Metroid: Hidden World FAQ by zoogelio
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XXXXXXXXXXXXX Metroid Hidden Worlds FAQ XXXXXXXXX
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version 1.0
by Zoogelio
e-mail: [email protected]
Feb 2005
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XXX Table of Contents XXXX
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1. Version History
2. How to Read the Maps
2-1 Level Map
2-1A Secret Rooms
2-1B Room Data
3. Glossary
4. What are Hidden Worlds?
4-1 How to Access Hidden Worlds
5. History of Hidden Worlds
6. Properties of Hidden Worlds
6-1 Game Design Properties
6-2 Hidden World Properties
7. Hidden Worlds
7-1 Brinstar Hidden World
7-1A Pocket Brinstar
7-2 Norfair Hidden World
7-2A Bizarro-Norfair
7-3 Kraid's Hideout Hidden World
7-4 Ridley's Hideout Hidden World
7-5 Tourian Hidden World
8. Statistics & Data
9. Credits/Sources
10. Notes
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Section 1. Version History
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
v1.0- All the information & details posted
Expect no major updates, only minor corrections and matters like that.
Yeah, it says Feb 2005 and this was posted in April 2006. That’s because
Gamefaqs’ formatting requirements (79 characters/line) is very
time consuming to do, especially with documents that are the Word
equivalent of a few dozen pages long. I wrote this back in Feb 2005,
after having done a detailed exploration of the Hidden Worlds the
previous December.
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Section 2. How to Read the Maps
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^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Section 2-1. Level Map
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
The Level Map is from the "Metroid Level Data Explained" webpage found at
this address:
http://www.classicgaming.com/mdb/m1/lvldata.htm
It is also posted in Section 9. I claim no credit for it since I didn't get
it from the ROM, which is where it came from. It is needed to explain the
Hidden Worlds. It is a 32x32 grid, meaning there are a total of 1024 slots
for rooms. The map is color coded, with Brinstar being blue, Norfair being
purple, Kraid's Hideout being green, Ridley's Hideout being pink, and
Tourian being gray. All the white indicates "no data" and the 3 red rooms
represent "secret rooms". More on that in a minute. Most of the rooms, as
you can see on the map, are designated FF. FF rooms have nothing programmed
in them and cannot be accessed in any form, regular game or hidden worlds.
You will notice four 01 rooms grouped in with the "no data" set. I don't
know why they are grouped like that, but they are the elevator shafts.
A note on the elevator shaft rooms. In many cases, the elevator shafts are
where two areas overlaps and the game switches palettes. That can be seen
when going down the elevator shaft and seeing the shaft change colors,
from yellow to red for example. In each of the four 01 rooms, the actual
elevator shaft room itself can only be viewed from one side of the
elevator. On the other one, if you fall through the floor, the screen
doesn't scroll down to the elevator room. Here is an explanation using each
of the four 01 rooms:
01 room (Brinstar-Tourian elevator)- not accessible from Brinstar,
accessible from Tourian
01 room (Brinstar-Hideout I elevator)- not accessible from Brinstar,
accessible from Kraid's Hideout
01 room (Brinstar-Norfair elevator)- not accessible from Brinstar,
accessible from Norfair
01 room (Norfair-Hideout II elevator)- not accessible from Norfair,
accessible from Ridley's Hideout
Because the elevator shaft can be seen from one side even without the
special codes used to access Hidden Worlds with ease just by jumping and
cannot be seen by falling through the floor of the other side, in Sections
7 & 8 I group the elevator shaft room with the area it is visible from, and
classify it as a Hidden World for the other side if it is accessible by
moving around that Hidden World. So, the Brinstar-Tourian elevator is
categorized as a room in Tourian, the Brinstar-Hideout I elevator is
grouped with Kraid's Hideout, the Brinstar-Norfair elevator is grouped
with Norfair, and the Norfair-Hideout II elevator is grouped with Ridley's
Hideout. I count the elevator shafts as rooms in the areas I grouped them
in with, affecting the number count for the rooms in that area.
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Section 2-1A. The Secret Rooms
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The 3 secret rooms are rooms not accessible in the game but which have
programmed data for (unlike the Hidden Worlds rooms). They are all in
Norfair. They are speculated to be remnants of the programming phase that
were not removed. One is a bridge room that connects nowhere. That leads
to the thought that the map of Zebes changed quite a bit during
development. This is the same reason why there is an energy tank in the
ceiling of one Brinstar room near the start of the game (a remnant of when
the room looked different). On the Level Map they are colored a crimson
red. There is one secret room (X17, Y10 using the lower left corner of the
Level Map as X1 Y1) that is not accessible in any way from Norfair even
though it is a part of Norfair. If a square on the grid is programmed for a
room, but not accessible, I don't count it as a part of the Hidden World,
but since these rooms are programmed for in the game and NOT a part of the
Hidden World, I count it. I found a 4th secret room. It is not colored red
on the Level Map, but is inaccessible in the normal exploration of the
game. It is located at (X31, Y9). It is a part of Norfair.
Here are all the secret rooms. Look at the Level Map and used the lower
left corner as X1 Y1 (use the white FF row, not the first colored row):
(X14, Y10) a bridge room. Both doors are traps (file 00)
(X17, Y10) unseen, but data indicates it is a green bubble rock room with a
left door that is a trap (file 0B)
(X25, Y8) an elevator room to Ridley's Hideout (the two-headed statue
room), but without the elevator. The door here actually leads to a hidden
world (file 05)
(X31, Y9) a purple bubble rock room with a left door that is a trap, the
same structure as the (X17, Y10) room (file 0B)
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Section 2-1B Room Data
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On the Level Map, you'll see a whole bunch of numbers. Given this is a
text document, I'll describe what the rooms look like. Each number is
assigned a slot on that 32x32 grid. Each number, say 14 for example,
encodes for a room and each area has a file named "14" that brings up a
room (and all 5 of those rooms are different from each other because they
are each from a different area). No matter where you come from to access
a certain slot, if you are on the 14 slot, one of the five 14 files will be
brought up depending on what area you are in. Okay, one 14 slot is
(X20, Y3), located in Ridley's Hideout. In the normal confines of the game,
that room slot is only approachable from inside Ridley's Hideout, so brings
up a certain room. If accessed from Hidden Worlds however, those
coordinates bring up room 14 of whatever area you are in. So, if you
access those coordinates from Tourian, you will be seeing room 14 from
Tourian.
All possible rooms in Metroid share 47 file names
(00-29, 0A-0F, 1A-1F, 2A-2E). If there is no file for an area and you
stumble across it by exploring Hidden Worlds (i.e. there is no 1F room in
Tourian, but there is one in Norfair, so if you explore Tourian's Hidden
World and get to the section that parallels Norfair and reach the
coordinates assigned the file 1F) you will find a "junk room". Junk rooms
are rooms that resemble nothing seen in the game. They mostly look like
fragments of junk on a mostly black screen. Some however look like
something. Brinstar & Norfair's junk rooms look completely normal, except
you never see those rooms in the course of the normal game. Because of
those commonalities in file names, the ability for Hidden Worlds to be
generated exists. Here is what each number encodes for in the 5 areas (note
that 2 rooms that look the same, but are different colors, as seen in
Brinstar [blue-green or gold] & Norfair [purple or green] are encoded for
by the same file number. Another factor beyond file number determines if
they are one color or the other). It would be much easier if pictures were
allowed in FAQs, but if you are having difficulty picturing the room,
look at the Level Map and find a map constructed out of screenshots by
using a search engine. That should make things easier.
