Metroid Dread Mission Log, Entry 3

E.M.M.I. Defeated: 6

The end is getting near. At least it feels like this. I wasn't able to finish the game this weekend, but that's okay, because I'm on vacation right now. Story spoilers incoming, so please don't keep reading unless you either don't care or you've defeated at least six of the E.M.M.I., which is all except for one.

Now, after acquiring the Ice Missiles it didn't take long to get to the next E.M.M.I. encounter and even get you stuck with it. One of the next accessible power-ups is the Scan Pulse at Ghavoran, which is really great. It gives you the exact information that you want, without leaving any "marks of shame" on your map, like the Pulse Radar in Samus Returns did. But you'll quickly learn that you can't go back right now from where you got this item, so you have to proceed forward.

Overall, I like the usage of Aeion a lot more than in the Nintendo 3DS title, especially since it's a simple cooldown mechanic, instead of another resource that needs to be replenished. Whenever you needed Aeion somewhere to progress in Samus Returns, like with the Lightning Armor or the Phase Drift, the game also needed to provide these big Aeion orbs for refills. This isn't necessary here and feels a lot more smartly designed. Except maybe the Phantom Cloak...

Your next nightmare is the Wave Beam E.M.M.I. that can you detect through walls and shoot a stun projectile at you. Adam gives the "advice" that you should have nothing to fear with your Phantom Cloak, as if it were this easy...

Well, for me it didn't seem like the Phantom Cloak was doing me any favors. This particular E.M.M.I. is extremely "in your face". You go through an E.M.M.I. Zone Door and it's right there, waiting for you. You can use the Phantom Cloak right when entering the area, but if you stand still, the E.M.M.I. will bump into you eventually. And if you move, you're quick to use up all your Aeion, where then the Phantom Cloak uses up your health energy instead.

So, what to do? Well, the solution at this point was to just "run, run, run" and hope for the best. If the cloak isn't doing me any favors, I'm not using this and my best chance was to run for my life. To make things worse, large parts of the Ferenia E.M.M.I. Zone are flooded and I still didn't have the Gravity Suit yet...

But after successfully running from this E.M.M.I. like three or four times, the game gives you the Space Jump ability, which is like "gg" for the E.M.M.I. – good luck chasing me when I'm flying all over the place. You also get the Gravity Suit not longer after, so you have the full underwater mobility as well. This is also where the game finally opens up and the real fun starts. In fact, yesterday I spent most of my play time with simply backtracking and becoming stronger.

And become stronger you must. At this point it was made perfectly clear that your ultimate goal is to defeat Raven Beak, which was to expected from the start, but Adam keeps pointing out that Samus wasn't a match for that guy when she was at full power, meaning that she must become even stronger. This is an exciting prospect, where it would be interesting to go further beyond Samus's abilities in previous Metroid titles.

A way to do so seem to be the X, where their boss fights sometimes leave the Core-X containing new abilities, much like in Metroid Fusion. Overall the X also provided a good shift in difficulty. It turns the normal enemies everywhere into even stronger variants that can also respawn as different creatures. It's a very smart way of increasing the difficulty in all the environments that makes sense within the story. The Metroid Prime Trilogy games or Other M simply just swapped the enemies for stronger ones later on, but this is much cooler.

But at the same time it also feels somewhat weird to have the X back like this. The X always seemed like this typical one game gimmick, like what you normally have in Zelda games. Imagine that Breath of the Wild would suddenly bring back the Twilight Realms and turn you into a wolf in the middle of the story. It could work, but it certainly would feel like a rehash.

It does make sense within the story of Metroid Dread, though, so this isn't a major complaint, but it also feels a little bit unnecessary, because the threat of the Chozo Warriors in itself was already interesting enough. Instead you're now fighting Chozo Warriors infected with X, which somewhat takes away from the original idea of Samus going against some evil Chozo.

