Metroid: Zero Mission (Project ZM)

[DF]

The Metroid marathon somersaults onward! I haven't played Zero Mission in quite a long while, so I figured I may as well give it a shot too while I keep putting off finishing the project I've been working on. I finished this one in 2h 51m with an items percentage of 63%. I had eight Energy Tanks, 170 Missiles, 12 Super Missiles, and 4 Power Bombs.

And I missed the Wave Beam again.

What is Metroid: Zero Mission?

This is the remake of the first Metroid game on the NES. Apart from giving the graphics an overhaul, there are several new features from older games such as Speed Booster and Power Bombs, and even an entirely new section after you think you're done with the game. Much like the other games in the series, it's a Metroidvania where your ability to explore is slowly expanded upon as you find more items that grant you new powers or simply allow you to destroy obstacles you couldn't before.

The Space Pirates are threatening galactic civilization with the superweapon "Metroid"! Go to Zebes and destroy the weapon, and go kill the Space Pirate leader Mother Brain while you're at it!

What is Project ZM?

It's a vanilla-styled hack for this game. Apart from features like having the Charge Beam draw in restoratives like in the Prime series or allowing you to build up Speed Booster charge in Morph Ball form, the hack edited the map to the degree that you can finish the game with 4% of items--Morph Ball, Bombs, Missile, and Ice Beam. You can find the hack here.[www.romhacking.net]

Gameplay

It's in 2D as a platformer with an emphasis on exploration. Each area is sectioned off into a series of rooms and you either move between them by shooting open doors or using hidden passageways. Regions are traversed with elevators for the most part. Enemy creatures inhabit several areas and will either just get in the way with their passive movement or will actively try to hurt you. There are save rooms scattered around for you to take a break, or to give you a continue point should you run out of Energy. You have a beam cannon that at first has a very short range, but you can slowly gain new abilities for it as well as other armaments like explosive missiles and an infinite supply of droppable bombs.

There are Chozo hint statues scattered around too, and these will put waypoints on the map to go seek out for upgrades. Project ZM makes the statues optional, but they're nice for when you get lost or you just want a more directed approach to the game, though it's not as rigid as Fusion was.

After you finish off Mother Brain, you're thrown into a new part of the game where you have no abilities, you can't actually kill your enemies, and it's stealth-based. But hey, at least now Metroid can crawl! It's a fairly short part of the game separate from the rest of Zebes that you explored before, but trying to evade the Space Pirates or not alert them in the first place can be difficult.

]How I Played

I tried to play off of what little memory and intuition I could manage and I only needed one Chozo hint statue after getting the High Jump Boots as I was completely without a clue on finding the Varia Suit. I did manage to get Super Missiles 'early' through the use of a ballspark maneuver, but I couldn't tell how early it was as opposed to playing in the order the developers intended. I did eat up quite a bit of time exploring, and I tried to use the walljump move quite a bit, but it's way harder to pull off in this game because of the stronger gravity, and you don't seem to go up as much compared to Super even if you have the ability to use it to go up one wall once again.

I know the trick to get back to the rest of the game once you're in the actual final stages (as the map is entirely separate), but I just chose to carry on to the end.

Controls

Dpad moves Samus around, A to jump, B to fire. L to aim diagonally up and hold L and press down to aim down. Hold R to arm Missiles and B to fire. Hit down once while standing to duck, once more with Morph Ball to become a little ball and fit into tiny passages. Select button swaps between Missiles and Super Missiles once you find them, but you still need to hold R to use them. Start brings up a menu and you can hit R to get Samus' status, or you can hit L to sleep the system.

Project ZM lets you toggle suit abilities on and off like in Super Metroid. Just select what you want to turn off and hit the Select button. Dunno what tactical use there is for that, but hey, options! There's also control options to mimic Super Metroid, where the shoulder buttons are used only for aiming diagonally and you arm Missiles/Super Missiles with the Select button instead without needing to hold anything.

Gameplay Modes

Hard Mode opens up after you finish the game on Normal, and Time Attack can be accessed with a button combo on a clear save too. With Project ZM, you get Hard Mode and Time Attack right off the bat.

The original NES Metroid is an unlockable too, but it crashed or hung when I tried to access it in Project ZM. Oh well.

Difficulty

The game wasn't nearly as hard as Fusion and felt about the same as Super, maybe a little more difficult, so medium overall? Easy areas, decent bosses except for three. I ran into the most trouble going off the rails, like hitting superheated rooms without the Varia Suit and seeing if I could get through fine (I couldn't). Ridley killed me once, Mother Brain nearly got me once, to the point I was like below 30 Energy when I somehow won, and the final boss got me a few times because I didn't get his pattern down the first few times. The extra gameplay part after Tourian is arguably harder than the rest of the main game by virtue of the gameplay being so different. The hack author claims that you can humanly get a full stealth clear without tripping any alarms or alerting the enemy, but I'm clearly not that good at the game for that. Any damage you take during this part eats an entire Energy Tank, so if you're playing a low items game, your skills will need to shine here.

