Project ZM

[FelixWright]

Project ZM
0.8.3 - 7/10/2022


Main site link
Project ZM on ROMHacking.net
Project ZM on speedrun.com
Discord




(Credit to Captain Glitch/CaptGlitch for the shinespark clip)

Project ZM is an improvement hack for the North American (U) Metroid Zero Mission ROM. sha1: 5DE8536AFE1F0078EE6FE1089F890E8C7AA0A6E8
It is designed to fix errors and add new gameplay routes, tricks and mechanics.
Warning: This hack is not compatible with other hacks, including the ZM Randomizer. Do not use both included patches on the same ROM.
This hack was tested on real hardware, 3DS VC Inject, BizHawk, mGBA, and no$gba. I do not guarantee its compatibility with visualboyadvance or VBA-M.
This hack is not compatible with save files from vanilla MZM.

Standard Patch (Proj_ZM_083.ips)
The intended experience for new players.
- In the original game and this patch, some abilities are unknown items -- They cannot be used right away.
- Chozo statues drop hints to keep you on track.

Unknown Items Enabled (Proj_ZM_083_Unk_Enabled.ips)
For experienced players and speedrunners. If this is your first time, do not use this patch. You will be lost.
- Samus' suit can use unknown items.
- Chozo hint statues are removed.
- Item messages can be dismissed faster.
- Instant door transitions.
- Plasma beam deals less damage since it is obtained earlier in the game.

Aesthetic changes
[spoiler]- Custom title screen.
- Compact HUD with three separate colors for selected weapons and red digits at low energy.
- Power bombs are yellow. (It never made sense to me that purple power bombs open yellow doors when Red missiles open red doors and Green super missiles open green doors)
- Custom detailed map tiles inspired by Super Metroid Redesign: Axeil Edition. (For more screen real estate)
- Compact slightly modified font from European Zero Mission ROM.
- Maroon outlines and navy blue filler recolored on a per-object, per-tileset basis.
- Unique breakable blocks in the mothership. (inspired by breakable blocks in Fusion, with notches in each corner)
- Slight modification to bomb block and screw attack block graphics.
- Doors are more obviously unlocked with a blue to gray animation instead of white to gray.
- A whole slew of fixed tiling errors.
- The blocky corners of Deorem's eye socket have been rounded.
- Screw attack particles have a purple outline.
- Charge beam muzzle flare visible while spin jumping a la AM2R.
- Background of west brinstar was made dark blue.
- "Connector" room between brinstar east & west was made to have a more natural transition.
- In place of the Gallery unlock message is a message for how to play Time Attack.
- New slightly smaller escape timer graphics.
- Less obnoxious title screen. Version is in bottom right corner, and a "V" is in bottom left for the enable unknown items patch.
[/spoiler]

Gameplay changes
[spoiler]- SM controls: Choose between GBA and SNES controls in the options menu.
- Suit rebalance: Gravity Suit on its own is not heat or weak acid resistant. Both Varia and Gravity Suits are required for lava resistance. This change was made to encourage grabbing both suits.
- Walljump with spacejump: You can now walljump when you have spacejump or space + screw attack.
- Fusion style R-shot: Fire a charged shot without interrupting a spinjump by pressing R with default controls
- Faster shinespark recovery: When samus sparks into something, she recovers faster.
- Suitless spacejump and bombjump in liquids: You can spacejump and bombjump in liquids without the gravity suit.
- Faster room transitions. (Instant in Unknown Items Enabled)
- Mid-air ballsparking.
- SM style item grabbing.
- SM style equipment toggling.
- Steer shinesparking with D-Pad.
- Initiate speed booster in Morph ball.
- Suck in drops with charge beam.
- Bomb jump with power bombs.
- Missiles and super missiles now also reveal breakable blocks.
- Gallery is now always available.
- Fusion gallery is now accessible without system link.
- Time attack records are now viewable before completing a time attack run.
- Moved all difficulty changes to the enable unknown items patch.
- [unk_itm]Mecha ridley also has a 100% items check for his glass cap, which now matches the check % of his body.
- significantly improved tractor beam.
- minimap increased to 5 x 3 dimensions.
- shinespark impact reverted back to its original pose, instead having a reduced delay after impact.
- delay before ballspark reduced to match delay before shinespark.
[/spoiler]

Physics Changes
[spoiler]- Midair morph does not stop you.
- Continue charging speedboost when jumping/falling.
- Springball no longer stops ballboosting.
- Respin out of shinespark.
- Momentum is preserved.
[/spoiler]

