Metroid: Spooky Mission

Metroid: Spooky Mission
Release date: Feb 26, 2018	Author: Magconst	Download: Version 1.2.1 zip (5860 downloads) Download: Version 1.2 zip (829 downloads)
Genre: Exploration [?] Game:	Difficulty: Vanilla [?]	Average runtime: 1:34 Average collection: 92%
Read Me: [None]	Forum Thread: Release Thread	Rating:
	Awards: Fall Hacking Contest Top Hacks 2018: Best Overall

Description

What's changed?
-Various bugs and errors were fixed
-Slight level design changes
-Slight Balancing changes
-Added a README

What's changed in 1.2.1?
-Fixed mini-map error
-Fixed demos

Be sure to let Oneof99 or myself know of any other bugs or issues you may come across. This hack was made for the Metconst 2017 Fall Contest, and is its winner. The hack consists of three large areas, a hub, and a final area. Average blind playthough is about two hours. Linearity does not exist in this hack, so if you have difficulty in one place, try going elsewhere. We put a lot of work into this, and we hope you enjoy!

Credits:
biospark:
-Made "Up Door" mechanic
-Spikes
-Obtain Unknown Items
-Tractor Beam
-Scale End Percent
-Hex Tweaks
-Creator of MAGE
-ROM Compilation

Oneof99:
-Mansion Designer
-Enemy GFX
-Song Composition
-Hell Co-Designer
-ROM Compilation
-Ending Images
-README Author

CaptGlitch:
-"Up Door" co-creator
-Imago Escape Timer
-Tractor Beam Modification
-Custom Chozo Guardian AI
-Secret Ending Code
-Title Screen
-Song Composition
-Hex Tweaks
-ROM Compilation

Ing-Ing:
-Castle Designer
-Forest Designer
-Pumpkin Designer
-Majority of Enemy GFX
-Music Composition
-ROM Compilation

Cosmic:
-Status Screen Graphics
-Door Graphics (originally by Rundas045)
-Breakable tile graphics

NathanTech:
-Hell Designer
-Music Composition

Shrug:
-Provided us with the information and ability to make custom music. Truly, thank you.

*There is a special ending in the hack that takes special criteria to get. This ending is NSFW. Don't fret however. This ending is near impossible to get unless you know the criteria and are actively going for it. Please do not let it deter you from playing the rest of the hack. Thanks.

Screenshots

Ratings and Reviews

By Laser on Feb 28, 2018 (

)

100% in 1:35

Metroid: Spooky Mission v1.2 Review

For me, personally, this is the best exploration kind of hack for MZM ever. The graphics, the design, the aesthetics, the text, the intro, the demo and the overall concept is astonishingly good. However, while playing, there were a few things that made me want to rate this hack 4 out of 5, and I will try my best to explain why (beware of spoilers):

So, first of all, I really liked that this game removed basically all the cutscenes from the original game, including the Kraid and Ridley statues activating, as they don't exist in this hack. Instead, there are 3 spooky items that you have to collect, but ALL of them are very easy to find, as they are just lying in a room close to the boss of each area, so I don't really get the point of changing it, but at the same time I'm don't think that's a bad thing. What IS a bad thing, though, is the absolute removal of Power Bomb Packs, just for the sake of that stupid item counter being on-screen for the rest of the game. I genuinely think that was a poor decision, not because it made exploration harder, but because it made exploration very, very easy. Without Power Bombs, there was no way the hack could have something truly hard to find, because it would mess with the player to find it without power bombs. The result? Everything (except for the 2 energy tanks you can only obtain with screw-attack) is basically given to you, from start to finish, and that really made me lose the feeling of accomplishment while playing this hack.

Second of all, this game is both too easy and too hard at the same time.
The bosses are a joke, as their amount of health (even though increased) is too low to actually keep the fights threatening, ESPECIALLY Mecha-Ridley. For those who don't know, in the original game, Mecha-Ridley's health would be either two values: very low health if you hadn't gotten all the items, or a shit-ton of health if you did. In this hack, it is absolutely impossible to fight him while he has a lot of health, since he is no longer the final boss of the game, which means he blocks the way to obtaining items that count towards completion. In the end, I felt like I was watching a Tool Assisted Speedrun, where the boss "approaching" animation is 5 times longer than the fight itself. A few supers and he's done in the blink of an eye, not even changing color from blue to red. Can't say I'm not dissapointed.
As for the hard part, it's not the end-game. It's the first half hour (that is, until you find Plasma Beam completely out of nowhere), especially in Castle (a.k.a. Kraid's Lair). The problem is, the enemies used here are the space pirates from the end game in the original. They don't do nearly as much damage, and have way less HP, but their A.I. is BRUTAL for the beginning of the game, especially with a map layout that you're not familiar with at ALL. I've run across several doors, dodged some crazy shots, died trying to get the hidden energy tank with the Missile-Proof flying enemies, dived into the lava (or beer, in this case), but only to find out that I needed Super Missiles to go on. Backtracked all the way to Hell, got Plasma, and now I'm unstoppable.

