Glitches

(user is banned)

2005-09-30 09:15:33 pm

Pretty self-explanitory.

To ridley by the elevator. (I used narpassword) You need high jump boots, bombs, ball.

You see the holes in the top of the room. right? Good.

Go to the right of the elevator platform and morph (you cant use bombs while on the platform).

Go so you are slightly underneath the hole in the ceiling.

Do a double bomb jump, then unmorph at full height, and jump up through the hole.

Now you can walk through to the right and come out on the left, and have little mini-battles with yourself, and pretend that there are like, 2 samuses and that you are fighting each-other or something. Too bad you cant hurt yourself...

Thread title:

LifeMega

2005-09-30 10:00:23 pm

Yeah... I've done that. It's kinda funny, and shows how the screen loops. That isn't really a glitch. More of a secret world.

Sometimes, when I kill MB, a tile of her remains after she dies.

Lazylen

(user is banned)

2005-10-01 12:49:08 am

Quote from LifeMega:

Yeah... I've done that. It's kinda funny, and shows how the screen loops. That isn't really a glitch. More of a secret world.

Sometimes, when I kill MB, a tile of her remains after she dies.

if you fall fast enough down some shafts, tiles from other rooms sometimes loop over into that room... (an orange tile in a blue room, for example).

LifeMega

2005-10-01 02:14:25 am

If a zeb flies into a door, you get hurt by it when you go through the door.

Supuh

2005-10-01 11:50:23 am

while heading really fast down the main vertical chamber in kraid, doors sometimes appear inside walls

BioSpark

2005-10-01 08:25:27 pm

Heres one thats not a glitch but looks cool: put the code for infinate health in and go into turian. Get as many metroids stuck on you as you can. The game will slightly lag and your health meter will go crazy.

Supuh

2005-10-01 10:01:03 pm

or just put on the NAR PASSWORD...

BioSpark

2005-10-03 08:26:52 pm

Quote from Supuh:

or just put on the NAR PASSWORD...

That's what I meant. By the way, if you die from running out of time in the escape shaft and you go back to the escape shaft, mother brain will be dead and the message behind her that says the remaning time will be frozen, which lets you escape without worrying about time. (I did it with the password I was talking about, not sure that matters, though)

LifeMega

2005-10-04 05:11:29 pm

You can put in a password that makes that happen. Get the Metroid password generator (see other topic) and check "Mother Brain dead".
You can kill the Zeebetites too.

LifeMega

2005-10-19 10:47:35 pm

Here's a new one: This worls best with a missile door, because it has to stay open. Set a bomb, then move to the side so that you get blown through the door. After the bomb goes off, hold the direction opposite the one you're moving. After you come out the door, you will keep moving in the direction opposite the one you are holding.

Sasuke_Kun

(user is banned)

2005-10-21 04:59:12 am

*beep* *beep* DOUBLE POSTING DETECTED! *beep* *beep* EXTERMINATION!!!

Ah crap, mini-modding detected! *Self-destructs*

That aside, the enemies through doors glitch can get VERY annoying, especially after the Ridley fight. I got to Ridley short one Varia Suit, so I had only 10 energy when I got there. The door on the other side of the room with Ridley that leads to the Energy Tank is affected by this glitch, so I died instantly. Evil or Very Mad

arkarian

2005-10-21 09:43:22 am

red chamber dream

Quote from Dark_SA-X:

*beep* *beep* DOUBLE POSTING DETECTED! *beep* *beep* EXTERMINATION!!!

Ah crap, mini-modding detected! *Self-destructs*

That was so not necessary. Do not minimod - this is a warning.

LifeMega, don't double post. Just edit your first post if you have something to add. Now, I realise that this topic is a half-month old, but if you really want the "new post" icon to light up, then delete your post and repost it with the new information.

Ekarderif

2005-10-21 10:52:57 am

It was 15 days apart...

arkarian

2005-10-21 10:57:23 am

red chamber dream

Quote from Ekarderif:

It was 15 days apart...

Quote from Arkarian:

Now, I realise that this topic is a half-month old

LifeMega

2005-10-21 03:28:35 pm

Oops... I didn't notice I had the last post. Sorry. I didn't scroll down just to hit the post button.

