[SM] Metroid Exercise

[MetroidMst]

So no one has made a topic for this hack yet either. I just finished it yesterday evening, and I felt it deserved a topic for those who might be stuck, or just general conversation about it.

Description from Google translate:
"Most mature is high in the hack of human management.
Enhanced search main degrees of freedom.
Difficulty has been spread out.
Normal recommended person hack Introduction.
I think you are familiar with and able to hack clear even in hard.
Notes tips and cheats, please see the ReadMe folder."

I included the .rar file with this post, but you can grab everything from his site linked above too. (Thanks to Quietus for that!) Since I am unsure if I would be spoiling anything, I will keep my comments to almost nothing in this post. But I have to say that this hack looks pretty ugly. Not the palettes, but the tiles/tiling is pretty horrendous. However, that thankfully isn't really a reflection on the hack itself, as it plays better than that thankfully.

And if you are wondering what kind of hack it is, I would say a full hack, with some half hack tendencies thrown in. It is also unheadered.

[The Monster of Surrealton]

I will have to try this later.

[ianfrombristol]

I see what you mean about the ugly palette.  Not too much happening so far.  I have missiles and charge beam and think I'm stuck already  :cry:

[Lunaria]

But I have to say that this hack looks pretty ugly. Not the palettes, but the tiles/tiling is pretty horrendous.

I see what you mean about the ugly palette.  Not too much happening so far.  I have missiles and charge beam and think I'm stuck already  :cry:

shit yo what?

[MetroidMst]

You aren't stuck yet. Try looking around the landing site some more now, might find a Missile door somewhere.

[PokeyTroid]

Read the readme. This sounds quite interesting. If I read right, it's a kind of exploration-based hack with some skill/technique-based parts, intended to brush up a players skills in regards to advanced techniques (hence, exercise).

I'll give this a play later. A hack that I know absolutely nothing about is kind of an odd feeling. I'll be interested to see what it's like; these Japanese hacks can be pretty quirky.

[ianfrombristol]

But I have to say that this hack looks pretty ugly. Not the palettes, but the tiles/tiling is pretty horrendous.

I see what you mean about the ugly palette.  Not too much happening so far.  I have missiles and charge beam and think I'm stuck already  :cry:

shit yo what?

:grin: Yeah, I see what you mean.  I meant how the foreground and background are used together (which of course isn't the palette - d'oh)

[advancedpillow]

Just played it for a couple hours. Didn't get too far. But it's not too bad. Not too bad. I tend to prefer the hacks that are dark, or darkish, so I'm feeling this. And those graphics...  :lol: Well, I've definitely never seen anything like it. I don't think they're bad, or ugly; I quite like them, genuinely. I do see a bunch of tile errors here in many places though and that sucks. I'm not the biggest fan of the level design, but it works more than it doesn't, at least for me--I'm intrigued by how unusual it is. So far I like it, mis-matched tilesets and all.

[Odiumology]

Finally finished this:

91% Item Collection

My opinion:
[spoiler]
Its a good hack, i played the normal version. While the hack is focused on exploration there's really not many areas to explore w/o certain items, the bosses are a little modified so they have a little bit more of energy, but nothing bad.

Pros:
-Interesting concept and its interesting to play
-Lets you have a certain degree of freedom to where to go once you have certain items
-Some interesting things done, like blue suit and sprites

Cons:
-Horrible palettes and tile errors
-Too dark for my taste, i found myself crashing into enemies since i couldn't  see them in the dark background
-Level design seems too cluttered and small

Some things lack of hints so they're pretty well hidden, others are obviously hinted.
I ended up missing 3 energy tanks, i had 220 missiles, 44 supers and 42 power bombs, all the upgrades minus plasma, 4 reserve tanks and grapling/Xray scope, i couldn't really find plasma anywhere and there's a strange room in lower norfair that hides something but i couldn't really figure out how to get past it.

I'd recomend people to play it, even with the bad palettes and all its a good hack.
[/spoiler]

[PokeyTroid]

Started playing this. The level design is... alright. It looks very busy when it doesn't need to be. Stuff sometimes looks a little mismatched, and everything ends up looking suspicious because of it.

I like the colors though. Blue is one of my favorite colors, so I don't mind this. It's a little dark and saturated in places, but nothing too bad.

This hack has Respin.  :^_^:


Here's what I have so far:

Morph Ball
Bombs
Charge Beam
Varia
X-Ray
3 Energy Tanks
30 Missiles
4 Supers
2 Power Bombs

I feel as though I've missed something. I'm saved at the Wrecked Ship, and I'm ready to backtrack through Norfair and Brinstar looking for stuff. I know where Hi-Jump and Spring Ball are, but should I have Spazer, Grapple, and Speed Booster by now? More Energy Tanks?

[MetroidMst]

Energy Tanks seem pretty hard to come by. I only collected 6 for the entire game. (Though I did find another and didn't go back for it.)

You can get Spazer, but I would suggest exploring those areas you mentioned first. At the very least, collecting Hi-Jump makes grabbing Spazer easier.

