Metronari

Metronari
メトロナリ​

An old mod made for the 2016 modding competion featuring a black and white labyrinth build with metroidvanias in mind, with a couple secrets strewn around.
Now 9 years later, to also celebrate my 10 years on this forum (as well as aligning with the CSMC 2025 ModGala), it is to my joy that a long-promised update to the mod has finally arrived.
Most of the labyrinth is still the same, but now with a couple new (or restored) extras, music and even a new bonus area.

The mod can be found on Doukutsu Club.

Here is a more comprehensive list of changes;

Spoiler: Changes

• A boss has finally been added at the end, nothing special but gives the mod a proper ending.
• Various areas have been slightly revised.
• The lower floor has been given a new look.
• A new secret room has been added, offering a new reward.
• New music has been added to add some variation to the labyrinth.
• A Warp Medal can now be found partially into the mod, allowing for fast travel between the labyrinth's 3 floors.
• The weird cat has been restored in their original glory after being absent from the 2.0 release.
• The Angry Man Protesting Against Anger, the inspiration for the ANGRY ROOM and part of the original concept, has been restored as well.
• The 290 timer can now be activated at the start. This will disable saving as well as certain secrets, not recommended for first playthroughs.
• Buffed the secret weapon a little.
• Moving between the labyrinth's floors has been made even smoother, gone is 1.0's slow transition and 2.0's janky camera.
• An attempt has been made to make the mod just a little bit less blinding by toning down the brightness in some places.
• Couple improvements to visibility in the inverse bonus areas. The player character's sprites will now also be inverted.
• Switch Remote targets have been given a new look. It still doesn't do damage, sorry.
• Maybe some other changes and bugfixes and such that I may have missed.

• A NEW bonus area has been added that will be accessible upon finding the Supershot and Warp Medal, what could possibly be found here?

----- At the edge of imagination, where reality may get twisted, the future journey will be found -----

For anyone who wants a time to beat it took me around 14:30 to beat during a quick test run.

I'd like to thank everyone that has put up with me for the past 10 years of modding hell, joining this forum that fateful day to upload a lazy 'i put sprites through a filter' mod was the best mistake of my life.
Inside this mod now is a little surprise to see what lays in the future.

 

Here's to 10 years, can't wait for the next 10 year update to a couple certain of your mods

 

Here's to 10 years, can't wait for the next 10 year update to a couple certain of your mods

Honestly if I was gonna do more 10 year updates then I would've done Color Story instead.
It's also probably worth noting that I had entirely different plans for this update where I would've made this more a parody towards the sins of modern rereleases/remasters but I decided that going with 'I want Metronari to be a great mod' was maybe a lot better.
Perhaps I'll talk about that more in the future.

 

So far on Metronari tho, I do like some of the adjustments on the graphics, even if they're subtle, and honestly, I'm so glad you brought back the cat from the modcon release. I'm even more surprised that I still remember all the secrets after the last time I played (which i think was recent, I think?).

Also, the irony in the new music making this mod feel even more like an NES game, even though you prefer SNES soundtracks. Just gotta wait until you fix the crash i brought up in our dm.

 

Also, the irony in the new music making this mod feel even more like an NES game, even though you prefer SNES soundtracks.

I wish I knew how to make 16-bit music but I genuinely wouldn't even begin to know where to begin.
Let alone make anything fancy with ORGs lol.

Just gotta wait until you fix the crash i brought up in our dm.

Fixed, was idiot.

 

It has been a long time since I've played Cave Story actually... So I felt pretty rusty playing through this xD
I vaguely recall playing through the original version during the modding competition. But don't recall how far it played... Maybe I should load it up just for kicks!

Spoiler

Had a good time with this version though. Missed the ranger somehow... but stumbled into other secret areas and found myself in a pretty difficult area... (I wonder if there's any difference if you get the better times? I forced myself to replay that part until I finally made it in 25 sec xD Ouch.

I enjoyed listening to the developer commentary too, how things worked out and about your other works and perhaps hopes for the future. There was a fair amount of content in this release...
I ended up recording the screen (even while I had to go afk), and uploaded the whole unedited 3 hour video to youtube... in case there are some parts you'd like to see how I approached things or handled a certain area. (Would be better if I edited it down, but alas )

Did hit a few potential bugs. Mostly in the inverted or color extra areas. For example upon exiting the second area to return back through the first area to reach the third area... it went from color to normal again. I was able to warp back to the ending and restart the color version, but in the third area most noticeably, I found many critters invisible, and some bats too. (I forget if the bats were already becoming somewhat invisible in the second area...) Oh! Also, I didn't confirm this issue exists if I remove the clowancy mod dll for 60fps and widescreen... So take it with a grain of salt.... (It worked well in widescreen though, or at least I didn't even think about it until I finished.)

Mmmm... other notes... I went cheap on the final boss xD Otherwise that would have been a fairly rough battle... Random projectiles everywhere!
Really pulled my hair out with the secret area... though the sense of accomplishment when I finally made it was well worth it. I just admired that peaceful area and all the thoughts you poured into it. (The extra color version with commentary was a nice touch!)

Kinda wish there were a few more tracks with the player... But yet another cool secret.

I need to sleep, hopefully I'm not too out of it with what I wrote, but thanks again for a great revisiting

 

Spoiler

(I wonder if there's any difference if you get the better times? I forced myself to replay that part until I finally made it in 25 sec xD Ouch.

I've been pondering setting the second timer to 30s because it's a bit on the difficult side yeah, rewarding a faster time could certainly be a fun idea though...

I ended up recording the screen (even while I had to go afk), and uploaded the whole unedited 3 hour video to youtube... in case there are some parts you'd like to see how I approached things or handled a certain area. (Would be better if I edited it down, but alas )

Always very fun to look through! I've been thinking of doing about the same for the Modgala mods I haven't played yet.

For example upon exiting the second area to return back through the first area to reach the third area... it went from color to normal again.

So initially I partially misread part of this problem and thought the ability to warp back to the normal version wasn't clear enough... but I fixed both anyhow, seems going from floor 3 to floor 2 also broke things! Oops.

I found many critters invisible, and some bats too. (I forget if the bats were already becoming somewhat invisible in the second area...)

Mistake on my part that I'm honestly not sure how it slipped through.

None of these issues were caused 60fps/widescreen mod though.
Haven't really thought about these mods myself because I've never done them, but for this I probably should've accounted for that!
Ah well, the worst it should cause is the rooms not quite filling the entire screen anymore and the world map being all borked up, but these are specific issues I can't really fix without making the mod itself widescreen.

Kinda wish there were a few more tracks with the player

I'll be honest the floor 3 track is practically the last thing I added to this update (as in: I think i finished it roughly an hour before I released this) and while I am a little tempted to try and extend it in the future I don't know if I'll be doing that now, hehe...
Happy to see updating the mod has made it worth the trip though.