[SM] Phazon Hack 0.5 (Under Construction)

[danidub]

Thank you, the map is updated and a new Key Items Map (1680x1050) is online.

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

started working on metroid. found 1 shot red doors:

$2438E  05 to 01
$2432C  05 to 01
$243F0  05 to 01
$24452  05 to 01

[Tyjet66]

started working on metroid. found 1 shot red doors:

$2438E  05 to 01
$2432C  05 to 01
$243F0  05 to 01
$24452  05 to 01

You can also edit that in SMILE...

[Sir_Furious]

First and most important, this hack is AWESOME. I love the GFX changes, and the map design is great. I agree with others about the full map bug, but hey, why recover that?

The only real problem I can find is that it lacks linearity to a high extent. I have no idea where to go now, and there are so many options that once I cancel one out, I go to another that I may have done and forgotten. Now, the freedom is good, but I seriously need help! :P

Currently stuck with...
[spoiler]Red Phazon, Blue Phazon, Spazer, Echo, Charge, Dark, Morphball, Springball, 10 PMissiles, 75 SMissles, Grap Beam, 9 E-Tank, 3 R-Tank[/spoiler]

PB's, Speed Booster, or Bombs would help now. I think I know where the Speed booster is, but...
[spoiler]If I'm in the right place, the shutters keep closing before I can morphball through. And my mochball sux, AKA I've never done it successfully.[/spoiler]

I doubt this needs Mochball skilz, but I'm seriously stuck.

[danidub]

First and most important, this hack is AWESOME. I love the GFX changes, and the map design is great. I agree with others about the full map bug, but hey, why recover that?

The only real problem I can find is that it lacks linearity to a high extent. I have no idea where to go now, and there are so many options that once I cancel one out, I go to another that I may have done and forgotten. Now, the freedom is good, but I seriously need help! :P

Currently stuck with...
[spoiler]Red Phazon, Blue Phazon, Spazer, Echo, Charge, Dark, Morphball, Springball, 10 PMissiles, 75 SMissles, Grap Beam, 9 E-Tank, 3 R-Tank[/spoiler]

PB's, Speed Booster, or Bombs would help now. I think I know where the Speed booster is, but...
[spoiler]If I'm in the right place, the shutters keep closing before I can morphball through. And my mochball sux, AKA I've never done it successfully.[/spoiler]

I doubt this needs Mochball skilz, but I'm seriously stuck.

You have to look for the:[spoiler]High Jump Boots on the Warp Station[/spoiler]

[Sir_Furious]

Well, leave it to me to be on the wrong side of things. :) Thanks to the maps, I got that sorted out and now haz SpeedBooster and Bombs. Now to greatly abuse the shinesparking. XD This thing is amazing. Botwoon was interesting, but what does killing it get you? I've killed him around 3-4 times, but he keeps coming back and there is no change... Oh well, guess I'll just have to keep exploring.

[Prime Hunter]

If you've beaten Botwoon a few times, you should have noticed the door that unlocks on the right side of the room. Go there and you'll find the next key item. Even after getting this item, Botwoon was still in the room the next time I was there, so I don't think he goes away after being defeated.

I just completed this for the first time myself a few minutes ago.

03:39 with 54% (this includes using savestates and looking at that map that was just posted a few times)

Overall I'd put this in my top hacks, but even then there are still things that keep it from being the best in my mind. I'll make a quick breakdown of the bigger elements that stand out to me, both good and bad:

[spoiler=Appearance]The aesthetics, both environments and enemies, were some of the best I've seen so far. There's no question that it took a lot of work to get nearly every enemy in the game to look entirely different from their original form. Due to the nature of the bosses I understand how Draygon and Ridley at least would be hard to manipulate, but what you did with some of the others such as Spore Spawn, Phantoon, and Botwoon was amazing. (Never found Crocomire, Torizo, and Kraid, although I know where each of them is supposed to be and what they look like thanks to that map.)[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Exploration]The amount of exploration is a double-edged sword in my opinion. It's great that there was a lot of ground to cover, but like some of the other hacks I've played that focus on exploration, there are times where you either don't have a clue where to go, or else there are a ton of options available so that you never know what path to take. (Including the possibility of forgetting that one path somewhere that just happens to be the one you need to make progress on collecting items.) Personally, I'll take exploration based difficulty over enemy based difficulty pretty much every time, but there's a limit to how much I can handle before I feel like I need to resort to the map in order to figure out my next move.[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Map]Speaking of which, I know it's been said from nearly everyone, but that map bug is a huge pain the further you get into the game. It isn't so much that I couldn't remember what I'd seen and what I hadn't, but in any game that gives me a map I like to have it available to me if I ever need it. Plus, there are the times in Metroid games that the map is supposed to be a clue as to where you need to go next, and not having that ability when you need it most can be frustrating at times.[/spoiler]

Sadly, part of what keeps this from being my top hack are some of the choices you made in designing this game.

