Raven Beak in 3

 Well, 5 years later my re-play of Metroid Dread saw me take down Raven Beak in three attempts. While I love this game as a fitting follow-up to the series, my biggest complaint as someone getting a bit older is that it's tough on the hands - when you get either the Plasma or Wave Beam, you can start damaging bosses with your uncharged beam weapons, which is theoretically a good thing but given that Dread's beam weapon more or less shoots as fast as you can hit the Y button, I just found my thumb getting extremely tired doing it, and so I wonder if I actually would have taken him down faster if I had stuck to missiles with a slower fire rate but I assume still higher damage-per-hit. When I got the parry-cutscene damage opportunities, I just shifted so that I could tap the Y button with my pointer, which was was better-rested and made it easier to really rapidly blast the guy.

My first go I got absolutely trounced, but I got better at reading his tells, and in both attempts 2 and 3 I barely took any damage on his flying phase. I also remember hitting his void-bombs with Storm Missiles 5 years ago, but this time I had trouble getting the lock-on and launch in time, and found it easier to just aim Ice Missiles at it.

Despite having very little screentime, Raven Beak is a really memorable and compelling villain. For one thing, we've generally seen the Chozo as benevolent figures. For all the cosmic horror we encounter in Dread, the fact that the final boss and main villain is just a philosophically evil conqueror and tyrant is an interesting twist. Given his end, though, it seems very unlikely that we'll ever see him again.

Kraid and Ridley have died multiple times and come back via cloning or whatever - it's not super clear how the Mawkin captured Kraid (to be fair, Kraid just kind of sinks into the ground when we beat him in Super Metroid, the last time we canonically saw him, so maybe he got off Zebes before it blew up. Or, again, could be a clone). But given that Kraid appears as part of an X-Parasite (the same that infects Raven Beak and creates the truly horrific Kraid/Raven Beak Hybrid. Kraven Beak?) does that mean he's perma-dead?

If memory serves, there's a Ridley clone in Metroid Fusion (oh, and it turns out I can't play it on my Switch because they have a tiered subscription) but even though Ridley shows up more than any other Metroid villain, I believe his canonical death happens in Super Metroid (he literally blows apart).

My total play time was 8 and a half hours, though there's also a counter for when you're on the map screen, which bumped mine up to 11.5. I cannot imagine I spent a full 3 hours looking at maps in this playthrough, but I assume I left the game paused for a long time while doing something else. I saw that a previous speed-run of it I'd taken only 3 hours and maybe 40 minutes, but only had like 37% of the items. I believe you get art rewards for getting under 4 hours, and I just never got that on Hard Mode (doubt I ever attempted it).

100% But for Raven Beak in my Revisit to ZDR, and Thoughts on Super Metroid

 I seriously doubt that I'm getting any reasonable completion time, but I've gotten 100% of all items in my 5-years-later play of Metroid Dread.

I was shocked that I managed to pull off the difficult shinespark puzzles in Burenia and Cataris in only a couple attempts. I also realized that the one I recalled struggling with in Ferenia actually doesn't require you to use the shinespark until the very end, rather than having to preserve it on slopes, which might explain why I had so much trouble with it back in the day as well. This is the one in the lower left part of Ferenia, through a hidden passage next to the lift that goes down to Dairon. You have plenty of space to get the speed boost up, and then you just slide under a small gap, run up a slope, wall-jump to another slope, and then get your shinespark activated right at the top of that slope and shoot straight up.

Similarly, the one in Artaria (upper left) that I thought required you to get the shinespark, bomb through a wall, and then flash-shift through one of those barriers that will close if you step on the ground near them... could also be done much more simply, as you actually have just enough space to get the shinespark on the other side of the bomb-block barrier, making it actually pretty trivially easy (you can just space jump over the barrier with plenty of time to get in position to spark up through the speed blocks).

I really love Metroid Dread. I still think that I like Super Metroid's world design better - particularly, I find that Dread locks too many doors behind you, so that frequently the zones feel less like an expanding world than levels that you have to commit to completing before you can go back where you came from. I appreciate that you can use the teleporters to go to any other teleporter after getting to Itorash - it was convenient for my item hunt - but I also kind of prefer the way that Super Metroid only rarely traps you where you are - you can usually return to the ship if you want (the exception being I think when you go down into Lower Brinstar and I think you really need the Ice Beam to climb back up).

Also, Super Metroid's soundtrack is among the greatest of all time, and I don't know that any of Dread's music achieves the same iconic memorability. Indeed, Dread re-uses some music from Super Metroid - its theme now sort of functions as Samus' theme (which is funny because she has a theme, which plays near her ship in Super Metroid) and they use the Red Brinstar theme when Quiet Robe gives you the mid-game lore dump. (I remember when I first played the series after discovering Samus in Super Smash Bros., I was surprised that I didn't hear the Brinstar theme in Super Metroid. This, of course, had been the Brinstar theme for the original game, which has a far more heroic space-adventure vibe compared to the brooding and dark stuff from Super Metroid (even if the Green Brinstar theme is kind of a banger, there's still a bit of a "what a weird and mysterious world we've found" tone to it).

Actually, fun fact, when I first played Super Metroid, I was a Middle Schooler in, like, 2000, and at the time I had very strong and strict opinions on what kind of music was cool, and objected to the kind of dance-y, synth-y vibes of that Green Brinstar theme. Naturally, I'm a much more mature person now and understand that it's one of the game's best tracks (with solid competition).

I think that the issue I have with Dread's music is that it feels like it pulls back on its bombast a little, as if it's afraid of being distracting. But given that the gameplay cues in Metroid Dread are largely visual, I don't think it would be a problem for them to go bigger and really claim their space the way that the Super Metroid tracks do. Lower Norfair has always been a favorite of mine because it truly makes Ridley out to be demonic, these fire-and-acid-filled ruins feel like hell, and the music evokes some kind of Latin choir. Upper Norfair is much more subtle, and arguably is one of the more forgettable tracks from Super Metroid, but it's kind of a prelude to the insane bombast you get when you go after Ridley.

Also, coming back to Green Brinstar's theme, I love how it's especially designed for when you first arrive in the zone. You've only been to Crateria at this point (as well as a somewhat ironically rearranged, I think, version of both the first room from the first game and the original Mother Brain boss room and escape shaft - though I think that neither is counted as being in Brinstar or Tourian, the zones each were respectively in in the first game). But Crateria is mostly lifeless, just bluish rocks (which honestly sounds a bit more like the NES version of Brinstar). As the music changes when you go down into Brinstar the first time, you hear the little rhythmic intro while Samus is in the elevator shaft, and right as the main melody kicks in, you see the area covered in thriving plant life, green moss and different, maybe healthier-looking creatures.

Actually, while ZDR's destruction kind of becomes a necessity after the X Parasite infection rabidly spreads (damn, how the hell did Raven Beak manage to quarantine them in Elun in the first place? Like, minutes after it's opened up, the entire world is basically dead,) it honestly feels a bit of a shame 32 years later that Zebes was destroyed at the end of Super Metroid. I think it's the only world that the Metroid games have ever revisited (at least among the ones I've played).

In some ways, even though it is explicitly a sequel, Super Metroid is also kind of a remake of the original game. Released only 8 year later, the game's a showcase for both the evolution of the design and the big jump in power from the NES to the SNES. But it's filled with callbacks that flew over my head the first time I played the game - not only the rooms from the beginning and end of the original game that you find very early on, but also the kind of creepy faces in green and purple metal right before facing Kraid and Ridley, respectively. The weird bubble area of Norfair, and some of what I thought were odd choices for terrain design.

While I'd prefer that they keep moving the series forward, I've found myself wanting a remake of Super Metroid using the engine, controls, and perhaps some mechanics from Metroid Dread. Dread isn't easy - I think that the greater precision of control you have in it allows them to be far more punishing with their bosses (does any boss have an attack that doesn't do a full energy tank's worth of damage?) Certainly some challenges in Super Metroid would be trivialized by things like Samus' ability to slide. But if you could rebuild Super Metroid to control like Metroid Dread, I'd be really eager to try it.

