Subpar Metroid

[WompaStompa]

Shoot, I accidentally hit post instead of preview. I am currently about 98% done with this hack, just need to add a few final finishing touches. It will be ready on Monday. Please understand.*

Version 1.2 is out!

By WompaStompa

[spoiler=Backstory]Hey everybody. In January, I was playing through the base game with the goal of getting over 1000% item completion to see if the counter in the credits behaves like the HUD counters. I was doing this by using Spacetime Beam and running laps through Zebes to collect the respawned ammo/energy packs. On the 8th lap, I thought to myself, "Man, this would be so much faster if the map was smaller. Then again, that would probably be a subpar experience. Subpar... Subpar Metroid." From then on, I could not get the name out of my head. I shared this dumb idea in late January and a few anons encouraged me to make it, so now here we are.[/spoiler]

The main idea of this hack is to shrink down the rooms and world map of the original game. Obviously I could just make each room a few tiles big, get rid of a bunch of rooms outright, and mash what survived together on the map, but that would just be a disaster. As such, I shrank each room as much as I could while trying to not forsake DEER FORCE's original vision. I did this by sticking to the following design choices:

[spoiler=Maintain the essence/identity of each room.]
Basically, most rooms have a set of challenges/requirements for progression and/or some central idea. Take Crab Maze for example. It's a 2-tile tall by 4-tile wide maze with two one-way paths. Instead of just making it a 1 tall by 1 wide empty transition room, I opted to keep the mazelike idea. It is 1 tall by 3 wide and keeps the hidden one-way paths. I tried to do this for every room, but I went in to this with 0 level design experience, so some rooms are going to be much better than others. In particular, there are a few rooms in Maridia that I am not proud of.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Maintain the general layout of Zebes.]
In the base game, Zebes flows pretty well both locally and globally. As such, I didn't want to remove any rooms or move places around. Imagine going from the bottom of Maridia to the top of Crateria in one door transition. That would be way too jarring and wouldn't make any sense, so I didn't do it. As for moving individual rooms, I only moved them in relation to the rooms they're originally connected to if it was absolutely necessary, so nothing like "Norfair Reserve is now connected to the room before Grapple Beam". For the moves that I did make, take the save station before Botwoon for example. I shrank the room it's connected to by one tile vertically so that now there is no space for a room above the sand traps but below the entrance to the room with hidden crabs. So now the save room is above the entrance to the room with hidden crabs. Just small relocations like that, nothing drastic. I only wanted to shrink things, so I tried to make that all I did.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Avoid world map collisions/inconsistencies wherever possible.]
I wanted the map to remain functional and useful. It would be totally useless for navigating if there were a bunch of areas that all existed on the same map tile. As a result, there exist some rooms that *can* be made smaller than what I already shrank them to. Doing so without also changing some large chain of rooms one is connected to, however, would result in inconsistencies like rooms overlapping on the map but not in the actual game or large warps on the map between rooms that are only separated by a single door transition. One interesting consequence of this decision is that one room actually had to grow to be three times its original size so that the elevators between areas also remained consistent. Were it not for this, the elevator between Crateria and Red Brinstar would not be a straight line, but require a kink in it somewhere. Despite my best efforts, I must admit that there is one inconsistency that I know about. Crocomire's room would work perfectly if I could shrink it in a certain way by a single tile, but I am unable to figure out his AI, so it remains 1 tile too wide. My options were to either have it overlap with the save room before Lower Norfair or have it shifted to the left by one tile on the map. I chose the latter.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Try to minimize how much of a cramped mess it is.]
Moving around in the game is really fun. It would be a darn shame if some dope came along and gimped Samus' movement options by cluttering everything up. Don't get me wrong, this is still cluttered, but hopefully not infuriatingly so. I also tried to keep as many speed tricks as I could viable, but I have little speedrunning experience/knowledge, so I wasn't able to account for every trick.
[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Don't raise the required skill floor.]
This game was designed to be enjoyed by people of all skill levels. I didn't want to take that away by requiring specific tricks/techniques to beat the game. Take wall jumping for example. I believe you can get to the credits without ever having to wall jump. Even if you find yourself in the Etecoons' wall jump tutorial, the developers left a morph ball path out. I tried my best to keep the rest of the game that way with regards to all of Samus' movement tech. Obviously there are some powerups that do require certain tech to get, but they are not strictly required to beat Mother Brain, just give you a better chance of survival.
[/spoiler]

I didn't delve into assembly/hex editing at all save for small things like door scroll pointers, simple AI tweaks, and a few QoL/"improvement" hex edits that can be found in these guides: Begrimed's Guide, Enemies, and Hex Edits. Because of this, some issues have cropped up. If you know how to deal with any of this, please reach out to me and let me know.

