Metroid Dread

  • Guest, it's time once again for the hotly contested and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!



    Go here and fill out your bracket!
    Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Once again, only you can decide!

Intrinsic

Person of Whiteness
<Gold Donor>
14,147
11,473
Agreed. Dread gives away all of the major plot points in two particular cutscenes (when you meet the scientist guy, and when you arrive at the final boss). Rather than having the story slowly unravel as you go, they just dump exposition at those two points. It's a bit like how the teleporters are a crutch for the world design not being as well-done as it could have been.



The same thing happens in Demon's Souls, a big elevator ride right before the last boss. I look at it as giving you a moment to mentally re-prepare to fight.

I still haven't beaten the final boss, but I also haven't tried since my earlier post. I took a few unserious whacks at it before that. I'm prepared to spend my entire Sunday afternoon dying to that guy until I get the game done, though, mainly so I can put it in the rearview mirror. Typically when I finish a Metroid game I can't wait to start it over and go for 100% or speedrun or whatnot. This is the first Metroid game ever that I don't feel like replaying (besides side-games like Other M and Hunters).



Believe or not despite being a massive Metroid fan I've never played the Oris, or Hollow Knight. From what I've heard HK is very long/difficult, but I could probably swing the Oris some time soon since they're more like standard Metroid length/difficulty. I'd like to do that to be able to compare them to Dread.
Do yourself a favor and go through Ori. It is really good.
 
  • 2Like
  • 1Solidarity
Reactions: 2 users

LiquidDeath

Magnus Deadlift the Fucktiger
4,831
11,118
Agreed. Dread gives away all of the major plot points in two particular cutscenes (when you meet the scientist guy, and when you arrive at the final boss). Rather than having the story slowly unravel as you go, they just dump exposition at those two points. It's a bit like how the teleporters are a crutch for the world design not being as well-done as it could have been.



The same thing happens in Demon's Souls, a big elevator ride right before the last boss. I look at it as giving you a moment to mentally re-prepare to fight.

I still haven't beaten the final boss, but I also haven't tried since my earlier post. I took a few unserious whacks at it before that. I'm prepared to spend my entire Sunday afternoon dying to that guy until I get the game done, though, mainly so I can put it in the rearview mirror. Typically when I finish a Metroid game I can't wait to start it over and go for 100% or speedrun or whatnot. This is the first Metroid game ever that I don't feel like replaying (besides side-games like Other M and Hunters).



Believe or not despite being a massive Metroid fan I've never played the Oris, or Hollow Knight. From what I've heard HK is very long/difficult, but I could probably swing the Oris some time soon since they're more like standard Metroid length/difficulty. I'd like to do that to be able to compare them to Dread.

I think you can agree that this is a completely different type of game than the Souls games. They make you run a gauntlet to get back to every boss that includes non-boss enemies. In Dread every other boss starts you right outside the boss room to retry... except for the final boss and his stupid goddamn elevator into cutscene. It's a shame, too since the last boss is a great fight. It still had execution problems, though, since it is impossible to tell if you are dealing damage to him in some of his phases. The design decisions in this game are inexplicable. Pro-tip: in his second phase when he turns yellow, he doesn't flash white when getting hit with missiles but he is actually taking damage. Took me a solid hour and a half from getting to him to putting him down.

As far as Hollow Knight and Ori, yes the Ori games are slower paced and more puzzle/explore based. Hollow Knight is incredible and you should play it, but it is definitely a higher twitch/skill level for fights. The controls are super tight and responsive, though, so combat feels great.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

k^M

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,676
1,921
Ori is probably 1.5-2x as long as Dread is, maybe a tiny bit longer if you want to 100% it, while being engrossed in beautiful scenery.

HK, for people saying its a lot harder, I don't know if I'd agree. There are some (optional) fights, that I've never beaten (Radiance, go fuck yourself), or beaten without cheesing (click to the wall while auto spawn worms rain down vs the suped up jumping/smashing knight in dreamland) and maximum zote, but for the rest the game is very beatable similar to Dread. Every boss has paterns and it doesn't take long to observe them / know how to kill flawlessly.

Unless the background/art turns you off completely, if you played Dread you absolutely should give both a try considering you can get either for < $20
 
  • 1Solidarity
Reactions: 1 user

Rajaah

Honorable Member
<Gold Donor>
11,003
14,659
Ori is probably 1.5-2x as long as Dread is, maybe a tiny bit longer if you want to 100% it, while being engrossed in beautiful scenery.

