Metroid Series Catch-All

Beat it last night. Now to go for 100% and whatever other endings they cook up. I may even do some speedrunning.

Thought it was an absolutely lovely game. Not sure where to rank it among the pantheon but its definitely up there. My one gripe is that maybe the devs played it a little safe, but the upside of that is that now we know they can get back to the formula that made the series so iconic in the first place. Very excited to see what they do with it next.

So the grapple beam... is there a later upgrade that makes it easier to swing from point to point? Or am I really expected to hold L and RZ while I aim with the left stick and fire with the Y button and do all that before I fall too far?

The answer is no. There's only one part I know of where you have to do two points without stopping. I kind of got lucky after a few attempts. Glad I didn't have to do it again cause its kind of a nightmare!

Yeah it's pretty awkward. It's got long range though. In a couple spots I could grapple to the 2nd point instead of the first and be done. And I think those were only for expansions. Not sure you have to do a 2 grapple point swing for story.

It's real helpful to zip from spider wall to wall. And that you do need for one EMMI.

Vargen wrote:

So the grapple beam... is there a later upgrade that makes it easier to swing from point to point? Or am I really expected to hold L and RZ while I aim with the left stick and fire with the Y button and do all that before I fall too far?

That's when my hands started to cramp up in handheld mode!

GRAVITY SUIT LET'S GO!

I feel like this one comes much later in the game than I was expecting.

EDIT:

I also swore audibly when ...

Spoiler:

Both of the robot Chozo soldiers showed up and confronted me in that big room, after I got the tracker missle upgrade. What a tense fight that was. I expected them to manhandle me but fortunately that fight gave me a lot of room to maneuver.

I managed to get the offending missile tank. The trick was to just let go of Y instead of trying to jump free with B. Also there seemed to be a bit of auto-aiming for the next point, so it was mostly a matter of holding RZ and getting the rhythm on Y.

I'm starting to get the hang of dodging things with that move on A. I like it. It's kind of like they brought the lock-on dashing from Prime into the 2D games.

Oh I dunno, not only do we have a fantastic 2D Metroid, but this means Metroid Prime 4 is three years in development. While an 2022 release is highly unlikely, it means we're closer to maybe playing it in 2023!

...

Maybe they'll finally release that mythical Prime Trilogy port everyone is convinced exists.

IMAGE(https://pics.me.me/thumb_lolcoaster-org-you-cant-give-up-hope-just-because-its-hopeless-64655515.png)

I have

Spoiler:

Turned the heat back on in Cataris, and I feel so accomplished! That Experiment was one of the toughest bosses yet.

Coming back to the final boss after 10 days away is -rough-

And finished… phew. Thanks for those who discussed the final boss cuz that -did- make it easier to come back. I never did get some of the timings down, but I finished the final phase on my first go, which felt good.

7:13, 48% so lots of room for improvement

Reminds me that I never did finish the boss of Samus returns—I just kinda bailed and watched the endings on YouTube. I just couldn’t get the controls right on my 3DS. For all the issues with complex controls in Dread, I at least finally got the swing of them (docked and with a pro controller). I could never do this straight handheld—maybe with a Fixture or Satisfye grip. I gave up a long time ago on straight handheld play. It just feels awful and hurts after a bit.

Now the big question is a second run right away or wait a while. I doubt I’ll try for 100% or a speedrun, especially since I’ll just YouTube the differences in endings, but I used to get sub 3 hours on Metroid 2 regularly back in the day—you know when I was young and filled with time and reflexes

Antichulius wrote:

... I used to get sub 3 hours on Metroid 2 regularly back in the day—you know when I was young and filled with time and reflexes :)

I call shenanigans nobody would ever want to replay that atrocity of handheld ennui.

But really, congrats on being better at a game that utterly ruined my desire to play handheld games not long after being put on shaky ground by getting absolutely stuck on Link's Awakening, and finding much more enjoyment in it. I still beat both games eventually, but man did I only do it because I had nothing better to do back in the 90's and a big desire to see all my games beaten, even back then. I was motivated enough to even go back to Link's Awakening when the early days of internet afforded me a way to learn a glitch to get past the room I was stuck on. It's funny that I have both remakes in the house (my kids played them) and have only put in about 30 minutes into Samus Returns. I want to find a way to like them, but I just have too many other games to look forward to playing, including Dread.