Anyway, with literally nothing left to do but fight Raven Beak, I suspect that this trip back into the heady days of 2021 is drawing to a close. Bake a loaf of sourdough in a saucepan and cut your own hair if you feel nostalgic.

On to Cleaning Mode on ZDR!

 Metroid games have a very satisfying gameplay loop - you push forward, discover some new area, challenge, or boss, defeat it, and are rewarded with a new ability that allows you to push forward some more.

Metroid Dread is truly old-school in its approach, and so the game itself isn't that long. I'm already ready to go up to the Itorash and confront Raven Beak. But, naturally, I'm not doing so yet.

There are items to collect!

I can't recall how many playthroughs this is - whether it's my 3rd or possibly more. Back in 2021 I cleared it and then did it on Hard Mode... and I think maybe did another Hard Mode clear with 100% of items. Anyway, I think like my last 100% run, this time I surprised myself by doing what I generally think of as the hardest Shinespark puzzle in only two or three attempts. This one requires you to get up to speed on a platform that is basically as short as will allow you to build up the requisite speed (with a door in the middle, so you need to shoot it before you start running - not a major challenge, but psychologically tricky). Then, you have to slip through a gap, as you're falling shoot down through some beam blocks, activate the shinespark mid-air to go left and hit a slanted platform (and thus preserve the spark,) leap down, do so again going right, and then leap down into a pit where you have some blocks to hit on the right. I think you only get a normal Missile tank, but if you want everything, that's how you get it. It also lets you skip the ordinary path to the Gravity Suit.

I had heard that at some point the various teleporters become a fast-travel system, but after beating the Gold Chozo right before Itorash, I still can't use them that way. According to Reddit, you have to actually go to Itorash first and then come back. I need to test this (the TV is in use. Yes, it's a Switch game, but... shut up).

Anyway, there's a certain melancholy when you get toward the end of a game like this - the world opens up, yes, but there's also no new capability to discover. We're at full power.

Going back, the Wave Beam EMMI gives us our final challenge, where you need to speed through tight corridors with various barriers to deal with and find the tiny straightaway that gives you enough time to Omega Stream their faceplate off. While I had to abort my initial go (I think I actually parried out of a grab) the second time I got a nice clean stream-then-beam.

I both hate and love the EMMIs - I hate them in the moment, especially the latter couple where you have to flee them underwater before you get the Gravity suit. But they do exactly what they're there to do - instill a sense of dread (you know, like the title!) The nature of the Omega Stream also forces this very tense moment with each of them, where you need to make yourself vulnerable as they approach and hope you have the precision and the distance to melt their face shield. Getting off the beam shot right afterward takes practice - my first playthrough I think I always ran again after getting the faceplate off and had to set up again for the killing blow, but once you figure out that they start to stand up once you've done enough damage to the plate, you can switch to charging your beam and get off that final blow immediately.

I think for the first time I managed to get a Shinespark on Escue, which made that fight go very quickly. A few of the bosses gave me a fair amount of trouble - Experiment Z57 killed me several times, even though I thought I knew what I was doing (I managed to flub the parry the first few times and I also somehow missed one of the tentacles with my Storm Missiles once).

Anyway, I'll have to see if that teleporter thing works. I know there are a few really tough Shinespark puzzles, and even if I got the one in Burenia, I'm fearfully anticipating a few I remember (there's one in Hanubia where you have to stop, drop a bomb, and then shinespark down, and I genuinely cannot remember how you are supposed to get up to speed for it). I remember one in Artaria where you have to roll into a ball while you have the Shinespark to get through a narrow passage, one in Ferenia where you have to do a lot of slope-preservations, and another very elaborate one in Cataris with the same thing.

Returning to ZDR and Dread

 Crazy to think it's almost been five years since Metroid Dread came out.

While the long-awaited (and supposedly disappointing - I haven't played it yet because I don't yet have a Switch 2) Metroid Prime 4: Beyond has come out since, this is still the most recent classic 2D Metroid game.

Having gotten to the final boss of RE4 Remake on my second playthrough, I felt I had more or less done what I wanted (other than a single missing treasure in the Castle and the Island each before points-of-no-return) and was trying to find a game that would scratch whatever itch it is that I have, and I've found myself thinking about the Metroid series a lot lately.

In large part, this is in reaction to RE2 Remake. After a brief prologue, you enter the RPD headquarters, and until the game's final act, you gradually open up more and more of the building and the sewers below.

It's not technically a Metroidvania - while characters get new weapons over the course of a Resident Evil game, their fundamental capabilities don't really change all that much. In Metroid games, something like the Ice Beam both allows you to freeze enemies in place to make combat a little easier but also allows you to use frozen foes as platforms to reach previously-inaccessible areas - whereas the Club Key, valuable though it is, is there to let you open a certain number of doors and is then discarded when all such doors are opened.

Metroid Dread was a long time coming. Metroid Fusion, 19 years prior, was the previous entry in the main Metroid series (a series that, interestingly enough, has split its time between home consoles and handheld ones, from the NES to the Gameboy to the SNES to the Gameboy Advance, and then hitting Nintendo's home/handheld hybrid on the Switch).

Anyway, what's interesting to me is the parallels that Dread has with RE2. Not only is there an ever-widening environment for you to explore, but there are also unkillable stalkers that you have to spend a significant portion of your game fleeing. RE2 has Mr. X, the hulking tyrant-zombie in a fashionable trenchcoat and fedora (this was 1998, so the fedora was just a throwback to men's fashion in the 1940s, not some Incel-coded red flag). Dread has the EMMIs, robots that are nigh-indestructible who can potentially one-shot Samus if they catch you and you can't pull off the (very tight, difficult) counters (I guess technically two-shot, as you have two chances to counter).

The EMMIs are limited to EMMI zones, unlike Mr. X, who can enter almost every room in the RPD (though I think he stops wandering the police station after you go down into the sewers - he chases you there, though on my second run I don't know if I even bumped into him there). While you might expect that once you enter an EMMI zone, you can complete it and bring the robot down with the special beam weapon you get, the truth is that you'll often need to traverse them multiple times before you can actually deal with the Pursuer. Their appearance will throw you off - you might be heading for a particular exit, but especially if they're in an active pursuit (which seals the exits,) you need to prioritize fleeing them, which might send you in some crazy direction you didn't intend - which is honestly quite a lot like Mr. X - I think that I always seemed to be getting chased by him when I finally got the lever that lets you move the bookshelves in the library and had to circle back to that room multiple times to get the opportunity to use it. (Evidently that very lever is a key item in the visit to the ruined RPD in RE9, and it's right where Leon and/or Claire left it.)

Once again, playing Metroid Dread is really exciting because of how fast and fluid Samus is. My only significant experience with the rest of the mainline series (I played the original Metroid Prime trilogy as well) was Super Metroid, and Samus is pretty slow, her weapon's fire rate especially.

Actually, as someone who is turning 40 in about two months, I have to say that the rate at which Samus can blast things is maybe more of a hinderance than a help, as my thumb gets sore from mashing Y over and over. (Funnily enough, I remember that the Super Metroid default control scheme didn't really work for me, but you could customize it. Dread effectively canonizes my preferred scheme, with Y for shoot, B for jump. A isn't for dash, but it is used for your Flash Step, which functions similarly (it's actually sort of the classic spot for a dodge button, like in a Souls-like, and that is one major use of the Flash Step). The sore-hand issue was also true when the game came out and I was five years younger (I think I may have freaked out more over being halfway through my 30s more than being at the end of them, but then, I also started seeing a therapist that year).

Samus' agility is fitting for her role as an action hero, and I wonder if her relative sluggishness in previous games was intentional or just a limitation on what they could pull off. One of the really weird things to get used to initially is that she'll angle her shots as you move forward, so you have to learn to really point the stick truly right if you want to ensure she hits things in her direct path. Aiming is far freer than it was in Super Metroid, where you could only angle up or down at 45 degrees (though crouching to shoot low enemies or other targets is still a thing).

