Help Needed! The Ultimate Metroid Strategy Guide (Hopefully for Charity)

2012-02-06 06:40:21 pm

So do you still want my SB run anyway? It's a full run that includes some sequence breaks but it's one video since I didn't know beforehand you wanted it any different.

I'll still send my natural route video for now though. At least it'll give you something to start with even if we/I end up making a video of a more optimized path later on.

Prime Hunter

2012-02-06 07:02:21 pm

The files have been sent.

Quietus

2012-02-06 08:28:09 pm

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

In Super, the biggies are bound to be Early Supers, Spore Spawn's Supers without fighting him via scroll abuse, Hero Shot / Early PBs, quick Kraid, Early Speed Booster / Wave, Missile Lake spark, Metroid skip, Zebetite skip. The standup glitch is better than the Murder Beam, and I wouldn't say the GT code should be under SBs, as it messes with the percentage, and is also a completely different run to normal.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-06 11:21:43 pm

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-06 11:21:04 pm

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-06 11:20:28 pm

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-06 11:19:53 pm

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-06 11:19:36 pm

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-06 11:19:03 pm

2012-02-06 11:16:40 pm

Doh, I just realized I didn't do the Dragyon grapple kill in either of my runs. Should probably add that to the list of quick videos we need to make:

Early Super Missiles
Skip Spore Spawn for his Super Missile
Early Power Bombs (either through wall jumps or going to Crocomire's area early thanks to wave beam)
Kraid Quick Kill
Early Speed Booster and Wave Beam
Early Wrecked Ship (haven't pulled off the shinespark that gets you the whole way across to the WS but I can easily skip the missile lake room and then just time my jumps to get across the grapple section outside. Not as fast but still accomplishes the goal)
Draygon Quick Kill
Super Metroid Skip (haven't done this before in either the hallway or MB's battle: There are two right?)
Zebetite Skip (pretty sure I've done it before but not that often)

Other than maybe the Murder/Space Time beams, which I've also never done before, is there anything else we should grab such as the Spring Ball without Grapple trick? I can start making separate videos of some of this stuff but might need help for the things I've never pulled off before.

Doh, I just realized I didn't do the Dragyon grapple kill in either of my runs. Should probably add that to the list of quick videos we need to make:

[b]Early Super Missiles[/b]
[b]Skip Spore Spawn for his Super Missile[/b]
[b]Early Power Bombs[/b] (either through wall jumps or going to Crocomire's area early thanks to wave beam)
[b]Kraid Quick Kill[/b]
[b]Early Speed Booster and Wave Beam[/b]
[b]Early Wrecked Ship[/b] (haven't pulled off the shinespark that gets you the whole way across to the WS but I can easily skip the missile lake room and then just time my jumps to get across the grapple section outside. Not as fast but still accomplishes the goal)
[b]Draygon Quick Kill[/b]
[b]Super Metroid Skip[/b] (haven't done this before in either the hallway or MB's battle: There are two right?)
[b]Zebetite Skip[/b] (pretty sure I've done it before but not that often)

Other than maybe the Murder/Space Time beams, which I've also never done before, is there anything else we should grab such as the Spring Ball without Grapple trick? I can start making separate videos of some of this stuff but might need help for the things I've never pulled off before.

sabata2

2012-02-07 12:24:01 am

ANKOKU

Don't forget the recently found Item-Loss Skip in Prime 2.

That's the biggest break ever, I think, in metroid history.

Prime Hunter

2012-02-07 01:38:14 am

Oh yeah, that one's probably on the same level as SJF in Prime as far as what kind of impact it had on its respective game.

Speaking of which, how exactly are the Prime games going to be handled? Are there good emulators for the PC that can run GC and Wii games these days? I don't actually know since I've only grabbed a few of them so I could use editors for a handful of games.

