Mega Man X3 - Zero Project (V4.6 & Source Released)

[justin3009]

I was thinking of that but I may just create my own like I did for the victory pose not too far from the top of this page.  Thank you for reminding me though.

Here's version 1.0 of Zero playable in Mega Man X3!  REQUIRES AN UNHEADERED MEGA MAN X3 US ROM!

http://www.mediafire.com/?y7581348r747kk8 and a video for people who want to see first. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8Jhwuw8aoU

Changes in the patch
-------------------------------
1. Zero can Air Dash when X has the dash boots.  He may double dash when X has the golden armor.
2. Zero can collect Energy Tanks and Heart Tanks. [ Thanks to Zarradeth for the help on Heart Tanks ]
3. Zero's life is saved to memory so you can't swap in and out to restore his health. [ Thanks to Zarradeth for the help ]
4. Zero can use Sub-Weapons, albeit some glitches are there when you charge them up.
5. Z-Sabre damage is different for each boss depending on their power/strength combined. [ Thanks to Metallicat65 for the idea.  Thanks to Red X for the offsets ]
6. Can switch to Zero or X anytime during game play except at boss fights or specific scenes.
7. Zero can fill Sub-Tanks and Sub-Weapons throughout the game.
8. Dr. Cain scene where Zero loses his power generator isn't in play anymore.

Future Changes
------------------------------
1. Depending on who you're fighting the boss with, there will be different Boss Battle music for Zero and X. [ May use MMX2's Zero Theme ]
2. Make "armor" parts for Zero in the capsule where his armor turns black or gets an upgrade from the Manga. [ This may take awhile ]
3. Much MUCH more extended dialogue with more scenes to make it feel more like a storyline game.  Zero WILL be mentioned in the dialogue and will be a threat instead of only X being mentioned.
4. Fixing Sub-Weapons for Zero, possibly creating new weapons for him.
5. A possible Z-Sabre combo instead of his buster, or create both for use.  I maybe able to make an extra slot for "Z-Buster" and have the main by Z-Sabre.
6. Possibly put in a DHS system where by pressing select you can switch between Zero and X.

[andrewclunn]

Awesome.  Playing through the game again (been a while.)  Lots of fun to play as Zero (But my finger is cramping up from holding down the charge button so much... ah nostalgia.)

Edit:
Hey, is it just me, or is everyone else unable to access the vehicles?

EDIT 2:
Also, Neon Tiger causes all sorts of problems while fighting zero.  Not trying to be a pain, just figured you'd want to know about errors.

EDIT 3:
Never mind about the ride armor I forgot that you needed to get the first one in order to access the others even if you got them in a different order.

[Thanatos-Zero]

How about if we go the Zero and ZX route by giving the bosses 2xHealthbars and respectively 3xHealthbars along with the Zero/ZX damage formular?

Zero:
Uncharged Z-Buster: 2 Damage= 1 Damage against Bosses
(Blue)Semicharged Z-Buster: 6 Damage= 3 Damage against Bosses
(Yellow)Charged Z-Buster: 12 Damage= 6 Damage against Bosses
(Red)Overcharged Z-Buster: 6+12 Damage= 3+6 Damage against Bosses / the + indicates that the next hit overcomes the damage barrier
(Green)MAXcharged Z-Buster: 12+12(+8 Saberwave) Damage= 6+6(+4 Saberwave)  Damage against Bosses / the + indicates that the next hit overcomes the damage barrier

Z-Saber 1st Slash: 8 Damage= 4 Damage against Bosses
Z-Saber 2nd Slash: +8 Damage= +4 Damage against Bosses / the + indicates that the next hit overcomes the damage barrier
Z-Saber 3rd Slash: +10 Damage= +5 Damage against Bosses / the + indicates that the next hit overcomes the damage barrier


X:
Uncharged X-Buster: 4 Damage= 2 Damage against Bosses
(Blue)Semicharged X-Buster: 8 Damage= 4 Damage against Bosses
(Yellow)Charged X-Buster: 14 Damage= 7 Damage against Bosses
(Red)Overcharged X-Buster: 14+14 Damage= 7+7 Damage against Bosses / the + indicates that the next hit overcomes the damage barrier


Also here for example the Damage Barrier Formular from Zero 3 along with the EX Skills for overcoming the Damage Barrier.

Bustershot (uncharged): 0
Orbit Shield Boomerang: 0
Bustershot (Charged any Level): 1
Charged Saber: 1
Charged Shield Boomerang: 1
1st Slash: 1
2nd Slash: 2
3rd Slash: 3
Rising Saber: 4
Saber Trust: 5
Kuuenzan: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 ( Any following station of the Kuuenzan rotation has a higher number, so can´t use Kuuenbu on the boss again so soon, if you hit it with the last station of the move, which has 6 for breaking through the Invincible frames. You have than to wait for the end of the Recovery time. When you use 5 for example you cant hit the boss with a trible slash or with the same move again. If you want to cause more damage, than hit it with a higher number. )
Stab Saber: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

[justin3009]

What kind of errors happen with Neon Tiger?  I'll take a look when I get home.

