Triple Click - Triple Play: Metroid Dread

Episode Date: October 21, 2021

A new Metroid game is here, and by golly, it rules. Maddy, Jason, and Kirk put on their Varian Suits and take a deep dive into Samus Aran's latest adventure, Metroid Dread, which came out earlier this month for Nintendo Switch. They talk about the game's relentless pacing, the brilliant controls, and the endless stream of power-ups. They discuss the marauding EMMIs, the difficulty, and the meticulous design of each level. Metroid Dread: it's a good video game.One More Thing: Kirk: Back 4 BloodMaddy: Freaky (2021)Jason: Project Hail Mary by Andy WeirLinks:Maddy’s Metroid Lore Explainer: https://www.polygon.com/22715304/metroid-dread-fusion-recap-story-lore-samus-aran-chozoSupport Triple Click: http://maximumfun.org/joinJoin the Triple Click Discord: http://discord.gg/tripleclickpodTriple Click Ethics Policy: https://maximumfun.org/triple-click-ethics-policy/ Happy MaxFunDrive! Right now is the best time to start a membership to support your favorite shows. Learn more and join at https://maximumfun.org/jointripleclick 🚀  SUPPORT TRIPLE CLICK:Join Maximum Fun | Buy TC Merch💬 JOIN THE TRIPLE CLICK DISCORD🎮 Triple Click Ethics Policy📱 SOCIALS | @tripleclickpodInstagram | YouTube | TikTok | Twitch

The last Metroid is not in captivity. And the galaxy? It's not at peace. Welcome to Triple Click, where we bring the games to you. This week, we talk about Metroid dread and the return of Samus Aaron to the public consciousness. In a world packed with Metroid-inspired games, is the original still cool? Yeah, obviously. I'm Maddie Myers.

I'm Jason Shire. And I'm Kirk Hamilton. Hello. Hello. It's us. It is. We are back. We're back.

episode. Yeah. The most important episode ever. It is. It is kind of. Maddie, it is the year of Maddie. It kind of is. Big year for Maddie. Big year for me. Big year for Metroid. Big year for me and Samus Aaron. 35th anniversary. Certain people said it wasn't important. They shall rename nameless. They're going to eat their words now. 30th anniversary's matter. Happy birthday to Samis and me. Anyway, before we talk about Metroid, which I've already spoiled. Obviously, we're going to talk about Metroid today. Metroid Drive. I want to say, you know, the Max Fun Block Party is still going on, first of all.

So maybe we got some new listeners. I know we got some new people in the Triple Click Discord. It's been really fun to see more and more people joining that. Checking it out. That's very cool. And so maybe you're a new listener. And if you are, then you might like to know that we here at Triple Click do something for Max Fun members, which you can become a member by going to maximum fun.org slash join.

And every month we, the three of us, make a special bonus episode. And sometimes it's a beans cast where we spill the beans about a game we all played or TV show we all watched or whatever. And sometimes it's a beans talk where we just shoot the shit about something. We spill the beans on our lives. Yeah, we spill the beans about our personal lives. We open up our guts and show you all our beans. Oh, boy.

No, we're keeping those beans inside, at least when our personal lives are concerned. But this month, we are going to do a beans cast about Outer Wilds, as well as Outer Wilds Echoes of the Eye, which is the new somewhat long DLC that was released. Yeah, significant new story elements included there. Yeah, most of a stealth sequel, you could say. That's a very scary. Yeah, very scary. Very scary stuff. A little bit spooky.

It's a little spooky. So we will be doing that before the month is out or maybe right after the month is out. Anyway, we do want a month. So maximum fund.org slash join. Consider becoming a member and then you get an extra episode from us. But that's enough of that. Let's talk about Metro. Yeah, let's get into it.

All right. Maddie, take us away. Hey, welcome. Kirk and Jason doka to talk. I've prepared a presentation. Wouldn't that be great if I just like shared my screen suddenly and you guys are like, this is never? happened before. I just muted you guys and I was like, and now welcome to Samus Aaron's final installment. God, I hope it's not the final installment. But anyway, Metroid Dred. It's a Nintendo

Switch game. It came out on October 8th. And this game, as a Metroid fan, it's very important to me and many other Metroid fans, but it's also the very first Metroid game that a heck of a lot of people are playing. And that puts it in an interesting category. It's been, been a couple decades since there was a new story in the 2D Metroid world, although other M is a 3D game that includes some new story elements that are relevant to Metroid Dread. But it's also just, since it's by Mercury Steam, Mercury Steam was a studio that released a remake of Metroid 2, the Game Boy game called Samus Returns a few years back. And that was, I would consider somewhat new, a somewhat new 2D Metroid. I think that was 26.

that came out for the 3DS. And that was rad. And it turned out that that was just a little audition for Mercury Steam to make Metroid Dread, which is the, in theory, final installment of Samus's story. And I freaking loved it. But I feel like I am precisely the person for whom this sort of thing was designed. I love a tricky platformer, love some Dark Souls-esque bosses where you've got to memorize some attack patterns and really get good at every single thing.

they're going to dish out to you, love to get a morph ball, even when you don't get it right away as you don't in Metroid Dread. I love everything about it, but I would love to hear from the two of you about what you think of Metroid Dread and how far you've played in it. So, Jason, why don't you go first? Since I know you haven't quite beaten it yet. Yeah, I think this game rules. I'm like an inch away from beating it. I just got, last I fought the final boss, he was on like phase three. so I know I'm like literally a hero meeting the game. I think it's amazing.

So Metro Dread, 2D platformer, awesome, like, self-contained world with like lots of interlocking levels and overlapping monsters and bosses and amazing abilities. You're just constantly getting abilities. The game is paced really well. It just feels really good to play.

It's just constantly surprising you and delighting you in interesting ways. and I cannot really think of much that I don't like about it. I can't really think of any complaints that I have about it. It feels very, it's challenging in a good way. It feels very fair and never feels like it's punishing. It's not Dark Souls. It's not that level at all, I would say.

