Despite its high difficulty, Metroid Dread is a great place for newcomers to the Metroid franchise to start with thanks to its straightforward design and minimal overt narrative. One aspect of the game, however, seems to be giving fans new and old some trouble: the EMMI. The EMMI are part of Metroid Dread's hook, as the six dysfunctional, unkillable robots have been reprogrammed to hunt Samus through the many winding corridors and biomes of ZDR as she attempts to escape from their cold clutches. They're one of the game's main selling points and have been plastered all over the marketing, but in practice, they've proven to be one of the weaker aspects of the new title.
Upon seeing the bounty hunter, the EMMI of any given area will pursue Samus relentlessly until she can either outrun it or hide from it using her suit's new cloaking ability. While those moments of cat and mouse are certainly exhilarating, the EMMIs are more of an annoyance than a threat and feel a little bit at odds with the design of Metroid Dread.
The EMMI Work Against the Design of Metroidvanias
As is evident from the fact that the franchise is the first half of the genre name that it helped pioneer, the Metroid franchise hosts a lot of great Metroidvania games and Metroid Dread is no exception. The games are known for their sprawling, interconnected maps that have players backtracking through old areas once they have new abilities that help them access new areas. As a result of this design, players usually need to take their time examining maps and carefully planning out their routes to get through each area without getting lost. Metroid Dread features all of those elements, but when entering an area patrolled by an EMMI, just about every part of that gets thrown out the window.
The EMMI chases Samus at a break-neck speed, meaning that players need to escape in whatever way possible regardless of what routes they intended to take before entering the zone. All too often, this results in a player ending up in the wrong location and needing to wait around for the EMMI to walk away so that they can try again. What's more, the EMMI can hear Samus from a good distance away, meaning that they're usually on the player's scent within moments of them entering their domain.
Many hardened Metroid fans would likely suggest that players simply outmaneuver the robots to get where they're going, but because the hallways are so small, it takes just one or two mistakes for the EMMI to catch Samus and instantly kill her, sending the player back to their last checkpoint. Additionally, each EMMI has different abilities and, while they aren't entirely different from one another, it's never particularly clear what each bot can do without taking it on once or twice, usually resulting in a "Game Over" with each attempt.
Samus' ship AI ADAM tells her early on that the EMMI are best avoided as Samus can't do much to truly stop them without more powerful weaponry. The option to outmaneuver is certainly there, but it's a little too risky for most. As such, those uninterested in risking it all for a small chance to proceed instead have to play a much less interesting game: the waiting game.
Poor AI Make The EMMI Less Than Formidable Foes
When compared to similar games that feature unrelenting stalkers like Alien: Isolation or Resident Evil 2 Remake, the AI for the EMMI is pretty poor. They simply patrol each area waiting for Samus to be seen or for her to make a sound which is when the chase gives way. As stated above, the only options are to run out of the area or to break the robot's line of sight and hide until they give up the hunt as they can't be killed outside of contextual story moments. Waiting for the robot to lose interest and walk away while wedged in a corner and cloaking just isn't very fun. It brings the game's pacing to a grinding halt while the player waits for the insta-kill-bot to get bored, as there's nothing for the player to do in those moments; no ways to distract the robot by throwing something out of sight, no way to counter it without a high probability of being killed, nothing.
As if the wait wasn't bad enough, the EMMI usually immediately hears Samus again because there's no way to tell how far away it's gone after losing interest in her, so the player is frequently caught in a cycle of hiding, then being spotted in the exact same place, then hiding with the cloak once more. If the player is able to outrun an EMMI but ends up in the wrong area, they just have to stand around for a while outside the door for the EMMI to leave, which is hardly any better than hiding. The relief felt after destroying each EMMI doesn't necessarily come from knowing that there's one less pursuer on Samus' tail, but from the satisfaction of not having to deal with the annoyances of the robots anymore.
It's a shame that one of Metroid Dread's biggest draws turned out to be its weakest link, but that doesn't mean the EMMI are all bad. As noted above, being chased by one certainly does a lot to raise the player's heart rate, but it doesn't do much more than thrill. Unfortunately, the only "dread" that the EMMI cause players comes when Samus is curled in a ball in the corner waiting for the robot to leave, with the player wishing they could be playing more of the game.
Metroid Dread is available for Nintendo Switch.
Metroid Dread's EMMIs Are the Weakest Element of a Solid Game
Source: Pinay Diaries PH
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