Useful shot trick

2007-06-08 12:39:55 am

If you tap up and hold the shoot button very briefly, Samus will fire one shot up and instantly fire forward, effectively making an 'L' shot. Extremely useful with the Wave Beam. Here's an example:

http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a335/chicobo329/?action=view&current=clip0079.flv
http://s14.photobucket.com/albums/a335/chicobo329/?action=view&current=clip0080.flv

Although Samus stops running in the first video and isn't in the second, you can keep moving forward and repeat the same thing.

Thread title:

JaggerG

2007-06-08 04:48:47 am

Shifty Leader

That M2k2 guy

So you have a video of Metroid that does not include Samus?

...other than that, I'm sorry but I think most people here already recognize that an L is formed my the connection of the end of one vertical line segment to one horizontal line segment. Congratulations on figuring that out yourself, though. Maybe one day, you too may discover the art of the double-firing strategy to cut the Ridley battle virtually in half (hint: rapid-tap left).

chicobo329

2007-06-08 12:58:52 pm

Well I usually don't play with Suitless Samus all that much in Metroid 1 if that's what you meant. And it's not a real L either but I guess it was for lack of a better description. It looks like an L to me :^P

Double shot trick on Ridley? Do tell! What I usually do is if I got enough energy I hang out on the lava below and use the Wave Beam to fire up or go by the missile door and just shoot there (of course I don't speedrun much so it's by no means a fast way for Ridley.

EDIT: oh I got what you meant with Samus not being in a video X^P Man I'm slow today. I meant 'isn't running' in the second video. Would be funny I guess if you have a Metroid game with no Samus...

mooseproduce

2007-06-09 04:00:14 pm

The way Metroid handles button-presses is by storing them in a single variable, which might look like this:

10001101000

Where each 1 or 0 is a button. "1" is pressed, "0" is not pressed. If this variable changes (i.e. if ANY button's state changes), the game checks to see if the number representing the B button is "1". If it is, then Samus fires. What this means is that instead of pressing the B button over and over, you can just hold down the B button and then mash a totally different button; the result is that Samus can fire a maximum of one shot EVERY frame, as opposed to every SECOND frame.

Basically, the point here is that you haven't discovered anything new - you've just found one application of it. :)

When I originally found this out, I did so by discovering that holding the B button and mashing the Select button shot faster than mashing B. But then I got missiles, which screwed up my system, and I was really sad for a while until I found that it worked with any button. :D

The way Metroid handles button-presses is by storing them in a single variable, which might look like this:

10001101000

Where each 1 or 0 is a button. "1" is pressed, "0" is not pressed. If this variable changes (i.e. if ANY button's state changes), the game checks to see if the number representing the B button is "1". If it is, then Samus fires. What this means is that instead of pressing the B button over and over, you can just hold down the B button and then mash a totally different button; the result is that Samus can fire a maximum of one shot EVERY frame, as opposed to every SECOND frame.

Basically, the point here is that you haven't discovered anything new - you've just found one application of it. :)

When I originally found this out, I did so by discovering that holding the B button and mashing the Select button shot faster than mashing B. But then I got missiles, which screwed up my system, and I was really sad for a while until I found that it worked with any button. :D

chicobo329

2007-06-09 05:36:47 pm

oooh thanks for the technical insight! :^D I'm always interested into how things really work from the inside and it's neat to know this trick :^)

mooseproduce

2007-06-10 04:36:48 pm

I recommend looking for "Metroid source code" on Google. It's even got comments. ^__^