We do need to do all of the Metroid games before long, but the reason I've personally been focusing on Super so far is because I already had it and it's the one I know best. I know I won't be able to do it all myself, especially in regards to the SBs since there are a lot of them in the Prime trilogy alone I can't pull off or haven't even attempted before.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-07 08:43:49 am

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-07 08:42:44 am

2012-02-07 06:58:42 am

OK, so I've done some work on getting individual video files for the SBs. Have everything important up to the Varia Suit I believe, including early power bombs and going straight to the wrecked ship and kicking down Phantoon from there instead of heading down on the intended path to Kraid. Going to the WS that early is pointless for 100% though so that was more for my own curiosity than anything I guess. I'll need to do Early Wrecked Ship again with shinesparks once I get back up there. Hopefully I can get both varieties (Just the missile lake room and then hopping over the main lake / shinespark the entire way) but I'm not confident I can do the longer one.

But I have Early Supers, the Spore Spawn Skip, Early Power Bombs, Early Spazer, Early Kraid, and the Kraid Quick Kill all recorded as separate video files now.

Edit: Managed to also get Early Speed Booster/Wave Beam as well as both variants of the Early Wrecked Ship.

Quietus

2012-02-07 10:31:09 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

Quote from Prime Hunter:

both variants of the Early Wrecked Ship.

Both? As far as I know (and excluding TAS) there are three: Bomb Jump, CWJ, and Shinespark. Also, did you do both Spore Spawn skips, or just the (better) scroll abuse? Also, which early PBs are you referring to? The Hero Shot ones?

Andrew Mills

2012-02-07 01:56:37 pm

Strategy Guide Writer

I'll be doing the Prime Trilogy and Other M myself as I'll be using my HD Upscaler (when it bothers to arrive) to upscale the image to 720p and that'll allow me to capture the highest quality shots outside of a buggy emulator (plus I prefer playing the games with the Cube pad - even though I own the Wii Trilogy edition).

Please don't record any SB videos just yet, I've yet to decide which ones will be wanted for each game. It'd be better to plan those before spending time recording SB's that may never be used. The MP2 item skip is most definitely going in (would be criminal not to) and I'll inlcude other key MP2 SB's as well (such as Grand Abyss without Grapple, 101% glitch, back route to Space Jump boss etc, etc).

Thanks for the e-mail PH, will try that in a minute to make sure it stays synched. And thanks for the help, that's a copy set aside for you :)

Prime Hunter

2012-02-07 05:58:29 pm

Ok I'll hold off of doing the rest for now then. If anything it's given me good practice for when we finally do grab them later, plus if you do end up using some of the ones I've done they'll be ready to go.

But just to clarify for Quietus, I have 3 versions of getting to the WS early now that I think about it. There's the first one I did right after getting the early powerbombs in Brinstar (the intended ones near the elevator) which ended up being the bomb jump across the missile lake room. Then I came back later with the speed booster and grabbed both the shinespark across just the missile lake room and the shinespark all the way to the SM door at the entrance to WS. Guess the only variant I don't have is the wall jump off of the pillar in the middle since I couldn't time it right.

And until I was looking at the site for what else could be done I forgot there were two variants to the SS skip. I did the scroll one not the Crystal Flash, seeing as I did it the first time I got to the room instead of coming back later.

No problem Mills. Seeing as this is meant for charity if everything goes well and I get to play Metroid in order to help out, that's a win-win situation right there. Just let me know if you think my current route isn't optimized enough and I can run through it again for you once we figure out what would be best. I've got plenty of time right now to do so.

Ok I'll hold off of doing the rest for now then. If anything it's given me good practice for when we finally do grab them later, plus if you do end up using some of the ones I've done they'll be ready to go.

But just to clarify for Quietus, I have 3 versions of getting to the WS early now that I think about it. There's the first one I did right after getting the early powerbombs in Brinstar (the intended ones near the elevator) which ended up being the bomb jump across the missile lake room. Then I came back later with the speed booster and grabbed both the shinespark across just the missile lake room and the shinespark all the way to the SM door at the entrance to WS. Guess the only variant I don't have is the wall jump off of the pillar in the middle since I couldn't time it right.

