Introduction
Metroid Dread’s release comes 4 years after the last 2D Metroid (Samus Returns) and 19 years after the last non-remake Metroid (Metroid Fusion). Fusion had been the previous end of the series in terms of its story; Dread now takes place after Fusion.
I’ve written a few times how the Metroid series has been snakebitten. Now for the first time since Metroid Prime 3 (2007) a Metroid game comes out to great fanfare: Nintendo pushed it extensively and it quickly topped sales lists. Was it worth the wait?
EMMI Zones
The EMMIs were heavily advertised and are the reason the game is called Dread. They’re robotic hunters, immune to Samus’s weaponry and start an instakill sequence when they hit Samus. Much like the SA-X from Metroid Fusion all you can do is evade. But the SA-X was heavily scripted while the EMMIs are much more mobile and adaptive.
Here’s what you have going for you. The EMMIs stick to their zone and never leave. The EMMIs can reconfigure to fit in tight spaces so morph ball isn’t a complete escape but it takes them a moment while Samus’s new slide move gives her the edge. Samus gains a cloak ability she can use when not in an EMMI’s sight to hide. If you get caught you get two quick-time chances to escape but the timing is tight and random so usually this is a Game Over.
In past days these sequences would’ve wrecked me. I never used to be able to handle stealth. But like Fusion, these spots were often more puzzle than stealth. Find the right path through and you have a good chance. Stay moving and go towards an exit.
Later EMMIs get pretty tough. One can freeze you on sight from long distance. Another has difficult terrain to deal with with few hiding spots and lots of water pre-Gravity Suit. That one took me about a dozen tries and even my success had me desperately vaulting over it.
Overall, I mostly enjoyed the EMMIs. There is some frustration with them but anytime they kill you you respawn right outside their zone so that helps a lot.
So Many Buttons
Not counting the D-Pad for movement, Super Metroid has 7 action buttons. The GBA games made do with 4. Samus Returns had 6 but also had the touch pad and D-pad for toggling different modes like Aeion and beams.
Dread has 10. Well past the halfway point I was still having trouble remembering what did what. I struggled with the 4 shoulder buttons the most. Super had only aiming on the shoulder. Dread has sliding, grapple, aim mode, and missile toggle. Charge beam, missile, and grapple all require holding. Executing a dodge and counter may require holding a charge, moving, jumping, dragging your thumb over to do a dash while still charging, being ready to melee counter with the same thumb, and then remembering to release the charge when the opportunity presents itself. Some dexterity is required.
Weapons and Tools
Many old 2D staples appear again. Morph Ball and its gadgets, many of the usual beams, and the Varia/Gravity suit upgrades return. Space Jump and Screw Attack return to make Samus an endgame flying buzz saw of death. The Ice Beam is missing as it was in Fusion, replaced with the Ice Missiles that appeared in Fusion.
Some new toys appear too. Samus quickly learns to climb on grapple surfaces. I’ve mentioned her new slide a few times which sees a lot of use especially with how surprisingly long it takes to get the Morph Ball. The Diffusion Beam is an interesting proto-Wave Beam: a charge shot will impact through a one-block width of wall. You can trigger explosives and hit enemies behind shallow cover like this.
Phase Shift is a quick-dash move. There are lots of quick foes in the game so learning to use it is essential. Phantom Cloak is useful for hiding from EMMIs. The Cross Beam launches a bomb explosion in a plus-formation. It’s mostly an upgrade on the famous bomb jump: it can propel your Morph Ball over some horizontal pitfall blocks.
Playing with Expectations
Dread plays with the Metroid formula in some fun ways. First, Samus’s ship. Usually her ship is her home base. It’s often her first save point and refills her energy and ammo. In Dread, Samus starts at the very bottom of ZDR with the overall objective of returning to her ship. You’re soon shown a world map and it is a long way up to your ship. Any Metroid fan used to being able to go back to the ship will quickly miss Samus’s safe haven.
It’s also a while before you get the Morph Ball. You get it from the third EMMI and will have seen tons of narrow spaces you can’t go in. Samus’s new slide will get you into some but any that are too long or aren’t square on the ground are inaccessible. Again, longtime fans will dearly miss the ability by the time they finally get it. This is an ability that you often get almost immediately or even start with.
Environmental Effects
I loved the environmental effects in this game. Close to the beginning there is a puzzle where Samus has to go through some water but the water reduces her mobility and stops her from reaching a ledge she’d otherwise be able to jump to. You find an explosive which blows up some rocks that were blocking the water flow. This lowers the water level so now you can jump out of the water and to the ledge.
