Metroid Fusion

Metroid Fusion is the final game in the timeline, and the last game to actually go forward in the timeline instead of back like the Prime trilogy and Other M did. It also introduced a "point A to point B and back to point A" mission system, which found its way into future Metroid games.

Debug Menu
_oGbE_ZcAVY To be able to access the debug menu, simply apply the IPS patch listed at the bottom of this section to the US ROM. After the patch is applied, the debug menu can be accessed in-game by pressing Start to bring up the map screen and pressing R. Alternatively, the following Action Replay code can be used: CD6169F3 D8989D47 BE00B773 395EF076

There are multiple options within the debug menu:
 * Starting on the top-left, the sections titled Beam, Missile, Bomb, Suit and Misc can enable or disable what abilities Samus is currently carrying. This is done by simply hovering the cursor over the ability in question and pressing A. Supply is hardcoded 00 (perhaps it used to be Super Metroid-esque reserve energy?).
 * The Get_Map section will enable or disable map information for the main deck or for a particular sector. Simply hover the cursor over M,1,2,3,4,5,6 and pressing A to enable or disable map information. This option won’t show any hidden or secret areas. It will only show basic map information that Adam would usually give Samus.


 * The box on the top right displays the options Energy, E_max, Supply, Missile, M_max, P_bomb, PB_Max, Samus, and Event. This section is mostly related to how much of something Samus can hold and how much she is actually holding. For example, the maximum energy she can have can be set with E_max but the current energy she has is set by Energy.
 * Changing the "Samus" number will change what powerups she is supposed to have in her inventory from different points of the game. The Event option is just that: it controls what part of the story and mission objective Samus is supposed to be accomplishing. Selecting it will display the name of an event number (see below).


 * The box to the lower left of this one displays three options which are H, G and Qsave. The "Qsave" (Quick Save) option allows the player to save in any room of the game. The G variable is for what door Samus came in from. The H variable is the current room (+1).
 * The box to the right contains two options: SEvent and Key_LV. Key_LV will change which security doors are unlocked.
 * The box in the bottom right only has one option: Time, which controls how long a save file has been played for. SEvent is for Sub Event, each event has their own little event sub system.

There is an equip debug feature: select Samus on the debug screen, then press Start or R and she will be granted 2099 health, 255 Missiles, and 254 Power Bombs. If the user presses L or Select, then her health will be set to 100 while Power Bombs and Missiles will both be set to 10.

For a more descriptive list, see here.

Debug Rooms
1ZyD9Z3jYfA These are some debug rooms that use graphics from Wario Land 4, suggesting that it was based off the same engine.

Here are some maps of these rooms. Click the thumbnail to see a larger version.

"Zombie Hangar room"
Dj09DzdWWI4 An unused room near the gunship that was shown in a trailer for the game. In the trailer, Samus used a Power Bomb to kill a room full of zombies, though now it's just empty.



Here is a map of the area.



A similar copy of this room also exists, but also contains a Save Station.

Alternate Ridley-X Boss Room
Hg20tU9xz2U Video to come with working Ridley hopefully later.



An alternate boss room for Ridley-X, which somewhat resembles the Ridley boss room in Super Metroid. The door connects to the same door in the final that led to the Ridley-X fight. This room also uses an unused tileset.

Unused Graphics
There are a lot of unused graphics in this game.

Blocks and Tiles
Some early block graphics. While largely identical to the final tileset, the loose soil block and the Speed Booster block have undergone a design change.



The tileset used by the debug rooms. The brightly-colored stone blocks are from Wario Land 4.



The tileset that is only used in the unused "Zombie Hangar Room".



The background that is only used in the unused "Zombie Hangar Room". However, the top half is repeated vertically as a background in one room.



The tileset that is only used in the alternate Ridley-X boss room.



Placeholder graphics in the tileset. These get replaced with animated tiles by the game engine.

Enemies


Geega, an enemy from Metroid, Super Metroid, and Zero Mission, was apparently going to appear with the other infected enemies in the game...but didn't.



The infected scientist in Sector 3 (PYR) has an unused "having a hole blown through chest" animation.



The Chozo statue "boss" in Sector 1 (SRX) has some unused art with it. Maybe the beam upgrades were going to be obtained normally instead of fighting a Hard Core X?