It feels more like a Metroid. It feels like Super Metroid in terms of difficulty. Who would have thought, right? It's about as hard as a Metroid game. a 2D platform Metroid game. Yeah, exactly. I agree. And just the design, I'm constantly like marveling at how well designed it is in that it just

you're on these, this series of like six or seven different levels like within this giant, this big world, this alien planet that you're on. And each one you'll constantly be seeing things and they're like blocks or like obstacles that you can't get by until you get the special ability that corresponds with that. like there's a block that might have a bomb symbol on it and you can't destroy it until you get a bomb. But the game is very good at just like funneling you in the right direction and like making you go back in ways where it doesn't feel like you're going back. So like you'll find a teleporter in one place and it'll take you back to the air. You'll fight a boss and get an ability and then find a teleporter right next to it that takes you back to the first level.

And then you'll see that like, oh, hey, that thing from before. I can go unlock it instead of the game making you backtrack all the way across the entire map. So the game MetroJed does things like that all the time, which I really appreciated. And yeah, I loved it. It rolls. What about you, Kirk? Yeah, I mean, I really like this game, too. So I finished it last week sometime.

I was struck by everything that you just said, Jason, of course, I think it's a wonderfully designed game. It feels really good. It's really fun. I find the difficulty to be pretty enjoyable. Like I think there are some tough bosses, but never, I didn't find it to be hard in the way that some other similar games are. Usually, when you kind of dial a boss in and figure out what to do, I would always finish the fight with all of my health. Like, just because it was a little more like a puzzle in that way, though it is a difficult game and I think kind of demanding. And so it's not, you know, it's not going to be for everybody.

But I really like that. It helps that every time you die in a boss, you pretty much start right outside of their chamber. And there's no like Dark Souls style walking all the way. back. No, or lost progress or anything, which is nice. The thing they really impressed me about this game, or the thing that struck me about it, I guess, is that it's so relentless. I found it to just be this really propulsive, relentless experience where it's just like pounding forward. And I mean, it matches with Sammas and the way she's characterizing the game, but it's just like, it just goes, man. And I started playing this game and just played it until I finished it. I mean,

I think a lot of people did. I was following a lot of the very interesting discussion in the triple-click Discord, and people just, they were done with the game after two days. And it's just that kind of an experience, which is very specific and not necessarily what I was expecting. We talked about this summer, what's the deal with Metroid episode, which any newcomers should go back and listen to that because that was a kind of bigger, zoomed-out talk about Metroid. And something I said during that episode was that I've played a lot of games that were inspired by Metroid, the so-called Metroidvania style of game that uses a lot of these structural elements, but I actually haven't played that much Metroid. I played most of Metroid Prime. I played

Metroid 2 on Game Boy way back when I had a Game Boy, and that's kind of where some of this iconography will stir something in my brain, like when I get a power up sphere or whatever. But really, that's kind of it. And it's really different than other Metroidvania games I've played. Obviously, Hollow Night is one of my favorite games ever and is very influenced by Metroid, but so different from this game. And that was the thing for me that just really struck me about it throughout was that it was this very different pace, this very different feeling of just constantly unlocking, constantly pushing forward, this like relentless drive through these fights, even the toughest roadblocks, I kind of broke through them pretty quickly. And like you said,

Jason, the way that the map kind of routes you around, you're always being kind of propelled through it. There are times you can go back and explore, but it's a lot of just forward momentum really straight through to the end. It's just that sometimes you're kind of curly queuing back on where you were before. So I just found it to be this like relentless, ripping experience that when I finished it, I was just like, whoo, like I kind of took a breath. It was like, all right. That was great. Damn, I'm done. Yeah. Yeah, there's less exploration and less of a rhythm of like, okay, comparing it to Holo Night, which is obvious comparison since we all love Holo Night so much. But in Holo Night, you are frequently going back to town and like

buying stuff and talking to people and then heading back in the world. Or like you're taking the train to go to multiple places and you're not, uh, yeah, as opposed to Metro Dread, which like you said, is just relentless. And it doesn't feel like there definitely isn't as much, at least the game doesn't push you as much to just like take your time and explore and backtrack almost less than previous Metro games I played. It just is very much like a... It very much does the opposite.

Yeah. And yeah, and there are a lot of areas that I noticed. There were a couple points where like I got stuck. I didn't know what to do next. At one point I had to look up a guide because like there was a hidden, hidden little block that I couldn't, that I didn't notice. but there are a lot of points where you just can't go back. Like it traps you in a new area and you just have to go forward,

which again is part of the theme of the game, just like Sam is continually pushing herself forward, trying to get off of this planet, trying to kill all the exes, all the ex parasites, etc., etc. Yeah, I purposefully did go and explore, which I don't think is how you're meant to play the game, but I was just really luxuriating in it. And it does feel very different when you break out of the,

story of the game and just allow yourself to do that and like go solve some puzzles because there is this whole other aspect of the game that revolves around trying to get every single upgrade, which usually involves these puzzle like experiences of using each of your abilities or figuring out a way to get past a certain barrier or like certain types of barriers just so that you can get just a tiny percentage of like an energy upgrade or something. Yeah, the rewards are not great. Yeah. But it's not really the point of it. Wonderful. Yeah, the point of it is just the challenge of it, which is, it definitely

like flies in the face of what the story is, which is Samus just pushing ever forward to try to discover the identity of this mysterious chozo who attacks her at the very beginning of the game. And in theory, she would not stop and be like, let me go back and just try my morph ball in every single place where you can use a morph ball and just see what I can see. But that is the kind of thing I was doing. And I really enjoyed that. I will also say, to your point, Kirk, about Metroid-Venia's, I mostly just feel like this game really tapped into the alien and aliens of it all in a way that I found very pleasurable. And I feel like every Metroid game does that on some level.

They're not necessarily horror games. But this game, it introduces the Emmy robots, which stalk you, like a xenomorph might. And I wouldn't necessarily say those moments are scary so much as three. thrilling in the way that aliens is thrilling. But then the moments that are kind of like alien, well, then of course, Samus Aaron is this female character who's alone in space and she's figuring things out just like Ripley at the very end of the movie. Well, she has Jonesy.

