Metroid: Dread diary 23

They pretty much get down to it in Itorash. I bomb through a dead end and find an elevator that takes me to the final boss fight.

Big Spoiler: at the top of the elevator, we cutscene into a final(?) comms session with ADAM. ADAM reveals that my Metroid DNA’s activation has triggered a metamorphosis, that I have become a Metroid. I’m now a danger to the Galaxy, but ADAM assures me that I can still bring peace to the Galaxy if I do the right thing and follow his instructions. ADAM lets slip in mentioning “our first encounter” a bit too much information, and I deduce that “ADAM” is not what he seems to be. It turns out that ADAM is really Raven Beak. This whole time, I’ve been tested to see if I’m worthy, and these tests have triggered the activation of my Metroid DNA, transforming me into what Raven Beak wanted — the ultimate weapon.

I blast the communications console, destroying it, and Raven Beak is revealed to be literally behind it.

We fight.

This is a tough boss fight. Raven Beak uses attacks that fill almost the entire screen with a red laser energy. The only safe spot is to get very close, but this puts you at risk of his melee strikes, which are lightning quick, have considerable range, and are thrown at you in volleys of three or four strikes. You can Flash Shift away from these, and if you’ve got enough distance to get a high enough jump you may be able to get over and onto the other side of him — otherwise, he’ll pin you in the corner and hit you hard several times. I’ve tried sliding under and it doesn’t seem to work, but it may be that there’s a very tight window where it will. I can’t be entirely sure. During one of his red laser attacks, you can duck under a massive blast, and if you do so you’re rewarded with an opportunity to get into a melee counter that triggers a sequence where you can pound away at him with your weapons for a few seconds.

Another of Raven Beak’s attacks is a sphere of black energy that slowly homes in on you. You can shoot it down but it takes a full volley of Storm Missiles to do it. If you can’t knock it out before it hits you, it hits you for a lot of damage, but if you manage to disrupt it you can get some missiles and life energy back. But Raven Beak will usually follow up very quickly with a melee rush.

If you can survive long enough, and do enough damage, Raven Beak will beckon for you to come close, another melee counter opportunity, and this time you have to successfully nail two counters, and then you can deal even more damage.

If you do this, it’s still not over. Raven Beak’s wings break free of his armor, and he starts flying above you, shooting at you with the same accuracy as the Golden Chozo soldier with his black energy vomit attack. He has the aerial advantage, and if you jump you’re usually setting yourself up to get hit and knocked out of the sky.

This is as far as I get after fighting him a dozen, perhaps 20 times. Each time I’m getting a little more dialed in on my tactics, my timing, my observation of his patterns. Sometimes I just screw up and get destroyed, other times I last longer. I’ve gotten to his winged flight once, but that was the last time I fought him before taking a break, so it seems like I’m doing a little better each time.

Despite how fast he is and how much damage he can take, I think I can get him if I keep trying.

I keep trying, and I can reliably get through his first phase, but when he breaks his armor and the wings come out, there’s no stopping him. His attacks can’t be avoided, and I can’t deal enough damage on him fast enough. He has a laser machine gun strafe, a charged laser shot, dive attacks, and swoop attacks, and they’re pretty much all impossible to dodge. I hit him a few times with ice missiles, but I can’t get enough time to charge up a Storm Missile volley. I have it in mind to try a power bomb, just on the off chance that it might knock him out of the sky, but I haven’t been able to get one off. When I finally do, it doesn’t do anything special, hopefully some heavy damage but it doesn’t knock his wings off or anything.

The worst thing about it is, to get up to him, I’ve gotten so good that when I beat his first form, I’m still at full health, full missiles, or very close to it. So he’s taking me down quickly from full health, because I can’t dodge his attacks.

Worst of all my right shoulder button on my joycons seem to be intermittently failing to register that I’m pressing it, which prevents me from charging up my Storm Missiles, and I end up shooting a lot of unguided regular ice missiles, one at a time, which is a poor way to deal damage. I might have to dock the Switch and go at it again with the Pro Controller. Up until now, I’ve completed the whole game in handheld mode, with the handicap of having to use the joycons, which just are not as good as they ought to be for the main controllers that come with the Switch.

My battery’s low, and my hands are cramping, so it’s time to take a rest.

Leave a Reply