Introduction
SABS:
An editor for the classic game Super Metroid for the SNES. The actual name is Samus Aran's Beauty Salon. It does not allow you to change the levels of the game, but it does support many other features
So far, you can edit:
- enemy HP, attack power, etc...
- green text in the intro
- palettes for Samus' suits
There is also an Enemy Editor that allows you to edit the following:
- enemy positions within a room
- enemy speed, species, etc... (when allowed)
jathys@hotmail.com
Getting Started
When you first open SABS, you'll be asked what file you wish to open. To select your file, simply double click on it.
Main Window
Enemy Pictures:
Click on an enemy and you'll see a larger view of the enemy pop into a preview window in SABS' lower left. The properties of that enemy are loaded into the text boxes to the preview window's right. To make changes to the ROM, simply type in the changes and click on any enemy (or close the program).
Properties:
- HP = Amount of "life" an enemy has
- DAMAGE = How powerful an enemy's main attack is
WIDTH and HEIGHT are the enemy's width and height (obviously), but this is not the width and height of the graphic . . . Instead, it is the area in which an enemy takes damage, detects walls, etc . . . An enemy with a width and heighth of 0, for instance, is still visible, but goes right through walls (since it can't detect them). Also, power bombs become the only useful weapon against such an enemy, since the "target" of the enemy is to small for anything else to hit . . . Also, this is the area in which Samus will take damage if she "touches" an enemy.
Enemy Mapper Button:
The least user-friendly part of the editor . . . It's explained in greater detail HERE.
Text Editor
I cannot express enough how buggy this part of the editor is, so just make sure you back up and test your work every paragraph or so . . . I'd fix it, but it's such a small amount of text that it's really not worth the time it would take to work the bugs out (especially when the bugs can be easily worked around).
Anyway, get to the text editor by using the scrollbar that is visible in the Main Window.
Get Text:
Click on this to retrieve the text from the game. You should see some familiar words pop up.
Editing:
The text editor does not allow you to type in more than what it knows is supposed to be there. This is why it doesn't seem to allow you to type anything in at first. To fix this, you need to delete a little text before adding text.
The # signs on seperate lines is how the editor knows you've gone on to the next section of text. Make sure you've got them in somewhere or you'll be sorry later on.
Saving Text:
Click on this to save your changes to the game.
Palette Editor
Pull Down Menus:
These allow you to choose what suit (Samus, Varia, Gravity) and what color (0-15) you are editing. I would suggest not editing color #0, as it is not usually visible in the game.
The Big Picture:
Click on any of the colors of this picture, and the color # is chosen for you. Whatever color the ROM currently has for that color # is displayed on the screen.
More Scrollbars:
These adjust the amount of Red, Green, and Blue in the color you are editing. Whatever blend you have created is the color you see displayed on the screen.
Set Color:
Once you've got a color just right, you click this button to save your changes to the ROM.
*NOTE*- Not all suit palettes get changed. Most notably, suits will return to their original colors in the darker areas of Norfair.
Enemy Mapper
Overworld Map:
This is the large map that you can't possibly miss.
Click on any of the Highlighted areas of the map to select that area. You should see the area in the preview window (smaller map beneath the Overworld Map). The Red Dots show the locations of enemies in that area.
By holding the mouse down on the preview window, you can get the approximate X and Y coordinates for that spot.
X-axis and Y-axis:
Keep in mind that:
- these are in Hex
- X gets bigger from left to right
- Y gets bigger from top to bottom
Species:
You can sometimes change an enemy into a different kind of enemy. Do this by typing the Species Value of the enemy you want to turn something into. Keep in mind that this can have some very unusual side effects. The only way to guarantee that an edit works is to test it out. Do keep in mind, however, that species changes will usually fail unless another species of that type is already in the room.
"Failing" can be anything as small as a palette screw up, to as nasty as freezing your game.
Speed:
Some enemies have a nice and simple speed algorythm. If its speed is 0003 and you change it to 0006, then you've doubled its speed . . . Makes sense, doesn't it.
