Metroid Dread Mission Log, Entry 1

E.M.M.I. Defeated: 3

For the first time ever I will blog while playing through a new Metroid game. Usually this is something exclusive to Zelda titles, but since Metroid is the second best Action Adventure series by Nintendo and I call myself "TourianTourist for a reason, we can do an exception. At first I thought that a review might do, like it did for Samus Returns, but I'm already feeling the need to write certain things down, so here we go.

As an orientation, I will start these log posts with the number of E.M.M.I. units that I have already defeated, so you can avoid spoilers. I think this should work very well as the main goal posts, but it's possible that this might get shifted somehow. If you want to be perfectly safe, then just wait until you've beaten the game yourself before you read my thoughts.

Well, to be honest, my first impression – after having played the game for about three hours – is rather mixed. Originally, I was planning to replay Metroid: Samus Returns one more time before going into Metroid Dread, but then Animal Crossing: New Horizons found its way into my collection and stole basically all of my free time in September. Needless to say that this wasn't the best preparation.

And because of this I struggled with the controls quite a bit at first, where I wish that you could modify them ingame somehow (changing controls via the Nintendo Switch options is a total hassle). But they are the same as in Samus Returns and they work fine, it's just that using the R button for Missiles feels less comfortable than ZR. And after playing the Trine games in the past weeks, I was also used to jumping with ZL... But I adjusted to the controls quite quickly.

So, my worst fear about this game was that I will literally dread those E.M.M.I. sections as something that's completely unfun. I already didn't like the similar parts in Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Zero Mission, where I certainly don't share Sakamoto's obsession with turning the hunter into the hunted, and I was worried about a Metroid game that got essentially built all around this.

And I was worried for good reasons, because I like it as much as I thought I would. I sigh at every E.M.M.I. Zone door that I encounter, the whole "run or hide" sections are basically just a lot of trial and error, where they also create this untypical roadblock. It completely kills the pacing of the game. I sometimes just want to get from A to B, maybe even to the nearest save station, but you have to go through an E.M.M.I. Zone to get there and then may face several Game Over screens on that journey. Or sometimes I'm just stuck with waiting, because the E.M.M.I. wants to patrol the small area I just wanted to cross quickly... Nope, I'm not a fan.

Luckily, the game is very generous and forgiving with its checkpoints, much like Samus Returns and Other M before it. If this were like in the Metroid Prime Trilogy, where you're thrown back to the latest save point, this would be a complete nightmare and extremely frustrating.

But as annoying these parts are, it feels equally liberating to finally kill those things with the "Omega Blaster" (which seemingly got renamed to not be confused with the Omega Cannon from Metroid Prime Hunters). In order to do this, you need to make your way to the Central Unit first and defeat it. Those are effectively small Mother Brains, together with the classic Rinka as some sort of Mini Tourian, which is a nice nod to previous titles and makes a lot of sense for this setting of an unexplored Chozo planet.

Overall the atmosphere and the background details of ZDR are very well done. A lot of it feels similar to SR388 from Samus Returns, but again this makes sense story-wise, where the remake of Metroid II was by all means the perfect preparation for Mercury Steam to make the fifth installment.

Anyway, since you can ultimately destroy the E.M.M.I., the whole thing somewhat reminds me of the Phantoms in Phantom Hourglass, where this was a similar concept and it felt equally great to use the Phantom Sword to cleanse the Temple of the Ocean King at the end. Here you do this step by step and once an E.M.M.I. is down, you get free access of the entire E.M.M.I. Zone, which already feels massively rewarding on its own.

However, this feeling doesn't last too long. Once I've cleared the first zone, I really just wanted to explore more of Artaria, the first major area on the map, but the game somewhat funneled me already to the next area, Cataris, and before I knew it I made an even bigger detour into Dairon, the third area. Sometimes I just wanted to go back, but it seemed either really inconvenient or even impossible to do so most of the time. Of course this is where the teleporters will come in, to make backtracking easier, but I still felt like I was missing something most of the time and simply rushed through the stressful E.M.M.I. Zones, because that's how the flow went.

Now, when defeated, each E.M.M.I. also grants you a new ability. One of those is the Morph Ball, which you get from the green E.M.M.I. that can make itself smaller to cross narrow tunnels. So, this is reminiscent of the X creatures in Metroid Fusion or the Ing in Metroid Prime 2: Echoes, just that these are entirely mechanic beings this time around. But this is actually the latest you ever receive the Morph Ball in a Metroid game, where you already have to explore three areas to get there. In fact, this was the last upgrade I got before writing all this. And this makes you really appreciate the power-up when you finally get it, because there were a lot of tunnels I wasn't able to take yet.

That's certainly something, where Metroid Dread tries to differentiate itself from previous titles in the series in various ways, not just the E.M.M.I. stuff. For example, your early goal is simply to get back to your ship and survive all the way up, where the initial promise of the X is quickly forgotten and even seen as a potential fake by your ship A.I., Adam...

One more thing that kind of annoys me is the map. It uses the same system as in Samus Returns, where visited areas are shown in a brighter color. Now, in Samus Returns this was done in chunks, where it was easy enough to fill the entire map as "visited". But in Metroid Dread it uses actual blocks and in order to fill the map you would have to touch every block of air with Samus within a room... On the hand it's neat that it basically shows you how you've traversed through the areas. On the other hand this is an OCD nightmare for everyone who wants to complete the map.

Well, let's get back to it...