After beating Metroid Dread in under four hours in Normal Mode, I've had to do the same once more in Hard Mode to unlock all gallery pictures and thus truly complete the game. And my fourth trip to the planet ZDR was yet another success, where I should be done with the game... for now at least.
Playing in Hard Mode actually didn't make that much of a difference. The increased damage you take is noticeable, where I ended up on low health more often. And you take so much damage that you can't afford to be hit more than twice with most of the bosses, but since the bosses already forced you to master them in Normal Mode, there wasn't really the same increase in challenge as with the Hard and Fusion Modes in Metroid: Samus Returns, let alone the Hard Mode in Metroid: Other M. If you've already beaten the game in Normal Mode, then Hard Mode shouldn't be much of a problem.
The only boss that gave me some trouble this time was Experiment No. Z-57, where this is the only boss where I still can't flawlessly dodge every attack.But at least I finally managed to beat this boss with a Shinespark for the first time, which was very satisfying to pull off.
Overall my course through the game was very similar to last time. This means I got the Grapple Beam early after Kraid and I went for early Gravity Suit, Screw Attack and Cross Bombs after the Ice Missiles / Pulse Radar. I've learned my lessons, so I now knew that the best way from the Screw Attach back to Ghavoran were the red and orange portals to save some more time.
And because I had some more time at my disposal, I even decided to experiment a little bit more, where for the first time I got the Super Missiles early right after the first visit to Ferenia. This requires you to speedboost through the frozen area in the upper left section of Dairon without the Gravity Suit, where you can't make a mistake or you'll die there. Entering Ghavoran this way doesn't really give you many options, so it's actually a detour, but it makes the following two boss battles much easier and of course it saves a little bit of time in Ghavoran afterwards.
But by now I don't even know how the game actually plays like on its intended course. It's just too much fun to have all these items earlier, especially in Ferenia. With all these shortcuts there is even a mini boss battle against two Robot Chozo Soldiers at Burenia that you can skip. If you go there later, you can instantly kill them with a Power Bomb, which is really cool and yet another neat trick to dispose some of the bosses.
Yes, you can even skip Drogyga and other bosses entirely, but this requires you to use glitches, which is something that I personally avoid doing in video games, whether it's Zelda or Metroid. I like to try everything within the given borders of the game to see what's possible, but not break those borders via means that go beyond the actual game design.
Anyway, mission complete. The unlockable artworks from the main Metroid games are all great and a nice reward. There is even one more artwork for getting all endings, but it's the same bonus artwork as in the Chozo Archives, just with Zero Suit Samus instead of Samus in her Power Suit. I'm not complaining, though.
I also went for 100% items in Hard Mode, but only after finishing the game under four hours. Achieving both at the same time would require me to be about one hour faster, which would be an interesting challenge, but it's certainly doable. However, this isn't required for anything, so I'm not sure I will bother. For now I have fully completed the game and will put it aside to focus on other games.
But I must say that I enjoy replaying it a lot, so I might go for this challenge anyway in the future. With the repeat playthroughs my initial complaints became also less and less of note. The controls are now in my blood and once you've mastered the game the E.M.M.I. can hardly touch you, where they don't annoy me any longer. It's even fun to play cat and mouse with them to a point.
Metroid Dread is with all certainty my game of the year 2021 (not that there was much competition), where it even became my favorite Metroid title for now. And I'm really looking forward to more Metroid games of this caliber in the future.
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