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I just played Fusion for the first time! I've owned a cart for years but never got around to it. It's... OK. I guess I don't really enjoy the flow of things. The atmosphere, the aesthetic, the boss designs, everything was oozing with style and very cool. But...
Well, there was one point in the game where I got the Speed Booster. I was in an area with a whole ton of unreachable rooms, so I spent like a solid 30 minutes searching every wall, every nook and cranny for some semblance of progression with the new cool tool I got. Eventually I gave up and went and talked to HAL and he said something to the effect of "good job finding that, now go to this next area, I've unlocked the door for you."
Later, the game gives you a super missile upgrade, and then immediately make you fight a boss that can't be damaged by missiles?? (They do this twice!!!)
Also I often got extremely annoyed that every time I beat a boss I had to fight another smaller boss, in the form of some viral beach ball with insanely long i-frames that bodies you over and over.
All in all it's not my favorite Metroid, not by a long shot, but it is definitely very playable. Just annoying.
The X who absorbs the scientist in Fusion is probably the smartest villain in the entire series. The X gains a little bit of intelligence and immediately concludes "Samus is unstoppable and will absorb us all, at least blow her up on the space station so she can't harm the X on SR388." Might have worked as well, if Samus didn't have a handy A.I. to map out rooms and tell her how to turn the cooling back on.
For the last 20 years, I've had a kind of aversion to first-person, but the pointer controls in Prime 3 were an exception to that, in what I had played. I think in a way, it reminded me more of a light gun game, which I loved and felt more natural to me.
I think Halo Infinite might have finally broken through that aversion for me, though, and I'm interested in trying Metroid Prime Remastered with regular controls.
One thing about Fusion that I didn't realize until several playthroughs in is that before you enter a sector to accept your mission you can just go into any other sector (that's currently unlocked) to mess around and poke in. Typically there isn't too much to see, but playing the game this way (and, to a greater extent, playing the randomizer) made me realize the extent to which progress is actually ability-gated, even if the fact is obscured by the structure of having to report back to the computer after every mission.
Bombs are required to enter Sector 4 proper -> speed booster is required to get to the security gate in PYR -> super missiles are needed to enter NOC -> varia is necessary to survive the cold rooms* in ARC -> etc., etc. They do spice things up with a bunch of special events (particularly in the mid-game), typically to force you to get items that otherwise wouldn't block progression, but it's really interesting to see the degree to which the map design would be able to stand by itself without any of the narrative scaffolding (Sector 5 notwithstanding).
(I'm sure there is a point to be made here about Other M's relative failures in this regard, but heaven knows I ain't gonna refamiliarize myself with that game enough to definitely say so or not.)
*Cold damage, unlike heat damage, inflicts knockback, which is very funny/infuriating.
This new Zero Mission romhack is pretty impressive as a proof of concept of what can be done modding the GBA Metroids. As much as I like Super Metroid there is only so much that can be done trying to mod it. Meanwhile between Fusion and Zero Mission there is a lot more to potentially build off of for GBA mods.
Lol, being able to just nope out of the entire mission is a cute Easter egg. It doesn’t seem great that it looks like a crucial power up is just hidden totally invisibly under a pile of sand, though I realize the video is kinda speed running so maybe there were hints. Looks fantastic otherwise though.
I find it really funny to think that what was once going to be a straightforward boss rush hack has turned into this full-bodied, hyper-maximalist reimagining intent on supplanting the original work.
The real question is if (after people hyping this up for a decade+) this thing will have the special Z-Factor spiciness that made that hack voted as the best and worst hack of 2012. (I, for one, would think that is beautiful.)
Metroid 2 hacking has a long and storied history --- mostly a history of nobody caring about it, except to colorize it. Depending on what you consider a kosher colorization, there have been at least 3 attempts to colorize the game (see RHDN...
cohost.org
- Inspired by a commenter to that post, I updated the TCRF page for the game a little bit:
I'm thinking of making a thread soon extolling these two hacks, but for now I'd at least like to mention that Super Junkoid, the sequel to Junkoid, was released earlier this week:
I saw a AM2R Redesigned mod was in the works, which just looked like AM2R with more spikes so I'm not too interested in it...
