metroid quarantine thread

[RT-55J]

I’m making some nice progress:

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Metroid Alpha is a graphics hack for the European version of Metroid. It has some minor level design changes in Brinstar, but is otherwise the same as the original game.

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The PAL version of of Metroid’s soundtrack is subtly rearranged to accommodate the slight differences in sound hardware between regions. If you ever wanted to hear the difference, this hack is a decent enough excuse.

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Metroid Omega is like Metroid Alpha, except on the opposite side of the Greek alphabet. It’s a graphics hack with some level design changes to Brinstar (though in this case, it is explicitly a challenge hack). For some reason I didn’t take as many pictures of it, even though it is more conventionally attractive, so to speak.

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It looks like Metroid Alpha borrowed some graphics from this (namely, Samus, the bosses, and the chozo statue). Odd bit of history there.

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Metroid Captive is an almost good hack that looks kind of incredible.

I love any take on the series that imbues the Metroids themselves with this degree of agency and malice, rather than just being tools for other powers.

The hack itself does some rather clever things design-wise, particularly with door blocks and screen-wrapping. However, I feel like it’s too clever for its own good in places, and thus ends up more frustrating than it intends to. It probably could have used just a bit more playtesting.

Picture Dump

You’re guess as to what this ending means is as good as mine:

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Metroid Master

This made me think I was going to get a beefy challenge hack, but actually for the most part the difficulty was rather well-tuned (bar a nasty soft-lock halfway through Brinstar).

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I got a chuckle out of this ending:

[Rudie]

Weird how all these hacks feel a need to make Samus more like SM.

[eska]

much as i appreciate the amount of detail they’re fitting into their samus redraws you’re not wrong

[kitroebuck]

I seem to remember one that reinterpreted the original sprite as a big-nosed alien. That may have been the only change, I’m not sure.

[VastleCania]

Love that face, very cool

[RT-55J]

There was even a hack from like 2002 that did nothing except make Samus more Super-y:

The problem with all of these hacks is that the increased detail ends up making the running animation (and spin jump too, usually) look really, really dorky compared to the original, which just worked somehow. (I need to make a post eventually that’s just a collection of their walk cycles.)

@kitroebuck I haven’t seen any hack that fits that description (on Metconst, RHDN, or Zophar’s Domain), though I don’t doubt that it existed at some point. The state of preservation of ROM hacks, particularly early ones, is pretty bad (not surprising tbqh). Heck, even nowadays there are multiple functionally complete hacks laying around the Metconst forums as attachments, presumably because the authors didn’t understand the site’s submission process (and the site’s administration doesn’t care). It’s weird.

Anyhow, when I inevitably get around to making my own hack, I pledge to use the Samus design from this Famicom-era gamebook:

Source: https://twitter.com/circuitlions/status/871561610669678592

[rasterradio]

wait people here don’t like SM?

[VastleCania]

yeah it’s a sorta controversial game around here, i think? personally i dig it but it’s a weird game in a lot of ways, and maybe shares the “whiplash from a bizarre sequel” that Zelda LttP has. specifically, Nintendo arguably overcorrected from Metroid 2 (or Link’s Adventure in the zelda case) and made a less interesting game.

But, I think it’s gorgeous and strange and occasionally baffling. My biggest criticism is that the world layout is a bit…I dunno, nothing-y? I don’t get a strong sense of geography for some reason that’s hard to pin down. Oh, and the first hour is kinda boring, culminating in the terrible plant boss. But everything after that is pretty dang good IMO

[rasterradio]

SM suffers the same way that LttP does where Nintendo decided it should become the default formula for the franchise. So OoT and MP can feel like 3D remakes and in Zelda’s case that continued for way too many games.

[RT-55J]

Yeah, I don’t have any major issues with SM itself (aside from some quibbles with the endgame), but I feel like the depth of discussion and analysis about the game has been withered by the sheer volume of uncritical praise it has received.

[toups]

super metroid and link to the past both are great games on their own right imo, they just feel stale because they became widespread and persistent design templates. I honestly think both are much better than the vast majority of games that were made in their mold.

but also like link’s awakening and metroid II are respectively far more compelling experiences and still feel fresh and alive today in ways that their sequels just can’t.

I just can’t get down with hating on them I think they are both very fun and well made games that still contain a great sense of wonder and discovery.

but that’s just meeeeeeeee

[rasterradio]

There’s also nothing much left to say about either of them

[shnozlak]

I feel like Super Metroid’s affect hinges on you feeling a little creeped out and being kinda bad at it.
I think the rush of fear and anxiety the game caused mixed with the excellent aesthetic elements made the videogame inclined of a certain age feel a certain novel way. I don’t think the game has much depth beyond that unless you are a speedrunner freakazoid. I consumed it at friends houses playing in short bursts and it was very memorable. It was really heady imagination fuel. The darkness, scary bugs, descending into an underground world and overcoming it with sweet gear. It made me think a lot of Doom at the time. But its a matte painting of a game. Flipping it over, looking at it anyway but straight on reveals very little to me.

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As for Metroid 1, don’t use a guide but do use a map. Print it out if you can. I used one without any labeling to get reoriented and it made it pretty fun.

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@rasterradio

There’s also nothing much left to say about either of them

That is what I thought until the recent Snesploration podcast.
https://shoutengine.com/SuperNintendoExplorationSquad/episode-42-the-legend-of-zelda-a-link-to-the-pa-93522

[VastleCania]

beat me to it

[Rudie]

Excited for the eventual Super Metroid Episode!!!

[rasterradio]

I like how SM will have enemies unique to one or two screens in the game. Replays still surprise me when I find some creature I had forgotten about.

There’s a developer interview where they say they were rearranging the map until the final two weeks of development. Imagine the amount of fun you could have with a leaked beta.

[AutomaticTiger]

I like Super Metroid more than lttp but I honestly thought that it would be a lot harder to say new shit about it. Link to the past I felt like had fallen by the wayside because folks view it as transitional game to whatever their favorite Zelda is and I thought that was doing it a disservice.

Super Metroid on the other hand still kinda towers over the other games in mainstream discourse so far more time has been spent talking about it, and I didn’t have too many Spicey Takes.

That’s why I picked LTTP over super Metroid for my SNEXplorer’s choice.

[VastleCania]

it was a good choice, i ended up having more to say about LttP than I would have Super Metroid, having recently replayed both of them. Other than “I think people forget how obtuse Super Metroid can be”, which is the only interesting thing I have to say about it

[RT-55J]

The map in the SM instruction manual places Tourian below Brinstar IIRC, and based on hearsay there’s some evidence with how the rooms are arranged in the ROM to suggest that was indeed the case originally.

Also, the very-near-final SM developers’ map has a different room in place of the Lower Norfair room with acid-draining Chozo statue (the level data for it still exists in the ROM). My guess is that this is because they wanted the Space Jump to be a hard requirement for the Screw Attack, and some last minute playtesting revealed that accessing Lower Norfair before Draygon was possible (the statue checks if you have Space Jump, and removes a solid block at the bottom of the acid).

Anyhow, to answer your earlier question about GBA hacks, I finally played a couple MZM ones the other day (mostly as a palate cleanser tbqh). FreezeFlame is technically a challenge hack (lots of heat/cold runs), but is surprisingly tolerable for what it is. Return to Zebes is sort of a weird alternate take on Super Metroid that feels like its own thing, with adorably plunky imported MIDI music. I found both of them somewhat recommendable, though I apologize for not taking screenshots of them.

[GlamGrimfire]

those look like the metroid 2 sprites actually