[GBA - Metroid Zero Mission] Project ZM

[FelixWright]

Project ZM 0.8.2 - 11/06/2021


Main site link
Project ZM on Metroid Construction
Project ZM on speedrun.com
Discord Server



(Credit to https://www.twitch.tv/whalerynth for the shinespark clip)

Project ZM is an improvement hack for the North American (U) Metroid Zero Mission ROM. sha1: 5DE8536AFE1F0078EE6FE1089F890E8C7AA0A6E8
It is designed to fix errors and add new gameplay routes, tricks and mechanics.
Warning: This hack is not compatible with other hacks, including the ZM Randomizer. Do not use both included patches on the same ROM.
This hack was tested on real hardware, 3DS VC Inject, BizHawk, mGBA, and no$gba. I do not guarantee its compatibility with visualboyadvance or VBA-M.
This hack is not compatible with save files from vanilla MZM.

Standard Patch (Proj_ZM_082.ips)
The intended experience for new players.
- In the original game and this patch, some abilities are unknown items -- They cannot be used right away.
- Chozo statues drop hints to keep you on track.

Unknown Items Enabled (Proj_ZM_082_Unk_Enabled.ips)
For experienced players and speedrunners. If this is your first time, do not use this patch. You will be lost.
- Samus' suit can use unknown items.
- Chozo hint statues are removed.
- Item messages can be dismissed faster.
- Instant door transitions.
- Plasma beam deals less damage since it is obtained earlier in the game.

Aesthetic changes
- Custom title screen.
- Compact HUD with three separate colors for selected weapons and red digits at low energy.
- Power bombs are yellow. (It never made sense to me that purple power bombs open yellow doors when Red missiles open red doors and Green super missiles open green doors)
- Custom detailed map tiles inspired by Super Metroid Redesign: Axeil Edition. (For more screen real estate)
- Compact slightly modified font from European Zero Mission ROM.
- Maroon outlines and navy blue filler recolored on a per-object, per-tileset basis.
- Unique breakable blocks in the mothership. (inspired by breakable blocks in Fusion, with notches in each corner)
- Slight modification to bomb block and screw attack block graphics.
- Doors are more obviously unlocked with a blue to gray animation instead of white to gray.
- A whole slew of fixed tiling errors.
- The blocky corners of Deorem's eye socket have been rounded.
- Screw attack particles have a purple outline.

Gameplay changes
- SM controls: Choose between GBA and SNES controls in the options menu.
- Suit rebalance: Gravity Suit on its own is not heat or weak acid resistant. Both Varia and Gravity Suits are required for lava resistance. This change was made to encourage grabbing both suits.
- Walljump with spacejump: You can now walljump when you have spacejump or space + screw attack.
- Fusion style R-shot: Fire a charged shot without interrupting a spinjump by pressing R with default controls
- Faster shinespark recovery: When samus sparks into something, she recovers faster.
- Suitless spacejump and bombjump in liquids: You can spacejump and bombjump in liquids without the gravity suit.
- Faster room transitions. (Instant in Unknown Items Enabled)
- Mid-air ballsparking.
- SM style item grabbing.
- SM style equipment toggling.
- Steer shinesparking with D-Pad.
- Initiate speed booster in Morph ball.
- Suck in drops with charge beam.
- Bomb jump with power bombs.

Physics Changes
- Midair morph does not stop you.
- Continue charging speedboost when jumping/falling.
- Springball no longer stops ballboosting.
- Respin out of shinespark.
- Momentum is preserved.

Enemy Changes
- Enemy drops have been significantly improved. (Dropping "Nothing" is a stat: I cut it in half for each enemy and redistributed to all the other drops)
- More enemies vulnerable to power bombs.
- Enemies are no longer stunned in Hard mode. This replaces Easy mode's longer enemy stun.
- The Kraid Gadora fires eye blasts like the Ridley Gadora.
- Kraid fingernails use Hard mode velocity on Easy and Normal.
- The missile block in Kraid's room was removed to add challenge to the fight.
- Mecha Ridley is harder if you have >30% items.
- Ridley's aggression threshold is dropped from >200 damage (>10 missiles or 2 charge shots) to >40 damage (>2 missiles).
- The Ridley fight begins as soon as you enter his room. In vanilla and standard patch, gravity suit is unusable for this fight, as it is an unknown item. For unknown items enabled, this makes Gravity Suit a reward.

