[Open Assets] = Metroid Vanguard = Samus Aran in SRB2 [v1.5d] v1.5d

i really really want to type out a huge, overdetailed review as to why this mod is as good as it is...but i can't do it justice like that, so i'll keep it brief. this mod completely reinvents the way you play sonic robo blast 2 and is, in my opinion, an immersive masterpiece of a mod.
if you enjoy metroid as a series, play it. if you enjoy first person shooters, play it. if you enjoy metroid prime, play it. actually, you know what, just play it, regardless of your interests. you'll immediately see how much time, effort, love and care for the metroid series was included in this mod.

Oh boy, where do I even begin with this mod? This is simply one of THE best SRB2 mods I've ever played, period.

I'm a sucker for anything Metroid, especially Metroid Prime, and this mod is a beautiful hybrid of both the 2D Metroid and Metroid Prime gameplay formulas.

The core gameplay is just as amazing as the 2.1 version, made even better by 2.2's better level design and new engine features, the revamped bosses are amazing, the new art is amazing, the new levels and bosses are amazing, simply put, everything about this mod is amazing.

I've played the campaign on both the normal and Hypermode difficulty's, Hypermode definitely spiced things up, though it shared the same flaw as hard mode in the Metroid Prime games, the bosses are bullet sponges, especially the final boss, it took me nearly 15 minutes to beat it.

I also experienced some performance issues with a few of the Beam Combo's, and the secret weapon, they would drop the game to single-digit framerates until the effects were off-screen.

But other than those two issues, you have exceeded my expectations with this update Shine.

Dude, I was trying to write this and didn't know how to even start.

This mod is just amazing, all the new mechanics and abilities, I'm impressed with all the new movement and fighting options that this mod gives, is like playing a totally diferent game.

I love how the different weapons work and all the stuff you can do with them, freezing enemies with the ice beam and then finishing them with another cool weapon, do some funny trick shots with the wave beam, beat easily (almost) every enemy with the charge shot or destroy absolutely everything with the suprise of the 7 Chaos Emeralds

(Spoiler Alert:)
Something funny that happened while I was playing is that I was expecting just another good mod character and then I got yeeted into Deep Sea Zone Act 4 and my mind explode when I saw the Metroid breakin' through the wall, same thing happened when I saw the Omega Metroid & Dark Samus (and I'm expecting something big for the last areas)

Also, the music selection 10/10

Last thing I wanna say is that I love this mod and I really wanna see what are you gonna do next

(PD: Please can some one tell me what are the map number for the extra acts? Thank you)

HOLY HELL MY SECOND FAVORITE ARM CANNON WIELDING CHARCTER IS HERE AND MY GOD IS IT GOOD IF MEGAMAN SOMEDAY GETS IN ILL GO NUTS

This is the best SRB2 mod out there

I've always been a fan of Metroid Dreadnought when it came out in the DOOM WAD section of the mods. Man, being able to shoot demons as Samus was truly something. Of course, like most metroid mods or fangames though, it was eventually abandon/little word was being heard on its development.
And then came along Metroid: Vanguard
And I gotta say, Metroid: Vanguard definitely carries the spirit of Dreadnought with it, despite the engine differences with SRB2.
For one, if you're like any metroid speedrunner, the mechanics to execute complex speedrunner techniques are built right into SRB2, but combined with the mechanics thrown into this mod - Ball boosting, Shinesparking, even ball-spiking off of enemies - adds to that experience a whole lot. Now unfortunately with SRB2 does come the caviate of semi-imprecise movement - IE, Samus kinda moves with a bit of a delay, as with any other character in SRB2, and when it comes down to strafing or shooting at a target, ESPECIALLY with the custom ones the mod adds, you're gonna find yourself at the edge of a game over quite a bit. If you can get over Vanguard's movement in comparison to Dreadnought's, however, it's still a very rewarding mod with a good depth on how metroid operates in something like SRB2. Pardon my french, but this fucking guy knows how to nail the feeling of a metroid game in the custom maps he made - the isolated, lonely, and downright haunting ambience combined with those tense build-ups before the custom bosses adds a whole ton to this mod than any other mod, and this is what sets it apart from its Dreadnought inspiration. If anything, I hope Golden Shine goes on to add onto Dreadnought even with the amount of detail he puts into his maps and the enemies as well, he's got talent, and it's very apparent he's a hard-core Metroid fan.
Beyond the movement criticsm, my only other critisms would be the lack of new, custom maps and other custom enemies. Don't get me wrong, what's in there is great, but otherwise it IS just a character mod throughout. Maybe in future versions we'll see more added to it, but otherwise it does leave one wishing for a little more.

