Metroid Zero Mission

Metroid Zero Mission
Also known as: Miteluode: Lingdian Renwu (CN) Developer: Nintendo R&D1 Publishers: Nintendo (INT), iQue (CN) Platform: Game Boy Advance Released in JP: May 27, 2004 Released in US: February 9, 2004 Released in EU: April 8, 2004 Released in AU: March 19, 2004 Released in CN: June 15, 2005 This game has unused areas. This game has unused enemies. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused abilities. This game has unused music. This game has unused text. This game has debugging material. This game has regional differences. This game has a prototype article This game has a Data Crystal page

Metroid Zero Mission is Samus' first mission, retold in a Super Metroid style with 80% more anime.

To do: Plasma Beam without Ice Beam is green like in many other Metroid games. This is impossible to see because Ice Beam is needed for Tourian, which needs to be cleared to enable Plasma Beam. The unused item toggling feature can let players see this.

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Prototype Info

Unused Feature

The ability to toggle upgrades on and off, just like in Super Metroid. It may have been used for debugging purposes, however, prototypes of Zero Mission have an accessible debug menu on the status screen in a similar fashion to Metroid Fusion. From the debug menu, any ability can be toggled on or off, regardless if you have collected it.

While you can toggle abilities with this Super Metroid-like feature, you can only do so once you find the ability. Having a second, separate method, to toggle equipment on or off just for debugging purposes is redundant and lends credibility to the idea that the developers intended for the player to toggle their upgrades like in Super Metroid. The most likely reason why this feature was dropped was because there isn't a real reason to allow the player to toggle abilities on and off. In Super Metroid, you could toggle abilities to create special beam combos, but this feature doesn't exist in Metroid Zero Mission.

You can enable this feature with the CodeBreaker code 730016C4 0080 83000BF0 0006. This function only allows toggling beam upgrades and upgrades in the Miscellaneous category. A ROM hack was created to allow toggling any upgrade.

Testing Rooms

A bit different from the ones in Metroid Fusion. The jewels from Wario Land 4 are used as a water effect layer in one room.

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  Room 1

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  Room 2

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  Room 3

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  Room 4

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  Room 5

Unused Graphics

The graphics used by the disabled item switch feature.

Placeholder graphics for the expansion items that get replaced with animated versions.

The testing room tileset contains blocks that resemble very crudely-drawn expansion items. The ones without an icon in the top-left corner were recreated from the 8×8 tiles. Like in Fusion, leftover blocks from Wario Land 4 are present.

The graphics data for the Metroids has a scratch area, showing how it should look assembled. There is also a useful number guide for the electrical effect's animation order.

The graphics for Zero Suit Samus' auto-charging stun gun has a placeholder graphic for the Charge Meter that appears in the HUD. The meter graphics are dynamically loaded from ROM.

Present in both Fusion and 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. The text, "「マップ」", translates to "Map".

Found only in Zero Mission is this tile with "GEKI TAI MACHINE" written on it.

Crocomire

To do: Get a better video of the unfinished sprite, rather than a hacked version.

Crocomire, a sub-boss from Super Metroid, was set to appear in Zero Mission! Unfortunately, the sprite's coding is extremely incomplete, and does little more than run the idle animation and take damage. A ROM hack exists that turns Crocomire into a fully-functional boss, demonstrated in the YouTube video below.

Unused Track

A leftover track from Fusion, which was used in that game's opening. It is still programmed to play after the opening track, however the title screen appears before it has the chance to do so.

Intro Subtitles

The large intro text is always English. Accordingly, its English subtitles went unused. They can be seen with CodeBreaker code 33000020 0003.

Regional Differences

Title Screen

US	Europe	Japan	China

The European version changed "Press Start" to "Start Game" and added a language option. The Japanese version replaced the ™ with an ®.

Text Option

As in Metroid Fusion, the Japanese version has an option to switch the text between "オトナむき（漢字あり)" (For Adults (with Kanji)) and "コドモむき（ひらがな)" (For Kids (Hiragana)).

Languages

Similar to Metroid Fusion, all versions of the game have English and Japanese with and without kanji, and the European version adds the other European languages. The US edition doesn't expose any of these languages except English, the Japanese version only exposes the two Japanese language settings, and the European version doesn't expose the Japanese language options. You can access different languages by changing the value at 0x03000020.

In the European and US versions, pushing Start at the title screen after forcing the language to Japanese will crash the game.

Language Values:

Language	Hex Value
Japanese with kanji	0x0
Japanese without kanji	0x1
English	0x2
German	0x3
French	0x4
Italian	0x5
Spanish	0x6

Strangely enough, the menu that normally allows you to switch between Japanese with kanji and Japanese without kanji has an English translation in the Japanese version.

File Select

US/Europe	Japan	China

The Japanese and Chinese versions include translations of COPY, ERASE, and OPTIONS.

Space Pirate Mothership

This page or section needs more images. There's a whole lotta words here, but not enough pictures. Please fix this.

• In the US and Japanese versions, two Missile Blocks in the Space Pirate Mothership come back after you destroy them. This means that you must be able to carry at least three Missiles (so two Missile Tanks on Hard Mode) in order to complete the game (there is a Missile Door later that you must pass through before you are able to refill your ammo at a Save Station).
• In the European version, these blocks do not come back once destroyed. After you destroy them, you can return to the previous Save Point, refill your ammo, and complete the game. Thus, you only need one Missile Tank (two Missiles) for Hard Mode in the European version, making the lowest possible item collection rate 9% for both Normal Mode and Hard Mode in the European version (versus 10% for Hard Mode in the American and Japanese versions).

(Source: [1])