[SM] Z-Factor Hack v1.3

[Metaquarius]

v1.2 won't be the last version, some little things still need to be modified like it is said earlier, but nothing to hurry with, really.

[Digital_Mantra]

there's no need to insult the maker of the hack improving his hack as he sees fit.

lol. Meta knows my mad love for his hack, and he probably knows when I'm jesting him (I too miss 'that GATE').

[Quietus]

4:37, 100% is pretty good, isn't it?

I'm not sure many people have attempted any kind of speedrun for this hack yet, so you may as well assume it's the fastest time so far, and enjoy the feeling.

Until somebody comes along later, and whips it with a time under two hours. :heheh:

[messiaen]

I give up, someone please give me a hint on Maridia! Screenshot of current map: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/55900077/zfactor_00002.png

[MetroidMst]

I see two tubes on that map. Take the rightmost tube, and don't ever go back down it until you find a third tube hidden away somewhere, which will lead to more hidden stuff. But, that is hidden stuff in the right direction.

[MATHGODpi]

Works for me. Here you go.

Thank you!

[GoldenTorizo]

How do I get to Draygon? I'm in a room with one of those giant Green ball monsters.

[MetroidMst]

Leave that room alone. Admiral Ackbar is speaking about that room. (IT'S A TRAP!)

You found Botwoon. Draygon is literally three rooms away. Go back that area, and look around some more.

[GoldenTorizo]

Thanks once again. Now if was this hard to hunt down both Draygon and Botwoon, I don't even wana know how it's gonna be trying to find Ridley.

[Quote58]

ridley isn't too hard to find. He uses a couple cheap tricks though, so watch out.

[Vorpal]

Stuck here in lower norfair.  Can I get a hint?

[spoiler]

I've combed the hell out of the three rooms I'm stuck in, repeatedly. =/[/spoiler]

[MetroidMst]

Go back to the elevator room. The one with the long hallway and explore.

[MATHGODpi]

Did this [spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KeZXH-Enj2o[/spoiler]

remind anyone else of this? [spoiler]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BRjTMsDyEU0[/spoiler]

[GoldenTorizo]

wonder where Spring Ball is.

[MetroidMst]

It is in Zaridia. The bottom of Zaridia. In a well hidden location.

[GoldenTorizo]

I found a hidden path in a room with a Super Missile gate. Could this be the way to Spring Ball? I mean, It's playing the ambient music...
Never mind, found it.   :^_^:

[Vorpal]

Just finished the game.  I, uh... wow.  That was ambitious as fuck.  I really enjoyed it.  Saved the animals and escaped with less than half a second on the clock.


Probably closer to 15 hours realtime.

This hack passes my basic test: every room tries to be memorable in its own way.  It could probably have stood to be somewhat smaller, but no matter.  The tiling was excellent and the custom backgrounds are very good fits for the game.

the good:
[spoiler]-a lot of the secrets were well hidden.  And by that I don't mean 'hard to find', I mean hidden well.  The example I remember best is the acid pit just to the left of the lower norfair elevator, which kinda plays with your expectations.
-The game did a lot of subtle guiding.  For example, putting the save point before Kraid before the hidden flower pit entrance, instead of right before him.  Zaridia did this some as well, with the save point in the upper-middle section letting ppl know that getting there is important.
-again, tiling was really good, but I especially want to complement the wrecked ship tiling.  When I first got there I was compelled to xray every surface, because everything looked like it could have a secret passage or item.  But it didn't, it was all just... wrecked.  You did a really good job of giving each area character.
-Tourian.[/spoiler]

