Metroid - Galactic Marine - Metroid Construction

Metroid - Galactic Marine
Release date: Nov 14, 2024	Author: Stat!k / Srarokz	Download: IPS (unheadered) v1.03 (518 downloads)
Genre: Exploration [?] Game:	Difficulty: Vanilla [?]	Average runtime: 1:39 Average collection: 89%
Read Me: [None]	Forum Thread: forum thread	Rating:

Description

METROID - GALACTIC MARINE
A HACK BY SRAROKZ (STAT!K)

Special thanks to the METCONST community for all your help, I stand on the shoulders of romhacking giants.

---STORY---

Galactic Federation outpost "Snowball" is a small outer rim ice-planet which contains a scientific research wing dedicated to examining the effects of the planet's extreme cold on the local fauna.
somewhere deep within the ice sheet is a facility of unknown origin.

Space Pirates have attacked the outpost and aim to locate the hidden facility to steal whatever may lie within.

You are a galactic Federation Marine and the only survivor of the Space Pirate attack. your mission is to locate and secure the research material.
The Hunter is busy on another mission and will not be providing assistance, pray she answers our distress calls before it's too late.

Remember Marine, you are not a Hunter.
You will need to use every tool at your disposal to stand a chance against the Space Pirates.

---NOTES---

NO special techniques are required to 100% this hack.

Walljumping is enabled but is never required.

You will die, saves and energy recharges are spaced regularly.

You may need to resupply in an area before you head deeper into the ice caves, think of this like a bonfire in other games.

This hack is 100% compatible with original hardware and is designed to be enjoyed without the use of savestates.

There are 38 items total to collect for 100%, item percentage at the end works as you would expect.

There are many routes through Snowball, beaten the game already? try for a low item%!

---CREDITS---

Please see the forum post or in-game ending for credits.

Screenshots

Ratings and Reviews

By Ob on Nov 22, 2024 (

)

92% in 1:58

This hack really makes you FEEL like galactic marine.

It's good. The movement feels more like a regular soldier while managing to still feel like Super Metroid.

By Kirarin on Nov 24, 2024 (

)

86% in 1:30

Great areas, palettes and graphics overall. One of the pretties romhacks out there. Some layers in the lower cave areas were quite confusing, same for the ship (sometimes I wondered what I could jump and what was background layer). The layers in the generator area and first area were much more clear to understand imo.

It was somewhat fun, and there was a lot of polish in the map, showing what you picked up. However, lore aside, most map stations didn't help that much; you had to explore to figure out where to go anyway.

Further, one of the areas, the flooded area, was very sluggish to transverse. That area (lots of suitless action), and the game having very tank control feels, altered gravity and lack of high jump (as far as I know) made the first half of the game a chore to walk around the planet. Other mods do this for fluff (like Subversion, that tweaks the gravity just to give an item to invalidate that 5 minutes into the game), and others feel better to walk around/you get items to make transverse the world easier, like Gossamer that gives High Jump early, or Redesign and other hacks that change the gravity, but you still have Speed and regular Samus movements.

The combination of a slow Marine and enemies not dropping health makes for a somewhat tedious playthrough. When you start getting etanks you can get a bit reckless and more safe to explore, but before that you have to be more cautious.

Speaking of explore, that's what mostly (and the Flooded area) made me give this 3 orbs and not 4. Didn't feel rewarding for the most part, and I was confused what was the point of lowering the water level, beat SS before in the same area, and I didn't get anything there? I'd put High Jump and/or another beam there, because the area feels very big and empty without anything aside missiles and etanks (iirc).

Still, this was a nice hack. I loved the visuals, and if the author did a regular hack with Samus and more power ups, less tank controls (it was strange being able to wall jump and not being able to spin) this was easily 5/5 potential. Unfortunately the struggle to control the Marine and not enjoying one of the areas (and a big one, AND with lots of water) diminished my experience.

Recommended. I'm eager to see what the creator(s) do in the future!

By Kremit44 on Nov 24, 2024 (

)

100% in 1:43

Brilliant hack. Top tier graphics, atmosphere, and sound. Appropriate and fun game mechanics given the hook of playing as federation marine. You aren't playing as Samus and it feels like it. It even has an interesting story that manages to be well fleshed out but not overbearing. Exploring such well designed and appropriate spaces for the limitations of the character was probably the best part of this hack. I found all the areas to be easily explored and any and all mechanics to be well utilized and easily understood. I found the suit less area to be fun and in no way did it overstay it's welcome. My only critique would be that it's on the shorter side of things, but even then the amount of content is enough to flesh out a full experience. This could easily become a series if the creator was so inclined. Thanks for the outstanding hack and I hope to one day play something, or many things more from the same creator.