Also, I've found a glitch with the space pirates health value. For some reason, when they are chasing me and I enter a screen transition, they will still be chasing me in the next room, just like in the original game. However, Space Pirates that come across screen transitions have more health (I think the same amount as the original game) than the ones that are already inside the room. It's fairly easy to test: pirates in this hack only need one missile to kill, but if you enter another room and shoot a missile at the guy who's chasing you, he won't die that easily - He will need at least two missiles to kill. That was a great chunk of what made that section so difficult to do at first.

And last of all, I want to talk about the item placement. I don't find it bad, for the most part, I just find it a little off. Sometimes it just tosses an endgame item in your face, like Plasma Beam and Gravity Suit. Sometimes it tosses midgame items in the end, like Hi-Jump Boots. Other times it just tosses two extremely important items at once, like Morph Ball and Bombs, and most notably, Space Jump and Screw Attack.

Edit: Played this game a couple times already, and I've seen some stuff that could also be improved in future updates:
1. There are no special settings for when you beat the game on normal and hard mode for the first time (probably due to the removal of the ending cutscene, as it just jumpcuts to the credits sequence). That means there is no "Sound Test", no "Original Metroid", and most importantly, no "Gallery" option, which is always a nice feature to have in a romhack that changes the ending images.
2. The message box that appears when you collect Energy Tanks always says "+100 health points", even if you choose to play on hard mode, where they only give you +50.
3. On the file select menu, the name of the area you last saved still displays the names of the original areas of the game, even though they have being changed. For example, when you last save in "Pumpkin", the file select will still say Tourian.
4. If you choose hard mode, you can't do that escape shinespark (the one where you run into Mother Brain's explosion animation until you begin speed boosting), because those flying enemies are immune to shinesparking in hard mode. I haven't looked too much into it, but you guys may want to verify if there is any kind of softlock potential there. It just seems that you could get stuck between the respawning speed booster blocks.

Overall, this hack was very fun to play, and as a Metroid Zero Mission Speedrunner, I will definitely speedrun it, as I did with Deep Freeze and Metroid Other ZM. I just felt like I had too much to say about this game, and that I should point out my observations for future improvements, mainly because this really seemed to have potential to be one of the best metroid hacks out there. Keep up the awesome work.

By nodever2 on Mar 17, 2018 (

)

91% in 1:50

EDIT (Oct 2020): The more time goes by, the less I feel like the issues I mentioned below bother me. This is still the best ZM hack I've played, and I editing my review to 5 orbs. I think everyone should play this, it's really fun.

ORIGINAL REVIEW (March 2018)
Very fun, not to mention innovative, Zero Mission hack! I played the very first version that was uploaded to the Main Site for this review (version 1.2 I think?) and really enjoyed most of this experience.

There are lots of little funny and quirky moments, and the creators went all-out; everything is changed here, and it's pretty sweet. There is also a very significant degree of non-linearity, too, especially after you get Plasma (at which point you can basically kill anything).

You may be surprised at how content-rich this hack is for a contest entry, featuring four full areas (even though the last one is a bit short) and a hub area to tie it all together. Custom ASM is sprinkled in at certain places, like the charge tractor beam (a very welcome addition). The music in this hack is very good too, and it doesn't feel like unnatural music to be playing Metroid with. There are also many custom tilesets, including the exquisite choice of including a Wario Land tileset to compliment it all.

The only real complaint I have is this hack's difficulty. It feels too hard before you get plasma, but too easy afterwards. I think I would have preferred a different beam progression, possibly with more intermediate beams before plasma.

An extension of this issue I had was with the boss progression. As far as I can tell, unless you take a very specific path, you can't beat the game without first having to beat a boss that feels unnecessarily difficult. I mean, you could go to Hell, a relatively easy area which would normally make a lot of sense to go to first, but this area has a boss at the end which I felt unequipped to beat, and had to leave, explore ANOTHER whole area, and then come back and finally beat it, since I couldn't beat this boss after a lot of tries with the gear I had.
Alternatively, you could go to Mansion first, but then you encounter a miniboss which is very difficult and long.. and I can imagine how much more frustrating it would be to do that without Varia (which you get in Hell). Either way, it's kind of annoying. If you want to avoid this problem, I'd suggest going to Mansion first, then getting your first Super Missile expansion (if I recall correctly it's before that miniboss, if I'm not recalling correctly then.. good luck), and then leaving Mansion and going to Hell.

Luckily, after I got past these two issues, I had quite a fun time. Even though I obliterated everything using plasma, at least I wasn't tediously stuck on a boss. Exploring the world was really fun, and the world design complimented the hack. Nothing felt unfair to find, either. (There was a mapping error in Hell, but this has already been pointed out on Discord). There were a good variety of locales to look at, and it never felt like a drag again.

Taken as a whole, this is definitely the best ZM hack I've ever seen. I would recommend this hack. Also, the readme is beautiful. Good job guys!

