Mega Man Zero Series Revisited

[PowerPanda]

I love the Mega Man Zero series, but there are some rough patches, particularly in MMZ1 and MMZ2. When I replay the series on the Legacy Collections, I find myself drawn to play Zero 1 and Zero 2 in casual mode, only playing Zero 3 and Zero 4 in their original modes. The casual modes, however, go a bit overboard. I still want the game to be challenging; I just don't want it to make me cry. The Mega Man Zero Revisited series is my way of finding a middle-ground between the tough-as-nails original and the hold-your-hand casual mode.

I have already released Zero 1 and Zero 2 revisited, though I still think there is work left to be done on both. I will likely do Zero 3 revisited, but given its relative polish compared to the others, I need to determine what to fix and how. I will likely come back after a break working on other projects, but if you have ideas, you can post them below.

Here are the changes made in the projects so far.

--==Mega Man Zero 1 Revisited==--
RHDN Hack Page

1. The Weapon Level-Up requirements have been copy/pasted from MMZ2, so it takes roughly half of the EXP to get to the next level. The 3 special skills, which functionally operate like EX Skills, have also had their requirements halved.

2. For the Cyber Elves that must be raised, the cost has been dropped to 1/6 of the original (yes, really). Even with this change, some grinding might still be required to raise all of your elves. For reference, MMZ2 dropped cyber-elf costs to 1/3. An alternate patch is included that sets them to MMZ2 costs.

3. Cyber Elf Mission Penalties have been revamped. In the original game, you start with 15p, and every permanent upgrade that you added subtracted 10p from your score for the rest of the game. Players who upgraded themselves could easily end up with -70p before they even embarked on a mission. Temporary Cyber Elves, in turn, only subtracted 2p from your current mission. This patch removes ALL penalties from permanent upgrades. Feel free to increase your run speed, get all 4 subtanks, get some life upgrades, and enjoy the game. Every temporary Cyber Elf you use (max of 3) will subtract 5p from your score, so 0=15p, 1=10p, 2=5p, and 3=0p.

4. In addition, you can take more damage before your Mission Score takes a hit. In all games, you get 1 damage penalty-free (yay?). Then, in Z1, you would lose 1p per 3 damage taken. This was increased to 1p per 5 damage in Z2, and 1p per 6 damage in Z3. Revisited uses the Z3 values, effectively doubling the damage you can take before losing points.

5. Lastly, for MMZ1, if you fail a mission, you lose it permanently, along with all upgrades you may have gotten. Then, you will start back at base with 0 retries. You only get more from enemy drops and stage freebies. Future games replenished your retries after you chose to continue. To offset this design choice without completely eliminating it, Revisited starts you with a full 9 retries.

--==Mega Man Zero 2 Revisited==--
RHDN Hack Page

1. Cyber Elf E-Crystal costs have been cut in half, matching the costs from Z1 Revisited.

2. Cyber Elf Mission Penalties have also been revamped. In the original game, each permanent upgrade would subtract a large value from your next mission, and then a smaller value for all future missions. 1-stage upgrades would subtract 5p from the next mission, and 2p permanently. 2-stage upgrades would subtract 10p from the next mission, and 5p permanently. One-time use Cyber Elves would only subtract 1p from the next mission. Like Z1 revisited, permanent upgrades now carry no penalty, either temporary or permanent. In turn, you lose 5p per one-time use elf. Note that in Z2, your elf usage doesn't get zeroed out when you start a mission. So if you use a one-time elf while farming for e-crystals, and then 3 one-time use elves on your mission, you will get a score of -5p.

3. The Damage Penalty has been changed to match Z3, and is the same as Z1 Revisited.

4. Lastly, MMZ2 introduced EX Skills, but you only gained them if you got an A or an S rank. In Z2 Revisited, you will always gain the EX Skill.

--==Mega Man Zero 3 Revisited==--

1. The only thing that I know for sure is that Z3 revisited will always give you the EX Skill, regardless of your rank.

2. The Cyber Elves have been changed to Fusion and Satellite Elves, with Satellite forms giving no penalty. It is likely that I will make the change to get zero penalty from permanent upgrades, but I need to play through it again to see if that's still the best approach.