Started a new game and first thing that was awesome is how much of the opening cutscene is recognizable from the boss fight.

Congrats Anti. Crazy that we finished our first runs within 2 minutes of each other and with the same item %.

Antichulius wrote:

Started a new game and first thing that was awesome is how much of the opening cutscene is recognizable from the boss fight. :D

Ah, I never managed to comment on that, but I noticed it as well! Such a good touch! Everything he does is one of his attacks. It's great.

I just finished my first Hard Mode run, which was also my 100% run. 7:06:04 all told. I'm gonna put it down for a bit, but I'm definitely eager to try the speed run under 4 hours. Funny thing is, I've never done that with a Metroid game before because I never enjoyed the combat as much as I enjoyed exploring and collecting items. Here, however, I like the combat enough and started to get good enough at it, even on Hard, that I think I can do a minimum item collection on Normal and have a good chance at it.

Made it up to the final boss. I’m not sure if I made it to the final form or what:

Spoiler:

Broke the armor and exposed Raven Beak’s wings; he took flight! That’s as far as I’ve gotten.

LastSurprise wrote:

Made it up to the final boss. I’m not sure if I made it to the final form or what:

Spoiler:

Broke the armor and exposed Raven Beak’s wings; he took flight! That’s as far as I’ve gotten.

I've been at the same point for several days, actually put it down for a bit.

That's Phase 2 of 3.

yes Nintendo thank you for that one way funnel to the boss I'm so glad I missed that side door to the save point and now I either have to do nothing else with my Switch until I master this boss or go way the hell back before the biggest BS EMMI run yet

DONE!

7:35:11
52% of items

Really enjoyed this! I'm going to put it down for now but may go back and try to do a sub-4 hour run.

I was going to post this elsewhere, but the Metroid thread seems like the place to be!

I've mostly avoided discussion here because I wanted to go in blind and collect my thoughts this way. I spent a lot of time writing down how I felt about the game and...I gotta say, I LOVED it. One of the best modern gaming experiences I've had.

Anyway, a little bit of self-advertisement which I hope is okay.

Does the double jump turn off/replace the wall jump or am I missing something?

Vargen wrote:

Does the double jump turn off/replace the wall jump or am I missing something?

No but I think it can mess with the timing a bit. If you're not right against the wall then you might double jump instead. Gets a little tricky.

The double jump is tricky, full stop. Other games have taught me to do it at the apex of my initial jump but that doesn't work here. Waiting until I'm a bit past the apex just feels wrong, especially when I'm supposed to be using the thing to get extra height.

I wouldn't be complaining this much if I wasn't mostly enjoying the game. So far it's been well worth pushing past the bits that annoy. I just come here to vent because my wife's at work and my 7-month-old doesn't know what I'm talking about.

I think the timing of double jumps has always been a little tricky in Metroid games, including both the apex issue you mention and also the requirement that you can only double jump if you're doing a somersault-jump (i.e., you were in motion when you first left the ground, rather than jumping from rest).

Glad I'm not alone with the double jump troubles. It just doesn't feel quite right.

Not enough to kill my fun, but enough that it took a long time to get comfy with. Was giving me trouble in the final boss fight, even!

I've been on a slow burn with Dread since my wife said she wanted me to start it, even though I was waiting for her to finish. So far, I have beaten

Spoiler:

Kraid and got the morph ball,

and wandered around thinking it looked like I could get a bunch of upgrades and found out I couldn't get half of them, which made it feel like a lot of my time doing so was wasted.

I figured it out. If you're eligible for a double jump then you'll do that even if you're against a wall. If you want a wall jump you need to have either already used your double jump or do it before you get low enough for the double jump to trigger.

Oddly enough, I decided to go back and dabble in Fusion just for the heck of it on my 3DS, and the Double Jump and other timings in Dread feel perfect to me whereas it feels awkward in Fusion.