the bad:
[spoiler]-Zaridia was extremely frustrating.  I bet it counted for a third to half of my total playtime.  If other parts of the hack weren't so good, it probably would have soured me on the whole game.
-A lot of secrets weren't hidden or clued well, I felt.  Whole lot of random xray-everything-until-you-find-the-hidden-super-block, with perhaps a tangentially related clue a few rooms away.
-I don't think paths to new areas should be hidden as if they were some obscure missile pack.  I'm looking at you, path to lower norfair.  Yes, I know the etank kinda clued you in by showing you a passage below it, but just... no.  I noticed the path, but if I hadn't, I would have been completely unable to look for it effectively.
-I think some areas over-relied on grapple, esp. since grapple is pretty finicky and sometimes it misses when it really looks like it should have grabbed something.
-Map needed more of a central 'passage' to travel between areas quickly.  If you're saved at the ship it takes a really long time to reach the bottom of maridia if, say, you think up a new solution to that dumb puzzle that leads to.... turns out to be the first half of the puzzle that leads to spring ball! when writing this post.  I have 91% now.
-For a hack that doesn't require advanced techniques, a few places are rather hard without them.  And then some other places are just hard in general.....[/spoiler]

things you should consider fixing:
[spoiler]-Beginning of lower norfair.  I asked for help w/ this up above, but I'll post the image again.


Note how I haven't lowered the acid yet.  If you get down to the place where I am without having done so, you're stuck until you die or reset.  Crumble blocks stop you from leaving the way you came in, and the little hole in the floor/ceiling that you get when you lower the acid isn't there either.  I got stuck there because, having been locked in, I was positive the way forward lied down there.  Oops.

The door off past the super blocks in the shaft that you spark up through to reach gold torizo -- that door was flashing.  I'd already killed gold torizo by green gate glitching to him, so maybe that opened the door when it shouldn't have?

-Permastuck here.  The other sandpits here were letting me just roll out to the right, but this one wasn't letting me.


-This rinka (the frozen one) is a dick.  If you jump through the door and land on it without having reserves, you would just die instantly.


-I'm curious.  What are all those ephemeral bomb pickups you see scattered around Tourian if you xray?[/spoiler]

Anyways, can't wait for a map to come out, so I can do a second playthrough, go for the federation trooper's secret, and get 100%.  good stuff.  Thanks for making this.

[Digital_Mantra]

Anyways, can't wait for a map to come out, so I can do a second playthrough, go for the federation trooper's secret, and get 100%.

I've made a map for V.1 after 20 in-game hours.
It's Metaquarius' call when and if that will be released, or rather a better map he makes.
I also won't PM the map unless he allows it.

[MATHGODpi]

This hack is beautiful and extremely well made. Take a bow.

My only complaint is that, similar to sm zero mission, it's too navigationally difficult for my taste.

Other than that, amazing hack.

[GoldenTorizo]

I just have no idea on how to get into Lower Norfair.

[Metaquarius]

Thanks for your review Vorpal.  :^_^:

The door off past the super blocks in the shaft that you spark up through to reach gold torizo -- that door was flashing.  I'd already killed gold torizo by green gate glitching to him, so maybe that opened the door when it shouldn't have?

Green gate glitching is never required in this hack, doing so is at your own risk of course. :^_^:
BTW I still don't get where the point is to glitch/sb the hell out of a hack on the first playthrough, this just ruins the experience according to me. :neutral:

-Permastuck here.  The other sandpits here were letting me just roll out to the right, but this one wasn't letting me.

Oops, that's definitely a tiling error.

-I'm curious.  What are all those ephemeral bomb pickups you see scattered around Tourian if you xray?

What ?

-For a hack that doesn't require advanced techniques, a few places are rather hard without them.  And then some other places are just hard in general.....

If you want to go 100%, you have to perform some special moves indeed.

Anyways, can't wait for a map to come out, so I can do a second playthrough, go for the federation trooper's secret, and get 100%.  good stuff.  Thanks for making this.

Yeah, like DM said, no map should be released yet... until I'm done with v1.3 which hopefully will be the last version.
*letting people getting lost in Zaridia for more little time* :awesome:

I got a lot of complaints about the entrance of Lower Norfair. At least, there're three suggestive hints on the path leading that hidden Energy Tank in Norfair :
- you strumble upon the single area covered with deep lava sharing the SM's Lower Norfair entrance tileset
- you can't miss there's a path below that Energy Tank (if you watched the teaser, then it is even more obvious)
- you can see the suspicious rocky bridge under the power bomb rock pile, and if you look even more closely, you can notice what's seems to be a ceiling.
In v1.2, I have replaced the black bomb block tiles by greyish bomb block tiles which makes the whole thing even more obvious.
Tell me your thoughts.