Overall, great mod, dare I say it even goes above and beyond Metroid Dreadnought in both its presentation and amount of detail. As someone that's been playing metroid since Prime 1, hell, since even Super, Golden's definitely outdone himself here with everything thrown in, and I highly recommend keeping an eye out on the other stuff he makes with this amount of quality put into this one mod.

A banger as always, Shine -- the quality of your work here is absolutely aweing. Samus seems to perfectly blend her home game's mechanics with those of SRB2, and it's an added bonus that there's a mode for better compatibility with vanilla characters. Haven't gotten my hands on an official Metroid title yet (Metroid Prime 4 will happen eventually) but I'm convinced this is pretty darn close to what it feels like.

the scale of this mod, just, WOW
and it will be teh closest thing to metroid prime i'll ever get
10 outta 10

spoilers ahead for bosses, please experience this yourself before reading (seriously it's super good please play it)


Holy fucking shit. It might seem like I'm exaggerating or being ridiculous but this is literally the best game(?) I have played in years. I'm working my way through Metroid Prime 1 via dolphin at the moment, and I wish I had opted for the mouse and keyboard hack because, while still fun, tank controls make things way more cumbersome than they need to be (shocking opinion, I know). But this? Again, holy fucking shit. It's literally a crossover between Sonic, Doom, and Metroid, which are series that have had the most satisfying gameplay loops in my experience. And even that fact is a cherry on top in and of itself.

I would've given this 5 stars from the unique levels after Deep Sea and Arid Canyon alone, ESPECIALLY the bosses. Just wow. You're just stumbling through a dark cave, exploring around, and then you fall into some new area and OH MY GOD THE CAMERA'S ROLLING AROUND LIKE CRAZY AND SOMETHING IS SHOOTING AT YOU GET ON YOUR FEET AND SHOOT AT IT GO GO GO GO GO and then you get your bearings and its a GIANT FUCKING MUTATED METROID MONSTER THAT'S STARING AT YOU AND CHARGING TOWARDS YOU REALLY FUCKING FAST and if it's not that then it's LIKE 50 SHADOW CLONES OF DARK SAMUS OH FUCK

wrap it all up with satisfying gameplay, great music (I mean it's metroid music ofc its great), tons of stuff to collect, and an amazing coat of polish on the whole thing and you've got yourself a god damn masterpiece. Very well done.

it's an awesome mod, that's for sure, but there was one issue with the bat file. instead of showing the actual filename (SMCL_Samus-V1.1.pk3) it showed (SMCL_Samus-V1-1.pk3). so that took a little rearranging, not the biggest possible problem but i thought you should know

I couldn't even possibly explain why i love this mod so much

it's just so good (even if i hate the horror segments, but i just hate horror in general)

Fang didn't have to die for this but he did

Like seriously this mod is so good. I apologize for having somewhat negative opinions after SMS. Amazing work. nothing like it and nothing will be like it.

This is amazing. Although after downloading version 1.2 my 100% run has come to a dead stop by the hands of a horribly consistent crash that seems to occur since the mod's save well... saved after the metal sonic fight. Every single time it gives me a segment violation when I try to start up a run and my save appears present in slot 1.

In the very least, is there any way to delete the save without going into the campaign?

