[SM] Veteran [v1.09 DONE]

[JAM]

This hack is very similar to person701's Hard Mode. I've played his hack and had ideas to improve it a bit, but most of them he didn't liked and version 2 of his hack wasn't done, so I decided to make my own more harder version.
[spoiler]I've just finished first Prime, so there will be a few features from it[/spoiler]

Well, I'm not a first one and not a last one who've made a hard version of Super Metroid. If I am right, the very first 3 Super Metroid hacks (even before first SMILE) were Hard Version (by Ir0n_BeasT), Extreme Edition (by Dark Knight Kain) and Justin Bailey hack.

The goal is to create a more harder version with ASM changes to better fit the gameplay and do so with small size of patch.




What do you get:

Enemy HP*2
Enemy damage*2
Samus HP/2

Mini-boss HP*4

Spike damage*2

Every Missile upgrade gives you 2 Missiles.
Every Super Missiles upgrade gives you 1 Super Missile.
Every Power Bomb upgrade gives you 1 Power Bomb.

Max Missiles	100
Max Super Missiles	10
Max Power Bombs	10
Max Energy	799
Max Reserve Energy	200

To open pink doors, 5 Missiles are need as usual. Hope that'll make them more useful.

Missile pickup will give 1 Missile instead of 2.

Most of sequence breakes are turned to sequence brakes (read: removed). I tried to alter levels minimally and left the same count of items and doors (except a few grey doors more), but prevents player from sequence breaking. Mockball and Wall jump techniques are still there.

NBMB running isn't possible now. Lowest rate to complete the game is 33%, I believe. Perhaps, a little less for a TAS'er, but I doubt.

You still can skip Hi-Jump Boots, Space Jump (if you're lucky), X-Ray Scope and most of beams (except Charge).
Screw Attack is skippable, but you have to kill Golden Torizo.
Grapple Beam isn't skippable. Just beleive me =)






Boss notes

The hardest boss is Ridley. Both of them. Ceres Ridley is passable after some training. Just standing on door and shooting him will not work. Avoid his tail and fireballs and you'll win. My best result is 287 hits with 12 energy left before he flied away. He wanted to kill me too much, I think =)

Spore Spawn is the strangest boss. You'll have to dry it off.

Golden Torizo is much more dangerous than before. Space Jump is strongly recomended.

To enter sand area in Tourian you'll have to collect enough Super Missiles. Beware of evil sentinels!



What is new:


Timer changes.

Energy drop subroutine when Samus has low health is tweaked.

Alarm subroutine tweaked.

Escape in Metroid style (you'll understand when you see).

And other small ASM changes (unspoiled by now) =)


And before you ask, yes I've passed my own hack with 100% and 03:03. I haven't speedrun too much.

Best escape time from Ceres is 0'03"87, from Zebes is 0'20"43 (with saving animals).







Some screenshots.


Mortal Kombat


Samus Wins!


Yes, it's possible to escape, even with 2-3 errors.


Recovery in the battlefield. Yes, it's possible.


It's not a Light Beam, it's a bug.


Get ready for Tourian.



If you have any questions or offers, post it here (or in Engine Works). I'll answer what is need to pass certain places or how to do certain ASM changes.

I tried to fix all possible bugs, but if I forgot something... you know, what to do  ;)

Patch is for unheadered ROM.

Version 1.00 (I'll keep it for nostalgic purposes)
Version 1.09 Type A
Version 1.09 Type B

[Hiroshi Mishima]

It SOUNDS interesting, but that doesn't mean I'll actually like it. I'll grab it and put it in line with a couple of other SM hacks I've been meaning to play, but I probably won't get to it right away. I'm not really one for Hard Modes, in fact I like Easy Modes or Fun Modes over difficulty and challenge. But I'd still like to see the changes you made and that's inspiration to try it out.

[begrimed]

Don't read this post if you don't want some spoilers on this hack.