FF- no data
00
Brinstar- bridge room, left & right doors, light colored
Norfair- bridge room, left & right doors, dark colored
Kraid's Hideout- JUNK bridge room, left & right doors, light colored
Ridley's Hideout- JUNK elevator shaft, red shaft with purple cores
Tourian- JUNK bridge room, left & right doors, colored white
01
Brinstar- elevator shaft, yellow shafts with brown cores
Norfair- elevator shaft, red shafts with purple cores
KraidHO- elevator shaft, yellow with purple cores
RidleyHO- elevator shaft, yellow shafts with blue cores
Tourian- elevator shaft, red shafts with gray cores
02
Brinstar- vertical shaft room with no platforms
Norfair- elevator room for Norfair
KraidHO- elevator room for Kraid's Hideout
RidleyHO- elevator room for Ridley's Hideout
Tourian- Zeebetite room, doorway on the right
03
Brinstar- vertical shaft room with a door on the right side only
Norfair- bubble-rock room in vertical shaft with doors on the left and
right and 2 horizontal platforms in the room
KraidHO- vertical shaft room with doors on the left and right, with a
horizontal central platform
RidleyHO- bottom of vertical shaft room with doors on the left and
right, separated by a giant block over lava
Tourian- Zeebetite room, no doorway
04
Brinstar- vertical shaft room with a door on the left side only
Norfair- Chozo statue room, lava beneath the platform
KraidHO- vertical shaft room with doors on the left and right, with a
vertical central platform
RidleyHO- vertical shaft room with no platforms
Tourian- Mother Brain’s room
05
Brinstar- vertical shaft room with a door on the left and a door on the right
Norfair- elevator room to Ridley's Hideout. Red 2-headed statue here
KraidHO- empty vertical shaft (no platforms), vegetation on the walls
RidleyHO- screen full of magenta blocks, caps for vertical shafts
Tourian- room leading to the corridor with the Zeebetites. It is a mess
of metal stuff
06
Brinstar- vertical shaft room with metal bar platforms, no doors
Norfair- screen filled with bubble-rocks, has a horizontal hidden passage
in it, used as caps for vertical shafts
KraidHO- vertical shaft white room with doors on left & right, with
elaborate maze towards the right door
RidleyHO- vertical shaft room with left & right doors and the tricky jump
to make to get to the right door
Tourian- horizontal corridor metal pipe room with a giant block of pipes
and techno stuff raised in the middle
07
Brinstar- horizontal corridor room with a metal pipe & 2 rows of
collapsible blocks over lava
Norfair- screen filled with bubble-rocks, used as caps for some horizontal
shafts
KraidHO- vertical shaft white room with a door on the right and a white
stone wall with numerous projections
RidleyHO- vertical shaft with numerous magenta platforms and a door on
the left
Tourian- horizontal corridor metal pipe room with a featureless floor &
U-metal pipes ceiling
08
Brinstar- screen filled with rocks and metal pipes, caps for vertical shafts
Norfair- vertical shaft bubble-rock room with a right door and 2 red
balloons
KraidHO- vertical shaft white room with interlocking white platforms,
no doors
RidleyHO- vertical shaft with numerous magenta platforms and no doors
Tourian- horizontal corridor metal pipe room with a few lava pits &
U-metal pipes ceiling
09
Brinstar- arrival room, with the 2 pillars with the statue heads
Norfair- vertical shaft bubble-rock room with no doors and 4 platforms,
3 on left side
KraidHO- vertical shaft room with a door on the right and a single
platform, no floor
RidleyHO- bottom of vertical shaft, bridge over lava, door on the left
Tourian- stairs stepping into lava, U-metal pipes ceiling, door on the right
0A
Brinstar- Chozo statue room, no lava beneath the platform
Norfair- bubble-rock room with a floor, lava, a door on the right, a
platform & some red collapsible blocks
KraidHO- white walled room with door on the right, and a platform over
false lava
RidleyHO- vertical shaft with metal poles suspended in midair and a door
on the right
Tourian- bottom of vertical shaft, white walls, blue platforms and door
on the left
0B
Brinstar- elevator room (to Norfair), square, no hanging poles
Norfair- bubble-rock room with a floor, 2 platforms & a left door
KraidHO- screen filled with white blocks, used as caps on vertical shafts
RidleyHO- vertical shaft room with numerous metal bars suspended in midair,
no doors
Tourian- vertical shaft room with white walls and full-length blue platforms
0C
Brinstar- circular blue rock horizontal corridor room with lava and a
door on the left
Norfair- bubble-rock vertical shaft with red collapsible blocks only
on the right side
KraidHO- vertical shaft room with many white blocks and a door
on the left
RidleyHO- bottom of vertical shaft, bridge over lava, door on the right
Tourian- vertical shaft with interlocking ring-floors, no doors
0D
Brinstar- circular blue rock horizontal corridor room with lava and a
door on the right
Norfair- bubble-rock bridge room with lava and doors on the right and left
KraidHO- vertical shaft with a door on the left and 2 pillars of red
collapsible blocks
RidleyHO- room with a small passage between white blocks, doors on
left and right, invisible pitfall
Tourian- room at top of a vertical shaft, door on a left, interlocking
ring-floors
0E
Brinstar- circular blue rock horizontal corridor room with lava and a
7-shaped platform & a horizontal bar platform
Norfair- bubble-rock room in vertical shaft with door on the left only;
no floor
KraidHO- vertical shaft with only a pillar of red collapsible blocks and
a single white block
RidleyHO- room with a small passage between white blocks, doors on
left and right, no invisible pitfall
Tourian- elevator room for Tourian
0F
Brinstar- circular blue rock horizontal corridor room with lava, 2
platforms, and a pillar of red collapsible blocks
Norfair- the metal room with lava, dragons, and the door on the left side
KraidHO- green honeycomb horizontal corridor room with some lava and a
door on the right
RidleyHO- white block floor over lava with a metal pillar towards the
right side
Tourian- bottom of vertical shaft, white walls, blue platforms, and a door
on the right
10
Brinstar- circular blue rock bridge room
Norfair- the metal room with lava, dragons, and the door on the right side
(leads to a left room, then a Chozo room)
KraidHO- white pillars over lava, lots of Geega
RidleyHO- room with fake lava & many Holtzs just beyond Ridley's room
Tourian- shaft with tiny blue stepping blocks
11
Brinstar- vertical shaft with red collapsible blocks on the left side
Norfair- bubble-rock bridge room with lava, and only a door on the left
KraidHO- JUNK same as #12, the tangle of blocks and pipes, but no #11
is in Kraid's Hideout
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor room with lava, and a magenta wall with
an alcove with a white block and a position for an energy tank
Tourian- horizontal corridor room with door on left, elevated platform with
support
12
Brinstar- horizontal corridor room with a door on the left, elevated
platform connecting to door
Norfair- giant bubble room with lava, a door on the left, and 3 vertical
bubble pillars
KraidHO- room with the lava pit and the tangle of blocks and pipes
(energy tank here)
RidleyHO- Ridley’s room
Tourian- horizontal corridor room with door on right, elevated platform
connecting to door
13
Brinstar- horizontal corridor room with a door on the right, rocky ceiling,
with a metal pipe platform attached to the door
Norfair- giant bubble room with lava, a door on the left, a bubble platform
& bubble pillar
KraidHO- horizontal corridor room with a door on the left, and 3 blue
blocks over lava
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor room with metal poles over laba and a door
on the left
Tourian- horizontal corridor room with a few lava pits, non-pipe ceiling
14
Brinstar- horizontal corridor room with rocky ceiling, floor, featureless
Norfair- giant bubble room with lava and 2 giant blocks comprised of red
collapsible blocks
KraidHO- horizontal corridor room with blue blocks over lava, and no doors
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor room with metal poles over lava and no doors
Tourian- horizontal corridor room with square pipes over lava
15
Brinstar- horizontal corridor room with 2 Zeb pipes and many fuzzy blocks
Norfair- giant bubble room with numerous tall pillars and small lava pits
KraidHO- room with a small passage between green honeycomb blocks,
with doors on left & right and a passage through the floor
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor room with metal poles over lava and a door
on the right
Tourian- JUNK Mother Brain sprites hanging in space with an elevator
shaft hanging from it & another partial elevator shaft next to it
16
Brinstar- horizontal corridor room with 2 Zeb pipes over lava
Norfair- giant bubble room with horizontal bubble platforms over lava, no
doors
KraidHO- horizontal corridor room with a door on the right, and a few blue
blocks over lava
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor blue-purple honeycomb room with a door
on the left and some lava
Tourian- JUNK MB sprite in the upper left, with a "lava fall" filling the
right half of the screen
17
Brinstar- horizontal corridor room with tetris-like block on the right
and the pedestal for the Maru Mari
Norfair- JUNK giant bubble room with lava, 2 horizontal platforms and a
platform with a Gamet pipe, no doors
KraidHO- horizontal corridor blue brick room with a Geega pipe, 2 metal
poles from the ceiling, and a left door
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor blue-purple honeycomb room with 3 Zebbo pipes
Tourian- JUNK MB sprite in left corner with a partial "bridge room" passage
18
Brinstar- room filled with several rows of collapsible blocks and doors on
the left and right
Norfair- giant bubble room with 2 pillars of red collapsible blocks over
lava
KraidHO- horizontal corridor blue brick room with a Geega pipe and a
right door
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor blue-purple honeycomb room with 2 Zebbo pipes
& 2 dips in the ceiling
Tourian- JUNK MB sprite in left corner with a partial "bridge room" passage
with a lava fall coming from it
19
Brinstar- room with a giant wall of fuzzy blocks with only a ball-sized
passage at the bottom
Norfair- 3 pronged metal platform with a missile item over lava
KraidHO- screen filled with blue bricks
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor blue-purple honeycomb room with a lava pit
and a door on the right
Tourian- JUNK very messy screen
1A
Brinstar- horizontal corridor room leading to a Chozo statue room with an
elevated platform with support & door on the left
Norfair- orange brick room, lava, no doors, white tracks with 2 Gamet pipes
KraidHO- small passage through blue blocks, left & right doors, secret
passage through floor
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor blue-purple honeycomb room with numerous
lava pits
Tourian- JUNK very messy screen
1B
Brinstar- metal poles from ceiling, small pedestal for energy tank over lava
Norfair- orange brick room, with a left door, shaped like a hollow with an
opening on the center floor over lava
KraidHO- bridge room, doors on left & right, ceiling has eyes & fangs on it
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor blue-purple honeycomb room with 2 Zebbo pipes
Tourian- JUNK very messy screen
1C