[spoiler=Known Issues]

• I have no idea how to edit Ceres, so I didn't.
• Parts of the map reset to blue after a save and reload.
• Crocomire only seems to fall into the acid after he is to the right of a certain horizontal position. Because of this, I couldn't move things around too much and some tiles might be out of place after he dies.
• I couldn't figure out how to alter the Zebetite AI so that it would go to the places where it's needed, so for now there are no Zebetites in MB's room.
• After finishing the wall jump tutorial, the Etecoons normally do a dance and then jump back down to do the tutorial again. Now their behavior after the tutorial is kinda whack.
• Shaktool's room remains the same size. I think his AI sets a flag for whether the sand is loaded or not depending on if he's made it to a certain horizontal position in the room.
• The final save station in Tourian is interesting. From what I understand, the save rooms all share one of three templates, enter from left, enter from right, and enter from either side. Changing one room with a given template changes all rooms of the same template. This is only relevant because in the base game you enter this particular save from the right, but in this hack you enter from the left. I couldn't figure out how to change which template it was, so my options were to either have the door warp you to the first save room or accept a bit of weird door transition behavior. I figured getting warped to the start of Tourian would be annoying, so I went with the latter.
• The rising lava trap after collecting Speed Booster jumps to specific heights when Samus reaches certain horizontal positions. Because of how lava works, it just kills the speed that Speed Booster gives you. As a result, the room is slow and you're going to take a bunch of damage if you don't have Gravity Suit. To deal with this, I changed it to acid so that you can still go fast and you actually take considerably less damage. I also made it so that there aren't any ledges in the room that has Speed Booster, so you have more room to build up speed. In my testing, you're guaranteed to take about 60 damage with Varia, so take that in to consideration when getting Speed Booster.
• The Wrecked Ship treadmill animations seem to depend on door pointer assembly. Without editing the assembly, some ground tiles would be deleted. I couldn't figure this out, so I just pointed the door BTS pointer to 0, thus removing the animation. The velocity changing effect is still present because that's handled by tiles in the room, only the animation of the treadmills is gone.
• There are a few spots where doing a Speed Boost is possible, just very tight. I tried to make it so that you don't need to quick charge (hold run after you start moving) or short charge (tap run and stutter step voodoo magic) to beat the game.


• Going to Ice Beam is very tight. You need to stand on the edge of the ledge in the Norfair elevator shaft to get it. Mockball under is still possible.
• Going to 'Early Supers' is somewhat tight.
• Breaking the speed blocks before the jump to Grapple Beam is pretty tight.
• Jumping to Grapple is also finicky. It's much easier if you disable High Jump Boots.
• Frog Speedway is somewhat tight.
• Breaking the speed blocks when exiting Maridia's missile station requires a quick charge.
• Breaking the blocks in the Escape Sequence Shaft with Speed Booster from the room before requires a quick charge.
• A few rooms are really annoying.
• A few rooms exhibit camera issues due to how I had to set up the scrolls and scroll PLMs. Nothing major.


• Bowling Alley is set up so that when the Chozo statue changes the scrolls, the camera doesn't reveal the area behind the Chozo holding the Missile pack unless you physically go behind it. To achieve this, there is a bit when grappling over to the statue where the camera can dip down a little bit to stay centered on Samus. Also, in the area where Chozo drops you, there's some damage source above the door to Gravity Suit. It seems to be placed when the Chozo's AI does some stuff and I have no idea how to change this.
• When descending upon and escaping Zebes, Samus' ship gets stuck in areas where the camera isn't allowed and you softlock. To avoid this, the scrolls and scroll PLMs are set up in a way that you can see above where you're supposed to, but only when you first descend to the surface, load a save from Samus' ship, or are in the escape sequence. Also in the landing site, you can get a bit stuck on a ledge above the yellow door to the PB pack if you don't have morph ball. You can escape by facing left, hitting jump so that Samus spazzes out, then hitting down and left in quick succession. I like this behavior and will be leaving it in.
• There's probably a few messed up graphics somewhere.
• Most of the demos are janky.
• Credit to kkzero, ptoil, and RT-55J for pointing out that there's too many enemies.
• Credit to andlabs for finding that the Norfair map didn't scroll properly.
• Credit to andlabs for finding background scrolling issues in Crateria.
• Credit to Tomtroid for pointing out that I should edit or disable the title demos.
• Credit to MetroidNerd#9001 for getting me to man up and finally download SMART.

[/spoiler]
[spoiler="Improvements"]

• Red doors only require 1 missile. Eye doors and Draygon turrets only require 2 missiles. Tourian Sidehoppers only require 3 Supers.
• I gave Space Jump a larger window of time for chaining together jumps because I don't like how inconsistent it feels in the base game.
• You can shoot if you have the Ice Beam combo active.
• You now recover from Shinespark faster.
• I made elevators faster. It's half-assed because I think doing the full thing would require me to repoint a lot of stuff.

[/spoiler]

If a hack like this has already been made, please let me know.

If you're gonna stream this or something, send me an email with the subject "Subpar Metroid" so I can try and tune in and run damage control answer any questions.




