Justin Bailey

[StanJr]

Not that I love cheating, but I remember using this code for Metroid as a kid. However, time has cause me to forget exactly how to enter the code. Could someone post it as it is to appear on the code screen?

 

Also, does that code get you the swimsuit ending or the bikini ending?

[JB]

All caps, with hyphens underneath it.

JUSTIN BAILEY

------ ------

 

Dun recall which ending it gets you. Suppose I could find the password editor again and check, but...

[figgler]

Yup that's the code.

It starts you sans suit and gets you everything you need to trek to Taurian and kill the Mother Brain minus one energy tank as I recall. I seem to remember it gives you the bikini ending when you finish

[StanJr]

thanks, guys, I'll give it a whirl tomorrow!

 

Stan

[NightSprinter]

Yup that's the code.

It starts you sans suit and gets you everything you need to trek to Taurian and kill the Mother Brain minus one energy tank as I recall. I seem to remember it gives you the bikini ending when you finish

 

Not to sound like a jerk, but you are dead wrong about the ending. When you beat the game using that password you see her turn around and start crying in her powersuit because the game registered FAR over three hours. You actually start out in Norfair with a superficial "255" missles (grab a missle from an enemy and it goes down to 205), and you have the wave beam. You're still sans PowerSuit and have everything else.

 

Now there's another one that starts you off halfway in MiniBoss Hideout I with ony about 115 Missiles in reality and an Ice Beam shaped like the Wave Beam shots. Leave the second half of with only one row of dashes. The password looks like this:

 

JUSTIN BAILEY

------

 

I'm also sure that password puts you over 3 hours of gametime, but I haven't played it in a while so I can't confirm that part.

[Vic George 2K3]

There's also entering JUSTIN BAILEY, followed by 12 blank spaces.

[NightSprinter]

Ah, forgot about that one George.

[JB]

It's worth pointing out that JUSTIN BAILEY ------ ------ is not only suitless, but with Varia powerup.

This isn't true of all JUSTIN BAILEYs, though. All permutations seem to have the game timer maxed(all 3 bytes are 11111111 in the passwords I tested).

 

 

There's also an embedded debug password. NARPAS SWORD0 000000 000000.

It does strange things. Like wave beam+ice beam, invincibility, and infinite missiles.

 

Attached file's a Metroid password editor. So you can knock yourself out seeing what does what.

 

 

The password system is embarassingly messy, for the record.

 

It tracks items you've picked up seperately from powers you've obtained, so it's possible to generate a password where you can't GET major power ups because the item is gone but Samus doesn't have it, or one where you have items that you've already "collected" lying around.

 

It tracks max missile count as a seperate 1-byte value instead of generating it at load by multiplying the number of collected missile tanks by 5. This also lets you have "impossible" missile counts, like 137.

 

There's a bit to store the Mother Brain's death. Admittedly, it's possible to get this in a legitimate game-generated password, but it glitches the escape sequence(since you can't kill Ma Brain, the timer is never set). There's also a "ghost brain" sitting where Mother Brain SHOULD be that you can walk right through.

 

There's a RESET BIT for pete's sake. If you want a password that locks the system up, that's great. If you want a genuinely usable password...

mpg_0.94_win32.zip

Edited March 21, 2006 by JB

[JB]

Ooops. Just noticed MPG doesn't allow spaces in the password.

 

MetEdit allows passwords with spaces. But as it's a map editor primarily, it requires a Metroid ROM image be loaded when you start it, and i has a less friendly interface on the password editor segment than MPG.

 

 

 

And as a special bonus...

The Super Justin Bailey patch, which lets you run around armorless in Super Metroid, if you emulate or have a SNES copier.

metedit.zip

justinbailey2.zip

[StanJr]

So how many Justin Bailey codes are there? And are they case sensitive? And which ones lead to which endings?

 

oy!

[JB]

So how many Justin Bailey codes are there? And are they case sensitive? And which ones lead to which endings?

 

oy!

You'd have to have a list of all possible passwords to answer that.

JUSTIN BAILEY isn't a preprogrammed code, it's just an odd coincidence.

This DOES guarantee case-sensitivity, as all Metroid passwords are case-sensitive.

 

Given that I've seen 3 now that all have a maxed game age, I suspect all JUSTIN BAILEYs have a maxed timer, and thus the worst ending. Assuming there's more than 3 possible permutations.

[Inky]

 

JUSTIN BAILEY isn't a preprogrammed code, it's just an odd coincidence.

 

What are the odds of that?

[vdub_bobby]

 

JUSTIN BAILEY isn't a preprogrammed code, it's just an odd coincidence.

 

What are the odds of that?

Read more here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroid and http://mdb.classicgaming.gamespy.com/genfaq.htm#metfaq35

The password is now regarded as a total fluke, with no special meaning. Due to the algorithmic nature of the password, 1 in 256 possible passwords are valid.

