[SM] Z-Factor Hack v1.3

[DonnyDonovan]

I'd suggest going for the secret room on a 2nd playthrough.  That's what I did.  Even though I wouldn't do it again, I'm glad I did it.

[Lady Aran]

Ok, I'm going to sound like an idiot but, what's this secret room I keep hearing about?  :bounce:

[Quietus]

It's a room full of goodies.  You can only access it before Phantoon is killed, and it involves some tricky manoeuvres to reach.  If you check back through the last few pages of this thread, you'll see links for maps and videos, but make sure you try to reach it with minimal help if you can.  Good luck! :^_^:

[M1CR0H4CK3R]

 

Ok, I'm going to sound like an idiot but, what's this secret room I keep hearing about?  :bounce:

Check my sig.  :^_^:

[Metaquarius]

Ok, I'm going to sound like an idiot but, what's this secret room I keep hearing about?  :bounce:

It's a room full of spelling errors. You'd better train your underwatery skills otherwise Zaridia will claim your soul and you won't see light again :lol:

[Weterr123]

I'm currently going through this. Killed Phantoon last night, so from what Quietus said a couple of posts back, I have missed this secret room. Oh well, maybe next time!! I've seen a minimal amount of the legendary Zaridia, and am currently in wrecked ship. Found Zaridia map station, and the non-hidden map looks awesome. So far, the hack is really well designed, and I like the amount of Air X-ray fool used.

And I thought this was really cool:

[MetroidMst]

I've seen a minimal amount of the legendary Zaridia

You will soon see plenty of it. And then Zaridia will show you everything you've been waiting for.

[Mordy]

Running through this game for my first time, and it's great so far. But I have no idea what I am supposed to do in this room. I swear I've tried everything!

http://i.imgur.com/WDjypGg.png

[Metaquarius]

Running through this game for my first time, and it's great so far. But I have no idea what I am supposed to do in this room. I swear I've tried everything!

http://i.imgur.com/WDjypGg.png

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

YOU GOTTA BUY MORE TIME !

[Mordy]

I already killed Botwoon and Draygon when I took the pic. So is there no purpose to the room other than to serve as a warning that the boss is nearby?

[Quietus]

[spoiler][/spoiler]
Is this a troll room?

Yes. There's a fake wall somewhere before this point.

[Mordy]

Finished the game, and my god.

Never. Again.

17:45 (More like 25+ hours realtime) 83%

It was fun at first, but way WAY too frustrating for the last half of the game. Tourian was amazing though, have to give props on that. [spoiler]Lower Norfair, finding the fucking statue to lower the acid. No. No, no no. Terrible. How the fuck is someone supposed to see that spot?  :evilno:[/spoiler]

That said, I'm all "Metroid'd Out." This was my first hacked Super Metroid, and surely not the last, but I was not expecting that level of difficulty. :mad: Glad it's over.

Oh the escape route was great too. Though I tried, I didn't have time to save the animals cause I fucked up on my save state leaving me barely enough time to get to the ship. :(

[ianfrombristol]

Finished the game, and my god.

Never. Again.

17:45 (More like 25+ hours realtime) 83%

It was fun at first, but way WAY too frustrating for the last half of the game. Tourian was amazing though, have to give props on that. [spoiler]Lower Norfair, finding the fucking statue to lower the acid. No. No, no no. Terrible. How the fuck is someone supposed to see that spot?  :evilno:[/spoiler]

That said, I'm all "Metroid'd Out." This was my first hacked Super Metroid, and surely not the last, but I was not expecting that level of difficulty. :mad: Glad it's over.

Oh the escape route was great too. Though I tried, I didn't have time to save the animals cause I fucked up on my save state leaving me barely enough time to get to the ship. :(

Best stay away from Metroid super zero mission and redesign then  :^_^:

Don't be too ashamed about the completion time I'm a slow player as well and I just see it as getting more value for money (even though I didn't pay anything)

[craighypheno]

Finished the game, and my god.

Never. Again.

17:45 (More like 25+ hours realtime) 83%

It was fun at first, but way WAY too frustrating for the last half of the game. Tourian was amazing though, have to give props on that. [spoiler]Lower Norfair, finding the fucking statue to lower the acid. No. No, no no. Terrible. How the fuck is someone supposed to see that spot?  :evilno:[/spoiler]

That said, I'm all "Metroid'd Out." This was my first hacked Super Metroid, and surely not the last, but I was not expecting that level of difficulty. :mad: Glad it's over.

