V I T A L I T Y

[Retroo]

Great hack but i was disappointed with the difficulty, way to easy

[C0zM1c]

Great hack but i was disappointed with the difficulty, way to easy

V I T A L I T Y Redux: hard mode :)

[RT-55J]

Vitality Hard Mode changelog
- Re-added shinespark energy drain
- Removed the pseudo-screw attack
- Decreased screw attack damage to 2 damage per frame
- Replaced Gravity Suit with another Varia Suit
- Replaced the early super missile tank with a reserve tank (non-functional)
- Replaced all sidehoppers in Tchornobog with super sidehoppers
- Made Kraid immune to missiles
- Added a "ketchup phase" to the Ridley boss fight
- Added clothes back to Samus' death animation
- Added a random chance of silently malfunctioning to save stations
- Increased Kzan (spike platform) contact damage to 4800 5196

[RT-55J]

As penance for my previous jokepost, here is a different jokepost I made (on a private forum I'm a part of) a couple weeks before this hack was released that I feel should be preserved in perpetuity. The context is that I was making fun of a fellow who had impossibly distressing opinions about the idea of videogame connoisseurship (don't ask).



The day is October 17, 1995, and I am going to the game store with my best friend. Our parents somehow agreed that we can have one game.

As I browse the shelves of SNES games one game in particular catches my eye. On it's box there is a picture of a man with an unusually large chin who is about to chuck a rock at a nearby dinosaur. It could only be Chuck Rock. I'm not yet the best reader, but I know I've seen pictures of it in Nintendo Power, the premier official videogaming magazine for all things Nintendo. I then notice the price tag: $7.99. I could pay for half of it with my allowance!

Excited at the prospect of playing a game with grotesque cavemen, I grab the game from the shelf and bring it to my friend, squealing in excitement along the way. But before I have the chance to put my excitement into words, he looks at the box and says "I don't think my mom would like that game. It has cavemen, which means the people who make it believe in evolution, which my dad says is bad." Immediately, I am struck by confusion. I remember my Sunday School teacher last year saying that evolution was bad, but then my teacher this year seemed okay with it — or at least liked mentioning dinosaurs getting killed by a meteor — and then there was my dad who kept on rambling about "micro-evolution", though I'm not sure if that was related.

Whatever the case was, doubt has entered my mind.

While I am stewing in my doubt, my friend grabs another box labelled Vitality, and says "I saw this in Electronic Gaming Monthly the other month. It's like Metroid, but even more mature. It's totally rad!"

I point out to him that the game is rated M, and that my dad doesn't let me watched rated R movies, so he probably wouldn't let me play a rated M game. Also, I point out that the cover has an artistically nude girl on the front, and that my dad always talks about how classical art is bad because they have too many nudes (I'm not sure what a nude is, but I know they sound bad).

Doubt has entered my friend's mind, and he can only stand there holding both boxes and staring at them:



I too can only stand there, staring at those game boxes. Both of us stand there paralyzed, unable to make a decision because we realized that the games we were interested in might be morally bad.

Minutes pass, and we are still staring at the boxes. Hours pass, and our parents drive home, after failing to make us move. We stand there still staring in confusion. The store closes for the night, then eventually it closes for good. Years have passed. We have both grown about 2 feet, gotten a college education, gotten married, gotten divorced, all while just standing here in this abandoned FuncoLand staring at these boxes, unable to come to a choice.

And then suddenly, a thought comes into my mind: What if there was someone else to tell us what to like? someone to make our tastes? someone with a high social standing and a good moral reputation? someone with a refined palate to whose whims we must submit? someone who was — what's the word — a "conny sewer"?

Yes. That's it. That's our way out.

[Paragon]

The context is that I was making fun of a fellow who had impossibly distressing opinions about the idea of videogame connoisseurship (don't ask).

Saying "don't ask" just makes me burn with curiosity. But I'm guessing it's just some insufferable gatekeeping snob and not half as interesting as your story, lmao.

[RT-55J]

Fine, I'll bite: The context is that the insufferable gatekeeping snob was also a repeat ban dodger who had last reared his ugly head in the community several years prior. It was fun because all the oldbies quickly recognized that idiot's brand of idiocy and went straight to joker-mode, while the newbies came to a slow realization that the guy was indeed the unspeakable horror from the old world.

[danidub]

Hav'nt done a map for a while, but I could not resist to this game. Wow! Another Digital Mantra masterpeice.
VITALITY map [spoiler]http://www.nordub.ca/Maps/Vitality.png[/spoiler]
VITALITY map v2.0 [spoiler]http://www.nordub.ca/Maps/Vitality_v2.png[/spoiler]

[LetsPlayNintendoITA]

Hav'nt done a map for a while, but I could not resist to this game. Wow! Another Digital Mantra masterpeice. [spoiler]http://www.nordub.ca/Maps/Vitality.png[/spoiler]

this map is Pog. nice one.
loved your ascent one

[Axatax]

I'm giving this hack the benefit of the doubt.  I guess I haven't found the big plot twist or whatever yet --

What I think is BS, is that I'm at Ridley with 22 missles and four energy tanks, and there's no way to back out of that, due to the lava that fills the pit up outside of his room. 

I'll have to start over since I've been using save stations vs save states, and I don't think I have the skill to do this fight like this.

[Ambureon]

there's no way to back out of that

There's a morph tunnel above the save point.