Now, the abilities that you get from the X don't seem to be that revolutionary, however. There are the "Storm Missiles", which is similar to the Seeker Missiles that Samus had before, but only in 3D games. The main difference is that you can lock only to one target and then fire all missiles onto that, which is very powerful. Then there are the "Cross Bombs", which can be used as a nice way to cross pitfall blocks and do some easy bomb jumps, but it's probably nothing that will make Raven Beak to tremble with fear.

You're also collecting mysterious artifacts everywhere, which kind of reminds me of Metroid: Zero Mission, where those turned out to be abilities that didn't appear first in Metroid, like the Gravity Suit. This gave me hope that this might be something similar, but then I realized that those must be capacity upgrades for the Power Bombs, which I don't have yet. So, nothing special.

The X aren't the only thing that has changed during backtracking, where there was one interesting part that had most of Artaria frozen solid. Now, that was really cool (pun intended) and even turned small ponds into obstacles that can't be overcome. Of course this was mostly to funnel you to the next major boss fight, but I liked that sequence a lot, especially with visuals.

At first I thought that this was something the X were doing directly. Like, they are somehow capable of lowering the temperatures, which they do to protect themselves from Metroids (meaning from you). But it was really just that they've blocked the thermal energy flow from Cartaris. Considering that Artaria has some giant magma caverns surrounding it as well, even some with Bottle Ship-esque tunnels running through them, it doesn't make much sense that the whole place would suddenly freeze up like this, but whatever...

Then it was boss time with "Experiment No. Z-57". They teased this fight a while ago, because in the early game you could see how they were operating on this creature in Dairon:

And now it was gone... At first I thought this was the Corpius boss from Artaria and that they are trying to bring it back somehow. They do look somewhat similar, though.

Anyway, the boss fight itself could be best described as the new Diggernaut of Metroid Dread. It felt very similar, because you have this huge monster in the background that keeps sticking its head in and attacks you with its arms and beam attacks. And you have to truly master this fight to make it. There is not much room for error here.

I've said this before, but I feel like the normal difficulty is much harder than Samus Returns used to be, but I could be wrong, because it's been a while. And it makes sense canonically, because Samus is supposed to be weaker in her Fusion Suit.

Still, it's not much fun to receive like 200 damage on every hit from a boss, while you have to hit the same boss like 200 times. But I've already seen what you can do to the boss to quickly finish it by using Storm Missiles on the arm and the Speed Booster at the end of the heavy wind sequence to ram its head. It's impressive and if there's one thing that MercurySteam gets right, then it's making really good boss fights with a high learning curve.

This whole part of the game was still very tough, but really enjoyable, where this is the quality that made Samus Returns my favorite Metroid game. If it weren't for the E.M.M.I. and the needlessly convoluted Grapple Beam, I would probably be hyped about Metroid Dread right now, but I'm not.

At least the Grapple Beam became obsolete as a traversal tool thanks to the Space Jump. There was still one sequence where you had to use the Grapple Beam to get through an E.M.M.I. Zone, where I actually used the Phantom Cloak to do this with less pressure, but once you've obtained the Space Jump you can just rush through the zones straight to the Central Unit and the E.M.M.I. will shout "wait for me".

They are turning the E.M.M.I. destruction sequences more and more into a puzzle, however, where you need to find enough space and time to melt away their armor, but this is more or less scripted and the E.M.M.I. don't use their ability any longer for some reason, so it's usually not as bad.

One last E.M.M.I. remains and right now I expect it to hold the Power Bombs, which would be a nasty ability to have for these things. It also seems like the last major power-up in the game that I'm still missing, which would be lame, but let's see. An alternative is that Raven Beak will use the last E.M.M.I. to protect himself somehow or maybe it's both. But don't mind me, I'm just speculating. I will probably find out later today...

