Metroid: Dread diary 22

Now that I’ve rid Ferenia of the EMMI threat, I feel like I can go anywhere without fear, and can explore this zone fully. I find a number of secrets, including a few partial E-Tanks, and some Missile Container+, but most of them are very difficult to get to, if I can even figure out how to get to them at all. I do manage to get to a few Missile Containers and I think two of the E-Tank parts, but a lot of these are beyond my skill level, or even my comprehension. Some of them require split second timing with multiple abilities in order to navigate some obstacle. They are almost fiendish in their construction. This is a good challenge for high skilled players, with some nice rewards. But I can’t figure out half of them. The ones I can figure out, I still have to try many times before I manage to get it. It’s tough to drop a bomb while in freefall to destroy a block, then fall through a pitfall block and have to try to get back up to where you fell from so you can try to fall again before the block you destroyed on the first pass regenerates. It requires almost perfect execution, so very difficult indeed.

A few of the Ferenia secrets appear to require Super Bombs, which I don’t have yet.

After getting what I can, I decide the remaining challenges here are too much for me, and decide to head back. I take the elevator back to Hanubia, and wasn’t sure what I’d be able to do here. On my first visit, this area seemed mostly closed off to me, but it seems to have opened up somewhat. Due to my practice with uncovering the more difficult secrets in Ferenia, I find a new way forward, using my Cross Bombs and the Wave Beam. Finding a passageway to the right, I move forward, walking into a cutscene wherein I encounter some sort of science lab full of biological specimens in jars. One of the creatures in a jar is alive and breaks out to attack me, but I fight it off with a melee counter, and notice that my left hand does something strange, glowing purple with some weird energy. Next I come into another room, and then encounter an EMMI, this one orange. It’s a cutscene, and I don’t realize it at first because when an EMMI captures you it looks like a cutscene. I try to fight it off, and then to my surprise my left hand grabs its spike, and I’m fighting the thing. A brief struggle, and I seem to short the thing out and it dies. Again my odd power emanating from my left hand seems to be responsible.

After destroying this EMMI with my armored bare hands, I’m attacked by a Chozo solidier robot, armed with shield and spear. I manage to take him out on the second attempt — on the first run I get hit too many times because the Screw Attack seems to make triggering multiple Space Jumps a little less reliable, resulting in me failing to dodge too many of his attacks. The second fight, I almost die, too, but manage to pull out a victory with just 10 units of life energy remaining. I hit the finishing melee counter grab on the first try and for killing him it gives me so much health back that I’m suddenly back up around 700 again. The defeated EMMI’s wrecked body is still here, and I take from it the Power Bomb ability.

I next come to a communications room and ADAM briefs me, saying that my powers are now complete, and that my newfound ability to absorb energy must mean that my Metroid DNA has fully awakened. Now I am capable of taking on Raven Beak and prevailing.

The Power Bombs unlocks the rest of the map, and I’m able to continue exploring Hanubia.

I probe a bit and find some more places where I can break through walls and continue making my way in a “forward” direction, mostly going up and to the right. I come to another cinematic boss fight with a Chozo soldier in gold armor. This one is tougher than the last one, and it takes me a good dozen tries before I can manage to beat it. It just does a massive amount of damage when it hits, and I can only screw up maybe 5 times. It seems like each time it touches me, I lose two Energy Tanks worth of life energy. It’s a bit faster, but it’s initial attack modes are all familiar and easily dealt with: jump, flash shift, storm missiles to the back before it can bring its shield around, repeat. After I destroy its shield, is when things get more difficult. The thing has the same black vomit attack as the previous X-infested Chozo robot soldiers did, but this one is super accurate with its aim, rather than aiming at the same spot on the floor each time, it aims right at me and I have to move very quickly to get out of the path of its beam. I’m unlucky about half of the time, if not more so, and each time it hits it does so much damage I can afford to maybe take 4-5 hits before I drop.

I just concentrate and practice and learn the pattern and get good. Eventually, I get it into the melee finisher, and in this one I just grab it by the head with my glove hand and drain its energy away. So at the end of the fight, I’m still at full health, and full ammo.

The next thing I come to is a transportation pod that offers to take me to Itorash. Hanubia is on the surface, Itorash is up in the sky. It looks then like I’m about to take it to Raven Beak’s doorstep.

It’s on.

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