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Warning: major plot spoilers starting on Day 3!
The epilogue at the end is spoiler-free. If, for some reason, you want my opinion of the game but donāt want spoilers, use your clientās skip-by-headers functionality or just skip to the end of the page and then scroll up little by little.
Musicās a nice throwback to Super Metroid. Handy for this bit thatās getting me up to speed on the Metroid and X-parasite lore.
Getting called āLadyā. Iāve heard of that meme.
OK, some WEIRD shit happened. The only way Iād be able to track time is by noticing the suit changes.
L holds position, taking the place of the L and R buttons. Holding R switches to rockets. ZL slides. ZR does nothing yet. B jumps. Y shoots. X punches. A does nothing. ā makes the map bigger. Right thumb stick does nothing.
At least we have kind of an explanation of why we got nerfed this time. A Chozo did it.
Adam says to get to the choppa, er, ship. Fair enough.
We still have Metroid DNA. Guess we donāt like the cold now.
Parry enemy attacks with a Melee Counter by pressing X at the right moment.
Did Metroid need QTEs? No. It did not. Nothing needs QTEs.
Defeating an enemy that has been stunned as the result of a counter will cause it to drop more items.
Good grief.
Missile Tank acquired.
Missile capacity increased by 2.
Back in my dayā¦oh, forget it.
An E.M.M.I.ās attack can be countered by pressing X at the exact moment of the flash. However, the timing is extremely difficult to gauge, making this a desperate maneuver.
Omega cannon get.
ā¦ooookay, this is only for killing EMMIs. Odd.
That was EMMI -01P. Got instant game overs to EMMI -025M, though. I canāt nail the yellow-flash timing. It is the yellow-flash timing, right? Not the red eyeball?
OK, stay out of line of sight. They can hear you through echolocation, too. It will also try and trap you inside. Evade the EMMI and itāll disengage. This will also unseal the exits. Whatās more, they stay in their own zones.
Didnāt we only send four of these things, though?
I got past my first unkillable EMMI. I also hit the yellow-flash QTE. These two happenings were not on the same life.
Oh hey, the area map. Cool.
Figured out the pontoon puzzle.
Got the charge beam. Hopefully this one will stick around. Oh, and it opens those doors I couldnāt open before.
ā¦and my first energy tank. Nice.
Bagged my second EMMI, got the Spider Magnet.
Fought some scorpion boss, finally got a standard Game Over.
A couple of deaths later, I got its Phantom Cloak.
Up to Cataris, which appears to be the local Norfair. Then down from Cataris, because Iām not heat-adapted yet. Long modern elevator ride, too. Way slower than the ones on Zebes.
A bit more bopping around.
Eventually, I get to a chat with ADAM:
E.M.M.I. stands for Extraplanetary Multiform Mobile Identifier. It can procedurally modify and enhance its own capabilities.
Iād say āIts software is written in Lisp?ā, but these days, machine learning never seems to mention any Lisps at all.
ADAM then says this:
You are faced with overwhelming power. Accept your helplessness.
Somehow, I think this robot voice isnāt totally on our side.
OK, he lightens up a bit later.
Thatās enough for today. āFirst played 3 hours agoā, the out-of-game timer says.
Bopping around EMMI-03MBās territory.
Walked by it with the cloak. Now I have 1 health and Iām in the map room.
Iām seeing doors with three holes on them. I wonder if Iām going to get the wave beam soon.
Drained the lava around this one room, andā¦
Energy Part acquired (1/4).
Collect 4 to increase energy capacity.
I thought Pieces of Heart were a lame mechanic when Link to the Past introduced them. Now we have to deal with this in Metroid games, too?
Travel to Dairon?
Eh, sure. Why not?
Train ride reminds me of the newfangled Doom game.
A lot of these blocks look like speed-dash blocks. I wonder if thatāll be the next upgrade.
Seems like thereās nothing here for me until I get speed shoes or a wave beam. Back to Cataris.
OK, maybe not. Seems like Iām trapped inside this tiny loop.
Back to Dairon after checking the Polygon page. I miss my X-ray scope.
OK, yeah. When the game says āshoot around when you get to a dead endā, it means stuff like this.
Oh, huh. The lights arenāt on. I remember this mechanic!
Wide Beam acquired.
Got that, and got past the yellow EMMI. Not bad. This one introduces the āstand on a plate to block itā mechanic.