One thing I remember about Dread is that there are a fair number of one-way paths. Most of these become two-way once you get a relevant upgrade, and by the end of the game you have free reign on ZDR to go everywhere. I suspect that the creators wanted to help you from getting lost. By cutting off the path behind you, your options narrow and thus it becomes easier to know what you need to do next. This can, however, leave you a bit frustrated when you really don't know when you'll be able to go back to a previous area. Metroid games often tease you with optional upgrades just outside your reach, and a promise that you can get it later. But these are mixed in with environmental puzzles that can be solved immediately, so there's a tension on whether you want to stick around and figure it out or move ahead.

Given that those upgrades help you survive, that's a big deal. I think I died maybe twice to Kraid, until I made a change in strategy on the last phase (charging up to hit the little balls he launches out of his belly rather than trying to take them out with normal beam fire - the rate at which they come is actually just about perfect for this). But while I find I'm a little more comfortable being cavalier with Missiles, for example, given how many enemies drop them on death, it's certainly nice to have a large reserve.

There's a saving grace to these one-way doors, though, which is that you truly can return everywhere (at least everywhere with an upgrade) at the end of the game. There's no point of no return where if you saved the game after going through some barrier, you lost that upgrade forever. This was the huge frustration I had in my second, completionist run of RE4. I was able to do all of the Merchant Requests (I had like two blue medallions left on my first run,) but infuriatingly, I had literally just one treasure left behind on both the Island and in the Castle - evidently I already mentioned that in an earlier paragraph, but that should tell you how frustrating it was). RE4 pushes you through the story and its settings - it's not a totally linear path, as there is both opportunity and necessity to revisiting various places you've been to (for all the complaints about escorting Ashley, she actually functions as a Metroidvania-like tool for all the places you can send her up to go through a high gap in a wall and unlock a door or kick down a ladder).

While it doesn't come until right at the end, the fact that Metroid Dread does allow you to eventually sweep ZDR for upgrades before your final confrontation with Raven Beak is very appreciated - he's a very tough fight and you want everything you can get for him. Power Bomb capacity upgrades are arguably only for one specific move of his. Unlike in Super Metroid, where they're a sort of mid-game tool, Dread makes Power Bombs the endgame nuke.

I'm really curious to see how the Metroid franchise is doing - naturally, Prime 4: Beyond was the most recent release, and while I haven't played it, I know it's gotten a lot of flak online. I'm always a little cautious about taking online buzz too seriously especially in the space of gaming, where not only are "hot takes" prioritized by social media algorithms, but there's also a powerful far-right agenda to shift conversations and culture and get people mad about stuff that we used to consider either neutral or just good.

But that being said, there's plenty of legitimate criticism to be had about any medium of art, and the "just let people enjoy things" attitude sometimes veers into "just always like what you're given."

It's neither here nor there, of course, because I haven't played the game and so don't know how I'd feel about it (best guess - I'll probably have mixed feelings about it, enjoying some aspects and disliking certain choices the makers made. Remember that you can like things and still find faults in them, and you can dislike things and still find virtues in them).

Dread felt like a really cool update to a classic franchise, and after nearly 20 years of waiting for it, I really hope that I'm not going to be pushing 60 by the time that we get Metroid 6.

Metroid Prime, Two Decades Later

 In November of 2002, I was in my Junior year of high school, and I got what I believe was my second Metroid game. I was first introduced to Samus Aran thanks to the surprise hit that was Super Smash Bros. in 1999 for the N64, which got a follow-up a mere two years later in the clearly far-higher-budget Super Smash Bros. Melee, which would remain the gold standard of the series I think until Super Smash Bros. Ultimate.

Anyway, I was familiar with Mario and Link, Donkey Kong, Yoshi (there were a lot of Mario-adjacent characters in it) and Kirby, etc. But I'd was unfamiliar with Samus other than the single screenshot of Super Metroid on the back of my SNES-Donkey Kong Country bundle that was my first game console. Samus quickly became my favorite character in Smash Bros, and so I decided to try out Super Metroid, and loved it.

And then, they announced Metroid's long-awaited transition to 3D, having missed the N64 generation entirely outside of Samus' appearance in Smash Bros. Rather than a 3rd person action-platformer, they made it a 1st person shooter and... somehow it worked?

Metroid Prime works just like a Metroid game, except that it's in a 3D world and you see things from Samus' POV. One of the charming touches of that choice is that they really make you feel like you're inside the helmet - when there's a flash of bright light, you can see Samus' face reflected in her visor, and things like condensation or electrical interference with her HUD will pop up.

Anyway, there's now a remaster of the game on the Switch. While I don't believe there's any really intense gameplay rebalancing, there are two major elements: the graphics are fully updated, which makes it look like a modern game, and the controls have what has become the standard two-stick control for first person shooters - the left stick for movement and the right for aiming.

I haven't yet unlocked any of the alternate beam weapons, so I don't know how I'll be switching between them, but so far the Pro Controller has been a great way to play the game (the standard JoyCons are too small for my big hands, and cause me to cramp).

I believe I selected the easier difficulty level, so I hesitate to remark on its challenge. I still dread the frost-elemental boss in Phendranna Drifts that gave me so much trouble back in the day, but I also have 20 more years of gaming under my belt. If I could one-shot Malenia on my most recent Elden Ring playthrough (albeit with an overpowered build) I should be ok, right?

I actually never finished Metroid Prime 1 or 2 - I only finished the 3rd one. So perhaps I'll finally put that notch on my belt.

With 12 Minutes to Spare!

 Well, I beat Metroid Dread for the 4th time, this time under four hours with a time of 3:48:something. I know that speed-runners are doing this in just over two hours, but I'm less concerned with pushing super-fast victories than just seeing if I could do it in that time.

It's funny - the bosses in Dread are, I'd say, more punishing than those in Super Metroid, but the fluidity of movement and the ease with which you can aim means that it's far easier to dodge attacks and hit incoming missiles.

One thing that had worried me going into the Raven Beak fight at the end of this run is that, since I didn't pick up any Power Bomb upgrades (I went straight from getting them to the boss... well, to the fifth Chozo Warrior boss, and then to Raven Beak,) I thouhgt I'd run out of Power Bombs when Raven Beak summoned the big sun-like thing. You can, to be fair, simply dodge things to deal with that when it's out, but it's way harder to dodge the boss' attacks when you have this giant burning sun above you.

However, as it turns out, while you don't seem to get power bombs from the little black-hole things Raven Beak tosses at you, or by blowing up those sun-like things, you can get some if you counter attack some of his melee attacks - things that in previous runs I'd really just tried to dodge. It can be tricky telling whether the incoming attack is counterable, but if you do, it'll refresh your PBs.

Luckily, I believe that if you die, the timer rolls back to whatever checkpoint you're sent to, so my two failed attempts on Raven Beak didn't count against me (the fight is lengthy, so that might have deprived me of getting under 4 hours, or at least made it a lot closer).

I'd be really overjoyed if they announced some sort of DLC for the game. I used to dislike DLC in the era of DVD-Roms, as I would often play with my console offline then. However, in this age when half my video game library (if only half) is just downloaded to the console, I don't find this quite as alien.

To be fair, Metroid games are kind of tightly constructed - it's harder to add a new zone like you can do with, say, a Dark Souls game.

I'd actually really love it if Mercury Steam did a remake of Super Metroid with Dread-style controls. You'd certainly have to rejigger a few things - the way that Dread handles missile upgrades, for example, wouldn't really work with Super Metroid's existing gameplay flow. But the truth is that a ton of the upgrades in Dread are the same, and work similarly, to their antecedents in Super Metroid.

Also, while I think Dread is a phenomenal achievement, I do think I like the music from Super Metroid better, and I'd love to hear updated versions of those tunes (beyond Red Brinstar, which we got in the Quiet Robe cutscene in Dread). I think it'd also be really cool to get a less abstracted, 16-bit version of the lush greens of... Green Brinstar and the fiery caverns of Norfair.

This might be a bit much for DLC, to be fair.

