Saturday, October 23, 2021

Metroid Dread Collector's Edition Artbook

 

I've got the Collector's Edition of this new game and it's time to take a look at what it's got. Was gonna roll this into the Metroid Dread post, but it's going to be long enough already.


It's a METROID SPREE. I have never used an Amiibo for anything game-related in my entire life, but I think they're cool to look at. Here we've got Ridley (from Super Smash Bros) and Samus/EMMI (which is probably going to be the rare spawn out of these).

These cards are awesome. You've got all the main series games. Metroid II is my favorite card out of these.

The cards themselves change color a bit as you move them around in light, sorta like holograms.

Time for the actual artbook. It's divided into sections, one on each game. The original NES game is the very first design of Samus, and the suit looks very different here. Almost leathery rather than plate.

Monsters of the original game. Note how the Metroid here has tentacles instead of "fangs", which is even MORE facehugger-like. Ridley Scott plzdon'tsue

Metroid II brings the new Varia design that became Samus' iconic look for most of the series. On the right we've got a more streamlined version of the first game's non-Varia suit.

Metroid designs. Like the suit, the base Metroid has its finalized design here. It's worth noting that all of these pictures were in the instruction manual...EXCEPT the Queen. She appeared in Nintendo Power's coverage of the game, but I didn't see that before I played it.

As a result of all of this, the final boss of the game was a complete surprise to me when I played it as a kid, and dropping into the Queen's room was one of the greatest "holy shit" moments in gaming that I've had. I'm very thankful that they didn't spoil it. Even though the game is antiquated in a lot of ways and needed remakes, it was still way ahead of its time compared to most of the games on the Game Boy and Gunpei Yokoi did something incredible with what he had to work with.

Mechs, likely of Chozo design. One of these mechs only appeared in one room in the entire game. I think it was the spiked mech. Unless I'm remembering completely wrong. That always struck me as odd because it wasn't a miniboss or anything.

Items, including the most iconic (and best, IMO) ship design for Samus.

Beams, though weirdly enough the Plasma Beam icon has an L on it instead of P like the final game / instruction book artwork. Not sure if these are from an earlier draft where they were planning for the game to have a Long Beam. If so, I'm glad they decided to create the Plasma Beam instead because it's such a better idea than a Long Beam.

Now we arrive at the one where the series took off. What's with serieses taking off on the third entry? Witcher 3, Persona 3, Far Cry 3, etc etc. In any case, the picture here is great and would have been much better cover art than what we got. It's cool seeing Samus fighting Ridley and Kraid at the same time.

Samus' design is largely the same as the previous game here, just darker.

Boss designs. Some of these I've never seen before, like the serpent.

I've been intrigued by the prospect of fighting a Chozo ever since the statue fights in this game, or more specifically, seeing this purple Chozo design in a Nintendo Power.

Super Metroid world map. This...has very little in common with the actual world map, much like how Metroid II has an instruction booklet map that is a loose interpretation of the world at best.

Though I am reminded of how intrigued I was by Maridia and the Wrecked Ship when I saw this map in Nintendo Power. Their coverage of the game stopped before those areas so they were an enigma.

Metroid Fusion character designs. I've never been a fan of how much that game changed Samus' suit, but over time I've started liking the actual game a lot more.

SA-X. Also not into the ship redesign.

John Carpenter's The Thing definitely inspired X-Parasite designs. Ya know, the X-Parasites are so vile that they've made me start seeing the Metroids as the good guys of the series.

We get some Samus Returns art here and it's pretty solid.

I like the Metroid redesigns too. Sure the original Metroid II designs are iconic, but I gotta say that they did a good job expanding them a bit here.

Arachnus is lurking on the side there. He isn't a Metroid, but he usually gets included with them in artwork sets. They should have just called him a Sigma Metroid or something.

Finally we get to the Dread artwork. Lot of EMMI here, just like the game.

They make this Exelion Star Corporation logo really prominent on these pages. Could that be a hint as to who the bad guys of the next game will be?

A bunch of designs that were unused in the game. Were these possible EMMI designs? I don't know, but whatever they are, they're horrifying.

Chozo.

Chozo Warriors. These guys are extremely nasty, and make Space Pirates look like gnats.

Kraid sketches.

We get an actual full-body shot of Kraid here, which to my knowledge isn't something you see in the actual game. Very rarely do you see the full Kraid. I don't even know if he has a tail in Super Metroid.

Know what would be cool one of these years? A Super Metroid run where I do everything out of order and fight Kraid last. Maybe that'll be the next run.

Chozo Statue.

The statues in Dread are really cool and have some bad-ass poses. I was shocked when none of them came to life and attacked.

Here's a giant corpse that is very clearly inspired by the "autopsy scene" in The Thing.

The Chozo Dictator rallies the troops. If one of these troops is a match for Samus, imagine how much damage a whole legion of them could do.

I like that their suits have such a strong resemblance to Samus' Power Suit.

More Chozo Statues. Dread is AMAZING for Chozo lore-hounds, at least story-wise.

The old Chozo city.

Stormy surface area.

Samus fleeing from an EMMI. These things are freakish, like those General Dynamics robot dogs that are someday going to murder all of us.

One final shot of new Samus. This new suit is sleek, it's sexy, and it has a nice sense of newness. Dread post next.

1 comment:

  1. Whoa, look at those cards.

    What's the deal with Kraid's bellybuttons anyway?

    There's a Super Mario Bros. 3-esque "III" on that map.

    Tremendous art here.

    ReplyDelete