While many Metroid fans have called Metroid Fusion on the Game Boy Advance a weak entry due to it being one of the most linear games in the series, there is a sort of magic to it. Back in the day it was a game that actually introduced me to Metroid in a proper way, something that was seldom confusing and had fast and snappy movement. I had played Super Metroid briefly as a kid and I always like Samus as a character, but Fusion is what really got me invested. That said, Metroid Fusion has always been a fun romp, but it never really took hold as a speedrun quite like the other games did. However, recently the first sequence break was discovered, which could rekindle the energy for this game.

To find out more about the evolving speedrun scene, we talked to speedrunner JRP2234 over Twitter. JRP has been slamming out multiple categories on Fusion over the past year or so.

Oddly enough, it seems like a lot of speedrunners get the taste for it in Mario Kart, as JRP cited the series as well when asked about his speedrunning beginnings. "I always had a interest for speedrunning even way back in 2005 when I was 10 doing IL's (individual levels) for Mario Kart DS and segmented runs of Metroid Prime Hunters. It died down until 2013 when I learned about Games Done Quick and watched Kirbymastah's 100% run of Metroid Fusion and that wanted to make me learn Metroid Fusion. Metroid Fusion was a I game I was fond of in my younger years as I played it when it came out in 2002 when I was 6 years old." "At first it was for fun and we did races and stuff, but over the next 4 months of on and off playing I already had a 49 minutes in-game-time, which was 3 minutes off the world record. I realized that I had the potential to bring my time down really low and through 2015 I took the game more seriously." "By January of 2015 I finally had a tied world record of 46 minutes IGT and that prompted me to try new categories so I chose 100% and that was when I started to get really good at the game, I got the 100% tied world record after a few months and after that I decided to just get a untied world record with Any% which I did fairly quickly due to all the 100% I did. A lot later at 2017 a new exploit was found to allow you to do the category 0% reliably and I spent some time in that category trying to push it as low as I could and that was fun and painful, but I pulled through and got a 48 minutes IGT." We then asked JRP on what drove him to reach the top of all these various categories. "I just enjoying speedrunning and the thrill of seeing improvement; I always try to better myself and see how hard I can push myself. The other thing is competition, I love it, it's a good drive to make me play the game and try to push myself further." Breaking certain blocks in this area will set the player up for a skip later on. JRP recently implemented a new trick that allows the skipping of a section in the game. This is huge for the speedrun, as it is the first time that any sort of sequence break had been found in Metroid Fusion. Of course, doing things out of a preferred order is often a feature in Metroid, so it is a significant discovery here in Fusion. "Biospark who is known for his work in Metroid Fusion speedruns, TASs (tool assisted speedruns), and hacking discovered that if you break certain blocks in Sector 4 it sets the ram in a way that if you lay a power bomb out of bounds at certain positions it will overwrite File C's ram with the data of the blocks broken in Sector 4. This sets the spawn point of File C to the 2nd room in the game and the event flag to max which tells the game that the Omega Metroid is dead." For those looking to understand these skips, JRP shared with us a video to study where Biospark shows the rom data and explains why things work.

JRP couldn’t stress enough how large of a timesave this new exploit creates. “It is the first time Metroid Fusion has ever had a sequence break and for the first one it really breaks the game; you skip about 25 minutes.”

As with many runners, we like to ask if speedrunning affects other aspects of their lives. For JRP, most of the advantages was the opportunity to travel.

“Speedrunning does not really impact my personal life, but it has given me opportunities to go to America to attend Games Done Quick a few times with the help of donations from my viewers and that I really do appreciate. I have gone places that I would have never thought I would go to like traveling around Australia for speedrun events and meeting people who otherwise I would have never known and I am grateful for that.”

For those looking to learn the Metroid Fusion run, we asked JRP to impart some tips.

“I would say start with Any% and not 100%. You would think 100% would be easier because of having more items, but it does not teach good health and ammo management and clean up is pretty hard to do fast. Any% has some good tutorials and resources. Also join the Fusion Discord, where all the questions can be asked and answered. I would also recommend doing a lot of practice, especially mid to late game and heaps of boss practice, because boss fights are key to good times.”

While Metroid Fusion wasn’t ported to other consoles, there are still lots of ways to play it with things like the Game Boy Player on the Gamecube or through a DS Lite or a 3rd Party system like the Retron 5. We asked JRP how he plays.

“I run this game with a Gamecube Gameboy Player on a Sony PVM television. On the GameCube I run a software called GameBoy Interface, which is a alternative to the official software. It has less input lag, making it easier to play. Some of the other runners mainly play on emulator just because it's too hard to obtain equipment for console streaming. For me I can't play on emulator because of input lag and I generally prefer to play everything I stream on real hardware.”

We then asked him if he had any favorite speedrun memories over the years.

“I don't have a favourite moment in particular, but there a few that come to mind."

"This one is great. If you shinepark at Draygon for 1 frame on the ground you get stuck."

"My tv was picking up a radio station with the static."

“This one is probably my all time favorite. It's a puzzle hack made by Lioran that involves abusing the game engine mechanics to solve puzzles and I had a good death.”

Because the Metroid community have created some amazing fan levels and rom hacks, we asked if JRP had any favorites.

“There is one called Metroid: Spooky Mission that I quite enjoyed; it had custom music and graphics. There were a few others like Metroid Fusion 2000, which was a nice hack with good map design and dialog. The other Fusion hacks were challenge hacks.”

JRP stands out as a phenomenal Metroid Fusion player who will also be showcasing his run during the Australian Speedrun Marathon that is happening in July. Of course there will be many more runners there, all showing their skills at various games. Those that cannot get enough speedrunning action should check out the event. JRP will be showing off his Fusion skills at the event.

Find JRP2234 streaming on Twitch.