Sam has to have a cat. We must not commit Jonesy erasure. You know what I mean? She's alone and she's figuring everything out for herself in a capable way. And that vibe of just walking around in the darkness and spooky music. awesome electronica score. Like all of that just, it hits something for me that many other Metroidvania's don't hit because they're just not the same aesthetic or they're, they're aping it,

but they're not quite it. And that is really what I love about it. It's not so much the Metroidvania genre. It's just the atmosphere specifically of it is what I love. Yeah, you know, another comparison that is, I think, also useful because Holo Night is really just doing its own thing. I mean, it's just a different kind of game. It's telling a different kind of game.

kind of story. It's very, very, very different, despite ostensibly having some mechanical similarities. A game like Shadow Complex, which I'm not sure if either of you played, but that game was like, that was, I think, the first sort of modern Metroidvania that I played. And it was one of the, it was kind of a big deal when it came out just because someone was so obviously doing the Metroid thing in 2D with like, you know, 3D backdrops and stuff. But it was a pretty soulless game overall. And it just is just a very different experience. Like when you play something, thing that's kind of designed in the same way. Director of that game, by the way, went on to run Fortnite.

Go on. Right, right, because it was an epic, an epic game. And, you know, it's just, it was interesting playing this after playing that and seeing how a much more similar kind of experience could be so fine-tuned and so much better designed to, like, create this kind of specific, propulsive energy that this game has. Can we talk about the Emmys for a second? Those, I think, are worth talking about. They're really different from the rest of the game.

I was expecting them to work differently than they did. I guess I don't know what I was expecting. I kind of just watched scenes from the, you know, like clips from the first Nintendo reveal of this. But I thought they would be more of a thing where they were just around. Yeah, they made it seem, yeah, E3, that reveal made it seem like they would just pop up out of nowhere. Right, which they don't. Which they don't. And I think that's to the game's benefit because they're frustrating in the same way as the alien in alien isolation.

I remember I think it was like I called one of the names I suggested for alien isolation was fuck everything the game. And that was because that was something that I said all the time playing alien isolation is because you're trying to just get somewhere already because you need to whatever drop off this thing you're carrying. And then the stupid alien drops out of the ceiling and you're like, fuck everything.

And you have to like go all the way around and it's super stressful for another 10 minutes. And in this game, I will say, I had the same feeling with the Emmys where you know, you always go into an Emmy zone and the goddamn thing is right there. And you're just like, oh my God, I just want to get through to the door

so I could like pull the level. and open the thing, which you can't, and then you have to sort of creatively problem solve around these really intense, but very brief and contained situations. And I think that is actually to the game's benefit, that it just feels like a change in pace, you know, some spice that's really tense. Like you said, Matt, it's not scary, but it's like, oh, God, oh God, oh God, I'm going to get out, and then you get out. Or you don't, and it kills you, but then you start right at the door again. And I like that as sort of a spice, like a flavor for the game. Yeah, me too. Uh-huh.

And it's always, it's so well set up. It's well established because you always face the amazing. you discover it's a secret power and some of them are really annoying like the electricity wall oh my god oh my god and you always have to have like a brief segment where you have to escape it maybe you'll

run through the ME zones at other points like a couple more times and then you'll learn where the central unit is to go and get the ability that lets you take them out and it's just it's all very satisfying in the way that it has that kind of classic escalation of like you see this thing can't do anything about it keep going, keep going, get past an obstacle, get an ability or two.

Now you can finally go and get to the central unit and you can take it out. And there's something so, so fun about like getting into a room and finally seeing that big eyeball thing and getting to take it out. And those monsters are always, those are like, I guess subbuses, but they're always deliberately very easy. Yeah, they're very easy. Which I think is intentional. For sure. Because it's sort of like, it's supposed to be this really like calming, satisfying thing that is like, oh yeah. Like finally you get to take out the same.

Emmy that's been harassing me. They killed me 10 times on my way here. Yeah. And it's also usually a puzzle to figure out how to kill the Emmy at that point. Like, you have to figure out where in the room you're going to stand in order to adequately. Yeah, where the big flat surfaces. And those sequences aren't super intense either. Like they're just kind of like, you might get killed a few times, but it's sort of a puzzle, like you said. It's a puzzle. Yeah. And I mean, that combined with the fact that I really thought these would be more stealth focused. And I was just so really if they weren't, because I can get into a stealth game, but it's just not really my preferred genre.

And it's not really what I think of as a Metroid genre staple. So I was really surprised at the idea that there's this phantom cloak ability that makes Samus invisible. And is that going to play a huge role in this game? And it kind of doesn't. And just the idea that I instead need to worry about jumping over the Emmy or whatever, like jumping around it or just avoiding it. And then also once I have the Omega Canon, just finding a good place to stand so that I can kill it,

is, that's fine, because it feels very Metroid to solve a problem in that way and to have every boss be a problem or set of problems that you just have to figure out how to solve. So the other thing that feels very Metroid is that this game is awesome about giving you like all these amazing traversal mechanics that just build on each other in new ways. And that lets you, to your point, Mandy, jump over the Emmy in new ways like every time, whether it's like grappling on to one of those platforms that lets you kind of like zip line across them and jump over them that way or eventually towards the end you'll start getting like the the dash ability the air dash which is amazing the most crucial upgrade um the dash is so overpower and then the infinite

jump well the double jump which then turns into the infinite jump which is just like great which is amazing like i don't remember is there an infinite jump in any other metro game there is okay i don't remember that i didn't remember that but um but yeah getting that was was the best because then you just feel like all powerful and you can take on anything if you can jump anywhere. Well, and Jason, I know that you're a big double jump fan and it's funny that in this game, you're like, oh, you're like double jump, do you? Yeah. What about infinite jump forever? Up a billion passage.