[spoiler=Volcano]The whole thing with the Volcano, while clever, prevented me from having the Red Phazon suit until a time where it was immediately outdated by the Blue Phazon suit. I never grabbed it before fighting Phantoon, and once I realized I was supposed to have had it since that point on, it kinda frustrated me a little. Seeing as you're more or less required to have it once you reach the Phazon Mine, it's a rather important thing to me. I only managed to get through the mine because I happened to have enough E-Tanks by then.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Some Key Items] Two items stand out specifically for me as being hidden a little too well, and both are required to make it to the end of the game. The first is the Hi-Jump Boots. The only reason I found those was because I happened to see them on the map. I would've never have though to look in the Warp area for an item. That, and the first time I got to the room outside the station which leads to the boots, for some reason I couldn't get the platform to "unlock" from its place by shooting the block so I didn't think you could do that.
The other item is the Power Bombs. This is more the frustration I had trying to reach them rather than figuring out where they were, but it still stands. The only reason I did get to them was because I happened to find the Space Jump, which let me get across the lake to that Speed Booster bridge that crumbles beneath you as you run. I'm not entirely sure how you're supposed to get to that bridge without having Space Jump, so if that was your intention than forget I said anything here.[/spoiler]
[spoiler=Two Bosses]The "Bomb Guardian" boss was a clever concept, but I felt that getting into the proper position to attack him with bombs was more challenging than it should have been. That, and it took quite a few bombs to take him out, something that made the battle drag on longer than necessary.

As a final boss, I must say the battle with Ridley seemed like end-game material. However, due to both the way the room was designed and how much health Ridley had, the battle was more tedious than challenging. This is more of a minor annoyance than anything, but it still detracts from the overall feel of this in my opinion.[/spoiler]

Overall I'd say that you did an excellent job on this. I can't think of any bugs I ran into this time around, although that may be due to playing this after everyone else has had a chance to find most of them. (I tried to play this a few months ago and ran into a room that was broken which happened to be on the path towards the Volcano, so I was stuck.) My "quick" list of comments above turned into more than I was expecting it to be, but it doesn't hurt to get a through opinion on something like this right?

[Derakon]

This map is huge, and very undirected. That said, I did finally manage to finish it (4:15 and 73%), after far too much backtracking and wondering where in blazes I was supposed to go next. That said, the aesthetics were great, and the concept of playing as Dark Samus was a nice touch.

In general, I think my biggest complaint with the game is the sheer scope of the map. It's huge, but many rooms serve relatively little purpose. This ends up meaning that any time you want to get from point A to point B, you have a lot of traveling to do. Given the number of times you find a key item and then have to track down a dozen different places where you can try using it, this extended the backtracking with little extra entertainment. The warp room helps a bit, so long as you don't mind it ruining your map every time you use it.

[spoiler]Like many, I missed the Red Phazon the first time it was available, which meant that I had to do some very painful heat runs later on. IMO it should have been the reward for beating Phantoon, placed after his room, instead of an item that you could pick up off a side path. Or else put some heat rooms before Phantoon so the player knows they're not supposed to go that way without protection or plenty of skill.

I didn't have any trouble finding the high-jump boots, or beating Ridley. It helps to realize that your missiles are more powerful than your beam weapon pretty much regardless of loadout. That was nice, if counterintuitive for many players; it meant that missiles never really got obsolete. It also helps that he's very reluctant to actually attack you beyond spitting a few fireballs (at 15 damage per attack, which is peanuts). On the flipside, the purple kihunters had way too much health. How were you supposed to kill them? I ended up using plasma charge beam combos, and it still took a lot.

I did have a lot of trouble finding the Phazon Mines, since it didn't occur to me that a new area would first be accessible via the warp zone.

