Metroid Fusion/Unused Graphics
This is a sub-page of Metroid Fusion.
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There are a lot of unused graphics in this game.
Samus
Due to a glitch, Samus' left wall jump sprites in-game do not have her left arm. This is due to a rendering error, as internally the left arm graphic is loaded into memory, but it does not appear. This does not happen with her right wall jump sprites.
This error was likely missed because this specific frame of Samus is only used for two frames (in a 60 FPS game) when jumping off a wall, climbable, or ledge.
| In-Game | Fixed |
|---|---|
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SA-X
The SA-X had a different walking animation that went unused. The right-facing variant appears to be unfinished, as only three out of ten frames had its arm cannon drawn on the correct side.
| Left | Right |
|---|---|
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Blocks and Tiles
| Early Blocks |  |
|---|---|
| Final Blocks |  |
Some early block graphics. While largely identical to the final tileset, the pitfall block and the Speed Booster block have undergone a design change.
The tileset used by the debug rooms. The brightly-colored stone blocks are from Wario Land 4.
The tileset that is only loaded and partially used in the unused Hangar Room.
The background that is only used in the unused Hangar Room. However, the top half is repeated vertically as a background in the vertical docking bay hallway.
The tileset that is only used in the alternate Neo-Ridley boss room. Many of them seem to be test tiles for various slopes, walls, platforms and what seems to be climbing tiles, but the most interesting tiles are the stone tiles which could have been planned for this room and the strange tiles with numbers.
| Tileset Placeholder | Used |
|---|---|
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Placeholder graphics in the tileset. These get replaced with animated tiles by the game engine.
Enemies
Geega, an enemy from Metroid, Super Metroid, and Zero Mission, was apparently going to appear with the other infected enemies in the game...but didn't.
The infected scientist in Sector 3 (PYR) has an unused "having a hole blown through chest" animation.
The Chozo statue "boss" in Sector 1 (SRX) has some unused art with it. Maybe the beam upgrades were going to be obtained normally instead of fighting a Beam Core-X?
Skree, an enemy from Metroid, Metroid Prime, Super Metroid, and Zero Mission, was also set to appear in the game, but didn't. Odd.
There is a video of an earlier version showcasing these.
Kago, a small insectoid enemy from Super Metroid, is also unused. However, its hive is used.
A nest. It is with the Ki Hunter graphics, but there are no Ki Hunter nests.
An unused palette for the Hornoad which is loaded during the opening cutscene, when Samus gets infected with the X parasite while on SR388.
| To do: Rumor has it that Serris has unused graphics; add these or check if they are really unused. |
Objects
Some unused platform object? It appears multiple times in the object list.
Recharge station graphics. Notice that there are graphics for stations that only refill energy or missiles, whereas in-game all recharge stations recharge both.
Crystals from Wario Land 4, present due to Metroid Fusion using the Wario Land 4 engine.
An unused turning animation for the B.S.L field researcher in the opening cutscene.
Four numbered asteroids present in the sprite graphics during the game's intro cutscene. They have borders around them in the VRAM.
A larger asteroid, which has some difficult-to-make-out Japanese writing on it, is also present with them. 「サムスにぶつかるん～」, meaning "Will collide with Samus".
| Unused Tileset Version | Used |
|---|---|
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An early version of Samus' ship is stored in the unused hanger tileset, featuring far less detail.
Miscellaneous
Present in both Metroid Fusion and Metroid Zero Mission, there exist in the font graphics unused L and R button icons, and several different versions of the capital X character.
Also present in both games is this placeholder graphic, with Japanese 「マップ」, meaning "Map", on it.
This placeholder is also stored in the same area as the Map placeholder, but is not present in Zero Mission. It reads 「カウンター」 and 「ショット」, meaning "Counter" and "Shot" or possibly in conjunction either "Shot counter" or "Counter [for] shot". It gets loaded into memory when the player starts up a save file. This graphic is overwritten with graphics of a charge beam shot being released, specifically the flare around Samus' arm cannon when fired. In other words, when Samus charges her beam and fires, this graphic no longer exists in memory.
The text from the intro. Apparently, the opening was going to say "Nintendo Presents METROID FUSION" before they took the same route as Super Metroid. A period being with the graphics also suggests that that an ellipsis would be used, likely after presents.
Numbers that get loaded into VRAM during the scene where the Metroid Vaccine kills off the X inside Samus' head. That scene does not use numbers at all.
Unused mugshots. They are much smaller than the ones used in the cutscenes, and do not have palette data available. They are only loaded into memory during the end of the opening cutscene, when Samus is notified by her ship's AI about docking on the station.
This, however, does have a matching palette. It is loaded with the rest of the pause screen graphics in VRAM. It's Toro Inoue from the PlayStation, considered the mascot of Sony over in Japan, along with some sushi and a bird.
Also loaded with the pause screen are these graphics intended for the status section. The first graphic is of the text NORMAL, which was likely intended to be displayed under Beam and/or Missile. Interestingly, the maxed-out status screen with Ice Beam has enough room for one more Beam and Missile upgrade to be listed, which was probably for the Normal versions of these abilities.
The second graphic is of text that says M-TANK. It is unclear what this was for. The palette intended for the M-TANK graphic is unknown.
The graphics for Samus' basic, default beam weapon has charged versions present in the graphics. These are never used, as Charge Beam upgrades uncharged shots too, giving it different graphics and properties.
Found underneath the menu graphics in the ROM. The Japanese text 「メッセージ転送28x2文字 / サムス 連邦」 (Message transfer 28x2 characters / Federation Samus), 「メッセージ転送28x2文字 / アダム用」 (Message transfer 28x2 characters / used by Adam) and 「使用しないエリア」 (Unused area) indicate that this was most probably a placeholder for the contents of two text boxes.
This is the full art used for part of the intro to the game, when Samus is receiving surgery to try to stop her X infection. The camera never pans to the bottom of the image, leaving the bottom quarter unseen and unused. This unseen section does have a surprising amount of detail though:
- The full arm cannon is drawn and has part of it missing from damage.
- The right leg of Samus' Power Suit is severely damaged.
- Samus' left hand is fully drawn.