That said why haven't we seen AM2R used as a base for more Metroid fangames? I believe there are several source code repos out there in the wild for it. Seems like that would be a more flexible engine to build off of than trying to hack Super or the GBA games.
AM2R has had a few mods, such as several little time trial couses and such, but the main excuse I keep seeing for the lack of full-game mods is that the codebase is a mess (same as any other game, really). Also (somewhat ironically), I think AM2R's DMCA makes people more vary of the consequences of modding the game, compared to the broader M1/SM/ZM hacking scene which has existed for over 20 years by this point with zero legal threats from the Big N.
Both of these combined seem to lead people interested in making Metroid fangames for the PC to make their own engines instead (such as this one).
Despite the inscrutably and embarrassingly in-jokey premise, this is a legitimate attempt at making a highly non-linear metroid game that is nonetheless accessible to people of all skill levels. I hope you enjoy the time and effort I put into it.
Currently it's only available as an attachment on this forum post.
Well, it's been a few days, and I've finally gotten some nice feedback on my hack. Critics are saying my hack is "really good," "one of the best," one of the only ones to ever "speak truth to power through the use of morph ball tunnels," etc., but surely y’all have played it already and know all that firsthand… so what about the other ten hacks from the contest?
(disclaimer: i have only played 6 so far)
Nuts Station by alexman25
This hack was made by a rare dual-classing M1/ZM hacker, who is metconst’s premier “nestroid apologist.” Even though there were only a couple days left to the contest, I managed to convince him to throw something together.
It’s a bit short and slight, but as with all M1 hacks I enjoyed mapping it as a went along. Unfortunately, there’s apparently one scrolling error and a really easy softlock to dive into 5 screens from the start, but I personally didn’t run into those issues so I had a good enough time.
Verdict: Wait for the updated version.
Ceres is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid to Be in Space by neen
This hack is the “malicious compliance” version of a contest entry. The rules state that a hack must be between "15 and 60 rooms", so I'm sure you know where this is going. (EDIT: hint: it's Desert Bus)
The core idea behind this hack was something that I shopped around to various people from time to time as a joke (mostly to people who said they didn’t have time to make a contest hack), and my buddy neen was the one to finally take the bait and inflict it upon the world. Not only did he run with the joke, but he layered a bunch of other equally stupid jokes of on top of it, much to my joy (and everybody else’s chagrin).
Verdict: I was able to eat a burrito for the first 10 minutes of this while barely losing any time.
What if someone amplified bisexual lighting at the expense of every other visual quality?
ngl i admire the moxie
As for how it plays: Every enemy does 50 damage, so you can only survive two hits at the start. Eventually you get more e-tanks, and so the difficulty level peters down to something manageable. You’ll also be pretty good at distinguishing between foreground and background by the end of the hack (or at least have memorized the collision mask of every single room).
Having absolutely no ammo packs is a legitimately bizarre design choice for a metroid. I approve.
This got some very low marks from other reviewers, and with my expectations calibrated that low I actually ended up enjoying this (3/5 orbs)
Verdict: you already know if want to try this based on the screenshots
SotL was the one entry to the contest by someone without a prior romhack under her belt, but even ignoring that I’d say it’s a swell piece of work showcasing some promising aesthetic and level design sensibilities. I think it’s great that someone new can come in and make something of this caliber thanks to the collective knowledge of the community (despite the game and the tooling around it being a horrific mess).
The demo is kinda on the short side, but it’s rather fast paced, and puts its light/dark world gimmick through its paces.
The game has a log system to see crew members’ Famous Last Words. One of the entries is attributed to “Charles Tingle.”
Verdict: This is a good demo. I’m excited for the full version.
The Cereth Invasion by OmegaDragnet
Cereth is the name of the space station in this hack, not to be confused with Ceres from Super Metroid, or Ceres B from the backstory of this hack. (I don’t get it either.)