Oh the escape route was great too. Though I tried, I didn't have time to save the animals cause I fucked up on my save state leaving me barely enough time to get to the ship. :(

I'd certainly avoid Redesign and SZM then, although those are both stunning hacks. There are slightly easier/smaller hacks which are just as fun but don't require the same amount of hours (such as Eris or Ice Metal) ^_^

[altoiddealer]

I personally found SZM to be much less frustrating than Redesign or Z-Factor, FWIW.

[Zealous Benediction]

Just finished my first play-through of Z-Factor v1.3

Game Time: 9:12, 60% Item Completion.

Personal skill level: Able to run Any% of the regular game in 54 minutes, and 100% in 1hr 30minutes, able to do almost all tricks (including super short charging)

This was played on SNES Hardware (Turning the patch into .sfc, and putting it into my SD2SNES) - worked flawlessly.

First of all, I normally do not post on these types of forums, but with the amount of work shown put into this hack I felt the need to.

Items Not Found during the run:  X-ray Scope, Springball, 5-E tanks (and a variation of missiles, supers, and PB's).

Overall:
-Great room composition, every area felt like it belonged where it should for the most part.

-Actually made me think and look at the map multiple times (especially Maridia).

-Did not get that "I just want this over" feeling until trying to find the path to Botwoon.

-Able to do everything without any of the regular speedrun tricks (I used Short Charging only due to being second nature, I do believe it was not REQUIRED at any one spot).

-I do not consider IBJ's a trick, but I did use it twice, not sure if it was required or not.  [spoiler](I'm looking at you first Brinstar Savepoint that leads to another area).[/spoiler]

-Excellent backgrounds during the boss fights, especially those with manipulated platforms. [spoiler](Botwoon and Sporespawn)[/spoiler]


The Pros:

[spoiler]Map Size (This is going in good and bad) - Exploration is pretty important in this game, which is what it's all about.  The size of all the maps gives you plenty of chance to explore offset paths without too many dead ends.

Tourian - Very cool remake of Tourian; was not too difficult to explore, but only a few moments did it require you to explore every block (twice I can think of); also when you destroyed the power supply so that you were left in the dark with all the metroids was a brilliant idea.

Save Point Locations - Were placed in very well areas where the player would get one usually after or before a boss fight, or after going through a long gauntlet.  Some maps even had their "second revisits" loop back to previous save points.

Individual Room Design - Most of these were pretty well done and felt "natural" with how the contour was to the adjacet rooms.  Some where every out of place (Such as the room with water in upper Norfair, with a room right next to it filled with lava).  Maridia was EXTREMELY well done in this category as was Wrecked Ship.  Brinstar is a little bit of a mess, but nothing that really bothered me.

Feeling Rewarded - I will say for the first half of the game, getting upgrades were extremely rewarding, but after treading through the first half of Maridia and Wrecked Ship without Gravity Suit, when you finally get Gravity Suit, the biggest sigh of relief comes to mind.  Once you got space jump and screw attack, missile upgrades/power bombs/supers and anything else really become obsolete, but this is true in the regular game as well.

Fake Door (Power Bomb) in LN - Very cool idea! I found it by accident just PB'ing the room to find another way through.  I did not put this as a con since most people probably PB'd a room to reveal any possible blocks, which is usually the first thing they do.[/spoiler]


The Cons:

[spoiler]
Map Size - Like I said, this is going in both good and bad.  The amount of looping (in particular in Maridia) was a bit obnoxious.  Falling through crumble blocks that would force you to loop 5-6 rooms was irritating.  This was not an issue too much on Wrecked Ship (Except the Grapple over the water part).  Upper Norfair not too bad, but still had them.  Brinstar had almost no loops though.

Finding Secret Paths - I was okay with how things were laid out.  However the path to Botwoon is a bit random and really gives no indication of it.  After circling Maridia for about an hour I just looked it up on Youtube and unless I was firing like crazy in an odd spot, there was no way I was going to find that.  Not to mention the room after (with all the grapple jumps) is a bit annoying when you fall through (Although that puzzle was pretty awesome and it showed you put a lot of effort into all of it).  I see a lot of people complained about finding the Lower Norfair entrance, but I had no issues as once I had finished Maridia and received the upgrades, I re-explored a lot of the maps.  If there's a spot where you can go in lava, there's probably something there....

