Metroid Dread Reports Vol. 1 to 6

Week for week Nintendo has been sharing more information about the Metroid series and its new title, Metroid Dread, via their Metroid Dread Reports, where this week this came together with the second trailer for the game. If you want to go into the game without knowing too much, then this will be the time to isolate yourself from all things Nintendo until October 8th. When it comes to advertisement and social media, Nintendo isn't all that sensitive towards spoilers. They show whatever they want to show you.

In the same vein, stop reading this post now, because we're taking a look at some of the things that have been shared over the past couple of weeks.

 

Non-Linearity

This might be some of the best news for the Metroid series in a long while. In the Metroid Dread Report Vol. 4 Nintendo goes over all four mainline Metroid titles and discusses their potential connection to the upcoming fifth installment, Metroid Dread. The Super Metroid part is probably the most interesting one, because it focuses on the game's high level of freedom:

"Super Metroid can be said to offer the greatest flexibility for exploration in the series. You can enjoy similar flexibility in Metroid Dread, depending on how you take advantage of your abilities. You might be able to find ways to obtain weapons, items and abilities earlier than the intended timing. We encourage you to try to discover alternate routes of exploration."

That's fantastic and certainly a change from most of the previous installments produced by Sakamoto, like Metroid Fusion. It will be interesting to see how this will be handled, because a lot of the "sequence breaks" in Super Metroid seem like they weren't really intended. But this will certainly add to the game's replay value, which is super important for a Metroid title.

 

A New Villain

You could see this coming ever since the secret teaser in Metroid: Samus Returns, but in Metroid Dread Samus' ultimate enemy won't be the Space Pirates, the Metroids or even the new E.M.M.I. units, but the Chozo themselves. More specifically, a militaristic and hostile faction of the Chozo.

In the memories of Metroid: Samus Returns we learn about the Chozo of SR388, who have created the Metroid in order to defeat the X and locked them under the planet surface. But when help from other Chozo has arrived, they cruelly wiped out the surviving Chozo of SR388.

The trailers of Metroid Dread also show seemingly different types of Chozo. There seems to be a friendly one, who was already shown in the first trailer and who might support Samus similar to other Chozo in the past. We can even see him bowing in the teaser at the end of Vol. 4, which also shows those memories from Metroid: Samus Returns again.

Now, the new trailer shows us scenes from the beginning of Metroid Dread, where Samus stands before a Chozo warrior, who seems to be unbeatable in her current state. It's a formidable foe and in many ways similar to the SA-X. The Chozo has a Power Suit together with an Arm Cannon and a variety of abilities, much like Samus. After all, Samus got her suit and most of her abilities from the Chozo, so facing one of the Chozo warriors will be like facing herself, probably even tougher, because they could have new technologies that Samus isn't even familiar yet with.

If it weren't for the E.M.M.I., the Chozo might even become another type of enemy that makes you run for your life, because you cannot defeat them yet. But the trailer clearly portrays the Chozo enemy units as something that you fight, where there are also "weaker" units in the early game, which seem to be entirely robotic and are fighting with some kind of staff or lance.

Of course it could also be that the Chozo warrior from the beginning is entirely robotic and that the real villain is someone or something taking control of all these artificial life forms, E.M.M.I. and Chozo robots alike. Update: One of the Chozo enemies, the golden one near the end of the second trailer, shows clear signs of organic corruption with some sort of black mass inside its monstrous mouth. So, there's probably more to it all and we will have to wait and see. It could be that the X is behind all this after all, though the X Parasite didn't look black.

Visually, the Chozo enemies are somewhat reminiscent to the bird-like warriors from Stargate, by the way, where this probably not a coincidence, since the Metroid series took inspirations from a variety of science fiction movies.

We also see the return of a familiar villain with Kraid, who is in chains here, which potentially already demonstrates the powers of those Chozo, who are probably the ones who put poor Kraid into captivity. Forget the Space Pirates, the Chozo are the new king in town.

The evil Chozo warrior also seems to be the reason why Samus loses all of her abilities. She takes a full blast of his Arm Cannon and is then left in her basic state, where now she has to regain all of her items yet again. Well, this is a good explanation as any, which even ties her loss of powers to the current threat, similar to how Metroid Fusion and Metroid Prime 2: Echoes have done the same. And it's certainly better than not having any excuse at all as to why Samus has to collect her powers again, which leads us to...

Abilities

Volumes 5 and 6 of the "Metroid Dread Reports" also focus on Samus' abilities quite a bit, where we have a selection of new and returning power-ups.

Interestingly, there is a semi-new ability called "Spin Boost", which lets you perform one additional spin jump in the air. It's basically like the Space Jumps, but limited to one, which is exactly how the Space Jump ability worked in the Metroid Prime Trilogy games.

This is probably an upgrade that you get in the early game, while the unlimited Space Jumps are something that you get later on. Such "interupgrades" seem to be a thing now, where Samus can also perform her new slide kick as a means of getting through small gaps before the Morph Ball.

What's also similar to Metroid Prime – Metroid Prime 2 and Metroid Prime 3 to be exact – are the "Storm Missiles", which seem to work similarly to the Seeker Missiles from the Prime games. You can mark up to five targets and then let a storm of missiles hit them in quick succession.

The Speed Booster together with its Shinespark ability returns after its absence in Metroid: Samus Returns (though, I personally didn't miss it that much). Screw Attack, Grapple Beam and Gravity Suit return as well – there are no big surprises here, but the Grapple Beam sees some creative new usages, where it can even be combined with the magnetic surfaces for example.

Somewhat unexpected are the Ice Missiles, which might replace the Ice Beam yet again. There should be no good reason for this, since Samus has re-obtained the Ice Beam at the end of Fusion, but maybe we'll get both this time. However, Metroid: Samus Returns also treated the Ice Beam as a separate tool and didn't stack it with the other beams, where they simply might repeat this trend and simplify things by bringing back the Ice Missiles again.

The only completely new item shown so far seem to be the "Cross Bombs", which took a note from Bomberman and create blasts in four directions. This can even propel you up easily, without the need of convoluted bomb jumps.

We also get a completely new set of Aeion abilities, which seems to be balanced much better than in Samus Returns, where there was a huge reliance on these additions, much like with the Melee Counter. The Flash Shift seems to replace the Phase Drift and lets Samus travel quickly back and forth, up to three times in a row. This looks like it will be mainly useful in combat, but you can also use it for traversal.

The Pulse Radar is the replacement of the Scan Pulse and works like pared-down version of that. It only shows breakable blocks in the environment, but it doesn't seem to change your map in any way. But the markings of the Scan Pulse could be an incentive to not use the ability at all for some, to have a "clean" map at the end of the game, where this could be a nice compromise as something that reveals nearby secrets, but not too much.

Overall this looks pretty decent, where Metroid Dread might have some more surprises up its sleeves. But Nintendo will probably tell us about them in the upcoming weeks...