Other enemies use a totally different method to get their speeds. If its speed is 8000, you can usually speed it up by changing it to 0000 . . . Makes less sense, doesn't it.
Still other enemies use other methods. For example, changing a speed from 0100 to 00FF will crash your game?!!
In any case, if you figure any of these other methods out, let me know.
Prop-X:
This is a bit easier to understand than Speed and Species, though its effects are harder to explain.
Here's a list of examples and what will usually happen:
- 69 = Enemy reappears after being killed
- 24 = Enemy acts almost as part of the background
- 20 = Enemy dies normally
Any value (00-FF) can be used, but these appear to be the most stable. Other values, even if used by some enemies, can cause game freezes . . . Nonetheless, experiment and let me know if you find some interesting effects that don't ruin the game.
Place Enemies:
Save your changes to the ROM . . . This MUST be done BEFORE clicking anywhere on the Overworld Map (or you'll be doing your changes again, since they won't be saved to the ROM).
Map Highlight:
Add/Remove the highlighting on the Overworld Map . . . Everything works the same other than that.
Miscellaneous, Yet Important:
1) If an enemy's properties (text boxes on the right) are in RED, the editor has determined that none of that data belongs to an enemy in the room and should most likely be left alone.
2) Some "enemies" are things that wouldn't normally be considered enemies. For instance, Elevators, Chozo Statues, and your Ship are sometimes listed as enemies!
3) Sometimes, you'll notice several enemies of the exact same species in the exact same location. Believe it or not, this is not an error. There's a few things the game may be doing here . . . Most commonly, it's listing the pieces of a larger enemy as individual enemies. In such cases, all the pieces reset themselves to match up with the main piece (the first one?) when the game is run. Changing the species of the pieces can have surprizing side effects.
Door Mapper
Overworld Map:
Double click to see a list of doors that lead into the room. You'll notice that the box labelled "RoomID" has changed.
The List:
This lists doors leading into the selected room. Double click on an item in the list and you'll see a preview of where the door is in the preview window (below the Overworld Map). Also, you'll notice that some of the text fields have changed.
RoomID:
This is the value that identifies the room to the game (and to SABS). To get a door to point to a different room, simply double-click on the room you want.
Appear At:
You can ignore the numbers here and just focus on where the check is . . . Choose the circle that is in the direction you want to be coming from . . . Top, bottom, left, or right.
NOTE: Whereas you can change this, it'll be a little less realistic . . . Entering the screen on the same side you left, I mean. It usually pays just to leave that part alone.
Room X/Y:
The first two digits are the door's horizontal position, followed by the vertical position. Adding one to either axis will have the door send you out one room further to the right or down.
Double click in the preview window, whichever screen you want to appear.
Place Door:
Save your changes to the ROM . . . This MUST be done BEFORE double clicking in the door list, or your changes won't be made.
Miscellaneous, Yet Important:
1) Double clicking is used to show the door list, select a door, change the RoomID . . . Best way to learn how to use the Door Editor is to just play around with it and keep in mind that no changes are made to your ROM unless you click on the "Place Door" button.
2) Rarely "fake" doors will appear in the list. SABS identifies data as a door by finding a RoomID . . . By coincidence, other data may have RoomID values in it.
3) You can lock a door by setting the second two digits in its RoomID value to "00". This will literally lock the door, making it impassible . . . Keep in mind that the door will no longer be found by SABS though, since it points to no room.
4) If I've left out any rooms, you can find its RoomID while playing in an emulator by looking with a cheat searcher at address 7E079B for a 2-byte value . . . You will need to reverse the bytes though.
Statistics
Everything here should be fairly self-explanatory, except:
- Missiles are not included in the Start-Up menu, because they apparently have no start up value! (ie- null instead of zero)
- Energy amounts go to 1499
- Missile amounts go to 255
- P. Bomb and S. Missile amounts go to 99
- Timers include minutes (first box) and seconds (second box)