Going For Speed in Metroid Dread

 After months of playing Dark Souls 3, I decided to return to a game that was a bit easier - Metroid Dread. Shortly after getting the game when it first came out, I played through Metroid Dread three times. Coming back a couple months later, I've been speeding through the normal difficulty mode in the hopes of getting off ZDR in less than 4 hours, which grants a sort of achievement.

At the present moment, I've got 3h 15m on the clock, but I've also just gotten the Cross Bombs. So, if I recall correctly, I only need to get the Wave Beam and Power Bombs now - the latter of which comes pretty much just before the end of the game.

My general attitude has been only to grab items if they're sort of "obviously" on the way - without a major deviation in route. I've now got a little over a hundred missiles and what I think is a decent number of energy tanks (I want to say 7). We will, of course, have to see whether that's enough when I face Raven Beak.

Shooting for time here does, I think, undercut some of what I enjoy about Metroid games, to be honest. I've sort of cultivated a lack of curiosity, instead trying to map out the most efficient route to the next key item, and I've even reset to a previous save point or check point if I've found that I've gone out of the way. On the other hand, I've done 100% runs twice in this game.

One thing I find funny is that what I consider to be the hardest of the Shinespark puzzles, in Burenia, actually turns out to be a pretty good shortcut when getting the Gravity Suit, and I've managed to pull it off without too much trouble (even doing one of those aforementioned resets and having to do it again).

Of course, I know a speed run in this game tends to be even more reckless - I'm still following what I think is the expected route through the game, just without looking back.

Anyway, it's still really good.

100% Hard Mode Completed in Metroid Dread (6 hours)

 Well, I played it through a 3rd time (I must like this game). This time, I did Hard Mode.

Hard mode is... well, after beating the game twice on normal, it honestly didn't seem that much harder. I think the only real difference is that the enemies hit harder - maybe 150% or even 200% of the ordinary damage. Still, the main skill you develop over multiple playthroughs is dodging attacks. My recollection of playing Super Metroid was that I'd tend to worry more about getting damage in when I could and hoping I killed the boss before it killed me - avoiding attacks if I could, but focusing on damage outputs.

I think that the ease with which Samus controls, especially in the way it allows you to quickly and precisely aim your attacks, means that if the damage the bosses did was the same they did in Super Metroid, it'd be too easy.

In a lot of ways, the bosses feel a bit more like World of Warcraft or Dark Souls/Bloodborne designs. What I mean by that is that the first time you face one of them, you're going to be blindsided by tons of devastating attacks. Mastery, then, is mostly about reading tells and knowing how to dodge the attacks. For example, I've gotten way better at letting the latter two Elite Chozo Warriors, in their second phase, aim at me with their goo-spit and then Aeion Flash out of the way right as it goes off. (It's a bit harder to do so with Raven Beak's charge beam in his final phase, as if you stay on the ground no place on the ground will be safe when it goes off).

Item collection is of course the same in Hard Mode (I shocked myself by getting the Burenia Shinespark puzzle in what was effectively the first attempt). One thing about this game is that even if you collect everything, you'll sometimes be surprised at how what seemed like the only route on an earlier run is in fact just one of many.

For example, I almost accidentally skipped the Chozo Robot duo in Burenia beacause I just happened not to go into that room. I think I ultimately had to in order to get the missile expansion in that room, but if I weren't going for 100% I probably never would have fought them (also, for some reason on this run those fights went way, way faster and easier).

I certainly did not remember some of the rooms and puzzles for the items even having gotten 100% on my first run. Also, I think there were some teleporters that I hadn't found in the first or second run. I remember hearing that at some point you'd be able to use the teleporters to go to any other one as a sort of fast-travel, but that appears to be incorrect unless I'm missing something.

Anyway, I want to praise the final Raven Beak fight as a really fantastic boss fight. Even though my first go around I was incredibly frustrated before I realized you had to actually shoot in order to get the parry animation to play on the second phase (the first run he must have had that gold armor for a solid 10 minutes while I tried to figure out how to push him into the next phase).

I also realize I could parry one of his more aggressive melee attacks, which I always used to just dodge, which not only supplied me with some missiles and health, but also helped me push him farther into the fight faster. (Just gotta be very careful that you don't try to parry him when he gets Shinespark, which looks similar, as that will take off like 4 or 5 energy tanks with one hit).

On Hard Mode it only took me three attempts to down Raven Beak, and all three saw me getting to the final stage. My sense is that he's immune to the wave beam in phase 1, and of course immune to everything except in the parry-animation in phase 2, but after that point, you can just hit him with the beam, and I think it's actually more efficient to spam the beam in the parry-cutscenes than to hit him with missiles, though it's hell on your hands (the last time I did it on my kill I just wound up spamming ice missiles to keep my hand from cramping up - ah, aging!)

The EMMIs are practically identical on Hard Mode. The only difference I'd imagine is that the light blue EMMI (the one with the ice missiles) deals more damage when it freezes you - most of the EMMIs don't actually do damage, so there's not much of a difference.

Man, I wish there were just more of this game, though I also recognize that "leaving you wanting more" is a sign that they did a good job.

One thing I would be really into would be if they were to do a Zero Mission/Samus Returns-style remake of Super Metroid using Dread's engine. While a nearly unchanged remake would probably please a lot of old school fans, the game's presence on the Super Nintendo Collection makes that a bit redundant, and I think you could take advantage of some of the changes brought with Dread.

The thing I always hated about Super Metroid was having to fumble with the select button to choose missile types and other equipment. With modern controllers having way more buttons, you could fix that issue.

I'd go a bit further and make it so that the controls were basically identical to Metroid Dread, but I'd then make Super Missiles the kind of "charge beam" for missiles (kind of the way Storm Missiles work in Dread). They could still be kept as a separate ammunition if you wanted to totally preserve the flow of Super Metroid, but I think it'd also be ok to remix things slightly - maybe putting Super Missiles later in the game.

I'd also love to see the bosses of Super Metroid given the complexity and cinematic treatment that bosses in Dread have. You get the Morph Ball early enough in Super Metroid that I think you could also preserve Samus' slide from Dread (which was honestly a major selling point) and just make the route to the Bombs one square higher to keep you from getting in there early.

I just want to play more Metroid, Nintendo! Which means you did a freaking amazing job on Dread.

I Kinda Just Want There to be More Metroid Dread

 Metroid Dread is a good game. It's hard to get a total aggregate of players' opinions, but I think most people have been very positive on the game.

The second time around, the density of bosses didn't bother me so much, though I suppose when you're blazing through the game you're going to hit a whole bunch of them in a row anyway. I still think the music doesn't really have the iconic quality Super Metroid did. Is that just the benefit of almost 30 years of familiarity? Possibly. The thing is, the musical moments that excited me the most were the ones that were updates of those familiar tunes - the prologue is just a rearrangement of the Super Metroid prologue music, and the lengthy cutscene around the middle of Dread uses a rearrangement of the Lower Brinstar/Red Soil theme from Super Metroid (which, to be fair, is one of the best tracks from that soundtrack.)

The only new piece of music that I think really got stuck in my head was the Ferenia music, which does have an ominousness to it, but I also think that the electronic instrumentation they've chosen reflects an issue I've had with a lot of Nintendo music in the past couple decades - there's a kind of tininess to it that makes it seem less grand than it could.

Granted, I think it's fully appropriate for Metroid to have a somewhat electronic sound - we don't need to go fully symphonic for it - but I think there could have been something a bit bigger about the sound. I'm not a music theorist, so I don't really have suggestions on how one would improve it.

I think the game's most profound victory is the feel of its controls. While it took a little time to get used to holding down the various shoulder buttons and such, once you're comfortable with the free-aim system, it makes you feel extremely precise. Samus is also so much more agile than she felt in Super Metroid (the wall-jump, which was not so ubiquitous an ability in 1994, was always this kind of super-special technique that was very difficult to pull off. I'm glad that Metroid Dread makes it very easy.

I do think that the graph-paper-y layout of the environments feels a little odd in this modern day of video games. Even supposedly natural cavern systems look as if they're constructed out of evenly-sized blocks, though I appreciate how the game nods to the idea of a more natural three-dimensional space, such as how the backgrounds in Ferenia show staircases that would allow someone who isn't hopping around like a lunatic to access its floors.