It's Great and A lot of fun, my only annoyance is that I'm playing on android with a gamepad and whenever i move the camera right it fires the gun, Which can become an annoyance. Besides that I don't really have any complaints

Just 100% completed this mod and honestly it's pretty good. Namely because unlike DoomGuy who can't even get past a castle bridge jump in Castle Eggman, Samus actually feels like she was designed for SRB2. But my god are the flaws numerous.
For starters the tutorials literally just clutter the screen and don't bugger off until you actually do what they tell you. Why couldn't they just leave if you did nothing after a set amount of time?!
For some reason at a certain point the game the lock-on feature disabled itself which meant I had to re-enable it which was really jarring.
The lock-on itself wasn't all that accurate anyway. During the fight against the omega metroid (Which BTW nagivating the pre-boss arenas are a pain in the butt) the charged shots kept missing the boss unless I jumped before shooting it which made 0 sense.
Suit colors for some reason don't save when you change them which means if you wanted to make the suits look like they were from Metroid Fusion? Too bad! You had to re-adjust them everytime you stopped playing! (Though if a later update added in the fusion suit which made it deal more damage and shoot ice missiles but you take more damage as a compromise it would make the fusion suit colorscheme pointless)
Item RNG doesn't sound like the worst idea on paper but the problem is that it's completley wack in some cases. Espicially since sometimes you can end up with upgrades like hyper bombs and super missiles BEFORE YOU EVEN LEFT GREENFLOWER ZONE!
And the 2 bonus upgrades you can get can be extremely annoying to get espicially when one requires bomb jumping at a level so absurd that it feels like it was made for the kaizo players while the other has the timing so strict it might as well be non-existent! The item radar while useful, it's given so late that it might as well not be there. The fact it carries through to other save files doesn't save it.
That one scene during Arid Canyon zone before the boss however... MY GOD what the hell was going through your mind when you made it?! Yes I'm aware there is something that lets you turn it off but once you played the zone once the disclaimer just doesn't pop up! Can you imagine someone who got to that zone and actually threw up from seeing Fang dead and bloody on the floor?!
By far the worst offender for me however was that shooting the blaster and missiles were binded to the opposite sides of the mouse. For whatever reason the blaser's controls were inverted from what I am used to when it comes to first person shooters since the missiles were on M1 and the blaster was on M2. Which meant I either had to swap my fingers on the mouse and risk getting carpel tunnel or re-bind the mouse keys so it makes sense and risk forgetting to re-set the mouse back to the original settings when I am done with the mod!

this mod is amazing, my only problem with it is the multiplayer stage revive system
if you die and have a stage revive and you accidentally press jump instead of custom 3, it won't use the stage revive and it'll force you to wait until the end of the level; i've done this by accident a lot
i also dislike the stage revive system in general, as being forced to wait for long periods of time (sometimes even 20 minutes!) can be pretty boring; at the very least there should be options to turn it off completely or to allow dead samus players to switch to non samus characters

Overall this mod is good but there is one problem there is no way to change your save file in multiplayer unless the game mode is changed (I think) so i was thinking to add a command that lets you select a save and if the server wants you to start fresh make the command not work.

nice mod. check it out if you like metroid prime i guess.

I lack the ability to comprehend Shine's work ethic. As a Metroid fan myself since childhood, to say that this mod is more than I could have hoped for, let alone dreamed of, is a vast understatement. I just finished it last night at 100%, and I still can't get over how many little things you put into this. Though, I suppose I shouldn't surprised when this is coming from the maker of SMS Reborn. It's not perfect obviously, as nothing in life is, but it sure is close.

My two biggest critiques are:

1) The arm cannon fires lower than the cross-hair in 1stP mode. This is probably the most egregious issue, and one that I would STRONGLY urge you to fix whenever you can.

At first I wasn't sure if this was just a hold-over from Ringslinger modes and I just wasn't used to it, but as I watched some other people play, they too also commented on the targeting discrepancy, so I know i'm not the only one who finds this annoying. It also often makes it finnicky to fire at targets on the ground in front of you, as you shots will often just hit right into the ground. Obviously you can just say "lol just remember to aim above them its ez", but it'd be nice to not have to remember to do that all the time.

