Finished Metroid Dread. That was well worth the wait and well worth the price tag. I had so much fun with this, its hard to put it into words. This just might be my personal favorite 2D Metroid in the whole series. I'll have to get out my "honeymoon period" for this game and replay the others again to be sure, but either way, this is absolutely a must buy for any Metroid fan. This is a game meant for those who have been invested in the story, the lore, and Samus herself as a character for all these years, and rewards your investment in kind. If you're a fan of the Metroidvania genre but haven't tried Metroid itself, then perhaps hold off on this game until you've at least played Zero Mission, Samus Returns, Super, and Fusion, because this is the culmination of that whole narrative journey and it has a ton of Easter Eggs and references you won't appreciate or understand unless you've played those.
The controls are very fluid and feel great, the art style is lovely, the graphics are very nice by Switch standards, and the level design is top notch. The game encourages experimentation and was clearly built for replays and speed-runs in mind, because there's a ton of shortcuts and intentional and unintentional sequence breaking in here. (Some of the things that have already been discovered by hardcore Metroid fans are insane. Everything from getting a ton of items early to skipping whole bosses and areas) The world is more linear than Super's, but more open than Fusion's, to get an idea. The counter mechanic is back, and its much better here than it was in Samus Returns, and its completely optional as well. The Flash Shift Aeion ability is so useful, I want it to be in every 2D Metroid game from now on. Samus herself is treated like the badass professional she is and she just oozes emotion and personality with her body language in every scene. Mercury Steam understands what makes Samus tick and why her fans love her. Dread delves into her adopted Chozo heritage and it mines that potential in a way that is very satisfying. One weak link was the music which isn't bad but doesn't come close to the heights the franchise is known for for the new tracks.
This game is more challenging then your average Metroid for sure, but not to the extent some online are making it out to be. Hollow Knight is way more difficult than this. Some folks are just too lazy to learn the controls, identify attack patterns from enemies and bosses, can't be bothered to just explore the map and experiment with all your abilities. The learning curve is very organic and the game is very generous with save spots and checkpoints so if you die, you don't lose all the progress you've made. The game is hard but fair; it doesn't hold your hand, but it does give you all the tools to succeed. Every time I did die, it was because of a mistake on my part, not the game's. There are some tricky puzzles, but nothing some trial-and-error can't solve. Most of the bosses will kick your ass if you rush in recklessly with no plan, but if you take the time to observe their behaviors, and remember to act defensively and make full use of your abilities, you can overcome them. And if you get lost, then just shoot or bomb everything. And if that doesn't uncover a secret passage, then leave and come back when you have more items. Dread has you bouncing back and forth between areas frequently.
The EMMI sections change up the pace of things in a good way in my opinion, as you'll either have to navigate those areas in a stealthy manner when you're unfamiliar with the terrain, or run through them in a rush to get to a safe area as the EMMI chases you if you are. They never get annoying to the point of being frustrating, but they do keep you on your toes.
And if you've ever wanted to know more about the Chozo (and why wouldn't you, because the Chozo are cool as fuck), then this is the game for you, because this gives you a deep dive on the bird aliens. There's even enough info on their language in this game that some hardcore fans have already pieced together their alphabet, sentence structure, grammar, etc. You can learn to read, write, and speak Chozo if you want.
Adam --or rather, the A.I. version of him-- is present, but he's in line with the way he was depicted in Fusion, so there's no need to fear Other M's shadow here.
Annoying to see that the praise the game is getting has caused certain folks online to attack it and try to sabotage its success, and equally as annoying, a ton of Other M apologists have crawled out of whatever dark pit they've been lurking in and are trying to convince people that Other M is a misunderstood masterpiece. Ugh. Best to just ignore them.