The sequence to get the Varia Suit was awesome. In Cataris you change the thermal flow several times as the area is thermal powered. Back in Artaria you change some thermal flow but it malfunctions. The area starts becoming superheated and several machines and construction start collapsing. This creates a timed area where you need to guide Samus to escape before she gets cooked, navigating through the collapsing terrain with the Morph Ball and other tools. The reward for this section is the Varia Suit so at least heat is no longer an issue.
Right after you get the Gravity Suit, which also protects against cold in this game, your enemies try freezing Samus by messing with the thermal devices. You go through a section you had previously been through but now it’s frozen.
The Power Bombs are impressively destructive as well. The explosion is incredible and several times it’s needed to destroy entire rooms of machines or terrain that are in your way. There’s a couple spots where you bust open a glass tube you’re in, much like one of the more famous puzzles from Super Metroid.
In general, Dread lets you know early and often that the environment will change based on your actions and progress.
Bosses
The bosses in Dread are pretty tough. After the first one I died to each one at least once. Once again, generous checkpointing helped keep things from being frustrating. Besides that I thought the bosses were well designed; I rarely felt like I was dying unfairly. I saw most losses as being due to mistakes I made.
Kraid
Our boy Kraid hasn’t been around since Zero Mission in 2004. He has two phases and brings back some of his favorite attacks like throwing giants detached claws at you and shooting giant fingernails from his stomach. He has the traditional weak point of first you tick him off by shooting his eyes and when he roars at you pump missiles into his mouth.
Second phase has you at his feet. He launches some new attacks. One of his belly buttons will shoot energy at you. Stun him and hold a rail to get back to his face and while up there you have alternate between shooting down his projectiles and shooting him. It was a fun comeback for Kraid.
Robot Chozo Soldier
This guy handed me my ass a few times in a row. He’s fast and powerful. He has two charge attacks and one of them has surprisingly large AoE. His ranged attacks are easier to dodge but if you slip up it hurts. Using Phase Shift to air dash is a must. You don’t need an elaborate strategy; this fight is a reflex check.
Drogyga – A pre-Gravity Suit underwater boss. I think they pulled it off well. The timing on dodging its tentacle swipes feels weird but its other attacks are good. It shoots slow falling energy balls that you need to shoot away. Later it has a thrust attack you dodge by Grapple Beaming to the ceiling. It can combo its attacks so you go from Grapple to jumping over swipes to shooting its projectiles.
Experiment No. Z-57
Pretty tough but a lot of fun. This boss is often in the background. You have Space Jump and they expect you to use it. It has a couple giant claw slash formations to Space Jump away from. It also has the Flappy Bird attack where it generates a wind you run against and tiers of vertical energy to squeeze between.
It’ll breathe a laser at the ground that leaves residue as it moves the laser towards you. This creates a game of chicken as it’ll let up just before the wall. And you have to be as close to the laser as possible because it shoots again shortly after letting up and will hit you if you don’t immediately move. The cool design of the boss and its attack variety make it a stand-out boss.
Final Boss – See under the plot section below.
Difficulty
Metroid Dread scores a 65.17 on my spreadsheet, giving it 19th out of 178 (89th percentile). It’s next to games like Mega Man Zero 3, Shovel Knight, and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. In terms of deaths this is absolutely on point. Again I want to call out that a difficult game doesn’t need to be needlessly frustrating; generous checkpointing and good challenge designs made this a fun challenge.
Conclusions
I really enjoyed Metroid Dread. It built on the mechanics of Metroid Fusion and Samus Returns with a subterranean labyrinth like Super Metroid. The powers, puzzles, and bosses were all amazing. The difficulty was high but not frustrating. Metroid Dread lived up to the hype.
***** PLOT SECTION, SPOILERS AHEAD *****
The Metroids and X Parasites
The metroids were bioengineered by the Chozo of SR388. They could suck the life energy out of victims and were hard to kill. They are now extinct.
The metroids were made to fight the X Parasites, terrifying organisms that kill their hosts and then can perfectly copy the victim. The X are thought extinct after Samus destroyed SR388. Samus was made immune to the X by a metroid vaccine. Samus was aided in that mission by an AI that took on the persona of Adam Malkovich, a deceased former commanding officer of hers.