Dread is hardly small for a Metroid game. Indeed, I think it's likely that its whole map is actually significantly larger than that of Super Metroid (I'd like to see ZDR overlaid on Zebes to compare them - should google that). But I guess just in this day and age (when I'm a more practiced gamer and also less likely to give up for a play session if I die to a boss) it couldn't last super-long. Metroid Dread is decidedly old-school, and was built in part as a new playground for people who have been speed-running Super Metroid for nearly 30 years. While my second run (a sort of "foot off the brake but not always on the gas" attempt) reduced my time from 12 to 5 hours, I've seen people pulling off runs that go under two hours already.

I'm not really someone who wants to dedicate himself to shaving off seconds from a completion time, and if anything, I'd love to do another run where I stop to smell the roses. (In a way, I almost regret going for 100% on my first run).

One thing I think could be cool is if there were to fully remake Super Metroid with the mechanics of Metroid Dread. You'd certainly have to tweak a few things (for one, having Missiles and Super Missiles as a separate attack in Super Metroid allows them to introduce the latter far earlier.) But most of the items you gain in Super Metroid already exist in Dread, so I think the biggest challenges would just be creating the proper assets (and hey, you've already got Kraid!)

As I've said earlier, creating DLC for Dread could be difficult, as ZDR is kind of a self-contained labyrinth. But I wouldn't mind having some kind of shorter, mini-metroid game that maybe allows you to carry over your abilities from the main game and pick up a couple new ones.

The big hope is that this game's sales numbers (which I think have been quite high) will reinvigorate the brand, meaning we could get more 2D Metroid games without waiting another 19 years. We'll see.

7 Hours Shaved off of My Second Metroid Dread Run - Still Not Fast Enough

 My initial run of Metroid Dread took about 12 hours. My second (still on normal mode) took just over 5. Now, the second time around I basically did zero backtracking. I paused in a few places to collect some scattered hidden items (I did the Burenia Shinespark Puzzle again I think just to prove to myself I could, which probably added a good ten minutes,) though it also let me skip a whole bunch of Burenia en route to the Gravity Suit).

I don't know exactly how time is tracked - as I understand, pausing also pauses the stopwatch, as it were. But I also suspect that multiple attempts on a boss will count toward it.

Some of the latter bosses still gave me some trouble - I think Escue took me like 4 or 5 attempts. Raven Beak took I believe 4 attempts.

Actually, on Raven Beak - first off, what a cool fight (though the second phase seems very dependent on RNG). I found that just spamming the wave beam was actually faster than missiles during the counter animation in the second phase - I was able to get him to phase 3 in just two counters, rather than 3.

I also found that 4 Power Bombs was not quite enough to wipe out every big "sun" ability he used in the final phase, so I was forced to dodge (the penultimate attempt I made I got the sun and his charged shots at the same time, which wiped me out).

Under 8 hours but over 4 meant that I got the Samus Returns image for the gallery. I did this on a new file, so my Chozo Archives unlocked on the first file are not filled in (I think I got the Hanubia one, though, as there are like two items to find there, and I got them both.)

One thing that I read is that when you unlock all the teleporters, you can choose which one you go to, which would have been very useful for backtracking to get items, but I haven't yet confirmed that.

Other than just never dying to bosses, I'm not really sure what I could do to shave off that extra hour and ten minutes I'd need to get the under 4 hour ending reward. I don't know that I'm going to really work too hard to do so - after two full runs, I think I should probably let Metroid Dread sit for a while so I don't totally burn out on it.

I do still really hope that Nintendo either finds a way to add some DLC content or comes out with another Metroid game in the next couple years. Of course, in theory Metroid Prime 4 is still in the works. I'm very curious to see what future Metroid games will be about. Supposedly Dread is the culmination of the story that started with the original game, though I kind of feel like it's more of a sequel to Metroid Fusion, which was sort of the start of a new story after Super Metroid.

We'll see.

Metroid Dread: Gotta Go... Kinda Fast

 So, second run of Metroid Dread, I've mostly avoided doing any serious item searching. I've just beaten the red elite chozo in Hanubia, so I've basically just got to go to the golden one and then Raven Beak to beat the game.

And I'm at about 4h30m in terms of time, which means I've missed the 4 hour mark to get the fastest time.

After one-shotting several of the early bosses, it turns out that the bosses in the latter game are still pretty tough. Escue, oddly, gave me a fair amount of trouble, despite my not remembering that as all that hard (then again, four or five tries the first run through didn't seem like a whole lot). The twin robot chozo fights have proven way, way easier than the first time I tried them, in large part due to the fact that my "hey, maybe focus one of these down at a time" strategy is really, well, good. But I've managed to slip on the elite chozo fights.

I still think that maybe four robot chozo fights and like... five elite chozos is a bit much, though the fact that I've been churning through the game with little "smell the roses" time set aside means that everything's rushing by.

I think perhaps to prove something to myself I did the really hard shinespark puzzle in Burenia on this run as well - the hardest part of it is honestly just getting the shinespark in the first place. But it did mean that I actually wound up skipping a pretty huge swath of Burenia, which is a shame because, despite being an underwater zone, I think it's my favorite (I don't know if the fact that it doesn't have an EMMI zone has anything to do with that.)

I've always had complicated feelings about time limits - the somewhat relaxed pace of grabbing 100% of the items appeals more to my sensibilities. Naturally, Metroid games have always been built for speed-running, and Metroid Dread was 100% designed with that in mind (consider, for example, the special way to kill Kraid that requires you to sequence-break.) I do like to think that the "canonical" way to play the game is more of the slow, deliberate and cautious pace that I imagine most people take on their first run.

I really do hope that they do some DLC for this, or that Nintendo greenlights a new Metroid game via Mercury Steam. They've clearly proven themselves (though I think there was some controversy vis a vis credits - maybe something they can fix with a patch?) Really, just having any excuse to control Samus again in this fluid way would be very welcome.

I think that, much like the Metroid Prime trilogy (and I'm still looking forward, however distantly, to Metroid Prime 4,) it'd be cool to see the next Metroid game give us some new upgrades. Prime 2 used the classic Varia suit as the starting suit, and then gave us the Dark and Light suits, which were both very distinctive in their appearances. Dread was pretty light on brand-new abilities. The Cross Bombs were truly new (though I don't think they got much use) but the Spin Boost and Diffusion Beam were really just underpowered versions of better upgrades you get later on. I guess the Spider Magnet was also new (though it evoked the Spider Ball of earlier games.)

I'd be curious to see new designs rolled into the mix, but I guess it's a bit early to start speculating on future Metroid sequels. Granted, I think they've got a really solid base system here. If this were earlier in the Switch's console generation, I'd advocate for another Metroid game to come out with the same basic framework, a bit like how Majora's Mask game out not long after Ocarina of Time.

But then, I also don't really know what a "new console generation" means anymore. Nintendo just game out with the Switch OLED model (marketing it along with Dread) and I don't know if or when they're going to announce their next console (I think it would probably be wise to go with a similar hybrid home console/mobile system, maybe the "Super Switch" or something).

Anyway, this all boils down to: Metroid Dread is really good, and I hope we'll see Nintendo pushing this franchise as one of their major ones in the coming years.

Going for Speed in a Second Metroid Dread Run

 I am by no means a speedrunner. But I figured I'd try a second run of Metroid Dread. The only real difference in my approach here is that A: I've already beaten the game, so I know what I'm facing (though I don't always remember exactly where I'm supposed to go) and B: I'm not going for 100% of the items. I'm picking up things that I can get along the regular route, but unless I find myself underprepared to face Raven Beak, I don't think I'm going to put much effort into grabbing everything.

My initial run was about 12 hours. On this second run, I've just gotten back from my first trip to Elun (and given that I'm not item-farming, it might be my only one) having picked up the Plasma Beam, and the light-blue EMMI has just been re-activated, so I think Ice Missiles are coming soon (it's crazy to me how soon you get Ice Missiles after getting Super Missiles).

