[SM] Phazon Hack 0.5 (Under Construction)

[RPG Hacker]

Alright, now I know for sure that I'm not imagening things. Just wanted to get back to the game and collect the final Valkyrie Gears, when I noticed this:



See how in the bottom right a big part of the map is missing? And yes, I have actually gone that way many times. In both directions. Also see how the missing part of the map has the shape of a rectangle?
So here is my guess: It's pretty obvious that the maps in Phazon Hack are undoubtly a fair bit bigger than those in the original game. Maybe because of that some of the map data doesn't get transferred to SRAM, due to being out of range? Or maybe it DOES get transferred to SRAM, but it doesn't get loaded back into RAM at game start. Maybe it gets transferred to the wrong part of SRAM?
I know these are just guesses, but considering the error occured at game start and not during the actual game a SRAM error is pretty likely.

Once again: If you need them I can send you .srm- and save state files.

EDIT:
Just to confirm I went to the save file a bit further to the left, saved again and resetted the game. And yes, the same part of the map was cut out again. So yeah, definitely seems to be a SRAM issue.

EDIT:
Just completed the game with almost 10 hours of play time. Really great work I have to say! You did a great job! The end was kinda weird, though:
[spoiler]Are you really supposed to just pass by Ridley without fighting him? Although fighting two bosses in succession is probably really hard that felt kinda out of place.[/spoiler]
I'm not sure, which game I like more: This one or original Super Metroid. I played Super Metroid as a child, so I don't know what my first play through that game was like. However, this one is at least on par with Super Metroid and has an atmosphere that is darker and a lot more tense. It just needs some final touches and some bug fixes, then it could actually be a game by Nintendo themselves.

[bot01]

i would like to see different samus pallettes in 0.4 :)

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

the up coming changes to samus will be in 0.5 this is the reason for early 0.4.

so far:
Bugs and permastuck fixes
added demo
takes longer to get red phazon
if red phazon is skipped it transforms in to weaponized phazon (for 101% ending)
sub credits before final battle
drop bot HP
short opining story

[RPG Hacker]

I just watched a TAS of Super Metroid and now I remember why I had such a problem with the boss room placement in your hack, but not in the original game: In Super Metroid, boss rooms (or at least those of major bosses) were usually guarded by those eye doors, whereas in your hack (if I remember correctly) those doors were used rather randomly. Maybe you could use those exact same doors as a warning for boss rooms?

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

i'm thinking of making copies of the eye door and pointing to new graphics. there will probably be more then one type.

Edit:i wont be working on this for 3 weeks. i think there is like 25 - 30 hours of work left.

[advancedpillow]

Very excited! Thanks for all your hard work making this.  :^_^:

[Zhs2]

The dead space marine just outside Kraid is also a pretty good indicator of what's to come, but sometimes you can't use death, destruction, and rubble most anywhere there is just outside a boss. There's got to be a science behind it. I mean, how did the Eye Doors themselves get where they were in the first place? They had to have had time to grow in before Samus arrived. It's pretty nice to have, but not always easy to come by in the creative sense. Phantoon is a previously deactivated machine in this hack, and Spore Spawn is an activated one on the other side of the room. I'm looking forward to what Red cooks up for all this. :nod:

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

good points. Kraid, Phantoon, Draygon, and Ridley are all mutated x-virus so there doors should have the mutated X doors. and maybe some kind of door attachment for other bosses. Phantoon will be different because its a different type of X. so maybe 35 - 40 hours of work to do

or a simple black door.

[RPG Hacker]

Well, luckily there are still a few more options.

Option 1:
Put map terminals back into the game. They don't even have to uveil big parts of the map, as long as all major save rooms are on it. If you know that a save room is nearby you of course try to get there first before going through any other door. Most official Metroid games also do it. For example: Metroid Fusion always reveals save rooms at navigation termials, which means before you head somewhere you will always know where the next save room is.

Option 2:
A very simple solution: Just put more save rooms in the game. I know that having few save rooms only is your way of making the hack more difficult, but it also means that missing only a single save room can get you into serious trouble already. Remember how Super Metroid did it: It had many save rooms, so even if you missed one you had a high chance of finding another one before getting into any dangerous situations, plus the gap between save rooms (and with that potential of big data loss) was smaller. A good idea is also to always put a save room at the beginning of an area, like close to an elevator... although I think your hack already does that most of the time.

