Board 8 > The Metroid Dread Topic (marked spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Yeah I was pretty sure that was a thing, just couldnt manage to pull it off

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Super Mario Sunshine is genuinely a great game though. If I replayed Other M I feel like I'd find it to be a 5/10 game. It does deserve the criticism it gets though.

If anything Batman & Robin is a better comparison. Although Other M's story is Shakespearean compared to B&R, but that REALLY isn't saying much.

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I don't know I replayed other M back in August along with all the other metroid games and I still think it's OK

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It's been a while since I've played a Metroid game, so maybe I'm rusty

But wow am I dying a lot in this game.

Getting caught by the EMMIs quite a bit. I broke out of one of their grabs though!
...Exactly once.

Anyway, picked up the Speed Booster, doing some exploring.

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ninkendo posted...

I don't know I replayed other M back in August along with all the other metroid games and I still think it's OK

Most of it is last time I played Metroid Prime I couldn't help but reflect on Other M negatively despite having liked it okay both times I played it - the problem being the game was still fairly new when I last played it in 2013 (I went on to the GBA games and then Prime 1 before calling it quits).

I could write so much about this in any case.

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I think I picked up Super Bombs before I was supposed to. It says I obtained an "unknown resource" and the item can't be used yet.

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I'm a few hours in. I've been taking it slow. I've defeated three bosses.

First boss was tricky but fun, I died a bunch but was happy when I beat him. It felt like a lot of "surprise! this kills you! now you can avoid it next time" but not in a bad way. I only died once to Kraid. He does some damage but you can easily outdamage him and shoot all his attacks down pretty much. I was expecting some real hard phase 3 when I got behind him, but, that was the end of the fight. The chozo warrior was hard the first time because I couldn't get the timing on the melee attacks at all, but the second time was easy enough. I'm guessing I'll get less Kraid/Chozo types of bosses that you can out DPS and more bosses like that poison lizard.

EMMI are tricky but definitely a welcome addition to the game.

I really wish the music was a lot better. Why can't I re-map controls and turn the BGM up? so weird.

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recently reached the eighth area

good lord, the Shield Chozo Warrior might be the hardest boss I've faced thus far, but only because their attacks do A LOT OF DAMAGE

man I still don't have Power Bombs, progression in this game is so weird and I kinda like the uncertainty but also JESUS CHRIST WHERE ARE THEY (don't actually tell me) (I know I can't be too close to done yet since I still have two E.M.M.I.s left lawl)

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for what its worth, power bombs were the last powerup in zero mission, quite literally a few screens away from the last boss, and optional at that

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Yeah sometimes I wonder what the point is of health tanks when one hit can just clean a tank or three down anyway
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htaeD posted...

Yeah sometimes I wonder what the point is of health tanks when one hit can just clean a tank or three down anyway

Sometimes I wonder what the point of heart containers are in Zelda when one hit can clean out a heart or three.

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Okay, I am ready to spew my thoughts on the game, and I'm going to lead off with the criticisms. These are all minor and didn't really affect my enjoyment of the game that much, it's just things I'd have done different were I in charge.

As it's been said, remappable controls, where are they? I'm not going to go change my whole switch's buttons for one game and change them back whenever I want to play a different game. That said, the only reason I'd want it is because it's kind of tough to jump and hold a charge at the same time. I'd rather have remapped shoot to like...zr or something, I think someone in here suggested that as really the only thing you use ZR for is the grapple beam.