I played a little of this earlier because I was curious to see what other changes it had. It certainly lives up to its 'Veteran' title, perhaps a little too much. I had to abuse the hell outta some savestates and slow-downs to get past Ceres Ridley; I can't see an average player ever getting past this part without a lot of time and patience, and to beat him without savestating would be a pretty insane accomplishment in its own right. The shortened Ceres escape timer was just perfect, though. I had less than a second when I touched the exit platform, and I did that much on my first try.

I'd consider really lowering how many hits it takes to make Ridley fly away with the metroid. The difficulty of that compared to getting started on the planet contrasts way too much, and the hack actually became pretty easy to me after I landed on Zebes. The increased enemy HP and altered missile counts were a nice step in the veteran direction.

I like what you did with the Spore Spawn fight by making his palette turn orange like his dried room does, but I feel like that fight kinda dragged on too long since there's no way to bring super missiles into the fray (interesting way of preventing early mockball supers). You're looking at a 10+ minute Spore Spawn minute that's not all that difficult since he moves in a pattern. I'd consider lowering spore spawn's HP some, and empoying some of DSO's hex tweaks to his AI so he moves faster after taking damage and continues moving after revealing his core.

Aside from the offset difficulty of the Ceres Ridley fight and the duration of Spore Spawn, I like it so far. I stopped playing after I got supers. Will post again whenever I pick it back up if there're any other complaints.

[JAM]

[spoiler=Hack spoilers]

I had to abuse the hell outta some savestates and slow-downs to get past Ceres Ridley;

Savestates? Slowdown? Wow... I've played with him a bit...
I can beat him every 10th time, but that's maybe too hard for first boss. In most cases I hit him 220-230 times and he kills me. I guess, I should lower his hit counter. For HyperMode or something like that 250 will be good.

I can't see an average player ever getting past this part without a lot of time and patience, and to beat him without savestating would be a pretty insane accomplishment in its own right.

That's because almost no one knows where to stand and when to jump to hit Ridley at least 100 times. Anyone is trying to hurt themselfs using Ridley's tail to save time. I hope speedrunners were surprised =)

The shortened Ceres escape timer was just perfect, though. I had less than a second when I touched the exit platform, and I did that much on my first try.

I glad you liked it. It allows you to pass even with 2-3 moderate errors.

I'd consider really lowering how many hits it takes to make Ridley fly away with the metroid. The difficulty of that compared to getting started on the planet contrasts way too much, and the hack actually became pretty easy to me after I landed on Zebes.

Just don't sure what hit counter should there'll be. Current is 250. If simply stand on door, fire and jump from Ridley's tail sometimes, you can hit him 145-160 or even 209 times if you're lucky before he kills you. And that's if even not evading any of his fireball or ram attacks.

I'm thinking of 200 hits right now. Maybe 175 or so. Not so hard to beat, but not so easy and it'll forcing people to use strategie when fighting him.

I like what you did with the Spore Spawn fight by making his palette turn orange like his dried room does

Actually, I don't even changed his palette at all, just changed subroutine that changes his palette after reaching certain HP.

You're looking at a 10+ minute Spore Spawn minute that's not all that difficult since he moves in a pattern.

But not everyone is enable to mockball. So, even in original game they have to use Missiles. And you can fire up to 3 Missiles in a row to his core which splits a fight into 14 rounds (min). If even this will be too much, prorably I'll change his HP. Max missiles you can get before battle with him is 22 and 40 is need to beat him. So you're already have half required ammo.

I'd consider lowering spore spawn's HP some, and empoying some of DSO's hex tweaks to his AI so he moves faster after taking damage and continues moving after revealing his core.

There are just an HP value at when he start to move faster and changing 01 to 71 allows to checks for 71XX HP after hit, not for 01XX by default. I've increased his HP, so I changed this value too. For now, he start to move faster with same palette that was in original game.

[/spoiler]


In total:
Thanks for reply ond opinions.
Ridley Ceres hits will be lowered.
Spoer Spawn prorably will be tweaked. I'll test this boss a little more.