And you're a spinning electrical razor blade that kills everything that you touch. Well, yeah, because then there's the additional power aspect of it where it's like also you get to kill everything that you touch. Yeah. It freaking owns. That's a classic. The screw attack is a classic. I was really struck by how many upgrades there are in this game. how dense they are. It's just like you're constantly getting them. And that I think goes back

to the level design and how crazy the level design is that everything has been accounted for in the flow and structure of this game that the map itself has to interact with, I don't even know, like, how many upgrades are there in this game? There's like 19 or something. Like it just keeps going and going and each one opens new possibilities in the map in different places. And like to the point, like, Shine Spark, the like charged jump ability essentially just exists for those puzzles that are designed in the map. That's wild. That must have taken so much iteration and work to make that work. Yeah. And it's basically just an additional ability on top of the speedboots. Like, it's just like, oh, and by the way, you can also do this. Yeah. By the way, yeah. You're going to use it once in the story.

And otherwise, it's just for these ridiculous puzzles that you're going to go watch people do on YouTube and be like, wait, what? What is possible in this game? I think that that only works, Kirk, to your point, I think it only works that they were able to account for all this stuff because the game isn't that big. And I think it's actually the perfect life for what it needs to be. It's like 10 hours, you're in, you're out. I see people posting like their playtimes on Twitter

and nobody's played for more than like 14, 15 hours, which is perfect. It's exactly what it needs to be. This game should not have had a bigger map. I did not want any more zones. This is the exact amount of map that I wanted from this game. And that, I think, is just because it's not too bloated. It just feels like the perfect.

And there was an article, there's an article from a Spanish outlet that was about how Mercury Seam, the developer of this game, is reportedly mistreated workers in some ways that is worth checking out. We can link it in the show notes so people can see it. And although it's in Spanish, they'll have to find an English translation if they don't speak Spanish. But one of the things that article mentioned is that they overscoped and, like, had a bunch of stuff in it that they had to cut.

which I mean, I think worked out actually to the game's benefit that they cut a bunch of that stuff because I actually think the pacing of it is perfect. The mistreating workers thing rules a little bit less than that, but that's another story. Yeah, I agree. I also am kind of surprised to hear that because I think of the length as also being a core Metroid trait. Like it's pretty common for a 2D Metroid game to be 8 to 12 hours or somewhere in that window. And also something that you can speed run easily for like four or three because once you already know where to go, it's easy to tell. And like playing the game again faster has been a part of Metroid since the very first one because you get the different ending screens if you beat it faster.

And that's also true here. And I just, I don't know, it's like weird to think about it to D Metroid that's 30 hours long or even 20 hours long. It seems wrong to me. Yeah, there's kind of like the mixing of the two styles of game between. Metroid game design and Dark Souls game design has led to the idea that Metroidvania games are very long, which is true of the sort of, again, the Hollow Night vein, where it's like more of an action role-playing game, it has a big, huge world, and like Hollow Night is like a hundred-hour game or something, or 60-hour game, really, really long game, much more like Dark Souls, which

Dark Souls also has some Metroid things, you know, going on in it. So I think that the synthesis of those two styles of games led to, I think, an erroneous assumption that, now all of the games that are designed this way are going to be built to be these huge worlds that like endlessly unfold and that you explore. And it's cool that instead, I mean, it sounds like they changed their scope. And maybe the reason they were going for the bigger scope was related to that perceived expectation. Maybe not. I have no idea.

But it's cool that they stripped it down because, like I've said a few times, like this game has so its own identity and its own pace and its own feel. And that is in its favor to me. Like this works. Like it has such a strong identity because you power through it. even the bosses in this game, which a couple of them are really hard, you know, by the time, like the last couple of bosses, I was like, okay, this is like, this is some tough stuff. If I hadn't beaten Hollow Night, I'd be really kind of, you know, beating my head against this.

But like I said, even the bosses, I never was stuck on one for too long. And granted, that's just my experience with my own ability level at this type of game. But I think the way that they were designed, they kind of come, they present a challenge. You feel a little stuck for a second. And then you're like, you beat them and then you feel good about it. And then the game is just like, all right, boom, like keep the tempo up. Let's keep going. On to the next one.

Yeah, I like how it's always clear what you're supposed to do. That's always my big request with any boss battle. There's plenty of bosses that are frustrating where they just seem like a sponge and you just have to hit them a billion times and that's boring. That's still the case here. You have to hit them a billion times. But they have all these different kinds of attacks that are very easy to spot in advance. Like as they're winding up, you know every single thing that's going to happen next. And that, I love that.

I can get into that every single time. Like I know exactly where I need to stand in the room to avoid that, which then means that once I've seen every single attack, it's on me to avoid them. And that is the kind of difficulty that I can always gel with because I just, I feel like I know exactly what I'm supposed to do. And anything that goes wrong is just on me. And as opposed to the game artificially create, like randomness or I guess the exception

here is the Emmy Perry window, which is random. One that's meant to be challenging a different way. That's not supposed to be easily beatable. I do like how they've randomized those parries. One time I parried an Emmy on the first window, which you can do when it reaches for you. And it was the best feeling ever. Yeah, I think that that's really interesting about the difficulty, at least in my experience of it, which is that it's so much more knowledge difficulty and not speed difficulty.

There are a couple attacks where speed is part of it, like with the final boss. You have to really quickly read what he's about to do a couple times and like just really fast be like, oh, he's moving downward. I need to jump and get out of the way of his lateral dash, that kind of thing. But a lot of the time, it's just, like you said, you need to just know where to stand. Like with Cray, who is an early boss, also with, like, the greatest opening animation, like, when Sammas, like, charges her gun up without looking at it and then blast him. Oh, my God.

Amazing. The greatest moment. He drops these, like, bouncing balls on the ground that hurt you. And at first, like, the first time that that happened, I was like, oh, my God, they just killed me. And it was driving me crazy. Yeah. How am I ever going to avoid these bouncing balls, you say to yourself? Exactly. And then it was like, there's a low one and there's a high one.

And I just started saying to myself, I was like, it's a low one. And then you just jump over it. It's a high one. And then you wait for it to go over you. It's a low one. I was like, oh, okay, this is actually really easy. They're never hitting me because I know exactly what to do. Each fight has so much stuff that's like that. And that's a really nice kind of difficulty compared to write like a Sekirov fight, like the Janichiro fight, which is just so much about reflex and speed and like this relentless enemy that you're

constantly like parrying and countering. That's a pretty different kind of a thing. Yeah, you don't need super twitchy reflexes to be MetroJet, I would say. Yeah, that's a good point. Kirk, also, what you said about alien isolation before in that game just being like, what was the phrase you used? Fuck everything. Yeah, fuck everything about this game.

