Mistakes Were Made - Metroid Dread pt.3 (2021-10-14)
0Starting off this session with some of the Shinespark shenanigans that it’ll soon become clear that the game is rife with. I had heard that Samus Returns allowed a shinespark off of surfaces via the Spider Ball, and I was assuming you’d also need Power Bombs to do some of the same stuff in Dread. It turns out that most of the Shinespark usage is more based on Fusion (especially being able to Shinespark into ramps to resume sprinting), though there’s some stuff I didn’t find out until after I beat the game - primarily sliding with the speed booster active, and being able to preserve your speed with wall jumps.
The official return of the X parasites was cool to see, and I really like how it’s so similar to how they moved around the terrain and infected creatures in Fusion. The X spreading through the rest of the world certainly helped in making it more interesting to backtrack a bit. Fighting an actual Chozo Warrior (albeit infected by X) was a cool moment as well. It also reinforces the much higher difficulty the game has had - one attack in particular seemed to deal more than 200 damage).
It makes sense that the final EMMI has Ice Missiles - both in being the Metroids’ one weakness (a suitable late-game ability), and that Samus has been unable to use the Ice Beam itself since Fusion. I do hope one day she’ll be able to use the Ice Beam, as I liked the sound and presentation of the beam in the games much more than the new missiles. Possible minor credit to Diffusion Missiles though, since that effect was pretty cool. Maybe Thoha genes / the final ability from Quiet Robe would give her more ability to restrict/subdue/manage her Metroid-based weakness?
Getting the Space Jump Ability so soon after Spin Boost was reminiscent of getting the Speed Booster so soon after Flash Shift. It feels like there was a want to pad out the game by throwing the player a bone and giving them _something_, but it diminishes the effect of getting the final item. This is especially true with the Space Jump superseding the Spin Boost completely. Flash Shift at least continues to retain some use throughout the game (especially in smaller rooms / boss fights). I feel like the High-Jump Boots would have probably been an overall better intermediary ability for navigation, even if it isn’t so great for combat - though it would probably diminish the perceived responsiveness if you spend so much time in the air before landing after a jump (a trend which started in Fusion/Zero Mission and got included with AM2R has been to have a super fast, high gravity jump).
I do like the idea of getting Space Jump (and Spin Boost, of course) before the Gravity Suit. It allows for some interesting intermediary platforming as you try to figure out how to use your ability to maintain height to cross large horizontal gaps, without having full agency underwater.
Thinking about it as I reflect on the other abilities, the Diffusion Beam is a kind of similar watered-down equivalent of the Wave Beam. The little explosive [tumors?] scattered around the map feel so arbitrarily placed, and destroying them doesn’t have that sort of novel “I get to cheat the system a bit” feel that the Wave Beam had in prior games. I think Dread is probably overall a really good example of how breaking up abilities into incremental upgrades can make the full effect feel underwhelming.
The fight against Experiment Z-57 was another big increase in difficulty, having a lot of attacks, multiple phases, and overall a ton of health. That being said, I think it was probably one of my favorite fights in the game, making strong use of the majority of your abilities and overall having a lot to do. Speaking of abilities, I later found out that the “Flappy Bird” attack where you’re blown back by strong wind and walls of projectiles pass across the screen, you can build up a shinespark and instantly kill the boss. The only abilities that didn’t seem to come up during the fight were the Phantom Cloak (does it come into play for any non-EMMI encounter?) and Morph Ball Bombs (which at least can be used on Kraid, if you get them early enough). Actually, the Grapple Beam didn't come up there either. There's another one where I want to know if it's useful in more boss fights.
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