Brinstar- elevator room to Kraid's Hideout, one-headed statue
Norfair- horizontal corridor purple fuzzy blocks room with a right door
& a polyp
KraidHO- horizontal corridor room with blue block floors and 1 Geega pipe
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor room with green blocks, metal poles, lava,
and a left door
Tourian- JUNK very messy screen
1D
Brinstar- bright green rock room, blocks form an I shape, leaving to
dips (passages) on the left & right sides
Norfair- horizontal corridor purple fuzzy blocks room with a left door
& a polyp
KraidHO- Kraid’s room
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor room with green blocks, metal poles,
and a right door
Tourian- JUNK very messy screen
1E
Brinstar- small passage through bright green rocks, left & right door,
lava beneath the green blocks
Norfair- horizontal corridor purple fuzzy blocks room with no doors,
a few platforms over lava & a polyp
KraidHO- green honeycomb room with a white metal block pole, right door
(room left of Fake Kraid room)
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor room with green blocks, metal poles, no doors
Tourian- JUNK very messy screen
1F
Brinstar- horizontal corridor bright green rock room, door on the left
side, a few plants on the floor
Norfair- horizontal corridor purple fuzzy blocks room with no doors,
& a polyp set in the middle of the U-shaped floor
KraidHO- Fake Kraid room, left door
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor room with green blocks forming a raised
bridge over lava, blocks extend to ceiling
Tourian- JUNK very messy screen
20
Brinstar- horizontal corridor bright green block room, door on the right
side, a few plants on the floor
Norfair- JUNK horizontal corridor rocky room, door on the right, a few
rocky platforms over lava, one with a polyp
KraidHO- horizontal corridor green honeycomb room with a metal block
pillar & a Geega pipe
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor green block room, left door, relatively
nondescript
Tourian- JUNK a very messy screen
21
Brinstar- horizontal corridor bright green block room with a Zeb pipe
& a platform over lava
Norfair- horizontal corridor rocky room with lava, a left door, and a rocky
island in the lava
KraidHO- small passage through green honeycomb, left & right doors, no
secret passage through floor
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor green block room, raised passage over lava,
but blocks do not extend to ceiling
Tourian- JUNK a very messy screen
22
Brinstar- horizontal corridor bright green block room with a passage on
the left leading to a wall
Norfair- horizontal corridor rocky room with lava, a right door, and a
few rocky islands in the lava
KraidHO- small passage through blue blocks, left & right doors, no secret
passage through floor
RidleyHO- horizonal corridor green block room, right door, relatively
nondescript
Tourian- JUNK a very messy screen
23
Brinstar- horizontal corridor bright green block room with a Zeb pipe,
small lava pit & 2 blue poles with plants atop them
Norfair- horizontal corridor rocky room with lava, islands positioned
higher and higher from L-R, no doors
KraidHO- vertical shaft white rock room with a door on the right, a single
platform, and some lava beneath a bridge
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor room, white blocks over lava, left door,
ceiling covered with fangs
Tourian- JUNK a very messy screen
24
Brinstar- horizontal corridor bright green block room filled with a wall
of blocks with metal pipes with windows running through them
Norfair- horizontal corridor rocky room with lava and floating gumdrops
KraidHO- vertical shaft white rock room, with a door on the left, a
few single blocks, and lava beneath a bridge
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor room, white blocks over lava, Zebbo pipes
present, no doors, ceiling covered with fangs
Tourian- JUNK a very messy screen
25
Brinstar- horizontal corridor bright green block room with the entrances to
the long metal pipes, 1 red collapsible block
Norfair- horizontal corridor rocky room with lava, 1 long island with a
Gamet pipe, no doors
KraidHO- JUNK two segments of bridge rooms at the top of the screen with 2
incomplete elevator shafts
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor green block room, left door, tall metal pole
extending to one square below ceiling
Tourian- JUNK a very messy screen
26
Brinstar- horizontal corridor bright green block room with the exits
to the long metal pipes & a giant square block over lava
Norfair- horizontal corridor rocky room with lava, metal poles suspended
in midair and a long metal pole along most of the right edge
KraidHO- JUNK a segment of bridge room in the upper right & a segment
of an elevator shaft in the upper left
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor green block room, featureless except for a
pillar of purple collapsible blocks
Tourian- JUNK a very messy screen
27
Brinstar- horizontal corridor rocky room with steps with faces up to a
left door (leads to statue room)
Norfair- horizontal corridor orange brick room with a left door and
tiny suspended bubbles over the lava
KraidHO- JUNK a segment of a bridge room in the upper right & a segment
of wall in the upper left, plus a pipe inbetween
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor blue-purple honeycomb room, platforms with
Zebbo pipes over lava
Tourian- JUNK all black screen except for a single white bar platform
28
Brinstar- horizontal corridor blue pipe ceiling room leading to Chozo
statue room, right door, elevated platform with support
Norfair- horizontal corridor orange block room, door on the left, long
singular cloud platform
KraidHO- JUNK a segment of bridge room in the upper right & a segment
of wall in the upper left
RidleyHO- horizontal corridor blue-purple honeycomb room, platforms with
Zebbo pipes over lava, metal bar along left edge
Tourian- JUNK a segment of bridge room floating in nothingness
29
Brinstar- horizontal corridor blue pipe ceiling room leading to Chozo
statue room, featureless except for some plants
Norfair- horizontal corridor orange brick room, many cloud-platforms over
lava, no doors
KraidHO- JUNK a segment of bridge room in the upper right & some honeycomb
block material
RidleyHO- vertical shaft white block room, door on the left, no ceiling &
no floor, right wall juts out a bit
Tourian- JUNK a very messy screen
2A
Brinstar- JUNK horizontal corridor rocky room with 3 metal poles over lava,
center one with a blue orb on it
Norfair- horizontal corridor orange brick room, lava, a door on the right,
and a few cloud platforms
KraidHO- JUNK a segment of blue circle blocks suspended near the top
of the screen
RidleyHO- JUNK a section of door in the upper left corner with some fangs
along the top of the screen
Tourian- JUNK a very messy screen
2B
Brinstar- Kraid & Ridley statue room
Norfair- horizontal corridor orange brick room, lava, no doors, 2 tall
pillars of red collapsible blocks
KraidHO- JUNK a section of blue block material on the ceiling, nothing else
RidleyHO- JUNK a magenta block in the upper left corner & a few fangs
on the ceiling
Tourian- JUNK very messy screen
2C
Brinstar- elevator room (to Tourian), square with hanging poles beneath it
Norfair- horizontal corridor orange brick room, lava, no doors, tall wall
need to use High-Jump Boots over
KraidHO- JUNK a screen with some junk and a "sandfall"
(like a waterfall, but with sand)
RidleyHO- JUNK a magenta block in the upper left corner, no fangs around
Tourian- JUNK very messy screen
2D
Brinstar- JUNK horizontal corridor rocky room, right door, large rocky
platform by door, not a metal pipe
Norfair- vertical shaft bubble-rock room with no doors and 4 platforms,
arranged in R-L-R-L manner
KraidHO- JUNK multi-colored segment of bridge room floating in nothingness
RidleyHO- JUNK a section of elevator shaft in the upper left corner with a
red plant on it
Tourian- JUNK a messy screen
2E
Brinstar- vertical shaft with no features except a door on the left
(the one that leads to the Varia path)
Norfair- JUNK 2 incomplete bridge room sections, 2 incomplete elevator
shafts & some red dripping bubbles
KraidHO- JUNK a multi-colored segment of bridge room floating in nothingness
RidleyHO- JUNK a very messy room
Tourian- INACCESSIBLE
Note that the file numbers 00, 08, 0B all look very similar on the Level
Map, and I made a studious effort to discern which rooms went with which
number and am confident of the results.
The junk rooms that look normal were programmed for, but were either
removed or never placed in the game. They were also never deleted. Norfair
has a few normal junk rooms (file 17, belonging to the giant bubble section
& file 20 in the rocky section) and Brinstar does too (file 2A, a strange
room with a blue orb not held by a Chozo & file 2D, a variant upon one
of the righthand door in rocky corridors). All the rest are screens filled
with junk to varying degrees. Why Tourian & Kraid's Hideout have unused
bridge rooms programmed I don't know (and why all areas except Ridley's
Hideout have room data for a bridge room is also a mystery). Also a mystery
is why one room in Kraid's Hideout has 2 file numbers for it
(file 11, file 12). The file 11 is never used in the game.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Section 3. Glossary
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It may seem crazy to include a glossary, but defining concepts allows
for better understanding and for clarity. Without a glossary, things would
seem vague. Words like area, corridor, & shaft are common words, but
take on a certain meaning in the game. Some of the terms are described in
greater detail in the Properties of Hidden Worlds section, but I include
the definitions here for reference.
Game Structure Terms:
area:
there are 5 areas in Metroid- Brinstar, Norfair, Kraid's Hideout, Ridley's
Hideout, Tourian. Each area technically encompasses a prime and a hidden
world
area map:
each area has one. All the area maps together make up the Zebes (the world
Metroid is set on) we see. Area maps, however, underlie (i.e. shadow,
parallel) the area maps of the other areas. Those parallel areas beyond
the traditional boundaries are called hidden worlds
corridor:
a horizontal shaft; a string of rooms linked together by left-right movement
disjunct:
what occurs on each screen entirely filled with the elevator shaft. The
elevator shaft room of one area jumps to the elevator shaft room of
another area. The coordinates don't change, but the game switches to a
different layer (a different area). The elevator shaft is the only overlap
between areas in other words
level map:
this is the map of the whole game. In the game, it is 5 area maps linked
up to one another. It is 32x32, with a total of 1024 possible slots for
rooms, of which about only half are filled
rooms:
each screen is a room. Sometimes these have boundaries, sometimes not.
The open parts of a room connect to other rooms, forming a corridor or
a shaft
scrolling:
this is movement that allows the player to move to screens left and right
of their current position in corridors and up or down of their current
position in shafts until they run across a scroll stop
scroll stops:
these are programmed stop codes in the map data that tell the game when to
stop scrolling. They are put at the edges of the corridors and maps.
