Super Metroid: Super Metroid: Ascent

Ascent is a full hack of Super Metroid. More Super Metroid with the same gameplay, but whole new level design, new visuals and even some new mechanics. It has approximately the same amount of rooms as the original game, but bigger rooms. The difficulty is harder than the original game, but not too much. The hack gameplay will focus on puzzles, exploration and challenges. The focus on puzzles is stronger than most hacks. However there is multiple ways to advance or solve a problem.

The main idea of this hack is like multiple small hacks put into one with a connected progression and world. So it's more levels based (multiple zones). With map portions closing behind you at the end of the zone. You will see where it ends on the map in the game. Start at the Abyss of the planet and ascend your way up to the surface. Read the "README.txt" for more important info!

Will you be able to defeat the black parasites and reach the extraction point? Find out in ascent!

Ascent, a Super Metroid hack by Benox50

Table of content:
I. How to play
II. General Info about what is this hack ?
III. Detailed Info about what is this hack ?
IV. Controls, required moves & new important moves



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***Spoiler stuff, read if stuck or after playing the game***
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V. Other important changes
VI. Hints




VII. Credits
VIII. Version changes



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I. How to play
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Hacks for super metroid are single small IPS file


What you need :

- ROM of original "Super Metroid (JU) [!].smc", buy the game on virtual console or find it in abandonware or.....well you know how you can get it otherwise, but thats on your hand :>
- The IPS file which is the hack itself or mod
- A snes Emulator of your choice, such as snes9x or real snes if you are a badass and yes it has been tested
- An IPS patcher, this is the tool to apply mods (hacks) to the game.
Since IPS only contain stuff made by the author of the mod, they cant work alone.
A good IPS patcher is lunar IPS.

This hack if for ROM with no header
Rom is headered?: -> https://www.google.com/search?q=how+to+remove+the+header+of+an+snes+rom

Well I strongly consider you should do super metroid original before playing mods if you havent,
Even if this mod can be played without doing it.
See IV. for controls and tips which will settle you before actually playing



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II. General Info about what is this hack ?
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Ascent is a full hack. This mean it is a full expansion mod, its like playing more super metroid with same gameplay but new level design, visual and some new mechanics. It has approximately the same amount of rooms as original game but bigger rooms and the difficulty is harder than original but not too much. It is not Kaizo hard and its mean to be enjoyed by veteran and newcomers, veterans will be able to break new ways of progression and to play. The hack gameplay focus on puzzles, exploration and challenges. The focus on puzzles is stronger than most hacks. However there is multiple ways to advance or solve a problem. The hack also follow a rythm of big portion of calm and problem solving vs small moments of action. There could be some weird moments of me trying stuff :D, but nothing will be out of place assets or ideas. Metroid for me is a huge alien underground isolated maze and this is what it will be about.




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III. Detailed Info about what is this hack ?
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As the title say it, Ascent is all about ascending to the surface, the extraction point, to retreive your ship and leave the planet.
The main idea of this hack is like 3 small hacks put into one with a connected progression and world. They are stacked on top of each other to form what I call ?The Tower?
Start at the abyss of the planet and ascend your way up to the surface.
Separated into 3 Zones.
You cannot come back to the previous zones or some parts, the level design isnt made for that and story wise it will be weird. The idea too, is to reduce backtracking and let the player progress ahead.
Each Zones finish with the main boss + entering yellow area on the map means no return
The no return rule can be broken in zone 2 for a surprise so keep your eyes peel
Can collect all items in each of the zone before leaving.
The items percentage is 100% for each zones in the pause menu, the total is still 100 but based for all items
Each Zone has visual diversity and they each feel like a small hack with their own exploration.
Animals can be saved, thats the only thing I can say about that :>

There is linked doors in this hack where destroying one cap of a specific label will open all of the same label
There is also gates without button that you must break open in another room near it

Tested Low% (really hard mode):
-> 1 pack of everything (missiles, supers, powa bombs, Etank)
-> morph + bombs
-> ice beam (other item than that possible)
-> varia
-> charge
-> and speed boost ofc

*no etank possible in newer version but not recommended




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IV. Controls & new important moves
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The controls are your typical super metroid controls, but there is a few things.

-Samus can spin jump again (respin) by pressing the jump button while in midair during a normal jump or a fall.

-Quick switch for beams has been added, Hold down Cancel button then Diagonal Down button to equip the ice version of your current beam if you have ice. Do it again to unequip ice. Also, you can Hold down Cancel button then Diagonal up button and each time you press Diagonal up button while holding cancel, it will cycle through your beams. Only the unstacked ones.