And until I was looking at the site for what else could be done I forgot there were two variants to the SS skip. I did the scroll one not the Crystal Flash, seeing as I did it the first time I got to the room instead of coming back later.

No problem Mills. Seeing as this is meant for charity if everything goes well and I get to play Metroid in order to help out, that's a win-win situation right there. Just let me know if you think my current route isn't optimized enough and I can run through it again for you once we figure out what would be best. I've got plenty of time right now to do so.

creXALBO

2012-02-08 12:39:53 pm

Part-time philosopher

This is a REALLY COOL idea, Andrew... Is anybody doing anything for Metroid 1 or 2?

Prime Hunter

2012-02-08 05:34:15 pm

I had thought about tackling ROS after we get everything for Super but if someone else wants to do it instead I won't stop them.

Andrew Mills

2012-02-09 07:07:42 am

Strategy Guide Writer

Hey PH, it seems that the package you sent desynchs at the first Ridley/Metroid encounter at the very start of the game :( No idea why, using just what you've sent.

Any suggestions?

Quietus

2012-02-09 07:15:49 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

Unless it's just very bad luck, and PH didn't watch it back, it's usually just a case of ensuring you have exactly the same version of snes9x. The exact same ROM obviously helps, but often isn't as essential.

Andrew Mills

2012-02-09 07:47:53 am

Strategy Guide Writer

It was ZSNES that he sent me (1.51).

Quietus

2012-02-09 07:51:51 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

Oh, I'm not sure what the setup is with ZSNES, since it's rare for videos. I would imagine the same would still apply however. Think

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-09 09:04:54 am

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-09 08:41:45 am

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-09 08:33:11 am

2012-02-09 08:19:54 am

What the heck? Now it's screwed up for me too. I just checked it and the escape sequence starts but Samus is still shooting at where Ridley should be for a good 30 seconds before she starts running towards the elevator only to end up dying and getting stuck in a loop because everything's out of order. The recording seemed to be just fine when I quickly checked to see if I had captured the entire run after I completed it. I did speed it up so I wasn't sitting there for nearly 3 hours watching the run, but since it made it to the end I assumed it was good to go and it had captured everything properly.

I have no idea what caused this to happen. This is my first time ever recording something off of an emulator so I don't have a clue what went wrong or how to fix it.

Edit: Now I'm really confused. I just checked some of the ones I did for the SBs and they all seem to be working fine.

Err.... scratch that. That full SB run I did also died to Ridley, but the Norfair one. Everything up to that point seemed perfectly normal from what I could tell at fast forward speeds. This is really weird.

Out of curiosity, is snes9x better at recording videos? I've never used it before.

What the heck? Now it's screwed up for me too. I just checked it and the escape sequence starts but Samus is still shooting at where Ridley should be for a good 30 seconds before she starts running towards the elevator only to end up dying and getting stuck in a loop because everything's out of order. The recording seemed to be just fine when I quickly checked to see if I had captured the entire run after I completed it. I did speed it up so I wasn't sitting there for nearly 3 hours watching the run, but since it made it to the end I assumed it was good to go and it had captured everything properly.

I have no idea what caused this to happen. This is my first time ever recording something off of an emulator so I don't have a clue what went wrong or how to fix it.

Edit: Now I'm really confused. I just checked some of the ones I did for the SBs and they all seem to be working fine.

Err.... scratch that. That full SB run I did also died to Ridley, but the Norfair one. Everything up to that point seemed perfectly normal from what I could tell at fast forward speeds. This is really weird.

Out of curiosity, is snes9x better at recording videos? I've never used it before.

Quietus

2012-02-09 11:16:24 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

snes9x is almost exclusively the emulator used for recording movies. Get yourself the rerecording version for even more options.

I always play games with ZSNES, primarily because of the rewind feature, yet always record with snes9x.