^^^ Fix this at your earliest convenience, cuz I have a feeling that doing so will greatly boost the QoL of this mod.

2) Egg Guard's hyper mode ability sometimes makes traversing CEZ 2 a literal kaizo-esque NIGHTMARE.

And I know why this is happening, too: It's a combination of A) the unique level design of CEZ 2, and B) the fact that enemy LoS calculations don't take the Z axis into account. What this all MEANS (as i'm sure you recognize, since I imagine you must have play tested all levels extensively during development) is that: If you hit a spring while high above in a certain room, and there are Egg Guards on the floor of that room, they will teleport to you, and due to your momentum, you more than likely wont have a chance to kill them before they kill all of your aerial momentum, condemning you to plummet back down to the bottom of the room.

As far as how to fix this WITHOUT nerfing the Egg Guard? Honestly, all I can think of is to literally just move Egg Guards away from rooms that have vertical or diagonal springs. Cuz the problem isn't necessarily the ability itself: It's the level design of CEZ 2 that causes this phenemona to happen, along with the lack of Z-axis checking in LoS calcs.

I find the dark Samus fight to be tedious and not really fun, with the only time I beat it is when I accidentally somehow activated some sort of super Samus form, also brak Eggman is bad but the fact that he gets as fast as the player before he's on his last legs. The addon reminds me of EMW5 (an ancient srb2 addon that gets disturbing) but more competent, but maybe nerf the custom and last bosses, idk. I still found this mod to be great despite dark Samus and brak Eggman, 4.5 stars. (But decimals don't exists so 4 stars instead)

Two things before we start: I have no prior experience to metroid besides refrences and i completed this game twice once on zero mission and a second time on the second difficulty with 100% armor.

Overall this mod was Incredibly fun and well made. It fully utilizes the open Map design of the levels making exploration very fun (only thing that was a little annoying was getting health batteries). combat felt satisfying and platforming was decent. extra credit to the overall tone of the game with it always having an ``abandoned´´ fell to it thx to the soundtrack and slight weather and time changes. but here are some minor complaints that would make the game perfect in my eyes.

1. Some bosses are WAY too easy same can be said about the regular enemies even on harder difficultys

2. The hyper beam is way too overpowered for how easy it is to get all emeralds. i would recommend either nerfing (boring route) or making the emeralds harder to get by bringing special stages back (epic route).
I would recomend making em small arenas where you fight a horde of regular enemies within a time limit (seriously i loved fighting those small metroids would be a shame to only fight em once)

3. i feel like theres a gap between egg rock act 2 and the level after that because it all happens so sudden, another level inbetween wouldnt hurt.
also the last two bosses feel very anticlimactic in the first playthrough (although the 100% bonus makes up for it)

4. (Huge spoiler warning) The story feels like its taking place shortly after the bad ending (implied trough time differences and someones body still twitching and being down there in the first place) which brings me too two issues.

The story has build up from showing the danger of metroids too actually killing a main game character, giving (me at least) expectations on how it will end. But after the boss fight with my faker the story just stops developing anymore and goes straight to destroying eggmans base.
What about the other characters? what was the point of killing someone if your not gonna expand on that. just either dont kill someone or atleast mention what happend too the rest (like for example you could make the escape pod crashland when you get outside after beating the faker).

In short i dont think you are confident in your story to be able to kill of characters (no offense to you, your mod is still amazing and i know it took you alot of effort)

Second issue is samus questioning how someones transporting metroids so fast followed up with two levels later with the blood writing ``beware of the blue´´ this made me assume sonic is involved in those two things which wasnt the case.
Here you just need to phrase the blood writing differently.

5. Egg rock act 2s music isnt fitting with the tone of all the other levels.(this is very minor)

and that sums it up. theres no need for my complaints to be coverted into an update since my oppinion may not line up with others or yours even and i know you also have your own life (i wasted an hour of mine writing this) and you probably want to work on other projects.
i would gladly like to hear your thoughts and wish you good luck on your future work.