-While running in full speed in speed booster, samus can reduce her speed by letting go the run button. This way you can see ahead making it easier to naviguate while speed boosting

-Samus can keep the speed booster active while running if she jump then land, must be a spin jump

-Hold down in ball form to remove the bomb jumping, useful for spamming secrets

-Samus can morph while running and unmorph to keep speed but only work when a specific item is aquired


- Bombs are faster, this means less tedious secret finding
but this means easy and fast bomb jumping so its not infinite anymore and has a limit of 7 bomb jumps
I know some will hate that, the change was analysed many times in beta and its decided the level design and other items depend on it
A visual indicator was added to the ball and will start getting glowy and flash when the bomb jump is exhausted.


- Physics in water suitless are a bit different and samus will keep her momentum when she jump then land if player is still holding a direction



--Required advanced techniques--

You will need to know how to bomb jump lol. And how to shinespark at least once to finish this hack. Walljumps will just help alot to shortcut the hack but they arent required, both techniques will be shown in the hack itself by friends :D
thats pretty much it, so not alot of advance stuff required.


























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(spoiler) Start
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(spoiler) Look into that if you need more info
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V. Other Important changes + new stuff
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New items and items edits
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-> Spring Ball come packed with high jump

-> Each Weapon tanks increase samus missiles, supers & beams projectiles damage (damage xNumber in Equip screen) and can change alot in how player will approach strong enemies and obstacles

-> Each Energy Drain reducer item will reduce ShineSpark damage to samus allowing longer moments in the air

-> Classic Boost Ball is in this too, hold run in morph ball until glow then release button, main use for crumble bridges and bypassing single pushy block (arrow pushing samus blocks), enable morph ball speed keep mentioned above
has other uses...

-> Shinespark can be controlled in various ways by pressing directions
(pressing down will morph, pressing jump will cancel the spark midair, pressing down (ball form) then jump will take a spin pose, samus can be steered with diagonals aim buttons)

-> space jump is... fixed :p


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New blocks and edits
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-> Spikes deal more damage as progression advance

-> Pushy arrow blocks that will push samus in the direction of the arrow, can be bypassed with some items
There is also a single use pink version that act as sinking sand.

-> Electric Fog that will either heal or damage samus depending of the color (color change to more damage as progression advance)

-> Green button block and red that enable a gravity switch in morph ball until samus unmorph in air or touch the red one (red can extend with doted lines)

-> Hyper Block button that enable hyper

-> Electric grapple block that will damage samus when grappled in them

-> Blocks that can appear and disappear on a timer

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Other
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-> Any water cancel toxic heat damage to samus



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VI. Hints to help you through the game
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-Pay some attention to the room names, mostly the pink ones to get clues

-Notice how those weird colorful squares grid enemies are near stations

-Use the map to get info of what to do next, look for ? on the map for goals and blue dots tiles for items
also look for bright D tiles or key symbol tiles will help to open more paths

-The yellow parts on the map are the end of the current zone, warning those are no return

-Those dark enemies are dark but also colored, maybe they arent that much damage spongy afterall
Also the HUD selection show different colors

-Sometimes simply looking around the room will help to advance in it

-Enemies freeze longer with a charged shot

-Pay attention to why samus energy can lower or increment depending of the situation you are in to understand it

-Beams are more based on situations and personal taste rather than new beam = better never use the others ever again
but there is a good reason for getting all of them

-An hard no with spikes that block path is indeed an hard no and there must be something you are missing
You can always come back later and dont forget that alot of things arent required necessarly
but if you feel you can push through it then it must be possible and not that hard afterall





























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VII. Credits
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They are now in the endgame properly, but for honorable testers we have:

-Dman
-MetroidNerd
-Bob
-ED (Aran Jaeger)
-Ted (mccad00)
-Moehr




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VIII. Version changes
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1.12