This hack has a good amount of polish on the visual and code side of things, though in terms of level design it feels kinda perfunctory in a way. Mind you, the map layout isn’t bad, and the game does some interesting things related to events, but the average room is a bit boxier and simpler than I would prefer. Still, this is preferable to me than having the rooms be overdesigned, because at least the pacing is nice and breezy on average.
(I think this hack was meant to be one of those ones where you don’t need to walljump, but there were a couple places where I think the author forgot that.)
Anyhow, the best part of this hack is this random room with mama turtle early on:
There are 2.5 slightly different endings depending on a couple decisions you make towards the end of the game. Remembering mama turtle is one of them. Do not forget mama turtle.
Samus made an emergency landing on some unknown space station, and now she has to steal 14 energy fuel tanks and escape.
Metaquarius is a very experienced hacker who brought his A-game to this project. As with a previous contest, he seized the opportunity offered by the smaller scope to make something more experimental that you likely wouldn’t see in another romhack or a trend-following search actioner on steam.
This hack has two absolutely incredible twists in it, and I wish I weren’t a fool who spoiled myself on both of them.
Verdict: This hack requires the player to do some of the advanced speedbooster shenanigans possible in Project Base, so it is impossible to recommend. Play it if you can, watch it if you can’t. 11/10
Per the rules of the contest, hacks needed to be between 15 and 60 rooms in size, and take place on a space station.
Several hackers (very understandably) said they didn't have time to make a hack of that scope for the contest, and my joking response to that was "there's nothing stopping you from copying vanilla Ceres rooms until you have enough rooms for a hack." neen took that basic idea and stretched it to it's horizontal maximum to make the Desert Bus of Super Metroid.
After running through about 58 15-screen long rooms and getting punked by Ridley, the escape grants you the speedbooster so you can do 1 (one) shinespark that lasts for 9 real life minutes to go back the way you came. (There were several other minor tweaks to enhance the experience, such as maximally low gravity, the Yoshi's Island "athletic" stage theme blaring nonstop, and minor variations every dozen or so rooms.)
Per the rules of the contest, hacks needed to be between 15 and 60 rooms in size, and take place on a space station.
Several hackers (very understandably) said they didn't have time to make a hack of that scope for the contest, and my joking response to that was "there's nothing stopping you from copying vanilla Ceres rooms until you have enough rooms for a hack." neen took that basic idea and stretched it to it's horizontal maximum to make the Desert Bus of Super Metroid.
After running through about 58 15-screen long rooms and getting punked by Ridley, the escape grants you the speedbooster so you can do 1 (one) shinespark that lasts for 9 real life minutes to go back the way you came. (There were several other minor tweaks to enhance the experience, such as maximally low gravity, the Yoshi's Island "athletic" stage theme blaring nonstop, and minor variations every dozen or so rooms.)
Oh yeah Super Junkoid's is incredible. I know two other hacks that attempted to do the same thing, but they're missing beats 2, 3, and 4 of the joke, so to speak.
(Y-Faster 2 Furious is the only hack that does anything comparably interesting with the escape, but that hack is impregnable to anybody who hasn't been knee deep in this garbage for the past 15 years.)
Anyhoo, speaking of Super Junkoid, expect a full 1:8 scale map of it sometime within the next couple weeks. I almost finished a couple months back, but tabled it to work on my own hack.
Also, I finished the remaining contest hacks. Overall, this contest gave us an incredible crop of hacks --- reportedly the best in metconst contest history. Expect a full report within a couple days.
At this point, hacks by Croakmire tend to be referred to as “croak hacks,” as if the term were a self-explanatory sub-genre. Croak hacks are the kind of hacks that you recommend to your worst enemies — they’re a special kind of kaizo. Previous hacks of his have been proven to be capable of slowly murdering top leaderboard runners in broad daylight (and I have an understanding that he has developed other torture devices that he hasn’t uploaded to Metroid Construction).
This is all to say that his latest hack is by far his fairest and most approachable:
This should under no circumstances be construed as a recommendation though.