Enemy Changes
[spoiler]- Enemy drops have been significantly improved. (Dropping "Nothing" is a stat: I cut it in half for each enemy and redistributed to all the other drops)
- More enemies vulnerable to power bombs.
- Enemies are no longer stunned in Hard mode. This replaces Easy mode's longer enemy stun.
- The Kraid Gadora fires eye blasts like the Ridley Gadora.
- Kraid fingernails use Hard mode velocity on Easy and Normal.
- The missile block in Kraid's room was removed to add challenge to the fight.
- Mecha Ridley is harder if you have >60% items.
- Ridley's aggression threshold is dropped from >200 damage (>10 missiles or 2 charge shots) to >40 damage (>2 missiles).
- The Ridley fight begins as soon as you enter his room. In vanilla and standard patch, gravity suit is unusable for this fight, as it is an unknown item. For unknown items enabled, this makes Gravity Suit a reward.
[/spoiler]

World changes:
[spoiler]- You begin the game next to the ship.
- Low% is now as low as 4%. (Morph, bombs, Ice beam, missile tank)
- All unknown items and power grip can be skipped.
- A bunch of rooms were changed to make low% without power grip possible.
- Perfect stealth is humanly achievable.
- There is a new way to skip zipline activation in Kraid.
- The black space pirates are now weak to any beam. Plasma beam is not required.
- Hard mode is always available. After beating the game you can Press Up, Left, Right, Down for Time Attack mode.
- Norfair is accessible before bombs.
- Power bombs can be obtained early in two locations. This does not allow you to beat the game early; you must still follow the original sequence of events.
- An optional map room was added to Tourian.
- Tourian has more rinkas in hard mode, and the mother brain room has more spots to use power grip.
- Added mothership shortcut to Chozodia 4E. Requires early power bombs and shinespark knowledge.
- Changed missile tank lava trap in Ridley to use fake lava, so it's less unfair for players who skip grip.
- Power bomb block shortcut in mothership was widened.
[/spoiler]

Known Issues:
[spoiler]
- [Vanilla] Escaping the Power Grip gauntlet too quickly results in the tower never extending.
- [Vanilla] Every certain number of frames, you cannot exit the zipline.
- [Standard] Speedbooster hint statue is floating 1 block too high.
- [Unknown Items] Broken Kraid/Ridley elevator statues temporarily delete certain blocks.
- Unexplored and undownloaded vertically flipped map tiles look whack.
- Occasionally the brinstar theme will play at the start of the Kraid cutscene.
- Miniboss theme will sometimes keep playing after grabbing charge beam.
- Messed up sounds grabbing Crateria early super missiles. (?)
- Stealth segment does not always have music.
- After obtaining fully powered suit, music may not play until the next room is loaded.
- With SM controls selected, demos are messed up.
- Kraid Gadora eye blast graphics clip over the eye.
- Tourian F is missing elevator sprite 50 after event 27 (mother brain killed).
[/spoiler]

Credits:
[spoiler]
biospark -- author of Metroid Advance Game Editor (MAGE) and the following ASM:
      4th minimap color
      Enable Unknown Items (+ GFX / Text)
      Fusion style R-shotting
      Metroid Prime-style tractor beam (Suck in drops with charge beam)
      Mid-air ballsparking
      SM-style ability toggling in the status screen
      Two-Line Text Boxes
      Instant door transitions

Captain Glitch -- Aside from general help with this project, his contributions include:
      SM style item grabbing
      Shinespark steering
      Speedbooster in morphball
      Unlocking of Kraid's doors
      New physics
      Respin out of shinespark
     
Cosmic -- Head of the project. Added:
      Changed world design
      Fixed tiling errors
      Custom graphics
      Custom text
      Replaced navy blue tileset filler
      Early power bombs
      Norfair before bombs
         
JumZhu.Diwa -- Walljump with space jump

kiliwily -- Shinespark in 2 block tall passages
      Screw attack and speed booster reveal hidden tanks
      Screw attack breaks bomb chain blocks
      Power bomb jumping

raygun -- SNES Controls
      3 Weapon highlight colors
      Beam Burst (With SNES Controls, Fire charged shots with B while PBs selected)
      Red digits at low energy
      Fast door transitions

somerando(cauuyjdp) -- Bombjump in liquids without gravity suit

Nintendo -- Metroid: Zero Mission

Metroid Advance Game Construction (MAGConst) -- The metconst subcommunity dedicated to hacking the GBATroids. Consider joining the MAGConst Discord server!

Metroid Construction -- The #1 source for all things hacking metroid! Official MetConst discord

Metroid: Zero Mission speedrunners -- provided lots of input on what to change in this hack. MZM Speedrunning Discord server
[/spoiler]

[Steel Sparkle]

So far i beat ridley and left its lair but i noticed you cannot fight imago and obtain the SM tank and if you go back into the room with the bug mini boss you are trapped forever.

[Cpt.Glitch]

So far i beat ridley and left its lair but i noticed you cannot fight imago and obtain the SM tank and if you go back into the room with the bug mini boss you are trapped forever.

