Super Metroid: Alter Arsenal

[Praetarius5018]

Revamped health system

• energy number display is % of total life (99 for full) instead of remainder of e-tanks
• changed starting health from 99 to 300, capped max health at 700 instead of 1499
• suits provide no damage reduction
• on default difficulty direct enemy damage is either 100, 200 or 300 now [old 1-69 => 100, 70-119 => 200, 120+ => 300]

Apart from environmental damage health is essentially more like classic platformer where you have 3-5 health dots and enemies do 1-2 damage.


New Items
[spoiler]Blast Bomb
*bombs and power bombs can remove crumble blocks temporarily and trigger powerup pickups (power bomb in a radius of roughly 3 blocks)

Boost Ball
*enable running/speedbooster in morph ball form
*morph form reaches max speed faster than regular speedbooster
*press up+forward+run during boost to stand up with blue suit active for a moment, then down again to store the actual shinespark

Chain Spark
*hold jump after colliding with wall from shinesparking to regain charge
*regained charge lasts 120 frames in contrast to the initial 180 from sitting down

Detonator
*bombs and power bombs can be detonated earlier than normal by pressing ItemCancel

Drain Beam
*killing enemies slightly refills reserve tanks (max 3/+3 restored per kill)

Focus Charger
*while kneeling, hold up (default L+R) and charge the beam to slowly restore health and missile ammo
*health restore is limited to ~50%

Hyper Mode
*set reserve tank to manual to activate
*beam shots are auto charged and consume 20 energy from reserve

Ice Missiles
*regular missiles gain ice beam like freeze effect
*increases base damage of regular missiles from 85 to 100

Oxygen Module
*allows breathing in liquids
*prevents taking extra damage when submerged in water or lava

Paradox Beam
*can equip Spazer and Plasma Beams simultaneously
*the combinations no longer produce bugged beams, the spazer-less counterpart is used but with +50% damage

Rapid Launcher
*cuts cooldown of all beams, missiles and bombs in half

Weapon Tank
*increase damage of missiles and bombs by 12.5% damage each (max 12/+150%)[/spoiler]


There's been only a handful of room edits, mostly a few items switched around and map stations sacrificed for 5 more item locations.

[Sapphron]

Are you going to upload this to main site?

[Praetarius5018]

Yes, submitted it just now.

[Sapphron]

You need proper screenshots, a download link, and preferably a Forum Thread link too. Rejected because you can't download it rn

[Praetarius5018]

The submit form says I can use the links from attachments here ("try attaching your files to a forum post and copy/pasting that URL.") but that seems to be no good?

[Sapphron]

DM'ed you.

[Praetarius5018]

ok, is sorted out now, thanks

[Steel Sparkle]

This was fun, i enjoyed the new power ups. Very nice job!

[Draconic]

How compatible with other mods would these new power-ups be? More power-ups feels like a good excuse to add more rooms.

[Praetarius5018]

Hard to say, though I've used quite a bit of free space but nothing which should be near room data.
Tbh. I thought about making some more room edits but knowing me it'd just turn way past kaizo level of bullshit. I've not a good track record with level editors.

[Rennew]

I'm trying to do any% of this hack! 

[Praetarius5018]

Early gauntlet?
Spore Spawn into Lower Norfair backdoor?
Or some route I've not yet thought of?

[TAxxOUTBR3AKxx]

I just stumbled on this, but the idea is great. You've done a ton of work already, but your current health system makes me think of a game I recently just finished putting hours into: Hollow Knight.

Hollow Knight plays like a metroidvania but with your same kind of health system (in a way). However, Samus' upgrades you have in this are akin to Hollow Knight's "perks." Maybe instead of her powers being equippable 100%, maybe introduce an item that gives you a specific number of equippable slots, so you can only have so many upgrades on at once. Each item has a basic function and allow equipped items to only be changed at save stations. Give those an actual use in a rom hack. This forces players to create loadouts specific to areas they're visiting to get through, instead of tanking the 2nd half of a game because of Ice/Wave/Plasma and Screw Attack. Hell, even items could take up multiple slots based on power or versatility? Just my thoughts but I always thought a system like this would greatly expand how we play Super Metroid hacks as well as how we think about creating them if this was a system in place.

[Praetarius5018]

Maybe instead of her powers being equippable 100%, maybe introduce an item that gives you a specific number of equippable slots, so you can only have so many upgrades on at once.

I'm currently trying a variant of this: you can only equip 5 of the major items listed in the pause menu at the same time. Every second the game runs a check in the background if you exceed that limit and if so forces the menu which doesn't let you leave until you are back within the restriction.

That has issues because most items aren't actually worth it most of the time.

• beams? most of the time missiles are strictly better and with up to 200+50 supers and full restore at save points you won't run out any time soon
• suits? well, without damage reduction you only need them in their areas
• spring ball? only needed in 1-2 spots and/or replaced by bomb jump
• bombs are kinda not needed either once you have 1-2 packs of power bombs and now where you want to go

So what can I do with them?
-for suits I gave varia 25% damage reduction and gravity got 50% longer iframes; gravity still feels like an underwhelming option
-spring ball got merged into high jump, leaves me with one unused item currently
-bomb is now required to use power bombs and also gives some extra damage to (super) missiles
-for beams... I gave missiles a separate, longer cooldown from beams (75 frames) and replaced item select/cancel logic with dedicated missile/power bomb and grapple beam buttons (and super missile as upgrade for missiles). so you can shoot both in parallel