Metroid Fusion Repalette

[MollyAncalime]

A small hack that retools some of Fusion's less appealing assets. The primary changes include complete recoloration of all tilesets and several objects to be less jarringly saturated as necessary, as well as repalettes of Samus herself (no more vomit Varia!) and some enemies. Red lines have been removed from outlines and certain areas look entirely different to help create a more tense atmosphere.

There are very few rooms that have actually been changed aside from this. The mandatory missile tank and the pre-Arachnus energy tank have been moved from their original spot to elsewhere in the same room to make them more easily skipped, and one Save Station in NOC has been removed to make things a bit tenser and difficult there. The hack also uses Biospark's IBJ/Single Wall Jump tweak and changes a couple of rooms to accommodate. Otherwise, any remaining room changes are small surprises.



Credit for many of the room changes and the general idea for the hack goes to Doc Anon and JKMaxx of the Metroid Community Discord! The original hack was sadly abandoned but I did get permission to use everything that was available and expand on it.

[C-Dude]

I'm looking forward to trying this.  I've been working on something similar (with a Samus sprite replacement) and I'd like to see how you addressed some of the problems.

I found that the Biospark wall jump has the most impact on TRO.  My solution was to reconnect doors that should have been event-transitioned in room D and to cap off the vine-infested shafts with diffusion morphball tunnels.  I'm curious to see how you handled these spots, or if you found others that are troubling.

I see you made the zombies fleshy too!  They're certainly spookier that way.

EDIT: Played up through the Etecoon Rescue.  My thoughts so far...

Main Deck
[spoiler]+Palette is incredible.
+Addition of the goo piles on the way to the navigation room was a nice touch.
+You made the zombies stronger.  They take multiple shots with the base beam.  That actually makes them more frightening, bravo!

=You didn't change the color of Samus's suit in the Varia monologue.  Can't blame you... no matter how hard I look I can't seem to find those palettes either.  I think they're compressed or hard-coded.

-Didn't like the goo piles near sub-zero containment.  It's more meaningful if real enemies don't show up until Adam talks about the X.
-You hid the energy tank TOO well.  Couldn't find it; suppose I'll check again with a power bomb later.
[/spoiler]
Sector 1 (SRX)
[spoiler]+Missile Gate X in the room with the suckers is just MEAN!

-It's very... red.  I think the animated palette for the atmospheric stabilizer event needs to be reversed (red to dark gray instead of dark gray to red), so the dark color becomes the background once the rooms are secured.[/spoiler]
Sector 2 (TRO)
[spoiler]+That change in the SA-X encounter was inspired.  Bonus points.
+Inclusion of the ceiling swoop enemy was good.  Some of the rooms they're in are a little glitchy, but they were a welcome addition to the zone.

=The vines are yellow.  They look kind of thirsty, actually.  Could have been your intent; I am unsure.

-You've got wall-jumping enabled, but you didn't enable the early power bombs patch.  As such, it's possible to get power bombs and have them not update the UI.  To fix this, you need to close off that section of the room in TRO-2F with power bomb blocks (like you did above to stop early access to the spore boss)[/spoiler]
Sector 3 (PYR)
[spoiler]+The boiler room looks really good.  Not sure to what extent you modified its palette in particular, but it's a huge improvement.

-There's an animated palette error that's causing blocks in PYR to flicker yellow.  I believe this error is related to changes you made to the level 3 doors.  You can fix this by changing the tiles on the afflicted blocks; they're mostly on the edges of the room in the lab and the boiler control room.[/spoiler]
Sector 4 (AQA)
[spoiler]=I didn't notice any palette changes in this area.  If you did make changes, I think they're a little too subtle to notice.[/spoiler]
Sector 5 (ARC)
[spoiler]=I didn't notice any palette changes in this area.  If you did make changes, I think they're a little too subtle to notice (One exception: Frozen-X.  See Sector 6)[/spoiler]
Sector 6 (NOC)
[spoiler]+MAGNIFIQUE!  The palette is incredible, the rooms are legitimately dark, and your changes are fantastic.
+The Frozen-X actually look cold instead of just... blue.  It's a massive improvement.
+That save room... wow.  I thought maybe you were just going to put up a wall.  Color me impressed.
+The change to the lab by the elevator is great too.  It gives the impression there were still scientists working in the sectors when the disaster broke loose.  I really like it.