Option 3:
This is another design element used in many official 2D Metroids: Simply don't put bosses on any main route. Make them somewhat hidden. Remember Kraid in Super Metroid, for example. To even get there you had to shoot a very certain spot in the ground to unveil a new path. Now imagine you were rather new to Metroid and weren't quite familiar with its exploration system (in other words: you wouldn't shoot and bomb each wall by instinct and would explore only the main path first). The result would be that you would automatically be led to a save room first, which in the Kraid example is right on the main path, whereas the boss itself is hidden. The only indications to find the boss are a crack in the ground and his room on the map. In Phazon Hack, however, bosses were often at rather seemingless places. For example: Twin Torizo, if I remember correctly, was behind a regular door (or at least not behind a door that at that point in the game would still bother you) that was connected to a regular hall. In fact the same hall a save room was connected to. I even found the save room to be a bit more remote than the boss room. Technically you got past it first, but it had a small walking section before it, which at least in Super Metroid was rather untypical for save rooms. The boss room door, however, was right there. You jumped up a few platforms and there it was. In fact I went in there EXPECTING a save room. Kinda ironic, isn't it? :yay:

Well anyways, as you see, you have a lot of options to make this problem a little bit less bothering. Hope you'll find a way that also pleases yourself!

[Qactis]

I'm playing Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow (DS) right now and there is ALWAYS a save room before the boss, and the door leading to the boss always looks different:

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

i do like the idea of a black door, but looking at that castlevaina door it saiz "come on monkie you know you can turn me into a bubble door, with all my green and gold goodness" and i have to say that door has a point. for the first missile that red center could turn blue and the gold would snake off into the ground. second missile could open green door(or black door). Qactis thanks for that image.

know i'm thinking black door w/phazon vines and red center and no eye door or both. i think it will work with the story, this game takes place after MP1. and the galactic federation has phazon and used it to mutate the X-virus so i think the doors could be powered by phazon and boss activity would cause new phazon powered doors to overload. that doesn't explain the red part, but w/out i think a black and blue door should do the trick.

i know the volcano area may need a save, but it doesn't because of casilevaina and the WS part of SM does this. it something i too don't like about these games so i'll put a save down there.  were else in the game is a saveless situation?

[RPG Hacker]

It's hard to tell by memory. Should have probably made notes while playing.

Anyways, I have this map. Judging by eye all of the save rooms are pretty far apart. Omniom Drift, for example, has only two save rooms in total and they aren't even close to the bosses. Phantoon and Kraid also don't seem to have save rooms nearby.

EDIT:
You know, probably you could also tweak some of the bosses. We all know Gold Torizo is pretty brutal because you face him pretty early and he takes a lot of hits. Some bosses could also be made harder, though. For example that red Torizo (is that supposed to be Trace?) or Kraid. You fight them rather late in the game (or at least that is what I did, probably I went an unoptimised route), so they could have some more HP and probably deal some more damage.

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

EDIT:
You know, probably you could also tweak some of the bosses. We all know Gold Torizo is pretty brutal because you face him pretty early and he takes a lot of hits. Some bosses could also be made harder, though. For example that red Torizo (is that supposed to be Trace?) or Kraid. You fight them rather late in the game (or at least that is what I did, probably I went an unoptimised route), so they could have some more HP and probably deal some more damage.

they are like sub-bosses late in the game, i don't know if there health should be too high, because the reward is just 1/9 of a key. upping the damage is a good idea, i thought they were too week, but don't know if new players could handle more damage. i would have to find someone to test it.

[RPG Hacker]

As long as you put a save room nearby they should be OK. It might take them many tries to beat the bosses, but then again that's the point of a boss to begin with. Also I don't think the title "sub-boss" fits here. To me sub-bosses are bosses in the middle of something, like in the middle of an area, before a "real" boss. Anyways, I think a good difficulty is more important. Currently the hack starts pretty challenging and gets a lot easier at the end (except for Ridley maybe, but in the current version you don't have to beat him after all).

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

thats the thing i like about Rogue Squadron for 64. it got hard in the middle when it fit the story then it got easier. and it was way cool to take it easy the rest of the game as a reward for the difficult stage.

but in the current version you don't have to beat him after all

that was an over look in final test, i open doors like that when i test run save point to save point to many times. also i've never landed in the wall in Ridleys room, so that got over looked too. i think i fixed all the bugs but i'll double check when i'm done.