If we're judging true bosses as the ones that have the weird little door-worms, I've one-shot three (Corpius, Kraid, and Drogyga). The first Robot Chozo got me once, but I took it out on the second try. Then, the first Elite Chozo Warrior gave me a little more trouble (annoyingly, I got him to the final counter-attack on the second try and then jumped the gun on the counter, and then instantly got killed,) taking 3 tries.

While I'd like to clear the 4-hour goal on this, being two and a half hours into this run, I suspect it'll be down to the wire (to be fair, I definitely think I'm past the midpoint) though I think I'll very likely hit the 8 hour goal.

I haven't tried Hard Mode yet, but I think the game's tough enough. I don't know that I need to unlock absolutely everything, of course, but it's a fun game. I suspect this is one I'll be coming back to years from now.

Metroid Dread - Beaten

 Well, I did it. Raven Beak took a few attempts, I want to say 5 or 6, but ultimately I was able to learn his tells and got decent at dodging his attacks (the Aeion Flash really makes a huge difference).

The final boss fight is pretty epic - you fight against a Chozo who has a similar power suit to your own. In many ways, he's you, but more powerful. The main frustration I ran into was that there's a thing you have to do in the second phase that I was failing to.

After you deal some initial damage to him, he'll do this taunt - approach him, and he'll make a melee attack you can counter. Once this cutscene plays, he'll get a golden armor which means he can't actually be damaged.

Phase two thus has you waiting for him to do these taunt moves again while dodging his attacks. One of his attacks sends this big black hole toward you, which is secretly a gift, as you can blow it up with four missiles (I tended to use the Storm Missiles, but either works) and you'll get a bunch of missiles and health back.

The thing I screwed up for a good five minutes as that during this phase, you can only damage him by countering his post-taunt attack. You have to do two counters (which aren't very hard,) but what I wasn't getting was that right after you land the second counter, you have a brief window to hit him with missiles, and if you do, an animation will start playing during which you can continue to spam missiles at him. Three of these counter-attack animations full of missile attacks will move you onto phase 3.

Phase 3 is the most unique of them. The trick here is finding a safe window to hit him. He has some devastating attacks in this phase. When he locks on to you, you need to space jump around him to dodge his barrage of missiles, and when he charges his shot, you want to flash under him to get out of the way, as this attack does about a full energy tank's worth of damage. He'll also dive at you - vertically you can avoid him if you just move out of the way, but the horizontal dives you'll need to slide underneath.

Phase 4, which is the final phase, is rather similar to the first two phases, except that he has a few tougher attacks. In addition to his black hole attack, he can summon a star-like fireball that floats in the air and keeps pulsing out a bullet-hell-like ring of damage. Drop a power bomb when he launches this and it'll clear the star and give you some resources back. The other seriously devastating attack here is his charge beam, he'll aim at you until he lets it loose, so you should either try to be up in the air when he finishes charging and just drop or make sure it's low enough that you can space jump over it.

All the while, you want to be pelting him with missiles. Do enough damage, and the final boss is defeated.

Now, let's talk about the ending. I have, of course, already discussed most of the details, but now that I've truly earned it, let's get in deep.

Spoilers ahead.

100% Metroid Dread

 Coming back to it today, I actually managed to complete the Shinespark puzzle in Burenia on the third attempt, which was the last thing I needed to get 100% of the items in the game.

This is probably the most difficult puzzle to pull off in the game (though each zone has one very tricky shinespark puzzle - Ferenia has two, actually, though one's a little easier than the other. I actually think the harder one, which is in the lower left of the map, might be easier if I understood a bit better the way the speed booster interacts with slopes.)

In the room with the green teleporter (which takes you to eastern Gharovan) you can use bombs to open a passage to the right low to the ground. There are then a bunch of those fire-plants you need ice missiles to destroy, and then there's an energy tank (maybe just a part) that you can find, but the really difficult thing involves the rooms below. The path here is pretty obvious, but the obstacles (and especially the tight space to actually build up speed) make the puzzle quite difficult.

In the room where you found the energy tank, you have just barely enough room to run to the left (through a door, so you're going to need to shoot it open every time) to build up your speed booster. Honestly, probably 2/3 of my attempts at this were just getting the timing right to actually get the Shinespark activated before I ran off the platform.

Once you'r glowing purple, you need to go through the door the right, drop down, slide through the gap, and shoot downward through the beam blocks. Then, while mid-air, activate the shinespark to hit the slanted path to your left. This will preserve your speedbooster, but you don't want to crouch yet, instead making use of the speed boost to run up the slant and then slide through the gap in the next room. Before you go over the next ledge, you need to crouch to get your shine spark. Then, you drop down and activate the shinespark again mid-air to hit the slanted path. Pretty much immediately, you want to crouch to convert the speed boost back into a shine-spark, and then drop off the ledge, and then finally activate the shinespark to smash through the blocks that bar the way to a Missile + tank.

So, with 100% of the items collected, I have nowhere to go but the endgame. I have roommates, though, and plan to wait until I have access to the TV for this grand finale - I'm fine collecting items in my room using the Switch's screen, but for the main event I'm going to want to have the big TV.

Ultimately, you wind up with 275 missiles and 15 power bombs. The UI seems to have room for one more energy tank, though unfortunately I think you can only get that via an Amiibo.

I am a little sad to be nearing the end of this very good game.

Much like a lot of Dark Souls games, the first time through this has felt very challenging, but I suspect subsequent runs are going to be less-so. The first couple bosses, I was still getting used to the controls, and fumbling for the aim button and the missile button, and figuring out timing on counters. I don't think my later runs will be flawless, but I figure I'll probably do a lot better against bosses like Corpius and Kraid.

Apparently Nintendo Planned for and Rewards Sequence Breaking in Metroid Dread

 Metroid games were some of the first to encourage speed-running. The original game would only even reveal that Samus was a woman (which was a pretty big deal in the 1980s) if you beat the game quickly. And as the speed-running tradition has grown, people have found ways to complete these games (and others, of course) in ways that break the ordinary order in which you complete the game.

Metroid games are built around exploring areas, coming across doors or barriers you can't get past, and then finding items and abilities that allow you to get past them. But often, there are workarounds where you can get places you want to go without getting that necessary item, usually involving some very difficult jumping puzzles.

The second unique boss you fight in Metroid Dread is Kraid, the classic Metroid villain who was one of the bosses in the original game as well as Super Metroid. At the point you fight him in Dread, you've gathered a few abilities, but are lacking, most crucially for the purposes of this post, the Morph Ball Bombs.

Kraid's fight has two phases (the second phase being kind of itself divided into phases.) In the second phase, you fall down to a stone platform just above the magma in which Kraid is sitting, and you need to dodge or shoot things that he ejects from his weird abdominal holes (Kraid is gross).

However, if you somehow got the Morph Ball Bombs (which you'd normally need to beat Kraid well before,) there's a special alternative way to defeat the giant boss. At that lower platform, there's a block that can be destroyed by a bomb, and beyond it is a Morph Ball launcher, which will shoot you into Kraid's weird naval-cannon. A special cinematic will play where you can plant a bunch of bombs in his stomach and then the normal ending cinematic will play with you having beaten big green.

I think it's clear that this game was a labor of love, and I suspect that in the long run it'll be deemed a classic.

Almost There - Trying to 100% Metroid Dread

 Dear lord are some of these items hard to get.

In Super Metroid, the Shinespark was a semi-hidden ability. There are some friendly aliens who will introduce you to the Shinespark and the Wall Jump (and if you go back to the Bomb Chozo's room as you're escaping Zebes, you can save them from the planet's destruction).

In Metroid Dread, the Shinespark feature of the Speed Booster is explicitly mentioned in the item description, but the nuances of the Shinespark are complex.

To clarify: the Shinespark is a move you get with the speed booster that allows you to rocket in a certain direction, dealing insane damage and also, crucially, smashing speed booster blocks. To do it, you need to get a running start to the point where you Speed Booster goes off. Then you crouch by hitting down. You'll start to glow purple, and then the next time you hit the jump button without holding a direction, you'll get a second or so to pick a direction and then start hurtling that way.

