I'll end this. Once and for all. - Metroid Dread pt.4 (2021-10-15)

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Jerp

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Published on November 3, 2021 5:00:09 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5OTP3EjkDLY

Game:

Metroid Dread (2021)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 3:18:35

55 views

1

Last session left on a cliffhanger with a boss gate right in front of me. What I didn’t expect (but turned out to be pretty cool) was a powerful X parasite creature coming out of an increasingly more powerful series of those ground-slamming brute creatures the game first uses to demonstrate parries. The boss is super tough, though I found out later that it would be pretty trivial if I had considered sliding under its legs. The ability comes in handy so little during a boss fight since the Corpius fight.

Cross Bombs are an interesting upgrade. I’d want to dismiss them as a crappy intermediary on the way to Power Bombs, but they’re used in such a different manner. That being said, they’re surprisingly underwhelming. So far I don’t see a strong combat use for ‘em, and their use in puzzles and exploration is super limited - almost exclusively to push Samus across Pitfall Blocks. I feel like the game would’ve been better served removing them altogether, having Spring Ball be a late-game item, and allowing Spring Ball to bounce on Pitfall Blocks like it used to in Super Metroid.

At the beginning of the game I was wondering why Samus was able to touch the Central Units and EMMIs to absorb abilities - but I had forgotten about it until now. It makes sense though how Samus’ Metroid DNA would make that possible. It’s cool to see how it starts to become a regular thing especially for stuff like the X-Infected Chozo Soldier fights.

I feel like finally getting power bombs is meant to be a big moment, but you get so little out of it as you move forward with the rest of the game that it’s woefully underwhelming. I even went back after the stream and finished getting 100% of all items, and the power bomb usage throughout the map was pretty lackluster and didn’t lead to much in terms of cool items. Between Dread and Other M, I kind of wonder if there’s a general regret that power bombs exist and future games will continue to relegate them to a late-game ability with little actual use.

The fight against Raven Beak continued the overall trend of fun and challenging bosses in the game. It’s nice to see so many abilities put to use in combat and not just used for exploration. I think that may have been the first combat situation where Power Bombs got a lot of use since the Draygon fight in Super Metroid (clear the sticky shots - assuming you don’t just use the Grapple Beam trick). Other M did have that one moment, but I’m not sure I really count what effectively amounts to a quicktime event. Speaking of ability use, I found out after my playthrough that there’s at least a few boss fights where you can one-shot/quick-kill the boss with a well-timed shinespark -- and I think Dread is almost certainly the first time where you shinespark in a boss fight.

I’m still not sure if I think it was overly cliche or not for Samus to basically become a fully Metroid-hybrid creature. I think the whole story leading up to it (including Fusion) made it work, and even explained Quiet Robe’s X-infected (/cloned?) body providing a way to stabilize Samus. I could see a later game involving the Federation’s reaction to the change and conflict with Adam stuck in the crossfire, as Samus is meant to obey Adam’s orders as part of her deal to use the ship. The Federation could try to issue orders to be subject to tests / have her metroid DNA extracted for research/to create new metroids.

After my playthrough, I spent some time trying to digest my experience and figure out if I’d better appreciate the game if I knew more about the supposed sequence breaks. I started a new save on hard mode and then did a short stream with yet another new hard mode save, and just couldn’t get into it. I did learn about and even perform some sequence breaks, but all of the arbitrary Access Closed doors and obnoxiously unreadable map makes navigating the game a slog, and I still don’t know if there’s any really significant sequence breaks in the first 60-90 minutes of gameplay.

I did eventually get 100% on my original save (off-stream), but a lot of it seemed pretty tedious (lots of work for 2 missiles, or just more power bombs that I’d barely have any use for). I can’t say that improved my impression of the game. That being said, the general movement/combat of the game feels comfortable and smooth and I could see doing another playthrough of the game just to hang out with chat and not worry so much about how linear the game is.

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#MetroidDread #Metroid #gameplay

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