Iāve got a new toy. Back to Cataris.
Killed a Central Unitā¦now to kill the EMMI.
Green one down. Find a nice level spot to heat its head up, then run to some other place and charge up before it gets there.
Morph Ball acquired.
You get the jumping for free. No bombs, though.
Back down to Artaria. I want to see if I can scrounge up some upgrades.
A Teleportal! To an entirely different spot in Cataris!
ā¦man, this is the longest teleported scene Iāve seen. Star Trek and Stargate have nothing on this.
Missile+ Tank acquired.
Missile capacity increased by 10.
Well, this certainly compensates for all the +2s Iāve gotten.
Back to Dairon, I guess.
Checked with Polygon. Evidently thereās more back for me on Artaris. Like the Varia Suit.
OK. I was going to go back around now that Iām at the red Teleportal, but now thereās junk in the way and I canāt go back. Guess Iām forced to go on to Norfair. Er, Cataris.
Kraid! Heās still flinging nails at you, and shooting spikes out of his stomach. Veryā¦video-gamey.
Several lives later, Kraidās taking a lava nap. Guess heās still a two-stage boss.
Diffusion Beam acquired.
Causes Charge Beam shots to explode on impact.
Press and hold Y to charge, and then release to fire. The explosion penetrates through terrain.
This feels more like a glorified key than an upgrade.
Bomb acquired.
Sneak past a new EMMI with mines in its lair, andā¦take a train toā¦Burenia.
Final check-in with ADAM for tonight. He says to find the Grapple Beam and/or Space Jump.
Quit to the choose-a-save-game screen and it says the in-game timer is 4:32:43. Seems like a lot longer than 4Ā½ hours for two daysā play, especially since the Switch itself said I started 3-ish hours before I ended yesterday.
Back after two weeks. I held ZL, or maybe L, to aim at an enemy lower than me, like I was playing Super Metroid again. I really ought to have a second look at all the controls, just to refresh my memoryā¦
Flash Shift acquired.
ā¦doesnāt work underwater, at least not yet.
A quick check with GameFAQs, reminding me to find an entirely new way back to Dairon through the lower half of not-Maridia, and Iām back in the EMMI zone. crossed to the blue brain easily enough, and thenā¦I was kind of set up easily to kill the thing. It kept coming at me from the ceiling, and thatās enough time to melt its head. Fall down far enough, and that gave me enough time to warm up my beam for the final shot.
Speed Booster acquired.
A little bit of fiddlefarting around, andā¦on to Ferenia.
Got some actual exposition from a real, live Chozo, or something like it. Quiet Robe, our Thoha friend, gives us the skinny. Evidently he can control _one_ EMMI, the purple one. At any rate, Raven Beak lured me here. He wants my DNA because he thinks that Metroids will let him control the galaxy, and Iām the only thing left in the universe with Metroid DNA. That explains why the EMMIs are trying to stab me all the time.
Then some assassin kills Quiet Robe, and I have to kill him. This isnāt like a normal boss arena ā the assassin has to do some pathing. Just needed to learn to stay a few steps ahead of him and pump him with rockets. I couldnāt get any items out of him, which isā¦interesting.
Later on, ADAM tells me that Quiet Robe deactivated all the EMMIs and that I should get to the surface immediately, as if that werenāt my plan all along. To get to the chopper, er, my ship, I should go through Burenia.
Two hours is enough. As a wind-down, I caught up on Nintendoās news thing, going through Metroid Dread (old) news. In a news item thatās basically āhow to hype yourself up for Metroid Dreadā, they offer this suggestion:
ā¢ Treat yourself: Bounty Hunters get hungry, too! Why not flex your creativity with some themed bites? Perhaps a place of Samus arancini, orāwell, really, any pun-based cuisine is a win in our book.
They donāt want me to make squid, do they? It sounds like they want me to make some sort of squid dish. Help me out, Walesās Monster:
Arancini are Italian rice balls that are stuffed, coated with bread crumbs and deep fried, and are a staple of Sicilian cuisine. The most common fillings are: al ragĆ¹ or al sugo, filled with ragĆ¹, mozzarella and/or caciocavallo cheese, and often peas, and al burro or Ć“ burru, filled with ham and mozzarella or besciamella.
OK, that sounds significantly more tasty than hard-to-cook seafood. Fried rice balls is more than a little outside my willing-to-hassle-with zone, though. Iād rather just have a burrito made out of a combination of Chozo and Torizo meat ā call it a chorizo burrito.