What makes this tricky is that you only have a couple seconds in which to use it before it simply fades away.

But even beyond that, there's another trick that is required to get some of the items in Metroid Dread. If you hit a diagonal surface with the Shinespark (and I think only if you hit it at an oblique angle) you can quickly press down again and the timer on the Shinespark will reset.

You can also still jump with it as long as you tilt the joystick sideways while pressing B.

And, you can cancel out of a spin by hitting L.

So, putting this all together, there are puzzles where you need to first get a running start, then jump and hit a diagonal surface, preserve the Shinespark, and then jump to another platform and shinespark again toward a different diagonal surface, and then jump up to a place where there are speed booster blocks.

It is not easy.

So, with these tricks in hand, I've managed to (with some help from guides, but honestly execution is the real challenge here) get 100% of the items in Artaria, Cataris, Dairon, Gharvoran, Ferenia, and Elun. There is one sadistically cruel one of these Shinespark puzzles in Burenia that gives you basically just the bare minimum of space to get the speed booster running, then requires you do jump through some narrow gaps and shoot out a few beam blocks, then has you need to reset the timer twice. I think this one's going to take like an hour for me to get right.

Beyond Burenia, I have a couple items to get in Hanubia and then I'll have 100% of the items, I believe, at which point I'll head to Itorash and finish the game.

Future run-throughs I'm sure I will not bother getting 100% of the items, but seeing as I'll probably already have 10+ hours played, I figured I'd take the time to grab everything.

Again, I hope that they consider making DLC for this. Also, I hope that Metroid games become an at least once-per-console series (to be fair, they only missed the N64 and Wii U,) as I don't want to have to wait until I'm in my 50s for the next one (we'll see if and when Metroid Prime 4 comes out.) DLC is admittedly a tricky proposition for a game like this, which is very much built around its own puzzle-box labyrinth. I think it would be cool to have a kind of playable epilogue in which you keep all the stuff you got in the main game (maybe standardizing missiles, power bombs, and energy tanks given that you can't go back and collect things given how the game ends.)

Mopping Up in Metroid Dread

 I'm in the endgame. I've beaten the last of the minibosses before I hit the final boss encounter, and I'll be honest, I'm a little hesitant. In part, that's because the boss is likely to be insanely hard (at least on this first playthrough, the bosses have been seriously challenging, though I imagine on a second playthrough the first few will go by like a breeze, now that I've figured out their patterns and tells (finding out there's a counter for Kraid makes me sad I never got it, so I didn't get the cool interactive cutscene/quicktime event to blast him in the face with missiles.)

I'm certainly not going to get any kind of speed record, but instead I'm going to try to get 100% of the items.

Of the many regions, I've now gotten 100% of the items in Artaria, which is where you start the game. The final piece was a very tricky thing where you had to speed boost through a door, duck for a shinespark, blow up two bomb blocks, then aeion flash to get in position and then shinespark up to blast through the blocks. It took me probably 30 or so attempts, if only that.

One thing I've found is that after I got the Space Jump and Screw Attack I sort of forgot about the Aeion Flash, which is a really, really useful ability that probably would have made some bosses a lot easier.

Anyway, I'm not working on Cataris, which is the second area you visit. It appears there's another fiendishly tricky Shinespark puzzle here, where you need to run up and then jump between like five different platforms before you can get to the speed blocks you need to destroy. I think there's something about being able to conserve the spark if you hit a diagonal surface, but I certainly have not gotten the hang of it in the least.

There's also a room in Cataris that I know exists but I have no idea how to get into it - and I need to in order to destroy a grapple beam block so that I can then Shinespark from a different room and presumably get some item.

Of course, in this mopping up phase I've found that there are a ton of items I could have gotten ages ago, but either missed them or lacked the item I needed for them and just didn't go back when I got it (to be fair, until you get the Screw Attack, the game kind of forces you into a linear path with little opportunity to backtrack, meaning that for about 3/4 of the game you're just going to try to see if you can get the items you find along the way and make a note for later.

My obvious point of comparison with this game is Super Metroid, having never played any of the mobile-only games and only briefly trying the original. At the moment, this game feels longer, but on the other hand, I basically know what to do in Super Metroid and which item I need to get and where to find it. I've been playing this pretty much guide-free apart from having watched the Treehouse demo.

There are certainly more upgrades to find in this than in Super Metroid - I think that of the ones found in Super Metroid, the only ones that aren't in this are kind of worked into existing abilities. The Spring Ball comes with the Morph Ball, and the High Jump is just there from the start, as are Missiles. There is no Ice Beam, but there are Ice Missiles (though there's way less need to freeze enemies with them).

I do find it interesting to think back to Super Metroid. There are fewer regions in that, but even so, there's really only one item you get in the Wrecked Ship (which, to be fair, is by far the smallest region,) and Maridia (which is not small) only has the Space Jump and the technically optional Plasma Beam.

Given Metroid's item/key style of exploration, the addition of more items actually makes the paths through each of the regions much more linear. I think that, aesthetically, there's a cleanness to the game that I find a little underwhelming. I think the 16-bit sprites of Super Metroid inherently gave things a bit more texture - the graininess of those old sprites enhancing a feeling that things are worn down. Metroid Dread's environments clearly took a lot of care - while you're only playing in a 2D space, the backgrounds seamlessly mesh with that environment to give you a more solid world, but I think that the necessity to make the environment very clear for gameplay purposes leaves everything a little too polished, which honestly is something I've noticed about Nintendo's aesthetic for the past few years.

Zebes in Super Metroid has the feeling of a ruin that's in a real state of decay. The Space Pirates are basically squatting in this ruined Chozo world. You get the sense that places like Red Brinstar were ancient temples or something. ZDR is also a Chozo-settled world, but it seems like it fell to ruin much more recently (which I think it has.) Ferenia, a region that you get to at roughly the midpoint of the game (midpoint of its narrative at least - it might be a little earlier than the actual midpoint) seems less ruined than just abandoned. It looks like someone's been dusting and sweeping the floors.

I will say that my experience playing this has been a bit different than when I first played Super Metroid. Then, I was either in middle school or early high school, and couldn't monopolize the TV for hours upon hours. (Now, if a roommate is using the TV, I can just set up the Switch on my desk in my room and play with its screen - though I've found the Pro Controller is so infinitely more comfortable for me that I regret not getting one sooner). Basically, if you have the willpower, I'd be curious to see how the game would feel taking the pace a bit slower. The gameplay loop of Metroid has always been a fairly page-turning one. You get a new item, and you want to try the item out, and that leads you to another new item.

Anyway, if you're curious about the regions of ZDR, here's a list in the order that you find them. Spoilers ahead.

Closing in on the end of Metroid Dread

 At this point, I'm pretty sure I have the door to the final boss. So now, I, in the honored tradition of video games, will be doing everything but progressing to the end of the game in order to try to get 100% of the items hidden around ZDR.

I believe there is one Aeion Power I have yet to find, which is odd, as I'd think you'd need it to finish the game (to be fair, you don't need the Spring Ball in Super Metroid. Or the X-Ray Visor). I remember hearing something about the ability to slow down time, which might help in the difficult Shinespark puzzles that I'm beating my head against.

I'll reiterate that I think there are a few too many minibosses - when I got the Power Bombs (which seems like the last mandatory upgrade - the sequence here is way different from Super Metroid,) I was immediately confronted by one of the standard recurring minibosses, and then I progressed back just a couple rooms and found myself fighting yet another (though I think it's likely the last of them.) The game kind of front-loads the EMMI encounters, but about when you get the Screw Attack, things really open up in a way that lets you truly explore (and also makes it a much bigger challenge to figure out where you're supposed to go next. Indeed, the Screw Attack, as in Super Metroid, basically means that ordinary enemies are unlikely to cause you any problems anymore. You still have a few upgrades after the Screw Attack, but that's the moment where the game really says "ok, no more rails whatsoever."