And this isn't the "enemies through doors" glitch. That is known, it's how you get into Tourian early. It's a "move in the opposite direction of the one you are pressing" glitch.

Bomb jump through a door, then hold the opposite direction you're moving. When you exit the door, you'll move the wrong way. You have to be a morph ball.

de_zeurkous

(user is banned)

2007-05-03 01:50:43 pm

-Shouldn't this topic be stickified?-

Note: the 'Music' glitches were tested using both Open System emluators (initially Nesticle, further research using FCEU) and the emulator included with Metroid Prime. The 'Enemy Transformation' glitch was encountered while using the MP emulator (can't test it with OS emulators ATM, the system here is going up and down like a <CENSORED>). Also, I don't have access to an OS hardware framegrabber; thus, for now, I unfortunately can't provide any visual material, either.

=Music=
A number of music glitches that I've encountered:

1) When grabbing the Energy Tank in Kraid's Lair after defeating him, the Special Room theme will cut in and keep playing until you exit the room.
2) When heading down from Brinstar into Norfair and taking the right door, the appropriate music will start over again.
2a) Exactly the same happens with the right door down the Hideout II elevator.
2b) Same with the right doors off the main shaft in Hideout I.
2c) Same with Orange door down the Tourian entry shaft.
3) When using doors to travel between any two adjacent Special Rooms, the Special Room theme will restart.
4) When leaving a Miniboss room post-defeat, the music will reset itself.

While I'm not familiar with the music handling in Metroid, this does give some insight.

My first theory was that there is probably no need for association between most areas and the appropriate music, since they are swapped by bank switching. The exception would be Tourian, which uses primary music (the Boss music, to be precise) as well as secondary music (Mother Brian's theme and the Escape theme). However, the ROM map I've fished out of Snowbro's classic level data document would suggest that all music is kept centrally in the first bank.

In any case, it seems that the Area:Music mapping is fixed. However, the Room:Music mapping seems quite variable. The above observations lead to two possible (and mutually exclusive) sets of conclusions.

Note: below, I make references to 'Special Objects'. These objects are: Descending Elevators, Miniboss Statues, Bridge coordinates, Primary Powerups, Minibosses, Ze(e)betites, Rinka projectors, Turrets and the Mother Brain. Ascending Elevators are also SOs; however, they are not relevant here, and most of the conclusions below don't apply to them. All of these objects, excluding the Minibosses and the initially visisble parts of the other enemies, are hardcoded into the game and not directly part of the level data.

==Set I==
1) The 'default' music is the Special Room theme.
2) The Area theme is principially triggered by appearing there.
2a) Descending into an area triggers the theme of the new Area.
2b) Ascending into an area triggers the Special Room theme.
3) Special Rooms are designated by the presence of special objects.
3a) Being the only SO outside a Special Room, the Maru Mari is an exception to this rule.
4) The Mother Brain's Lair theme is either triggered when entering a HorizoScroll(TM)-preserving Blue door, or the presence of Rinkae, Ze(e)betites, and/or Turrets.
4a) This will override the Special Room theme.
5) The Miniboss theme is triggered by the presence of a Miniboss.
5a) This will also override the Special Room theme.
5b) The defeat of a Miniboss triggers the Area theme.
5c) Leaving a Miniboss room triggers the Area theme.
6) When a powerup is obtained from a Special Room, the music will reset itself to the Special Room theme.
7) Doors leading right from a lower elevator room reset the music.
8) When entering pre-Chozo Vault Subroom (the actual rooms, I know) through a door the music will reset itself to the Special Room theme.
9) The Escape theme is triggered as part of the Mother Brain death sequence.

If this were true, the following design decisions could be extrapolated:

1) A simple logic evaluation sequence uses less space than tagging every special (sub)room and/or door plus interpretation code; this would be consistent with the other extensive space-preserving measures.
2) Most of the above rules can indubitably be cleverly consolidated into a relatively small piece of assembly; using raw data and with no conventional compression methods at hand, this level of optimization would not have been possible.
3) Lower elevator rooms once somewhat resembled top elevator rooms with a right door instead of a left one.

