SMZ3 Low%
Notes on the concept of somewhat low% runs of Super Metroid and A Link to the Past Combo Randomizer (SMZ3).
Contents
General considerations
Every randomizer seed requires a unique set of tasks to complete; some of them more, some of them less. The first task for a low% run of any shape will be therefore to roll a seed with a good placement of items.
Much depends on if one seeks to minimize the number of collected progression items, or the in-game collection counter. The former depends above all on their placement: firstly, on if any are placed behind fetchquests that provide no other progression than access to a specific location. Secondly, progression items and dungeons should be available in an order that does not require extra items for access (e.g. we would prefer access to Misery Mire, if needed, to be through Lower Norfair and not by the Flute). Thirdly, the set of required dungeons / bosses also affects which, and how many, progression items are required. See closer notes in the section on 7/7/4 seeds, specifically.
The four typical fetchquests in Z3 are the Bottle (unlocking a check on Sick Kid), Shovel (u.a.c. at Flute Spot), Mushroom (u.a.c. at Magic Shop or, with Somaria, at Magic Bat) and Magic Powder (u.a.c. at Magic Bat). SM has no strict fetchquests, but Grapple (u.a.c. at Spring Ball) and Space Jump (u.a.c. at GTz Missiles) can be replaced in all other common uses, and thus come the closest. Speed Booster can also act as a fetchquest, uniquely unlocking checks at Crateria Supers, Waterway, Wrecked Ship Reserve and Main Street; but this will be innocuous if it is also needed for other uses.
The in-game counter is also affected by three extra variables:
- Keys collected in dungeons from chests or as a bonk item. Those that require no such keys (SW, IP, possibly ToH) are thus preferrable to complete to those that require one (EP, SP, TT, MM) or more (2–3 in PoD, 4 in TR, possibly 2 in DP).
- Note that keys found in pots, under rocks or from enemies do not contribute to the check counter. This is already taken advantage by the standard routes thru SW, IP, MM and TR and comes relevant for the finer-grained routing of GT.
- Several keys (small keys of DP, ToH, PoD, TT; big keys of ToH, SP, SW, IP) can effectively act as fetchquests.
- Crystals / pendants / boss tokens collected. All collected in SM add a constant +1 to the collection rate. Crystals and pendants collected in Z3 are, however, not counted (as they are also not in the plain Z3 randomizer), only SM boss tokens are. Thus, it is preferrable for a seed to have its crystals (and, if required, pendants) in Z3, boss tokens in SM.
- Bossdrops: items dropped by Z3 bosses upon defeat (Heart Containers in vanilla but, of course, randomized to be something else), which must be collected regardless of their usability.
- Dungeon items (maps, compasses, keys) are common and completely useless. Rupees and Pieces of Heart are also numerous and nearly useless. Several other items provide at least some immediate convenience despite not being progression.
- The most likely progression found here are ammo and energy for Super Metroid, though it may not be possible to reach all Z3 bosses without having already collected ammo for movement around SM. This is particularly likely for Power Bombs, as optimally only one pack is collected.
General difficulty
SMZ3 may require relatively high ability in both games, and to compensate for this, maintains a lower peak difficulty ceiling than the bare Super Metroid and bare A Link to the Past randomizers call for at their highest level settings. It may be reasonable to not demand extreme difficulty or esoteric techniques of a typical "low%" run of the combo randomizer either.
Verticality
Bombs are not guaranteed to be found anytime soon in a randomizer run, especially in SMZ3, where Power Bombs are always available somewhere in the earlygame. This means that Infinite Bomb Jump is usually not an option for accessing high up areas.
However, only three rooms that are commonly required to visit pose more trouble than can be easily circumvented with walljumps, and only the latter can hard-require extra progression:
- Pre-Cathedral can be climbed by a damage boost. More reasonable options are Ice Beam, Speed Booster, Hi-Jump, Space Jump and Spring Ball.
- WRITG can be climbed by a very tight walljump. More reasonable options are Ice Beam (+Charge Beam), Hi-Jump, Space Jump and Spring Ball.
- Moat may hold an unwanted item that must be skipped; if so, one of Gravity Suit, Space Jump or Grapple Beam is required (or, theoretically, a multiple Horizontal Bomb Jump).
(Even none of these rooms are themselves hard-required, since Ridley or Phantoon might not be required bosses.)
Note that the cross-game portal at Business Center means that ascending Red Tower is basically never required in SMZ3 (the only corner case is when Morph or progression towards it is at Alpha PBs).
Red Kihunter Shaft does not strictly speaking require Bombs, but making one's way back up without them and on a maximum of 5 PBs requires somewhat tedious prior farming of Dessgeegas in Wasteland for a PB drop. Out of the various verticality items, Speed Booster and Spring Ball also work for this task, as do Screw Attack and X-Ray Scope. Sadly the otherwise versatile Ice Beam does not.
Bombs, Space Jump or Speed Booster are also required to access Crateria Power Bombs, Crocomire Exit and the missiles in Pantry (the latter two also accessible by Grapple), but these are almost always not required and they can be broadly treated as a multi-option fetchquest locations. If the proper verticality is not otherwise available, consider these locations a point in favor of rerolling.
Metroids
While one pack of Power Bombs, and resetting until excellent drop luck has provided 7 more, is theoretically sufficient for making it through the Metroid rooms of upper Tourian (done in 14% xGrapple), this is extremely tedious and one other item should probably be allowed for this task.