Chozo Statues act as health and ammo restore stations too, but I don't know if that was a feature of the hack or a vanilla game thing. Save stations in the extra part of the game restore your health too, because there's nothing for you to destroy to get health back.

I didn't play Hard Mode, but apart from taking double damage, Energy Tanks only give 50 Energy, Missile Tanks give you two Missiles, and Super Missile Tanks and Power Bomb Tanks give you all of one each. Enemy distribution was either increased or you face stronger types earlier too from what I'm reading. Some save rooms were deleted too.

Saving

There are save rooms in various places, but there doesn't seem to be a rhyme or reason to their placing, other than 'close' to boss rooms. Just not 'directly across from boss rooms' like in some Castlevanias.

You get three saves here too.

Graphics

Samus' sprites were redone again, and you keep the "Sydney Opera House" shoulders for most of the game, even when you get the Varia Suit. I noticed the backgrounds weren't as detailed as in Fusion, instead with them being mostly...erm, kind of blobby. It's hard to describe, but it's like they had a solid color and put in a bunch of black dots. It didn't really detract from the experience, just something I noticed. There are a few cutscenes, though they're pretty short, like showing Kraid or Ridley attacking Samus or Mother Brain waking up to your infiltration. The art style felt comic-inspired, and again I don't know how to properly explain that.

The HUD still takes up the upper part of the screen, but it's still the same way it was in Fusion with everything on an overlay and not the opaque bar from Super.

Audio

The music is mostly a remix of the original NES game's music, though there are some new tracks to go with the new bosses and new areas, with the main Crateria underground theme from Super Metroid getting used twice in the new part of the game and the Super Metroid title theme being used for a cutscene. There weren't really any tracks I didn't like, but the Kraid area theme, Norfair theme, Brinstar theme, and the title too.

Stability

No complaints here. I know I mentioned that NES Metroid crashed or just didn't run for me, but I wasn't playing this just for that.

Replay Value

As with the other Metroid games, the pull to keep you coming back is getting better item rates in lower times, or lower item rates in faster times too. You have more freedom to go off the beaten path and do things a little out of order too. There are eight ending images determined by your speed and item percentage, and there are even Hard Mode exclusive ones now. And at least now you can look in the Gallery to see what images you have.

What Worked For Me

I still liked the freedom to explore, but having the hint statues as a guide was still a nice thing if you just couldn't intuit your way around. The only problem with the hint statues is that they seem to be tied to just one upgrade each, so this specific one points out the Speed Booster, this one points out the Varia Suit, etc. You can't just go hit up any hint you missed and I actually had to track down the one for Varia Suit since all of the other hint statues became regular restore points once I got their matching upgrade.

I actually liked that you can start up the Speed Booster in Morph Ball mode through the hack, as opposed to needing to charge up a Shinespark on your feet and go ball before you rocket away. This is how I got the early Super Missile, anyway. There aren't many places where you'd need to make use of quick balls, but if you're rolling through a long tunnel, at least it'll be shorter that way!

There were a couple of neat puzzles. I remember one to get a Super Missile Tank that's got bomb blocks over a pit of collapsing blocks, and you have to bomb the upper part and jump through the hole that forms from the cascade before the floor below you disappears too. And though it wasn't a puzzle, there was one room with a zipline where you disturb a number of flying creatures who eventually start to overtake you, so you can just blast repeatedly to get away.

What I Didn't Like

The final boss has two sets of stats and I guess AI scripts too? In the vanilla game, he gets more difficult when you have 100% of items, but with the hack, he gets more difficult when you have 30%. I get that a final boss should be difficult, but I had the most deaths to him overall, and it's bad enough you have to short-hop to get a bead on his vulnerable point before it closes up again on top of avoiding his other attacks. At least it's not hard fight at 10% anymore?

I liked that the single-wall walljump came back, but the increased gravity made it a hell of a lot harder to make use of. It's easier with the High Jump Boots, but the lower jump height and faster fall speeds kind of punishes you for screwing up the commands, and I unfortunately did quite a bit.

Power Bombs are pretty much the last upgrade you get, so you're gonna have to wait if you really want to scour rooms for their destructible blocks hidden in out of the way places.

Verdict - 5/5

Isn't it kind of weird that the chronologically first and last stories on the same system? This is probably a good place to start if you're looking into the series, but maybe stick with the unmodded game. I noticed some areas needed the walljump to get around, no doubt due to the edits by the hack author. I haven't played the untouched game in quite a long time, but it'll be easier to get into than Fusion. And you know, overall, this is a classic Metroid entry. There's a lot of hidden nooks and crannies and stuff to find here, and the hack is good reason to return if you've already done your tour on Zebes. And even if you've explored Zebes in Super Metroid, there's plenty different here that you'd be surprised both games cover the same general area.