-Finally less hugly blocks in nestroid climb :d
-Changed bomb block to shot block for secret shortcut under speed blocks cause annoying to break them when speeding
-GT cheese was still there, so now its not
-GT should now have way more chance to trigger the chain block, its now 3 blocks to step on instead of 1
-Shot blocks to z3 map station are now bomb blocks so player find the thing easier to see the escape route (was like that in beta)
-Fixed random air tile in activated passage
-Fixed a stuck by killing all hands enemies, room near fresh welcoming
-Must now fight ceres ridley like all the other bosses, this is actually what I wanted but didnt know asm back then
-Ceres ridley now set and check his own boss bit
-Removed grey door to enter ceres ridley after his death so player can always get the Etank that got moved out of the way for low%
-SMOOOKE deals only 2 damage no suit and 1 with suit
-No more spikes in the long tube going up near zone2 ending, mostly cause of the layering effect its hard to tell
-Good Link door tile for right side of getting around it room (its a lock and not an unlock)
-Added missing door tiles near save stations in z3
-Minor changes like remove spikes in last lab main room, make a better left non damage blind fall after the crumbles blocks
-Final lab zeb back to his original hp :d
-The black goo drip now drop only supers instead of nothing if killed with PBs or... will lets you find it out :>
-Better boostball platforms for low% in best beam hard room
-Dark atomic have now more supers drops for refill
-Fixed a random black goo drip enemy not doing any damage nor respond to samus attacks
-East shaft reverse no more forced spike damage if reverse grav suitless right side of spikes vertical tunnel
-C and fall blocks enemies are now killable with grapple
-Moved away some offscreen enemies in save station M
-Fixed crouch jump directions inputs locked
-Temp blue suit glitch wasnt supposed to be fixed, must keep that :p
-There was missing door map tile for grapple room
-A bit faster charge to fit the charge sound better
-Samus finally shoot the geemer in the demo scene lol
-Balls room is now shot blocks for faster when going up in it
-Meta block room, now player not able to enter the bottom part of the room, was annoying to then deal with the grey door
should only deal with it if he failed the challenge
-Water lab z1 blue doors and gate a bit more visible color wise
-A bit easier speed boost for turbo entrance
-No more blind fall for hive room from the platform into nomnom plant
-Changed all z3 spikes BTS 03 to a new one that is 02 because 03 was actually draygon grapple electric damage
-Added back spike BTS 03 to electric grapple blocks so you can actually grapple on em and reduced the touch damage
-Easier to see upper exit spot in moisture challenge
-Bit less Side hoppers that can hit you easy while in morph in scared foes inlet
-Removed item check for acid lowering statue, cause its lame not being able to open BB door shortcut even if no speed boost
there is speed blocks at kraid anyway
-Added missile in z2 at top of big purp, to get closer to 200 round number of missiles on 100% and
to recompensate players climbing big purp without supers or suit
-Added item dot for that missile
-Wrong looking heal tiles in velocity grotto room, now they look ok
-Looks like water lab gate was always open ? weird... Now its ok
-Impossible map tile to get in airborn terror now fixed
-Fixed Boost ball getting stuck in ground in rolling fast
-Crumble at trap at left of dachora not respawn so player have chance to get back up with skilled crumble jumping
-Scared foes inlet room now has a wall map tile to close the map on the second state if player didnt do the first one
-Courageous climb has better grapple blocks at the top of it
-Metroids drop more PBs for final lab, mostly for the puzzle
-Added missile in zone3 near the super in player path near the statue cause I want 200 missiles total and not 195 which is weird number
-Pirates hideout area in z3 map tiles are better for room states cause they were giving false interests depending of the player route
-Also updated hexagon map for 1.12 ver.