[RPG Hacker]

thats the thing i like about Rogue Squadron for 64. it got hard in the middle when it fit the story then it got easier. and it was way cool to take it easy the rest of the game as a reward for the difficult stage.

I don't know... to me that is kinda broken game design (that is unfortunately present even in my full budget games, especially RPGs). I guess it's also a matter of taste. Personally I prefer hard bonus stages as a reward over easy bonus stages. Of course there should be easy sections between hard parts, but overall I think a good difficulty curve is one that always raises and has its maximum at the final boss.

that was an over look in final test, i open doors like that when i test run save point to save point to many times. also i've never landed in the wall in Ridleys room, so that got over looked too. i think i fixed all the bugs but i'll double check when i'm done.

What about the green acid? Are you actually supposed to beat Ridley from within there or are there any platforms I didn't see? That seemed kinda weird to me, especially since you don't get to recover after the Draygon fight (unless you use Crystal Flash).

Also a story-related thing: You said that the game takes place after Metroid Prime 1 and that the Galactic Federation is using Phazon to mutate X, but there is an inconsistency: Technically X wasn't discovered by the Federation until the beginning of Metroid Fusion (when Samus was infected), which is the last game in the timeline. So they can't possibly be experimenting on X at this point of the timeline already. You could move Phazon Hack to the very end of the timeline, but that also wouldn't make much sense because Phazon was completely removed at the end of Metroid Prime 3. This means the story of Phazon Hack could only take place in an alternate universe, unless you change the X to something else.

[Quietus]

As for the story inconsistency, he can really choose where he wants it to go.  Saying that 'it falls in this gap' doesn't really mean that it has to fit with any existing story, and every hack comes with an implied 'story by me'.

For Ridley:
[spoiler]You did know that the glowing blob in the middle heals you, right?[/spoiler]

[RPG Hacker]

As for the story inconsistency, he can really choose where he wants it to go.  Saying that 'it falls in this gap' doesn't really mean that it has to fit with any existing story, and every hack comes with an implied 'story by me'.

Well, yeah, that's exactly what I meant by alternate universe. I just meant that it doesn't completely fit into the official timeline.

For Ridley:
[spoiler]You did know that the glowing blob in the middle heals you, right?[/spoiler]

No, I didn't know that. I'll pay some more attention when I play that part again.

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

i had the federations secret weapons development in mind. kind of like other m, were the federation knows there is secret illegal weapons being made, but not what type of work is being done. SR217 is the closest oxygen environment to SR388, so that research can be done there  by humans.

i would think the the federation would know more then space pirates and have already been testing on metroids way before samus' encounter.  and the only way they could make there work public would be to make legal weapons. but bio-weapons are illegal the metroid universe. other m made the federation seem like it has a dark side.  the only thing i don't think that fits well is phazon on SR217 how did it get there.

that i'm on the subject i should add to the story and say they fled in a bottle ship. at the end of the game dark samus kills the main X-roid on the last escape ship and destroys the two last mutations. i think this could fit, first the bottle ship hits SR388 then zebes.

[RPG Hacker]

This makes me wonder: Are you actually playing Dark Samus in Phazon Hack, or just a dark (Phazon infected) version of Samus herself (like in MP3)? Because I can't really get any sense into Dark Samus being the protagonist. To me she always seemed like a monster who kills by instinct without too much thought, especially in Metroid Prime 3. It seems kinda odd for her to be a savior in this game.

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

as Dark samus, inspired by the end of Prime were MP has the phazon suit and becomes dark samus. and it behaves like it did in MP2, collecting phazon to become more powerful.

[RPG Hacker]

That explains why she collects items and Phazon Particles. But what about the Valkyre X? Why would she go there and destroy it? Are the mutated X such a big threat to her or something like that? That would make sense at least. In fact, kinda reminds me of how SA-X tried to destroy the Metroids in Metroid Fusion.

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

SM Ph 0.4 has a one screen text in the opining that tells about SR217 and dark samus seeking out a threat.

[RPG Hacker]

Sounds great! Do you need any help with anything? I've never hacked Super Metroid itself, but I have decent knowledge of SNES ASM and have also written some (more or less advanced) patches for Super Mario World before.

[Qactis]

http://jathys.zophar.net/supermetroid/kejardon/index.html this is where you're gonna wanna start RPG Hacker for Super Metroid