Reportedly this hack is inspired by the old “Robot Wants Kitty” series of flash games — I have no familiarity with the source material, so I wouldn’t know how well the influence comes across. Whatever the case is, this hack is remarkably high-concept in several ways (which I’ll spoil since I assume almost none of you will ever try this (unless you’re an SMW kaizo-head looking to branch out)).
The space station here is called “Hourglass Station.” It is shaped like an hourglass. The top half of the hourglass is cold, while the bottom half is hot. Samus must explore the station like a grain of sand — travelling horizontally between rooms is allowed, but going back up a room is virtually never permitted. There is a save station in the middle of the station, as well as save stations in the top and bottom corners. Eventually in your exploration you will be funneled to one of the two bottom-corner save stations, where you will be asked to “wait an hour”, after which the game reloads with the whole space station flipped (sans the weird center area), but what was the hot area is now cold and vice versa, and you must explore the station in a downwards direction once again in search for progress.
This creates an interesting rhythm to the exploration, where when an area is in its cold state you can safely do some reconnaissance/analysis for when you travel through the room in its flipped and superheated state (and sometimes vice versa). Do this enough times, and with enough curiosity and grit, and you will eventually beat the game!
Progress beyond just “knowledge” is hard to come by. Major items are few and far between. You start with 3 e-tanks and never gain any more — instead you have “batteries”, which are instant refills scattered around the station, and knowledge about their location is key to surviving and routing your hellruns (batteries respawn when you leave the room). There are also a bunch of “ship fuses” scattered everywhere, and honestly I have no idea what they do. I think they might trigger certain gates, but that’s just a guess on my part (I at least know they count towards the ending percentage). There are also a couple bosses.
Overall, this was perhaps the most interesting hack of the contest. I had a good deal of fun with it, despite some frustrations, but given how punishing it is it’s almost impossible to recommend.
Verdict: Croak rated my hack 4/5 for being too easy so I think it’s only fair for me to rate his 4/5 for being too hard (actually this is a lie I rated his hack first)
P.S. It’s weird to me that we got three different hacks this contest that used a variation of the inverted castle trope (not saying what the other two are).
Isolation by dewhi and mentlegen
This one is a weird mix of nice aesthetics and patchwork design. It has nice tilesets, effects, and custom music, but the design feels undercooked.
At the start you are trapped in 3 dark rooms until you find one specific block in one specific corner you need to shoot to go to the room that turns the station on. There’s another room not long thereafter where some enemies are hidden behind columns waiting for you to stub your toe on them. Some rooms in random places are “off the map”, which is in principle cool (I love me a good overlapping or non-euclidean map), but given that those rooms just say you’re in “Tourian” when you pause it gives me the impression that they just didn’t bother fitting everything together properly, and threw random rooms under the bus to make it look like everything fits together (I could be dead wrong here though).
idk, there’s just a bunch of decision compromises, both small and large, that bothered me. It’s not a very difficult hack, in terms of combat or exploration, but it left me frequently baffled as to what exactly the intent was at certain points.
I did enjoy the mood at least. Seeing the ship becomes more overriden with flesh as you delve deeper into the lower decks is quite neat:
Verdict: I wouldn’t mind a bit more polished up version of this.
Asteroids are a lottery for prospectors. They normally hope to find rare mineral deposits. This time, they found remnants of a Chozo asteroid ship. Their joy turned sour when they found active torizos that tore into the mining station.
The setting in this hack is by far the most well-developed of any hack in the contest, despite the small scope. The mixed tilesets convincingly convey how the both the federation mining operation and chozo ruins exist in the same environment. The areas themselves are all both fun to navigate and spatially complex in ways I envy (but am perhaps to cowardly to commit to). Also, the maps you get from the map stations have a slight tinge of feeling like in-universe schematics, with the full height of some mining shafts being shown despite being only partially navigable by the player — I love that kind of stuff.