I was going to implement something like the double or triple HP bar but I'd have to figure out a way to do it.

[andrewclunn]

I experience two bugs, one happened multiple times and the other just once.

The one timer was that Zero was continued flashing like he had a charged shot to release, but pressing the blaster button just caused him to make a normal uncharged shot, and he was unable to charge or stop flashing (until I died at which point everything went back to normal.)

The other is a graphical glitch where both the hero's life bar and the boss' life bar go fuzzy, but pausing and returning brings it back to normal .

[DarknessSavior]

I experience two bugs, one happened multiple times and the other just once.

The one timer was that Zero was continued flashing like he had a charged shot to release, but pressing the blaster button just caused him to make a normal uncharged shot, and he was unable to charge or stop flashing (until I died at which point everything went back to normal.)

The other is a graphical glitch where both the hero's life bar and the boss' life bar go fuzzy, but pausing and returning brings it back to normal .

You ought to take a screenshot of these, and/or send justin3009 a save state before and during the bugs. It would help him fix them.

~DS

[justin3009]

I've experienced the second bug but it was a one shot deal that it ever happened.  I was never able to reproduce it again.

Edit: The first bug I've heard of happening naturally before.  It's a weird bug, I've heard it happening on X as well.  I'll have to look more into that fuzzy life bar bug.  I'm not entirely sure why it'd do that, but it maybe linked to the Air Dash.  Did you have the boot capsule or did it just happen on it's own without that?

Edit 2: Found the source of the bug.  If you tap "Up" twice it'll try to perform the air boost but it can't, thus screwing up the graphics.  I'll have to tackle down the double tap command.

Edit 3: I might be able to make Zero just double jump instead of Air Dash when you get the boot capsule.  The only issue is that he's able to infinitely jump right now, I might have to write something to RAM to fix that.  Would people be okay with no Air Dash or would you rather have the Air Dash instead of the Double Jump.

[andrewclunn]

Do double jump, not because it's better but because it does more to differentiate between Zero and X so that there's more of a reason to switch between them.

[justin3009]

Alrighty, I'll see what I can do.  All I know is I have to have it save a value to memory and check if it's that, if it isn't then you can't jump again.  I just have to figure out how to do all of this though..

Edit: At the moment I'm trying to see if I can nudge the Icons in the menu and the Text up by a little.  I'm going to see if I can expand it a little so I can add a "Z-Sabre" icon for Zero.  Then break off the Buster to be a "Sub-Weapon" sorta.  So the main weapon would be the Z-Sabre and the Buster would be an alternative.

[Metal Knuckles]

Would it just be a one-swing option, or are you considering going the extra mile and recreating the three-swing combo?

[Piotyr]

Zero double jumps in the later games so he should double jump in this one as well.

[justin3009]

I'm going to try and go the extra mile to recreate the three-swing combo.  It might not be that difficult once I get a better understanding, but I can't say for sure.

Alrighty, I'll implement double jump.  I'll probably have to do some sloppy coding for it to work right.  I think I noticed something odd though with the animations for the game.  They're like actual mini events for each animation.  Like..the animation for X's punch when he charges and slams the ground, it actually performs the screen shake.  Also, there's an animation for teleporting out which removes the life bar and attempts to switch but won't due to no data.  I'll have to work with this a bit more for another extra feature.

Edit: I believe I just found the Sprite Assembly and animation data for every single character in the game.  It's..strangely organized, I'll have to figure out what exactly is what and document it for future use.  If I figure it out, I may get a little help on coding a simple editor for Sprite Assembly in Mega man X3.

Edit 2: Wow I'm extremely confused on how it sets up the sprites.  I was going through Zero's as a test and the graphics were going perfectly in order for hex, then for some reason when it hit 10, it just jumped somewhere the hell around and I have no idea what it loaded.  Seems I have more to research on this before I re-do animations and attacks.

[metallicat65]

If it's too much trouble, then don't worry about the double jump...although andrewclunn is right about the differentiation between characters.  Might could just see if zero can do the upward dash.

The other is a graphical glitch where both the hero's life bar and the boss' life bar go fuzzy, but pausing and returning brings it back to normal .

I have experienced this glitch as well.  It seems to be potentially linked to explosions of enemies.  I saw same fuzziness with the little explosions on enemies when glitch occurred.

