Metroid: Dread diary 14

Elun is a decaying ruin, but still regal. It is festooned with massive statues of Chozo, some of which crumble when I walk past them. As I depart the train platform, I’m greeted by a save point immediately. I take this as a signal that I’m about to get into some serious danger real soon. Just past the save point room, we get a cutscene that allows me to take in the fallen grandeur of this palatial fortress. I walk forward and an immense outer door opens for me, as if it was triggered by my approach. After I step through the massive portal, a swarm of robotic eyes surround me, and I’m briefly concerned that I’m about to get lit up. But they just scan me, and, having apparently determined that I’m welcome, they fly away.

Inside, the path forward seems blocked, but I’m not fooled — I try my usual tricks and find a bombable block and drop through the floor into a tunnel system.

The entire area feels haunted. There’s X-parasites swooping about in the air, and all of the creatures I encounter have a dark, corrupted look about them, from being infected by the X.

These creatures are incredibly tough, taking a lot of missiles to take down. But when they die, they drop an X-parasite, which, I would think, I should try to avoid, but when I accidentally touch one, it turns out to be a massive health/ammo combo boost. Many of these encounters end up taking me down by more than half of my life energy, due to the close quarters of the confined tunnels and narrow corridors.

After several encounters, I find a power-up item: the Plasma Beam. This is a power-up for my standard arm cannon. It gives me the ability to fire penetrating shots that will go through several enemies, and it’s also powerful enough to deal damage to robotic enemies without having to charge up. This helps significantly to even the power level between my attacks and the power level of these X-infected creatures, but they still take 2-3 charge shots to kill.

I continue to wind my way through the labyrinth of tunnels, and eventually come to a monster door. I parry its attack and blow it open, and then walk through into a room where another cutscene announces my newest boss fight: an X-corrupted Chozo soldier, armed with a long spear.

We tangle, and this thing is quick and has long range melee strike capability with its spear. I hit it hard with super missiles, and in my first round with the thing, I manage to get into its second phase, where it briefly cutscenes to show it roar at me with an alien-like maw, and introduces in some new attacks.

It takes me a few fights to figure out how to deal with it effectively. I can’t seem to melee counter its attack. I just don’t have a good sense of the timing. I discover though that melee counters aren’t the only way to deal with his spear charges. I can dash move out of the way, leap over, or simply run backward to put extra distance between us.

All the while I pour on super missiles, jump or dash to avoid its attacks, and repeat. Even so, he’s got so much reach with that spear that I can’t avoid every hit, and he manages to kill me a half dozen times or so. Eventually I give up on trying to melee counter his attacks and stick exclusively to dodges, and I do much better, bringing him down into his second attack phase without getting hit once. During the second phase, I do better than previously with my all-dodge, no parry strategy, and although he does manage to hit me a few times, I get to Phase 3. At first I think this is a cutscene, as the camera angle changes, but it’s actually a scripted combat event, where I’m supposed to melee counter. He attacks twice, and I am not ready for either of them, and we resume normal combat, and I’m now badly injured and he kills me. But the next time it happens, I’m ready for it, I manage to counter both of his attacks, and this affords me an opportunity to finish him off with a coup de grace cannon blast into the mouth.

I’m nearly dead from this combat, but he drops so much life it brings me back nearly to full health. Then, after the combat room, I find an E-tank, which brings me up to 699 health.

I continue forward and I’ve looped around back to near the train platform. There’s another cutscene, and we see that a Chozo who looks like, maybe even is(?) Quiet Robe, reactivates the EMMI.

Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. You don’t get promised to have to deal with seven EMMI, and only have to deal with half of them. I feel more ready than ever.

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