--==What's Left==--
All of these are on the back-burner for sometime in the future. I would welcome help with any of them, if anyone wants to contribute.

1. In MMZ1, attacks will either cause bosses to go into I-frames, or not. I would like to change the uncharged buster shot to not trigger I-frames.

2. Zero 3 and Zero 4 had a deep, in-depth combo system. Zero 2 has the framework for it, but it is bare bones. I want to see if I can port Z3's combo system to Z2.

3. In ZX and ZXA, successful completion of a mission will restore you to 2 Retries, if you have fallen below that number. I would like to add in that functionality to ALL of the Zero games. All of my other changes happen in-line with the code, but this will require writing a new routine, and working with the registers. [unknown] has given me a great breakdown of how GBA ASM works, but it's clear that there's a learning curve I'll need to get over first. Since I am unlikely to hack GBA beyond the Zero games, I have no shame in someone else taking this.

--==Megaman X Capsule Remix==--
RHDN Hack Page

Just to mention this here, several years ago I put out a patch for Megaman X on the SNES that brought it more in line with how the rest of the series works. You start with the dash, and upgrade to the air dash. Zero never gives you his buster. There are also stage edits that reduce backtracking for 1 specific thing, and allow you to collect the upgrade capsules in any order. This patch allows people to do buster-only no-upgrade runs if they would like, or it allows players who have been playing for decades to discover new and interesting routes.

[Aceearly1993]

WOW another great news happened in the Mega Man hacking scene. I tried to combine mmz2_elf_penalty and mmz2_easyexskill with the MMZ2 cutscene skip patch, and good news is it worked, just beat the regular mode and there's no incompatible stuff in between patches.

One particular thing about Zero 2 I'd like to discuss about it: Zero 2 is the only game lacking an Ultimate mode in its initial release, and the only replacement of it is the Ultimate Form/Armor thing, but it costs a relatively long travel to unlock and it would permanently lock player's rank to a low level. I wonder if there's a way to import Ultimate mode/Easy Scenario mode into original Zero 2 as a separately selectable mode, which would be, more in line with Zero 1, Zero 3 and Zero 4.

Speaking of Zero 3, I think some of the unlock requirement for Four Guardians mini games are pretty ridiculous. Two of these requires perfect 100/100 runs of all stages, and another two requires Gun/Saber Only S rank run, which is not a thing that everybody would bother doing so. I wonder if there's a way to tone down/change the requirements.

One issue about Zero 1 is there're only 3 save slots compared to the various modes and alternate situations if you want to practice final stages after giving up all previous stage missions on purpose. I've been heard that Zero + ZX Legacy Collection increased Zero 1 save slots from 3 to 6.

What do you think the difficulty would be to back port these improvements to original GBA version?

And I see acediez is in the contributor list. I love his previous works and they're amazing! Many Many thanks to him again.

[PowerPanda]

Thanks for leaving the review on MMZ2 Revisited. I agree, acediaz is excellent, and without his work, I may have not gotten the itch to do the rest. Let me respond to your suggestions.

1. MMZ2 Ultimate Mode: this sounds like a great idea, but it's out of scope for my project. Isn't this mode available in both the DS Collection and the Legacy Collection? If so, I don't see it likely that a hacker will take this on, just so it can be played on GBA. To do this would probably triple the amount of work that I'm doing on these games, if not more.

2. MMZ3 Guardian Minigames Requirements: Yes, they are ridiculous, and yes, I think I can probably do something about that. There are gameshark codes that unlock these, so I should be able to backtrack and figure out where the RAM values are getting written from.

3. MMZ1 Save Slots: The benefit from this is too small to be worthwhile. Just make copies of your .sav files, and you get infinite save slots. If I were working off of source code, that would be different, but trying to hack that into a game is pretty difficult.

[ShadowOne333]

Are the Special Skills (the EX equivalent) for MMZ1 still locked behind a rank in it?
From what I understood, it seems like for MMZ2 Revisited you modified it so that you always get them regardless of rank.

If so, I'd like to suggest also adding this as an option for MMZ1 Revisited.