2nd on the list, and this is a bit more spoilery in terms of powerups, I felt like there was a really high amount of "padding" powers that are just tide-overs until you get the actual thing you want. I get that they probably did this to expand the scope of puzzles they could use, but it's just really a lot of powers on the whole. Diffusion beam (wave beam), cross bombs (power bombs), and spin boost (space jump) all feel like they're just placeholders until you get the better version. And I realize this isn't even new, high jump is sort of that way for space jump too. Fusion had diffusion missiles which were useless on the main path except for the one area outside the data room you get them. But I just feel like there was a bit of an oversaturation of powers. When I got the pulse radar and it was mapped to the D-PAD? That's when I started to go "okay, this is a bit much." Also related to powers, I also felt some of the powers fell by the wayside on the main path. I don't recall very many necessary speed booster puzzles, those all seem like they were relegated to getting all the tanks. And I really don't like manually having to activate the speed booster, though I appreciate other changes made to it. But because the speed booster was so unnecessary, it was pretty much only useful when I had a big long opening or closing corridor to run down and wanted to run faster. I didn't ever feel the need to use it, which is a shame.

Finally, I'm not really fond of the choice to make widespread use of hidden blocks, at least before you get the pulse radar. I get the game tells you straight up "Hey if you're stuck, try shooting literally everything" but that is not an enjoyable experience. It's not dark souls level of hit everything for bull**** hidden passages, but it's still not enjoyable. Generally the game is good enough about leading you on that you kinda figure out where the rooms are, but it does get a bit frustrating at times. There are some rooms that don't really stick out as being obvious "false dead end" type rooms. I'd rather them have either toned this aspect down or just made pulse radar the first aeion powerup you get.

All that being said, this is a fantastic game. The gameplay is smooth and phase shift is an incredible power both functionally and visually. They went pretty much everywhere I wanted them to go with the story which was my major investment, I loved the midgame exposition and samus TALKING, it made for a great wham line. I also loved how the stakes suddenly changed once the X get released, it goes from "Try to survive these robots and figure out the chozo dude" to "Oh crap the entire universe is going to die." That shot of all the x leaving Elun en masse, as if a storm was brewing, was incredible. And then the entire ending sequence was great, Raven Beak was a smackdown, drag-out, no holds barred type of final boss you love to see, and I had a hunch samus would have metroid powers but the metroid suit might be my favorite suit she's ever had. The scene of her screaming mad and sucking energy out of THE ENTIRE SHIP is probably my favorite moment in the whole game. I didn't really see the "ADAM is raven beak for most of the game" twist but I did get a funny feeling I couldn't quite pin down at some of Adam's lines during the game. I did really like though how after being impersonated the whole game, the REAL adam is still aware of what's happened to samus and keeps her from using her metroid powers on her own ship by instinct. It was probably really hard for her to hold back sucking up literally everything but adam managed to keep her from doing it. Finally, the end with Quiet Robe-X does kind of come out of left field a bit imo, but not that much, and I like how they held it back until the very end since you see him get infected quite a bit earlier.

Overall, this game is pretty much everything I wanted as a fusion sequel. I never played super metroid, which I understand is pretty universally the top metroid game for most people, and that this game tried to emulate it as much as possible, but I would be shocked if I went and played it now and liked it better than this game. This game just does so many things right it might be my favorite metroid even over fusion. And this game wasn't even made particularly for me, since I'm not quite fond of sequence breaking but there is a lot of that here because lots of people like it and hated the linearity of fusion, which is part of what I actually really like about fusion (again I know I'm way in the minority there). So it's not even to my exact tastes and I still like it better than fusion. I feel like there was a good blend of linearity and open-endedness.

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I came across a thread yesterday about what random buttons people use to try to get out of a spin jump for a midair shinespark and it was crazy. everyone has their own method and they all suck! its a terrible execution to have shinespark on an analog stick.

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I always just shot the power beam

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That

I mean the left stick speed boost connection is not the biggest problem. You dont need to touch it once you stored the energy.
Its the fact that the shine spark store release button is the same as the spinjump button.
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I went from cancelling my spin with morph ball to cancelling spin with melee to cancelling my spin with shooting.... to realizing i don't even need to cancel the spin and you can just press jump+shoot together to go right into the spark

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GuessMyUserName posted...