[Hiroshi Mishima]

I went ahead and gave it a try. Yeah, I don't foresee myself ever getting past Ridley. It's not because I use the tail thing to lose faster (cause I always try to beat him) but I'm just not hardcore enough to do well at something like this. I think you actually made "I Wanna Be The Metroid", and didn't know it. That's funny, cause I'm reminded of something someone else I know was doing to make such a hack, but you really put it to the grindstone. I hope people who enjoy that level of punishment will enjoy the hack, though.

Sorry, just not for me.

[JAM]

Since there are a problems with Ridley, I've recorded a video of how to beat Ridley and escape Ceres. Call it educational if you want to. No savestates, no slowdown used. It takes 15 times to do it right, so it's possible.

You'll need Snes9X emulator with version at least 1.43 (improvment 9). Can be downloaded from Saturn's site (Emulator)

Enjoy!
Download video

[Quietus]

I'm just about to fight Draygon.  Apart from the ridiculous Ceres Ridley, I haven't found it much harder so far.  I've just done a little extra backtracking for expansions, and I'm doing fine.  I'll update again soon. :^_^:

Update: Completed.



Ceres Ridley was ridiculous, and his counterpart later on wasn't much better.  Draygon was stupidly easy after those two.  The sequence break breaks also worked pretty well.  I had fun, although with the exception of the two Ridleys, it just felt like a normal run of the Vanilla game. :^_^:

Also, was this intentional?
[spoiler]Forced Zebetite glitch.  I'm guessing so, as I didn't have enough weaponry otherwise...[/spoiler]

[JAM]

Time to bump. OK, I decided to make 3 different hard versions:
Veteran (approx. 2 times harder)
Elite (approx. 4 times harder)
Insane Mode (approx. 8 times harder, mixed types)

Everyone can select difficulty that will fit his/her skills.

And each of them is splitted into 2 types: A and B. Type A is very close to Veteran difficulty in Prime series: Item and energy amount untouched, beam/missile/whatever damage decreased, enemy damage increased. Type B is a vice-versa: item and energy amount decreased with beam and enemy damage untouched.

What is also changed I'll say tomorrow.

Also, was this intentional?
[spoiler]Forced Zebetite glitch.  I'm guessing so, as I didn't have enough weaponry otherwise...[/spoiler]

If collect all Missiles and Super Missiles and fire them at Zebetites quickly, then ammo will be enough to pass normally. Even if you can't, you can go back and reload Missiles as Zebetites will not respawn as far as Mother Brain glass.

[JAM]

Version 1.09 is done.

Rules:
No swimming in the acid.
No walking on spikes.
Don't touch Ridley's tail.

What is changed since v1.00(incomplete list)
[spoiler]
*For the type A, every thing will gives you double damage, including projectiles, spikes, acid etc.
*For the type B, you'll get half of energy from each Tank and less that half of ammo from each upgrade.
*For the type B, every Reserve Tank in the menu is using full pink rectangle. 4 full rectangles are when Reserve Energy is 200.
*Spore Spawn HP lowered, but mechanics are changed. Now it's harder to survive.
*Every mini-boss have the same HP and damage multiplications as regular bosses.
*Crocomiro will set correct music after defeating.
*Tourian is shifted by 1 block by cutting down the elevator shaft leading to it.
*All area names will be displayed, including hidden parts (including unused Tourian logo).
*Entrance lockdown in Tourian after big Metroid is removed. Now you can return to your ship.
*Every boss is have boss icon, including Mother Brain.
*Smoke puff will give small damage.
*Ceres Ridley hits decreased.
*Crystal Flash can restore from 150 to 65530 health (although more than 32767 means death), depening on max health.
*Reserve Energy will not burn up when regular Energy is fully restored.
*Rain is moved between layers 1 and 2. Credit goes to Drakon for the idea.
*Silent storm is impersonated in first alternate state of landing site.
*Blue sidehoppers are need to be defeated to meet big Metroid.
...and other things I forgot
[/spoiler]

[spoiler=Patches]Patch used:
Elbow fix by Kejardon

Self-made patches used:
Safety fuse
More powerfull orange doors
Spore Spawn music fix
Diagonal map section fix
Golden Torizo code freezing fix
Reserve tank division
Smart Crystal Flash[/spoiler]