Here be my Metroid Dread summary of cool plot points I want to remember about the game. It goes without saying but I’m going to say it anyway: MAJOR SPOILERS ahead. Get away from this article if you don’t want the game ruined. You can check out our review of Metroid Dread here.
E.M.M.I. Problems
Bad news: The Galactic Federation’s E.M.M.I. bots have been reprogrammed by Raven Beak (the evil jerk who pwned Samus at the start of the game) to hunt Samus. Yikes! Fortunately, there’s only 7 of them and they can’t leave their designated patrol areas. The E.M.M.I.s are seemingly indestructible, but killing a weird eyeball creature in their central processor areas (and absorbing the eyeball energy) gives Samus temporary access to the Omega Blaster (which is more than capable of killing them). When they are destroyed, Samus absorbs more strange energy from them to get new abilities, but also loses the Omega Blaster until she encounters the next eyeball monster.
Chozo Problems
Samus continues on her mission, dodging/smashing E.M.M.I. units and battling cool bosses (Kraid and his gross belly button will never be forgotten) along the way. Eventually, Samus is saved from an imminent E.M.M.I. death by Quiet Robe, a surviving member of the Chozo race. He gives Samus a really good explanation of WTF is going on. Ahem.
- Metroids were created by Quiet Robe’s scientific Thoha tribe to counter the X parasites. Unfortunately, the Chozo had to destroy the entire planet of SR388 to wipe out both the dangerous Metroids and X parasites alike.
- Raven Beak, leader of the Mawkin warrior clan of Chozo, sees the Metroids as a source of power and wants to use them as bioweapons to conquer the galaxy.
- Raven Beak slaughtered every Thoha scientist except Quiet Robe, who he needs to create more Metroids on ZDR.
- Unfortunately for Raven Beak, one of his warriors turned out to be infected by the X parasite when they got back to ZDR, and the infection quickly wiped out the tribe. Raven Beak and Quiet Robe seem to be the only uninfected Chozo left.
- Raven Beak still wants to create his army of Metroid minions even though they are now extinct. The only way he can do that is by extracting the Metroid DNA from Samus. That’s why he reprogrammed all the EMMIs to hunt the huntress and lured Samus to ZDR in the first place.
X Problems
Quiet Robe opens a new path for Samus after dropping all those delicious story details. Sadly, he is killed by one of Raven Beak’s robot minions soon after. More exploring and a cool underwater boss later, Samus ends up in the Elun area. When Samus opens up Elun’s vault-like security door, she inadvertently releases all the X parasites into the ZDR environment. The horrifying little buggers quickly takeover every living creature on the planet, making all fights from now on more challenging. Oops!
Soon after, a scene shows Quiet Robe being reanimated by the X parasites and making all the remaining E.M.M.I.s active again. However, he utters something encouraging (seemingly to Samus) suggesting he isn’t completely a mindless walking corpse under the influence of X.
More exploring and getting stronger! Samus also takes a side trip to stop a deep freeze by restoring power in the lava filled Cataris area. Turns out a powerful X parasite boss had disabled the generator there. Killing it restores everything.
Adam Problems
Oh! I actually haven’t mentioned this anywhere in the post yet, but freaking Adam has been in frequent contact with Samus and provides objectives when you talk to him in network areas. I will just say the Adam and Samus dynamic is the reason why I hate Other M so I wasn’t exactly thrilled to see him in Dread. Thankfully, he’s not as much of a dominant control freak in this one. Anyway, when Samus finally reaches the surface area, Adam tells her Raven Beak needs to be taken out. He begins scanning for the jerk while Samus does more pwning.
Something certainly seems to be awakening in Samus. When she encounters the final E.M.M.I., her hand starts glowing purple and she destroys the thing with her bare hand in a cutscene, frying its central eyeball monster processer in the process. The huntress has clearly had enough of being the hunted.
Samus continues to go on her killing spree, while her hand progressively glows purple more ominously. When she has all the abilities she needs to confront Raven Beak, Adam tells her that her Metroid DNA has fully awakened due to the constant battles with X parasites. That’s why she is now siphoning energy from everything with her purple glowing hand. Uh… that sounds both good and bad, for sure.
Raven Beak Problems
Raven Jerk is in Itorash, a floating base above the planet’s surface. Two relatively calm elevator rides later, Samus arrives there to find another Adam point to talk to. Adam starts to sound insane, rambling about Samus being a Metroid who will help him bring order to the galaxy. Turns out Raven Beak was pretending to be Adam for who knows how long. He also calls Samus his daughter in a Darth Vader-like moment before his final boss fight.
Oof! This final boss fight really ramps up the difficulty. It felt harder than a lot of Dark Souls bosses, to be honest. He has 3 entire phases and is capable of absolutely pwning you in any one of them, no matter how many Energy Tanks you amassed. Once I learned his attack patterns he went down quickly, but it took forever to learn his lightning-fast tells and how to react correctly to them.
Once he’s defeated, Raven Beak grabs Samus by the throat (like in the intro) and says he’s going to kill her for realz this time since she won’t join the dark side. He sees Samus as the perfect Metroid and wants to clone an army of her to take over the galaxy. Yikes!
When all hope seems lost and Samus looks dead, she suddenly starts growling and unleashes all of her Metroid DNA fury. Her new powers manifest into some sort of cool green Chozo-like suit too. The epic struggle with Raven Beak knocks Itorash itself out of the sky, and the pair emerge from the explosive debris.
Escape Problems
On the surface, the defeated Raven Beak is infected by an X parasite and twisted into a huge monster. Super Badass Samus has no issues absolutely obliterating him out of existence with what I’m calling her new Omega+++ Blaster. It’s so strong I’m sure it would make the Reapers from the Mass Effect series jealous!
It’s just not a Metroid game if there isn’t a high pressure timed escape sequence added in there somewhere. The entire planet of ZDR is about to blow and Super Badass Samus sprints to her ship as fast as she freaking can, while incinerating absolutely any obstacle in her path.
Samus vaults into the pilot seat, but a voice from behind stops her before she touches the controls. In her current overpowered Metroid state, touching the ship will siphon all of its energy. That would definitely leave her hopelessly stuck on an exploding planet, which would suck. Thankfully, that voice turned out to be the kindly reanimated Quiet Robe. He’s still in control of himself despite the ‘minor’ X infection (and being dead).
Quiet Robe allows Samus absorb him from existence, which drains her Metroid powers and returns her to normal. My guess is that it has something to do with his Thoha DNA being able to control Metroids. Cool to think about!
And with that, Samus zooms the hell out of there. The entire planet of ZDR explodes into space dust and the credits roll. Hopefully all the X parasites are actually gone now, but I wouldn’t be the least bit upset if one escaped to make Metroid Dread 2 happen.
Sources: All images in this post are screenshots we took with the Nintendo Switch from the video game Metroid Prime Dread. Metroid and Nintendo Switch belong to and are trademarks of Nintendo.