HK, for people saying its a lot harder, I don't know if I'd agree. There are some (optional) fights, that I've never beaten (Radiance, go fuck yourself), or beaten without cheesing (click to the wall while auto spawn worms rain down vs the suped up jumping/smashing knight in dreamland) and maximum zote, but for the rest the game is very beatable similar to Dread. Every boss has paterns and it doesn't take long to observe them / know how to kill flawlessly.

Unless the background/art turns you off completely, if you played Dread you absolutely should give both a try considering you can get either for < $20


Got both Oris on Switch, physical so they'll barely cost me anything. Already had HK on PS5 because it had a digital sale for $9 or something a while back. Ori should look really really good on the Switch OLED. Looking forward to that after I'm done with Dread (still need to fight the final boss).
 
  • 1Solidarity
Reactions: 1 user

Bruuce

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,467
2,571
Beat it today, clocked in at 10:55. Prob could beat it about 2 hours faster but I went back to get some items after I got to the last boss. Think final boss took me sub 10 tries. Would agree game is like. 6-7/10
 
Last edited:
  • 1Picard
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 users

etchazz

Trakanon Raider
2,707
1,056
My opinion of this game has completely soured. The later boss fights are just ridiculously frustrating, as it feels like it's a combination of Guitar Hero and DDR. I hate that if you're not standing in the precise damn spot, or jumping at the precise damn moment, you die and have to start over. I don't even know what the point of having health in this game is since if you get hit more than twice, you die. I like games like Hades, where the more I play it, the more powerful I become, and the better I'm able to cheese the game and feel that my progression is rewarded. The boss fights just feel like a slog in the latter half of the game, to the point where I don't even want to play anymore.

Add the fact that backtracking is so damn annoying, just to get a few more missiles and energy tanks, that my entire enjoyment of the game is dragged down by it. I also hate the fact that if you progress too far forward, you can't get back to where you were at all. Who the fuck designs a game like that? After I beat the fourth EMMI, I guess there's an upgrade that tells you where certain hidden items are in each area, but guess what, since I didn't know about it until I moved toward the next teleport, there was no way to go back to the EMMI room to get the item! What in the living fuck? When I first started playing, I thought this game was a solid 9 out of 10. Now, it's more like a 6. I hate the boss fights, I hate how fragmented the zones are, and I absolutely fucking hate how you can't backtrack to previous areas to retrieve items you may have missed. Thumbs down.
 

Runnen

Vyemm Raider
1,743
4,026
I absolutely fucking hate how you can't backtrack to previous areas to retrieve items you may have missed. Thumbs down.

You bring up valid points and are entitled to your opinion, but you can absolutely backtrack to every single room in the game. Maybe not immediately after missing out on the obvious blinking upgrade that you skipped, but before the end area I was able to scour 100% of the map for the last missing upgrades and pixels to uncover.
 

k^M

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,676
1,921
My opinion of this game has completely soured. The later boss fights are just ridiculously frustrating, as it feels like it's a combination of Guitar Hero and DDR. I hate that if you're not standing in the precise damn spot, or jumping at the precise damn moment, you die and have to start over. I don't even know what the point of having health in this game is since if you get hit more than twice, you die. I like games like Hades, where the more I play it, the more powerful I become, and the better I'm able to cheese the game and feel that my progression is rewarded. The boss fights just feel like a slog in the latter half of the game, to the point where I don't even want to play anymore.

Add the fact that backtracking is so damn annoying, just to get a few more missiles and energy tanks, that my entire enjoyment of the game is dragged down by it. I also hate the fact that if you progress too far forward, you can't get back to where you were at all. Who the fuck designs a game like that? After I beat the fourth EMMI, I guess there's an upgrade that tells you where certain hidden items are in each area, but guess what, since I didn't know about it until I moved toward the next teleport, there was no way to go back to the EMMI room to get the item! What in the living fuck? When I first started playing, I thought this game was a solid 9 out of 10. Now, it's more like a 6. I hate the boss fights, I hate how fragmented the zones are, and I absolutely fucking hate how you can't backtrack to previous areas to retrieve items you may have missed. Thumbs down.
In general I agree with this, but if you are getting killed in two hits you clearly missed too many energy tanks along the way (or that were easily backtracked to get, outside of the fuck you doors). Finishing at 70% had I think 8? energy tanks and was able to take quite a few hits. Keep in mind, the more obvious the telegraph the harder the boss hits usually are, I seem to remember the dash/wall slam attacks on the final boss doing like 2+ energy tanks whereas the spinning mini gun fire was like 30% of one.
 
