Life's Never Easy for a Girl Named Samus
On the latest Metroid game, easy modes, and caveat emptor in the age of capitalism
There are two things I know to be true about Metroid Dread. The first is that it’s the sequel to Super Metroid that I never knew I needed in my life. Technically, Metroid Dread is a direct sequel to Metroid Fusion, one of the most acclaimed games in the series. I didn’t own a Game Boy Advance until further down the line, when I specifically wanted to play Pokémon Ruby, so I missed out on it. But that’s neither here nor there. Concurrent generation Metroid games shifted from 2D to 3D with Metroid Prime, and that trilogy captured the imagination of Nintendo gamers worldwide, so much so that hyperfocus has been placed on a fourth 3D Prime series game. I wasn’t expecting another 2D entry in the series until they announced this one in autumn of last year.
Super Metroid is one of my favorite games ever. It took the original NES Metroid, which for the 8-bit system had a big, open world, and expanded upon it exponentially. It was moody and atmospheric, and the action was hardcore when it had to be. Dread expands on that with the addition of the EMMI units, robots that are virtually indestructible if you don’t have a particular, temporary weapon. It’s what a sequel should be in all effects. The gameplay is familiar enough that you don’t need to recalibrate your expectations, but they threw in enough new wrinkles to make it a game unto itself and not just a continuation of the prior game(s) with better graphics.
The second thing I know to be true is that Metroid Dread is a HARD game. That aspect does not emanate from leftfield either. Metroid was hard. Metroid II: The Return of Samus was hard. Super Metroid was hard. Metroid Prime was hard. I’ve only completed one of those games, the third one for posterity, although I have gotten up to the final bosses in the other three. I wouldn’t expect any game in this series to be easy enough where I wasn’t seeing Samus Aran’s power suit exploding multiple times each sitdown. Dread is no different. I spent three days trying to defeat one boss, Experiment N-57, to the point where I wanted to throw my controller at the television at no fewer than three junctures each day.
The thing about this game’s difficulty, however, is that it’s not monolithic but instructive. Rarely did I find myself in a situation where I was truly banging my head against a brick wall trying to think of what I needed to do. Each pass against a boss or trying to outwit an EMMI gave a hint on how to advance further until the only thing keeping me from completing a given task was execution. In this way, it was a throwback to old NES games, where the bulk of one’s time was spent taking crack after crack at a task before finally getting the hang of it. Generally, I’ve found that more modern video games are built to make gamers sweat before allowing them a relatively easy passage. Whether it be a first-party title like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild or a third-party title like Dead Cells, I never felt like the objective wasn’t to die a trillion times before finally making passage. Sure, in a game like Dead Cells, with increasing difficulty sliders, you get harder and harder action. However, I find at least with Dead Cells that it’s a difficulty that’s more geared towards skilled gamers, not a borderline casual like myself. I’m not supposed to beat the game with two or three Boss Cells activated.
If the game is to be that difficult by design, generally the designers put in an “easy” mode that allows for people to get through the story of the game without the player developing the desire to bash their own heads in. While Dead Cells had gradual, optional increase in difficulty, a game like Cuphead had normal mode, which is BONKERS BATSHIT INSANE CRAZY, and an easy mode that is substantially less bonkers batshit insane crazy. Again, game developers in the modern age are just as interested in telling a story as they are providing a gameplay experience.
The sheer existence of an easy mode should be cause for no harm, no foul. It’s just a thing that exists, right? Nothing in the world is a harmless area for discussion anymore, especially in a post-GamerGate world. Gaming is serious business, you know. Easy mode is the devil because only true gamers who mainline Mountain Dew Code Red and spend all their time not gaming patrolling the game sites to make sure the games they think are good have appropriate ratings. The converse is people who think it’s their God-given right to have games that have a hold-your-hand mode. Generally, those people are less toxic than the TRUE GAMERZ even if the way they co-opt the language of social justice to talk about how you have the right to play a game that’s easy enough for anyone to beat is annoying as hell. But it still can get annoying.
Games should be challenging. Something that’s too easy isn’t worth playing, and generally, not even Hideo Kojima is going to produce a story that alone will be worth sinking 30 times more hours than watching a Martin Scorsese movie. That’s a bunk comparison anyway since Kojima’s games are regarded for having a blend of storytelling and gameplay anyway. Still, if a game’s too easy, is it worth playing? Can a simple game be engaging? I find that question’s answer is “not for long.” The question then becomes how hard is too hard?
I’ve seen the narratives come for Metroid Dread, and yeah, I can see how it can be somewhat of a non-starter for someone of a certain patience level. However, I’ve played Cuphead too. That game requires a lot of dexterity of hand and internal timing that separates gamers who can do esports from jabronis like me. Metroid Prime is a game that just requires muscle memory. You play a level enough times, and it becomes easy. To me, that’s not a game that screams for an easy mode. That’s a game that requires an engaging enough package of story and gameplay to keep you hooked long enough not to give up when you fail at your 48th attempt trying to beat Kraid.
Who said it’s your right to have a game tailored specifically to your skill level? Video games are a luxury item, one that, though more widespread a niche than they were three decades ago, still a niche. Ideally, if you find a game is too hard, you would put it down and maybe return it for your money back. I say “ideally,” because the world of gaming is wracked by the kind of vicious consumerism that might give the people who want to be able to play a game they bought a leg upon which to stand. Nintendo is the most notorious offender because they never put a game on sale while it’s timely, and the infrastructure that allows a retailer like GameStop to refuse full returns and then only offer pennies on the dollar for them altogether puts the squeeze on a gamer who just wants to have a good time.
Still, it’s not like the Metroid franchise is some neophyte series of games. Anyone who’s played an entry in the series could tell you that it’s going to be a challenging out, and they could inform you the ways in which it challenges you. At least until every developer and console gets on the cloud-based, unlimited subscription model of providing games, part of the onus has to be on the person playing to know their wheelhouse. It’s a rough world out there, and it sucks that sometimes, you gotta find out the hard way that a game stinks or more accurately, is not within the parameters of what one might find comfortable to play.
To that end, how challenging Metroid Dread is a genetic part of the game’s charm. It is going to knock you down 500 times and challenge you not to make the 499th time you get up the last one. Without the challenge, there’s no sense of accomplishment. Even “easy” games like Pokémon give you the task of finding and catching every single creature in the PokéDex, even some that take endurance to capture. Satisfaction doesn’t come without effort. Pride comes with being able to say that you were able to beat a tough boss or collect a tricky power-up. If that kind of game isn’t for you, it doesn’t say anything about your character except the kinds of leisure activities to which you do expend effort. Even watching television requires a certain patience and critical depth of perception to appreciate. What it does say, however, is not that every game should have an easy mode. You take a game as it’s given to you and judge it on its own terms. It’s true for any field of art or entertainment. The world is varied enough that even if Metroid Dread is too hard for you, there are about a thousand other options that might be right in your wheelhouse.