I went from cancelling my spin with morph ball to cancelling spin with melee to cancelling my spin with shooting.... to realizing i don't even need to cancel the spin and you can just press jump+shoot together to go right into the spark

I read this and all my brain comes up with is "you aren't getting those missiles, neon"

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100% done at 11:32

I guess I'll look into the speed running aspects next if I even feel like doing that

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game beated

Feels like the ending wrapped up a little too quickly but it went some neat places.

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Janus5k posted...

man I still don't have Power Bombs, progression in this game is so weird and I kinda like the uncertainty but also JESUS CHRIST WHERE ARE THEY (don't actually tell me) (I know I can't be too close to done yet since I still have two E.M.M.I.s left lawl)

okay this aged hilariously, especially the last part

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I was so waiting for that lol

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David Jaffe continues to be so mad

https://youtu.be/7noxyKs4mc8

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... his lost behaviour might be contributing to my perception here but holy moly jaffe has aged

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Beat the game last night, little over 9 hours, 45%. Really enjoyed that.

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I'm guessing I'm 40-50% done. A few more bosses down. While Samus feels a little fragile to me, the bosses aren't exactly damage sponges themselves. I like that!

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Alright, just beat it. 9:20 or so, 67%. Wanted to get more items but didn't feel like agonizing over shinespark stuff, especially since they controlled strangely.

Final boss was hard, like most people are saying, but none of his attacks really felt unfair - was mainly a matter of figuring out how to dodge each one until he eventually went down. Almost died in the escape sequence because it took me a long while to realize there was a new route, whoops. Not really sure what happened in the ending with that X but I guess things worked out okay?

Overall I enjoyed it a good bit - more or less what I wanted out of a new 2D Metroid game. My biggest complaint is probably that I think the E.M.M.I. sections, while sometimes neat, kind of hurt the pacing - they reminded me of the SA-X encounters from Fusion, but they were far more frequent and ended up being more annoying that scary. Also felt weirdly linear at times, but I liked Fusion a lot so that's not a big deal to me. Not entirely sure how it ranks in the series for me, but probably around the middle of the ones I've played (Super, Fusion, Zero Mission, Prime 1+2) - I should note "around the middle" for these games still makes it very good to me.

Will probably replay it for 100% once a good guide comes out. Curious how you'd route it efficiently and what the cutoffs are for better endings.

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I don't really get how you are supposed to escape from emmi

I've done it a few times by accident

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Oh, I got a power bomb but haven't picked up power bombs yet so I can't use it.

That's kind of lame

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masterplum posted...

I don't really get how you are supposed to escape from emmi

I've done it a few times by accident

You mean the counter? You aren't. I did it a few times but the window is extremely tight and not consistent at all.

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I somehow managed to do the EMMI counter twice in one go...and still died anyway

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I've gotten weirdly good at the counter - maybe 30-40% of the time? but if you asked me how I'd say it's just luck

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Something no one seems to notice is that the EMMI will make a B-line for the last spot where you made "noise" aka the little Yellow circle that appear around you. So if you want to bait it somewhere, make noise in an area, then Phantom Cloak to another that's not directly between the last place you made said noise, and the EMMI. It's really, really easy to abuse this.

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It's definitely luck, the time between the reaction button changes and it takes pretty crazy reflexes to get by on skill - so that's why there's 2 chances for it so you don't just surrender on capture and it keeps you tensely engaged

totally unrelated I love one EMMI kill I got later in the my first playthrough

https://twitter.com/B8Grimlyn/status/1447335533273772034

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I'm not sure why, but for some reason I really like the EMMI segments. I usually hate things like that in games (I just finished railing against the Outer Wilds DLC for it)

But in this game I think it really works. Guessing the fact it just pops you back to the door when you die is a big part of it. It somehow feels simultaneously high stakes but low risk at the same time

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I'm glad I learned you unlock fast travel right before the final boss. Saves me a lot of time backtracking through all the levels now that I know an easier way to do it is coming up.

