This game is awesome, guys! I'll prove it. Let's Play Super Metroid (Redesign)!

You have to hold down the Dash button to continue running when you spark into a ramp. It's almost logical, except that there's no hint for it whatsoever.

OH BOY SHINESPARK PUZZLES

I just want it on the record: you know all of these random unlocked doors in Crateria that are still unlocked? I'm psychic, and I'm guessing that they're part of the Tourian escape. Which, if correct, would mean the escape is fucking gigantic, since one of them is alllllll the way over on the far side of the Bomb Torizo's room.

Also, update's coming tomorrow. Camtasia was being a bitch and pissed me off enough that I postponed it, but plans have been changed and I can't put it off much longer.

Welcome to Super Metroid Redesign: Norfair is Crazy Edition! Because, yes, Norfair is crazy. The theme for this update would be a little ditty from Dimahoo, but since it's much better used in a later update, you guys will get Tunnel Vision instead.

So yeah. Brinstar.


Now that we have the varia suit and spring ball (latter courtesy of the hello-jump boots, and it gives you wicked horizontal velocity), we can get to the end of the giant spike path some of you may remember. Except we can't do anything there yet, alas. Guess we need the grav suit too.


We don't need the gravity suit to finally get this reserve tank, though! For those not in the know, reserve tanks are extra-complicated energy tanks put in for... I really don't know why. Maybe they just wanted to fill the rest of the equipment screen up, or maybe if they were just regular etanks a number would overflow somewhere. I dunno. Regardless, they store up to 100 energy, and restore your health by that much when you hit 0. Or you can do it manually if you like.

Time for a rapid-fire staccato of upgrades. Hope you can keep up.


See that platform Samus is falling down past? Actually landing on it, rolling left under the overhang, and then sparking left nets you a Super. I was dumb and took the map shot after I got it, so:


Here you go.

Can't do anything here yet, unless you feel like infinite bomb jumping. Once you get the Space Jump, there is a much easier way. (gasp! foreshadowing)



Back in Crocomire's room, it turns out that not all bright gray spots you see when you xray are secret passages. Recall the previous update, where I saw crazy things in the floor and then found a guardian? Well, even after finding the guardian, I never went in passages up there, so I'm guessing those were just graphical artifacts like these. Warning: the preceding sentences may not make sense without a reread of the last update.



Also, Crocomire's room is clean. Guess that dot on the map is a reference to croco himself and not a hidden item.

Allllll the way on the far right of the Norfair map is a silly room with annoying pillars up the middle. It seems like something directly out of Metroid 1, actually -- and now that I think about it, it probably is, even though I wouldn't know since I never played it. Climbing back up is going to be a chore.



It opens out into a grapple room.


Which itself opens out into a cool hidden passage that runs through the background of a room we went through on our way to the grapple beam. We're heading from right to left, through the walls.


Eventually, we get another etank.


This is probably the worst map shot ever, but:


Within that green door is a room with a boulder. You have to run ahead of it and clear out these power bomb blocks before it rolls into and hits them, because if it does it'll break. Which is bad, because you need it to break through an unbreakable wall just further ahead. It's not at all hard and obtuse -- rather, I think it's genuinely clever.



And now we're at the spot marked with a Guardian on the map. We grab our complimentary power bomb, but that statue is not a guardian. What's one to do?



The subtle hint in the form of giving you a power bomb so you can clear the blocks away is pretty nice. Anyways, I have a revelation about the message the guardians give. The "Sector -2- Norfair" does not mean that Norfair is sector 3, but rather, there are three guardians in each of the four main areas (crateria, brinstar, maridia, norfair), and this is the second one in Norfair. So we've got three per area.

A couple rooms to the right of the Guardian is this walljump section, leading to a hidden Super. It's possible to get up that walljump section without the hi-jump, if you can do a couple perfectly-placed single-walljumps, but it's not worth it.



If you power bomb through the floor here and go through a rather long lava section, you eventually reach a jump you can't make. The interesting thing, though, is that after a room transition, you hear this music for the five seconds it takes before the lava kills you. Given that there were one-way gates along the way that only opened from our side... did we find an entrance?

If you're curious, this is the sequence break I got etanks for in the last update, but it didn't work out, as you can see.



All things aside, though, we're back here in Crateria, staring at a hole in the wall. Which we will be heading through posthaste.

yes please



A note about the LP: it turns out that we're a little more than halfway through in terms of area covered, but that's inaccurate, since these last areas will flow much more quickly. There's almost no major backtracking, aside from one particularly egregious case, and the new areas mostly point you in the general direction you need to go. These areas are also fucking enormous, however, and actually traversing them feels...

Well, the best way I can describe it is through another person's words. Tanto, in his sm:rpg LP, said that Land's End was one of his favorite areas in the game. It's where you're a ways into the game, and you've got a feel for the mechanics, and basically you're just biting into the meat of the game and hitting your stride. That's basically what this feels like. The game's used up the majority of its cheap tricks, and if you've played for this long and haven't gotten used to the difficulty you're insane. So yeah, the best part of the game is coming right up.