One of my biggest peeves was finding a new key item, going to an area where I needed it to get past, and immediately being blocked by another needed key item. One example would be getting the high-jump boots, which allowed me to access a shaft in the sewers, behind which was a bomb block that I couldn't see until I had said high-jump boots. Another is putting powerbomb blocks behind normal bomb blocks (also in the sewers). This all lead to way more backtracking than was really needed as I went all over the map checking out areas that weren't actually unlocked yet.

My item order was significantly different from many; I was unable to find the speedbooster for a very long time, for example. It was nice to see that I was able to make a decent amount of progress regardless, but on the other hand it was often frustrating to not have items that would make exploration a lot easier.

I ended up bomb-jumping up the ocean (big water area in the sewers) to get powerbombs...and then immediately afterwards finding the spacejump. I don't think it works too well to hide an item in the middle of a huge open room; it's too easy for the player to miss that something's even there.

While the boss edits were generally quite excellent, melting Crocomire still has his old graphics. I can understand how that would be hard to fix.

The bomb guardian definitely had too many hitpoints. Fighting it was more tedious than anything. Though the overall concept for that room was excellent.

Why does your ship teleport from the powerplant to the volcano in the ending?[/spoiler]

All in all, an impressive, if flawed, work. Nicely done!

[Hiroshi Mishima]

That isn't the only ship; if you look around in the Power Plant you'll see a number of similar ships in dock. It is most likely just a Federation ship you take. Perhaps Dark Samus hides in it like he did in Metroid Prime 3, after all, we've never really been told how they got to Aether in MP2. It could've been on a ship carrying Phazon.

Insofar as the size of the map is concerned, that doesn't bother me in the slightest. What makes it difficult to find things/easy to get lost is the lack of an actual Map Screen, much less one that doesn't reset itself constantly. It becomes impossible to keep track of your progress, so you start finding yourself wandering aimlessly for hours before locating what you're looking for. Yes, that is a definite design flaw in my mind, and one that should've been taken care of by now...

..unless it has and I missed it somewhere.

[VideoGeemer]

[spoiler]Like many, I missed the Red Phazon the first time it was available, which meant that I had to do some very painful heat runs later on. IMO it should have been the reward for beating Phantoon, placed after his room, instead of an item that you could pick up off a side path. Or else put some heat rooms before Phantoon so the player knows they're not supposed to go that way without protection or plenty of skill.

It really does help in defeating him, so my idea was the heat room.

I didn't have any trouble finding the high-jump boots, or beating Ridley. It helps to realize that your missiles are more powerful than your beam weapon pretty much regardless of loadout. That was nice, if counterintuitive for many players; it meant that missiles never really got obsolete. It also helps that he's very reluctant to actually attack you beyond spitting a few fireballs (at 15 damage per attack, which is peanuts). On the flipside, the purple kihunters had way too much health. How were you supposed to kill them? I ended up using plasma charge beam combos, and it still took a lot.

Screw attack. Takes them out in one hit. :)


VG

[collywogs1]

I've been fighting tooth-and-nail to get this hack to work.

First I tried using SNES9x (for the Mac), but after I put the patch in the isp folder, all that would come up when I loaded the ROM was the NINTENDO logo all glitchy. I thought maybe it was the emulator, so I also tried ZSNES for Mac, but got the same glitchy screen upon opening the ROM, and then ZSNES actually crashed.

Can you guys shed any light on how I'm screwing up this patch? Or maybe it's just not compatible with Mac emulators?

[Parabox]

You might have made a mistake in the headering.

[Quietus]

Try both hard patching (using Lunar IPS) and soft patching (where the ROM and the .ips are named the same, and in the same folder).

Failing that, check your ROM is correctly headered / unheadered, or download it again.

[collywogs1]

I just tried the hard patch (thanks for the tip), but the same glitch still came up.

But a quick question: what do you guys mean by "correct headers?" I'm new to the whole hacking business, so any help would be MUCH appreciated! Thanks a bunch for the advice so far!

[Quietus]

ROMs can either have a header or not.  As far as playing a ROM in an emulator goes, it makes no difference, but hacking with a headered ROM is more hassle.

The ROM you should be using is Super Metroid (JU) [!].  It will either be 3,073KB if it's headered, or 3,072 if it's unheadered.  For hacking purposes, you want the unheadered version.  If you have the headered version, simply open it in SMILE, and click on Tools > Header > Remove Header.