Lower Norfair - Although this was relatively easy, the dead ends had me going back to them quite a bit, which was just a waste of my time.  Using holes off-screen is a bit of a cheesey way to make a path. (going to the left as morphball, off screen, to enter the area where you're supposed to springball through the mini-maze).  I got lucky by finding the golden Torizo statue to lower the lava, just happen to see something odd in the ceiling.  I can see other players becoming frustrated at this.

Back Tracking - This is a good thing when the maps are smaller, but with the size of the maps in this hack, it's really just a hassle.  On top of that, the map system in Super Metroid does not do a great job at indicating direction (to or from).[/spoiler]


These are the key points that stuck out in my mind while I write this after just beating the game.  Great job, I hope you continue to either improve this one, or create a brand new one for a different experience.  It shows clearly through this hack that you put a lot of time into it as well as thought.  I understand it is difficult to make something hard for the player without it being overbearing.  This is because YOU are the one making it, not the player, nothing is going to be perfect.


Also -
[spoiler]
Where the fuck is Springball and X-ray?[/spoiler]

[Quietus]

Also -
[spoiler]
Where the fuck is Springball and X-ray?[/spoiler]

Check Danidub's excellent map here. :^_^:

[CrystalDarkEye]

is this a bug within the hack or with super metroid itself, i was at the part  of the hack where i had to do the crumblejump on the wrecked ship, i dfound something intresting at that part, when i rapidly pressed a+b and holding left i managed to speed through the crumbleblocks but i tried to just rapidly press b and it still works that way.

[Quietus]

I'm nearing completion of my speedrun for this, but I'm just checking before I get to recording stages: Is snes9x still a no-go, due to the major bug when entering Tourian?  I'd prefer to record with snes9x, as it's what I'm used to, but I don't want to find out once I get all the way there. :^_^:

[MetroidMst]

I have never had the bug happen to me personally, and I have recently completed 3 practice runs of 1.3, so I think it should be okay. Again though, I haven't had it happen once.

[Quietus]

Thanks, Mst.  I'll try a quick run before recording starts, just to be safe. :^_^:

To double my bets, can I ask which version you're using?

[MetroidMst]

I am using 1.53

[Metaquarius]

- When entering in the first Tourian room with snes9x1.43, level data is corrupted. Game-breaking.

Bug confirmed in snes9x1.43 only. Works flawlessly with snes9x1.53 (or even with real hardware) AFAIK.

Mst, I have been watching one of your pratice run, did you ever considered entering into Norfair early by glitching through the blue gate in West Crateria after getting bombs ? You can get Supers in bubbleland which effectively skips Spore Spawn. Theorically, you could get Varia and Ice too then reach the Wrecked Ship early to get PB (no wave beam needed) I haven't attempted this route so I can't tell whether this is viable or not.

[Quote58]

Remember that one time when we were all first playing it and I mentioned that route was a thing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_a9z5Q5fk0

Description:
"Video I made when originaly playing z-factor. Just showing how to get an energy tank and super early. It also allows you to get into norfair early with varia and do the thing backwards. Version is 1.0 but I doubt he's taken it out in the other versions."

And also this comment I made:
"it's even possible to skip wave beam entirely."

So yes, that is indeed a viable route to speed things up.

[MetroidMst]

The route I am currently using is a very safe one, which will allow just about anyone to use it. Only one IBJ, and a the mid-air Morph to get to Spore Spawn being the most difficult tricks. I have to say though, that it is a possibility I might explore a little bit. It would drop the mid-air Morph, but it would add two gate glitches if I am thinking straight. Admittedly not too difficult, but depends on the player too. On top of that, you lose out on getting Hi Jump for a while, which will make other things in Norfair more difficult. And also besides that, I am not sure you really want to skip that Super behind Spore Spawn. It is an easy one to collect, and helps to increase your chances of getting through Kraid/Draygon much better.

It will take some testing to see if it is a good option to try out. Also, don't skip Wave. For TAS, that would be the way to go. However, with the placement of the gate, you'll have a really bad time glitching that gate unless you're a pro at it. Not to mention the extra damage you will want for Kraid/Draygon with one less Super Missile pack.