-What happened to the glow worms?  Did you have to remove them to increase the darkness, or was it a design choice?[/spoiler]
In General
[spoiler]+You managed to make Varia look good while maintaining its intended color scheme (Green-Pink).  Color me impressed.

=You didn't update Varia Samus's saving or X-Absorb palettes (I forgot to check the charge beam palettes).  I don't know if this was intentional.

-Ghidora X, the boss door guard, has a strange purple outline.  If you can, I'd recommend darkening it.[/spoiler]

Overall, it's a pleasing graphical update to the game.  It's got a few problems, but in whole it's a huge improvement.  Your changes to the main deck and to Sector 6 are particularly resonant.

[MollyAncalime]

Thanks so much for the feedback! For next update I planned to look at changing up the dialogue in the game to be more concise, and I will definitely look at your suggestions and critiques!

So for Main Deck's goo piles before the X breakout, the intent was to create curiosity since they aren't hostile at that point. However, I'm not so sure that works well, since people who play this aren't exactly going to be surprised by seeing them and wonder what they are. The Varia Suit portrait I simply could not find but I was thinking of trying again. The E-Tank I'll probably move again since on second thought making people come back to that room for it isn't very nice or streamlined.

For SRX I completely forgot about its background, I was intending to return to it but at the time I was anxious about fiddling with animated BGs and skipped over it. For TRO, I really just need to pay more attention to the added freedom. Do you maybe know of any other points to keep an eye out for?
For PYR I didn't even notice the flickering tiles! thanks for the catch! For AQA the change is in the habitat area. The screenshot attached to the patch does show the changes, it's quite a big difference if you compare it to vanilla. For ARC it's much more of a natural icy color than a cartoony cyan, now, basically the same change made to the blue X.
For NOC the glow worms are replaced with Geemers, which were criminally underused in vanilla; they'd pose more of a threat than the glow worms, which were also hideously paletted anyway. I can restore them though!
I will definitely redo Gadora-X and I do need to fix up the remaining Varia palettes, I've been struggling with finding their offsets. Although, I thought the X absorption palette was the same across all suits?

Thanks so much for the feedback again!

[C-Dude]

The zombies are great in Main Deck 12.  I think they really add to the atmosphere of terror.  My only problem was their addition to Main Deck 14, because they become active enemies before you speak with Adam about the X.  As for the glow worms, I agree the geemers are more interesting.  Still, I think the glow worms should be in at least a room or two (unless they work like the Super Metroid fireflies, in which case their exclusion adds to the sense of fear in that zone).

As for level design around the increased mobility...
TRO is definitely the most problematic, because of all the event-based phasing.
TRO's biggest problem rooms are TRO D (pre-Hi Jump tall shaft), TRO 14 (pre Plasma Beam boss approach), TRO 20 (live vines shaft), TRO 23 (dead vines shaft, needs changes if you change TRO 20), TRO 22 (post Plasma Beam boss approach, needs changes if you change TRO 14), TRO 2E (post-Hi Jump tall shaft, needs changes if you change TRO D), and TRO 2F (which you mostly fixed).

TRO D and TRO 2E
Vanilla TRO D has two dead doors up above, one that should go to the room with the rippers and the power bomb (TRO 32), and the sector exit which should connect to TRO 1C.  Unfortunately, if you fix those doors to properly connect to and from D, you have to make at least one of them an open shaft (too many doors on that screen), you have to add event-based connections to take you to room 2E after you get High Jump [Event 19], and you have to lock Hatch 1 of the recharge room (TRO 1) for events 16, 17, and 18.

Alternatively, if you change the door leading to TRO 32 into a yellow hatch, the player will never be able to open it before getting the high jump, hiding the fact that it is inert.  You can block the dummy door at the top with vines which you can then retract in TRO 2E, making it look like the spore spawn is reacting to the death of the other Core X in the zone.

TRO 20 and TRO 23
In Vanilla this room is problematic because it's accessible with a wall jump or infinite bomb jump from TRO 2F (the techno room), or from TRO 0 if you get power bombs early.  Fortunately you've already closed it off with a power bomb wall, so you really don't need to do anything with this shaft.  I mention it mainly because my blockade for TRO 20 used diffusion morph tunnels, which I couldn't fit into TRO 0.