Usually, a door at the end of a corridor has a scroll stop associated with
it to prevent the player from seeing the next room before entering it.
Only a select few areas are missing scroll stops where they should have
them (places I mention in this FAQ). The reason these are missing was
so they can fit the game onto a 128kb cart and onto a system with a
32kb memory
shaft:
a vertical corridor; a string of rooms linked together by up-down movement
Hidden Worlds Terms:
dead ends:
these are rooms you cannot scroll anywhere, even if there are rooms to the
left or right of it (or up or down). These rooms can be accessed in ways
that allow for that scrolling to take place, but if entered in a certain
way (always through difficulty, not through a normal bubble door) they
cannot scroll anywhere. Only solution is reset or go back to a previous
save state
directionality:
a prominent feature of hidden worlds, rooms can only be accessed from
certain directions. Some rooms can only be approached from one side,
say the left and can only be approached from the right if you come from
the left, go past the room and then backtrack
hidden world:
these are parts of the area that are not accessible in the normal game.
They are strange places with many bizarre properties (outlined below).
Their origin is also detailed on this page
invisible doors:
these are doors that are invisible. They are not actually doors but points
of access to the next screen, usually at midway up the screen. It allows
for continuation through a corridor (I never found one in a shaft).
Basically, there is an artificial scroll stop in place which can be broken
by jumping through the middle border of the direction scrolling stops
junction:
where a corridor meets a shaft or vice versa. Usually there is a bubble
door there. A door is needed to transit from one direction to the other.
Lack of doors at junctions are why every hidden world does not resemble
an entire map of Zebes. You can roll through the wall in a corridor to one
room in the shaft, but you cannot access the rooms above and below that
because there is no door therejunk rooms: rooms in the hidden world that
have no counterpart in the area you are in for the assigned number, and
thus appear as strange junk cluttering a black screen. For example,
Tourian does not have a room file designated "16", but Brinstar does.
When that room is reached in the part of Tourian's Hidden World that
parallels Brinstar, the room appears as junk. Some appear completely
normal despite not being found in the game
one-way doors:
found only in hidden worlds, these are doors you can enter through, but
cannot exit back through. All doors in the normal areas of the game are
two-way doors. These doors occur when switching from a corridor to a
shaft and the vertical room switched to does not have a door programmed
into it. In the game, you will see a blue bubble (or red bubble) suspended in
air, but no bar of blocks that defines a doorway
point of entry:
rooms in the prime area that allow for entry into the hidden world. There
are 4 in Brinstar, 7 in Norfair, 2 in Kraid's Hideout, 3 in Ridley's
Hideout, and 2 in Tourian. The term also applies to rooms from which
shortcuts can be accessed
point of return:
in a few cases, there are areas in the hidden world from which you can
return to the prime area. These points of return are essentially one-way
(remember, you can backtrack through points of entry to get back to the
prime area & you can backtrack through points of return to get back to
hidden worlds so long as you don't shift from horizontal to vertical or
vice versa). In other words, from the room in the prime area they touch,
you can come from a hidden world, but the room is not a point of entry
and cannot first enter the hidden world there
prime:
no, this has nothing to do with Metroid Prime. I call an area prime if it
is the "regular" area, the one accessible in the game (because it is the
primary part of that area). When you play the game normally, you only
travel through the primes of each area
resistance:
this is the difficulty encountered in trying to access different rooms
in the hidden worlds. Often it involves scroll warps and being invisible
for some time and having to struggle to press on in one direction when
invisible to get to a room where Samus can appear again. Resistance is
encountered when successfully escaping some trap doors.
shortcuts:
these are located only in primes. They occur by scrolling up or down in a
shaft beyond the ceiling or floor into another section of the prime or
through a wall in a corridor. Most shortcuts are vertical, but a few are
horizontal. Shortcuts, however, continue the scrolling of the point of
entry, meaning if you take a shortcut from a vertical shaft to what is a
horizontal room, the horizontal room scrolls vertically and does not allow
access to the rooms left or right of it unless there is a door, and even
when there is a door, scrolling may not always return to normal (especially
the case with shortcuts in Norfair)
scroll warp:
this bizarre effect is where, in many cases (but not all), if you... okay,
let's say there is a door on the right side of the screen... if you go
through the wall on the left side at the level of the door, you will emerge
on the right side of the screen that is beyond the door on the right side
of the original room
trap doors:
found only in hidden worlds (and the secret rooms), these are doors that
lead nowhere. They can be entered, and they close on you, but the screen
does not scroll to another room, it stays on the room you were in. You can
hear Samus move around, shoot, but you cannot see her. In some cases, if
you move in the opposite direction of the door (it helps to roll into a
ball), you can scroll through the wall opposite the door and scroll through
the rooms leading away from the door, but you will be invisible. Once you
hit a scroll stop, Samus will emerge (it will take maneuvering in many cases
to make her appear since she is trapped beyond a wall or floor and needs to
move through it to be seen)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Section 4. What are Hidden Worlds?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
First off, let me begin by saying that Secret Worlds and Hidden Worlds
are the same thing. Some people call them Secret Worlds, I call them Hidden
Worlds (as do a few other pages). Hidden Worlds are sections of an area
that lie beyond the known boundaries of that area. They are accessible
on the NES cartridge, but are MUCH easier to access on an emulator with a
ROM of the game where you can input the codes that make getting around
easier and save the game anywhere so if you get trapped, you can start up
near where you left off.
All enemies in the game are in the Hidden Worlds except for functional
Zeebetite (they're frozen), functional Mother Brains (they're frozen), and
Rinkas. Metroids are in there. Also missing are Memu and Mella, but Mellow
is in the game. I have no explanation why those little M-enemies are not in
Hidden Worlds. Enemies occur with the same distribution as they do in the
prime area. Certain enemies and numbers of enemies are assigned to a room
and will appear in that room. In some cases, rooms will appear with no
enemies.
Hidden Worlds have an interesting origin. They can be said to have
'spontaneously arose' from the game's programming. They are not secret
areas in the game deliberately put there by programmers, nor are they areas
they were working on but left unfinished. The way they are arranged should
make that clear. They are pieced together like a frankenstein. We can also
prove this by looking at the game's code. The Hidden Worlds are accessibly
only by a glitch, and glitches are not intentional, therefore if an area
is only accessible by a glitch, it is not intentional. These areas are
self-generated by the game, which is operating in accordance with its
operating parameters.
Every videogame created only operates by the parameters laid out for it.
Those are its "laws of physics". In most games, if this were possible,
the game would crash, but not in Metroid. Here, a section of the game
more vast than the regular game is accessible. The full technical summary
as to how the Hidden Worlds are generated is in one of the links in
Section 9. The Hidden Worlds take up a grand sum of 0 bytes. How's that
for weird? Yes, the data they derive from takes up many bytes, but they
take up no inherent space. They are a function produced by a glitch that
overlays room data in areas you should not be able to access from the area
you are in with the room data from that area. The Hidden Worlds make up 77%
of true Zebes map while the prime area explored in the normal game is
only 23% of true Zebes. I'm surprised no NES programmers utilized this
structural arrangement for a game to get far more out of NES cartridges
than their programming limits allow. The Metroid game itself is only 128kb.
If the Hidden Worlds, which exist and take up 0kb due to how they are
categorized by the game's operating parameters, were to take up actual in
game space, the Metroid game would be 556.5kb. The largest NES games are
512kb (and many early SNES games are 1.0mb). For an early NES game,
that's amazing. 428.5kb of the game takes up 0kb in actuality. Like I
said, the parallelism of game area is a good way of getting the most out
of a limited about of space. All it takes is coordination. In Metroid's
case, just making sure all file #s of a certain # match up as horizontal or
vertical or have a door on certain sides. In technical terms, the Hidden
Worlds are valid map data, but invalid map locations for that area, but
not invalid for the primary map (the map of Zebes).
Once their origin was uncovered, many people were disappointed. They
felt because the Hidden Worlds were just a side effect and not something
created with meaning, with purpose, that they were not worth exploring or
looking into. They had really hoped the Hidden Worlds were some
super-secret area put there for the 1% of elite Metroid players to find
and traverse. My opinion of the Hidden Worlds differs from many others.
To me they are an objet trouve, a "found object". That is an art term that
refers to a natural object that is not originally intended as a piece of
art, but which is considered to be artistic. The arches in Arches National
Park in Utah could be considered an objet trouve. They are just rock
formations, not created to be art, but they look very beautiful
nonetheless. The Hidden Worlds were not designed to be a part of the game.
Heck, they were not designed at all. They are self-generated; that is,
generated by the game itself. The game didn't think to create it. It was
generated as a result of the design parameters of Metroid and where there
were design flaws. Just because it wasn't created doesn't make it any
less special.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Section 4-1. How to Access Hidden Worlds
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Hidden Worlds are only accessible by the Door Jump Glitch (or trick)/
Wall-Door Glitch (or trick). It is a glitch where Samus can get stuck in
the door and then use a rhythm of going back and forth between ball form
and short jumps to rise up through walls and through ceilings to Secret
Worlds. There are codes that replicate this function MUCH easier and
which allow us to access areas not technically possible by the glitch,
areas below the screens (since ball/jump combo doesn't work going down).
