Video Game / Super Metroid X Fusion

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Super Metroid X Fusion is a Super Metroid fan hack by Metaquarius. Taking place in an alternate retelling of Metroid Fusion, Samus responds to a distress signal from the BSL station SR-388 and is attacked by a mysterious organism. Awakening later, Samus must now navigate the station while dealing with dangerous experiments and the ravenous X parasites. All while having to deal with a perplexing AI and some harsh truths about herself...

This hack remixes several parts of Fusion with the engine of Super for a unique experience that amps up much of the horror aspects in a more difficult experience than the original. Which is saying a lot for Fusion.

The hack can be downloaded here.

Super Metroid X Fusion provides examples of:

• 11th-Hour Superpower: After Samus absorbs the Xeno Metroid, she gains access to the Disruptor Beam, which is essentially the Hyper Beam in all but name. Inverted in Omega Mode, where Samus starts with the Disruptor Beam and keeps it through the whole game.
• Adaptational Badass: The SA-X has considerably improved AI and uses a few powers it didn't in the original game, like using the X-Ray Visor to see through walls, the Gravity Suit for water maneuvering, and the Speed Booster and even the Shinespark if it has room to maneuver. During the climax, rather than dying at the hands of the Omega Metroid like in the original, the SA-X is attacked by the Xeno Metroid—only to regenerate from this attack, and becomes the Final Boss after mutating into an even more powerful creature.
• Adaptational Early Appearance: Instead of being the final boss like in Metroid Fusion, the Omega Metroid that attacks Samus is now the first boss fought (the first enemy period, in fact).
• Adaptational Heroism: The B.O.X. security robot still ends up infected by the X and needing to be destroyed by Samus, but it's a much more benevolent entity than in the original game before that point, actively being called in to assist her for the fight against Crocomire-X.
• Adaptational Name Change:
  • The Super Missiles, Ice Missiles, and Diffusion Missiles are renamed to the Level 2, 3, and 4 Missiles.
  • The Hi-Jump is renamed Super Jump.
• Adaptation Expansion: A new area called Sector X serves as the final level.
• Adaptation Personality Change: Samus is much more talkative and snarky in this game than she was in Fusion. Though with the Hard Mode revelation that you are playing as her clone, this could be chalked up to her being a literal different person.
• Adaptational Villainy: Following the English translation of the original Fusion, the Galactic Federation itself—and not a Renegade Splinter Faction, as in the Japanese script—is explicitly responsible for the experiments on the BSL station.
• Adaptational Wimp:
  • The Shinespark is back to draining your health upon use like it was in the original Super Metroid. You need a second upgrade for it to prevent that.
  • The Varia Suit isn't completely cold resistant like it was in Fusion. Until the arctic sector's auxiliary power is restored to stabilize the area, it can only protect you until the temperature reaches a certain point and damage starts being taken.
• Adapted Out: The Dachora and its kids don't play any role in this game compared to Fusion. Inversely, there are more Etecoons than there were before, numbering seven instead of three.
• Ambiguous Clone Ending: It is never clarified or explored whether or not Samus survived her infection in the intro, although it is implied through the game introduction depending on the selected difficulty. Averted in the Hard Mode ending if you save Adam, since he will state that the Samus you've been playing as was a clone the whole time.
• And the Adventure Continues: In the Hard Mode ending, Samus senses that other SA-X survived and she resolves to hunt them down.
• Anti-Frustration Features:
  • The map for all sectors is available almost immediately and lists how many of each item is located within.
  • Due to Power Bombs being in much shorter supply, green X refill those as well as missiles.
• Armless Biped: The small Kraid-X upon confrontation does not have any sort of visible arms despite standing on two legs like the original Kraid.
• Attractive Zombie: The Samus you play as in Hard Mode is implicitly an X-clone with the X-parasites being essentially a zombie virus which can kill and infect their victims. The worst she gets is getting bloodied and bruised by the end of the game and one of her eyes changing colors. She recovers from these injuries in the best two endings for her playthrough and shows herself to be every bit the fanservice-y character as her deceased original self.
• Bait-and-Switch: The first instance of having to avoid the SA-X starts much the same as in Metroid Fusion, appearing that you simply have to sit still in a hidden alcove until the SA-X leaves... until it busts out the X-Ray Visor that you have to actively dodge. This is your warning sign that the SA-X is playing hardball compared to Fusion.
• Bag of Spilling: While Samus losing her gear between games is nothing new, the game pulls this on you right at the end when she's drained by the Xeno Metroid, forcing you through the final sector with your energy tanks and a few minimal upgrades.