[PokeyTroid]

4 Energy Tanks
2 Reserves
65 Missiles
6 Supers
12 Power Bombs

Grapple
X-Ray
Morph Ball
Bombs
Spring Ball
Charge
Wave
Spazer
Varia
Speed Booster

Beaten Bomb Torizo, Crocomire, Kraid, and Phantoon. I haven't found Spore Spawn or Ice Beam yet.

So I guess Ice Beam and Gravity are next? There's that one grapple room in Maridia on the way to Kraid, gotta check that. I missed Speed Booster the first time around, then wondered why I hadn't checked that door and found it earlier. I haven't checked any Speed Booster blocks yet, so that's next.

Could I have a hint for Hi-Jump please? I have no idea how to get up there. There's a door and a Dachora running around, but...

I dunno, maybe I'll Speed Boost in there from some room in Brinstar.

[MetroidMst]

Go to the right side of the elevator, the top part in Brinstar. If you look around you'll end up at Hi-Jump eventually.

[Digital_Mantra]

There's definitely some interesting design concepts in this hack (mostly the BG).
I've been roaming around with morph/bomb/charge/spazer and 2 etanks (playing hard version).
Am I supposed to do a hell run or am I missing something.

[PokeyTroid]

Ohh, the Grapple room with the disappearing water?

*grumble* I was going to gravity jump up there, then decided to turn back and look for Grapple.

Going to play some more tonight, see if I can find some more E-tanks.

And Dmantra, you should try the normal version first. It's already fairly difficult (especially the bosses). I don't know how the versions differ, but there is a short hell run in the normal version.

[ianfrombristol]

Dammit, too much speedballing required in this hack.  Unless I can improve my proficiency with this technique I'll have to give up on this hack :(

[Jordan5]

I hate hell runs so literally search everywhere to avoid them. Ended up green gate glitching (a blue gate) to get early power bombs [spoiler=Here's the gate][/spoiler]and headed straight to phantoon. Anything is better than a hell run :^_^:

[PokeyTroid]

11 Energy Tanks
3 Reserves
145 Missiles
20 Supers
28 Power Bombs

All major upgrades except Plasma and Screw Attack.

Maybe I should be putting my thoughts in spoiler tags?

[spoiler]Did some more exploring. Found Spore Spawn, I'm not sure if I missed him earlier or not. This hack's sequence feels kinda loose, and being underpowered early on gave me this huge "should I be here yet" feeling. The path to Hi-Jump was kinda random (thanks MetroidMST!).

Maridia went fairly smoothly. The path was surprisingly straightforward, but there were lots of cool secrets to find. The design was amazing in some places, and I love the tealy shade of blue all over the place. The suitless section was done quite well; tricky without being frustrating, didn't last too long. One thing I didn't find in Maridia was the Plasma Beam. Hopefully I'll find it in Norfair...

Space Jump is kinda odd in this hack. On top of Respin, the "jump anytime" hex tweak was added, but not the one that allows you to jump after Samus reaches max falling speed. Weird to have one but not the other.[/spoiler]

Dammit, too much speedballing required in this hack.  Unless I can improve my proficiency with this technique I'll have to give up on this hack :(

Helpful, but spoilered just in case:

[spoiler]You can Speed Boost in Morph Ball form. I don't think I've had to Speedball once.[/spoiler]

[PokeyTroid]

13 Energy Tanks
4 Reserves
195 Missiles
40 Supers
38 Power Bombs

All major upgrades found.

Lower Norfair was excellent. Although if you manage to get the Plasma Beam, well done. That was insane...

[Digital_Mantra]

This hack is surprisingly awesome. Loved the maridian ice shard aesthetics, among many other parts of the game.
The whole thing is just a cluster of interesting ideas. I'm in LN now, looking for plasma or screw attack.
I've only had to use savestating twice on the hard version (Phantoon and the trial room before plasma.)

6:40 / 87%

[PokeyTroid]

Just beat it as well.

10:37
91%

This is an awesome hack that I'd definitely recommend. It's kinda difficult to start out, but gets easier the more powerful you become. I'm not sure how linear it is, because I still feel like I took the hard route. I had to savestate Phantoon as well; I didn't have enough ammo, but Wave Beam would have helped a lot.

I think items are too well hidden sometimes. There are little to no visual hints for some of them.

[Digital_Mantra]

I'm wondering what the differences between the hard and easy version are, seeing as hard wasn't hard at all (except for boss hp and the trial room to plasma).

Oh and I forgot to mention that it's awesome the way x-ray has a much broader scope. Something I've been wanting to see for aegis.

Edit: (Incidentally the difference between normal and hard about the difference between boss strength and attack power.) from the read me.

[DonnyDonovan]

I suggest not trying the hell run with only one tank, even on normal.  It's doable, but it sucks, and will require savestate use to avoid much frustration.  With two it would have been no problem, but I didn't find a second. 

[ianfrombristol]

Liking this hack so far but I seem to have hit a bit of a brick wall in that to progress further into Norfair I need grapple beam to remove two crumble/grapple blocks.

To date I have;
Missiles, Supers and Power Bombs
Charge, Ice and Wave
Morph ball, bombs and spring ball
Hi-jump and speed boost
Varia suit

Any hint would be much appreciated, thanks

[MetroidMst]

You are in the right place.

However, the path may be a little hidden. Search through Norfair a little more carefully, particularly around parts of the map that show rooms right next to the one you're in.