Skree, an enemy from Metroid, Metroid Prime, Super Metroid, and Zero Mission, was also set to appear in the game, but didn't. Odd.

There is a video of an earlier version showcasing these.



Kago, a small insectoid enemy from Super Metroid, is also unused. However, its hive is used.



A nest. It is with the Ki Hunter graphics, but there are no Ki Hunter nests.



An unused palette for the Hornoad which is loaded during the opening cutscene, when Samus gets infected with the X parasite while on SR-388.

Objects


Some unused platform object? It appears multiple times in the object list.



Recharge station graphics. Notice that there are graphics for stations that only refill energy or missiles, whereas in-game all recharge stations recharge both.



Crystals from Wario Land 4, present due to Metroid Fusion using the Wario Land 4 engine.



An unused turning animation for the B.S.L field researcher in the opening cutscene.



Four numbered asteroids present in the sprite graphics during the game's intro cutscene. They have borders around them in the VRAM.



A larger asteroid, which has some difficult-to-make-out Japanese writing on it, is also present with them. 「サムスにぶっかるんシ」, meaning "Falling/Will fall on Samus".



An early version of Samus' ship is stored in the unused hanger tileset.

Miscellaneous


Present in both Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission, there exist in the font graphics unused L and R button icons, and several different versions of the capital X character.



Also present in both games is this placeholder graphic, with Japanese 「マップ」, meaning "Map", on it.



This placeholder is also stored in the same area as the Map placeholder, but is not present in Zero Mission. It reads 「カウンター」 and 「ショット」, meaning "Counter" and "Shot" or possibly in conjunction either "Shot counter" or "Counter [for] shot". It gets loaded into memory when the player starts up a save file. This graphic is overwritten with graphics of a charge beam shot being released. In other words, when Samus charges her beam and fires, this graphic no longer exists in memory.



The text from the intro. Apparently, the opening was going to say "Nintendo Presents METROID FUSION" before they took the same route as Super Metroid.



Numbers that get loaded into VRAM during the scene where the Metroid Vaccine kills off the X inside Samus' head. That scene does not use numbers at all.



Unused mugshots. They are much smaller than the ones used in the cutscenes, and do not have palette data available. They are only loaded into memory during the end of the opening cutscene, when Samus is notified by her ship's AI about docking on the station.



This, however, does have a matching palette. It is loaded with the rest of the pause screen graphics in VRAM. It's Toro Inoue from the PlayStation, considered the mascot of Sony over in Japan, along with some sushi and a bird.



The graphics for her basic, default beam weapon has charged versions present in the graphics. These are never used, as new graphics are loaded in place of these when Samus gets the Charge Beam.



Found underneath the menu graphics in the ROM. The Japanese text 「メッセージ転送28ﾗ2文字 / サムス 連邦」 (Message transfer 28x2 characters / Federation Samus), 「メッセージ転送28ﾗ2文字 / アダム用」 (Message transfer 28x2 characters / used by Adam) and 「使用しないエリア」 (Unused area) indicate that this was most probably a placeholder for the contents of two text boxes.

Unused Tracks


An unused music track. Sounds like something being hunted?



Another unused track. This sounds like something frantic, maybe the original escape sequence music?



This seems to be more of a sound engine test.

Unused Item Behavior
The Ice Beam is actually capable of freezing enemies. However, the only enemy you can normally use it against is the Omega Metroid.

The Screw Attack is a more odd case. First of all, it is cancelled by water without Gravity Suit, which is obtained before it. This is even described in the manual, even though the situation never happens. Second, without being alongside Space Jump, it allows to single-walljump (As opposed to simply space jump along the wall, it follows walljump mechanics). This could be a side effect though of the game simply assuming it shouldn't push Samus from the wall.

Regional Differences
The Japanese version contains three difficulty levels (Easy, Normal, and Hard), much like Metroid Zero Mission. The only difficulty level in the US and PAL versions is the same as Normal in the Japanese version. There are also a few bug fixes.

Additional Ending Images
The Japanese version added eight new ending images depending on your time, percentage, and difficulty level, but three images (including one from the US/European version) were not used. You can unlock all images by using CodeBreaker code.