==Set II==
1) Doorways and/or (sub)rooms can be tagged softly to change music.
2) Both Chozo Vaults and and minibosses rooms have the Special Room theme as the default music.
3) Specific hardcoded events can override music tagging.

IMNSHO, given it's overall compliance with the engineering methods and history of Metroid, Set I is the most likely to be true.

Does anyone have any more insight in the above?

Note: While I'm sure at least some of this has been known for ages, I've never seen it documented nor explained. Please forgive my ignorance :)

=Enemy Transformation=
Some enemies seem to transform on rare occasions:

1) While traversing the room between the first Gold VertiShaft(TM) and the Norfair Elevator room heading to the former, a floorcrawling Zoomer scrolled offscreen to the left for a moment while I was taking out a Rio. At the same time, a pipe came into view to the right just long enough to spawn a Red Zeb; when the screen scrolled back at nearly the same instant, the Zeb to the right was gone, and replaced the Zoomer shifting into view on the floor :X It just stood still, did nothing; touching it did hurt, and it could be killed, after which the game resumed as if nothing had happened. I've only encountered this one time, though.
2) When traversing the lower main HorizoShaft(TM) in Tourian heading to the left, the same glitch manifested itself with a Rinka transforming into a Metroid at the ceiling -- this has happened to me multiple times, and can be a rail pain in the <CENSORED> when you're unprepared for it :^)

edit: Also, the Metroid theme's loop is fixed to repeating the last few blocks indefinitly; it is only reset by the looping of the Title sequence. You can test this by entering the Main Menu (Password Screen will also work) and waiting until the theme finishes. Playing back a NSF dump shows the same behavior. While the need to sync the Title sequence properly with the music is legitimate, it seems a bit odd that the looping behavior doesn't persist during data selection (you can't escape back to the Title sequence, right?). Any comments?

edit^2: Alright, got the transformation glitch again. This time it happened in the HorizoShaft adjacent to the lower left Green VertiShaft in Norfair, when traversing the room in the left direction; it involved a Yellow Viola and a Purple Geruta, and happened like #1 listed above, although this time on the ceiling instead of the floor. The commonalities are:

1) The initial form is a one-tile enemy.
2) The final form is a flying enemy.
3) It involves a floor or a ceiling (neglected to mention that in my inital posting; I've updated it); perhaps possible with walls in VertiShafts?

Can anyone using a NES, OS emulator, and/or the M:ZM emulator confirm this?

edit^3: Forget that list above. Just got it with an Energy Orb that turned out to be a Metroid, and even behaved exactly the same until it unfroze and moved. There was not even an Energy Orb nearby -- the sprite just got replaced without any provocation. Since the behavior appears too chaotic to research in-game, I consider the matter closed for observation -- it's useless to report more instances without explanations.

edit: neatlify a bit
edit^2: add title music peculiarity
edit^3: stickified now, thx
edit^4: expand Transformation glitch info
edit^5: rework the Music glitch mess
edit^6: fix ^4 inaccuracies
edit^7: add (semi-)final expansion of Transformation glitch info

-[size=9px]Shouldn't this topic be stickified?[/size]-

Note: the 'Music' glitches were tested using both Open System emluators (initially Nesticle, further research using FCEU) and the emulator included with Metroid Prime. The 'Enemy Transformation' glitch was encountered while using the MP emulator (can't test it with OS emulators ATM, the system here is going up and down like a <CENSORED>). Also, I don't have access to an OS hardware framegrabber; thus, for now, I unfortunately can't provide any visual material, either.

=Music=
A number of music glitches that I've encountered:

1) When grabbing the Energy Tank in Kraid's Lair after defeating him, the Special Room theme will cut in and keep playing until you exit the room.
2) When heading down from Brinstar into Norfair and taking the right door, the appropriate music will start over again.
2a) Exactly the same happens with the right door down the Hideout II elevator.
2b) Same with the right doors off the main shaft in Hideout I.
2c) Same with Orange door down the Tourian entry shaft.
3) When using doors to travel between any two adjacent Special Rooms, the Special Room theme will restart.
4) When leaving a Miniboss room post-defeat, the music will reset itself.

While I'm not familiar with the music handling in Metroid, this does give some insight.