By Frydi on Nov 25, 2024 (

)

81% in 1:41

A mixed bag in my opinion. Playing as a space marine is nicely realized by making you feel heavy and giving you non-traditional upgrades to use. Maybe walljumping could have been removed entirely as it seems to give you more jumping height/momentum than a normal jump. Plus you can walljump out of a neutral jump too now. The game is using grapple as an alternative wherever possible anyway. No health drops make the game very tedious to play especially as the low health alarm was also removed.

The areas look pretty nice even though the Sector 6 tileset in the first icy area is among the ugliest assets to use. This inital area which is often tiled very awkwardly and has some tiling errors here and there. The underwater area looks a lot better, but it's often hard to make out platforms (maybe better on emulator).

My biggest complaint by far about the game is the lack of any proper music aside from the lower caves area. Yes, it's supposed to be atmospheric, but the first area is as bit confusing to figure out where to go at first and the lack of music makes it incredibly boring to play at first.

No idea why the additional refill stations with the awkward ship behavior were used instead of just using save stations to refill. I'm also not sure if I could have finished the game without the DNA sample as I could unlock the path to the final boss without collecting it. Time in IGT.

By Oi27 on Nov 26, 2024 (

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71% in 1:40

You ARE the marine!! This is what it would feel like if vanilla had a "Luigi" for P2.

By junkrares on Nov 27, 2024 (

)

92% in 1:23

For a first hack (I assume?) this was very well done with just the right mix of quickplay and exploration. Just had a few quick thoughts I'd like to share, both positive notes and some constructive criticism.

Pros:
Good tiling and palettes, especially for a first hack. Sometimes the lower frozen areas were a little too blue in metal rooms, but otherwise very well executed. The use of layers and parallax were also well done. To add to this, the overall layout of the map was pretty decent as well. Nothing felt useless or too big or arbitrary.

The map screen was well done, with good clues to the invisible walls and secret passages. I liked the open circles for event rooms, the dots and crosses for unfound/found items, and that the maps/data didn't reveal every room. I also enjoyed the map data blurbs. Highlighting thermal damage rooms was also appreciated.

The story was decent, and the atmospheric details made each area unique and enjoyable to be in. I didn't even get bummed out by the forced suitless water areas. It just felt like that was an obstacle to overcome to explore the world. Well done!

Excellent use of existing ASM/resources. Its always enjoyable to use charge missiles and the grenade launcher. The tooltips on pickup for things were also a nice touch. At a certain point, I didn't even miss having morph ball or the other usual Power Suit upgrades.

Cons:
The absolute lack of health drops was a downer. I am sure it is intended, but I felt it made the game more of a chore than it needed to be. Not being able to farm and instead having to backtrack to recharge rooms was not a positive. This is also on the back of making normal shots very weak and charged shots very strong. Combine that with some truly oppressive enemy/environmental damage in some areas and overall low health and ammo access -- it made a lot of the difficulty feel artificial.

Touching on the above no-health-drops, making missile tanks only have one missile, and then also making missiles slow, AND making SpoSpo, Phantoon, and Torizo not drop missiles was a bit cruel. I'd bring the drop pattern back to vanilla for all enemies, and also make missile tanks worth at least two if not five.

Given that the ASM for recharge at save points exists, it felt a little weird to have recharge and saves be separate pods in the same room. I understand the goal was to have rooms that sometimes had one or the other, but it felt a little cumbersome.

The lack of spin jump was very weird. It made walljumping a little awkward, and lead to odd sprites like charged beam wall jumping where you're bouncing off the walls or CWJ'ing without spinning. I get that you are trying to eliminate pseudo-screw, but it just looks funky. I think you would be better off tweaking or zeroing pseudo-screw damage and still giving us spin jump frames.

Speaking of walljumping, there are some very easy sequence breaks that seem to be punishable by either getting nothing/nowhere or getting your ass beat by a boss you weren't ready for. It is almost childs-play to accidentally stumble into Phantoon with three missiles and zero e-tanks. This is not really a criticism, just wanting to mention that it is easy to get in over your head with some basic game skills.

Just a nitpick, but maybe find a better name for the planet than "Snowball." :P

I am sure I had some other thoughts, but they've escaped me at this point. Overall, I enjoyed this hack and look forward to what you come up with next.

By justanothermetroid on Dec 08, 2024 (

)

100% in 0:00

I will upload the rest of my footage later, but I still wanted to say that this is a really standout and fun hack to me. I was wall jumping plenty which had me slightly worried that I was playing "wrong", but the main ideas of survival are still there. One of the few times in recent memory where saves feel so important in a Metroid game. They are common enough, but need to be sought out and would be regrettable to neglect saving as bosses can be fairly unexpected. The survival concept is just so well done and fits the character so well that it feels like a pretty legit Metroid concept vs just being another Metroid game.

Snowball is a goofy name for a planet though.

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