BREAKING NEWS on the “Skip Acid Worm with 9% items” run

2008-12-17 09:39:14 pm

"C'mon, Luigi!"

Man, haven’t been on these boards in forever. Hopefully this trick isn’t already figured out, because if it was, I’d be all hyped up for nothing. Sad

Anyway:

It might, MIGHT still be possible to complete the game with 9% items (10% items on US hard, of course) while still skipping the Acid Worm. I’ve found that in the Rio Room, the first rio that you see can appear in slightly different spots when you enter the room. Sometimes, when it appears, you can only see one of its wings and maybe part of a claw. But other times, it will be slightly closer, so that you can actually see one of its eyes. I’m not sure what causes it to appear in different spots, but I found that it usually appears closer to Samus if you keep running as you get through the door leading to the Rio Room (meaning, hold left as you go through the door so that, when Samus appears on the other side, she’s still in the running animation and not in the standing animation).

Now, here’s the juicy part. With the rio closer to Samus, hang on the destroyable ledge (on the left side, of course), kick off and jump out as far as you can to the left without falling into the lower room, come back, and grab back on. If the timing is done right (meaning that you do this when the rio “swings” to the right), and you are pretty much pixel perfect, the rio should come after you, and you should still be in the room with it. Now, it’s a matter of freezing it, jumping on it, and repeating the process with the other rios, and possibly use all ten of them to get to the left side of the room. (Obviously, you’d need to collect the Ice Beam before you get to Kraid in order to do this.)

I’ve only been able to freeze two rios using this method. Also, I’m pretty sure that even if it’s possible to get through the room this way, it can only be done through tool-assisting.

I uploaded a video that shows both appearing positions of the first rio, and a little clip of me luring the rio over. In the video, I’m on Easy mode (because I don’t feel like trying it on Hard laugh new

), and only have the 9 items necessary for a 9% run (Morph Ball, one Missile Tank, Bombs, Varia Suit, Power Grip, Ice Beam, and the 3 incompatible items). The video is here:

I swear to you, this is not a fake, or teh hax. The first time I ever lured the rio over like this was on my US cartridge of ZM! I merely replicated it on my emulator for recording purposes. (And yes, I’m using the original, un-hax’d “Metroid - Zero Mission (U)” rom in the video.)

Thread title:

Man, haven’t been on these boards in forever. Hopefully this trick isn’t already figured out, because if it was, I’d be all hyped up for nothing. :sad: Anyway:

It might, MIGHT still be possible to complete the game with 9% items (10% items on US hard, of course) while still skipping the Acid Worm. I’ve found that in the Rio Room, the first rio that you see can appear in slightly different spots when you enter the room. Sometimes, when it appears, you can only see one of its wings and maybe part of a claw. But other times, it will be slightly closer, so that you can actually see one of its eyes. I’m not sure what causes it to appear in different spots, but I found that it [i]usually[/i] appears closer to Samus if you keep running as you get through the door leading to the Rio Room (meaning, hold left as you go through the door so that, when Samus appears on the other side, she’s still in the running animation and not in the standing animation).

Now, here’s the juicy part. With the rio closer to Samus, hang on the destroyable ledge (on the left side, of course), kick off and jump out as far as you can to the left without falling into the lower room, come back, and grab back on. If the timing is done right (meaning that you do this when the rio “swings” to the right), and you are pretty much pixel perfect, the rio should come after you, and you should still be in the room with it. Now, it’s a matter of freezing it, jumping on it, and repeating the process with the other rios, and possibly use all ten of them to get to the left side of the room. (Obviously, you’d need to collect the Ice Beam before you get to Kraid in order to do this.)

I’ve only been able to freeze two rios using this method. Also, I’m pretty sure that even [i]if[/i] it’s possible to get through the room this way, it can only be done through tool-assisting.

I uploaded a video that shows both appearing positions of the first rio, and a little clip of me luring the rio over. In the video, I’m on Easy mode (because I don’t feel like trying it on Hard :laugh:), and only have the 9 items necessary for a 9% run (Morph Ball, one Missile Tank, Bombs, Varia Suit, Power Grip, Ice Beam, and the 3 incompatible items). The video is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfuaRctyHnw

I swear to you, this is not a fake, or teh hax. The first time I ever lured the rio over like this was on my US cartridge of ZM! I merely replicated it on my emulator for recording purposes. (And yes, I’m using the original, un-hax’d “Metroid - Zero Mission (U)” rom in the video.)

JaggerG

2008-12-17 10:52:34 pm

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

...That's actually pretty cool. The video's broken (it stops every couple seconds), but that just might be the solution for that room 9%.