As a final suggestion, have you thought about incorporating both the MMZ1 Restoration and MMZ2 Restoration patches into Revisited (or if they are compatible with Revisited)?
That would make these the best way to experience the first 2 Zero games without a doubt

[acediez]

Congratulations on the release, looking forward to try it! I'll debut the Everdrive GBA I just ordered with this 
I really appreciate a project with this level of care, comparing internal values between sequels and balancing accordingly. It's exactly the kind of hack I wished someone else would make eventually back when I shared my findings for these games.

I'll keep an eye on any updates and any remaining ideas (are you still working on the stage select screen modifications for Zero 1 you mentioned before?)

and without his work, I may have not gotten the itch to do the rest.

I'm glad to hear that! It goes both ways, your first Capsule Remix release (back in... 2018?) was one of the projects that gave me the itch to get into romhacking myself. I got the idea of including instructions to manually revert and adjust changes from you.

[PowerPanda]

Are the Special Skills (the EX equivalent) for MMZ1 still locked behind a rank in it? From what I understood, it seems like for MMZ2 Revisited you modified it so that you always get them regardless of rank. If so, I'd like to suggest also adding this as an option for MMZ1 Revisited.

The special skills from MMZ1 are purely based on weapon experience. They do not have official names, but they are:
1. Buster Up - Fires a 4th bullet, slightly faster. Unlocked by firing uncharged shots.
2. Saber Air Roll - Does a spinning slash in the air. Unlocked by slashing while jumping.
3. Saber Dash Roll - Does a spinning slash while dashing. Unlocked by slashing while dashing.

All of these have been changed from a value of FF (255) to a value of 80 (128). I THINK that means you just have to do each unlocking move 128 times (goes faster than you think in an action game), but I'm not actually sure if that's the case.

As a final suggestion, have you thought about incorporating both the MMZ1 Restoration and MMZ2 Restoration patches into Revisited (or if they are compatible with Revisited)? That would make these the best way to experience the first 2 Zero games without a doubt

I did not include those patches, but they are fully compatible. I've written about it before, but I actually prefer the tasteful censorship in a lot of games. I lived in Japan for 5 years, and got quickly tired of the casual racism and sexism that pervaded the culture. Blood splatters (yes, I know it's oil) are something that I don't think belongs in a game about robots. That being said, I know that most don't share my opinions, so I at least try to make my hacks compatible with existing uncensoring patches.

I'll keep an eye on any updates and any remaining ideas (are you still working on the stage select screen modifications for Zero 1 you mentioned before?)

Do you mean the idea that failing a mission doesn't remove it from your list? As of now, I'm not looking to do that. I determined that the game never really checks to see whether you succeeded or failed at a mission. It just runs the mission complete screen no matter what. Without a more thorough disassembly of the game, I think this one's out of reach for me.

I'm glad to hear that! It goes both ways, your first Capsule Remix release (back in... 2018?) was one of the projects that gave me the itch to get into romhacking myself. I got the idea of including instructions to manually revert and adjust changes from you.

Awesome. That practice is commonplace in the FF6 Hacking Community, and I think it's a great practice to bring forward elsewhere.

[Masked Dedede]

This project is incredible, I love the Mega Man Zero games to the point of wanting to do 100% runs of them almost every time I played, but the excessive grinding in the early-game (for Z1 and Z2 specifically) always dragged down the experience for me, but not to the point where I'd drop the game.

I'm so glad these rebalancing patches are a thing now, specially for Z1, it desperately needed it. I look forward to trying these out some time soon.

Also, one suggestion for Z2's Ultimate Form; adding the main effects of the Active, X, maybe Rising?, and Erase forms. As in, the rolling slash, 4th buster shot, upwards third slash, and the bullet erasure with the saber, I feel like these changes would make Z2's Ultimate Form feel more fleshed out, instead of being an upgraded Normal form with better stats and button inputs for the charged attacks.

[Aceearly1993]

Thanks for leaving the review on MMZ2 Revisited. I agree, acediaz is excellent, and without his work, I may have not gotten the itch to do the rest. Let me respond to your suggestions.