  • 1Solidarity
Reactions: 1 user

Rajaah

Honorable Member
<Gold Donor>
11,003
14,659
My opinion of this game has completely soured. The later boss fights are just ridiculously frustrating, as it feels like it's a combination of Guitar Hero and DDR. I hate that if you're not standing in the precise damn spot, or jumping at the precise damn moment, you die and have to start over. I don't even know what the point of having health in this game is since if you get hit more than twice, you die. I like games like Hades, where the more I play it, the more powerful I become, and the better I'm able to cheese the game and feel that my progression is rewarded. The boss fights just feel like a slog in the latter half of the game, to the point where I don't even want to play anymore.

Add the fact that backtracking is so damn annoying, just to get a few more missiles and energy tanks, that my entire enjoyment of the game is dragged down by it. I also hate the fact that if you progress too far forward, you can't get back to where you were at all. Who the fuck designs a game like that? After I beat the fourth EMMI, I guess there's an upgrade that tells you where certain hidden items are in each area, but guess what, since I didn't know about it until I moved toward the next teleport, there was no way to go back to the EMMI room to get the item! What in the living fuck? When I first started playing, I thought this game was a solid 9 out of 10. Now, it's more like a 6. I hate the boss fights, I hate how fragmented the zones are, and I absolutely fucking hate how you can't backtrack to previous areas to retrieve items you may have missed. Thumbs down.

Yeah I wasn't crazy about the later boss fights, specifically all of the black venom spitting Chozo Warriors (you fight the same one 3x IIRC) and the flying mega-bee. All I can say is get really good at air-dashing. The good news is that once you get good at defeating the venom-spitting Chozo, you can apply the same strategies to the further versions of them so each one is easier and easier despite having more HP.

The final boss is an absolute beast though. I still have to take him on and resigned myself to needing to put two hours or so aside to just die repeatedly until I get it. Meh.

As far as Energy Tanks go, it isn't too tough to get 'em all before the last boss. I've got all except one (missing four Energy Parts) I think and I didn't go out of my way to hunt things down too much.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Rajaah

Honorable Member
<Gold Donor>
11,003
14,659
I've put aside this afternoon to beat the final boss of Dread. I'm amazed at how little I feel like doing this. I've never had trouble getting motivated to fight the final boss of a game before, ever, much less one from my favorite series of all time. It feels like I need to get this out of the way so I can focus on my other new genre games (Ori, Code Vein, and Bloodstained). Until I do this, every time I sit down to get going with one of those, it's like "I should probably finish up with Metroid" and I realize I don't feel like it.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

k^M

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,676
1,921
If you watch the fight on youtube, you'll realize just how dumb and easy it is once you recognize the telegraphs. Even dumber yet when entire phases of the fight seem like you do zero damage and you actually have to counter melee to progress it.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Bruuce

Blackwing Lair Raider
1,467
2,571
Yeah once I figured out the counter melee thing to end the phase I beat it like 3 tries later
 
  • 1Picard
Reactions: 1 user

k^M

Blackwing Lair Raider
2,676
1,921
Right? Its dumb, I went through a stock of 200 missiles and went the fuck is this?
 

Rajaah

Honorable Member
<Gold Donor>
11,003
14,659
There we go, beat him, took about an hour and a half of tries like other people have mentioned. Not bad at all once I got all of the telegraphs, and the projectiles healing you in phase 1 and 3 made things a lot easier. Once I got it, I was able to consistently beat phase 1 without even getting hit. Phase 3 had a few surprises but I got it on the second attempt (first was bungled because I didn't get a Power Bomb down before the sun attack). Phase 2 was the part that ended the majority of the attempts.

I'm really glad the game is over, but I'm sure I'll revisit it eventually and maybe I'll like it more then. The strong point was absolutely the story and world-building it did.

I felt kind of bad for Raven Beak when he got turned into a weird Kraid-hybrid X Parasite at the end. He would have been a great recurring villain in the next game. Probably the most badass Metroid villain ever besides Ridley.

I have no idea where the story is gonna go from here but I'm looking forward to finding out. After
Samus got turned back to normal by that one nice X (wtf)
I feel like this one more or less ends back where it started. Would have been cool to
have the green Metroid Suit for the next game.
 

etchazz

Trakanon Raider
2,707
1,056
You bring up valid points and are entitled to your opinion, but you can absolutely backtrack to every single room in the game. Maybe not immediately after missing out on the obvious blinking upgrade that you skipped, but before the end area I was able to scour 100% of the map for the last missing upgrades and pixels to uncover.