I think what makes the Emmys different is the countering, what you mentioned. Because if one of them catches you, it can be because you screwed up or more often than not, it can be randomness because you walked into a room and the Emmy just happened to be standing there. And I think if you just died immediately, it would be really frustrating. You would be like, god damn, this is so annoying. But because the game also gives you that window, that really two windows to counter it, it feels more like it's your fault when you die. And so it feels more fair. Like it doesn't, it adds that element of skill to the whole equation, I think. And so it feels less frustrating. It's not like, oh, man, he caught me. I'm dead. It's like, oh, he caught me. Okay, now I have this chance to

get out of it. And if not, then I'm dead. Okay, fine. Whatever. That's annoying. But it's not like the instant, it's not like when you're in a Zelda game and suddenly a cell section pops up and if a guard catches you, you're immediately dead. Like, because it gives you that extra chance, I think that makes all the difference in the world. And it's just so forgiving with the time that you lose. Like if it kills you, even if it's the fifth time, yeah, it's killed you there. Like, you start with there where like an alien isolation, a lot of times it's at the end. Like, save points are very spread out in that game and you've been crawling through the medical word for 10 minutes and you're at the very end of it and then the stupid thing kills and you're just like,

I can't do that again. That was so hard. I never have that feeling in this game, that feeling of despair. Yeah, whereas in this game, because the checkpointing is so forgiving, I think it adds to that feeling of relentlessness as well in an effective way where you just feel like you're constantly diving back into the action again and then that makes you want to keep playing. There's sort of a fun fact that we've noticed, and I'd be curious of anyone else who listens and cares about video game website traffic has this happen, but we get a lot of traffic on our Metroid post in the middle of the night. And we were like, why is that? And I'm like, I honestly think it's because people are playing the game in the middle of the night because they can't put it

down. And that's when they're looking up our guides. Is it like after midnight when they're like, okay, okay. Like lying in bed on their phone, feeling how to make this up. I'm going to look at the guide. I've done that a couple times. Between like midnight and four a.m. We get a lot. at like a spike in guides traffic on Metroid dread and like it's so funny to me because like, I don't know, you can't, you don't want to stop. And also the number of times I'd be like, okay, just one more time against this boss. And then I'd be like, what? Why am I doing this? Like I'm clearly not progressing. And then, you know, you do it the next day and it's so easy. I had that experience a couple times. But it's really fun. Like it feels rewarding and it feels like every time you are

learning something new, which is the same thing I always loved about Metroid and loved about Dark Souls as well and just it's rad. It's rad to have another one of these. I probably found a polygon guide a couple times in the middle of the night just because I was like stuck on. There were two points if I remember correctly when I was just, I did not know

where to go next. I had a couple of those too. It wasn't even lost. It was because my, the frame of where I could go is very, the window was very small because it had blocked me off of like a previous like one of the passages that blocked me off. So I didn't have a lot of places to go. But it was just that I had missed some, some blocks. or I'd miss some. There was one part. I don't remember exactly what it is. I think it's like

right after you get the space jump where I didn't know where to go next and then I finally found it. And then it's like there's this, there's this tiny, tiny, you know those blocks where you have to use the diffusion beam to get them because they're kind of like in the wall. There was one block where I just did not see it at all. And so I had no idea where to go next. And it was just very frustrating. Yeah. I guess that's my one complaint about the game is those moments. But even then, it's just, it's so well designed that I immediately forgave it after I got there's a couple like when you first get to the second world

and there's lava rooms and it's like oh am I not supposed to be here because of the lava rooms but you are supposed to be that you're supposed to shoot the wall but there's one point where you're supposed to go in one yeah there's one there's one through one there's a couple things like that that to me was actually bad design because the game is telling you hey these hurt you don't go in here

but then to get to the next place you're actually supposed to go through the lava at one point, like when and hurt yourself to get it. It's, that was a little frustrated. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there are, there were some moments when I got stuck. I also was playing it before it came out, which was a unique experience for me. This is my first time playing a game without being able to just quickly be like, okay, I know I got to shoot at a block in this room. I just don't know which one. I feel like I've shot every single block. Clearly I haven't.

I'm losing my mind. Just tell me which block I need to shoot at. And I couldn't do that this time. I had to just DM Russ Fresh Dick and be like, I, I, I felt so proud in those moments. I was like, I don't want to DM Russ. I'm going to keep running around until I figure this out. And then, like, you know, more time we go by, be like, this is sad. I'm just going to do it. But, yeah, I don't know.

I really loved it. It could have gone by a little faster for me if I had, like, had a guide in those few moments. But it was also kind of cool to have the experience of not having a guide and having to live life like Samasarren, which is always my personal goal in life. Well, although she does have Adam. Adam is a pretty good guy. She does. The most helpful computer in the world. Is he, though?

Whatever. I feel like she could have done it without him, honestly. She could have figured it out. He spends the whole time telling her that she's not strong enough to fight Ravenbeek. I mean, okay, to be fair, for most of the game, that is not inaccurate, and she does need more power-ups, and that is just factual. Like, that's just true. She needs more power-ups 99% of the time.

And then when she gets all of them, it's like, hey. It's time. Now you can go fight that annoying guy who took all of your powers at the very beginning of the game in classic Metroid fashion. It's quite a great coincidence that like her powers were gone, but they all happened to be in orbs on this planet that she landed into. Like that is nice. That is good. It is convenient for her. It's very convenient. It's also very convenient that anything that is destructible is like cleverly labeled. Like clearly the Choso organized their entire society around all of these weapons that they developed and they're like, okay, so if you want to get through this door, we're going to label it accordingly,

you're going to need this kind of gun to shoot through this door, which in and of itself is absurd? Like, why is that how the Chosot choose to navigate any of their buildings? Are they secretly and extremely warlike and not at all peaceful bird species? Who can truly say? It's possible. It's possible. Very organized, though. They are very organized.