Try this one:

NE146? Oh yes
------ ---6GZ

Edited March 22, 2006 by vdub_bobby

[JB]

The password is now regarded as a total fluke, with no special meaning. Due to the algorithmic nature of the password, 1 in 256 possible passwords are valid.

 

Though about 69% (11/16) of them do nothing but reset the game.

 

I'm still wondering why there IS a reset bit in the password. Who thought that was a good idea?

[StanJr]

Oh, ok I get it now. Crazy. Metroid's code system is screwed up.

[vdub_bobby]

The password is now regarded as a total fluke, with no special meaning. Due to the algorithmic nature of the password, 1 in 256 possible passwords are valid.

 

Though about 69% (11/16) of them do nothing but reset the game.

 

I'm still wondering why there IS a reset bit in the password. Who thought that was a good idea?

Well, maybe they thought it would help prevent folks from cheating and making up their own codes.

 

EDIT: Here's one for you, Stan:

StanJr  Rocks
------ --dpNK

:D

 

Save that one for some random Metroid playing when you have friends over.

 

Swimsuit, Tourian, ice/wave beam, etc. (Note the space before "Rocks")

Edited March 23, 2006 by vdub_bobby

[StanJr]

my very own code! Wow. I don't know what to say.

[NightSprinter]

Stan, vdub, it seems your custom passwords also have the same bad ending that the original JUSTIN BAILEY code gives. Though for yours Stan.. WHY did you omit the Morph Ball? :blink: You do realize that you're screwed if a Metroid latches onto you and you don't have that powerup, right?

Edited March 23, 2006 by NightSprinter

[JB]

And reading about the actual inner workings... the reset bit DOES have a use. Sort of.

It's actually a part of the start location value, and takes it from 3 bits to 4, which makes it easier to work with. It just so happens that since Metroid only has 5 valid start locations, but 4 bits leaves you with a max of 16, that setting the 4th bit(with a value of always generates an invalid start location.

 

Mystery solved!

Edited March 23, 2006 by JB

[vdub_bobby]

Stan, vdub, it seems your custom passwords also have the same bad ending that the original JUSTIN BAILEY code gives.

Well, if Stan hadn't taken...4,070,208 hours, 23 minutes, and 10 seconds just to get that far, he would have a better ending.

Though for yours Stan.. WHY did you omit the Morph Ball? :blink: You do realize that you're screwed if a Metroid latches onto you and you don't have that powerup, right?

A better question is *how*?

[NE146]

Try this one:

NE146? Oh yes
------ ---6GZ

 

Whoah! That's it I'm putting that in my archives.. that rocks

[vdub_bobby]

I was wondering when you would wander by and see that.

[JB]

Stan, vdub, it seems your custom passwords also have the same bad ending that the original JUSTIN BAILEY code gives.

Well, if Stan hadn't taken...4,070,208 hours, 23 minutes, and 10 seconds just to get that far, he would have a better ending.

WHY can the Metroid password track over four CENTURIES of gametime?

[vdub_bobby]

WHY can the Metroid password track over four CENTURIES of gametime?

Actually, looks like it can track about 585 years.

 

But I dunno. They apparently use 32 bits, 8 bytes, to track game time, and increase the game time about once per 4 seconds - so they probably use a frame counter and update the game time every time the frame counter rolls over from 255->0, which would be about 4.3 seconds. So, really, they are using 5 bytes to track game time, and they update it every 1/60th of a second.

 

That's the kind of thing where a coder probably used 5 bytes to track time, just to be absolutely sure that it would never ever ever overflow, and then didn't ever need to reduce it. There seem to be plenty of free bits in the password and they didn't need the RAM.

[JB]

WHY can the Metroid password track over four CENTURIES of gametime?

Actually, looks like it can track about 585 years.

 

But I dunno. They apparently use 32 bits, 8 bytes, to track game time, and increase the game time about once per 4 seconds - so they probably use a frame counter and update the game time every time the frame counter rolls over from 255->0, which would be about 4.3 seconds. So, really, they are using 5 bytes to track game time, and they update it every 1/60th of a second.

Yeah, it's frame-based. Increments once every 256 frames.

I was looking at it earlier.

 

 

The game age is a complicated number. It is a 32-bit value, though in

reality, it only has a range of 2^24 * 208 because the least significant byte

overflows at 208. This means there are 3,489,661,135 distinct values in the

range 0 - 4,294,967,295.

 

The game age is in what I will call 'game ticks'. The exact value of a tick

depends upon whether you have an NTSC NES (the US Nintendo) or a PAL NES

(the European Nintendo). If you have an NTSC NES, then 1 game tick = (256 /

60) seconds or approximately 4.2666666666666666666666666666667 seconds. For a

PAL NES, 1 game tick = (256 / 50) seconds or 5.12 seconds. Where did these

values come from? 1 game tick is actually the amount of time it takes to

draw 256 frames. Because the NTSC NES draws 60 frames per second, you get

(256 / 60). The PAL NES draws 50 frames per second, so you get (256 / 50).

The difference is related to television signal differences between North

American (NTSC) and Europe (PAL).