The style for news entries is somewhat interesting. It boils down to this (assume no built-in styles at all):
html {
background: gray;
color: #eee;
}
h2 {
color: #fff;
background: lightgray;
padding: 1rem;
border-left: thin solid teal;
}
b {
color: teal;
}
They also use proper em dashes and curly quotes here. There doesnāt seem to be any native list indenting support, but āā¢ ā works OK. Diablo 3 wonāt even bother with curly quotes even when it does bother with em dashes.
Started at 4:32:43. Ended at 5:53:30. Almost two hours of wall-clock time, but part of that was me just reading stuff about the game. My page says āPlayed for 5 hours or moreā, which sounds about right.
Iām gonna see if I can go back and collect things that I think I can get now.
Apparently cold damage is nonlinear.
Off to Burenia. I need to kill some tentacles.
Burenia map room. Yay.
Killed the tentacles. Took me a bit to figure out what the sequence was to damage it.
Two hours of gameplay is enough. The in-game timer went from 5:53:30 to 7:02:18. My Page says āPlayed for 10 hours or moreā.
On to Ghavoran!
I chose the low road. Nothing says āyouāll get a gravity suit soonā like an underwater missile tank thatās just out of jumping range.
Going up from the elevatorā¦oh cute, a tiny gonarch from Half-Life.
ā¦and I guess Iām locked in after yanking the grappling-hook block.
Go right from the recharge station, and it looks like some kind of high-jump is in my future, too.
Oh, bother. A Chozo assassin.
Only took a few lives this time to beat him.
Was gonna get killed by the gonarch and the tongue wall crawler, but then I remembered that I have a cloaking shield.
ā¦an EMMI place? I thought the Chozo guy turned them all off. I guess Raven Beak turned them back on againā¦
ā¦well, it _was_ off, and just standing around in the background.
What in the hell is this whale thing, and what happens if I get in its purple beam?
Back to Dairon, since thereās no place else to go.
Get health recharged, duck into the cold room. Get missiles, chicken out, go back in. Whereās my save point?
At least thereās a total recharge station on this side. And a map-room save point.
ā¦apparently I missed the super missiles.
Super missiles!
A shuttle to Elun!
X parasites. Replenishes both health AND ammo. Interesting.
Plasma Beam acquired.
And now, an X Torizo boss.
First death, didnāt get anywhere. Second death, got to first stage. Third death, got to second stage. Fourth death, got to third stage. Fourth or maybe fifth death, finally figured out that I need to counter his QTEs to kill him for good.
An unknown resource has been acquired.
You cannot use this item yet.
It looks like power bombs. I probably didnāt sequence-break, but it feels like I did. This game kind of feels pretty linear otherwise.
Loop back around through the Chozo boss room to get out andā¦
Energy Tank acquired.
Energy capacity increased by 100.
Oh, shit. Did I unleash the Floodā¦erā¦X?
Back to Ghavoran, I guess.
Spin Boost acquired.
Itās a double jump, if youāre spinning.
ā¦am I soft-locked? I canāt get out.
I just need to Spin Boost at some time after the peak of my jump. Now Iām out.
Back to the blue EMMI. These things are getting easier to kill.
Ice missiles online.
Close-by E tank, too.
Pulse Radar acquired.
Hold ā to activate. Itās the modern X-Ray goggles.
Had to yank a box out of the way to get to Ferenia. Iām wondering if I blocked my way from ever getting that one missile pack.
Killed Escue. Shinespark him when you come in and the fight will beā¦tractable.
Killed the two-chozo boss. Took a bit to remind myself that I had the missile barrage.
Space Jump acquired.
Back to Ghavoran, I guess.
Guess Iām taking the green teleporter to Burenia.
More fiddling around back-farming for items.
10:21:33, which, according to the in-game timer, is 3 hours and 19 minutes. However, my wall-clock thing says Iāve been playing over 5 hours now. The page for me says ā10 hours or moreā still, so somethingās funky. I wasnāt looking at FAQs for hours, was I?
Fiddled around, picked up some backfarmed items, andā¦
Gravity Suit acquired.
It also insulates me from lava and cold damage. It also increases my dash melee damage. Yay?
Good thing, I suppose. Now ADAM says the temperature of ZDR dropped like a rock.
And now, the Burenia ā Artaria elevator.