World changes:
- You begin the game next to the ship.
- Low% is now as low as 4%. (Morph, bombs, Ice beam, missile tank)
- All unknown items and power grip can be skipped.
- A bunch of rooms were changed to make low% without power grip possible.
- Perfect stealth is humanly achievable.
- There is a new way to skip zipline activation in Kraid.
- The black space pirates are now weak to any beam. Plasma beam is not required.
- Hard mode is always available. After beating the game you can Press Up, Left, Right, Down for Time Attack mode.
- Norfair is accessible before bombs.
- Power bombs can be obtained early in two locations. This does not allow you to beat the game early; you must still follow the original sequence of events.
- An optional map room was added to Tourian.
- Tourian has more rinkas in hard mode, and the mother brain room has more spots to use power grip.

Known Issues:
[spoiler]
- [Vanilla] Escaping the Power Grip gauntlet too quickly results in the tower never extending.
- [Vanilla] Every certain number of frames, you cannot exit the zipline.
- [Unknown Items] Broken Kraid/Ridley elevator statues temporarily delete certain blocks.
- Unexplored and undownloaded vertically flipped map tiles look whack.
- Occasionally the brinstar theme will play at the start of the Kraid cutscene.
- Miniboss theme will sometimes keep playing after grabbing charge beam.
- Messed up sounds grabbing Crateria early super missiles. (?)
- Stealth segment does not always have music.
- After obtaining fully powered suit, music may not play until the next room is loaded.
- With SM controls selected, demos are messed up.
- Kraid Gadora eye blast graphics clip over the eye.
[/spoiler]

Credits:
[spoiler]
biospark -- author of Metroid Advance Game Editor (MAGE) and the following ASM:
      4th minimap color
      Enable Unknown Items (+ GFX / Text)
      Fusion style R-shotting
      Metroid Prime-style tractor beam (Suck in drops with charge beam)
      Mid-air ballsparking
      SM-style ability toggling in the status screen
      Two-Line Text Boxes
      Instant door transitions

Captain Glitch -- Aside from general help with this project, his contributions include:
      SM style item grabbing
      Shinespark steering
      Speedbooster in morphball
      Unlocking of Kraid's doors
      New physics
      Respin out of shinespark
      
Cosmic -- Head of the project. Added:
      Changed world design
      Fixed tiling errors
      Custom graphics
      Custom text
      Replaced navy blue tileset filler
      Early power bombs
      Norfair before bombs
         
JumZhu.Diwa -- Walljump with space jump

kiliwily -- Shinespark in 2 block tall passages
      Screw attack and speed booster reveal hidden tanks
      Screw attack breaks bomb chain blocks
      Power bomb jumping

raygun -- SNES Controls
      3 Weapon highlight colors
      Beam Burst (With SNES Controls, Fire charged shots with B while PBs selected)
      Red digits at low energy
      Fast door transitions

Nintendo -- Metroid: Zero Mission

Metroid Advance Game Construction (MAGConst) -- The metconst subcommunity dedicated to hacking the GBATroids. Consider joining the MAGConst Discord server!

Metroid Construction -- The #1 source for all things hacking metroid! Official MetConst discord

Metroid: Zero Mission speedrunners -- provided lots of input on what to change in this hack. MZM Speedrunning Discord server
[/spoiler]

[ifightdragons]

Would you consider breaking up the patches individually to cater to everyone, besides people who already know the game inside out?

You've done a ton of amazing work here, introducing much needed QOL improvements. But at the same time, the game feels broken in terms of routing and progression, unless you're a speedrunner who just happens to know every secret inside out.

I think the hack would be easy to recommend to anyone, if the QOL improvements could be patched without having to patch the new routing and level progressions.

Same goes for the removal of Chozo Hint statues. Playing through the game the first time, they are basically needed for some items. It would be nice having that as an optional patch as well.

I suggest splitting the patches like this:
-Enable QOL features and graphical touches
-Enable Chozo Hint statue removal
-Enable different level design/progression
-Enable Unknown Items

If done like this, pretty much everyone can get their ultimate Zero Mission experience using your hack. It's got the potential to be that definitive experience, for both first timers and experienced players alike.

