Release: Sequence Breaking Fusion

[Kazuto]

It's finally here: Metroid Fusion with Sequence Breaking!

   

   

This is plain old, standard Metroid Fusion, with the added benefit of being able to sequence break. To accomplish this, single-wall jumping and infinite bomb jumping have been added (credits to biospark for those). The event sequence exists the same as it does in vanilla Fusion, but it's now possible to trigger some events out of order, or to skip over others entirely.

I've tested things pretty thoroughly over the past month or so, but please post if you encounter any bugs. One note: you will need either Hi-Jump or Power Bombs to leave Sector 2 after getting Bombs, as the tall room outside of the SA-X encounter does not change until you have one of these two items. The early form of the room, with the Zeros crawling around in it, does not have functional doors at the top. This is a carryover from the vanilla game, and I opted not to do any level edits in the initial release. I may change this in a future update.

Special thanks to biospark, Cpt.Glitch, interdpth, P.Jboy, and anyone else who contributed to the state of GBA hacking before I got involved. Without documentation by you guys, this would still be a pipe dream for me.

[JamieWebb16]

I've been waiting for a patch like this for a longtime now! Being able to get actual upgrades more early than intended was such a joyride for me. I said it in my review on the main site, but I'll
say it again, 10/10 would sequence break it again!  :yay:

[SirAileron]

This is pretty monumental. If you do end up adding door functionality to rooms that are normally inaccessible, this could be even more of a definitive Fusion experience than it already is. :O

[RT-55J]

This was great.

I look forward to this being used as a basis for new hacks and randomizers and such, and also to whatever improvements you might have in mind.

[spoiler=I don't want to be an "Ideas Guy", so I'm hiding my suggestions in a spoilerpop to give me immunity.]Ideas that deviate from the original game but hopefully wouldn't necessitate any "major" changes:

• Remove the cold air knockback effect.
• Get rid of the event doors that lock you into areas after being briefed.
• Normalize Core-X damage so they die after a certain number of missiles, regardless of your missile type (or not, idk).
• Lemme wall jump after getting the space jump please  :T_T:

Also, you're probably aware of this already, but I didn't save the animals in the habitation deck in my speedrun. I checked on them before heading to the second NOC mission, and it looks like they saved themselves. It might be interesting in a randomizer to make rescuing them required, and to put them in the data room pool or something. (idk i'm just spitballing at this point)

Ideas that would likely require massive analysis and major refactoring of the level design:

• Make security doors destroyable with certain weapons (I mean, if the SA-X can...)
• Make screw attack blocks destroyable by power bombs (and maybe vice versa)

That second idea is particularly appealing to me, because it would literally crack open the game by giving you access to the tube network between areas super early. I mean, you'd theoretically be able to fight Ridley as soon as you get the PBs (though I'm not sure you'd be able to escape). It would at least be a decent idea for an "open mode" randomizer, imo.
[/spoiler]

[Kazuto]

This is pretty monumental. If you do end up adding door functionality to rooms that are normally inaccessible, this could be even more of a definitive Fusion experience than it already is. :O

That door thing is actually just a matter of, I didn't wanna do any level edits on the initial release. The IPS patch as it is exists entirely within the confines of the space of the original game. Adding doors would've cut into free space, which I wanted to avoid for the initial release. But I might fix that in a version 1.1 or some such.

This was great.

I look forward to this being used as a basis for new hacks and randomizers and such, and also to whatever improvements you might have in mind.

So don't hold your breath, but Fusion Randomizer is the next project I plan to jump into. I realize there's still a lot of arbitrary restrictions in ^this version of Fusion, and I'm okay with that, because that was kind of the scope of the project. Assuming I succeed with it, the Randomizer will be a lot more open. Nav rooms would still be there, but I'm undecided how to utilize the messages in them. You will not be locked into/out of Sectors other than the door security levels (which would be something you need to find). Since Screw Attack could be obtained outside of Ridley, the blockades will likely stay as they are, but there's probably some places that some things will be opened up, for the sake of reducing how much linearity is likely.

Like I said, don't hold your breath just yet, but I'm definitely already planning for an even more open Fusion experience. :wink:

Thanks for the feedback everyone, glad y'all are having fun with it!

[SirAileron]

Yeah, I figured additional doors would take up additional space. Either way, the fact that the event system is unchained already makes this one of the most significant modifications to the entirety of the fusion hacking scene. If it can act as a base patch and doesn't actually break anything else within the vanilla game, it certainly significantly lowers the entry barrier for prospective Fusion hackers.

Fusion may have been my least favorite among the 2D games, but I'm glad to see it getting this kind of love.

[Nicholas Steel]

Assuming the Randomizer comes to fruition, the things I'd look forward to the most is the ability to play an unrandomized copy with all the navigation room cutscenes & dialogue text either removed or preferably sped up, and Sector Specific Music to be retained during final item clean up (instead of switching to a single tune that plays no matter where you are). Optionally enable immediate use of sequence broken items.

Good job with the patch!

[Kazuto]

Assuming the Randomizer comes to fruition, the things I'd look forward to the most is the ability to play an unrandomized copy with all the navigation room cutscenes & dialogue text either removed or preferably sped up

So I'm still working on this patch, because there's a couple of lingering bugs, but one of the additions that's coming is pressing B to skip through dialogs. :D Randomizer will ideally be pretty minimalist on the amount of text that's needed to be seen.

Thanks for the interest!