[collywogs1]

Thanks so much for the help. Turned out I WAS using the incorrect version of the ROM. Once I downloaded the (JU)[!] version you mentioned, the hard patch went fine. I'm glad I got it working, because it's SUCH a great hack!

[Qactis]

OK, I had played this game when you first released it but never beat it [spoiler]I missed screw attack and space jump and had no idea where draygon was[/spoiler], though had gotten everything else. After looking for a hack to play I noticed your screenshots had some stuff I hadn't seen before so I figured I'd take another crack at it. 3:57 with 62%. I know that's a terrible percent but [spoiler]I kinda ran into draygon and after beating him it was too late to turn back so i went ahead and beat the game.[/spoiler] I have to say that was the most badass ending ever :D. I love all the new graphics you made, the wrecked ship tileset is so ugly but you added some flavor to it, the powerplant definitely looks much much better.

Here's some screenshots I snapped along the way, includes a few bugs I found.
[spoiler]
Missing a square slope at the top of this little stairway

These are AWESOME. Looks like something out of MegaMan X :D

Not sure what exactly happened here, but yeah. I was just shooting the crawlers before I picked up the missile pack, and this happened :x



Shooting made Samus reappear for short periods of time.

Tried running towards the missile pack.

made it :D

Somehow the game didn't crash from it. As soon as I got the missile pack it was back to normal. Very unusual.

If you shinespark diagonally left up this shaft, and fall down, you're screwed. Couple solid blocks would prevent this.[/spoiler]

Looks like you fixed a lot of 32px high no morphball permastucks, though I saw a few of them were still around.

Anyways, excellent job. I very much so enjoyed it, and I'll probably go back and get all of the items I can a little later.

[Balchmorn]

This hack is easily the best hack i have ever played, awesome story when you act as Dark Samus  :razz:, i have beaten it 3 times, my 3rd attempt was low % speed run here is my screen shots

time 1:30 with 18%






thats with 1 of each: etank, super missile, phazon missile, power bomb, red and blue phazon suit, all beams, morph ball, bomb, grappling beam, space jump, hi jump boots and spring ball

items skipped screw attack and xray scope

Tips for beating last 2 bosses [spoiler]murder beam is an excellent weapon against them, kills them so crazy fast and saves so much time[/spoiler]

[Parabox]

Dude, your screenshots are fucked up.

[Balchmorn]

it was like that in game lol

[Qactis]

teh S logo is just yet another graphic that didn't escape Red-Monk3y's editing crusade

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

I'm in school and have no time, but i took notes and will make some small changes to SM Phazon hack.  a little ASM work, new GFX, and some new Q's to keep you on the right path.  I wont be working on the map because i found a way to add new rooms that will change after you get an item.  Also working on this hack slows the work SM Parasite Echo. And Echo blows phazon out of the water, it has a new twist on the Heat Run. along with 100% new GFX and enemys. i don't expect to get too much work done any time soon, so don't plan on seeing it for a year or 2.  i'll post some pics on this forum page in a day or two.

[A_red_monk_called_Key]

4 pics of 2 areas in SM PE


To learn more go here http://forum.metroidconstruction.com/index.php/topic,1559.0.html

[Quietus]

Looks great.  You should really start a separate topic for it.  Keep us posted. :^_^:

[VideoGeemer]

I'm in school and have no time, but i took notes and will make some small changes to SM Phazon hack.

Awesome. I have actually taken screenshots of all the bugs I had found (I suppose I'm just too fond of this hack), and I just got sidetracked with RL for a long time, so I haven't been around. I'm sure most people here know how that is. Anyway, I was intending to make a post here with screenshots attached, and I'll probably still do that as soon as I get enough time. Hopefully you'll still be around then to see it.

I had thought that maybe you had disappeared on us permanently, and was wondering how well someone else might be able to make some fixes just to correct glitches and permastucks and the like ... but, of course, I hesitated to ask about this for fear of it seeming like I was trying to step on you or your (amazing) work, especially if you'd object or are still around to do them yourself. This is still my absolute favorite hack so far (though Ice Metal is still really good), and I suppose there's a bit of selfishness inside of me that doesn't care how the bugs get fixed, as long as they do, LOL. Do you have an opinion on this? I mean, I don't expect you'd be all "Yeah, man, do whatever you want with it." Not at all. But as far as little things like the stucks or the lava room, just to make the game playable straight through, if you really do decide that you don't have time for it ... would you horribly mind if someone else did a patch?


VG