My first theory was that there is probably no need for association between most areas and the appropriate music, since they are swapped by bank switching. The exception would be Tourian, which uses primary music (the Boss music, to be precise) as well as secondary music (Mother Brian's theme and the Escape theme). However, the ROM map I've fished out of Snowbro's classic level data document would suggest that all music is kept centrally in the first bank.

In any case, it seems that the Area:Music mapping is fixed. However, the Room:Music mapping seems quite variable. The above observations lead to two possible (and mutually exclusive) sets of conclusions.

Note: below, I make references to 'Special Objects'. These objects are: Descending Elevators, Miniboss Statues, Bridge coordinates, Primary Powerups, Minibosses, Ze(e)betites, Rinka projectors, Turrets and the Mother Brain. Ascending Elevators are also SOs; however, they are not relevant here, and most of the conclusions below don't apply to them. All of these objects, excluding the Minibosses and the initially visisble parts of the other enemies, are hardcoded into the game and not directly part of the level data.

==Set I==
1) The 'default' music is the Special Room theme.
2) The Area theme is principially triggered by appearing there.
2a) Descending into an area triggers the theme of the new Area.
2b) Ascending into an area triggers the Special Room theme.
3) Special Rooms are designated by the presence of special objects.
3a) Being the only SO outside a Special Room, the Maru Mari is an exception to this rule.
4) The Mother Brain's Lair theme is either triggered when entering a HorizoScroll(TM)-preserving Blue door, or the presence of Rinkae, Ze(e)betites, and/or Turrets.
4a) This will override the Special Room theme.
5) The Miniboss theme is triggered by the presence of a Miniboss.
5a) This will also override the Special Room theme.
5b) The defeat of a Miniboss triggers the Area theme.
5c) Leaving a Miniboss room triggers the Area theme.
6) When a powerup is obtained from a Special Room, the music will reset itself to the Special Room theme.
7) Doors leading right from a lower elevator room reset the music.
8) When entering pre-Chozo Vault Subroom (the actual rooms, I know) through a door the music will reset itself to the Special Room theme.
9) The Escape theme is triggered as part of the Mother Brain death sequence.

If this were true, the following design decisions could be extrapolated:

1) A simple logic evaluation sequence uses less space than tagging every special (sub)room and/or door plus interpretation code; this would be consistent with the other extensive space-preserving measures.
2) Most of the above rules can indubitably be cleverly consolidated into a relatively small piece of assembly; using raw data and with no conventional compression methods at hand, this level of optimization would not have been possible.
3) Lower elevator rooms once somewhat resembled top elevator rooms with a right door instead of a left one.

==Set II==
1) Doorways and/or (sub)rooms can be tagged softly to change music.
2) Both Chozo Vaults and and minibosses rooms have the Special Room theme as the default music.
3) Specific hardcoded events can override music tagging.

IMNSHO, given it's overall compliance with the engineering methods and history of Metroid, Set I is the most likely to be true.

Does anyone have any more insight in the above?

Note: While I'm sure at least some of this has been known for ages, I've never seen it documented nor explained. Please forgive my ignorance :)

=Enemy Transformation=
Some enemies seem to transform on rare occasions:

1) While traversing the room between the first Gold VertiShaft(TM) and the Norfair Elevator room heading to the former, a floorcrawling Zoomer scrolled offscreen to the left for a moment while I was taking out a Rio. At the same time, a pipe came into view to the right just long enough to spawn a Red Zeb; when the screen scrolled back at nearly the same instant, the Zeb to the right was gone, and replaced the Zoomer shifting into view on the floor :X It just stood still, did nothing; touching it did hurt, and it could be killed, after which the game resumed as if nothing had happened. I've only encountered this one time, though.
2) When traversing the lower main HorizoShaft(TM) in Tourian heading to the left, the same glitch manifested itself with a Rinka transforming into a Metroid at the ceiling -- this has happened to me multiple times, and can be a rail pain in the <CENSORED> when you're unprepared for it :^)

edit: Also, the Metroid theme's loop is fixed to repeating the last few blocks indefinitly; it is only reset by the looping of the Title sequence. You can test this by entering the Main Menu (Password Screen will also work) and waiting until the theme finishes. Playing back a NSF dump shows the same behavior. While the need to sync the Title sequence properly with the music is legitimate, it seems a bit odd that the looping behavior doesn't persist during data selection (you can't escape back to the Title sequence, right?). Any comments?