• Beauty Equals Goodness: The Samus X-clone you play as on Hard Mode retains the beauty of her original counterpart unlike her evil "sisters" who look more like zombies than she did.
• Big Damn Heroes: Just as the SA-X is about to finish of a vulnerable Samus, the Xeno Metroid appears out of nowhere and drains it of energy and then sacrifices itself to Samus to restore her energy and equipment.
• Big "NO!": If Samus dies, the Adam A.I. would check up on her only to receive an unfriendly greeting from one of the evil SA-X, leading to him screaming "NO!". He tries to trigger the self-destruct only to deliver a Big "WHAT?!" when he finds that access to it was denied.
• Bittersweet Ending: Just like in the original version of Fusion, the BSL station is destroyed, killing all the Metroids and X-Parasites aboard. In this version of events, the Federation frames everything that transpired as a result of Adam going rogue if you choose to save him, otherwise they blame Samus. And in a severe departure from the original, the Hard Mode ending reveals that the real Samus Aran died before the events of the game, and that the Samus you've been playing as was a clone created by BSL. It's also revealed that the SA-X survived the explosion, and Samus' clone resolves to hunt them down.
• Bloodier and Gorier: Though it's uncommon, there's more evidence of blood here than in either Super Metroid or Fusion. Kraid X is leaking blood from his eyes, nose and chest apertures. And Samus' character portrait in Hard Mode averts Beauty Is Never Tarnished by showing her being noticeably bloody and bruised after her final battle with SA-X in Sector X.
• Boss Arena Urgency: Ridley-X destroys the floors as you fight. There's quite a few, but if he takes out the last one you will have to contend with the pit of corrosive acid at the bottom while still fighting Ridley. Beating him without any flooring is doable, just difficult.
• Bottomless Pits: Falling off the screen and into the depths of space while in an area on the station's exterior will lead to a game over as it's no different from falling into a bottomless pit in any other game.
• The Bus Came Back: The hack includes a few bosses that return from Super Metroid:
  • Crocomire X: found in Sector 3, gives the Grappling Beam.
  • Spore Spawn X, found in Sector 1, gives the Spike Breaker, which allows Samus to destroy spikes on contact.
  • Draygon X, found in the depths of Sector 4, gives the Level 2 Speed Booster, which allows Shinesparks to be stored for longer and prevents them from draining health.
  • Kraid X, found in Sector X, who serves as the final boss.
• Call-Back: Just like in Super, after Samus beats Crocomire-X it makes a second attempt to fight her after having been reduced to a skeleton. Unlike in Super, it's much more successful this time, having mutated into a mixture of Crocomire and Phantoon to attack from beyond the grave.
• Call-Forward: Two to Metroid Dread.
  • The climax involves Samus facing off with an X-possessed version of Kraid, not unlike the Kraid-Raven Beak-X hybrid.
  • Samus' unusual condition is stabilized by absorbing a certain X. The same thing happens to her, or her Hard and Omega Mode's template, at the end of Dread.
• The Cameo: In the final area, clones of Phantoon, Draygon and Ridley can be seen floating in cultivation tanks. Strictly speaking, the original Samus is only seen for a minute in the opening, at least in Hard and Omega Mode.
• Chest Monster: The escape shuttle is in a very different position in the main deck than the hangar. Go to the hangar where the ship is in Fusion proper and you will find a shuttle that hurts you with its laser, but you can still destroy it to acquire a reserve X.
• Console Cameo: A hidden room in Sector 4 is shaped like an SNES controller.
• Continuity Nod: In the intro, Dr. Bergman from Metroid: Other M is mentioned through an L4 directive she seem to have issued.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Samus effortlessly destroys the massive Kraid X that appears before she can escape with only a single charged shot.
• Cutscene Boss: Just before the base explodes, a massive Kraid X appears before Samus, but she blasts it with a massive charged laser before a fight could begin.
• Darker and Edgier: Samus has much less knowledge of the station starting out. It takes her a minute to find Adam, and even though they need to work together, their relationship is much frostier. And it turns out, at least in Hard Mode, the original Samus died to the X parasite, and you are playing as a clone of her.
• Dead All Along: The real Samus Aran, at least in Hard Mode. She died of her X infection in the opening cutscene, and the player spends the rest of the game (unknowingly) playing as her clone.
• Death by Adaptation:
  • In the original Metroid Fusion Samus survived getting infected by an X Parasite. Here, in Hard and Omega Mode, the original Samus died instead and a cloned Samus fills in the protagonist role instead.
  • The hazmat-clad researchers Samus accompanied in the original were alive the last time we seen them. Here, they all died of being infected by the X.
• Developer's Foresight: If you destroy the Security Robot in the arctic sector before fighting Crocomire-X, it won't be there to assist you in the boss fight as a platform.