In Section 9 there are links explaining the whole glitch and the codes I
used to access the Hidden Worlds. I got around just fine. I tested some of
the bottom codes and went to places where rooms could not be accessed
in the Hidden Worlds, and even with the code, they could not be accessed.
This is the set of codes I used:
SUPEAI- descend through the floor a little each time you shoot up
KAPGEI- jump in mid-air
EEXTTY- jump through ceilings
SSAEAI- travel freely through walls when you're a ball
SSPALI- get stuck in walls if shoot when falling down
Codes used by other people include:
TTXTTT- walk left through walls (does not work in Nesticle, but TTXTYT does)
SSXAEI- get stuck in walls (said to be useful)
KUSTIN- description says "standby if you get stuck in a wall"
These codes can be put on the NESticle emulator via going to CPU on the
top bar, then Rom Patch on the menu and typing in the codes. Once input,
press the toggle button to activate them. Some pages also list other codes,
which are accessible in the links provided below. Other NES emulators
should have the same ability to input these codes.
Hidden Worlds are accessed through points of entry. These are usually
found at the tops or bottoms of vertical shafts. Look at the Level Map.
See where 2 colored sections meet. Those are points where you can
access Hidden Worlds. Above every elevator room is also a good place to
access Hidden Worlds.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Section 5. History of Hidden Worlds
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hidden Worlds are known to exist in Metroid 1, Metroid II, & Metroid
Prime, but have not yet been found in Super Metroid or Metroid Fusion.
They also exist in the NES game The Guardian Legend. Once again, all of
this information comes from online. It all began with the discovery of the
Door Jump trick (AKA the Wall Jump trick), posted in Nintendo Fun Club
Newsletter #3 (Fall 1987) (it preceded Nintendo Power). The Door Jump
trick is used to access the Hidden Worlds. It was discovered that when this
trick is used in certain sections, it leads to glitched sections. Note that
Metroid was released in Japan in August 1986 & in America in July 1987.
A lengthy article dated 5/24/90 (it is online on Gamefaqs) talked about
"hidden zones". It seemed to be posted on an online bulletin board, like
one of the usenet boards before the world wide web came into existence
(I read a book that makes a reference to communication online in the 1980s.
It seems odd to those of us who were only kids in the '80s and '90s that
online communication occurred before the development of the world wide web,
but it's true). The article seems to not have been known about by those
who would come later; it knew that the "undocumented territory" was vast
and guessed that 35% of the total game was this hidden area, and mapped
out "135 rooms in the hidden zone of hideout #2" (wrong, but a good
start). The article thought the "hidden zones" were intentionally put
there. It laid out the possibilities: a prank put in there by the
programmers, designed for no purpose at all, or an area created with
deliberate intent. The vibe the article gives is these locations were
vague and mysterious, where less than 1% of players were able to access.
Of course, there were no Game Genie codes to make everything easier.
The article was written at the time when it had to be done the hard way.
It was the first time the "trap doors" were documented as well as the
"one way doors". It is the first to note the difficulty in exploring these
regions and the strange scrolling behavior, door behavior, and the
hazardous positioning of enemies (usually right by the door when you
enter the room). Comparing their map with my map, on Hideout #2 it
mapped out most of the section that parallels Norfair, all of the vertical
shaft on the right side of the center bridge in Brinstar and a tiny part of
the section that parallels Brinstar. I would roughly put that at 40% of
the total size of Hideout #2's Hidden World. In many ways, this article
got farther than the people that would make an effort in 1997-1998.
A long time would pass before any more development would come. People were
preoccupied with Metroid II & Super Metroid, and the internet had to
really take off and a NES emulator and Metroid ROM be developed before
interest in Metroid and its unresolved mysteries would be picked up again.
From Sept 1997 to Nov 1998, people searched for Hidden Worlds and
posted the directions on a message board, along with some codes used to
access it, and some details about those Hidden Worlds. The postings were
grouped together on a page called the Great Secret Worlds Hunt. These
people show no knowledge of the 1990 article (it probably wasn't posted
on Gamefaqs until after 97/98 and it seems like an obscure article). They
named some of the Hidden Worlds they found (Prinstar, among others),
but I think that's pointless because when you map them out, you find that
they are all connected, so naming parts is irrelevant. Reading their
postings, I could see they did not know the true extent to the Hidden
Worlds and had some trouble getting deeper into them. The parts they
explored are directly adjacent to the points of entry or are shortcuts
through areas themselves. They think there are many Hidden Worlds.
In reality, there are only 5. At this point, the origin of Hidden Worlds is
unknown, with evidence pointing towards it being a glitch, not intentional.
By the way they word things, they seem to try and say "it is real, it
is real" as if the existence of the Hidden Worlds isn't entirely proven. In
the Great Secret Worlds Hunt, many of the key codes needed to explore
far were found. Pocket Brinstar is referenced (11/15/97 posting). During
March 1998, some tried to map the Hidden Worlds and the posters began
to realize some of these Hidden Worlds are connected. They did not have
the Level Map to put 2 and 2 together. In July 1998, the larger Hidden
World in Tourian is discovered. In August 1998 through November 1998,
the details behind the origin of the Hidden Worlds are finally understood,
with the key proof coming in Oct 1998. Bizarro-Norfair was discovered
in Nov 1998 from what I can tell. By late 1998, the "it is real, it is
real" talk disappears as the mechanism from which the Hidden Worlds
are created was uncovered.
After 1998, some websites existed with partial maps of the Hidden Worlds
and explanations of the mechanics of the ones in both Metroid 1 & 2, like
talk of "shadow worlds", which parallel the real world (in fact they
are the prime area of the game, except they are reached through Hidden
World means [i.e. shortcuts]). Sadly, many of the websites would only
be around for that small interval in the late 90s/early 00s and only
remain as broken links, their knowledge lost. I have tried to find them
again, to post the links in this article, but could not. They were around
from 2000-2002, because I remember seeing them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Section 6. Properties of Hidden Worlds
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Section 6-1. Game Design Properties
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Most of the properties of the prime areas are well known to people, but I
will reiterate a few here that have to do with understanding properties of
the Hidden Worlds.
When Samus dies in one of the 5 areas, no matter where she is in the
prime area, she revives in the elevator room of that area or in the case
of Brinstar the starting room.
Doors are the same color on both sides. Scrolling through walls in the
prime areas reveals this. Red bubble doors are on both sides of a Chozo
statue room. When you fire 5 missiles at it, you permanently open both
sides of the door. The same applies for yellow or purple doors.
Lava does not hurt because it is programmed to damage you. All lava in
the game is an illusion. Some "false lava" allows you to stand upon it, but
all other lava is not solid. When you traverse Hidden Worlds or go
through the ceiling or floor of bridge rooms & the elevator rooms where
the elevator goes down, you will find that the bottom of the screen and
the top of the screen, albeit black, acts as lava, sounding like it and
damaging you in the same manner. Lava hurts because it is at the bottom
of the screen and there is no floor beneath it. Lava does not hurt you,
the edge of the screen does. The same applies for the top of the screen
where there is no ceiling and no room above it.
As a consequence of the game's design. It is impossible to find 2
horizontal shafts next to each other because every time Samus goes
through a door, the game must switch to the opposite scrolling type.
Look at the map, there are no 2 horizontal corridors back to back and
there are no 2 vertical shafts back to back. The one exception is special
rooms, like item rooms.
A vital piece of info is that elevators create disjunctions in the game.
They break out of one system of data and into the other, meaning the
graphical templates will be different even though they have the same
file name. You can see the jump as you are about halfway down the
elevator shaft. To go up without an elevator, you will find data arranged
in the same form as the other regions (so going above Hideout II, you
will find an extension of Hideout II arranged exactly like Norfair).
Thus, each region is self contained.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Section 6-2. Hidden World Properties
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Hidden Worlds have numerous properties that are far different from those
encountered in the prime areas of the game. Many of them have terms to
define them in the glossary (Section 3).
Scrolling is a simple property of the game that becomes incredibly bizarre
in the Hidden Worlds. In no case can you scroll beyond a bubble door,
and scrolling stops at walls, at least it does in the prime areas. Here,
you will see you can scroll past the walls of rooms beyond the room you
are in. Scroll Stops are only programmed in with most bubble doors in
horizontal shafts. You will notice traveling vertically is much easier than
traveling horizontally through Hidden Worlds. It is because of scroll
stops that are inherent in the room data for the file # of the screen
you are on if it is a horizontal room. Rooms that border FF rooms have
scroll stops in the data. Many horizontal rooms have scroll stops where
a door is at because the programmers didn't want the player to see what
is beyond the door.
Scroll stops for rooms are only in effect if the room with the stop is
approached from the opposite direction as the door. For example, if a
room has a door on the left side (and a scroll stop is there), if you
approach the room from the right, the screen should stop scrolling at
the point of that door. If you approach the same room from the left,
you will be able to scroll past the scroll stop (so long as the room
directly to the left of that room does not have a scroll stop at the right
edge of it), but if you try to backtrack, in most cases, the scroll stop
will kick in. That's a part of the idea of directionality. More on
that in a second.
Directionality is one of the most unique features of the Hidden Worlds.
In the prime areas, everything is bi-directional. You can always go
forwards & backwards, back & forth through doors, but in Hidden Worlds,
that isn't possible. Rooms can only be accessed from certain directions.