It's highly doubtful that it's going to be done in a single segment run, but you might be able to freeze a couple of them a couple times to make the trip even shorter, although you can't use all the Rios as a bridge, as they're just too concentrated in one area. I imagine you're going to have to count the amount of freezings you do (assuming it can take more than one shot), and HBJ from the last point. That takes tedious planning, but definitely looks possible.

By any chance have you already tried freezing/unfreezing one rio, to find the amount of times that can be done? I imagine this skip can probably save a minute off the Normal time, although less for Hard US. As for TAS, there's a much quicker method involving constant morph/unmorphing and firing of missiles.

EDIT: Also, it's been theorized that you can lure each rio using really tricky and pretty random HBJs. Can a DBJ get close enough to lure it instead of hanging off the edge and jumping out, or is this just the easiest method? I kind of assume the latter, but I suppose you can never be too sure.

...That's actually pretty cool. The video's broken (it stops every couple seconds), but that just might be the solution for that room 9%.

It's highly doubtful that it's going to be done in a single segment run, but you might be able to freeze a couple of them a couple times to make the trip even shorter, although you can't use all the Rios as a bridge, as they're just too concentrated in one area. I imagine you're going to have to count the amount of freezings you do (assuming it can take more than one shot), and HBJ from the last point. That takes tedious planning, but definitely looks possible.

By any chance have you already tried freezing/unfreezing one rio, to find the amount of times that can be done? I imagine this skip can probably save a minute off the Normal time, although less for Hard US. As for TAS, there's a much quicker method involving constant morph/unmorphing and firing of missiles.

EDIT: Also, it's been theorized that you can lure each rio using really tricky and pretty random HBJs. Can a DBJ get close enough to lure it instead of hanging off the edge and jumping out, or is this just the easiest method? I kind of assume the latter, but I suppose you can never be too sure.

rekameohs

2008-12-17 10:59:50 pm

Anywhere, everywhere

Quote from JesusG:

The video's broken (it stops every couple seconds)

I think that was done on purpose to show the different starting locations of the rio.

JaggerG

2008-12-17 11:12:15 pm

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

Nope, it only displays one Rio throughout the video, and the first stop is during the door transition. It's not cuts in the video, it's just the youtube player itself stopping every couple seconds, as if it didn't finish loading beyond that point. Every point the video is supposed to snap to is broken, it seems.

TJF588

2008-12-17 11:46:13 pm

once GameFAQs, now Twitch

Nah, the vid works fine. It's just a cut-&-paste compilation of the few different run-ins done; assuming the platform-grab was skipped since getting in position isn't integral to the part where Samus is Rio bait.

JaggerG

2008-12-18 12:03:03 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

It definitely doesn't skip the platform grab. I guess I'm the only one it's stopping for, though. EDIT: Yeah, I just had to restart firefox.

P.JMan

Edit history:

P.JMan: 2008-12-18 11:03:23 am

2008-12-18 10:30:36 am

I like Big Butts and I can not lie

What the hell, when I tried this in my old 9% TAS, the Rios didn't freeze, they just died.

EDIT: Well, I guess they do freeze, how odd

Odima16

2008-12-18 08:26:41 pm

"C'mon, Luigi!"

Quote from P.JMan:

What the hell, when I tried this in my old 9% TAS, the Rios didn't freeze, they just died.

EDIT: Well, I guess they do freeze, how odd

Yeah, it seems pretty random whether they freeze or not. That's another reason why this method may be impossible/unreliable on a "legal" speed run. Not only that, but upon further "investigation" (lol), it seems completely random whether the rio appears in that starting position or not. (My only other guess is that it's time/frame-related, but that's not likely.) That's where tools come in - keep loading the savestate until it works - but that completely defeats the purpose of this method, since you could just use the HBJing method that JesusG mentioned for a TAS. (Unless you could combine the two methods...)

Quote from JesusG:

By any chance have you already tried freezing/unfreezing one rio, to find the amount of times that can be done?

Quote from JesusG:

Also, it's been theorized that you can lure each rio using really tricky and pretty random HBJs. Can a DBJ get close enough to lure it instead of hanging off the edge and jumping out, or is this just the easiest method?