Metroid Dread Mission Log, Entry 2

E.M.M.I. Defeated: 5

Last time I left off at when you get the Morph Ball and I was lamenting how the game made it hard to actually backtrack. And just when I said this, I ran into the red Teleportal, which brings you back to Artaris. But my joy didn't last long, because I decided to check out the new area above the portal, which turns out to be a slight mistake if you actually want to backtrack.

You come into another stressful sequence of running, this time from rising heat, and already get rewarded with the Varia Suit. But this also blocks off the passage right below the Teleportal, so you can't just easily backtrack through Artaris again. I decided to do so anyway, where you have to backtrack all the way over from Cataris, but I was curious what I could find inside the E.M.M.I. Zones, now that they are "peaceful".

Well, at least more peaceful than before, because they now get roamed by a variety of enemies. This feels a little bit similar to the final areas of Metroid II - Return of Samus (but not Samus Returns), which were devoid of enemies, because all life there was probably wiped out by the Metroids. Now, in Metroid Dread only some drones reside inside the E.M.M.I. Zones as long as the E.M.M.I. are there, but life comes back right when they get defeated. Almost as if the living beings on ZDR are scared of them or simply get killed by them.

The Teleportals themselves don't strike me as very useful, however, unlike the teleporters in Samus Returns. Since they only connect two points with each other, they are effectively just a different form of elevator. In one case there are even two same colored Teleportals right next to an elevator tube connecting the same areas...

Anyway, with the Varia Suit equipped you can make your way to what's probably the most classic boss in the game: Kraid. Since Nintendo has already showed the encounter in their trailers, only the second phase was a little bit surprising here, but it's essentially a complete throwback to the Super Metroid fight at that point.

It's not an easy battle, but what I loved about Samus Returns is how you have to master all of the bosses, slowly but surely. On my first try I could hardly make it to the second phase and later on I could go through the first phase unharmed. It's this rewarding feeling of getting better at combat that MercurySteam really gets right in their Metroid games.

This also gave the higher difficulty options a lot of replay value, because you truly had to show there that you've mastered these fights. It feels to me like the normal difficulty is already very tough, however. And the overuse of the Melee Counter as essentially a quick time event during battles is still quite prominent. "Push that X button at the right moment or you will die!"

It also feels like an unnecessary step back that Save Stations don't heal you. I actually got stuck in a situation where I saved at low health and I had to be extremely lucky not to die in the surrounding areas...

Now, the next E.M.M.I.was the yellow one with the speed upgrade. Weirdly enough, it felt also quite quick to get to its Central Unit and defeat it, even though it had the largest area to cover of all the E.M.M.I. so far. And this is how you get the Speed Booster, which is one item that I really didn't need back...

It was fun to use in Super Metroid, actually it was really cool in Other M as well, but both Metroid Fusion and Metroid: Zero Mission really turned those Shinespark puzzles into an abomination, where this seemingly makes a return in Metroid Dread. Well, to be fair, one impossible Shinespark stunt I've created myself at the following point in Burenia:

There were Speed Booster blocks right where I'm pointing at and I first thought that you some had to come from where I'm currently standing, so you can get to the Energy Part in the air stream to the right. But after a dozen of failed attempts, I ended up getting the item by speed boosting from the shuttle area and then hitting it with a Ball Spark from the right.

Of course the much easier and intended solution is to speed boost against the air stream. It's so obvious that this hurt a little... You even learn this quite early, but I was insistent on backtracking before that point, because I had trouble fighting the first Robot Chozo Soldier at Ferenia. I only had three Energy Tanks when I first encountered this mini-boss and it can hit like a truck, so I decided to go back to some of the previous areas to find more Energy Tanks. And this Energy Part was going to be my fourth, so I really wanted it...

It also didn't take long to find some real Shinespark puzzles, like the one above. Maybe I was overcomplicating things yet again, but to get the Missile Tank+ I had to store a Shinespark right before the right wall, then wall jump up, slide above the beam blocks, lay some bombs, quickly press ZL before falling down, jump and then do a Shinespark to the right... (Update: there is a much easier method, where you simply roll to the upper left corner and do a diagonal Shinespark as a Morph Ball, which also goes through the Beam Blocks.)