This hack also has some very neat custom code that was just a lot of fun to play around with. The “Bomb Launcher” item is perhaps the best thing in the hack. It’s just fun to fire it constantly and see the bombs bounce everywhere, destroying any bomb blocks they touch and making quick work of enemies. It’s also used in some interesting puzzles, like in the second image here where I had to clear out some rubble that was blocking these rippers (trust me it was there):
The other fun custom thing in this are these Donkey Kong Country barrels, which are just hilarious to see in this context:
The largest room in the hack is just chock full of these, and it was a really neat navigate and traverse because of that.
Supposedly this has issues with it being possible to miss progression and enter later areas underequipped, but I didn’t run into that problem.
Verdict: No joke, this is my second favorite hack from the contest.
The only Zero Mission hack submitted to this contest, and the last hack I played.
This hack makes me envious of (a) some of the tooling GBA hackers have, and (b) Roebloz’s ability to just cobble together something adequate.
While, from my experience, Super Metroid has a lot more community resources in terms of pre-made ASM patches and documentation for the original codebase, GBA Metroid hackers have the advantage of a much more sensible asset pipeline. You want a custom tileset, custom title screen, custom backgrounds, custom ending images? Just shove some PNGs in there. Want some custom music? Use a generic music editor that supports 90% of the system’s library, or just shove MP3s in there. Just about the only area where SM hackers have an advantage here is inserting a custom character sprite, but as this hack shows they’re catching up.
The custom Sylux sprite was taken from somewhere on DeviantArt. Hitboxes and cannon position kinda janky? Eh, it’s fine. Kitbash some tilesets together from Mega Man: The Wily Wars? Yeah that seems good. Import a bunch of compressed MP3s from a dozen different sources, but with wildly different styles? Sure why not. We need another room in this area? A bunch of randomly placed platorms and a few too many enemies should do the trick!
Now, I am being a bit hyperbolic in my criticisms here (for one, the Wily Wars tiles are pretty good!). What I mean to say is that if I were to make something like this, my internal alarm bells would be ringing wildly (more than they were for what I was actually making, I mean).
Playing it however? It’s fine.
It’s got some really big fangame energy, but it’s fine.
My biggest actual criticism is with the enemy balance — there’s too many enemies and they’re too spongey. Eventually however, you get a good set of beams and things finally feel manageable and, you know what, it feels nice — good feeling of empowerment.
As for the actual premise or design of the hack: (a) there’s an included STORY.txt that like 1000 words that I don’t remember (the space pirates stole Nightmare and things went terribad for them, I think?), and (b) it has a novel non-linear structure with 5 areas forming a ring around the final, center area, which can be approached whenever you’re ready (the difficulty can be a bit uneven depending on your route).
Word of warning: there are a couple rooms with instant death pits.
One of my non-romhacker friends played this and gave me a sterling recommendation:
Rudie said:
I proved myself culturally sensitive by playing the Super Metroid Romhack T O U R O F I T A L Y . @RT-55J you are really skilled! You kept leading me and surprising me. I did not find your two secret rooms I don’t think. So that makes me sad. I had a good time with this despite being Super Metroid, and let me tell you I hate Super Metroid.
I’ll say I did eventually figure stuff out but it took grit and me thinking real hard about Super Metroid to accomplish some feats. Everything is reasonable, but you do gotta know Super Metroid.
One of the admins on MetConst said that this contest had the best slate of hacks the site has ever seen from a contest and, well, I haven’t actually participated in that many prior contests, but I can see it.
If you want me to rank the hacks, I say this:
Eleven
Super Asteroid
Tour of Italy
Samus Wants Robot
Symphony of the Light
GRAVITY
The Cereth Invasion
Isolation
Nuts Station
Achelous
Ceres is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid of Space
Now, if you wanted some actual recommendations from me, this is the order I’d put them in:
Tour of Italy
Symphony of the Light
Super Asteroid
The Cereth Invasion
Nuts Station
Eleven
GRAVITY
Isolation
Achelous
Ceres is a Beautiful Place and I Am No Longer Afraid of Space
[empty space for rhetorical emphasis]
Samus Wants Robot
Thank you for reading. Now to do something else with my life for a bit.
If you want another excuse to play my hack, the extremely prolific SM-hack TASer GaRan just made an any% TAS of it (before any of the other contest hacks!):