Go to Cataris, turn the heat back on. A big X is blocking it, probably.
Got stuck on the boss (Experiment No. Z-57). Calling it quits for tonight. 2 hours and 13 minutes.
11:22:41 on the in-game timer.
Got a bit lost trying to find the bad guyās lair from the save point. Wasnāt 100% sure where it was.
ā¦and after four or five dries and 30 minutes, I finally got good enough to beat the guy. Not getting hammered in the Flappy Bird section helped a lot. Eat shit, Experiment No. Z-57.
OK, heat has been restored. Now where to?
Screw Attack acquired.
Especially good against electrified enemies. Hmm!
Another power bomb that I canāt use.
A shinespark puzzle. Iāve seen this one in action before, so there wasnāt a whole lot of puzzle, but it was nice to piece together the last little bit of something Iāve seen myself.
Letās check in with ADAM. He says Raven Beak will still kick our ass.
Now theyāre just giving us missile tanks. +2 here, +2 there, +10 hereā¦yow.
Cross Bomb acquired.
Still seems like a key to me rather than something actually useful. I can use it to speed past short runs of fall-through blocks.
On to Hanubia!
Dudes in the background. Iām being watched.
ADAMāll hunt for Raven Beak, who must be ended here, before I blow up the planet to destroy the X parasite.
And now, after a short jauntā¦back to Ferenia.
OK, back to that hear-everything EMMI area. Iāll just duck out andā¦get another rocket upgrade and a save point.
Two hours today. Up to 12 hours and 21 minutes on the in-game timer.
Followed the guide, Killed the EMMI. Took only 2ā5 tries. The trick to killing the purple EMMI is to keep going to the end of the corridor, past the weight-plate doors, and youāll have plenty of time to warm up its head and blast it off.
Wave Beam acquired.
Some guide-following, a couple of ominous cutscenes, andā¦
Power Bomb acquired.
Finally.
ADAM says Iām a fully-awakened Metroid now. Time to go suck the life out of Raven Beak, I guess.
OK, he changes colors. I think thatās my cue to change my attacks.
What am I supposed to do when heās yellow? Spam power bombs?
I guess Iām just supposed to wait for a QTE starter yellow flash and beat him up then.
I could go back and farm power bombs, but I donāt think I need them. Then again, I havenāt needed any yet.
One hour and 50 minutes wall-clock time. This brings me up to 12 hours and 56 minutes of in-game time, a difference ofā¦25 minutes.
Got to Raven Beakās second form on the first try today. Also on the second try.
Got to his second form with full health. Iām definitely getting better at blasting the black-and-purple floating piƱatas, even if Iām still horrible at noticing which one of his tells is the one for his āIām gonna fly at you and punch you in the chestā move.
THIRD FORM!
ā¦and thatās done.
How did Samus grow longer arms all of a sudden?
Andā¦back to normal.
39 minutes of gaming, minus the ending credits.
CLEAR TIME
13:12:50
See you next mission!
I saw some art for Metroid: Zero Mission.
HARD MODE UNLOCKED
Yeah, no.
189 missiles, six power bombs, and ten E tanks. 69% of the items. The last save is at 12:56:42.
Fun game. Felt short. Way shorter than 3.
It also feltā¦claustrophobic and somewhat on rails. I donāt remember anywhere in 3 where places youāve been were closed off to you after you get a thing or pass by a point. I didnāt like not being able to backfarm at my leisure.
The biggest thing that I noticed was that most items didnāt feel like combat upgrades ā they felt like keys to pass by doors. Sometimes this was literal like for different types of doors that could be opened up only by different types of beams, but Dread doubled down on this mechanic for Sonic the Hedgehog-style pipes that only activated if you bombed them. The Spider Ball was mutated into something that would only work on specially-chosen blue walls and ceilings. The Grapple Beam was nerfed from a Bionic Commando-style tool to a block-and-door yanker.
Iām grateful I didnāt have to properly execute many, if any, shinespark puzzles to get all the items I needed. I didnāt run out of rockets at all, and I got all but one E tank, as I was missing a couple of Pieces of E Tank (or whatever theyāre called). Obviously, I didnāt need it. I wouldāve spent more time backfarming it than getting good enough to beat Raven Beak.
Also, Iām noticing this in recent Nintendo games:
Ā© Nintendo
No date. I wonder why.
The out-of-game timer says āPlayed for 25 hours or moreā.
ā