1. MMZ2 Ultimate Mode: this sounds like a great idea, but it's out of scope for my project. Isn't this mode available in both the DS Collection and the Legacy Collection? If so, I don't see it likely that a hacker will take this on, just so it can be played on GBA. To do this would probably triple the amount of work that I'm doing on these games, if not more.

That's really a shame, if importing a individual separate mode is out of reach, what do you think the difficulty would be to just port the collection version's Ultimate-equivalent status, and use Ultimate-equivalent status to override normal mode status as a separate individual patch?
This is my two-cents of idea.

Also, one suggestion for Z2's Ultimate Form; adding the main effects of the Active, X, maybe Rising?, and Erase forms. As in, the rolling slash, 4th buster shot, upwards third slash, and the bullet erasure with the saber, I feel like these changes would make Z2's Ultimate Form feel more fleshed out, instead of being an upgraded Normal form with better stats and button inputs for the charged attacks.

I seconded this idea, it sounds pretty neat.

[PowerPanda]

That's really a shame, if importing a individual separate mode is out of reach, what do you think the difficulty would be to just port the collection version's Ultimate-equivalent status, and use Ultimate-equivalent status to override normal mode status as a separate individual patch?

So the very first thing that I did after finding the values in the GBA versions was open up the NDS Zero Collection rom and see if I could port the changes over. It does NOT look like the Zero Collection is a rom laucher; it looks like they actually remade the games for NDS. I tried searching for basic things, like the weapon experience table or the cyber elf costs, and I couldn't find them. Maybe it's just encryption, but I don't know. As of now, I don't think there's any real way to port changes from the Collections back to the original without reverse-engineering the whole process, something that I don't really have the appetite to do.

[acediez]

Also, one suggestion for Z2's Ultimate Form; adding the main effects of the Active, X, maybe Rising?, and Erase forms. As in, the rolling slash, 4th buster shot, upwards third slash, and the bullet erasure with the saber

If it works anything like the games I've worked on (X5, X6), this sounds doable. A reading breakpoint on your current form's RAM byte, before (or right after) the button input initiates it, should lead you to the lines of code that picks which variation of the move to execute. It should be possible to add the Ultimate Form to its conditions (ex.: for the rolling dash, execute if you're in either Active OR Ultimate form, not just Active.)

Probably not within the scope of this project, just heads up for anyone willing to get into it 😏

[PowerPanda]

If it works anything like the games I've worked on (X5, X6), this sounds doable. A reading breakpoint on your current form's RAM byte, before (or right after) the button input initiates it, should lead you to the lines of code that picks which variation of the move to execute. It should be possible to add the Ultimate Form to its conditions (ex.: for the rolling dash, execute if you're in either Active OR Ultimate form, not just Active.)

I tried to send you a private message, but your inbox is full. Thank you for this suggestion. If you want to add a few things to MMZ, but you don't want to open your own project, I'm happy to collaborate. I am now a full collaborator on A Link to the Past Redux and Chrono Trigger Plus, and I want multi-hacker collaboration to become more of a norm around here. 

[acediez]

I can't promise anything, I already have wayyy too much on my plate... but I like the idea, I'll definitely keep it in mind 👀

[G30FF]

This is wonderful stuff! I've always dreaded replaying the Zero series for all of the reasons mentioned here. The excessive grinding just ruins the pace for me, and makes it a slog. I'm working on a playthrough of Zero 1 right now, and I'm gonna work on Zero 2 next.

As for suggestions, there's one thing Zero 1 especially does that grinds my gears: Permanently missable Cyber Elves. For example, anything located in the Underground Lab post-Maha Ganeshariff (like the one directly to the left of the start in the intro stage), the A-rank door behind Ciel, and the one hidden in a yellow building during the Defend the Base mission that you have to let the tank destroy. All of the Zero games have something permanently missable in them, but Zero 1 is the most egregious of them. If there were some alternate way to get those elves it would make it sting much less.

[julayla]

This is wonderful stuff! I've always dreaded replaying the Zero series for all of the reasons mentioned here. The excessive grinding just ruins the pace for me, and makes it a slog. I'm working on a playthrough of Zero 1 right now, and I'm gonna work on Zero 2 next.