This is the reason why for any Hidden World maps to be accurate, they
must have arrows. Some rooms can only be approached from one side, say
the left, and can only be approached from the right if you come in from the
left, go past the room, then backtrack back to the room. Backtracking is
always present in the prime areas, and here, backtracking only occurs
up to a scroll stop (see above paragraph). Also, some rooms can only
be accessed horizontally, and some only vertically. At a certain room,
for example, you may be able to transit through it vertically, but unable
to access the rooms to the left or right of it even though those rooms are
accessible just because of directionality and the fact that there are no
bubble doors to allow a switch from horizontal to vertical. Because of
directionality, some points of return exist. Those are areas where you
can return to the Prime Area from the Hidden World but cannot enter the
Hidden World from the Prime Area originally. On the points of return.
Just like shortcuts, the areas of the Prime Area accessed may not have
normal scrolling and thus limit mobility, even after going through a
bubble door. On the matter of directionality, there are multiple approach
vectors with most doors. For example, take a door approached horizontally
from say, the left. You can continue scrolling left to right and go past
the next room, exploring beyond it, or you can go through the door from
the left room to the right room to explore the rooms above or below it or
you can roll through the wall and go back through the door and explore
the rooms above & below the left room. If you can think like that for
navigation, then you understand the Hidden Worlds' directionality.
On the subject of scrolling. There are also scroll warps. This property
can be seen in the Prime Area utilizing the given codes as well. It is
where you go through the wall opposite a door (for reference, we'll say
the door is on the right), you will come out on the far side of the room
past that door (the right side of the room past the right door). You will
not switch scrolling, and can scroll beyond the side from which you
emerged, if there is no scroll stop there.
The bubble doors of the Hidden Worlds take on some very bizarre properties.
One of the most bizarre are the one-way doors. They are doors where you
can enter through them but not exit back through them. All doors in the
prime areas are two-way doors. These doors only occur when changing over
from horizontal scrolling to vertical scrolling. Once you pass through
them, you will see the bubble part of a door, but not the gridwork part of
a door. It will be a blue bubble or red bubble suspended in the air. Once
you scroll up or down, the floating bubble will vanish. Every door in a
horizontal room passed through will be a one-way door unless the room
that will have vertical scrolling on the other side of that door has a door
on the side the horizontal room's door leads to. There are also trap doors.
They can be found in the Prime Areas, but only in some of the secret rooms.
They are doors that lead nowhere. They open up, but they swallow you.
You can hear Samus on the other side, but you cannot see her or get her
back on the screen. In the cases where a trap door located in a horizontal
corridor with rooms past the wall opposite the door, you can scroll
invisibly along the bottom, albeit encountering resistance, until you
reach a scroll stop, whereby you will emerge. The same applies for some
doors in vertical shafts, which allow you to scroll up or down invisibly
until you reach a scroll stop. Some doors will swallow you and not allow
you to budge anywhere. When encountering resistance, movement is easier
as a ball. When the screen stops scrolling, Samus will still not be seen.
Often, she will be just past the wall, jump around, fire your beam and roll
into a ball, and she'll eventually emerge. There are also invisible doors.
Technically, they aren't doors. There is an artificial scroll stop in place
which can be breached by jumping through the border of where the scrolling
stops. They tend to be found in the blue-pipe rooms (the ones in Brinstar
that lead to the Chozo statues). I don't know why the game does this, and
cannot remember any specific locations where this occurs, but basically,
invisible doors are located on false walls. They are scroll stops that
do not have a door associated with them and once you go through, you
can scroll back and scroll forward as if there never was a scroll stop.
Going through the invisible door does not allow for switching between
horizontal to vertical, just to continue scrolling in the direction you are
going in. Ah, one case that is analogous (but not exact) is the 2nd point
of entry for the Tourian Hidden World. There is no door, but you can
press through and continue scrolling horizontally, but there is the switch
from a horizontal shaft to a vertical one. One final point with doors, if
you go through the floor and try and rise up through the ball-to-jump
technique to move sideways and up to reach the door from underneath and
scroll through the door, if you enter at a certain position, you will see
Samus atomized. There is a point, near where the bubble meets the grid
part where if entered, causes instant death. Yes, this position, if touched
(only the case when the door is closed), will wipe out all your life,
regardless of how many filled energy tanks you have. I don't know why,
but if you want to see it for yourself, mess around the door from below
(or above). You'll see it.
Another property of Hidden Worlds is resistance. Sometimes there is a
difficulty that is encountered when trying to access different rooms. You
often run across this when scroll warps are involved or attempted and
you're invisible for some time and having to struggle to press on in one
direction to get to the scroll stop where Samus will become visible again.
Since you are below the screen, you are in the damaging nothingness,
which sounds & functions like lava. Progress is slow here, and when the
scroll stop is reached, it takes a lot of effort to get Samus visible
again. It is also encountered when trying to escape from trap doors. Some
rooms and sets of rooms can only be reached through resistance. Sometimes,
when encountering resistance, a room that can normally be passed through
becomes a dead end. Often, as I said, going through scroll warps and trap
doors, you will be allowed to enter a room, but not exit the way you came,
and the room has no doors. The room has become a dead end, from
which there is no escape. Only reset or going back to a previous save
state can allow you to emerge.
Because of the layout, not every room in the Hidden World is accessible.
In theory, the glitch affects every room and allows data to be summoned
for every room coordinates in all 5 areas, but in reality, many are not
accessible due to directionality & scroll stops. In order to access rooms,
there needs to be doors at junctions. Some rooms have limited angles of
approach, like the vertical shaft that leads from the bright green block
area to the corridor with Varia at the end due north on the map. In order
to access one of those rooms, there needs to be a doorway in the vertical
shaft (the long golden vertical shaft in Brinstar) or one in any of the
rooms directly below the Varia corridor and then a doorway that allows
for horizontal access in the rooms filled by the Varia corridor and no
scroll stops. The extent the Hidden Worlds can be explored is limited
by doorways at junctions as well as scroll stops impeding horizontal travel.
In the Tourian Hidden World, you will find a complete lack of Rinka, a
number of Zeebetites & Mother Brains, but both of the last two enemies
will be frozen. You can fire 200+ missiles at the Zeebetites and they will
not shrink down. With the numerous Mother Brain copies that exist in
the Hidden World, it cannot register damage. Only the 1st missile has
any effect, and that removes the glass in front of the brain jar. None of
the turrets work either (but Metroids swarm through the Hidden World).
This leads to the suspicion that only their image is in the room data, and
the program data that makes them active (i.e. the Zeebetites regenerative
capacity & capacity to receive damage, the turrets working, Rinka being
spawned, and Mother Brain's brain pulsating) is assigned to the specific
coordinates. And, the program data only works if the room data is also
there (room data + program data= functional MB & Zeebetites), either
one alone is not enough. That's my theory. Consider Mother Brain & the
Zeebetites as being invisible enemies. If you encounter their vessels
(the tubes and the jar) outside of their assigned coordinates, all those
will be are empty shells. The program data can be there, but the
coordinates are the connection that allows them to express their program.
Technically, they might be able to exist outside those rooms, but they
would just be invisible enemies in that room unable to interact with Samus.
In every instance in the Prime Areas, all the tops of the screens are
covered with ceilings and all the bottoms with floors or lavas. Even in
Chozo rooms, bridge rooms, and elevator rooms, the bottoms cannot be
accessed despite the floors being up so high or ceilings down so low.
Here, there is no such consistency, where a room at the top of a vertical
shaft may not have a ceiling and a room at the bottom of a vertical shaft
may not have a floor. The same applies for horizontal corridors at the
ends lacking walls. So, you can jump up into damaging nothingness or
down into damaging nothingness. The same applies for normally vertical
rooms being in a horizontal position, meaning going above the visible top
edge or below the visible bottom edge has the same effect as being in
normal lava. And speaking of lava, you'll find that most lava in the
Hidden Worlds doesn't do any damage!
Junk rooms are among the cooler features of the Hidden Worlds. They are
messes of jibberish in most, but not all, cases. There are thus 2
categories of junk rooms, those that are total junk and those that are
normal, but are never used in the game. The normal ones that are never
used have enemies programmed in with them, but the total junk ones have
no enemies programmed with them. Some of the junk rooms (even the total
junk ones) have doorways in them, well, fragments of doorways. Those
doorways allow for scrolling even despite being a mere fragment.
Because of the bizarre positioning of doors and rooms, often, you will go
through a door and find enemies right upon you. In Tourian this is
especially difficult as often metroids are just beyond that door or wall.
For this reason, it is recommended to explore Hidden Worlds when you
have a lot of energy/energy tanks.
The same property of reviving in the elevator room occurs throughout
Hidden Worlds. Let's say you are in Norfair's Hidden World and are in the
section that parallels Kraid's Hideout, if Samus dies there, she will
revive in the elevator room in Norfair Prime. This property is what proves
Bizarro-Norfair is a part of Norfair (see Section 7). No matter how far you
are away from the prime area, you will always revive there.
There are numerous metroids in Tourian Hidden World, if you run into
nothingness on the left or right or jump into nothingness at the top or
bottom and have the metroids on you draining energy, their energy drain
will stop. If you are scrolling offscreen up or down, they will disappear
when you emerge.
Now from the general to the specific. There are numerous copies of
Ridley & Kraid in the Hidden Worlds. They only appear in there if the
original version is still in existence. I wondered if a copy of Ridley or
Kraid were killed, would all disappear as if they were the original or
would you be able to fight infinite copies so long as the original still
existed? So, I went into the Hidden World and fought a copy of Ridley.
