Mission Start
The Metroid games have always had horror elements, even if the horror is just a fear of being soft locked and having to start over. In 2021, Metroid fans were promised a true horror experience when Metroid: Dread was released. Even the name promised terror. However, that game’s predecessor Metroid: Fusion was a better entry into the horror subgenre.
Both games have a prologue explaining the key problem Samus has to solve, and both games feature an indestructible threat. However, Fusion more effectively develops its horror elements through its prologue, and by presenting a more threatening monster.
The Prologues
SA-X from Metroid: Fusion picture from https://www.vg247.com/metroid-fusion-remains-the-scariest-2d-game-ever
Samus Aran nearly dies before the player has a chance to do so much as move in Metroid: Fusion. During the game’s prologue, Samus is attacked by a parasite, crashes her gunship, and is left with a 1% chance of survival. Parts of her suit are fused to her body and the majority of it needs to be surgically removed in order for her to receive an experimental vaccine.
The vaccine saves her life but gives her an extreme sensitivity to cold temperatures. This story element tells the player that they cannot reacquire some of Samus’s strongest abilities like the ice beam. In addition to Samus’s new temperature sensitivity, the parasite has possessed the removed parts of the power suit and created a doppelganger of a full power Samus called SA-X. A doppelganger that, naturally, has access to the now deadly ice beam and is stalking around somewhere in the maze that is, well, all Metroid games.
In Metroid: Dread, Samus learns that same parasite is present on another planet. She is now immune and goes to destroy it after the previously deployed Extraplanetary Multiform Mobile Identifiers (E.M.M.I.) fail. She is attacked by an alien and then passes out where she is left alone. Her AI companion ADAM explains that she has “physical amnesia” and won’t have access to her abilities. The E.M.M.I.s are mentioned but are not shown as a threat yet.
The loss of abilities due to physical amnesia is less concerning for the player. Samus losing her abilities in the beginning of the game is a trope, even a meme, of the series at this point. ADAM cannot explain why the abilities are gone and offers the amnesia theory which signals to the player that a full recovery is possible. Samus won’t be permanently weakened like in Fusion.
The Indestructible Threat
E.M.M.I capturing Samus from Metroid: Dread picture from https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/NightmareFuel/MetroidDread
From the outset of Fusion, the player is primed for an encounter with SA-X. Some may assume it will be a future boss fight, but cut scenes show it walking around and destroying parts of the environment which you later encounter. When the SA-X finally shows up, you can try to fight it, but there is no hope in winning the fight. The only options available to Samus are hide and run.
The player never knows when the SA-X will appear (on their first playthrough). You could be examining a room trying to find the way forward and suddenly be attacked by an indestructible version of yourself. The threat is ever-present and looming.
Unlike the SA-X, Dread’s E.M.M.I.s are contained in certain well-marked areas. They are first revealed as being a threat when the player is forced into an E.M.M.I zone. At the end of that zone Samus gains a temporary power boost that allows her to destroy the E.M.M.I and render the zone safe. They are not a looming or ever-present threat. The player knows exactly when they may encounter an E.M.M.I.
Without the omega cannon upgrade, Samus’s only chance of surviving an E.M.M.I is to hide and run. However, if an E.M.M.I grabs Samus then, with extremely precise timing, the player can hit a counter on a quick reaction event and escape capture. The player still has to run, but death is not guaranteed in an E.M.M.I encounter gone wrong.
The E.M.M.Is are also visually less scary than SA-X. SA-X looks like a disformed, zombified, soulless version of Samus. E.M.M.Is just look like robots. I will give Dead some credit for how the E.M.M.I.s move. The first one the player sees folds itself backwards into that classic horror movie backwards crawl, and that is always creepy.
Mission Accomplished
Metroid: Fusion builds a more frightening atmosphere by raising the stakes from the outset, and by putting the player in the role of hunted prey. Metroid: Dread, despite its title, fails to deliver an atmosphere or monster as frightening as its predecessor.