As for suggestions, there's one thing Zero 1 especially does that grinds my gears: Permanently missable Cyber Elves. For example, anything located in the Underground Lab post-Maha Ganeshariff (like the one directly to the left of the start in the intro stage), the A-rank door behind Ciel, and the one hidden in a yellow building during the Defend the Base mission that you have to let the tank destroy. All of the Zero games have something permanently missable in them, but Zero 1 is the most egregious of them. If there were some alternate way to get those elves it would make it sting much less.

Agreed. I was never able to finish any of the games because of the missables and the excessive grinding and I am glad someone is fixing this.

[PowerPanda]

These are all great ideas. The missables in Z1 are pretty egregious, and it's even more than that. Half of the one-time use cyber elves can only be gotten by killing X number of Y enemy while on Z mission. I don't know if I'll be able to correct something so deeply embedded in the game, but I might be able to make it so that all permanent upgrades are moved to non missable locations.

[Aceearly1993]

I forgot one major point to mention about Zero 1. The requirement for Jackson (The hidden cyber elf that grants periodical invincibility by holding jump button) to appear is somewhat misleading. It only appears when you beat the game with all the cyber elves collected and raised, but without using any of them. I think it should be toned down to be similar to the unlock condition of Ultimate Form in Zero 2 so that it cannot be permanently missed if you already used one cyber elf.

[EvilJagaGenius]

I remember seeing this suggested in acediez's earlier thread, but would you consider doing patches that lets bosses use their EX Skills regardless of current rank?  Not sure how much work that would take, like if each boss's code has a separate check.  It also seems like it would make the boss fights harder, so I don't know if it'd go against the goals of this project.

[PowerPanda]

Regarding Jackson: I'm not sure. If you know a gameshark or action replay code for unlocking Jackson, I might be able to work backwards from there to figure out what value it's checking in the RAM. That's the hard part of all of this. Because nobody has really worked on this game before, very little of it is documented. Everyone has their specialized skills as a hacker, and mine are more on the gameplay ideas and rebalancing side. I am not great at creating disassemblies and documentation. I am also not terribly familiar with the mechanics of Zero 1 and Zero 2, since up until now I've typically just played them in the collection's casual mode. So I'm learning a lot right now!

Regarding bosses using EX Skills: I have an idea for how I might make that happen, but it's going to take some research. I am going to have to play through Zero 2 and create savestates before each boss. Then I'll have to put a breakpoint on my current rank, and see when the boss checks my rank before attacking.

[acediez]

and see when the boss checks my rank before attacking.

That's my guess too. Again, taking from my experience with other games: X6's bosses also have moves exclusive to Hard mode (or just move variants), and that's exactly how it works. A breakpoint on your current rank should lead you to those checks, and enabling them permanently should be a matter of either skipping the conditional with a NOP, or replacing the byte read for an always-true.

Most likely, you'll have to do it for each move on each boss.

[PowerPanda]

Well, it took me a month, but I finally finished a full playthrough of my MMZ1 hack. I had verified each of the pieces prior to release, but hadn't played through a whole game from start to finish. Would you believe that the cyber-elves, at 1/6 of their original cost, still feel like they cost too much?! It's at least doable though. I got all of my health upgrades and 2 subtanks in a casual playthrough, and nearly unlocked both 2-stage elves from the other categories.

I still have things I want to do with Zero 1, but I'm really struggling with figuring out how the game's internals work. For example, right now you gain the Triple Rod by defeating Maha Ganeshariff, and you gain the Shield Boomerang by having the Triple Rod and completing the next mission. I want to see if I can make the Shield Boomerang a reward for beating Anubis Necromancess instead.

Then there are the 3 special skills, currently gained by killing a certain number of enemies with the buster/saber: (1) Four bullets onscreen, (2) Rolling Air Slash, & (3) Rolling Ground Slash. I've figured out how they unlock, and could, in theory, turn them into a rudimentary EX Skill from 3 of the bosses. I just have to figure out where and how to insert the code.

Finally, I want to see if I can make the non-charged buster shot not trigger i-frames.