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Yakuza hides out in one of the rooms of the Main Deck early in the game. You can't hurt it, much less kill it, so you have to sneak past it.
  • Serris can be seen in the background well before you have to fight it.
• Early Game Hell: By the time Samus makes it to Sector 1, the majority of enemies will kill her in just a few hits, with some even killing her in one, and even when the player starts getting more energy tanks, enemies still hit like a truck.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing:
  • In Sector X, Samus will encounter several Metroids that have been mysteriously frozen. Continuing only a few screens after these encounters reveals why: the SA-X is in the area, and is also battling the Metroids.
  • Shortly after in the same area, she comes across tanks containing clones of the Space Pirate leaders from Super Metroid, except the tank that was supposed to contain Kraid has been broken. Take a wild guess who you're about to fight...
• Foreshadowing:
  • While Samus' newfound Metroid physiology gives her a better tolerance for X infection, it is not completely foolproof and she is still dying, indicating that the Metroids' predation of the X is not without vulnerabilities. In the final area, an X manages to infect a Metroid egg, causing it to hatch into the Xeno Metroid.
  • The intro of the game, which show specimens and their status, have three different specimens, the one who is alive changing according to difficulty, with SA1-75622/SR-388 being alive in Normal Mode, MSU-15191/SR-388 being the one alive in Hard Mode and DSP-52328/SR-388 for Omega Mode. They actually represent which player character the player has chosen through the difficulty. While the first IS Samus, still alive and contained at the beginning of the game in Normal Mode, the second seem to be a independent X-Clone of her not connected to the X hivemind, and the third a Metroid-clone of her, if we go by her spawn location at the beginning of the game.
• Game-Over Man: The SA-X in all modes except Omega Mode. The giant Kraid-X from the very end of the game takes this role in Omega Mode, as a Shout-Out to Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.
• Genetic Memory: Just as the Xeno Metroid is about to finish draining Samus, it backs off just like the original Baby Metroid, indicating that its memories live on after both being cloned and absorption by the X.
• Glass Cannon: The player effectively becomes this in Omega Mode, though Energy and Reserve Tanks can help mitigate this somewhat.
• It's a Long Story: Samus will say this to Adam when he asks what happened in Sector X.
• Locked into Strangeness: In the final stretch, Samus is revealed to have heterochormia now. It goes uncommented on, but it is likely as a result of absorbing the Xeno Metroid and stabilizing her condition.
• Mêlée à Trois: In Sector X, the Metroids and X fight each other while still pursuing Samus. Using their infighting is crucial once Samus is stripped of most of her gear.
• Ms. Fanservice: Despite not being the original Samus, the Samus clone pretty much still has the decently shapely body type as her original self and the second best ending shows her in a sleeveless midriff-baring outfit that outlines her curves similar to Samus in the original Metroid Fusion with the best ending showing her in a bikini.
• Multiple Endings:
  • Escaping the BSL without backing up ADAM has Samus monologue about the destruction of the BSL and its inhabitants. The Galactic Federation denies responsibility and blames Samus for the incident.
  • If the player chooses to back up ADAM then the Galactic Federation blames ADAM instead of Samus. Furthermore, if playing on Hard Mode, ADAM reveals that Samus is a clone, as the original Samus did not survive her X infection.
  • If the player is playing on Omega Mode, they will be forced to abandon ADAM due to all dialogue being skipped in Omega Mode.
  • If the player sets the BSL to self destruct without rescuing any Etecoons, then Samus doesn't escape the BSL, but the X survive and are able to infect Galactic Federation troopers stationed nearby. Samus laments postmortem that the universe is doomed to be assimilated by the X.
• Mythology Gag: The tanks the cloned Space Pirate leaders are in are too small to house the ones seen in Super, Kraid in particular. They would fit them if they were the size they were in the original Metroid though.
• Naked Vulnerability: When Samus gets infected by an X Parasite in the opening, we get a cut away view of her naked body (albeit only in silhouette) underneath the armor as the infection painfully spreads throughout it. In Hard Mode and above, it is later revealed she died of the infection and you have been playing a clone.
• Neglected Sidequest Consequence: Failing to save even one Etecoon means Samus dies when the BSL self-destructs since no one will pilot the ship to save her.
• New Game Plus: Super Mode serves as this, allowing you to use all your upgrades from the start.
• No Final Boss for You: Playing on Omega Mode will cause the self-destruct to activate before Samus sets foot in Sector X, skipping right to the escape sequence.
• No-Gear Level:
  • In Sector X, the Xeno Metroid absorbs the upgrades Samus had acquired off the station, leaving her with only the basic suit and missiles she began the game with, as well as the wave beam. You have to make your way through the rest of the area with only a weak blaster that can only push away enemies for a time, and fight a Kraid X with missiles alone.