I do think that the rate at which you get items is maybe a little too fast. There are some items that feel almost redundant. For example, when you get the Super Missiles (which just replace your regular missiles,) you don't go terribly far before you unlock the Ice Missiles. And even that feels a little underwhelming in its application. There are these weird burning plants you need to destroy with an Ice Missile to pass them, but you never have to freeze enemies to use them as platforms like you did with the Ice Beam (in fact, I think you have the Space Jump by that point, so you wouldn't need to anyway.)

Bosses are also hard in Metroid Dread. You'll need to figure out their tells and really dodge their attacks. Yeah, you might have eight energy tanks, but when a boss' strike takes out two of them, that doesn't mean much (and there's a hard mode, apparently). Earlier bosses tend to have some way to recharge mid-fight - Kraid will cough up his weird phlegm balls, which you can shoot to A. not get hit by them and B. get health and missiles back, but later bosses will require you to be pretty well-stocked going in. That said, I have yet to run out of missiles except maybe on the first boss (when I had a max of like 13). But don't expect to have an easy time recovering your health if you just wait for the phase where the boss shoots things at you that you can destroy.

True to its name, Metroid Dread is dark. Let's go into spoiler territory:

Dare I Say, Too Many Bosses?

 Metroid Dread is great. I think that in the future we'll be looking back on it as an exemplar of the series. I don't know if it'll top the legendary status of Super Metroid (give it another 27 years and I'll get back to you) but I think it's an excellent translation of an old-school genre to a new age.

If there is one flaw, it's actually something that would be the opposite of a problem in most games:

There are too many bosses.

I should note that I'm including minibosses. At one point, you're going to find yourself fighting some agile, very hostile and fast monsters, and periodically these guys are going to ambush you as you make your way across ZDR. These fights are hard (especially when you get attacked by two at once. Especially when those two get you when you've got just one energy tank remaining and you're not in a great place to farm health - thankfully I figured out that if I could respawn one of the minions in the room where I was fighting I could get a full-health upgrade, but only after like seven attempts on these guys.)

The unique bosses have all been very cool (well, with one exception - there's a bug thing that you fight that's not terrible memorable). They do have a somewhat more modern design philosophy - they tend to have something of an "attack window" that you have to do other things to get to. I will say that the earlier bosses are a bit more old-school, but there's definitely going to be a bunch of phases and you'll need to adapt on the fly.

This is one way in which the fight's aren't quite as old-school as the exploration gameplay. It might be an asset or a liability, depending on your preferences.

Oddly, later in the game, the EMMI, who seem like such a ubiquitous presence for much of it, are not encountered quite as much. There is one EMMI zone you'll have to cross a few times (underwater before you get the Gravity Suit, mind you) but I don't believe I'm ready to actually take that one down.

One thing I will truly complain about is that the number of times you're unable to backtrack makes it hard to really notice when you get better gear. I've finally returned to the starting area of Artaria having gotten the Gravity Suit, Plasma Beam, and Storm Missiles, but due to reasons I won't spoil, many of the enemies there have gotten tougher. Even if the Gravity Suit reduces my damage by half again (after the Varia does it the first time,) it doesn't really feel like I've got better armor when I'm four times as much damage.

On my first playthrough, of course, I wouldn't even have the foggiest notion how to sequence break in this game. But to be fair, that's never been my playstyle. I do think I'll do multiple playthroughs - this is going to be a nice game to have in my back pocket for an airplane flight or something like that (though I imagine it'll be hell on my hands if I use the Joy-Cons - even with the Pro controller I'm not at 100%, though that might be because I've been playing pretty consistently over the course of the day (I doubt my completion time is going to impress anyone.)

Given the age we live in, I wonder if Nintendo will release any DLC for this. It's obviously pretty hard to shoehorn in new content for a game like this - Metroids are always kind of an intricate puzzle-box. Still, perhaps there's a place for some mini-adventure. We shall see.

I suspect that I'm getting close to the end of the game. I can only think of a handful of upgrades left to pick up (notably, I haven't gotten the Power Bombs, but I did get an expansion for them, which is currently listed as a "mysterious item" as if Samus had never used a Power Bomb before).

Obviously, beyond Samus getting her arsenal back together, I've gotten more comfortable with the controls. So I suspect that when I play again I'm going to be a lot more adept in the early parts of the game. Being able to read a boss' tells is a big part of surviving - unless there are a ton of energy tanks that I'm just not seeing, you're going to have a hard time brute-forcing any of these boss fights.

Metroid Dread: Bigger than Zebes?

 I got Super Metroid some time in middle school, I think, which would mean that I first played it over 20 years ago. So, there are some aspects of it that are kind of hard-wired into me.

Metroid games are all about exploration - you don't know explicitly where you're supposed to go, but usually if you use your latest ability, it'll take you in the right direction.

Metroid Dread has a lot of moments where you won't be able to backtrack just yet, though the promise is always that some new upgrade will allow you not only to go forward, but also backward.

I've now beaten three unique boss encounters (the second of which is Kraid, which was probably the toughest though it got a lot easier when I figured out the right priorities in terms of dodging and shooting). Additionally, I've faced two special mini-bosses, the first of which abruptly interrupts what feels like the main lore-dump cutscene in the middle of the game (I don't know how far I am in it, but it felt like a good midpoint shift.)

I've got to say that while there are a couple things that can be awkward, like the number of shoulder buttons needed to press while aiming the grappling beam, the controls here are a huge step up from Super Metroid, which was obviously limited by the hardware of the time. Wall-jumping, which I always struggled with in Super Metroid, is a breeze in this one, to the extent that I don't think it's really a "hidden technique" as much as something they expect you to use to get around. Also, while having to hold down R to shoot missiles can be a bit of a strain, it's way less awkward than toggling through what amounts to a menu you need to use in real-time.

While its look is far more modern, of course (though I have a profound nostalgia for 16-bit sprites,) the overall feel and rhythm of the game is very reminiscent of Super Metroid (which is the only other 2D Metroid I've played, apart from a few abortive attempts to try the original.)

ZDR is also, I'd wager, larger than Zebes was in Super Metroid. However, purists might be disappointed that the various regions (of which there are several) don't fit together quite as jigsaw-like as Crateria, Brinstar, Norfair, the Wrecked Ship, Maridia, and Tourian did. The areas are spread out.

Also, while some previews might have seemed to imply that the teleporters found around ZDR are a kind of "fast-travel," in truth they're just another alternative to the elevators and trains, taking you from one point in one region to another specific point in another. Getting across this world is going to require you to really plot a course.

The EMMI encounters are... fine. I think you hit more of them early in the game, and it does serve to change up the gameplay a little. To defeat an EMMI, you need to find the Central Core or whatever it's called in its EMMI zone, which is a floating Mother Brain-like thing, with the familiar turrets and "Rinkas." Once the brain is defeated, you get its power and can blow away the EMMI, which usually comes for you immediately. You just have to find a straightaway so that you can use the rapid-fire mode to blow off its face shield and then probably slip under it while it's momentarily stunned and head to the other side of the platform so you have enough time to charge the big blast. The EMMIs are less bosses than a kind of difficult trick you need to pull off periodically over the course of the game. Each one gives you an ability that corresponds to one of their abilities.

So far my favorite new ability is the Aeon Flash, which lets you blink up to three times across the map. This proved invaluable when facing down the robot-Chozo minibosses (are they technically Torizo?) However, most of the stuff you're going to get will be familiar. I can't promise these are in order, but I've gotten the Charge Beam, Spider Grip, Aeon Cloak, Varia Suit, Morph Ball, Bomb, Wide Beam, Grappling Beam, Speed Booster, and the Super Missile. I was actually a bit surprised that I beat the third major unique boss and didn't get an item from them, having to beat another mini-boss before getting the Super Missiles.

On bosses (except Kraid, I think) there's often an ability that allows you to counter-attack, which lets you get a lot of free hits in. When this happens, it looks like a cutscene, but you can still fire weapons, so don't be a dingus like me and shoot the normal beam weapon (which doesn't tend to harm bosses.)

Anyway, you can probably tell I'm enjoying the game.