In the most recent update. "◘ Fixed a softlock at the entrance to ridley"

[Steel Sparkle]

So far i beat ridley and left its lair but i noticed you cannot fight imago and obtain the SM tank and if you go back into the room with the bug mini boss you are trapped forever.

In the most recent update. "◘ Fixed a softlock at the entrance to ridley"

Ah okay! Thanks for the info.

[Hippopottymouth]

Is this aiming to be the Project Base of MZM?

[alexman25]

Is this aiming to be the Project Base of MZM?

Somewhat.

[Steel Sparkle]

IM playing the latest version and this permastuck still exists from what i can gather and  super missile tank is impossible to get in ridley making 100% impossible.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[FelixWright]

IM playing the latest version and this permastuck still exists from what i can gather and  super missile tank is impossible to get in ridley making 100% impossible.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Are you on a fresh save, or the one from the previous version? The problem is that when cutscenes were removed a certain event wasn't getting set so that room never changed. I added back cutscenes to fix this but if you saved after that room you're kind of SOL because it'll never set.

[Scooterboot9697]

This hack is pretty sweet. I don't suppose we could get a separate patch that includes Capt. Glitch's SM Controls? Because that would be awesome.

I tried patching it myself, but just ran into issues/lockups. I'm sure if I had a much better understanding of ASM, I could do it myself.

[alexman25]

This hack is pretty sweet. I don't suppose we could get a separate patch that includes Capt. Glitch's SM Controls? Because that would be awesome.

I tried patching it myself, but just ran into issues/lockups. I'm sure if I had a much better understanding of ASM, I could do it myself.

You'll probably have to repoint the SM Controls ASM so that it doesn't overwrite the other assembly patches.

[Steel Sparkle]

IM playing the latest version and this permastuck still exists from what i can gather and  super missile tank is impossible to get in ridley making 100% impossible.
[spoiler][/spoiler]

Are you on a fresh save, or the one from the previous version? The problem is that when cutscenes were removed a certain event wasn't getting set so that room never changed. I added back cutscenes to fix this but if you saved after that room you're kind of SOL because it'll never set.

I didn't know that. I was using the same save as before. Thanks for that information!

[Jet3rd]

Would this work with an item randomizer?

[biospark]

Would this work with an item randomizer?

Very unlikely.

[FelixWright]

Would this work with an item randomizer?

Very unlikely.

What bio said! This patch uses a bunch of free space and as such would probably overwrite or be overwritten by stuff from the randomizer.

[Jet3rd]

Yep, i tested it out anyway and as soon as you start a game, (new or at a save or anything) it just instant transmissions you to the title screen. But on a normal rom is works nicely and is easier on mobile for sure.

[FelixWright]

Project ZM v0.5.0 -- 30/1/2020

◘ New name: Project ZM
◘ Added a new control option: R-Toggle! Basically the same as AM2R.
◘ Added charge beam concentration (disabled in premade patches, as it is bugged)
◘ Added many more options to tweaks.asm
◘ Fixed some stuff not compiling right because             \\I was silly and did this, even though this isn't a comment.         ; This is a comment.
◘ Added walljumping with space jump and space + screw attack (Thanks Jumzhu!)
◘ Undid some controversial changes (Tourian map room, shorter tourian escape route)
◘ Modified biospark's unknown items ASM, so you can choose a different suit to have full power GFX, not just the gravity suit. (Check Tweaks.asm)

[FelixWright]

As of today, this project is now a year old. Thank you everyone for your feedback and contributions! This project is far enough along in its current state that I may take a break from updating it in favor of making a new hack. No promises, but I would at least like to fix the charge beam healing ASM before going down that route. Happy hacking!

[FelixWright]

This is now just a thread for the Vanilla+ hack, Project ZM. For the modular asm, check out the Zero Mission Hacking Toolkit (ZMHT) Thread.

[FelixWright]

Project ZM v0.5.1 -- 02/10/2020
◘ Made the secret path to power grip more obvious
◘ Made the super missile block near varia suit room into a missile block, and more obvious so people don't get stuck/lost as much
◘ Weakened Mecha ridley's missiles to make 4% more viable
◘ Fixed a bunch of tiling errors in the room before varia suit

[FelixWright]