Yeah, so I love all of that, even though, if you actually think about the lore of Metroid, it's extremely silly and it doesn't make any sense. I really liked the story in this game. There's a silly line at the end that I don't want to quote because it's a big spoiler. But there's an extremely silly line. Yeah, there's some very silly. I don't even know which one you're referring to because there are several very silly things that happen in this game. But I was down with it.

And I know that everybody has different feelings about who Samas is a person, which it almost feels like how people talk about Link or like other characters that have been characterized a whole lot of different ways by different writers, whereas in Link's case, of course, he's in, he's literal different versions of himself, so you can kind of get around that. But with Samus, it's like, well, different people have written her over the years or envisioned her differently. And so we all have these different ideas of how this largely silent character should or should not feel about everything that she's endured. And I just assume she talks and acts like Maddie Myers. Well, that's a very easy way to interpret it. And that's what I do. But for some reason,

not everyone agrees on that. I mean, my favorite part of the whole game is when she blew away the alien and then she went, bye. It's a great one-liner. Yeah, Samus talks once and she just says bye. No. It's so good. Really good. It wasn't really good.

All this said, it is interesting to see what I would describe as yet another portrayal of Samis that also stands on its own in this game. And I would say is dissimilar from previous ones, not in a bad way. It's kind of like it's attempting to negotiate between the very emotional Samus of OtherM and Fusion and the more stoic cipher of the early Metroid games and the primes where she's silent even when people are like asking her direct questions and it's absurd that she's not answering them and she's just standing there. Like they're sort of taking that stoicism and trying to combine it with the more feminized version of. her in fusion and make it into something that is both and is a badass who has feelings and yells triumphantly. And like, sort of has her eyes wide in horror at various moments.

Like when you get to see her eyes and expressing what I would characterize as fear and vulnerability in these various moments. But it's also like this is a character whose face we can't see most of, most of the time. So all of that has to be conveyed in body language. And I don't know. I thought it was interesting. I think they pulled it off. And Kirk,

you were talking about that specific cutscene before a boss fight where she just stands there. Do you want to just describe what you mean by that? Yeah, it's so cool. It's almost like a silent film performance. I think that the animation work on Samus is really amazing in this game. And yeah, there's these moments, especially early in the game, where you do see her eyes kind of a lot. And there's a lot of this sort of you see the person underneath the suit. But then so much it's just this.

suit moving around. And at her most just hardcore, she is so rad. I mean, it's just fun to see any character have so much swagger. The scene I'm talking about is this fight against Cray, which is basically a dragon. I gather this is a reused enemy from an earlier Metroid game. I didn't know that playing it. I was just like, okay, it's a huge lava dragon. And she walks into the room. Well, not clear why he was chained up in there. Yeah, whatever, because it made the fight have phases. They're spoilery. Don't worry about it. So this dragon is like roaring in her face.

You know, it's the classic like dragon roar animation. And it's just, she's just standing there. And it's already a stoic badassery because she's not flinching at all. Like it's just like, whatever this dragon is the size of a building and is roaring at me. But then she just starts charging up her blaster at this at her side without like moving or looking at it or anything. She's just doing this like no look charge, very Han Solo. And then just as he's wearing, she just puts the gun right in his face. and like pops him.

And it's just amazing. And there's so many animations like that throughout the game. There's a later sequence, a sort of extended boss fight, kind of QTE almost, where she like grabs onto this boss's head and is just riding on it, like shooting it in the face over and over again. There's a feeling that she is like this stalwart professional in the moments where she needs to be. She is getting the job done.

And she's so relentless. And it's not, I don't feel, it's not lacking in humanity. I actually think that there's a lot of really subtle humanity in her performance. But in those moments, it's just this person who has done a lot of shit and is very capable of even more. And it's just like getting the job done. And I think that's really just, I mean, it's really fun when it's at its most empowering and exciting. But it's also just really interesting to think about all the little ways and the little nuances that they found in this essentially silent performance. Yeah, she's a pro.

I don't really feel like we need to know anything about her. I never played a Metro game and was like, man, I need to know more about Samus. And I feel like I stopped playing OtherM because it was just too much of the, the mockish dialogue and stuff. And it's just like, I don't know, I really enjoyed the story in general. Like it felt like it was just enough lore without overwhelming you. It felt like the cutscenes were like just enough. Like I just thought it was really well done. Mm-hmm.

I agree. And I also, I guess it's just because it's me, projecting onto Samus, but I still see her as triumphant and joyful because in so many moments when I play, that's how I feel. Like the moments where I will finally beat a difficult boss or like get a power up I was really excited about and like morph ball around the room or whatever. Like to me, those are the moments when Samas is expressing herself because this is such a game, this is a game that Mary's gameplay and narrative in a really perfect way in my view, because it's like, Sammas is regaining her abilities at the same time as you. She's taking notes on the map. She's

writing down which doors do what. She's keeping track of everything along with you. And she's celebrating too when you're having wins or, you know, she's cursing at the losses. And I felt like the emoting in the cutscenes was just enough to make that work. Like there's just all these little touch is like there's this moment where there's like one cut scene where an Emmy doesn't attack her and she's surprised and she like sits on the ground and just kind of stares at it and is like, what? And like I've already seen people like take that screenshot and like put funny captions on it and stuff because it's just Sam is like sitting on the ground like looking befuddled, which is like a characterization that you don't often see of her and it's fun to see her in that

position, which just feels human and it is also you, the player, looking at it and you're like, oh, what's up with this Emmy? What's going to happen? I mean, it's like she's mimicking what your feelings are in a way that feels very satisfying to me. And it's rarely done with a female character. For Samis, by the way, but for Samis, every single boss she beats on the first try. Well, that's true. I was thinking about that, actually. So I only died seven times playing this game, which I know is pretty good.

Just kidding, I died many, many dozens of times playing this game. But I was thinking about that. I was like, you know, in the story of this, Sammas just blasted through this. Like, she didn't even pause. She just whipped every boss the first time, which is sort of funny to think about. It is funny. Although it's also like, did Sammas stop every now and then and be like, I'm going to check out that wall back there.

