i recently found this website, and i always wondered if this was possible

[xXSoapXx]

i always as a child playing super metroid, wondered if a coop mode was possible, i always wanted my older brother to play with me, but it always ended up with him playing the "easy areas" and leaving me with the bosses to handle on my own and seeing some of the amazing modifications to this game such as adding in multiple SA-X or adding in new bosses, (i found this site thanks to a user named Metaquarius and the terrifying sa-x video) i was wondering if its possible to add in 2 samus on screen different colors of course that run together taking down mother brain. i know there are A LOT of limitations such as both players cant leave the same screen or things that i cant even fathom within the games codes, but im curious as if this is possible, and if it is how crazy some of the hacks would be seeing 2 speed runners working together to take down the missions at hand. also sorry if this was a completely dumb idea but it was something i always wanted since 1994

[TheAnonymousUser]

i always as a child playing super metroid, wondered if a coop mode was possible, i always wanted my older brother to play with me, but it always ended up with him playing the "easy areas" and leaving me with the bosses to handle on my own and seeing some of the amazing modifications to this game such as adding in multiple SA-X or adding in new bosses, (i found this site thanks to a user named Metaquarius and the terrifying sa-x video) i was wondering if its possible to add in 2 samus on screen different colors of course that run together taking down mother brain. i know there are A LOT of limitations such as both players cant leave the same screen or things that i cant even fathom within the games codes, but im curious as if this is possible, and if it is how crazy some of the hacks would be seeing 2 speed runners working together to take down the missions at hand. also sorry if this was a completely dumb idea but it was something i always wanted since 1994

We tried, and failed (due to technical limitations)

[altoiddealer]

That was as far as I can tell a full full hack though, that aimed to use a brand new map and gameplay.

It would be amazing for a hack that just added 2 player capability

[begrimed]

It'd probably be easier to just perfectly recreate Super Metroid on a modern engine than to try something that works within the hardware limits of the SNES. No more than 5 of Samus' projectiles are allowed on-screen at once for instance, so you'd have to reduce firing speed and bomb usage by nearly half, then there's stuff like if you both shot a missile at a red door at exactly the same time, only one if those hits would register, same goes for shooting enemies. In general, things would need to be slowed down considerably. Joe & Mactroid.

[Quote58]

Coop is certainly possible, just instead of duplicating samus you would need to code and extremely complex enemy (similar to metaks sa-x). A deathmatch kinda thing could happen, it would just take someone with the skill and time to make it happen.

[xXSoapXx]

i was thinking along the lines of something like contra for coop, both players need to move into an area together so on and so forth saving would require both players to enter the tube, item pick up can be the same way and for the weapon limitation, i wouldnt even begin to figure out how this works, maybe make all the beams longer so they hit the enemy multiple times like the plasma beam, power beam shoots out like the plasma but does only 2 hits of damage per line, and limit each samus shoot 2 projectiles each so a total of 4 projectiles on screen but each samus can only do 4 points of damage per limit, then make each beam do 1 point of damage more so power + charge does 3pts of damage power+charge+spazer=4 points of damage etc. the downfall to this would be all the beams have the same texture when firing just different colors. im pretty sure if there can be 2 SA-x firing at you at the same time we could get 2 samus to run around zebes in a coop mode now that could work gloriously

power beam = ~~
power beam + charge (charged) = ~~~ (uncharged) = ~~
                                                      ~~~                         ~~
power + charge + spazer (charged) =  ~~~     (uncharged) = ~~
                                                      ~~~                         ~~

weapons like plasma could work differently, since it already hits and enemy multiple times we could use the hyper beam palette and make it green and plasma wave combo could look like it already does, just make it look always charged, then the charged version of plasma could be one giant wavy beam thing... Damn my brain i cant get my thoughts out any clearer than this lol