Prime Hunter

2012-02-09 06:05:13 pm

Hmm, sounds like I need to get it and do the run again at this point, since from what I was reading this morning desync seems to be a recurring problem with ZSNES and I don't think there's a way to fix the video file once it does that. (At least not that I know of.) Which in a way is not too bad because I had already been debating about submitting a new run with a more optimized natural route anyway.

Andrew Mills

2012-02-09 06:44:09 pm

Strategy Guide Writer

Thanks, could you do me a small favour, when recording, could you stand beside any items you're about to collect BEFORE you collect them? This makes taking screenshots much easier for me. :)

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-09 08:41:41 pm

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-09 08:41:17 pm

2012-02-09 08:40:46 pm

Sure thing. I think I did that in some cases in my previous run but I can try to do it for all of them. Hopefully I'll remember, although some of them like that missile up high outside the Wrecked Ship or the one you have to shinespark up to in Maridia might be harder to do that for than others due to how you go about collecting them. I'm sure I'll think of something though.

I'm also thinking that I'll divide the video into five segments this time so that you can navigate through it easier. (One for each of the main bosses) That way if one part desyncs or isn't as good I can redo that one part instead of being forced to do the whole run again.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-10 02:32:13 am

2012-02-10 01:49:36 am

Ok, so I'm trying to record with SNES9X but it keeps crashing on me as I play. The first time it crashed as I was entering the elevator room to Brinstar after defeating the Torizo, and the second time during the Torizo battle itself. When this happens the program treats my video as if it has 0 seconds of footage so the short bit I've done so far has been worthless up to this point.

Argh... Maybe I need to go find an older version of SNES9X or something. (Got 1.52 which is supposed to be the latest version) I'm assuming this is not a problem normally but for some reason it's having issues with me and I'm starting to get frustrated with this.

Edit: Nevermind then. Got all the way through Kraid using 1.51 v6 so it seems it was just that newer version that was causing issues. Full speed ahead!

Quietus

2012-02-10 06:49:42 am

Super Secret Area - Dead Ahead!

As I said above, get the rerecording version I linked to.

Prime Hunter

Edit history:

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-10 07:28:38 am

Prime Hunter: 2012-02-10 07:17:12 am

2012-02-10 07:16:59 am

Yeah I did, I just grabbed the wrong version the first time around. The slightly older one worked just fine though and I have the whole run recorded again.

Couple of slip ups here and there on my part but they won't impact the item collection or route at all. Just me screwing up for a bit while trying to get certain expansions. Pretty sure I got all of them following the suggestion Mills posted about stopping in front of them for a second or two, although I can think of a couple that gave me problems like the E-Tank in the turtle's room. I was also trying to get all of the map stations as well but stupidly forgot the Crateria one when I first passed it and only noticed once I was back at the ship to check that I got 100%. Not going to do the whole run again just for that since it's not really as important as the items themselves.

Anyway, all 6 videos I captured seem to be synched up properly when running through at fast forward so I'll send everything along again. Hopefully it works this time and you can use them.

Just sent it.

Yeah I did, I just grabbed the wrong version the first time around. The slightly older one worked just fine though and I have the whole run recorded again.

Couple of slip ups here and there on my part but they won't impact the item collection or route at all. Just me screwing up for a bit while trying to get certain expansions. Pretty sure I got all of them following the suggestion Mills posted about stopping in front of them for a second or two, although I can think of a couple that gave me problems like the E-Tank in the turtle's room. I was also trying to get all of the map stations as well but stupidly forgot the Crateria one when I first passed it and only noticed once I was back at the ship to check that I got 100%. Not going to do the whole run again just for that since it's not really as important as the items themselves.

Anyway, all 6 videos I captured seem to be synched up properly when running through at fast forward so I'll send everything along again. Hopefully it works this time and you can use them.

Just sent it.

Andrew Mills

2012-02-10 01:50:26 pm

Strategy Guide Writer

Working perfectly so far :) Started writing the guide and taking the screenshots at the same time now. Thanks again.