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Final Boss defeated.
What a rush.
Havent felt that way since the ending of Sekiro, intensity-wise.

He is indeed tough but fair. The hard part is just learning his moves in later phases since it takes so long to get to them. Also that counter asks for a lot of close proximity, eesh. (Screw his horizontal winged dives though. My instinct kept telling me to zip through them instead of sliding under them)
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wing dive I typically space jump over, although as I got more familiar with the fight I began sliding

melee dash attack I think I've counter just once or twice, I usually just jump over and keep fighting normally, although again, as I become more accustomed to the fight I also start challenging that more

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I like countering the melee dash since it makes the first (and third) phase that much faster.
I am not sure if its consistent, but a succesful counter means you dont have to wait for two taunts in the first phase.
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Figuring out the slide was a game changer for me, so much easier than trying to time a jump. The dash is also a lot easier to counter than it looks, and helps with countering the taunt too because the trick is that knowing the timing and tells for those makes being in close for it pretty safe.

Second phase is by far the hardest since you can't rely on counters and have to be much more mobile.

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Also no heals in that phase
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masterplum posted...

But in this game I think it really works. Guessing the fact it just pops you back to the door when you die is a big part of it. It somehow feels simultaneously high stakes but low risk at the same time

It makes it feel like Super Meat Boy or something

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In related news
I guess Kotaku started something, because MSN (correction) hosted an even dumber article about emulating Metroid Dread
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Just finished it - 7:12 with 57% - and what a phenomenal game. Basically everything I wanted from a new sidescrolling Metroid, sans memorable music. Not sure if it quite tops Super for me, but it's certainly number 2 of the 2D games. I'd probably put every Prime game over this still, but they're such different experiences and hard to compare.

It's funny, this game succeeds in the areas Super fails (combat, incredibly tight controls, some of the best bosses I've played in years) and its missteps for me were areas that Super excels (melodic and memorable music, and I prefer the isolating, meditative atmosphere of Super over the intense, foreboding atmosphere of Dread). I'm sure the more ambient, mechanical, less melodic music was a conscious choice to keep the atmosphere tense, but it's just not as good as the Metroid classics.

In terms of action and combat though, I had no idea Metroid could ever be this good, nor how badly I want it to always be this good from now on. I always thought a Super remake was unnecessary, but now I totally want Mercury Steam to make that happen. Super Metroid where Samus controls like butter? Yes please. I'd also approve of them revamping the bosses with more phases like this game's, because I seriously can't sing the praises of them enough. I did want a few more crazy monsters though and the second half of this game was maybe slightly oversaturated with the Chozo Warrior fights, but those were still so fun to play every time.

Okay, I also won't complain if you add Phase Shift to Super.

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CasanovaZelos posted...

The final battle accounted for an hour of my 7 hour run,

Didn't see anyone point this out so I just thought I'd say - no it didn't. Like Samus Returns, the timer resets every time you die. So it only accounted for however many minutes you took on the run you actually beat the boss.

A game with bosses this tough and rewards for beating the game quick wouldn't be that cruel!


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Argh, ran out of missiles on the third phase of what I assume is the final boss.

I wonder if I need to go collect more

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P sure just the normal beam works on the 3rd phase

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I believe so, plus the third phase should bring back the energy ball attack you can refresh energy/ammo from

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Emeraldegg posted...

P sure just the normal beam works on the 3rd phase

Do I want to charge it or just shoot

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masterplum posted...

Argh, ran out of missiles on the third phase of what I assume is the final boss.

I wonder if I need to go collect more

There's a way to get more during the third phase (this was my complaint earlier in the topic)

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masterplum posted...

Do I want to charge it or just shoot

If your'e asking me which is optimal, I have no idea what the damage output is, or even what a charge shot is vs a missile. But it feels good to mash the button so that's what I did on some ill-fated runs. Both "work" though, like he's not immune to normal shots in that phase.

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