By jewelediris on Mar 29, 2018 (

)

100% in 2:05

Wow! This hack was fun, challenging, and very creative, I loved the different areas and the influences they brought to the table. It wasnt too terribly Frustrating, once I got into it. after 100%ing the game there still seemed to be map areas I couldn't access either because they were errors or something. I've recommended to several people to try this hack out. Good job guys

By Strokend on Apr 06, 2018 (

)

89% in 1:54

Although a small hack, it's definitely enjoyable, even for a player who isn't accustomed to all the little tricks posible in Zero Mission.

By JustinBailey13 on Jan 31, 2019 (

)

82% in 1:38

I had fun playing this. It was a nice enjoyable change from grinding M:ZM for a new pb. I loved the sarcasm for the item descriptions [actually that's what convinced me to try the hack in the first place]. Definitely worth a try.

By Metroid3D on Apr 21, 2019 (

)

No completion stats.

It's alright.

By Contendo on Oct 12, 2019 (

)

No completion stats.

Spooky Mission 1 is a good game.
The Areas are great and the music is gud. For one of the first ZM hacks this is pretty well done.

Edit 2021:
Well the hack is getting old... its still one of the best hacks, but it also has many points to
improve on

By Sapphron on Dec 21, 2019 (

)

93% in 1:18

Excellent hack, honestly. Clearly a collab hack but in a good way. Really liked it. Can't really say what hasn't been said already. However, it's not a 5 star hack to me.
Recommend.

By metasamus on May 19, 2020 (

)

No completion stats.

Awesome hack!

By DramaticMarquinh0svi on Oct 10, 2020 (

)

No completion stats.

I softlocked at the end,and i didn't save once,so i had to do it all over again,but the hack was fun and good,it would deserve 5 if there was no way to softlock.

By Rocky712 on Mar 16, 2021 (

)

91% in 0:55

I beat the game a second time after my last playthrough a few months ago and I still think this is a really great hack.
It has some fun story elements, everything fits to the "spooky" theme. The areas, the enemies, the music, etc.
It is definitely worth it to play it again in the future. I enjoy all the different paths for the exploration.
I just don´t really like the pumpkin area. It is just not something really special compared to the rest, but that is critizing on a really high level.

Solid 5/5.

By Kremit44 on Jul 17, 2021 (

)

91% in 1:27

It's a really solid and fun hack but I will complain that it's easy to wander in the beginning looking for progression as the area one needs to go is not clear as it lacks any hints despite being hidden. Still it's a quality short hack despite this one annoying flaw. Thanks to the creator and all who helped for an amusing and fun hack.

By Cirno on Oct 27, 2021 (

)

86% in 1:45

It was pretty sweet. I missed Boss Repellent before Ridley and Good Suit before Kraid so I kind of made things difficult on myself but it was still a pretty awesome time. Can't wait for Spooky Mission 2.

The only complaints I have:
- It's somewhat difficult to see through beer
- Music audio is kinda balanced weird in some bits

By Zhs2 on Feb 10, 2022 (

)

91% in 1:40

I'll give this hack credit, for the stupid things it does with low item amounts and being a short hack where you can get murdered around every secret corner there are equal amounts of opportunity to power up and overcome them. The problem is, you still have to find said powerups, and some of the paths to the most helpful powerups can be obscure. Also all of the equipment text is dumb and memey. Overall not the best way to burn an hour and a half.

By Syphon on Mar 04, 2022 (

)

97% in 1:28

Very enjoyable hack. Difficulty depends on the path you take. Exploration was fun.

I recommend it.

By LetsPlayNintendoITA on Jul 12, 2022 (

)

100% in 1:47

A very fun, appealing to the eyes to the max, spooky mission. Lots of themed areas and fun. Lots of secrets and not hard even for newbies. open world. 5/5 for sure. thanks for this chapter. playing the 2nd next! can't wait!

By Zincoshine on Aug 11, 2022 (

)

89% in 2:02

Well, this is way better than one might think when judging by the title. The quality of this is excellent and the customizations are awesome. However, it is not without its problems. The backtracking in this metroidvania is absolutely insane. Unless you decide to try and defeat the bosses without super missiles (not recommended!), you'll be going between the castle and the other two biomes several times. Another issue is the music is too loud in some areas. I wavered between giving this 4 or 5 orbs but ultimately I decided it leans more towards 4 orbs. Still, a very strong recommendation to play this, it is way better than it seems at first.

edit: as it turns out, the backtracking is actually optional... you could simply wall jump instead! I've decided to increase the score to 5, especially considering how impressive its non-linearity is.

By RX-78-2 on Jan 24, 2023 (

)

100% in 0:50

pretty good short mini hack of ZM, love the Halloween theme.. the "Hell" area in particular is my personal favorite tbh.. anyways this hack was fun to play despite having to completely restart nearly 10 times because I kept messing up, and on top of that, I chose to do it savestateless.. but despite all that, I like this hack

Finished
Would recommend

By FANXINGPRIME on Apr 15, 2023 (

)

84% in 1:18

I like the Spooky Mission 2,but I hate this one.The difficulty is so hard that I couldn't play it anymore at the early game stage.To my astonishment,it suddenly became very easy in the middle stage.Why did I have to suffer so much,it's terribly stupid!

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