[spoiler=The New Map][/spoiler]
[spoiler=The Original Map][/spoiler]

Changelog

[spoiler=Version 1.1]

• Custom Title Logo with minimal effort put in.
• Less enemies because keeping the original amount goes against my "reduce clutter" goal and they also made some areas really laggy.
• Shaktool now only needs to dig through 16 columns of dirt instead of 36. He now also has 65,535 health.
• Moved the Kago in the room before Wave Beam.
• The Norfair map scrolling issue should™ be solved, but you have to collect the Norfair map station for it to work.
• The title screen attract mode has been extremely lazily edited. SMART is causing some issues with the scrolling background in Crateria and I have no idea how to deal with it. None of the 23 demos should™ lead to any issues.

[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Version 1.2]

• Applied Scyzer's Map Fix so that the map progress doesn't reset.
• Changed some enemy behaviors and other little edits. Nothing massive, just stuff that I was curious about and wanted to see.
• Moved the pirate in the escape sequence shaft so he's not stuck in the wall anymore.
• Got rid of the puffer enemies in Maridia because Shinesparking in to them would crash my game.
• X-Ray beam is now bigger, faster, and stronger too.

[/spoiler]

How do I edit the text in the intro cutscenes? SMILE RF keeps crashing on me when I try.

Credits

Thanks to the anons that encouraged me to go through with this.
Thanks to Begrimed for making the guides linked above and everyone that contributed to them. Without them, there's no way I would've figured out most of this stuff on my own.
Thanks to Scyzer for the map fix and making SMILE RF. Most of my "work" was done in this.
Thanks to amoeba and TestRunner for making SMART. I edited the title screen demos in this.
Thanks to YY Creator for making YY-CHR. I edited the title screen logo in this.

Thanks to my cousin

J e s s i e

for introducing me to Super Metroid and DKC2 all those years ago.

Thanks to DEER FORCE for making such an awesome game.
*Thanks to the mods/admins for letting this thread stay up after I fat-fingered the post button.

[Tomtroid]

There's no ips patch, and no screenshots.

[MetroidNerd#9001]

That is likely because the creator said that the hack is only 98% done, having "accidentally hit post instead of preview."

[RT-55J]

Worst Room in the Game is gonna be shorter. h*ck yes.

[UDtheAesir]

Cool! Looks fun to play!

[WompaStompa]

Worst Room in the Game is gonna be shorter. h*ck yes.

Shorter yes, but also more cluttered. Also I kept every enemy in the game, so it's going to be laggier. I honestly think it's worse now than in base.

[Digital_Mantra]

screenshots please

[RT-55J]

oh hey this just got released PogChamp PogChamp PogChamp PogChamp PogChamp

I'm so hyped up to play this.

EDIT: hey mods why don't the emotes work????

[Tomtroid]

Subpar at best. I bet Stunt can speedrun this after finding some speedrun strats.

[RT-55J]

Well, that was a fun hack.

My favorite parts were whenever a speed trick in the original game became trivial due to the cramped layout.

While preserving the original enemy counts leads to some funny situations, I feel that the game would be improved by removing a some of them.

As far as specific complaints about this are concerned, I couldn't manged to do the running speedbooster jump in the pre-grapple room. Also, I think that getting rid of the speed blocks in that room requires a short charge.

Hopefully you can find ways to make this smaller!

[WompaStompa]

While preserving the original enemy counts leads to some funny situations, I feel that the game would be improved by removing a some of them.

The other reviews I've seen also mention that, plus keeping them kinda goes against my "reduce clutter" goal, so I might actually release a version with less enemies.

As far as specific complaints about this are concerned, I couldn't manged to do the running speedbooster jump in the pre-grapple room. Also, I think that getting rid of the speed blocks in that room requires a short charge.

Yeah the jump to grapple is pretty tight, I only get it about half of the time. As for the speed blocks, I could've sworn I was able to clear them with a normal charge. Maybe I'm just so used to quick charging that I didn't properly test that one.

[Digital_Mantra]

Interesting concept, had fun with this one.  :grin:

[andlabs]

Bug: collecting Norfair's map permanently makes what's to the far right inaccessible as you can't scroll horizontally. The entire map fits on one screen though so eh

Also entering the furthest-to-the-right water room in Crateria from the Wrecked Ship side has landing site background scrolling errors.

[ocesse]

@WompaStompa
I sent you a PM, tell me if you are interested

[Tomtroid]

Minor problem. The title demos are still on. They should be turned off unless you know how to edit said demos.

[WompaStompa]

Minor problem. The title demos are still on. They should be turned off unless you know how to edit said demos.

How do I do this? I'm not seeing it in Begrimed's Guide and can't puzzle out how to do it in Smile RF on my own.

[MetroidNerd#9001]

SMART has some tools to help you out with this. I believe it will require you to record inputs using an emulator.