Looking Back at Every Boss Fight in Metroid Dread: From a Depowered Samus to Wiping Out the X Along with the Entire Planet

The protagonist is Samus Aran, a bounty hunter introduced in the commentary as "the strongest warrior." She heads to investigate a planet where the dangerous X organisms have been detected, carrying out her mission under instructions from the AI aboard her ship. After arriving, however, she is attacked by a Chozo man in an underground area and collapses. When she comes to, the man is gone, and the abilities housed in her suit have been lost as well. From here, she must explore the planet, recovering her abilities as she makes her way toward the surface.

As she explores, Samus finds and destroys a Central Unit that holds a special energy. According to the commentator, Samus has an absorption ability that lets her temporarily boost the performance of her main weapon. The powerful robots roaming the planet can be defeated with this enhanced cannon. Before that, the game lets you take practice shots on a mechanism that opens a door, and the commentator remarks, "I can feel the kindness in how it quietly lets you practice."

In an area filled with blaring alarms, Samus breaks the enemy's protector with her beam, then destroys its core with the blaster to defeat the E.M.M.I. By absorbing the abilities of defeated enemies, Samus grows even stronger.

Chozo leaders often grant new abilities. This time, however, that ability had been taken away by someone. The next boss, Corpius, has scorpion-like features, as its name suggests, and turns invisible using the ability stolen from the leader.

Firing missiles into its head triggers a cutscene and changes its form. According to the commentator, you can defeat it by continuing to attack the head. This time, though, they attacked the tail to see the cinematics, disabling its invisibility. The boss then goes on a rampage, swinging its tail around, and the surrounding walls change as well. When cornered, you follow the prompt to slide into a counter and then fire missiles.

The commentator praises the counters not only for dealing heavy damage but also for coming with lavish cinematics. Since counters are a difficult input, they say it's satisfying to be rewarded this lavishly. Near the end of the fight, the missiles ran out, so they switched to the Charge Beam to finish the boss off.

Waiting in a high-temperature area is Kraid. The commentator introduces it as "that guy who hangs out in the background in Smash Bros." Its mouth is its weak point, so you fire a large number of missiles right at it. Because the second form has a special cinematic, this time they defeated it by destroying it from inside its body.

After that, Samus meets a friendly old Chozo who says he is a survivor of the moderate faction. According to the commentary, the Chozo have two factions. Right after that, however, a fight with a Robot Chozo Soldier begins, and the old man ends up "flattened paper-thin" in the background. This robot is the one the elder from the opening was piloting, and several of them appear to give Samus trouble. In the commentator's view, a single one isn't all that strong in combat, putting it in the category of a minor boss.

In the marine research area, Samus fights Drogyga, a creature that resembles a giant shellfish. The fight is notable for forcing you into underwater combat where movement is difficult.

First, you attack what appears to be the spot cutting off the power, and once electricity is flowing, you operate a switch to drain the water from the room. This exposes the core, which you attack with missiles. Afterward, there's a moment where you can counter a tentacle, but the commentator explains that here you should hold back and not attack. Doing so keeps the enemy's attack patterns from becoming fiercer and gives you more chances to attack. Once the tentacles were destroyed, they drained the water again and finished the boss off with the next counter.

As she continues exploring, Samus is attacked by Chozo soldiers wherever she goes. The first Chozo Soldier she fights belongs to the warrior tribe and is characterized by fast attacks. According to the commentary, Samus originally came to this planet to investigate the X, but the Chozo had already been infested by them, and this soldier, too, is an X on the inside. It seems the only surviving Chozo on this planet were the old man from earlier and the man from the opening. Here, the commentator jokes, "Let's just hurry up and escape this planet and blow it up already."

After dealing a certain amount of damage, a cutscene plays, and landing consecutive counters makes its true body appear. Samus absorbs this X as well.

