Now Out!!! Metroid Fusion; Advanced Reverse Boss Order Public Beta

[Raddley Vance]

This is a vanilla+ project that I began after having developed the SERBO (Special Edition Reverse Boss Order) routing project [https://youtu.be/xiNkeIBdaow?si=_1MQtiYCTvv2mkzW] for potential speed running expansion. While SERBO itself was a great project, it fell short in a few key areas, such as the boss order being not quite actually RBO, in a few too many locations. After having had DarkspySCBM take an interest in SERBO, and discussing the prospects of additional alternative access to certain locations further outside of intended order to fix the RBO routing, I learned of MAGE, and officially began the project as of January 17th, 2025. This project is known as "Advanced Reverse Boss Order" or "ARBO" for short. I now feel that, while unfinished, this project is functional enough to leave Closed Beta and enter into Public Beta for more people to lay their eyes on.

I want to begin by giving credit where credit is due, to those whose work I built upon and used.
- Base Hack; Sequence Breaking by Kazuto
- Additions;
    - Better Morph Ball by Cpt.Glitch
    - Event Sprites by Sapphron
    - Axeil Inspired Map Tiles and Compact Font by FelixWright
    - Better Item Tanks, MFSE-Styled Hud, and many many palette changes by Lostglaceon
    - MAGE, Single Wall Jump, and Mid-air Bomb Jump by Biospark

I want to give a further thanks to the Closed Beta team for their willingness to help in the early stages of this project.

Hack Information;

- Changes;
Due to the reformatting of engagement order, many minor adjustments had to be made, from item pick ups to being able to access certain areas early. Items have been reshuffled slightly, some rooms have been added, or given additional means of entry or egress, and some rooms and doors have been changed to align with the changes made. Nav rooms have also had some text added or adjusted as to avoid paradoxes and improve the look of the text within the boxes. Some minor palette fixes have been added beyond the pre-applied adjustments, and the Minimap has had many additions and adjustments as well.

- Gameplay;
"ARBO" can be [loosely] played in three main ways.
- The first being as it is intended, in Reverse Boss Order, with the following gameplay order.
{Arachnus -> Charge Core -> Bombs and Power Bombs -> Super Missiles -> Ice Missiles and Level 3 Security -> Ridley -> Xbox 06 -> Lab Escape -> Nightmare -> Level 4 Security -> Nettori -> Gedo -> Gary (The scientist) -> Barrier Core -> Box 03 -> Diffusion Missiles and Serris -> Zazabi -> SA-X -> Omega Metroid} [Video; https://youtu.be/SO9sTWTpmco]
- The second way of playing "ARBO" is in Freeplay order, where nearly anything can be done in any order(excluding Arachnus, Charge Core, SA-X, and the Omega Metroid).
- The third and final way of playing "ARBO" is Stock gameplay order, although some minor issues persist that I have yet to figure out how to properly fix, and as such have been jury rigged to avoid softlocks.

Known Issues;
- Music errors following Super Missile acquirement and skipping Box 03, the defeat of Gedo, the defeat of Gary, and the defeat of Box 03.
- Frozen enemy palette and Ice Missile palette
- Map Hud inaccurately reflecting shuffled items on a clear file
- Issues with event based door transitions (jury rigged out of accessibility in most cases)
- Minor issues with Sapphron's event sprites, leading them to always trigger or never trigger
- Minor issues with event states
- Improper cutscene palettes

Future Plans;
- Fix the known issues
- Separate Grav and Varia suit effects from each other
- Freeplay Nav Room expansions
- Wideless Wave Beam adjustments
- Main menu update
- Hard Mode Patch
- Fission Mode Patch

Closed Beta Team's Twitch Channels;
- Raddley Vance; https://www.twitch.tv/raddley_vance
- Exorion Hagen; https://www.twitch.tv/exorionhagen
- Yemapparatus; https://www.twitch.tv/yemapparatus
- DarkspySCBM; https://www.twitch.tv/darkspyscbm

[SpineShark]

This sounds interesting, I'll definitely check it out!

[SpineShark]

I just finished my first RBO run and wow, what an experience. A nice twist on the Fusion formula, I like all the little changes that were made to make the reverse boss order possible, especially the lab sequence! The vertical room after L3 security and the lab escape were big roadblocks for me, tbh I had to use many savestates, but otherwise it was managable.
There are some minor issues here and there but nothing major, all in all it's a fresh way to play Fusion, well done!

[Raddley Vance]

POST SURGERY STATE OF THE ROMHACK,
March 14th, 2025

The next update to ARBO is likely to be v0.4.4.4 with more minor graphical fixes, and not much else. This might be released at the end of March, or halfway through April, depending on my recovery.

The biggest issues I face in regards to more substantial updates, aside from just having had surgery, is my ignorance towards the deeper methods of editing the game, such as writing my own assembly, reading and understanding the ROM and RAM maps, as to learn where certain things I wish to edit are contained, as well as the near entirety of the known issues and future plans list.

I am building v1.0 from a stock ROM, as to better know the inner workings of the changes made to the ROM, instead of running off of observations and assumptions. This is not to say that Kazuto's hack (Sequence Breaking Fusion) is in any way bad, just that it has minor issues with certain music flags, among other very minor things that I'd like to change to set ARBO apart.

If anyone wishes to lend a hand in my journey of learning, post recovery, feel free to message me here, the Metroid Fusion speedrunning discord, or me directly on Discord, username "hedgechild".

I intend on releasing "State of the Romhack"s at least once per month, or once every two weeks depending on if any real progress or learning has been made. As I learn, I will continue to update the beta hack whilst building v1.0, and maybe release a Fission Mode demo for the community to get a taste of. I do appreciate those that has already downloaded my hack, even though it's not many, and hope that many more will download it and enjoy it.

Good luck, have fun, and see you next mission,

Raddley E Vance, "The Reverend"