Metroid Dread

[Mikebloke]

Wanted to hate this game when I saw its graphical design of being a 3D game in a 2D world, but it feels like the only reasonable chance of a game like this coming out these days. I look forward to buying it second hand when I get a switch sometime in the future, definitely on my to buy list. 

[Steven Pendleton]

I am now almost done with my normal difficulty 0% run, as I am in the final area. Several bosses and several minibosses have a few attacks that will kill you immediately on normal if you have no energy tanks, but overall it's actually much easier than the Zero Mission 15% hard mode run so far, and just bumping into a boss or enemy that is not actually attacking you won't insta-kill you... usually. Did some sequence-breaking and some glitching, skipped a required boss completely, and now I'm near the end. I'm not all that worried about the final boss, though, even though I'm fairly certain that the final boss can kill me instantly with any attack it has. Hopefully just touching it won't insta-kill me, but it might. I could check on my other save file, but I realized that it's 0413 right now and I do have work tomorrow, so I think I should sleep before I die.

[Tanooki]

@DavidD I felt the same about EMMI concern and then relief where it respawns at least.  You're right about the go, then slow, then goes faster too.  Not sure where you're at, but once you get the cloak the EMMI are less obnoxious because if you wisely park where it shouldn't run through/walk up to you're good to ride it out thankfully.

 

I don't get the no backtrack either, I feel I've been doing loops to look for stuff, or return around with a new piece of tech so I can get something.  I've not been able to play for a couple nights, I need to at least put something on it today.  I think I know where I got stuck last time and why, just didn't realize I didn't do something.  I know one thing that was ruined for me, what the green (1st, only?) colored emmi drops, and that'll help out considering you can slide only so far.

 

 

I think Steve is a bit too metroid hardcore with the comments I'm reading since I last checked in...yeesh.

[Steven Pendleton]

Normal mode 0% run complete. That was actually nowhere near as difficult as I thought it would be! Time was 4:32:39. Not bad for only my second playthrough and without any items at all. I recommend bringing a turbo controller for the final boss, though, because you'll be there smashing Y furiously for like 5 minutes straight and you will be physically tired afterwards. I watched the cutscenes during the boss fight just to give myself a break from smashing Y. Now my entire forearm feels like it had a very intense workout because it basically did lol.

 

1 hour ago, Tanooki said:

I think Steve is a bit too metroid hardcore with the comments I'm reading since I last checked in...yeesh.

Did I ever mention that Metroid is in my top 2 favourite video game series of all time? Well, it is, but i'm not sure if it's in first or second place or what the other franchise might be, but Metroid is up there.

[Tanooki]

No I don't think you did or I didn't see it that day.

 

Metroid to me is more of a B-1st party franchise.  I like it, quite a lot, but I just don't always finish them (never finished any Prime due to garbage gamecube control), and I refuse to ever replay any game that much, especially consecutively for speed running purposes whether I get a little gimmick bonus ending or not.  So this game I'll play it to finish or until I feel fulfilled given the limited time I have to deal with it compared to previous years of the franchise when more time was free when like #4 and #3 game out decades ago.

[Steven Pendleton]

5 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

No I don't think you did or I didn't see it that day.

 

Metroid to me is more of a B-1st party franchise.  I like it, quite a lot, but I just don't always finish them (never finished any Prime due to garbage gamecube control), and I refuse to ever replay any game that much, especially consecutively for speed running purposes whether I get a little gimmick bonus ending or not.  So this game I'll play it to finish or until I feel fulfilled given the limited time I have to deal with it compared to previous years of the franchise when more time was free when like #4 and #3 game out decades ago.

I LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOVE Metroid. Like you have no idea how much I love Metroid. There are exactly 3 reasons that I buy Nintendo hardware and Metroid is one of them... or at least it would be if I hadn't already owned all of the Nintendo hardware well in advance of the releases of all the Metroid games since Fusion. The others are Fire Emblem and third-party exclusives. Everything else is just a bonus with the exception of Shin Megami Tensei V in the case of the Switch, which is the reason that I bought the system way back before SMT V was even officially announced. I literally bought the Switch just because I hoped that that teaser that Atlus put out was actually for Shin Megami Tensei V and that everything else was just a bonus or something and I've gotten a lot of use out of the Switch in the meantime.

 

Anyway, in case anyone wants to see that potential softlock that I was worried about that turned out to be a false alarm, it's in the spoiler tag here:

Spoiler

Alright, so basically I saw someone say they got stuck here, so I investigated. Turns out that I forgot that the landscape here changes drastically. Here's how it is when you first go through:

 

and this is how it is later:

 

In the later configuration, there'd be no way to escape without the Gravity Suit, but I forgot about this change, so yeah, don't worry about it.