[chonfx]

Is it possible to edit the dialogues and make them shorter? Obviously being able to skip through them quickly would be a god send, but I wonder is it possible to just rewrite them. Make them super basic. Basically like the Zero Mission statues where you go to the Navigation booth and it's like, "we need you to go to this sector there's X here and this item will help" bam done. Or even have it so the nav booth doesn't fill the map out. I'm so happy to see this game is getting some hacks. It's probably my least favorite, but adding one wall wall jumping back in is a huge improvement. Will definitely keep an eye out on this mod and any updates.

[FelixWright]

Is it possible to edit the dialogues and make them shorter? Obviously being able to skip through them quickly would be a god send, but I wonder is it possible to just rewrite them. [...]

This is something you can easily do yourself by using the text editor in MAGE. In fact there are "hacks" out there that do just that. Once Kazuto's skippable dialogues become a thing though that probably won't be important. Currently it loads full sentences instantly but I believe skipping the whole dialogue with, say, START is in the cards: https://youtu.be/tID1xSFYbS8

[Kazuto]

Is it possible to edit the dialogues and make them shorter? Obviously being able to skip through them quickly would be a god send, but I wonder is it possible to just rewrite them. Make them super basic. Basically like the Zero Mission statues where you go to the Navigation booth and it's like, "we need you to go to this sector there's X here and this item will help" bam done. Or even have it so the nav booth doesn't fill the map out. I'm so happy to see this game is getting some hacks. It's probably my least favorite, but adding one wall wall jumping back in is a huge improvement. Will definitely keep an eye out on this mod and any updates.

So the goal with this project was to leave the dialog in-tact, as one of the aims was to still allow the player to play through the normal event sequence if they so choose. But as Cosmic linked, I am working on text speedups to let you skip through the dialogs. They'll still be present, there will still be ones you're forced to encounter, but with B-button mashing, you can get through most dialogs in a couple of seconds, which is barely a hindrance. That, along with some more possibilities for breaking, will be in the next (likely final) version.

[Nicholas Steel]

Awesome, can't wait.

[Wildfire]

I'm not sure if this is still being worked on, but does this come built in with Beam/Missile stacking made by biospark? If not, is there anyway for this to become compatible with them in the future? I ask this, because when i tried applying those 2 patch along side with it, 2 things happened.
1. In the first boss room, if a missile hits the wall, ground, or ceiling, the game resets.
2. You are trapped in a room, unable to go any further, as doing so, freezes the game

[Kazuto]

I'm not sure if this is still being worked on, but does this come built in with Beam/Missile stacking made by biospark? If not, is there anyway for this to become compatible with them in the future? I ask this, because when i tried applying those 2 patch along side with it, 2 things happened.
1. In the first boss room, if a missile hits the wall, ground, or ceiling, the game resets.
2. You are trapped in a room, unable to go any further, as doing so, freezes the game

Right: I'm not surprised that patching that patch over the hack would break it, because both of us made modifications to the section of code dealing with beams (and missiles). By adding bio's patch, you overwrote a bunch of code, which is what led to the weird behavior.

This hack does not incorporate biospark's patch per se, but it does essentially the same thing. Because sequence breaking is possible, making the beams stackable was a requirement for the hack.

As an aside, I am indeed still working on a future update to this hack. But the functionality you're looking for with the weapons is already there.

[Wildfire]

Alright, thank you for answering my question, and i can't wait to see what the future update will bring.

[Lavama]

Anyone found any way to unlock Security Level 4 early yet? I've been playing around and I haven't found one yet.

[Kazuto]

Anyone found any way to unlock Security Level 4 early yet? I've been playing around and I haven't found one yet.

Hey Lavama. Early Level 4 locks will technically work, though possibly the only way to get to them in this version is via Ice Clip, which is a very difficult trick. I'm currently working on opening up that area of the game for early exploration in the next version.

[SuXei999]

Your work is really amazing, I am game over with this hack and I am looking forward to a new version.
When will you release a new one?

[BradBardoon]

Okay so I made an account just to comment on this. This is great, and it's... almost exactly what I was looking for. I was replaying Fusion but I hated how the game forces you to progress, especially how they lock doors after a navigation room. I just started looking for a romhack that removes those door locks, then found this. This will probably be how I'll play Fusion from now on, so I would love to see you add more to this. Maybe those damn doors, and a possible Skip Cutscene button, and this could honestly be the definitive version of Fusion! So yeah, made an account to let you know that this is great work and I hope to see more of it.

[Nabil]

this is Metroid Fusion Freedom (mostly)

[Kazuto]

This will probably be how I'll play Fusion from now on, so I would love to see you add more to this. Maybe those damn doors, and a possible Skip Cutscene button, and this could honestly be the definitive version of Fusion!

I appreciate your compliments! That was kinda my idea with this, was for it to essentially be a replacement for playing vanilla Fusion. I've had some people ask why I didn't make certain changes to it, such as removing the cutscenes altogether, and that's the reason why.

As for future updates, B-button text skip is already mostly functional, and I'll be easing up getting locked into many of the Sectors. Early Ridley will be possible, but I'm still working on making that feasible as early as possible... spoiler alert: he's exceedingly difficult without Plasma Beam. :P

Anyway, I appreciate your enthusiasm! I'm hoping to get the next update out sometime this year, though I would suggest you don't hold your breath on that one.

[Nicholas Steel]

Anyway, I appreciate your enthusiasm! I'm hoping to get the next update out sometime this year, though I would suggest you don't hold your breath on that one.

Phew, it was difficult holding my breath all this time in anticipation!

[SnakeLancer]

Can we get a "skip adam" in this one like you did in your Randomizer? That'd be super appreciated! + the additions you have in this romhack.