorta not: www.digital-mantra.com/fackthisstrat.wmv

[foosda]

my second completed run based off xavier's:

1:24:29 RTA, 1:04 IGT

[spoiler] http://www.twitch.tv/foosda/c/6723452 [/spoiler]

died once, got lost once or twice.

gonna start looking for individual room strats pretty soon, and possible route optimizations, already have a couple ideas I want to test out.

[RealRed]

Heh, room strats. A lot of early crateria rooms are jam-packed with enemies and the power beam often doesn't cut it, which makes it really difficult to make it through seamlessly. ESPECIALLY (but not limited to) the first energy tank room. Ugh. How to you guys traverse these? Damage boost??

[Quietus]

I'd've watched that vid if it had sound.  Unfortunately, all I heard was a woman saying 'like' twenty times a minute, and, like, it got, like, annoying, like, really, like, quickly. :nope:

[personitis]

If I may also add, considering that Twitch VODs now embed (which is new to me) and they auto-play, it may be a good idea to spoiler it.

[foosda]

some of the more interesting room strats I found last night:

(using delayed ice route)

[spoiler]

http://www.twitch.tv/foosda/c/6731949
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]http://www.twitch.tv/foosda/c/6731967[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
http://www.twitch.tv/foosda/c/6732007
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
http://www.twitch.tv/foosda/c/6732034
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
http://www.twitch.tv/foosda/c/6732042
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
http://www.twitch.tv/foosda/c/6732050
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
http://www.twitch.tv/foosda/c/6732063
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
http://www.twitch.tv/foosda/c/6732087
[/spoiler]
[spoiler]
http://www.twitch.tv/foosda/c/6732102
[/spoiler]

[Quietus]

You may want to spoiler them separately in future.  Hopefully they won't then all try and play at once, which is impossible to watch. :yay:

[foosda]

Who says that wasn't the intention?  :cool:

[thedopefish]

It's nine times the corgi gif, what are you guys complaining about?

[Quietus]

Who says that wasn't the intention?  :cool:

Hehe, it was like you'd suddenly cloned yourself. The top video started, and you were suddently describing ten events at once. Spooky! :pale:

[foosda]

finished a run where I didn't die or get lost.

1:18:11 RTA, 1:00 IGT

[spoiler]
http://www.twitch.tv/foosda/c/6733623
[/spoiler]

[Digital_Mantra]

finished a run where I didn't die or get lost.

1:18:11 RTA, 1:00 IGT

[spoiler]
http://www.twitch.tv/foosda/c/6733623
[/spoiler]

Very good run to watch! Thanks for sharing.