That's some crazy finger acrobatics right there and Metroid Dread doesn't like to make things easy for you. For example you have to press the L-stick in order to activate the Speed Booster and you have to perform all sorts of actions just perfectly to get this right. I do like how the ZL button gets used for the instant Morphball in many situations, however, which is something that I really wanted to have in Metroid: Samus Returns.

The use of extra buttons can be convenient and all of this really makes me want an HD remaster of Samus Returns on the Switch, so it could profit from this, because otherwise that game handled things much more conveniently. There was no Speed Booster for example and Ball Sparks were easy to do with the Spider Ball and Power Bomb combination. And the Grapple Beam was so much better...

Oh, the Grapple Beam.. If there's one small thing I could change about Metroid Dread, then it's how you use the Grapple Beam. It's like MercurySteam was challenging itself to make the controls needlessly convoluted.

You have to hold the L button to aim, then hold the ZR button to activate the Grapple Beam mode and then press Y to fire the Grapple Beam. Then you have to hold the Y button in order to swing, then press A to jump, release Y, but keep holding ZR, and finally press and hold Y again in order to get to the next grapple surface... Oh, and don't forget to aim properly during that or you will miss.

It's utterly amazing how bad, convoluted and unintuitive this is. Why not just directly use the Grapple Beam with the ZR button? That's even actually how you use the Grapple Beam in Super Smash Bros. (or the R button, depending on the controls, but it's ZR in my case). Why does everything have to go over the Y button? It would also be better if you could just fire missiles with R in the same fashion.

In the least there should be control options for this kind of stuff. Let me set up the controls in the way I would prefer it. I don't get how MercurySteam can get something so simple and normal so wrong... It really baffles and annoys me, where I don't think I will play the game as often as Samus Returns, unless Nintendo provides a good update for this (which won't happen).

But enough rants... Let's move on to the second major story part, which takes place at Ferenia and was quite interesting. Well, the big, evil Chozo Warrior is named "Raven Beak" and the story is even simpler than what you might have expected here. He just wants to use the Metroids as a biological weapon, like so many before him, and because Samus has exterminated them all on SR388, he lured her to ZDR to get her Metroid DNA. And he also hijacked the E.M.M.I. to reach this goal.

Now, the twist is that the X really are still alive on ZDR and now get released from a containment area, where the game effectively turns in Metroid Fusion. Instead of energy orbs and physical missiles you collect the X viruses again to refill. You could already see some infected Chozo Warriors in the trailers with the black goo, but I didn't really expect the X to return in the same old fashion because of this. This black Venom goo isn't really something that I associated with the X to begin with, where I'm hoping that there is an explanation why it all looks like that now... Otherwise it's really just the same X behavior as before.

Maybe I will find out soon, maybe this is just a different stylistic choice. In any case my latest achievement was taking down the Ice Missile E.M.M.I. – two more to go. Its freezing sight was very annoying and getting past this E.M.M.I. felt more like luck than anything else, where I'm not sure how this game will hold up for speed runners. I'm not invested in speedruns myself, but it's an interesting topic and Samus Returns already had similar issues with the random hiding spots of the Gamma Metroids. Here it feels like you can't really anticipate where the E.M.M.I. will show up...

I've previously compared them to the Phantoms in Phantom Hourglass, but this doesn't hold up, because there you could take you time and study the movements of the Phantoms on the map. In Metroid Dread you might be able to spot the E.M.M.I. on your mini map, but it's often hard to predict where it will be going and whether it's safe to move or not.

Once you get the Omega Blaster, however, the E.M.M.I. turn completely dumb for some reason and approach you slowly without using their abilities. If it just kept freezing you, then you wouldn't stand any chance. But I'm not complaining in that case.

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...

