Hints within item randomiser have existed for a while, but the system that is used to generate them has been changed a ton since the last full release.

Enabling Hints

When creating a rom, click the hint level box in the item randomiser. You will probably for types of hints. Note that the levels are somewhat arbitrary at this time and need improvement.

Reading Hints

When playing with hints, signs in the game that are shown will display a hint. The game is modified such that signs that do not have a hint will be removed by replacing the tile they previously occupied. Hints generally do not appear on hints with a very short text box, as the text for the hint replaces this.

Understanding Hints

Required to beat the game

• 'A champ has...' means an item is required to beat the game.
• 'Champs do...' mean a particular event must be completed.
• 'Champs go to...' mean a particular location is required.

Not required

• '... is barren' means this location is not required to beat the seed.
• '... is a fools toy' means this item is not required.
• 'Fools do.... ' means particular event is not required.

Edge Case

• '... may be barren'
• '...may be a fools toy'
• 'Fools may do...' These edge cases are very rare. To understand more, read the 'Understanding Generation' section.

Understanding Generation

Generating hints is done after the rom has been created, where it will check a series of options, key items within the game, locations and events. It will then walk-through the same checker used to verify seeds but ban a particular item. This means that unlike other versions, if Hive Badge is locked behind Power Plant, Flash will be deemed required because you cannot beat the game without logic sending this in this direction.

Each non-required part is checked, only for that item as a whole, not in a complex set of logic. If the game deems it possible to beat without using the single change, the message will be one of the barren types listed above.

However, there exists a rare edge case where all of the items on their own are not required to beat the game, but that one OF two of them is required. Rather than processing ALL items again to work out which, this just changes all the hints shown to 'maybe' hints. An example of this is a badge being locked behind Power Plant again, but with Cut and Flash otherwise not required -- because you could get there with the other, so not technically required individually.

Other examples of this include: A two way room in warps, where one side of the room requires a Whirl Islands entrance and the other side requires Maghoany Gym Entrance (Dev note, this is the exact scenario where I realised we need this feature, because this is what happened, so everythng was saying 'Not required', but Whirlpool OR Beating rockets was)

Current Known Issues

Due to this new method, hints can take a very long time to generate a rom.