Project ZM v0.6 -- 03/20/2020

◘ Gameplay changes:
   - SM Controls was rewritten and is now a togglable ingame option, in place of sound settings. (GBA Controls default) Worry not, the audio is now stereo by default.
   - Shinespark steering was rewritten to allow for vertical steering.
   - SM Style item grabbing was simplified.
   - A complete overhaul of ZM's physics by Captain Glitch! Samus' momentum is preserved, midair morphing doesn't stop you, and you can even build up a speedboost on multiple platforms. Mockball is a thing. Get ready TASers!
   - Super Metroid style projectiles: Running and shooting makes the projectile as fast as it is set + your move speed, but when standing still it doesnt care about your move speed.
   - Gravity Suit requires Varia to be resistant to heat, weak acid and lava. This ensures that Varia is now an item more worth grabbing.
   - Elevator and boss intro cutscenes can be skipped by pressing B.
◘ Visual changes:
   - New compact HUD and map graphics.
   - The mothership has its own unique breakable tiles graphics.
   - Varia suit determines the bigger suit graphics, not Gravity Suit.
   - In light of the above change, gravity suit has had a very slight adjustment to its palette to look okay in low power form.
◘ Fixed errors:
   - Unable to toggle unknown items
   - Grabbing unknown items played the wrong message and sound
   - Gravity suit not visible
   - Tiling error in Brinstar 14
   - Tiling error in Brinstar C
   - Minimap map station tiling error in tourian
   - Player was able to springball off of corners of tiles without high jump
   - Poor enemy placement in Norfair A, Chozodia 1D and Chozodia 5A
◘ World design changes:
   - Plasma beam is locked behind a super missile hatch, which means a requirement of at least one boss to be defeated before it can be accessed
   - The path below the wave beam chozo in Brinstar 15 now too contains beetles to skip the statue for a faster early varia
   - Added a zeb to Brinstar 15
   - Rooms containing zebs now have a hardmode variant with the unused blue zebs
   - Tourian has a map station.
   - Brinstar A was given a left steep slope on Kraid's part of the gate, no longer requiring a jump
   - The floor in Brinstar 10 was flattened, no longer requiring a jump
   - Norfair 20 has more blocks replaced with speedbooster blocks which should make sparking through it easier.
◘ Balance:
   - Redid rinka drops to hopefully be more fair. Below is technical information about changes made.

Code Select Expand

+=======================================+
| 0x400 Total drop chance budget |
+=======================================+
|No drop: | 25C or 16C --> 100 |
|Small energy: | A or 0 --> A |
|Large energy: | 32 --> 32 |
|Missile: | 15E or 258 --> 2BA |
|Super Missile: | A --> A |
|Power Bomb: | 0 --> 0 |
+=======================================+

[FelixWright]

Project ZM v0.6.1 -- 03/22/2020

◘ Emergency fix for GBA controls in main patch. Shinesparking is good again, and you can angle down while standing and crouching.
◘ World design change: Pirates in Chozodia E moved closer to middle of room

Known issues:

- Skipping cutscenes keeps cutscene sounds looping.

[spoiler=Using a map station is ugly because filler tiles are transparent (May already have a solution to this)]
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=You cannot go directly from crouching and aiming down to standing and aiming down with SM controls]
[/spoiler]

[FelixWright]

Project ZM v0.6.2 -- 03/29/2020

- raygun: Further fixes for SM controls patch
- World design change: Chozodia 22 correctly scrolls both vertically and horizontally
- Added back the solid wall effect in Brinstar 2 before using long beam statue
- raygun: Fixed bad backgrounds in the map station download screens due to tiles having transparency
- Balance changes: Plasma beam deals 50% less damage
- Removed cutscene skip shortcut as it causes issues with sounds that cannot be fixed
- Message boxes close faster, about as soon as the expansion tank sound plays
- ALL messages have been recentered

[FelixWright]

Project ZM v0.6.3 -- 04/06/2020

- raygun: More fixes for SM controls patch (ziplines)
- raygun: SM style projectiles now works on ziplines

World design changes:
- You start at your ship
- An elevator connects Crateria and Brinstar
- "Wisconsin" was deleted from landing site

Gameplay changes:
- Walljumping has less delay and is easier to perform.
- In hard mode, enemies do not flinch on hit.
- Ridley is more aggressive
- Mecha Ridley used to check for 100% to be harder, now it's >=10%
- Took out the experimental Time Attack always on tweak
(You can still play time attack by pressing A on a completed save, then pressing Up Left Right Down)

Aesthetic changes:
- Hud weapons changed back to be yellow when armed

- Power bombs are yellow and more rounded off in HUD
- Power bomb tanks are yellow/orange (including the one the pirate carries)
- Power bomb blocks are yellow/orange
- Power bombs have a flashier animation when placed

- Bombs make use of yellows and greens, looks neat and helps with visual cues

[FelixWright]

Project ZM v0.6.4 -- 04/07/2020

raygun: Fixed the need to hold down when aiming at a down angle with GBA controls

aesthetic changes:
- The shootable spot in the wall a lot of people seem to miss during the stealth segment in chozodia is now more apparent
- Small tiling error in charlie room fixed
- Lava pool in chozodia was a pain to get out of if you went the traditional route without screw attack, this has since been fixed (though low% is faster still)

known issue:
Music doesn't play at the end of the game?

[PhoenixKing22]

2 things:
1: this is an amazing hack! I loved this!
2: is it possible that you can make this compatible with the spazor patch?