But dude, the plot, I gotta talk about it. MEGA SPOILERS:
► Show Spoiler
The Chozo are divided into tribes. One of them is the Thoha tribe, made up of scientists and scholars. The Chozo who once lived on Zebes and took Samus in were of this group, as were the ones on SR-388 who created the Metroids to combat the X parasites. The Metroids were designed to be controlled by those with Thoha genes, but as the Metroids mutated/evolved beyond what they were originally designed to be, the Thoha lost control and were forced to get help from another Chozo tribe called the Mawkin. The Mawkin are a warrior tribe who refused to give up their martial ways and still uphold the ideals of the old Chozo Empire back in their imperialistic days, "worshipping at the altar of power", believing that peace can only come through force and might makes right and as such the other Chozo are wary of them, but they managed to work together to seal the Metroids away. Realizing the seal wouldn't last forever and just how dangerous the Metroids could become, the Thoha wanted to destroy SR-388 outright to end the threat of their creations and the X parasites once and for all. But the leader of the Mawkin, a power-hungry tyrannical Chozo named Raven Beak, saw the Metroids as the tool he needed to bring order to the galaxy by using them as bioweapons. He slaughtered all the Thoha Chozo on SR-388 save for one which he enslaved, and went back to his planet-fortress of ZDR to begin his plans of harvesting the Metroids for mass production and galactic conquest. But his plans got waylaid because one of his soldiers got infected by an X while on SR-388. Every member of the Mawkin got taken over by X until only Raven Beak was left, who managed to contain the parasites and trap them. But by the time he was done dealing with that mess and ready to harvest Metroids, the events of the series had played out and the Metroids were already extinct and SR-388 annihilated. Discovering that the last source of Metroid DNA was inside Samus thanks to the Vaccine treatment she got in Fusion, he lured her to ZDR to extract the DNA, having hacked the Federation's EMMIs to do so. But upon seeing Samus begin to manifest Metroid abilities when exposed to danger, he lets her live and poses as Adam, guiding her through ZDR, exposing her to various dangers to awaken the killer instinct, trying to get her to become stronger and finish her transformation into a Metroid hybrid so she can be the weapon he desired. He changes his plans; instead of creating a clone army of Metroids, he'll just make a clone army of Samus.
Samus speaks once in-game, and its in the Chozo language!
Samus meets the Chozo scientist Raven Beak enslaved, named Quiet Robe, and he helps her, only for Raven Beak to kill him. QR is a total bro, as even when his corpse later gets absorbed by an X, the X-copy of him still has enough of his memories and nobility and compassion to help her one last time.
Samus figures out that the Adam that's been taking to her for 95% of the game is actually Raven Beak deceiving her, and RB demands she join his cause. She refuses. Its then that we find out that Samus didn't just get Thoha genes while on Zebes (In the flashback, we see Old Bird and Grey Voice among the Chozo present). If she was going to be a warrior strong enough to safeguard the galaxy, and to use Chozo weapons and armor to their full extent, she needed Mawkin genes as as well, and RB actually visited Zebes and donated his DNA to her as well. RB played the long game and saw the potential for her to one day be a great asset for him and to get under her skin pulls a Darth Vader by calling her his daughter. They fight, but RB is the proverbial "there's always someone better" because not even Samus is a match for this Chozo warlord, who's a serious contender for being the single most powerful foe Aran has ever faced. RB even still has his wings, something the rest of the Chozo lost long ago. But just as Samus is about to die, she falls into a rage, roaring with fury, and completes her Metroid transformation and starts sucking the life force out of RB like an energy vampire from hell. Samus eventually wins, gets her Metroid DNA under control thanks to QR, and leaves the planet before it explodes. X are extinct again, evil Chozo all gone, and Samus truly is the last Metroid, the "ultimate warrior".
Considering RB's plan was the same as Mother Brain's, I wonder if those two ever talked with each other when RB visited Zebes. Would they have teamed up if they were aware of what the other was doing, or would they have fought each other for supremacy? Did RB play any role in Mother Brain betraying the Zebes Chozo? Speculations for later.
Kraid is here, captured by the Mawkin and locked away in their dungeon. When exactly they imprisoned him, I don't know. Maybe this Kraid is a clone? There are several bioweapon cloning facilities on ZDR. There are also several murals in the game that depict the Space Pirates fighting the Mawkin Chozo; maybe they tried to raid ZDR at one point but got defeated, and Kraid was taken prisoner? Anyway, its funny how Samus treats Kraid. She's not concerned by him in the slightest, which makes Kraid furious. Kraid dies, gets assimilated by an X, then killed again.
Ridley does not return in this game, which I think was a good decision as much as I miss the old space dragon. This is a story about Raven Beak and Samus, about the different flavors of Chozo culture and legacy, and throwing Ridley into the mix would have complicated things and would have resulted in one or the other having the thunder stolen from them.