 

I also discovered that the Hori Split Pad Pro's turbo will allow you to fire your beam at a rate of approximately 1200 shots per minute, so if you have it and want to cheat a little and don't mind playing in handheld, there you go lol. It kills basically everything that can be damaged by uncharged beam shots unbelievably quickly and faster than most of the other weapons that you can get with a few obvious exceptions.

[Tanooki]

Personally not that I'd demean it putting it in the same realm as average old Halo(game wise) but I would put it in the same wheelhouse of a franchise that desperately needs MOVIES and BOOKS.  There's so much that can be done with the lore, development of the characters and backstories, it could be a billion dollar franchise onto its own without even the game being in that figure Metroid is that good.

[Steven Pendleton]

9 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Personally not that I'd demean it putting it in the same realm as average old Halo(game wise) but I would put it in the same wheelhouse of a franchise that desperately needs MOVIES and BOOKS.  There's so much that can be done with the lore, development of the characters and backstories, it could be a billion dollar franchise onto its own without even the game being in that figure Metroid is that good.

There's actually some Metroid manga that never got released outside of Japan as far as I know. I've been meaning to check it out for a while now, but I've heard it's actually pretty good. Well, one of them is, anyway. There are a few of them, actually, but I don't know the specifics. There's also another manga titled Samus & Joey, but I don't know much about that other than it's more of like a parody/comedy thing than a serious thing.

Edited October 12, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[roots.genoa]

5 hours ago, Tanooki said:

due to garbage gamecube control

?

 

Also I don't think Metroid would work as a movie. It's inspired by Alien anyway, but the character is always alone and turns into a ball dammit. That just wouldn't work imho. A video game is the perfect vessel for Metroid because it's one of the best video games ever. There's a reason why it's so influential.

Edited October 12, 2021 by roots.genoa

[Tanooki]

7 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

There's actually some Metroid manga that never got released outside of Japan as far as I know. I've been meaning to check it out for a while now, but I've heard it's actually pretty good. Well, one of them is, anyway. There are a few of them, actually, but I don't know the specifics. There's also another manga titled Samus & Joey, but I don't know much about that other than it's more of like a parody/comedy thing than a serious thing.

Yeah I'm aware of it, there's also this badass little game book too that was created after I believe the first or second game, it fetches over $100 ebay these days just for fans who can't read it.

I actually have a Metroid comic though, back when Valiant comics ran those various Nintendo comics of theirs they did one issue or spread over a few one Metroid story.  I own it in the hardback collection they made called the Best of the Nintendo Comics System and it's pretty nicely done (have the other too just for SMB stories.)

 

2 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

?

 

Also I don't think Metroid would work as a movie. It's inspired by Alien anyway, but the character is always alone and turns into a ball dammit. That just wouldn't work imho. A video game is the perfect vessel for Metroid because it's one of the best video games ever. There's a reason why it's so influential.

Well because of that I think it can, but with some adaptation of course to make it not just be some first person or watching a mute fight evil type snore.  I'm not saying off the rails dumb like the original Doom movie kind of ended up being more often than not, but taking a non-stupid page from the Other M style you could fairly well craft a unique story that would work.  Something with space pirates, metroids, not necessarily the mother brain exactly.  I think there's enough information to really craft some kind of mystery, investigation, maybe something goes wrong, she gets called in, and it goes from there.  If Metroid Dread is any indication you can do just enough story to seem solid, but not enough to dog and pony the whole thing into ridiculousness.

[DavidD]

On 10/11/2021 at 6:14 PM, Tanooki said:

@DavidD I felt the same about EMMI concern and then relief where it respawns at least.  You're right about the go, then slow, then goes faster too.  Not sure where you're at, but once you get the cloak the EMMI are less obnoxious because if you wisely park where it shouldn't run through/walk up to you're good to ride it out thankfully.

 

I don't get the no backtrack either, I feel I've been doing loops to look for stuff, or return around with a new piece of tech so I can get something.  I've not been able to play for a couple nights, I need to at least put something on it today.  I think I know where I got stuck last time and why, just didn't realize I didn't do something.  I know one thing that was ruined for me, what the green (1st, only?) colored emmi drops, and that'll help out considering you can slide only so far.

 

I think I just reached the final boss.  I'm going to go gather all my missing upgrades first, but I have some thoughts on the game so far...

• The boss difficulty seems to spike up VERY high.
• There are times when it does seem too easy to get lost -- although if you go with "everything I need is in the new area" and "beat the EMMI", you're usually fine.
• The game seems to RADICALLY pick up in pace during the second half -- I felt I was doing almost nothing but robot boss fights and upgrades, with minor exploration.  I kind of wish there were more "pacing" between upgrades...?