When I defeated it, the 75 missile prize was received. None of the other
copies were around and the original was gone too. That means all of
the copies have just as much legitimacy as the original Ridley or Kraid.
All disappear when one is defeated, regardless whether original or copy
or its coordinates.
All Chozo statues in the Hidden Worlds hold empty orbs. Thus, their items
must be assigned to specific coordinates, not the room in general. The same
applies for missiles and energy tanks. The screens they are located on only
have them in the prime area. All the same exact rooms in the Hidden
Worlds are empty.
In the case of Norfair, the color of Norfair Hidden World depends on the
color of the point of entry. No color shifts occur within Norfair Hidden
World. The same principle applies to shortcuts in Norfair Prime. You will
notice with those that when you cross from purple areas to green, the areas
that should be green are purple and when you cross from green areas to
purple, the areas that should be purple are green. Most of the Hidden
World appears purple because most of the points of entry are purple. The
area known as Bizarro-Norfair, if accessed the long way (traversing from
the point of entry at Norfair Prime all the way to it) it appears purple,
but if accessed the short way (taking the elevator sequence from Kraid's
Hideout Prime), it appears green, which is assumed to be its primary
color. In the case of Brinstar, the whole column of rooms where there
is the one bridge room between the blue-green and gold shafts in Brinstar
acts as the divider between where in the Hidden World is gold and where
is blue-green. Basically, the sections of Brinstar Hidden World that
parallel Kraid's Hideout are blue-green and the sections that parallel
Norfair & Ridley's Hideout are gold.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Section 7. Hidden Worlds
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are 5 Hidden Worlds in the game. Each one underlies or parallels the
rest of Zebes beyond the prime area of that Hidden World. They are mostly
copy & pastes of rooms from the prime area all over the Zebes map, but
there are a number of junk rooms and rooms with different color palettes.
****************************
Section 7-1. Brinstar Hidden World
****************************
Brinstar Hidden World is 341 rooms large. It parallels all of Norfair,
all of Ridley's Hideout except a single room, most of Kraid's Hideout
and none of Tourian. I have tried to access Tourian from all the points it
touches Brinstar, but none of the screens allowed entry to the coordinates
belonging to Tourian. It has 4 points of entry and 1 point of return. Many
Chozo statue rooms are here, but they all hold empty orbs. I checked by
accessing these screens from starting a new game with no equipment,
not even the Long Beam. Like with Mother Brain, though the Chozo room
may be in numerous places, the item is only assigned to coordinates in
Brinstar Prime.
There are many rooms with new colors in Brinstar Hidden
World. That is because Brinstar has two color palettes for the same rooms.
The bridge room connecting both halves of Brinstar is the dividing line.
Everything to the left will look blue-green, and the bright green block
rooms found in northern Brinstar as corridors appear as dark blue block
rooms. Everything to the right will look golden. This area includes
different colored entry rooms to Kraid's Hideout (the one with the monster
statue), which here appears as a red-eyed golden statue not a blue eyed
turquoise statue! Brinstar Hidden World has the most unique batch
of rooms with different color palettes. Among the more interesting parts
are the horizontal pipes with the holes running the length of 3 rooms.
There are a handful of rooms with the Kraid & Ridley statues as well.
There are no garbled junk rooms as far as I can tell. Only one does not
appear in any form or color in Brinstar, some room with a blue orb on
white metal poles over some lava. The coolest looking rooms are the
gold version of the screen you start the game on, the gold version of the
door to the Kraid & Ridley statue room, and the gold version of the
elevator room to Kraid's Hideout.
****Section 7-1A. Pocket Brinstar****
In regular Norfair, if you go up, you'll go through a red elevator shaft
screen and see a ground level purple bubble-rock room with a left door,
but they'll be an elevator there! It only goes up. Above that room without
riding the elevator is the purple bubble-rock room with a right door, red
collapsible blocks and 2 red balloon blocks. If you take the elevator up,
you won't be in an elevator shaft, you'll scroll up to the room with the
balloon & collapsible blocks, but it will swap palettes to look like
Brinstar, except look like nothing else ever seen in the game! The right
door is there, but inaccessible (as the elevator scrolls up and you cannot
go back down below where the elevator stops). The room now has green
bubble blocks and green collapsible blocks with strange looking gold
walls. When the elevator stops, you'll be in a golden Brinstar shaft room
with a left door. You cannot move up or down. The only explorable part
is the Chozo statue path that leads to the Ice Beam and the empty shaft
past that. Once you pass back through the door, the elevator will be gone
and it will be normal Brinstar.
This is not really a Bizarro-Brinstar, just a Pocket Brinstar, exactly like
normal Brinstar, but limited until you go back to the elevator room,
which becomes the normal room and allows for up-down scrolling again.
If you take the Pocket Brinstar elevator down, there is no elevator shaft,
only a screen filled with golden pipes and rocks. That golden rock room
shifts to a Norfair palette and the screen will be filled with purple
bubbles, and the elevator stops in the exact same room in Norfair Hidden
World you took up to Pocket Norfair. Go up from that screen and you will
find the same 2 red balloon blocks room, not the screen filled with purple
bubbles. These bizarro-elevators (this one and the other one that leads to
Bizarro-Norfair) only operate in this strange manner if you don't leave
the screen they are on. If you leave either room and return to it, the
elevators will either disappear or be back to normal. In sum, Pocket
Brinstar is just a truncated section of Brinstar temporarily cut off from
the rest of Brinstar due to the method of entry. It is only 5 screens in
size.
*************************
Section 7-2. Norfair Hidden World
**************************
Norfair Hidden World is 312 rooms large. It parallels most of Brinstar,
most of Ridley's Hideout, all of Kraid's Hideout except 2 rooms, and
about half of Tourian. It has 7 points of entry... 8 if you count the
bizarro-elevator that transits from Kraid's Hidden World to some border
zone area in Brinstar (technically it is Brinstar Prime, but it has the
wrong room data) then reroutes you to Bizarro-Norfair.
There are a number of Chozo statue rooms with empty orbs. Among the more
interesting sections is a shaft with a string of 4 the rooms resembling the
elevator room to Ridley's Hideout (the one with the two headed statue).
Some who know a little about Hidden Worlds will bring up the subject of
Bizarro-Norfair. The short answer is no, it is not separate from Norfair
Hidden World. Read on for the long answer. What color is Norfair Hidden
World? Depends on your point of entry. What color is Norfair Prime?
Depends on if you return through a point of entry or take shortcuts
inside of Norfair.
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
Section 7-2A. Bizarro-Norfair
@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@
When mapping out the Norfair Hidden World, I discovered the true nature
of Bizarro-Norfair. Bizarro-Norfair is not "another" hidden Norfair, it is
one and the same as the Norfair Hidden World. Bizarro-Norfair is the most
remote region of Norfair Hidden World, with the strangest and farthest
entry point. The elevator to Bizarro-Norfair is in effect the
'second entrance' to Norfair Hidden World. When exploring the Norfair
Hidden World, if you head out far enough, to the region that parallels
Kraid's Hideout, you will find that it resembles exactly Bizarro-Norfair
except for the color. The color difference is due to the direction of
approach. Depending on the color of the many points of entry you can
enter from, the Hidden World will be either purple or green. Most points
of entry are purple, so most of the Hidden World will appear purple.
The only way to reach the Bizarro-Norfair section is through a purple
point of entry, and thus when you arrive it will be purple. For some
reason, taking that bizarro-elevator results in Bizarro-Norfair being
the green color it is well known for. Bizarro-Norfair is the southwest
region of the Norfair Hidden World. This explains why Samus revives
in regular Norfair if she dies in Bizarro-Norfair. Like any area, if Samus
dies, she is revived at the elevator room of that area, no matter how far
away she is from there.
Getting to Bizarro-Norfair is rather complex to explain. Here is the
sequence of rooms. From Kraid's Hideout Prime in the elevator room
(the one with the white H in the center of the screen). Go up, and there
will be a yellow colored elevator shaft. Above that is a room with 3
Sidehoppers and a Geega pipe. That elevator only goes one way, up.
The elevator goes up but reappears on a screen that looks identical to
the 3 Sidehoppers room except it uses Brinstar sprites to construct it &
has a Zeb pipe. That elevator now goes only one way, down. Take it down
and you will see an elevator shaft screen. The color of the elevator shaft
should switch from yellow to red, and then you land in the elevator room
for Norfair, with the 2 strange statues, except instead of being made of
purple rock, it's made of green rock. If you go above the Bizarro-Norfair
elevator room, you will go up past a red elevator shaft screen and land in
a purple fuzzy-block room with a Polyp & a Geruda. There is no elevator
in that room. The strange thing is, when you take the elevator up from
Kraid's Hideout Hidden World to Brinstar Hidden World, if you move
offscreen by entirely one from (i.e. go right one whole screen so the weird
Brinstar elevator room is offscreen), then go back, the room will no
longer be the Zeb pipe room, but look exactly like the normal Brinstar to
Kraid's Hideout elevator room. If you go down the elevator then, you'll
arrive in normal Kraid's Hideout! The layout of Bizarro-Norfair parallels
Kraid's Hideout.