That looked kind of weird. Like, I'm going to go see what was up with that. Right. Take my time. Right. Just figure out the shine spark thing. On which version of Samus you think is real or not? I mean, it's very Prince of Persia question here.

It's like which is the true timeline. So anyway. Do you two have any closing thoughts? My final question here is whether you two think this is a good starting point for total newcomers to Metroid. I would say that it is. It obviously already has been for a lot of people, but I'm hoping that most of those people will go back and give Super Metroid a try because I feel like that is a really good companion to this game. I know most people are trying fusion because it's got a lot of story stuff in there, but it's not really that similar in terms of the stuff you do in the game. So if you really like the bosses in this one and you like what you literally do,

I would recommend Super Metroid. Yeah, although the controls haven't aged super well. Well, true. Yeah. Kirk, what do you think? Yeah, I think, I mean, sure. Like, it's such an accessible entry point, and it feels so modern in terms of the gameplay,

the controls, the speed, the way that it feels to play it, that I would think this would grab more people who are, especially people who are accustomed to other 2D, you know, difficult, fun, side-scrolling games, like modern games would be, be more likely to get into this one, so for sure. And they can always read your lore explainer. I read Maddie's Lur Explaner.

It's a Polygon. Maybe we can link that in show notes, but that sort of explains what's going on. And like we've said multiple times, the story is kind of whatever. I mean, you can know enough of what's going on. It's fun to know what's going on for the sake of like the final cut scene or two. Like it's just kind of fun to know.

But it's also like, I mean, I don't know. You guys, I guess you both read my law explainer, so you can't answer this. But I would be curious if people went into this game knowing absolutely nothing, if those people see the ending and they're like, I don't really get this or like I don't really care. I think they'd probably be like, I don't know what that meant,

but that was a really fun game. Yeah, and that's fine too. You know, you don't really have to understand what the emotional import is of something in order to still be like, that was a sick boss fight. Well, time for another video game.

And like I get the gist, right? You'll get the gist. I think it's a perfect starting point. I think anyone with the switch to get this game. I think it's really good. Yeah, I agree. It's a great video game. So yeah, we all agree it's the game of the year, so that's going to be a really easy episode.

It's definitely a triple-click pick. And no argument from you two on that, so that's already set in stone. I mean, kind of no, but at least with the second thing. We'll talk about it down the road. All right, cool. Let's take a break, and we will be back with one more thing. Hey there, I'm Ellen Weatherford. And I'm Christian Weatherford.

And we've got big feelings about animals that we just got to share. on just the zoo of us, your new favorite animal review podcast, we're here to critically evaluate how each animal excels and how it doesn't, rating them out of 10 on their effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics. Guest experts give you their takes informed by actual real-life experiences studying and working with very cool animals like sharks, cheetahs, and sea turtles. It's a field trip to the zoo for your ears. So if you or your kids have ever wondered if a pigeon can count, why sloths move so slow or how a spider sees the world. Find out with us every Wednesday on just the zoo of us, which can now be found in its natural habitat on maximum fun.org. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Lisa Hannawalt. And I'm Emily Heller. Nine years ago, we started a podcast to try and learn something new every episode. Things have gone a little off the rail since then. Tune in to hear about. Low-stakes neighborhood drama. Gardening. The sordid, nasty underbelly of the horse girl lifestyle. Hot sauce.

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We are back. I will go first. I watched a movie this past week. It is a horror movie because it's almost Halloween and tis the season to watch a horror movie. And it is sort of a remake of Freaky Friday as a concept. And it's just called Freaky. It's on HBO Max. That's how I watched it.

And it just came out this year. Catherine Newton and Vince Vaughn star in this movie together. And Catherine Newton is a teenage girl, high school girl. And Vince Vaughn is Vince Vaughn and an adult male comedian. And he plays. a serial killer who is an urban legend and kills teenagers about two. Oh yeah, I saw the trailer for this. And Catherine Newton plays a high school girl who gets mixed up with him and almost killed by him,

but he has a magical body switching knife that he stabs her with, not knowing that it's a magical body switching knife. That switches their bodies on Friday the 13th, Freaky Friday style. And so I saw this trailer. It's a very funny trailer, but I was also like, this is probably going to suck because it's just going to be like capitalizing on transphobic tropes of like, oh, it's so funny that like this man is stuck in a woman's body and a little girl stuck in a man's body. And like what can you really say about that? I did not have high expectations for this. I thought it would be like really just basic humor. But it's written by two gay guys, first of all. And it's like a really queer movie in a lot of interesting and unexpected ways. Like it directly addresses this. that repeatedly. And like the characters decide which pronouns they're going to use to refer to both characters after the switch and like stick with the real ones. So like they only refer to like the

teen girl with the serial killer inside of her as him and so on. And like they call each other out over it. And I don't know. It's just interesting. And like there's like a scene where the, the boy that the teen girl has a crush on is like talking to her when she's in the serial killer. body and it's like very sweet because he knows it's really her because she like reveals it to him and it's not like a weird homophobic thing it's like just chill i don't know there were so many things about the movie that i was like they could have done a stupid homophobic or transphobic joke here and they just veered in a different direction and like did totally different jokes that i didn't expect and i ended up really enjoying it actually so i people should check it out it's more comedy than horror but

it's like a little bit of horror so if that's the kind of thing you like for halloween it's called freaky and it's funny. Maybe we'll watch that. I wouldn't expect a freaky Friday movie to be like a straight-up horror like fully like slasher. Also like you're not going to cast Vince Vaughn in a movie that's not at least kind of funny. Well I could see him having a lot of fun with that performance specifically. That makes me want to see it. That sounds really fun. Yeah, that sounds fun. Kirk, why don't you go next? Nice. Well, my one more thing was your one more thing last week, Maddie back for blood. I'm psyched you're playing this. We should play together. Yes. We should. This game is super fun. So this is Back for Blood. Maddie talked about it last week. Turtle Rock

Studios. Studio, some of the people who made Left for Dead. This is basically a spiritual successor to Left for Dead. It's out on consoles and PC. It's on Xbox Game Pass, which I think is going to be real crucial for this game's at least short-term longevity, because the thing I found is that this game is really fun if you play it with three friends. And that was how I played it over the weekend. I played with three of our Destiny Crew. Jason, you know the people I played. with. And it was, first, it was my first time playing with them in a while, which was just nice because we caught up and talked about their lives and stuff, and that's always nice. But it's just a fun-ass game, man, in the same way that Left for Dead is fun. I have some

specific thoughts about it, I guess. I played through the first act and some, in addition to that. And I think, so it's definitely a game that I would recommend playing with friends. I don't know if our Discord has any organization going on for groups. If they don't, they could. I think that would be really cool if listeners could go there and organize and find other people to play with with three other people. But it's hard and like you really need to communicate and coordinate. And I played initially with a buddy of mine with two AI teammates because you're a group of four, just to explain this game, you're a group of four people fighting through zombie scenarios, basically. It's a big long story. There's more set pieces and bosses and stuff than Left for Deadhead.