[Quote58]

i was thinking along the lines of something like contra for coop, both players need to move into an area together so on and so forth saving would require both players to enter the tube, item pick up can be the same way and for the weapon limitation, i wouldnt even begin to figure out how this works, maybe make all the beams longer so they hit the enemy multiple times like the plasma beam, power beam shoots out like the plasma but does only 2 hits of damage per line, and limit each samus shoot 2 projectiles each so a total of 4 projectiles on screen but each samus can only do 4 points of damage per limit, then make each beam do 1 point of damage more so power + charge does 3pts of damage power+charge+spazer=4 points of damage etc. the downfall to this would be all the beams have the same texture when firing just different colors. im pretty sure if there can be 2 SA-x firing at you at the same time we could get 2 samus to run around zebes in a coop mode now that could work gloriously

power beam = ~~
power beam + charge (charged) = ~~~ (uncharged) = ~~
                                                      ~~~                         ~~
power + charge + spazer (charged) =  ~~~     (uncharged) = ~~
                                                      ~~~                         ~~

weapons like plasma could work differently, since it already hits and enemy multiple times we could use the hyper beam palette and make it green and plasma wave combo could look like it already does, just make it look always charged, then the charged version of plasma could be one giant wavy beam thing... Damn my brain i cant get my thoughts out any clearer than this lol

None of this would actually be necessary because the other samus would be made from an enemy, and therefor it's projectiles would be enemy projectiles, which get processed separately from samus' projectiles.
Anyway, coop would be much more work and much more difficult, and much less fun than a hack made to be a 2 player deathmatch kind of thing. For smooth coop you'd really want to just make a new engine in a modern language. But for a multiplayer hack, this could definitely be done.

[TobiMikami]

The idea of using an engine would probably be the most viable idea for a project like this. Even if it was by some chance possible to make this happen in Super Metroid, it would be a much longer, difficult, and painful process in comparison. Plus if you take a pre-existing engine and add a 2-Player function to it you can re-release it as a 2-Player Metroid engine and be able to spawn off multiple games with much more variation than just vanilla SM with two players. Just a thought.

[LSD001]

You would have to make it from the ground up using a differnt engine, Super's engine isn't designed to handle 2 players so if you wanted Co-Op then you would have to go down the route of making it your self. Just a side note the Co-Op side of it would be cool if it worked like Dark Souls, Summoning people in to help you out with either bosses or an entire area, also opens up the possibility of PvP

[theuprising]

On a side note, I stumbled upon an old SMW hack, and was immediately blown away as there were more modifications to the vanilla game than the most advanced SM hack. Atm even the most well known and comprehensive hacks are recreations of the original, wheras the best SMW hacks are practically different games, for instance I haven't ever seen new power-ups, other than SM:R where abilities were just split into parts.

I think its simply b/c the SMW hacking community is far more popular and thus further along, even though I would think there is far more potential in SM hacks, just look at all the recent indies, a huge amount of them hearken back to metroid not mario.

[Quote58]

If you haven't seen new powerups you haven't looked very hard.

[theuprising]

If you haven't seen new powerups you haven't looked very hard.

Hmm well the most "advanced" hack I played was Phazon, and a lot of it was a graphics swap rather than a functionality change (for instance normal missles are changed to Super Missles for whatever reason). Are you talking about Hyper Metroid? I haven't tried that yet.

[Quote58]

I suggest you try looking in the patches section of the main site. Or the hacks section. Really just anything from the last couple of contests or general hacks released recentally. Hyper metroid doesn't have any new powerups iirc, but lots of other hacks do.

[Lunaria]

It's also worth noting that the SMW engine is quite a bit simpler, and the community is heck of a lot larger.

That being said though, quite a bit of the changes that get produced are crud and often fail to create enjoyable gameplay in the first place. And, let's be frank here, most SMW hacks either boils down to either:
A. Pretty standard mario stuff,
B. Item babysitting,
C. Kaizo.


If you're just going to take a crap on the community, please leave your bias at the door.

[theuprising]

Haha no reason to get defensive I don't mean any offense, I don't think its anyone's fault they have a larger community with a more flexible engine, but I don't think you are giving them enough credit, the stuff they can do with it is just... wow.

I must admit though I was out for about a year and back then everyone told me nothing new was happening.

[Quote58]

Read this, then tell me how amazing smw hacking is compared to us.
http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3054.0.html

[FPzero]

Read this, then tell me how amazing smw hacking is compared to us.
http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,3054.0.html

With enough time and effort you can do anything to a game.

They are two very different games though, I feel like direct comparisons are a little unfair.  X-Fusion looks amazing, yes, but I also saw some amazing things done in the most recent SMWCentral level design contest in terms of overworld events and effects.  Each game can still amaze in different ways.