  • Omega Mode turns most of the game into this to some degree. You start the game with the Disruptor Beam, the Morph Ball plus Bombs, the Speed Booster, and five missiles - and other than energy tanks and missile or power bomb expansions, that's it until near the end of the game: everything else you normally acquire from absorbing a Core-X or downloading from a Data Room is replaced with "power suit shards" that do nothing until you get all of them, at which point you finally get all the other upgrades.
• Not His Sled: Samus knows that the Galactic Federation is breeding Metroids from the get-go. She also becomes aware of the BSL A.I.'s true identity as soon as they meet.
• Off with His Head!: When defeated by Samus, the small Kraid X's head plummets off its neck.
• Oh, Crap!: The Adam A.I. flips out when confronted by one of the SA-X during the Game Over screen and flips out again almost immediately after a failed attempt at Taking You with Me on the evil creature who has him at its mercy.
• Optional Boss: It's possible to skip Spore Spawn X due to the Spike Breaker not being strictly required to beat the game. Much like how the Original was in Super for Speedrunners who routinely get their first set of Super Missiles by mockballing instead of fighting Spawn like you're supposed to.
• Point of No Return: Entering Sector X locks you into the endgame.
• Red Herring: There's a segment that recreates Mother Brain's chamber from the original game, suggesting a X version of her will be a boss. Nothing comes of this.
• Rewatch Bonus: Once you've played the various difficulties a few times you'll notice that Samus starts in front of a different storage tank between Normal, Hard & Omega Modes, which pairs up with the Sample ID statuses from the intro sequence to tip you off that you're playing 3 different individuals. Each even has its own unique pathing out of the starting area.
• Sequential Boss: Crocomire X, shortly after being defeated once, is reduced to a skull and mutates into Phantomire once Samus obtains the Level 2 Missiles.
• Shout-Out: Dying in Omega Mode shows a Game Over screen that says Game Over, Return of Kraid.
• Serial Escalation: Thought battling only one SA-X was child's play in Metroid Fusion? This time, there's more than one SA-X in a few of the encounters◊, to add credence to what ADAM said in Metroid Fusion about them reproducing asexually. Have fun tangling with multiple SA-X's whilst attempting to escape from them once they spot you.
• Spared by the Adaptation: The BSL station doesn't collide with SR388 to destroy it.
• Take That!: In an unsubtle jab towards Metroid: Other M, after she obtains the Power Bombs, Adam condescendingly tries to explain how they work and how dangerous they are, and gets told off by an annoyed Samus.
• Taking You with Me: In a game over sequence, the Adam A.I. tries to trigger the self-destruct mechanism in order to kill the SA-X so it will not take him alive. Sadly access gets denied.
• Tomato in the Mirror: The Hard Mode ending reveals that Samus died at the start of the game and you've been playing as a clone.
  • Implied to be averted in the Normal Mode intro, where the surviving subject and player character is identified as SA1-75622/SR-388
  • Implied without confirmation in Omega Mode's intro.
• Token Heroic Orc: The Samus you play as in Hard Mode is an X-clone of the original, but unlike her "sisters", she remains as heroic as the original Samus.
• Trial-and-Error Gameplay: The game has a lot of sections that are incredibly difficult or even outright impossible to clear on the first try. The SA-X segments can be outright cruel to the players.
• The Very Definitely Final Dungeon: Sector X, where the darkest secrets of the station are, including clones of the Space Pirate leaders, Metroids and the final encounter with the SA-X that hounded Samus awaits. Adam even warns you that there is no turning back once you set foot in it.
• Video Game Cruelty Punishment: Clearly a "Save The Animals" guy when it comes to the end of Super Metroid, if you don't bother to save the Etecoons, you're on a one way trip to a Non-Standard Game Over.
• Wham Shot: As Samus explores Sector X, she encounters a horrific sight: an X Parasite infecting a Metroid egg, creating the unstoppable Xeno Metroid.
• What Happened to the Mouse?: An Omega Metroid serves as the opening boss. After the location you fight it in is locked down, it runs off and isn't seen again, though it's likely it was trapped and destroyed in the sealed area.
• Your Head A-Splode:
  • After being decapitated, the head of the small Kraid X blows apart.
  • As soon as the huge Kraid X appears, Samus wastes no time blowing apart its head with the most powerful beam in the game without a fight.
• Your Days Are Numbered: Adam says that Samus' infection is still ongoing and while her unique physiology affords her some resiliency, it will still kill her in time. Absorbing the Xeno Metroid seems to cure her of the infection.