[LetsPlayNintendoITA]

not the first that asked that tbh. saw other ask. lol

[Axatax]

8:53:22  66.6%

Absolutely unbelievable.  Top-hack material, for sure.  Couldn't really figure out what was going on until the end.  And there's certainly a setup here for a sequel.  "Samus" has work to do.

Wasn't able to find:

[spoiler]
Botwoon
Spazer
Emergency tanks
And whatever the "building falling down" is a reference to
[/spoiler]

Recommendation:

[spoiler]
Maybe the exit from the save station room before Ridley could be more obvious.  In fact, I'm not sure why that needs to be hidden like that exactly.  Even just changing a block or two to give a hint. 
[/spoiler]

[DonnyDonovan]

I got stuck there for a little while but just recall thinking there HAD to be a way out given the (lack of) difficulty of the hack up to that point.

[Kremit44]

Hav'nt done a map for a while, but I could not resist to this game. Wow! Another Digital Mantra masterpeice.
VITALITY map [spoiler]http://www.nordub.ca/Maps/Vitality.png[/spoiler]
VITALITY map v2.0 [spoiler]http://www.nordub.ca/Maps/Vitality_v2.png[/spoiler]

What a terrific website you have up. I had no idea it existed. A great map for a great game, it's nice to see love for these hacks as they've been such a wonderful find for me. At this point I think Digital Mantra might be my favourite developer. Thanks for the great work.

[Axatax]

[spoiler]http://www.nordub.ca/Maps/Vitality.png[/spoiler]

I've been to that site before, but for some reason, I'm getting an error page now.  The only way I can access it is through Tor.  It's obviously not a DNS issue, because that message is coming from the host.

EDIT:  I can't attach an image - It's a picture of a relaxing robot saying "Site Not Found.  Well, this is awkward.  The site you're looking for is not here.  Is this your site?  Get more info or contact support.  Dream Host

[SNKR]

Just completed it, the first very SM hack i ever played. The amosphere is incredible, dark and full of mistery.
Took me my time, 11:30 and 82% on first run.

As sidenote, I played it on an actual real SNES, using a flash cartridge. That means no real emulation but using real SNES hardware, and also no savestates, filters or whatsoever, just the standard console available stuff, and fixed save rooms.

The only part that somehow annoyed me was a certain boss fight wich took me a lot of tries, and i couldn´t go back to find other powerups (specially one certain powerup wich i found later, but could have been acquired earlier) wich would  help a lot  because the route back was blocked. Also after killing that boss there was still a rough way till being able to recover or save and i died there 3 times, wich were quite frustrating. Aside that puntual difficult spike, all went smooth.

The map design is quite clever and connections are awesome.

Aside that graphically is incredible, seems like a whole new game. Im also happy that is not ultra-hard whatsoever.

Hope to see more like this. Any recommendations of similar, not ultra-hard hacks?

Thanks!

[Digital_Mantra]

If you're referring to Ridley, there's a shortcut out of his area above the savestation. Lots of people miss that.

[DonnyDonovan]

Since you liked DM's work, I'd suggest giving Eris a try.  Hyper Metroid is also incredibly fun and not super difficult.

[LetsPlayNintendoITA]

Just completed it, the first very SM hack i ever played. The amosphere is incredible, dark and full of mistery.
Took me my time, 11:30 and 82% on first run.

As sidenote, I played it on an actual real SNES, using a flash cartridge. That means no real emulation but using real SNES hardware, and also no savestates, filters or whatsoever, just the standard console available stuff, and fixed save rooms.

The only part that somehow annoyed me was a certain boss fight wich took me a lot of tries, and i couldn´t go back to find other powerups (specially one certain powerup wich i found later, but could have been acquired earlier) wich would  help a lot  because the route back was blocked. Also after killing that boss there was still a rough way till being able to recover or save and i died there 3 times, wich were quite frustrating. Aside that puntual difficult spike, all went smooth.

The map design is quite clever and connections are awesome.

Aside that graphically is incredible, seems like a whole new game. Im also happy that is not ultra-hard whatsoever.

Hope to see more like this. Any recommendations of similar, not ultra-hard hacks?

Thanks!

you started with vitality? wow impressive :)

[SNKR]

If you're referring to Ridley, there's a shortcut out of his area above the savestation. Lots of people miss that.

Oh lol, I totally missed it then. Next time ill try to get screw attack first, I think it would help a lot when making unwilling contact on with Ridley on mid of jumps.

Since you liked DM's work, I'd suggest giving Eris a try.  Hyper Metroid is also incredibly fun and not super difficult.

Thanks for recommendations! Already started a bit of Hyper. Im liking it, and the new mechanics introduced so far (the beam shoot speeding, and the enhanced bombs)
Still after experiencing the visual design of VITALITY Hyper seems pretty standard. I´ll check Eris too, thanks!

you started with vitality? wow impressive :)
[/quote]

Thanks! Still i know its not a specially hard hack as others out there, but i guess I prefer it to stay "average".

[drb]

Better late than never... I finally got around to compiling a spoiler-free screenshot map for VITALITY.  A lot of care went into adapting Layer 2 and the map overlays, hopefully I did DMan's amazing work justice.

[TacticianRobin0]

Is there any connection between VITALITY and the book series Mistborn?
There's multiple similarities like [spoiler] Allomancy with gold causing temporal sight and the term Koloss[/spoiler]
Its really minor but kinda quirky, didn't know if it was an explicit reference or just a random connection.

[RT-55J]

yes, dman has confirmed that he cribbed those bits from good ol' brando sando

[H A M]

crystal flash isn't nude in vitality