I rather like it, but I feel like it seems short.  I'm not sure that it is short, especially for a Metroid game, but somehow the world seems small...

 

[roots.genoa]

8 hours ago, Tanooki said:

Well because of that I think it can, but with some adaptation of course to make it not just be some first person or watching a mute fight evil type snore.  I'm not saying off the rails dumb like the original Doom movie kind of ended up being more often than not, but taking a non-stupid page from the Other M style you could fairly well craft a unique story that would work.  Something with space pirates, metroids, not necessarily the mother brain exactly.  I think there's enough information to really craft some kind of mystery, investigation, maybe something goes wrong, she gets called in, and it goes from there.  If Metroid Dread is any indication you can do just enough story to seem solid, but not enough to dog and pony the whole thing into ridiculousness.

Of course you can but you will end up with a solid B-movie at best, while most of the games in the series are masterpieces.

Every time I play an Ace Attorney game, I can't help but imagine a movie because I'm a film director at heart, but I always end up realizing the best way to tell these stories is... exactly as they are told as visual novels/adventure games. Again, I think there's a reason why they were created that way.

 

Then again, there are definitely games that should have been movies instead, but those are precisely bad video games in general.

[Asaki]

On 10/12/2021 at 10:40 AM, Steven Pendleton said:

There are exactly 3 reasons that I buy Nintendo hardware and Metroid is one of them...

For me, it's Metroid and Zelda.
I'll have to put Dread on my wishlist.

...still waiting for that Switch Zelda game, but Hyrule Warriors 2 is pretty good.

 

On 10/12/2021 at 10:57 AM, Steven Pendleton said:

There's actually some Metroid manga that never got released outside of Japan as far as I know.

Nintendo Power had a few Metroid comics in the 90s. I haven't looked at them in ages, so I don't know if they were manga localizations, or what. I seem to recall them being in the same weird art style as that Zelda strategy guide.

[Steven Pendleton]

Hard mode done. 3:37:38, which is an interesting time. Not bad for third playthrough and first time playing hard difficulty. I seem to have discovered a way to get one of the items considerably earlier than you would if you did it in the "regular" order. I knew about this specific sequence break, but I didn't know how to do it... then I did it naturally an hour ago and was like oh yeah, I forgot that you can get this item early, but here it is! I think I found a way to get something else early, as well, but I'll have to play the game again to do it.

[Steven Pendleton]

Alright, there are apparently some major glitches, including a way to guarantee that the game will crash. It is easy to fix, though.

 

First, the way to make the game crash. Apparently if you have a marker placed on the map during the ending sequence, the game is guaranteed to crash. Simple fix = delete all markers. This is apparently being patched.

 

Second, there are apparently 2 very real softlocks. One is the result of abusing a glitch prior to encountering the first EMMI. You can apparently skip the tutorial EMMI completely with this glitch, but if you go back to the room where that EMMI is supposed to be later, you can't escape, so don't go there lol. I have not tried this myself, but I kind of want to to see how it works!

 

The second softlock = read this: https://www.reddit.com/r/Metroid/comments/q6acnq/metroid_dread_softlock_discovered_between_burenia/

 

I guess there might be some minor spoilers in there, though, so be careful, I suppose.

Edited October 15, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[roots.genoa]

Since I couldn't beat the soldier either (he's very tough, some attacks remove a full energy bar), I also backtracked to find energy tanks. I just found one I thought I couldn't get (in fact I could, it just requires good timing with morph-ball bombs), but I found a teleporter to a new zone, where I got stuck quickly (and even thought I had softlocked myself to be honest ?) but I managed to get an item which is very useful but has no impact on progression (you'll know what I mean).

[Parker77]

5 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Hard mode done. 3:37:38, which is an interesting time. Not bad for third playthrough and first time playing hard difficulty. I seem to have discovered a way to get one of the items considerably earlier than you would if you did it in the "regular" order. I knew about this specific sequence break, but I didn't know how to do it... then I did it naturally an hour ago and was like oh yeah, I forgot that you can get this item early, but here it is! I think I found a way to get something else early, as well, but I'll have to play the game again to do it.

Insane, congrats!

 

Wasn't on my radar this one purely due to the developer, but after the critical response I've had to order it. Should be here tomorrow, where it will join the Switch backlog which is getting stupidly large. I really need to stop buying games.

[Steven Pendleton]

2 hours ago, roots.genoa said:

Since I couldn't beat the soldier either (he's very tough, some attacks remove a full energy bar), I also backtracked to find energy tanks. I just found one I thought I couldn't get (in fact I could, it just requires good timing with morph-ball bombs), but I found a teleporter to a new zone, where I got stuck quickly (and even thought I had softlocked myself to be honest ?) but I managed to get an item which is very useful but has no impact on progression (you'll know what I mean).