[ShadowOne333]

I have to agree with ifightdragons here.
While the vast majority of changes are welcomed and a great improvement over the original game, a number of changes are really not desired for those that just want a QoL experience of Zero Mission.

The custom title screen is something many people might not be keen of, having the vanilla one would be good there.
I know having a custom title screen can help with versions and such, but for a standard/casual play, it'd best to leave it untouched. The same goes for some of the level design changes, some feel quite out of place for people that don't know the ins and outs of ZM to expert levels.

Having separate patches for such things could help extend the reach for the hack and the people that enjoy it.

I do hope some of the points are taken into consideration, and I've been following the hack for a while and I really like most of the changes presented in this project.

[FelixWright]

Would you consider breaking up the patches individually to cater to everyone, besides people who already know the game inside out?

You've done a ton of amazing work here, introducing much needed QOL improvements. But at the same time, the game feels broken in terms of routing and progression, unless you're a speedrunner who just happens to know every secret inside out.

I think the hack would be easy to recommend to anyone, if the QOL improvements could be patched without having to patch the new routing and level progressions.

Same goes for the removal of Chozo Hint statues. Playing through the game the first time, they are basically needed for some items. It would be nice having that as an optional patch as well.

I suggest splitting the patches like this:
-Enable QOL features and graphical touches
-Enable Chozo Hint statue removal
-Enable different level design/progression
-Enable Unknown Items

If done like this, pretty much everyone can get their ultimate Zero Mission experience using your hack. It's got the potential to be that definitive experience, for both first timers and experienced players alike.

I am not really sure where you're coming from with progression being broken. The new and changed routes were made to be as subtle as possible; If you didn't know any better you would think they were in the original game. Take the zipline skip for example. While you do avoid Mua and save time, you must still defeat the baristutes in the room to continue. All that I changed was I added a morph ball tunnel above the secret missile tank. (indicated by a cracked block in the ceiling) Even if you successfully obtain early power bombs in this hack, you must still follow the original game's sequence of events; you cannot just barge into Chozodia, kill mecha and end the game. The unknown items blocks are gone but that hardly changes the game's progression if even at all.

Now, if you are talking about the separate unknown items enabled patch missing the Chozo hint statues, that is intentional. It is said in the README that new players should play the standard patch before they play with unknown items enabled. This is how Zero Mission was meant to be played: Unknown Items Enabled is there for additional fun and to answer the question "What if we could use the unknown items right away?"

I have to agree with ifightdragons here.
While the vast majority of changes are welcomed and a great improvement over the original game, a number of changes are really not desired for those that just want a QoL experience of Zero Mission.

The custom title screen is something many people might not be keen of, having the vanilla one would be good there.
I know having a custom title screen can help with versions and such, but for a standard/casual play, it'd best to leave it untouched. The same goes for some of the level design changes, some feel quite out of place for people that don't know the ins and outs of ZM to expert levels.

Having separate patches for such things could help extend the reach for the hack and the people that enjoy it.

I do hope some of the points are taken into consideration, and I've been following the hack for a while and I really like most of the changes presented in this project.

With all due respect I will not be changing the title screen. It is a romhack, people should know that. It is also a work in progress hack, they should know the version and date. As this hack is listed on speedrun.com, it is easier to tell what version of the hack a player is running by having this custom title screen.

As for the changes in level design, you can see my response to that above. I recognize that I did not do enough testing for Norfair before bombs but rest assured it will be better next time. My reasoning for opening that up is that Zero Mission is a remake of NEStroid where that was possible; and while some changes are required it wouldn't ruin the game's progression. You just get the opportunity to grab power grip or ice beam early, and go directly back to Brinstar from either Norfair or Crateria. Aside from that, the changes I made are not outlandish in any sense of the word.