To answer both questions: I don’t think I have enough patience to try over and over again on this stuff lol. (And I have no idea how to work the tools used in TAS-ing, so that’s out of the question.) Also, I suck at HBJ-ing ( aiwebs_027

), but there was one time when I destroyed the two blocks (so I wouldn’t hit the ceiling), HBJ’d over a little, came back, and the rio followed me and hit me back onto the re-formed blocks. pwuh

I don’t know which method is easier, but all I know is that they’re both really annoying laugh new

As for the freezing, I’d imagine you can freeze a rio as many times it can get hit regularly without dieing. It takes 7 hits to kill one on Easy, so I’d imagine you could freeze it 6 times. However, like I said before, it looks like it’s completely random whether or not rios freeze when you shoot them. You could get the charge beam to guarantee a freeze, but that’d be pointless since it adds another percent. You may as well just grab the Speed Booster then. Think

I really have no idea if this is even gonna save any time. But really, I just want to see if anybody can do it at all. I love challenges like this in ZM. Like “Kill the Imago Cocoon Without Standing On the Ripper Or Wall-Jumping” or “Get to the Brinstar Side of the Brinstar-to-Norfair Elevator with a Shinespark Charge.” Hey, maybe I should make a topic about my “personal challenges,” and people could post theirs! I think it’d be fun. Unless you guys have already done that. I bet you have. Very Happy

[quote="P.JMan"]
What the hell, when I tried this in my old 9% TAS, the Rios didn't freeze, they just died.

EDIT: Well, I guess they do freeze, how odd 
[/quote]

Yeah, it seems pretty random whether they freeze or not. That's another reason why this method may be impossible/unreliable on a "legal" speed run. Not only that, but upon further "investigation" (lol), it seems completely random whether the rio appears in that starting position or not. (My only other guess is that it's time/frame-related, but that's not likely.) That's where tools come in - keep loading the savestate until it works - but that completely defeats the purpose of this method, since you could just use the HBJing method that JesusG mentioned for a TAS. (Unless you could combine the two methods...)

[quote="JesusG"]
By any chance have you already tried freezing/unfreezing one rio, to find the amount of times that can be done?
[/quote]

[quote="JesusG"]
Also, it's been theorized that you can lure each rio using really tricky and pretty random HBJs. Can a DBJ get close enough to lure it instead of hanging off the edge and jumping out, or is this just the easiest method?
[/quote]

To answer both questions: I don’t think I have enough patience to try over and over again on this stuff lol. (And I have no idea how to work the tools used in TAS-ing, so that’s out of the question.) Also, I suck at HBJ-ing ([aiwebs_027]), but there was one time when I destroyed the two blocks (so I wouldn’t hit the ceiling), HBJ’d over a little, came back, and the rio followed me and hit me back onto the re-formed blocks. :pwuh: I don’t know which method is easier, but all I know is that they’re both really annoying :laugh:

As for the freezing, I’d imagine you can freeze a rio as many times it can get hit regularly without dieing. It takes 7 hits to kill one on Easy, so I’d imagine you could freeze it 6 times. However, like I said before, it looks like it’s completely random whether or not rios freeze when you shoot them. You could get the charge beam to guarantee a freeze, but that’d be pointless since it adds another percent. You may as well just grab the Speed Booster then. :um_orig:

I really have no idea if this is even gonna save any time. But really, I just want to see if anybody can do it at all. I love challenges like this in ZM. Like “Kill the Imago Cocoon Without Standing On the Ripper Or Wall-Jumping” or “Get to the Brinstar Side of the Brinstar-to-Norfair Elevator with a Shinespark Charge.” Hey, maybe I should make a topic about my “personal challenges,” and people could post theirs! I think it’d be fun. Unless you guys have already done that. I bet you have. :veryhappy_orig:

Gu3st

2008-12-18 10:27:06 pm

Jagger ftw

nice find, but killing acid worm probably might befaster...

JaggerG

2008-12-19 09:32:19 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

Quote from Gu3st:

killing acid worm probably might befaster...

I disagree. This takes pretty long, but so does the massive detour to activate the ziplines. I personally assume this could easily save more than 45 seconds in a multi-segment run.

Gu3st

2008-12-19 05:33:43 pm

Jagger ftw

this is like red scarlet's gravity suitless space jump.. hbj across is probably slower (if you don't get owned by them)

JaggerG

2008-12-23 10:02:22 pm

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

That seems like an odd analogy. You don't exactly need to fight that boss to get past the ziplines, and the HBJ doesn't seem all that far. It's definitely not as long as going through half of maridia gravless. It's only the one room to HBJ and the jumps across the blocks across the entrance moat that take longer than normal. For the ziplines, you have to go across a lava lake (submerged at one point), up a shaft, then zig-zag to activate the ziplines and then fight the boss, then circle around to the path you came from and dive under the missile tank again.

Like I said before, this is probably good specifically for a segmented run because of the likelihood of failure, not just for the HBJ but for the Rios themselves, too. There probably isn't going to be a good single segment run that uses this skip for a long time.