Got Metroid Dread (Special Edition)

It pays to not work on Fridays as a Nintendo fan, since they always release their big hits on this weekday. I woke up, played some Animal Crossing: New Horizons, got this baby, did some chores and now I'm ready to fly for the rest of the day and the weekend.

Anyway, this is easily one of my favorite Special Editions from Nintendo so far. Generally, Nintendo's Limited and Special Editions for games have a very good price, only 80€ for this one, given that you were able to preorder at a retailer. This one only comes with the usual stuff: a steelbook, an artbook and some cards. But these Special Editions are usually worth it for the steelbook and the clean cover of the card case (without those gigantic USK ratings on them) alone.

The Special Edition for Metroid Dread is also quite big, as you can see. This is about the same size and style as the Special Edition for Xenoblade Chronicles 2, which was also quite good. But what's new here is that this one isn't just wrapped in some thin foil, it comes with a plastic casing, where you can put it inside again to protect it from dust and scratches. That's very nice and thoughtful.

The above photo shows the backside of the Special Edition inside the protective casing. The artwork would have been a nice alternative cover the game case, but it sadly doesn't come with a reversible cover...

This is all in all how I've imagined the Limited Edition for Link's Awakening would look like, which turned out to be quite the joke, sadly. It was only half of this size, didn't have a cleaned cover and not too many extras.

Both the artbook and the cards inside the Metroid Dread Special Edition are effectively a celebration of 35 years of Metroid. It focuses entirely on the main series, where the cards show the covers of all five main games. I've only skipped through the artbook, because I was afraid of even more spoilers, but about half of it is dedicated to the main series as well, including the two remakes, Zero Mission and Samus Returns.

There is absolutely nothing from Metroid: Other M or the Prime games in this, however, which is understandable. For Nintendo the Metroid Prime games are effectively a different series within the same universe, but there are totally different developers behind them. I'm sure that there will be a similar celebration of those games once Metroid Prime 4 comes out. And Other M is probably something they simply want to be forgotten for all eternity...

In case you're wondering why I don't have the amiibo yet, I did preorder them as well, but in Europe they had to be delayed until early November because of problems with shipment. But there is nothing overly valuable locked behind them this time anyway, just some extra tanks, so I won't be missing out here.

Metroid Dread Reports Vol. 7 to 10

 

Tomorrow is the day and Metroid Dread gets released for Nintendo Switch. Some of you might be lucky and already have the game from overzealous retailers. And those of you who don't can pass some time with reading the final Metroid Dread Report and those before it. Or just avoid the internet entirely because you don't want spoilers in any form.

Admittedly, Nintendo has shown us a lot of the game, especially with these reports, but the full extent of this won't come to light until the next days, when we are finally able to experience it for ourselves. It may be that their coverage was actually quite moderate and only focuses on the early game, but let's see.

Since the sixth report, where a new trailer introduced us to the mysterious villain, they haven't even shown us that much new. The most spoilery is probably Vol. 8 of the Metroid Dread Report, where they go over a variety of different areas of the planet ZDR, explaining some of the enemies found in each one. They do stop at a key area, however, where hopefully this wasn't all there is to the game.

There was only really one thing that caught my attention in that report:

If this looks very familiar to you, then that's because you've played Metroid: Other M. Let's just hope they didn't also copy the cheap jump scare instant death... Needless to say, I will be traversing this tube very cautiously.

Anyway, the last report reassures us once more that the world of Metroid Dread was designed with exploration in mind, which is nice to hear. After all, for me personally that's the most important aspect of Action Adventure games like Zelda and Metroid. So, let's see how it all really holds up...

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Metroid Dread Spirit Event

If Sora in Smash isn't your thing, because he threw too much pixie dust into your eyes, then maybe Metroid Dread will give you a reason to fire up Super Smash Bros. Ultimate instead. You'll have to make time during your exploration of ZDR, however, because there is a limited Spirit Event coming up soon, lasting from October 8th until October 13th (early in the morning). This event comes with the following new Spirits:

• Samus (Metroid Dread)
• E.M.M.I.
• Chozo Soldiers

There's no sign of the big evil Chozo, where they probably didn't want to spoil anything right now by revealing his / her / its name...