In the following fight against Escue, enough damage has already been dealt that just a few missiles are enough to make it reveal its true nature. When the machine breaks apart, a mass of X appears, and hitting it with about five missiles to break its outer shell defeats it.

In the high-temperature area, which Samus visits again, there's a device that draws up magma and circulates it through the planet. However, it seems not to be working properly because of the X. The commentator introduces Experiment No. Z-57, fought here, as a favorite boss with lots of fun gimmicks.

First, you fire missiles into its face. The missiles' angle can be adjusted freely with the stick, and the commentator says that "feeling of landing the hits" is satisfying. They also like that the boss cries out every time it's hit. Around the time its behavior pattern changes, you use the Storm Missile obtained from Escue to target four spots at once. The boss then unleashes its final big move, so for a while they focused on dodging, and at the end they unleashed the energy built up from high-speed movement all at once to defeat it.

In the forest area, Samus fights Golzuna, an X that has taken the form of a living creature. This time, a method of defeating it by ramming into it was shown. The third form requires two hits. So after a slide, you land one hit, build up a running start to charge energy, wait by the wall, and ram it once more. Finally, breaking its shell ends the fight.

As Samus explores her way toward the surface, the Metroid DNA further awakens her power. The commentator touches on where the story is headed: "If this keeps up, what on earth is going to happen?"

Unlike last time, the Chozo Soldier she fights again holds a large shield, making frontal attacks hard to land. The shield can be broken with a counter, and from there it's almost the same approach as last time: dodge the spear and pound it with attacks. When its form changes, it shoots liquid from the walls, which you dodge with Flash Shift.

The commentator says that bringing back the same opponent carries some risk, but what's good about it is that it makes it easy for players to feel their own growth (parts of the subtitles are hard to make out, so this is given as a summary). In the end, they finished the fight with a counter and absorbed the X from this enemy as well.

Pursuing the man from the opening, Samus finally reaches where he is. The man speaks to her in English, telling her that the Metroid DNA has accelerated her and that she has been following his instructions all along. According to the commentary's explanation, what the man was after was the already extinct Metroid that now dwells within Samus. He had been guiding Samus's power toward awakening and waiting for her to grow.

The final boss fight is a long, three-phase battle. The first form focuses mainly on close combat. After landing a few missiles, you wait a while for a chance to counter. According to the commentator, attacking halfheartedly causes it to shift into an invincible state, so it's best to unload your attacks all at once following a counter. Landing a shooting counter against its attack from above ends the first form.

The commentator says the second form flies around quickly, making it fun to hit with missiles, and with its fairly high durability, it's a form you can take your time enjoying. They praise how even moves you rarely use in normal combat get a chance to shine in this fight, calling it a design worthy of a final boss battle. They also like that, since the man is Samus's DNA donor, he uses attacks similar to hers.

Here, the commentator also touches on the game as a whole. A wide variety of actions from past entries are included, as if to use up every button on the controller, and each of them properly gets a chance to shine. In that, they say, they sensed the feel of a "culmination."

In the third form, powerful attacks come flying, so you land attacks while skillfully baiting it. By this point, just like with the other bosses, you can land counters, so you fire missiles during those openings. When it produces a large fireball, you use a Power Bomb, and the final chance to counter arrives. The decisive blow is the Hyper Beam, and the commentator celebrates the victory with "We did it, it's Raven Beak," absorbing this X as well.

The final event is an escape. Because the planet is going to explode, Samus must escape it within three minutes. Samus is turning into a being identical to a Metroid, and with power so great she can barely control it, she fires the Hyper Beam and defeats everything that stands in her way.

And so Raven Beak's ambitions are shattered, and the parasitic X are wiped out along with the planet. The commentator wraps it up with "GG." In their overall assessment, they call the game a triumphant masterpiece of the Metroid series and say it made them appreciate anew what makes this genre so enjoyable. They describe the action elements as indescribably deep, an experience that only grew more fun the more they played.