If you have not played Zero Mission before, use Proj_ZM_080.ips
If you are experienced, use Proj_ZM_080_Unk_Enabled.ips

[FelixWright]

Project ZM 0.8.1 -- 10/17/2021
IMGUR Gallery of changes here

Fixed the following:
UPDATED THE README/OP! PLEASE TAKE A LOOK
- Softlocks in Norfair 1 and Norfair 8 related to norfair before bombs
- Fixed new physics knockback
- Fixed softlock caused by killing Imago with pseudo-screw attack (kiliwily)
- Tiling errors in Crateria 7, 9, F

Gameplay changes:
- Power bomb jumping (kiliwily)
- Room transitions added back in for standard patch

Enemy changes:
- Imago is once again vulnerable to charge beam
- Mecha ridley harder fight check changed from >30% items to >=60%

World Design Changes:
- Crateria 9 path up is more obvious
- Norfair 0 redesign for Norfair before bombs
- Standard patch: shifted speed booster hint chozo down 1 block for Norfair before bombs

[FelixWright]

Update time

Project ZM 0.8.2 -- 11/06/2021
IMGUR Gallery of changes here

Fixed the following:
- Norfair 6 - Ledge at first lava pool was too high to get out without power grip or wall jumping. Lowered ledge.
- Norfair 8 - Softlock if player enters without long beam, bombs, or missiles. Added shot block behind Chozo statue.
- Messed up particles + droplets due to 4th minimap color and yellow power bombs. Edited graphics.

Gameplay changes:
- Power bomb jumping now activates morph ball launchers.
- [Standard patch] Room transitions 3x faster.

Aesthetic changes:
- Outline of screw attack kill particles changed from green to purple.
- [Standard] Rewrote fully powered suit message to be more like vanilla.

[MattKimura]

For anyone who uses this hack purely for its quality of life improvements and not for speedrunning and prefer to have a stock title screen, here's a patch to restore the original title screen. Some people just like having the title screen as it was originally and still have the QoL features in-game. I can understand a custom made one can be helpful for showing the version number and date. But it's good to have that optional ips for those who want it.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1pbN_wtaKK3mPKachHwONLzwl96pi01ED/view?usp=sharing

[FelixWright]

hi there was a guide here but it was bad

[ShadowOne333]

hi there was a guide here but it was bad

"There was a guide here, but it's gone now."

I did see the guide for a brief moment while on mobile during the weekend, and wanted to give it a try today, but guess I can't now
I'll screw around with MAGE in the meanwhile to see if I can accomplish the vanilla title screen with it.

[FelixWright]

"There was a guide here, but it's gone now."

I did see the guide for a brief moment while on mobile during the weekend, and wanted to give it a try today, but guess I can't now
I'll screw around with MAGE in the meanwhile to see if I can accomplish the vanilla title screen with it.

i took it down because even despite all steps being taken very carefully, that section of the ROM would still be different when compared to vanilla. The idea for the guide was to teach a little about using gbatroid hacking tools and create a title screen replacement patch that would work for any version of the hack -- however, i realised that 1) that's a ton of work, i could just do it myself and save you all the trouble 2) because it's not the silver bullet i hoped it would be. it was kind of fun to write but was ultimately a waste of time.

[jim35]

Can someone do a remix of bgm music and sounds that can be played on an emulator that can decode or something like?

[EvilJagaGenius]

Apologies for necrobumping, but I just finished a playthrough of this and I wasn't sure if my thoughts would fit better here or in a review.  I might post a review later.

I don't really like Zero Mission, I get it's a good game from a technical point of view but I get to the stealth section and it's just... not good.  I do not like how you're forced to fall into one of those laser trip beams, I don't like how there are space pirates hiding in the same alcoves you're supposed to hide in, I don't like how the best strategy is to charge through Chozodia like a decapitated chicken with alarms blaring until Chozo ex Machina gives you your suit back.  The hack did not change my opinion of this.

The QOL changes were very welcome though.  The charge beam vacuum was convenient - no more pickups getting stuck behind walls! - and I loved being able to grab Super Missiles and Power Bombs early.  This was the first Metroid I 100%'d, it's also the first time I tried learning how to shinespark and I think I have the QOL tweaks there to thank.

If I may suggest tweaks and further features, could you disable playing the Brinstar theme after getting your suit back?  It just gets annoying on a nonstop loop while I'm exploring Chozodia and the pirate ship, and I do like the default music for those two areas.

Also if you're open to feedback regarding the stealth section, maybe you could add hidden passages to keep you out of the pirates' sight the entire time?  Or maybe you already tweaked things there and I just missed them.  I did have my eyes open for secrets when I wasn't running from the alarms.