The Federation is sent a recording of a live X on Planet ZDR. They send a team of EMMI to investigate. Contact is lost. Samus and Adam go to ZDR.
Stranded
Samus encounters a Chozo warrior in power armor like hers. They fight and the warrior wins. Samus blacks out and wakes up at the bottom of ZDR’s subterrane. She is able to communicate with Adam at Network Stations.
Adam directs her to get back to her ship, all the way at the surface. She is hunted by the EMMI as she moves through the abandoned Chozo facilities of ZDR.
Tribes of the Chozo
Samus encounters a Chozo scientist named Quiet Robe. Quiet Robe explains he is part of the Thoha tribe and the Thoha created the metroids. The warrior Mawkin tribe, led by Raven Beak, aided them against the X at first. When the metroids started to rampage the Thoha wanted to destroy all the X and metroids. But Raven Beak wanted to use the metroids to conquer the galaxy. They massacred the Thoha, leaving only Quiet Robe as the Thoha still had some control over metroids.
Raven Beak’s plans were derailed when one of his warriors was infected by an X. It took his whole tribe before the X were contained on ZDR. By then, Samus had eradicated the metroids. But now Raven Beak wants to extract the metroid DNA from Samus. Quiet Robe is assassinated after helping Samus.
Samus is led to the quarantine zone where the X are kept. Raven Beak has the quarantine broken and the X quickly take over ZDR. Adam reveals Raven Beak is safe in a flying fortress. An X infects Quiet Robe’s corpse.
Samus’s New Powers
Samus is almost killed by the last EMMI. She grabs it during the fight and absorbs its energy. She discovers she can kill other foes by absorbing their energy. Adam explains that the metroid DNA in Samus is awakening, giving her stronger metroid powers. Adam directs Samus to confront Raven Beak.
Onboard the fortress Adam says that Samus is now fully a metroid and thus a threat to the galaxy. She needs to follow his orders. Samus realizes that it’s not Adam after all but Raven Beak. She confronts Raven Beak.
Raven Beak (Final Boss)
I liked this fight a lot. I heard it was a tough fight before going in and it certainly was. But much like the rest of the game it was tough in the right ways. The attacks were fast and furious but they had tells and ways to dodge. I took a lot of hits but it always felt like I could’ve avoided it.
My only complaint is it’s unclear how to hurt him at the beginning. He uses the Lightning Armor aeion ability from Samus Returns to take no damage. Only melee counters hurt him at first but the game doesn’t explain this well. Shooting him is still worth it as he’ll discharge the absorbed energy and then go into a relatively easy melee counter.
As for his attacks, he’ll start a melee combo if you get close. He can charge at you. He can cover almost the whole room in a damage-over-time ray to force you close. He’ll launch a black orb that will grow and home in on Samus. This one has to be destroyed but better do it quick as he won’t wait to launch his other attacks.
In the second phase his wings come out and he can be damaged normally. Time to spam beam shots at him. But he doesn’t make it easy. He’ll use Beam Burst to gatling gun shots at you. For this you have to precision Space Jump around him. He has a vertical and horizontal charge at you. Then he can hover in front of you and use a large charge beam shot. The horizontal charge caused me trouble because he’s big enough to need a Space Jump to get over and if I didn’t react fast enough he’d get me.
In the third phase his wings are gone and it resembles the first phase. He can add a sun that’ll throw energy at you to go along with his other attacks. But the sun can be destroyed with a power bomb and it even drops pick-ups. This made the third phase the easiest for me, once I knew this.
Overall, all the attacks have a dodge but the speed that they come out and the precision needed for some of the dodges is what makes it such a tough fight.
Ending
Samus nearly wins but is defeated. Raven Beak declares he intends to clone an army of Samus, the last and strongest metroid. Before dying Samus’s metroid powers awake even further. She absorbs energy from Raven Beak and his fortress. The fortress crashes.
Raven Beak is infected by an X and becomes an abomination. Samus obliterates Raven Beak-X. She flees to her ship as the planet begins to explode. Onboard she is about to fly but the real Adam says her metroid powers are so out of control that she’d drain the ship.
Then Quiet Robe-X emerges from behind Samus. Somehow, this X is not hostile towards Samus but bows as Quiet Robe did. It voluntarily sheds its form and is absorbed by Samus, supressing her metroid powers enough for her to pilot her ship. With that she’s able to escape ZDR before it explodes. Once again it seems the X are extinct, Raven Beak’s plans and life are over, and the last metroid is Samus Aran herself.
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