1.11

-fix ShineSpark crash collide up in corners
-fixed some BGs confusion in alien vista room
-changed some room names for better help to new players
-changed wrong palette used for some red letters in rooms names
-made a platform from exiting a door longer in endgame blockade
-fixed air tile to solid in water lab, was actually an odd PLM
-Nerfed my other jump bomb room zone1
-added another refill also to my other jump bomb room
-Nerfed the challenge to boostball a bit
-removed the speed blocks in boost ball room cause it leaded to confusion for item usage
-added clue to go back to zone1 in a room name
-made high jump visible
-lowered some water speed for a bit easier challenges in some places
-fixed a low% stuck that was actually hard to fix
-made no Etank low% possible... oh my dear god
-reduced even more some corrupted dark enemies hp
-added back most vanilla grapple killable enemies even if they are dark
-also added more enemies that can die to grapple that should
-made grapple even more easy to find cause alot was finding it way too late imo
-fixed the tiling in the warp transit to aux. lab
-fixed the random door opening BTS for a red gravity disable button
-fixed moving spikes not freezing to some beams
-fixed ghost not freezing correctly to ice alone for low%
-moved the fish hiting samus at gravity suit
-fixed some link door map tiles
-made warp access in airborn terror easier to find since the top is a power bomb door which can be annoying
-fixed a scroll PLM not updating scroll fast enough when samus fall fast in it
-moved the wall to item in water logged to right more since grappled player bonked under hit
-made a super secret more secret as it should
-fixed a stuck by jumping in pushy arrows blocks too fast
-fixed fake ridley not showing up on some occasions
-kot power is kottpower no space
-added more blue heal fog in zone2, at same time help player to find some for understanding before going to croc
-made that blue heal fog room before croc easier and removed the random green button that served no purpose
-added missing link door label in eticoons room
-removed exploit abuse of gold torizo on the left
-move the pickups for torizos at the good spot
-both best beams destroy red parasites now
-removed the asm for getting only the single beam when collecting beams instead of adding to stack (made it back to vanilla)
-now you can leave the bangs room if you're not up for the task
-SBAs power and ice alone dont rotate so you can better not waste them easily on already frozen enemies
-Metroids stay frozen longer for charged shots
-Fix PBs not working in effects rooms of zone1 and 2 (will be done at least for the future)
-Made the event state missile in arena of gates room appear in all event states instead of just last 2
-Fixed state zone1 exploding again
-Fixed state landing site lava raising when samus enter it from the top, should only occurs from entering from bottom door
-Forgot slopes in state of gate prologue
-Forgot a CRE tile using wrong red outline color instead of black
-Some better darkbugs parasites placement
-Ajust enemies drops for better refilling (mostly supers zone2)
-Changed a suspicious crumble grapple block to 3 normal ones
-higher phantom death fog
-Fixed a morph lock tile not being trigger sometimes
-Fixed a stuck in expand shaft if using ball spark at a specific spot
-Added a ceiling to the map for spazer room so you know its not a free go
-Removed some annoying blocking ceiling in big purp top
-Spazer puzzle have a small gift item cause of the long trouble to get there but not solving spazer puzzle
-Plasma and Plasma+Spazer have now a bit better cooldown
-Boss hp show up after his death not anymore
-Harder zebetite shortcut in final lab because its a big one if gate glitching
-More visible shot blocks to get out of a shine spark fail in room dachora shaft
-Shot blocks instead of bomb ones in gauntlet to get out faster of acid if fail
-Caterpillar at left of warm feet now respawn
-Replaced ship icon with mini samus on foot
-Near instant boost ball charge
-Removed spikes in Etank room in arena of gates cause some players still dont know how to do a single diag bomb jump
-Some small level design changes in zone1 for better speed run flow (some platforms moved in shafts for better falling mostly) (more to come in futur)
-Can escape grapple room without grapple now
-Added back the optional heat run for optional second varia suit (not sure if this will be faster now, but it is more interesting than getting it right away and skipping croco too easy)
-Added a missile at the original varia just to be sure its not empty if by miracle a new player get the second before and go to where original is, find nothing even with a dot on the map which break the rule
-BT room state changes for the version with holes in the floor, for map completion and for players to not feel miss a thing
-Nestroid climb room more visible shot blocks
-Not respawning crumbles in body control exept the ones inside the spikes hell
-crumble at overlap long shaft that access top of toxic lab, crumbles at bottom not respawn
-add blue fog near gate unlock room for spazer
-crumble blocks in meta block room should be different from the non crumble ones
-last one could also be not crumble
-vertical door of meta blocks crumble room no longer fall in acid if too much on the left
-someone tried very hard for some reason to bring the enemy down in spazer puzzle, add enemy blocking there
-Samus can now morph while running holding directions, with boostball it enables a morph unmorph speed keep which help boost ball usage
-Fixed another boost ball 2 fast out of door scrolling issue in room link door intro, guess you can do it even without boost ball item
-Jump out of shine now has mock balling option whith the aim down pose
-Fixed speed boost not killing enemies when morphing in air (vanilla bug actually)
-Fixed Ball Spark not breaking Speed Blocks sometimes
-Added back the original speed blocks design of room gettin around it sorta (better to know that here you need speed boosta)
-Cannot fix echoes bug but at least fixed the charge animation for it
-Changed spike BTS of electric grapple blocks so its less hell
-Fixed stuck if ShineSpark during BigTroid
-Fixed slow samus if big metroid dead during sucking
-Fixed stuck if big metroid dead when samus is controls locked
-Max bombs jump now play a small sound
-Changed ver. in hexagon map lol
-Better Readme :>




1.0 First release




Database match: Super Metroid (Japan, USA) (En,Ja)
Database: No-Intro: Super Nintendo Entertainment System (v. 20210222-050638)
File/ROM SHA-1: DA957F0D63D14CB441D215462904C4FA8519C613
File/ROM CRC32: D63ED5F8