It's a little bit more variety and sort of, there's cutscenes, which I'm, not wild about. But there's just like more characters and more kind of going on. But generally, it's still left for dead. You're fighting the hordes and it's unpredictable. So you kind of just have to keep moving and figure out what you're doing on the fly. There's a, you know, special infected that'll really mess you up. It's very unpredictable. At any given moment, if you're not coordinating and moving as a unit, you can just get thrashed. We tried to play on normal difficulty and just got wrecked. Like, it's so hard on normal difficulty at first. I would recommend the recruit difficulty, which is the cute word for easy mode. I know we all have our pride, but

it's a tough game. That's where I'm going with this is we completely switched to recruit and had a great time, and it was plenty hard. I think that the difficulty, my only thought is the difficulty must be tied up with the card system, which is I think you unlock more cards as you play, you get more better abilities, and so eventually you're like really loading out with some mega stuff and you're more prepared to do normal. And I think this game, since there's just the one thing and you play through it, it's meant to be played over and over again as you kind of, there's this whole complicated card system that's actually kind of cool. I started getting into it, and you start kind of chasing things, and then there's cool optional challenges on each map.

Like you can get the test sample in each map, and if you get that, you get extra stuff. One of the guys I was playing with like knew a lot about the game because he'd play the beta, and that was very helpful because I was just like, I don't know, I'm just shooting zombies and following you guys. So I found the difficulty to be kind of interesting in that It's almost like there could have been a third or fourth difficulty in between easy and normal. That's like kind of hard, but like normal just feels a little more like hard. I don't know. But maybe it's the card thing.

That's like my favorite hot wings place only goes from mild to hot. They don't have a medium. This is kind of like that, right. And where mild is actually pretty spicy in these games. But yeah, I really just think it's super fun. And I wish that there were campaign co-op, which I know is, or sorry, campaign versus, which I know is a thing that people have complained about, because Left for Dead, you could play it where two teams would go through each level and trade off. You know, one would be the zombies and one would be the survivors and then you get to take turns.

And that isn't in this game. There is versus, but it's a separate thing. It's like cordoned off from the main game. And I would hope that they're thinking about adding that because if this game gets really good live support and especially if they add that, I could see this being like a long-term thing that people really like to play because this was fun. I mean, I'm like hounding my friends. And like Jason, we got to play Maddie. We got to play this game and get people together.

Because it's just like, well, I've got a couple hours free. I really want to play it. It's really fun. So I was very impressed with it. I think it's a fun game, especially if you're playing with friends. That's back for blood. It's on PC and consoles. Yeah, right on.

Maybe while my child is sleeping. Yeah. It's a good one for that. So Jason, tell us what you've been up to. My one more thing is actually from a few weeks ago, but I've been doing nothing about playing Metroid. so I can talk about this now. I read a book a few weeks ago called Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, who is the author of The Martian, which is the famous book, became a movie with Matt Damon.

Project Hail Mary came out, I believe it was May of this year, around the same time that my latest book came out. And it's really, really good. It's a book about a guy who wakes up on a spaceship with no recollection of why he's there or what he has to do. and amnesia plots can be a little hokey, but this one works because it's actually a very good reason that's explained way later in the book why he has amnesia. It's not explained until like close to the end, but it is a very good reason and it makes total sense within the context of the story. And it's just a really great story. Like The Martian, it's full of like science. And it's written in a very poppy, fun way, the science. Sometimes it can get a little, a little maudlin,

but it's always fun. It's fun to read. The story is really, really good. As, like, the mystery unfolds, you get these flashbacks to, like, when he was on Earth, and you gradually find out what he's doing there, why he is in space, what he has to do. Turns out he is on a very important mission to save the planet. Project Tale Mary, maybe.

Yeah, it's what it's called Project Tail Mary. Yeah. And there's all sorts of cool stuff that happens that I won't spoil. I recommend not reading anything about the book. Just jump in because there's one just cool. One integral part of the whole story is surprising. And it's best if you don't read like a review or like anything that would tell you about that. Because it's like a big part of it, but it's fun to not know what it is going into it.

And I'll just leave it at that. But yeah, really good book, Project Hail Mary by Andy Ware. Really, really enjoyed it. Everyone should go check it out. Awesome. Huh. That sounds really cool. Rented from your local library.

That's what I did. Nice. Cool. All right. Well, this has been our Metroid Dredd episode. I love to. Yay. What a great video game.

Yeah, what a good one. Definitely going to play it again. Good video game. And with that, we bid you adieu. We will see you all next week. See you both next week. Adieu. Adieu to you and you and you.

Goodbye. That doesn't count. Bye. Triple Click is produced by. Jason Schreier, Maddie Myers, and me, Kirk Hamilton. I edit and mix the show and also wrote our theme music. Our show art is by Tom DJ. Some of the games and products we talked about on this episode

may have been sent to us for free for review consideration. You can find a link to our ethics policy in the show notes. Triple Click is a proud member of the Maximum Fun Podcast Network, and if you like our show, we hope you'll consider supporting us by becoming a member at Maximumfund.org slash join. Find us on Twitter at triple clickpod. Send email the triple click at maximum fun.org and find a link to our Discord in the show notes.

Thanks for listening. See you next time. Maximumfund.org. Comedy and culture. Artist-owned. Audience-supported.