Alright, here are some glitches I found (some of them you've already mentioned) that may help:
Can't get in robot ride armor with zero if it is unoccupied; hence, you can't acquire the initial "N" robot ride armor with zero
I'm having to jump to the other side of the upgrade capsules to access them; also, can't get to the other side of helmet upgrade capsule--so can't get it either
Can't access Vile stage (or can't fight Vile obviously)
Can't use V. Catfish charged weapon
G. Beetle's charged weapon worked about 1-1 n half minutes after I executed it (I started talking on the phone with somebody and left it running, then saw zero attempting the move about a minute later).  It looked good and I thought it was going to work...........but.....after zero was finished the game glitch up baaaadd and froze and turned black and my computer exploded (just kiddin).  It did freeze up and turn black though.
I also experienced one weird glitch, but it was nothing:  I exited out of rom (esc with zsnes), when i came back in zero's life bar was replaced with x's. I pressed start twice to go to menu then back to game and it went away.  Like I said, hardly noticeable.
On another note, my previous comment about z saber damage could be biased against more powerful regular bosses.  The reason for this is because combining power and speed evens out the bosses total too much.  It may be more accurate if you just use the bosses power level to determine how much damage the z saber gives per boss.  For example, V. Catfish has 8200 power (p) and has 1600 speed (s) N. Tiger has 3600p and 9900s.  Combining them N. Tiger has 13500 and V. Catfish has 9800 allowing N. Tiger to seemingly be more "powerful" but really V. Catfish should be credited for having more power.  If you didn't combine power and speed then just ignore this paragraph, I really didn't notice anyways how much damage was being takin off cause I was kickin so much maverick metal a$$!
All in all, my hat is off to you.  There are many little things that caught my eye that I was very impressed with that I have not mentioned, please know they do not go unnoticed.  You and your colleagues are doing a superb job and the hack is awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!  Let me put it this way, I stopped playing Borderlands to play this hack!

[justin3009]

Yea, ignore some of the sub-weapon charge up glitches.  Those are animation errors and will be fixed sometime when I figure out how animations are setup.  I'm finding out how sprites are setup so I'm closer to that.

The fuzziness so far I saw was from the "Double Tap Up Glitch".  It'd try to do the Double Jump but load bad sprites and screw everything up.  I'll do a run through with Zero again and check it out.

Vile's stage yea..Something is forcefully loading X as the PC and I can't figure out for the life of me what is.

Yea, not all capsules can be accessed with Zero at the moment, only the Leg upgrade so far.

Can't get in robot ride armor with zero if it is unoccupied; hence, you can't acquire the initial "N" robot ride armor with zero

- Ah, didn't realize that one.  I'll try to fix this right away.

Thanks for finding these bugs though, this is really helping!  And I'm also glad everyone's pitching in to help, couldn't have done this without everyone!

[metallicat65]

Yea, not all capsules can be accessed with Zero at the moment, only the Leg upgrade so far.

I was actually able to access the X-buster capsule with Zero, once I got to it with X's upward dash.

It'd try to do the Double Jump but load bad sprites and screw everything up.

Maybe just let him jump higher and air dash, the animations already there to do that.  That way it'll free you up to concentrate on more important things such as sprite setup

[justin3009]

I'll eventually give him double jump once I figure out how everything is setup.  I'm almost certain it's an animation/event thing, that's why it's making him jump infinitely.

Really?  Hm, I must have put the function back in to check for Zero in front of the Capsule then, strange.  I'll remove that.

[metallicat65]

I tested a few capsules and Zero could use them once X initiated dialog with Light.

Also, can access chip upgrade capsules

Here's something that may be interesting:
Accessed helmet capsule with Zero.
Preview after acquiring upgrade allowed Zero to use helmet level map!
Haven't seen this yet because X starts every level and that is when level map is seen.

[justin3009]

Well the capsule bugs are fixed I think, along with the Ride Armor one.  Zero also now gets benefits from the Armor capsule so he takes less damage as well.

Still trying to figure out the animations..this is just absolutely confusing.  I may have to go and just re-corrupt certain areas of the rom again to find where it's picking up the sprites for each animation.

[andrewclunn]

Zero also now gets benefits from the Armor capsule so he takes less damage as well.

Good!  Having played through the game (trying to do as much with Zero as possible) it became clear that after the armor upgrade and buster upgrade that there was no reason to play as Zero except for the challenge.  And once you get the golden armor you can just forget about it.

Also, in Dopler's base (one of the levels, can't remember which one) there is a cut scene with Zero, but seeing as how I was playing as Zero at the time i thought, "Hey two zeros on the screen and one calling the Zero I'm playing X... hmmm probably something to fix in the future."  Should have made a note of exactly when it happened, sorry.

[justin3009]

Oh I knew about some of these event errors as well.  I just have to find where the event's located, do a check, branch it off and load new dialogue.

Also, more notes on data found.  I've found where the game loads the music, the music pointers and what songs are what.  I'm going to try and see if I can branch it off to load a separate theme if you're playing as Zero or not.