TRO 14 and TRO 22
This room is particularly problematic.  The last upgrade you get before the blackout event is the Diffusion Missile.  However, there's nothing stopping the player from being naughty, going to TRO instead of the main elevator, and then picking a fight with Spore Torizo.  As such, blocking the room with diffusion missile morph tunnels will not prevent the game-breaking sequence break.  Instead, we must come up with a way to block the room that requires the space jump.  Unfortunately, infinite bomb jumping and wall jumping make Space Jump pretty superfluous.

The only obstacle I can conceive that would effectively block off access to the boss room before the proper ability is acquired is crumble blocks.  Specifically, setting up crumble blocks like crumble city (instant reformation).  If you remove most of the vine shot blocks and make the floor beneath them into instant-reform crumble blocks, there's no feasible way to reach the boss door without a tool-assist (in which case, they deserve the bugs!).  Even a horizontal bomb jump would fail, because it'd have to perfectly transition into a wall jump.

TRO 2F
This room is shared between both first visit TRO and second visit TRO.  As you are aware, wall jumping lets you get into the overgrown half of TRO too early.  You blocked the way with a power bomb wall, which is a good way to handle the problem (alas, if only sequence breaking worked properly in Fusion).  The other problem with the room, though, is that it contains a power bomb upgrade that does not require a power bomb to reach.  To fix this, switch the clip data of the shot blocks to power bomb blocks, so that players can't break into the area with the red slimes and get the power-up.  Alternatively, you can leave the shot blocks but add some extra blocks around the power bomb that require a power bomb blast to break.

...I thought there was also an event transition missing in Vanilla Main Deck 3A (save room adjacent to the engine core, connecting to the non-vined engine core after you have the plasma beam), but I can't seem to find it in the connection editor.

___
I just double-checked, and you're right about the absorption palettes.  Sorry 'bout that, my bad.
Other Varia offsets (found from https://datacrystal.romhacking.net/wiki/Metroid_Fusion:ROM_map):
28e61c- Loading (4 rows)
28ed7c- Charge Beam Charge (4 rows)
28ef7c- Wide Beam Charge (4 rows)
28f17c- Plasma Beam Charge (4 rows)
28f37c- Wave Beam Charge (4 rows)
28f57c- Ice Beam Charge (4 rows)
28f77c- Saving Varia (4 rows)

[MetroidNerd#9001]

I decided to try this out, and it was quite interesting. I like most of the new palettes, and some of the other tweaks are also neat. I found a few oddities, however, which will be shown here.

For some reason, some doors won't glow even though they are openable
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Putting an actual picture to the PYR glowing thingy
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Why would you put this energy tank in a place you can't get to when you first get here? You either need to come back separately with power bombs way off the beaten path or with Screw Attack at the end of the game.
[spoiler][/spoiler]
On another note, why are there 3 energy tanks in this room?

Other weird glowy things in NOC
[spoiler][/spoiler]

An odd effect in the jungly rooms in TRO
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Other than that, I really like the new palettes. See if you can make new palettes for the other areas too, so the whole game looks different.

[MollyAncalime]

Alright, the patch has been updated to fix everything reported! Big thanks to both of you!
The only thing I ended up disregarding is the glow worms. I can't add them to Sector 4 without removing the geemers again. I may, however, end up swapping them into the Main Deck where the Geemers used to be, so that they see some use. I also didn't change the yellow vines in TRO to green because I felt it'd end up being too much green, and they were that yellowish hue in vanilla. I might end up making them a deep green while making the ground more of that sickly yellowish green instead.
I also implemented the text changes to shorten things, so let me know what you think of those!

Next version won't be for a while but I intend to try to change the Varia cutscene art, possibly change more enemy palettes, and any other cool suggestions anyone may have.

[elol]

I do Know its a download error or its a room error but i Star the game everything looks idéntical to metroid fusión nothing changed.

[Cpt.Glitch]

I second this. After applying the patch none of the palettes are changed. Strange.

[MollyAncalime]

Welp, I managed to use the original rom as the source file, so the patch created would reverse all the changes. lol

Here's a fixed patch, I also went ahead and swapped the glow worms into the Geemers' old spot in the main deck. I've also applied Phazar's patch for the equipment screen to change Wide to Spazer, and changed the in game text accordingly. I've decided to do this because the game originally says 'Wide Beam Recovered', which would imply it's just Spazer renamed. Since Samus Returns does call it Spazer and not Wide Beam, it's only reasonable to keep the Spazer name if this is an upgrade Samus is recovering, and not a new one she's never had before.