After the next update. Because the next update is going to make you cry. You didn't think you'd get away without a fight, did you?

Until next time.

Wow. I'm watching Stockholm Syndrome develop before my very eyes.

Show us on the doll where Metroid Redesign touched you, Vorpal.

It loves me! It told me it loves me!

/cries

hey guys, I hear you like updates. While I am playing this, imagine that this is my first time going through this section. Except I psychically know in which direction to head, and how to deal with the enemies. And never miss any jumps.

Ok, so it's not at all like my first time, but still!

So yeah, the lost caverns. I'm crowd-sourcing this one, and you guys are going to help me solve it! What's the trick for getting through this masterpiece of malice? (hint: I tried a lot of crap, and no, the three stalactites on the ceiling aren't the clue you need. As far as I can tell, they're just there to throw you off.)

If you guys don't end up crying as hard as I did, I have failed in my duty as a LPer. And no cheating! You don't get a cookie if you cheat.

Also: bonus sequence breaking edition

Ugghhhhh slow motion underwater platforming.

As for the lost caverns, the stalactites don't seem to be any help, but I have noticed that the stalagmites at the intersection change a few times near the end of the video. They're both small at first, but at around 8:30 you can see that the one on the left is larger for some reason. Then at the next intersection they're both big. If there is any logic to this game at all (he said, his voice dripping with sarcasm), then that has to be some sort of clue.

Here's what I gathered from the video:

7:44 down right down down left door
8:15 right up up (big) left (big) left (Big on the other side) door
8:41 right left (door)
8:57 down down right down down down down door

I'm using the door as a reset point. I agree with Mr. Bungle700 that the stalagmites have something to do with this puzzle, and I also think that the first few moves are up up left left.

I have a sick sense of humor, and the current result is that this thread title keeps getting funnier and funnier.

I don't really have time to analyze it too much, but one quick note about the Lost Caverns from my first viewing: At one point you are able to go left to the intersection before going left a second time to the door. All the other times it just takes one left to make it to the door. I'd suggest that whatever sequence lets you do the one left to the intersection is correct and you then can experiment from there to figure out what is the next correct direction.

No form of logic or trial and error will help you navigate the lost caverns, it's too obtuse.The secret of Lost Caverns is: follow the big stalagmites. Or stalactites, as the case may be.

Compared to some of the earlier sections, the caverns don't seem too bad, honestly. Mr. Bungle and Sinistar clued into it almost immediately, proving that the visual cues do sort of work at least.

Sorry guys, but there won't be any further updates for about a month. I'll still be around, but I won't have access to Camtasia, and I refuse to release the next update without creating this one video in particular.

NOOOOOOOOO

EN

OH

OH

OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

(Yeah, okay, it's cool.)

Looking forward to this coming back soon!

I can't believe I'm saying that, but you guys were essentially correct. The stalagmites on the floor were the key. I didn't even notice that they changed at first (lol), and if I had, I would have discounted it after getting red herring'd by the stalactites in the ceiling. I eventually looked up the solution after spending an hour total over multiple days tearing my hair out. Here is the schema:

The final route is: up up left down right right down left up right. And, after all that, you get here. Enjoy! Next update shall involve the best part of the game.

Also: I got a steam chat invite from ringworm for Left 4 Dead right as I was about to start recording. I skipped butchering zombies for you guys! You're all pricks.

You didn't say 'yes please' at the end!

Also, gotta love how that room completely disappears...

Oh, you wacky game and your geographical trickery!

On the plus side, we were talkin' up stalactites and stalagmites long before it became all the rage in the Out of this World thread. We knew our cave formations before it was cool.

The thing that makes the puzzle so difficult to figure out is that it starts with two movements in the same direction, and that the direction is up (rather than right-right or down-down, which would have been easier to stumble upon, in my opinion). If the first two movements were in different directions, I would guess that it would have been much, much easier to figure out the puzzle solution. If the second movement were to be 'left', perhaps even easier still. Of course, one cannot really say without proper testing.

A minor aesthetic change I like in this hack is how some of the yellow parts of Samus' suit are still visible when you get Gravity, instead of it being mostly all purple.

It's barely worth mentioning, but I think it looks better.

At least the hack doesn't make you play through a large portion of Maridia without the Gravity suit.

Of course not. It's not like he can make you try impossible wall jumps and mock balls with the underwater physics. I guess if he was a total bastard he could have figured out a way to layer the underwater and slow heat death effects and make you slowly and painfully escape ... something.

But it looks like he kind of hates the water physics like (most) everyone else, so he made it pretty short.

(God I hate Maridia)

Nah, he uses sandfalls and their retardation of jumping to get that effect.

>_>

The evidence is really piling up that Drewseph was more interested in pissing people off than actually making a decent redesign of the game. Of course, that was obvious from the start when it became apparent that nothing dies in 1 (or even 10) hits now. Yes, we were all asking for longer encounters with enemies, more irritating jumping puzzles, and let's toss in lots of super-slow platforming too, just to maximize the unplayability!

This is why you should never let a "toxic fan" make a ROMhack.

Actually, I kind of like how the mysterious area disappears with Phantoon.

Like it was never there to begin with.