In the Hidden Worlds of Tourian, Ridley's Hideout and elsewhere in Kraid's
Hideout, there are no other elevators. This elevator here is the only
elevator in the Hidden Worlds. All the others are in the Prime areas, all
except for this one and the one just above the elevator shaft at Norfair
Prime's entrance. Note that for both Hidden World elevators, if you get
hit by an enemy when moving up or down on the elevator, you'll receive
a huge amount of damage, somewhere between half a tank and a whole tank.
*********************************
Section 7-3. Kraid's Hideout Hidden World
***********************************
Kraid's Hideout Hidden World is 396 rooms large, making it the largest of
all 5 hidden worlds. It parallels all of Norfair, all of Ridley's Hideout
except 4 rooms, all of Brinstar except 3 rooms, and about 2/3 of Tourian.
There are 2 points of entry. In here reside 8 Fake Kraids & 6 Kraids. Yes,
it is possible to see Kraid & Fake Kraid back to back if Kraid has not
been defeated in his prime room (in theory, I visited there after defeating
Kraid. The location where they are back to back is the FAR southeast
corner of the Hidden World). There are 2 other rooms where they are back
to back, but because of scrolling and directionality they are not visible.
The only time they can be visible is when the Fake Kraid room is on the
left and the Kraid room on the right. There are quite a few junk rooms
in the section that parallels Norfair, just a handful in the section
that parallels Ridley's Hideout, and only a few in the section that
parallels Brinstar. The bridge rooms that appear in Brinstar & Norfair
(which do not have a counterpart in Kraid's Hideout) appear in the Hidden
World here perfectly intact. There are 3 of them. Other interesting
features are a shaft comprised almost entirely of those rooms where
normally Samus has to be in ball form and to use timing to get over the
wall. There is also a shaft filled with the rooms with lava pits and
hordes of Geega flies coming at you. The primary feature of Kraid's
Hideout Hidden World that is weird is the elevator that leads to Brinstar
Hidden World (where you can go to the hidden world by going to the
right and go back to Brinstar prime by going left) and which leads back
down to the Bizarro-Norfair section of Norfair Hidden World. That
elevator is located directly above the elevator room in Kraid's Hideout
Prime.
*************************************
Section 7-4. Ridley's Hideout Hidden World
*************************************
Ridley's Hideout Hidden World is 372 rooms large. It parallels all of
Norfair, about a quarter of Tourian, all of Kraid's Hideout except 2
rooms, and all of Brinstar except the Long Beam passage, a few of the
other Chozo room passages, and the passage to the statue room by the
Tourian elevator, along with most of the starting passage in Brinstar.
There are 3 points on entry & even one point of return. In here reside
7 Ridleys. This Hidden World contains a fair amount of junk rooms.
Other than that, there's not much that stands out other than it is a very
labyrinthine place.
*********************************
Section 7-5. Tourian Hidden World
**********************************
Tourian Hidden World is 299 rooms large. It parallels all of Ridley's
Hideout, about half of Brinstar, only a small part of Kraid's Hideout
and all of Norfair except the NE section. There are only 2 points of
entry, above the elevator room, and opposite the left door at the top
of the second vertical shaft. In here are 14 Mother Brains, but they
cannot be fought. Only the glass can be blown off their container. The
Zeebetites are the same way, frozen (along with the turrets). No Rinkas
are in the Hidden World. I think those enemies are classified as part of
the actual room and are only programmed to manifest in certain coordinates
(those inside Tourian Prime), which explains why they are frozen, inactive.
This Hidden World contains more junk rooms than any other. This is due to
the small # of rooms created for Tourian, leaving a lot of number files
blank in there, resulting in junk for the other areas. While there are
only a handful of junk rooms in the section that parallels Brinstar, almost
all of the sections that parallel Norfair & Ridley's Hideout are junk! All
the junk rooms make this the bizarrest Hidden World and the most difficult
to navigate. There is one weird element, there are "normal" rooms not
found in Tourian Prime, a white bridge room. There are 3 of these and
they look exactly like (except in color) the bridge room that connects the
green Brinstar shaft to the gold Brinstar shaft. Also, as far as I can
tell, the available rooms that would be aligned with the upper right
section of Norfair that juts above the rest are not accessible due to the
way the junk rooms needed to access that shaft of rooms scrolls. Tourian
Hidden World is loaded with swarms of Metroids though, far more than
are in Tourian Prime.
It should be noted Tourian Hidden World has a third point of entry.
At the bottom of the 2nd vertical shaft, you can roll through the wall and
press on into a room (but you are ambushed by 3 Metroids on the other
side of the wall immediately). You can then scroll up and down if you
run into the nothingness on the right and then jump up all the way to the
top of the Hidden World shaft, at which time you will emerge when you
hit the scroll stop at the top of it. This point of entry is closed off
permanently if you blast open the door at the bottom of that shaft on the
left side. Strange but true. None of the middle rooms in that 2nd shaft
allow for access to the rooms next to them that parallel Brinstar.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Section 8. Statistics & Data
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here are the total number of rooms in each area of the normal game, the
prime areas.
Brinstar Prime- 130 rooms
Norfair Prime- 157 (counting elevator shaft room), 161 (counting the 4
secret rooms)
Kraid's Hideout Prime- 100 rooms (counting elevator shaft room)
Ridley's Hideout Prime- 87 rooms (counting elevator shaft room)
Tourian Prime- 33 rooms (counting elevator shaft room)
TOTAL- 503 (w/o counting elevator shaft rooms)
507 (w/ counting elevator shaft rooms)
511 (w/ counting elevator shaft rooms and hidden rooms)
Out of a total grid of 1024 squares, 511 are programmed for something
while 513 are programmed for nothing (the FF squares). So, in total the
programmed area of the game constitutes 49.9% of the total grid and the
unprogrammed area 50.1%. Of the total programmed area, the percent
each area takes up is as follows:
Brinstar 25%
Norfair 31.5%
Kraid's Hideout 20%
Ridley's Hideout 17%
Tourian 6.5%
Let us now look at the size of the Hidden Worlds. Note that the elevator
shaft room is counted as a part of the prime section for one area and part
of the hidden world section for the other area.
Brinstar Hidden World- 341 rooms (262% larger than Brinstar Prime)
Norfair Hidden World- 312 rooms (194% larger than Norfair Prime)
Kraid's Hideout Hidden World- 396 rooms (396% larger than Kraid's Hideout
Prime)
Ridley's Hideout Hidden World- 372 rooms (428% larger than Ridley's Hideout
Prime)
Tourian Hidden World- 299 rooms (906% larger than Tourian Prime)
TOTAL- 1720
Now let's add everything together. This will show us the true size of
Zebes and the true size of each area.
Brinstar Area (BP + BHW)- 471 rooms
Norfair Area (NP + NHW)- 473 rooms
Kraid's Hideout Area (KHP + KHHW)- 496 rooms
Ridley's Hideout Area (RHP + RHHW)- 459 rooms
Tourian Area (TP + THW)- 332 rooms
TOTAL- 2231
That means true Zebes has 2231 rooms. The game is only programmed to
hold 1024 rooms and has only 511 actual rooms. That is over 4 times more
than the actual rooms & over 2 times more than the total possible
programmable area. 77% of the true Zebes are hidden worlds and 23% are
prime areas. That 77% has a total size of 0 bytes. Simply amazing.
Just as a complement to the percent each area took up among the primes,
here is the percent taken up by each composite area (prime + hidden world).
In parentheses are the deviation from the original percentage statistics.
Brinstar 21% (-4%)
Norfair 21% (-10.5%)
Kraid's Hideout 22.5% (+2.5%)
Ridley's Hideout 20.5% (+3.5%)
Tourian 15% (+8.5%)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Section 9. Credits/Sources
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here are a bunch of links on the Secret Worlds. These are the places I
got my information from that deal with the mechanics of the Hidden Worlds.
All the technical information behind the design of the game is on those
pages. I disagree with the disappointment expressed by those who have
figured out that the Hidden Worlds were not put there intentionally by
the programmers, only being a side effect generated by the design of the
game's structural framework. They say finding out the true origin of the
Hidden Worlds has "crushed their dreams". The fact that the Hidden
Worlds are so vast compared to the size of the regular game AND that they
are a glitch that spontaneously arises from the game, not something put
there by a person, makes it more amazing in my eyes. The best summation
of the origin of Hidden Worlds is in the 3rd sub-link to the first link,
under a posting by Zaphod dated 8/2/98.
http://www.classicgaming.com/mdb/m1/secretworlds.htm
http://www.classicgaming.com/mdb/m1/lvldata.htm
http://www.classicgaming.com/mdb/m1/met-map.txt
http://www.classicgaming.com/mdb/m1/gswh.htm
http://db.gamefaqs.com/console/nes/file/metroid.txt
http://www.classicgaming.com/mdb/m1/tips.htm
There was a really good website, but the links to it are broken. It
had partial maps. It existed in 2002, but did not in 2003
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Section 10. Notes
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I am really bad with checking e-mails. It may (it will) take me a while to
respond to e-mails in most cases. I provided information on the Wall Jump
Trick and links to sources of information. The links should answer all the
technical details that I don't get into here
It would be cool if someone could take this work and put together a map
with pictures. Specifically, I mean have the same table of room numbers
from 00-2E and show the 5 variants for each number, including junk rooms.
Someone can make the maps from these rooms (though only I have the
handdrawn maps which document which screens are inaccessible due to
the Hidden Worlds' properties and all the arrows indicating directions of
access to each screen).
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