[C-Dude]

Played it all the way through this time.  It really is an excellent change to the palette.  That underwater AQA... just... wow.  Would you be adverse to others using it in their own Fusion hacks (with credit, of course!)?

There were a few problems in the late game, mostly with the event system.  For some reason, once patched your version of the rom wants multi-event rooms to be listed in reverse order in the connection editor.  That is, the one elevator room to navigation needs the SA-X door event in the connection editor first, and then the missile door event.  My guess is that it's looking for the first true statement and going with it.
As a result, version 2.1.1 is not beatable, because you can never connect to room 55 to fight the SA-X.

I took the liberty (apologies) of fixing this event problem, as well as the event problem at the reactor core which prevented the weed-infested reactor from displaying.  I've attached it below as "Repalette v1-03 (MollyAncalime).ips".

[C-Dude]

There were also a few slight wrap-around errors with the text changes (as well as a missing text event, wherein you wall-jump and bomb the wall in AQA to get back to the Nav room after beating Serris but before lowering the water), most likely caused by the down arrow that's added when a call of [NEXT] is made.  I've tried to correct these text errors for you, and have attached the patch below as "Repalette v1-04 (MollyAncalime).ips".  I... didn't thoroughly test this one, though.  Hopefully I haven't overstepped my bounds in doing so; I really like your changes and I wanted to help.

[MollyAncalime]

Not in the slightest! I really appreciate the help a lot. You're more than free to use the patch however you'd like:) do you mind if I ads your patch to the main post?

[C-Dude]

Not in the slightest! I really appreciate the help a lot. You're more than free to use the patch however you'd like:) do you mind if I ads your patch to the main post?

Sure, if you like.  It's your hack, after all!   :grin:

The v1-03 has been tested, and should work as intended from start to finish.  ...I realized I wanted to unlock some doors on the main deck, but it's not a big deal.  I also forgot to fix the power-out event, so using the main elevator after the power-out will always lead to the ventilation shafts and sub-zero containment.  I also thought about adding a yellow hatch to connect the elevator rooms of Sector 5 and 6 on the main deck (as I have on my practice hack) but I didn't get around to it before I made the patch.

The v1-04 patch hasn't been tested, though.  MAGE's text editor did an auto-repoint for the two Navigation text edits I added (the "To Pump Room" long and short phrases, which were formerly just 'EMPTY'), so I'm not sure if that broke something.  If MAGE automatically locates free space, then it probably didn't, but I didn't have time to run the whole game again.

[D1W3]

Hello

I'm playing the hack and there's a graphical error on the end cinematic, just a heads up, and the text is very slightly cut off on the first elevator texts

[Xyifer12]

I'm glad my zombie recolor is being put to good use, that's a nice surprise to chance upon!

[albert v.]

it's very nice that someone have finally made this, i really like the result thanks,
those screenshots looks nice!

[sylandro]

Is there a version of this hack that does not include the level edits? The palette changes look interesting, but i'd like to retain vanilla gameplay.

[Steel Sparkle]

Maybe it's because I was using MGba but the end was bugged and I had to use debug to finish the final mission. Otherwise I think it was a fun little thing to play though.

[Cpt.Glitch]

It's not just you. I could not fight the SA-X, and had to hex edit to the credits. I was using VBA RR.

[C-Dude]

Maybe it's because I was using MGba but the end was bugged and I had to use debug to finish the final mission. Otherwise I think it was a fun little thing to play though.

It's not just you. I could not fight the SA-X, and had to hex edit to the credits. I was using VBA RR.

May I ask which version of the patch you were using?  Was it v2.1.1 from the first post, or the event repair further along in the discussion?  I know the latter is numbered wrong (they should actually be 2.1.3 and 2.1.4 respectively), but I don't think Molly has released another patch yet to incorporates those fixes.

[Steel Sparkle]

I used the patch from the first post, its where people usually upload the next version of their hack when it receives changes

[MollyAncalime]

Finally got the chance to update the main post with the fixed patch (thanks again C-Dude!) and also changed a few enemy palettes.

[Xyifer12]

I still have my Terminous folder full of assets from when i was part of the project, i can send it to you if you want. There are some graphics i might not have sent Doc, i made them back before MSR released but never had much reason to give them to him.

[FelixWright]

So it would appear that this hack has been completed, and submitted to the main site!  :yay:
I am disappointed that this hack does more than just recoloring (changes some rooms and adds IBJ/SWJ) but I will still give it a shot soon enough.