Yeah, I was finally able to backtrack and pick up some things that I missed, I just don't like the fact that early on in the game you could move ahead and have no idea that you missed something pretty damn important. Like, give me some kind of clue before I get to a point where I can't go back. I didn't collect all of the energy tanks and missiles (even though I knew where they were) because I was getting too god damn frustrated at having to run from three rooms over, only to have to hit 12 buttons at exactly the right time, and jump but only during the third full moon of the summer solstice, and hit dash before hitting another 10 buttons just to get to a ledge to get another +2 missile tank. Since health and missiles aren't even vital to beating the game, I just didn't see the point. I did finally beat the game, and thank god I bought the game at Walmart, because I was able to return it for a full refund. I don't have any reason to ever play this game again. Since beating this game, I started playing Back 4 Blood. That game makes Metroid look like a steaming pile of dog shit by comparison.
 

Runnen

Vyemm Raider
1,743
4,026
I'm really glad the game is over, but I'm sure I'll revisit it eventually and maybe I'll like it more then. The strong point was absolutely the story and world-building it did.

I felt kind of bad for Raven Beak when he got turned into a weird Kraid-hybrid X Parasite at the end. He would have been a great recurring villain in the next game. Probably the most badass Metroid villain ever besides Ridley.

I have no idea where the story is gonna go from here but I'm looking forward to finding out. After
Samus got turned back to normal by that one nice X (wtf)
I feel like this one more or less ends back where it started. Would have been cool to
have the green Metroid Suit for the next game.

For your first story point :

The purple X that attacks Raven Beak once his armor breaks is the same one that can be seen in a missable moment of the game when you go back to Kraid's boss room after the X have been released, and the same purple X is seen getting into Kraid's skeleton at the bottom of the lava pit. Since the game mentions how X parasites can access the memory of their host, it's pretty cool that X-Kraid decided to get revenge on Raven Beak for all the abuse he put him through (seen in lore snapshots unlocked at the end, but you can also see how Kraid was beat up and shackled in the boss fight). It's a little hard to see in the boss fight but there's also a few pieces of other bosses thrown into the mix, but the main one we see is Kraid's head splitting in four, yeah.

The second :
About the "nice" red X at the end, again it has to do with the host. The stronger willed creatures can resist a bit more of the X's mind domination, and can still show some personality once absorbed, as seen by X-Raven Beak still repeating his motto about power depsite having been merged with Kraid and other bosses by the purple X. When the red X absorbed Quiet Robe, it didn't fully dominate him, that's why it didn't even attack Samus in the ship and bowed to her similar to the real Quiet Robe. The Thoha tribe's specific genetics allow them to control the Metroids, which is why it merged into Samus' Metroid Suit to let her control iit, in this case revert to normal so she could manually start the ship.

The third :

Which leads me to think that's not the last we see of the Metroid form of Samus, but to be fair it's so hugely overpowered that it could only be an eleventh hour superpower in future games, or only return as a cameo when she absorbs enemies instead of destroying them to gain their powers. It could also be a good way to return the titular metroids into the franchise, we'll see. :)
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user

Rajaah

Honorable Member
<Gold Donor>
11,003
14,659
X-Ridley was in Fusion.

Real Ridley canon-died in Metroid Other M, IIRC.

Then in Fusion, there's a clone of him frozen in the Federation labs. Since he died on a Federation ship in Other M, they were able to scrape up his DNA there* when the Federation goons showed up to do "clean up" at the end of that game.

The clone gets possessed by X at one point, and you fight X-Ridley, which is a bigger nastier version of him.

So yeah, Ridley is dead, and X-Ridley / clone is also dead. Kraid was never accounted for after Super Metroid, and if Ridley was still on the loose, it stands to reason that Kraid was too. I actually considered this a bit of a loose end that Kraid hadn't been seen again.

Phantoon was in Other M, so at this point the only Super Metroid major boss (the four at the gold statue) that hasn't made a return after that game is Draygon. Then again Draygon is the only major boss that was indisputably killed in Super.

* - It's worth noting that you also fight a cloned Queen Metroid in Other M, whose DNA should also be splattered all over everything. So if the Federation could scrape up Ridley DNA to make a clone, they could do the same with Metroids. Fusion has that one big Omega Metroid at the end, and that might just be the beginning of it. I fully expect the Federation to be the villains in future games, after the events of Other M/Fusion/Dread. Not only do they potentially have Metroids at their disposal, they're also now known to have near-indestructible killer robots. Note how the EMMIs are designed to be DNA-extractors? They were on ZDR to gather X-Parasite samples so the Federation can weaponize THAT too on top of everything else. The Federation are a scourge.
 
Last edited: