Metroid: New Zero Mission
Release date: Jan 03, 2022
Author: jasinchen
Download: v2.4 Final[U] (3127 downloads)
(588 downloads of previous versions)
Genre: Exploration [?]
Game: MZM
Difficulty: Vanilla [?]
Average runtime: 5:28
Average collection: 86%
Forum Thread: metroidconstruction
Rating: Star Star Star Star Star
Other Links: Map
Description
1.This is a hack based on Metroid: Zero-mission. The room layout is similar to original version.
2.Bomb jump and wall jump are not required.
3.Easy mode: statue hint, Normal mode: no statue hint.
4.Unknown items are available.
5.The max item rate is 100%.
6.Forced abilities: Morph Ball, Bomb, Ice Beam, Gravity Suit, Missile and Super Missile.

[Update v2.4]
Final version.

Thanks for:

LetsPlayNintendoITA
ShuiJing

Screenshots
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Ratings and Reviews
By caauyjdp on Jan 12, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
100% in 2:55
Hack is huge, well done and is even better now after several revisions.
Tourian by itself is impressive and enough to push this hack to 5 orbs.
I really like that thought was put into implementing easy difficulty.
Would have wanted more speed things, but that's not for everyone
Path in crateria might be a bit confusing, but it makes sense when you stop to think that when you can't go back, there's probably a way forward.

A Great hack, play it.
By gbabox on Jan 27, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
100% in 0:00
good hack!I like it!
By Kriken Empire on May 28, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
52% in 3:57
This is a pretty good hack, and a decent start if you want to try ZM hacks out in general. It's a pseudo half-hack with a lot left the same but changed slightly, though some parts are completely different. The parts most like a half hack also fall into the category of "changed just for the sake of changing" unfortunately, which usually means it's worse than the original. The new stuff is very cool, but confusing. There's a lot of interesting ideas along the main route that kept me going and are well worth experiencing. Simple, genius additions or changes bump this hack up for me (i.e. the Pirate Mothership and Tourian) and help to counter some of the lackluster vanilla+ areas.

If you're on the fence as to whether or not you should play with hints or without, then I recommend to take the easy path. If you swear off ZM's chozo guides then I'll say you don't need them, but I found I had to look up the right way just after getting super missiles because it was too hidden, and circling around the whole map over and over looking for the right path was annoying. I think I would've enjoyed myself more if I just took the hint system, I'll put it that way. The hack is slightly harder than vanilla ZM but that's to be expected. Early on it's a slog, with platforms in the pillar-shaped rooms snaked around to be as tedious to climb as possible, but the hack gets better as you go so don't worry too much.

Also, it says you don't need wall jumps, but I found the right path once or twice by walljumping my way there and I'm not sure what other route I could've taken, something to keep in mind. I will say the walljumps weren't particularly hard though, so it's not a deal breaker.

Edit: Lowering my score from a 4 to a 3, but this is a good thing. It was always more like a 3.5, but the hack author has improved greatly. Enough that I felt it wasn't right to round up and prop it up to Desolation's level when it's not. This does not change anything in my actual review however.
By scm440 on Jun 01, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
The difficulty of the game is medium. It is larger than the original map. It is not particularly difficult to pass the customs. The whole collection is difficult. It is worth recommending!
By djcdubz on Jul 14, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
4.5++/5

Played without hints (recommended for advanced players; mostly ok minus one bout of getting majorly lost).

One of the best hacks out there and a must play. It is not without a glaring flaw though, namely that Chozodia/Ship is way too large and too "labyrinthy" given that it *SPOILER* contains only one major item - certainly not enough to justify its ridiculous size. It kills the pacing. Post Tourian, the game comes to a crawl as you try to navigate. It's also, unless you have good intuition, easy to get majorly lost scouring the huge world for where to go and for items.

That said, the pacing prior to that is perfect. Big brain secrets/puzzles, veteran difficulty when going for high %, sequence breaking opportunities galore, wonderful item placement including major items, "new" bosses, hell runs, redone map, brand new areas, advanced speed booster puzzles. It has it all. One of the few hacks I've played where upon finishing, I immediately booted it up again so I could play it "right" this time without getting majorly lost as I did at one point on the first play through.

Highly recommended and arguably the best ZM hack of the 4-5 top rated ones I've played and probably my 4th favorite hack of any Metroid game overall.
By brized on Oct 04, 2022 (Star Star Star Star Star )
100% in 10:45
This is the best hack for MZM, yet I can't give it more than a 3/5.

Here's how it can be better:

1) Import Project Zero Mission's quality of life improvements.

2) Make the speed booster blocks leading to Space Jump not so hidden. There's a visual inconsistency hint, but the problem is that the type of inconsistency used is repeated in many other rooms where it is *not* a hint. Thus, the only real way to find the entrance is by power bombing room by room. Wasted a bunch of time finding it. Not fun at all. Use a clear visual hint on the blocks for an area that leads to a major upgrade.

3) Some entries to "critical path" content or major upgrades have multiple entries, others do not. They should ALL have multiple entries, even if some of them are one-way. I repeat: ALL bottlenecks to critical path content and major upgrades should have at least 2 entry points.

4) Teach the player to use red missiles to knock around the Work Robots before expecting them to do it to enter the area that leads to Gravity Suit, since it's critical path content. I got to the entry, but didn't realize I could knock the Work Robots around. I tried a normal missile too close and it bounced off, and I tried a super missile and that also bounced off, so I left the area thinking I needed another item to do it. That wasted a TON of time.

This alone warrants -1 on the rating because it's such a glaring flaw. If you require a technique to progress on the critical path, you must first give the player a challenge where they are locked in a room and can't leave until they apply that technique, much like after you get the Power Grip, High Jump Boots, Speed Booster, etc. Failing to teach the player and verify they have learned to use a mandatory technique is failing basic game design.

This hack was so close to being great, but instead it was fun punctuated with frustration and wasted time.
By RX-78-2 on Jan 21, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
100% in 4:32
Despite how long it took me to finish this hack (I usually always speedrun hacks that I play and this is the first time I've finished in over 3 hours), I actually like this hack. I can't really say too much since most of it is vanilla but the rest is changed and room design/layout is pretty cool imho.. this is another amazing hack that deserves a playthrough

10/10
Finished
Would Recommend
By FANXINGPRIME on Apr 14, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
No completion stats.
Cheer for the Hi-Q Chinese Hack.
By Zhs2 on May 24, 2023 (Star Star Star Star Star )
51% in 3:33
This hack is... alright. Way better than Lost Chozo, not as momentous as Desolation, but for a remix of base Zero Mission it hits a lot of high notes and expands the experience by twofold. You visit Tourain not once, not twice, but three times, in typical jasinchen routing fashion - he knows exactly how to lead you where he wants you to go, and it's always surprising to be pathing through an endgame area at the beginning for maximum tension. There are some pitfalls, however: the route to Kraid is inobvious, requiring Ice Beam and platforming on some enemies that are not normally frozen. (Once you figure this out, if you are already wise to how Kraid is hidden in vanilla you should have no more trouble finding him.) Space Jump is not simple to find, and completely missable (but fully obtainable) before Mother Brain - if you do not find it Power Bombs will be hard to find as well later on, requiring a speedboost in an outdoor room at the end of the game to find the hidden passage to them. This is a progression problem as after you beat Mother Brain the only way to explore the rest of the hack afterward and get Screw Attack is to find Power Bombs. Otherwise, it's a great jas masterpiece. Definitely recommend.
By starlightintheriver on Jul 14, 2024 (Star Star Star Star Star )
100% in 7:09
I have some complicated feelings about this one. Comparing it to Desolation definitely feels like a stretch; I'd liken it to Lost Chozo in terms of quality, just more vanilla. I do personally really like Lost Chozo (I plan on replaying it for a review eventually) but not for a while now.

I suppose I'll start with the good. The hack is very large, but nearly every room feels like it serves a purpose in the grand scheme of things, even if that purpose is just to be a short little platforming challenge for an odd route you need to take to escape a trap. A strong example of this is some rooms in Tourian, which you cross through after killing Kraid to escape his lair with Speed Booster in hand. The hack is extremely well connected too; there are shortcuts all over the place, some of which I didn't find until way after they would be most helpful, and the hack also takes some of the best aspects of Super Zero Mission and refines them (such as the underwater Chozodia for Gravity, the Norfair-Chozodia elevator, the extra undestroyed areas of Tourian containing items, even the good use of Speed Booster)

However, for as much as there is good, there are several pretty egregious flaws that make large parts of the game pretty difficult. Several areas including Norfair and Ridley's Lair have one-ways that require a long path around, such as shinesparks that take you all the way up to the highest levels of Norfair, from which there isn't any easy way down except by going back through the tall vertical shaft to the east. One example of this includes the long tunnel leading through the entrance to Ridley, which normally gates Screw Attack in the vanilla game. In the hack, though, it's just a fairly pointless shortcut back to the top of Norfair, especially since you can't actually go back directly to Norfair from Ridley anyway because of *another* one-way in the form of a tower with crumble blocks on the bottom.

Speaking of Ridley's Lair, I thought it might be worthwhile to bring up Space Jump, since that's the item a lot of people struggle to find according to other reviews, and it's in Ridley's Lair behind Speed Booster blocks. It's technically hinted (the exit from the area where you get SJ is obvious, but not the entrance), but because there's another room that I thought could theoretically lead out to that exit, I didn't explore any further and just skipped Space Jump, coming back for it in cleanup. At first I was confused why Jasinchen didn't make it so you can't get out of Ridley's Lair without SJ, but looking back I think they actually intended SJ to be required. There's an awkward shinespark to get up to Ridley, a shortcut back that's basically impossible without Space Jump, and a large empty room that you need to climb to get out that would be easy with Space Jump. That said, if you're good enough to skip SJ, the shinespark to Power Bombs isn't really that hard, and shinesparks are needed to beat the game under normal progression anyway (one is required to get to Varia, for example).

If there was one thing that particularly frustrated me, it was actually that I missed a *different* major item (Wave Beam), which thankfully isn't required either. It's hidden in Chozodia (the real Chozodia, not the area labeled Chozodia even though it's literally just the Mothership), behind a breakable wall. Unlike the path to Space Jump, which does have a visual inconsistency, the wall in front of Wave Beam looks exactly the same as a solid unbreakable wall; without hints, I genuinely don't understand how most people would find it on their own; it was my last major, and I had to look at the maps on MAGE to find it (that was how I found SJ too, but I felt pretty stupid when I realized how blatantly I had ignored the hint for it). I think I would have personally moved Wave Beam to the end of the long tunnel under Norfair, so that it's not just a pointless shortcut and is actually reasonable for a normal person to collect.

Overall, it's... Pretty shaky and inconsistent, with some major highs and pretty deep lows. I definitely think it would improve with the QOL features from Project ZM, along with some of the progression being tidied up. I overall recommend it, even if only to see how far jasin has come since Desolation.

Sorry for this incredibly rambly unedited review which probably has several typos. I'm extremely glad Jasinchen kept going and refined their craft, because Desolation so absolutely excellent and a must-play.

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