The only thing I can think of is that you found an early Power Bomb Tank. No use for those until you actually get the Power Bomb.

 

Anyway, as for that soldier dude, I hope you enjoy fighting him a lot... for various reasons, mostly because

Spoiler

lol there are like 5 of them in the game, all identical except that they later get shields

1 hour ago, Parker77 said:

Insane, congrats!

 

Wasn't on my radar this one purely due to the developer, but after the critical response I've had to order it. Should be here tomorrow, where it will join the Switch backlog which is getting stupidly large. I really need to stop buying games.

Thanks. I can do better, though. My goal is to reduce this time to 3 hours at most and hopefully under 2 hours and 30 minutes. Knowing where stuff is and not wasting a bunch of time because I forgot where to go or trying weird stuff to see what happens will definitely reduce my time.

 

Anyway, it's not the best Metroid, but it's still one of the better ones. My impression right now is that it is still inferior to Super Metroid, AM2R (lol), Prime 1, and Zero Mission, but it's better than Fusion (which was reviled at the time of its release, but people like it now) and the rest. This may change as I learn more things about it, though I think it's far more likely that the game will go to a higher position on the list than it is to go to a lower position.

[roots.genoa]

1 hour ago, Steven Pendleton said:

The only thing I can think of is that you found an early Power Bomb Tank. No use for those until you actually get the Power Bomb.

Oh I already got three of them that I can't use yet. ?

I was really talking about an upgrade, but the only one that doesn't help you accessing new places. It helps you find stuff though. ?

[Steven Pendleton]

2 minutes ago, roots.genoa said:

Oh I already got three of them that I can't use yet. ?

I was really talking about an upgrade, but the only one that doesn't help you accessing new places. It helps you find stuff though. ?

Oh, that one. Lol I forget that that one's even in the game because of its button mapping being right on the d-pad!

 

Actually that specific item is literally right next to the sequence break location that I mentioned earlier, now that I think about it.

Edited October 15, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[roots.genoa]

I'm very bad at comparing games, especially since the Prime games are very different and I loved Fusion (it was my first 2d Metroid) but haven't played it since its release two decades ago. However I really like Dread even though I find it really tough, probably more than most episodes (except maybe the first two, but they are oldish). The bosses in particular are quite complex; I died dozens of time against the underwater one, not because it's difficult but it took me a lot of tries to just understand the multiple steps involved in beating it... ?

 

I liked Samus Returns, especially since I had recently beat the original Game Boy game and hated it (I found it incredibly repetitive and boring yet difficult and tedious - I used a ton of savestates against the almost identical bosses because they're hard to hit and they require the use of the limited missiles). Samus Returns' bosses were a lot easier except one that was so awful I almost quit. ? For now I haven't seen a boss like that in Dread fortunately, but every boss offers a lot of challenge and require practice. Once you get the technique, they're easier - except maybe the soldiers who don't require a specific technique and are very strong (some of their attacks remove a whole energy bar).

Edited October 15, 2021 by roots.genoa

[Steven Pendleton]

This is the most difficult Metroid game. Bosses will kill you in several hits, and on my 0% run most of the minibosses were killing me with a single hit by the halfway point on normal. Thanks to this, I can now beat every boss and miniboss in the game without taking any damage at all lol.

 

Touching an enemy results in considerably less damage than being hit by an enemy's actual attack, though. The last boss of this game is way more difficult than anything in Samus Returns, at least until you figure out what you are actually supposed to do. After that, it's still a very long fight.

Edited October 15, 2021 by Steven Pendleton

[Razzie.P]

I'm currently at Experiment Z-57 and not sure if I'll finish or just quit.   I'm having a hell of a time getting used to the controls, to the point where most of the game so far has been a negative experience.

 

I can max out the score on Contra, beat Battetoads, and do a "no hit run" on the first 2 Dark Souls game easier than I can consistently do moves like double jump (or space jump or whatever it's called) in this game.

[Steven Pendleton]

12 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

I'm currently at Experiment Z-57 and not sure if I'll finish or just quit.   I'm having a hell of a time getting used to the controls, to the point where most of the game so far has been a negative experience.

 

I can max out the score on Contra, beat Battetoads, and do a "no hit run" on the first 2 Dark Souls game easier than I can consistently do moves like double jump (or space jump or whatever it's called) in this game.

Yeah, the occasionally rather awkward controls are one of the biggest complaints that I have with this game. I wish that we could remap controls in-game or at least have some different options, but we can't/don't. You can remap them at the system level, but...

[Tanooki]

I keep having people/things get in the way enough I haven't had time to play in days, and last night I fell asleep at the keyboard for hours.   I wonder how little I've seen going as far as varia suit and wide beam seeing all these kind of spoilerish borderline comments.  Argh.