- Gravity Suit allows backtracking to refill. Usually a required item anyway for Maridia.
- Ice Beam is the intended item for defeating Metroids and also a verticality item.
- A 2nd pack of Power Bombs cuts drop luck requirements down massively, and may be required for accessing progression items in the back of Gauntlet (in the absense of any of Bombs, Speed Booster or Screw Attack).
- Hi-Jump also allows backtracking from Tourian by underwater walljumping (cf. 14% xBoots), which may be however too challenging for the ethos of this challenge; in combination with Spring Ball it allows however relatively easy escape. Both are sufficient verticality by themself. Their combination however also allows other checks, such as substantial item collection from Maridia without Gravity Suit.
Mother Brain
Charge Beam and 10/10 ammo suffice to defeat Mother Brain. Getting thru her room on this equipment requires however the 10 Missile Zebetite Kill, or one other item: either an ammo pack, Ice Beam, or Speed Booster. The latter two have several other applications (as noted above) and should probably be preferred.
Ganon
The absolute minimal Ganon fight equipment is nothing but Master Sword + Fire Rod, but this is an abstrusely hard fight in its last section (requiring one-shot Torch Glitch and basically perfect timing of silverless hits). Probably at least one item of lenience should be granted here. Any one of the following items works, ranging from the greatest aid to the least:
- Silver Arrows trivializes the last leg of the Ganon fight and also a number of bosses.
- Lamp adds 4× leniency to the fight. Aids also greatly in making it thru the dark rooms of PoD and MM on low hearts, helpful also in EP and TR. May be required in a seed, e.g. if DP must be debeated
- Tempered Sword adds about 2× leniency to the fight and speeds up the early parts. Aids also greatly on almost all boss fights and enemy gauntlets.
- Bottle adds 2× leniency to the fight and also allows healing one firebat hit. May be required in a seed as a fetchquest. Generally helpful thruout the game.
- Half Magic adds 2× leniency to the fight. Helpful also on harder bosses vulnerable to magic.
7/7/4
The standard SMZ3 mode requires collecting 7 crystals and 4 boss tokens, but not necessarily the 3 pendants, and ascending Ganon's Tower.
The following 18 items must be always collected:
- Fighter's Sword, Master Sword, Power Glove, Titan's Mitt, Moon Pearl.
- One of {Mirror, Hookshot}.
- One of {Fire Rod, Lamp}. The latter is an option only if SW and TR are pendants, and either IP also is, or Bombos is required.
- Morph, Varia Suit, Charge Beam; 3 energy+reserve tanks, 10/10/5 ammo.
- This is the basic 11-item core of all human-completed SM low% categories.
The Ganon's Tower climb soft-requires also the Bow and Hookshot, but these can be in principle circumvented by mimic clip and Moldorm Bounce (of which the latter is much harder).
Six dungeons / bosses can be defeated by some form of this kit alone (ToH, SW, TT; Kraid, Phantoon, Ridley). Others require further items, sorted here by increasing requirements, separated into progression items and keys:
- (+1) Draygon: Gravity Suit. (Other low% SM options will not be considered here for the time being.)
- (+1) IP: Hammer, (Fire Rod).
- (+1 + 1) EP: Bow; Big Key
- (+0-2 + 1-2) DP: Mirror or Book of Mudora; Big Key. Possibly Boots and/or small key
- (+2 + 1) SP: Flippers, Mirror and Hookshot; small key
- (+2 + 2–4) PoD: Hammer, Bow; ≥1 small key, Big Key
- (+2–3 + 1) MM: Medallion, Somaria, Hookshot or Boots; Big Key
- (+4 + 4) TR: Hammer, Medallion, Somaria, Ice Rod, (Fire Rod); 3 small keys, Big Key
Since the Bow and Hammer will be used in multiple dungeons, the optimal pendant layout by progression item count is {SP MM TR}, calling for perhaps as few as 18+3 progression items. By collection rate the layout {PoD MM TR} is almost as good (18+5 in progression items); however almost any layout with pendant TR and at least one pendant among the seven others listed here could have chances at a good collection rate if other variables align.
All Dungeons
The following 26 items must be always collected:
- Fighter's Sword, Master Sword, Power Glove, Titan's Mitt, Zora's Flippers, Moon Pearl.
- Bow, Hookshot, Fire Rod, Ice Rod, Magic Hammer, Cane of Somaria, Magic Mirror.
- At least one of the medallions.
- Morph, Varia Suit, Gravity Suit, Charge Beam; 3 energy+reserve tanks, 10/10/5 ammo.
For a low progression item count, the only real considerations are thus the random medallion requirements for MM and TR (i.e. preferrably the same one), and the accessibility of progression items. Book of Mudora is demoted to strictly a fetchquest item; though such a fetchquest could include, besides the tablets, now also Mirror or Varia in or locked by DP.
Abbreviations
Given my choice of wiki to write this on, for the benefit of the Super Metroid players less familiar with A Link to the Past.
Light World
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Dark World – before Mitts
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Dark World – after Mitts
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Bolded are the crystal / pendant dungeons most affected in discussion above.
Note that "GT" does not refer to Golden Torizo, an initialism collision known to cause minor confusion in the SMZ3 player community. I prefer amending the abbreviation for the latter to "GTz". (Other options have been suggested, e.g. "BB", short for "Big Bird".)