Edit : It seems JP dudes have already made a map for the hack  :blush:

[Vorpal]

BTW I still don't get where the point is to glitch/sb the hell out of a hack on the first playthrough, this just ruins the experience according to me. :neutral:

idk.  Wasn't trying to defeat the experience or anything.  The gate was simply there and staring at me, so I shot it.

-I'm curious.  What are all those ephemeral bomb pickups you see scattered around Tourian if you xray?

What ?

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Thinking about it more, this is probably related to my choice of emulator.  Using snesgt 230b6.

re: ln entrance, I was playing on 1.2 and still thought it wasn't the best idea, but w/e.

thanks for the reply!

GoldTorizo: [spoiler]Presumably you've found the room with the etank in the lava (if not, search for power bomb blocks a couple rooms from the eastern save point in norfair).  Look around in the room before that.[/spoiler]

[MetroidMst]

[spoiler][/spoiler]

Those I believe are custom PLMs. In that room in particular after doing something you know that something happens in the middle of the room without leaving it. I believe performing the needed action activates the PLM and triggers the event.

[MATHGODpi]

My only complaint is that, similar to sm zero mission, it's too navigationally difficult for my taste.

Erm yeah wow....... at the time I made this comment I had just picked up the gravity suit. From that point on, I pretty much had to constantly watch a walkthrough to find my way through the rest of the game.

The paths leading to Draygon and Ridley.... just... just no. [spoiler]And that crumble block room during the escape sequence... :mad:[/spoiler]

Difficulty of finding all the hidden paths takes away from the game enjoyment, imo.

Nevertheless the hack is brilliant in terms of creativity and aesthetics. Especially the backgrounds for the boss rooms!

[Quote58]

Green gate glitching is never required in this hack, doing so is at your own risk of course. :^_^:
BTW I still don't get where the point is to glitch/sb the hell out of a hack on the first playthrough, this just ruins the experience according to me. :neutral:

well none of us intended to break the hack. We're a group of hackers, so ya we're probably going to ibj and ggg where we think it could give us an item. The intent is not to glitch through a hack on the first playthrough. You're hack just lends itself to sb due to it's lack of good hints for the path without any sb.

I got a lot of complaints about the entrance of Lower Norfair. At least, there're three suggestive hints on the path leading that hidden Energy Tank in Norfair :
- you strumble upon the single area covered with deep lava sharing the SM's Lower Norfair entrance tileset
- you can't miss there's a path below that Energy Tank (if you watched the teaser, then it is even more obvious)
- you can see the suspicious rocky bridge under the power bomb rock pile, and if you look even more closely, you can notice what's seems to be a ceiling.
In v1.2, I have replaced the black bomb block tiles by greyish bomb block tiles which makes the whole thing even more obvious.
Tell me your thoughts.

It's not about a single block, it's the placement in general. And your placement, well it's pretty bullshit.
Look at the original game, to get into lower norfair you have to have(unless you sb) power bombs, gravity suit, and space jump. Which means you might go into that room 3 times as you're never stuck in the area you get each of those upgrades. It doesn't feel super hidden because initially you have only a door in your way, but once you're through the door you see that you can't progress without certain items. But it also doesn't feel like you're just being handed the new area, it still feels gaurded, and a little hidden because you need to go all over the planet to be able to get to the second door.
Your path however, is truly hidden. It in fact forces the player to bomb every possible entrence to the map square, which is ridiculous. BUT, even more then that, you need the map. If you don't get the map you're fucked. That's not /that/ bad, except oh wait, the map room is hidden too. So, you could have to find two different hidden places, neither of which have useful hints, just to get to lower norfair.