It will be interesting to see if they keep these kind of events going, now that the development of Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is finally coming to a close. Maybe Metroid Dread actually gets some of the final Spirits added to the game, next to the stuff from Kingdom Hearts... We will have to wait and see.

It also feels somewhat random what Nintendo games got such Spirit Events and which ones didn't. Like, there was no Spirit Event for WarioWare: Get It Together! earlier this month and there was nothing for titles like Skyward Sword HD, New Pokémon Snap or Luigi's Mansion 3 either. Why? Well, we will probably never know... Seems like some missed opportunities, like so many.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Sora Revealed

Could we please swap that last Mii Fighter costume with the last fighter, please? Please? Pretty please? Doom Slayer would have been a dope ending for what was overall a very satisfying second Fighters Pass. But of course Sora is a character that will make a lot of people happy, for whom this will certainly a poetic conclusion of this very long journey...

For me personally Sora always was one of the worst additions they could go for, because Kingdom Hearts is all about Disney and Disney characters simply have no place in Super Smash Bros., which is all about characters, worlds and contents stemming from video games. They should not go beyond that boundary and there is no need, since there is still so much left to cover here.

They dodged this bullet by solely focusing on the original creations from Kingdom Heart, so there still will be no Mickey Mouse in Smash, unless you count that key chain (which probably takes most of the licensing fees already). This scenario was always a possibility, of course, but also may appear lackluster to some, since Kingdom Hearts ultimately is all about Disney. It's a good solution, though, where this DLC doesn't open a can of worms for the next Super Smash Bros. title, where Son Goku could really become a legit entry. Whether the inclusion of any Disney contents didn't happen because Nintendo and Sakurai didn't want it or because the legal situation would have been a nightmare is a different question, however.

But this essentially also made Sora the perfect candidate for one of those Mii Fighter costumes, which usually don't come with anything attached to them. Yes, that's rarely ever like the real thing, but apparently it's good enough for fans of Devil May Cry, Monster Hunter and DOOM, which all would have been excellent candidates for Challenger Packs as well.

Now, the most disappointing thing about Sora is the lack of diversity that this creates within the DLC for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. One fourth of the entire DLC is made out of magic using sword fighters from Square Enix RPGs... If this were like the end of a third Fighters Pass and we had a hand full more additions, then this wouldn't seem as bad, but there is a clear bias here and if you're not a fan of these type of games, then that's just a big "meh".

Of course, technically, Doom Slayer also would have been a third Microsoft character by now (since Bethesda is now owned by Microsoft), the same with Master Chief, but at least Banjo, Steve and some classic first person shooter protagonist are very different in theme, mechanics and pretty much everything. You couldn't even tell that they are from the same company, because they actually aren't, since Microsoft has just bought most of this up.

Anyway, it's also disappointing that this was really just it. We are getting Challenger Pack #11 and then Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is finally "completed" after three years of updates and DLC. Yes, yes.. this was to be expected, but it's still a shame that they didn't go for some more extras.

During the development of the first Fighters Pass they were busy adding all sorts of things, like the Stage Builder, the Home-Run Contest mode and more. During the second Fighters Pass we only got the "Small Battlefield" stage in the beginning and that was it. This was a great addition, but why not fill that stage select screen with some additional DLC stages?

There could have been stages based on some amazing Nintendo Switch titles, like Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Luigi's Mansion 3, Link's Awakening or even Metroid Dread. So, this is some huuuge missed potential here and that's just a bummer...

So, overall Super Smash Bros. Ultimate will go off with a bang for some and leave a sour taste in the mouth of others. You can't please everyone, but at least they've tried.