edit^2: Alright, got the transformation glitch again. This time it happened in the HorizoShaft adjacent to the lower left Green VertiShaft in Norfair, when traversing the room in the left direction; it involved a Yellow Viola and a Purple Geruta, and happened like #1 listed above, although this time on the ceiling instead of the floor. The commonalities are:

1) The initial form is a one-tile enemy.
2) The final form is a flying enemy.
3) It involves a floor or a ceiling (neglected to mention that in my inital posting; I've updated it); perhaps possible with walls in VertiShafts?

Can anyone using a NES, OS emulator, and/or the M:ZM emulator confirm this?

edit^3: Forget that list above. Just got it with an Energy Orb that turned out to be a Metroid, and even behaved exactly the same until it unfroze and moved. There was not even an Energy Orb nearby -- the sprite just got replaced without any provocation. Since the behavior appears too chaotic to research in-game, I consider the matter closed for observation -- it's useless to report more instances without explanations.

[size=9px]edit: neatlify a bit
edit^2: add title music peculiarity
edit^3: stickified now, thx
edit^4: expand Transformation glitch info
edit^5: rework the Music glitch mess
edit^6: fix ^4 inaccuracies
edit^7: add (semi-)final expansion of Transformation glitch info[/size]

chicobo329

2007-06-07 03:45:40 am

There seems to be a limit as to how many breakable blocks you can break at a time. I think I counted 12 at a time or so. This is only really noteworthy in Norfair in the rooms with the big square groupings of breakable blocks and the long string of them in Kraid's Lair. If you break the limit and try to break another, the block remains as is until the others reform.

I can supply video if you like. Personally I'd think a good deal of these glitches here on this thread should go on the main Metroid 1 Page, it's been lacking updates for years...

Gu3st

2008-03-14 12:30:23 pm

Jagger ftw

i was doing a narpassword (password) run for fun, and some how when am at very top of the top door i can't remember excatly what i did, but i was standing in front of the door and i went up an other platform (with out going in the door or shoot it) and some how the door disappeared and as i continue to torian, all the doors was missing which means i can just walk thourgh from room to room and there was no glass barrier in mb room and mb was gone and theres only the "time bomb.. get out fast" thinggie, and i just climbed up and finished the game. hope that this can be redo

playerman1230

2008-03-19 02:57:40 pm

Hated by all

Used the Narpas Sword code. Got into Tourian with the Reo Ice Trick (not killing Kraid and Ridley), killed the second Metroid in the second vertical hall, and the game froze. Played from Zero Mission.

Gu3st

2008-03-22 08:54:08 am

Jagger ftw

that happend to me when i play mzm's nes metroid on computer, i didn't try it on console, i'll try it right now

mooseproduce

2008-04-09 08:50:56 am

Quote from LifeMega:

If a zeb flies into a door, you get hurt by it when you go through the door.

That's not a glitch, it just means that the game's not 'paused' while you're travelling through doors like in SM. It works with Zoomers, the things that chill on the ceiling and then swoop at you, horizontal flying bugs ('zebs', I guess?)...

I think it's an awesome feature.

Hitaka

2009-02-11 08:03:29 pm

Phoenix

In Kraid's lair, a Skree divebombed me and landed in acid, and it just sat there stuck. No explosion. I assume this is because it didn't land on a solid tile so it keeps trying to fly lower even though it can't.

JaggerG

2009-02-12 04:58:43 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

Is that even possible in the actual game? I can't remember any hideout 1 rooms that had skrees close to acid.

RT-55J

2009-02-12 04:40:16 pm

Armor Guardian

Neither can I, but I have seen that happen in hacks.

Hitaka

2009-02-13 01:34:25 am

Phoenix

I was playing the original. In the screen that's the blue corridor with a door leading right, there's a single tile of acid with Skrees nearby. First door on the left below the elevator, or the right end of pretty much every blue hall in Kraid.