My guess about the green eyes you see on Samus is that it either might show up better to the player through the green visor or that Samus is turning mostly metroid in nature by that point in the game so her eye color changes to reflect that.
Well to be honest the game don´t give you really time to take a good look on it because during such sequences there could be a quick time event anytime and thats why players are more focused on that instead of the actual models.
Didn't see this comment, had the exact same thoughts xD Yeh, as an artist I can kinda confirm that this is a very good guess with the whole 'X light comes through X color the best' I do like the little Metroid transformation theory too, that's new but a welcome potential explanation
Regarding the thing with Samus' shoulders... I think the reason they're modeled within the pauldrons might be to help enforce more accurate anatomy. I read in one of the Dread Reports that the devs wanted to make a more anatomically correct version of the suit to help drive home the fact that, as powerful as it is, it's Samus herself that completes it and makes all the in-game badassery possible. That said, the shoulders have always been notoriously bad about matching the human form, so...
Also it probably helped when modelling the Varia and Gravity suits. If they just made a base Samus model, then they could just 'add' the changes like the shoulder pads, rather than having to edit or remove the Power Suit's features.
the Chozo Statues in the Final Boss room don't all actually hold swords, they alternate between holding a Sword and holding a hammer. The "cubes" in the low poly version are actually the head of those hammers, they're just upside down for some reason
It goes without saying that the Chozo armour looks like Samus' Power Armour, because her suit _is_ Chozo armour. Of course they'll look similar. In fact, I think Samus' armour might be an older model than what the Chozo statues look like they're wearing, because in Zero Mission she gets the Legendary Power Suit after the Ruins Test
Also the Varia suit she gets here doesn't protect her from the cold because this is the Chozo model, the one in Fusion against hot and cold was Federation-designed
@@jorgecaimanque6951 thats also true, I remember finding it odd that I couldn't run into the cold areas without the Gravity suit, but it wasn't expanded on.
Another fun fact is that Samus has two different models: one for when the visor is transparent (and you see her face) and another one for normal gameplay. The one with her face has more polygons, and some of the details of the helmet such as tubes look more rounded. And the funny thing: Samus varia suit has a sort of “tongue like” detail at the very lower edge of the helmet (kinda where her mouth or chin would be). In the Power suit and Gravity suit, both models show the “tongue-like” detail, but for the Varia suit is different: That detail only appears in the more detailed model; the regular model just shows a flat red surface.
@@ShadowMKII I took some screenshots during my gameplay and just noticed that myself. I guess I can try uploading the pictures somewhere for everyone to see. But it’s pretty clear when you see the comparisons.
@@GabMacedoo Sure, that'd be wonderful. I have no idea where to find comparisons, that's why I asked. You don't have to do it if you don't want to, though.
Are u talking about that half circle texture at the tip of her helmet? Because some cutscenes feature it and some dont. I think it might depend on the lighting too maybe
The fun fact about Raven Beak mixing with Kraid is that after you let out the X Parasites, if you go back to Kraids Boss Stage (which you would never normally do) you can see that the little belly tendril he tried to attack Samus with as a last effort is gone. (You normally use that as a platform to exit the room.) I would guess this is where that DNA got absorbed. Another thing I would've loved to see out of bounds was the hidden cutscene where you perform the Kraid Quick kill by getting Grapple - Bombs before the Kraid Bossfight.
To be fair, that wouldn't be an immediate red flag since game engines would naturally make things like that disappear over time so it doesn't have to keep remembering they're there.
@@VGamingJunkieVT why would that be any different than any other platform in the game? There's no way for you to get to the part with kraids belly tendril before fighting kraid himself, so all they'd have to do is make the tendril like a regular platform. It would take more effort to specifically create a separate version of the room that diddnt have it.
@@ahumanbeingfromtheearth1502 Well, unless the cutscene is entirely FMV which most of them aren't, it would still need a separate version for the cutscene of it occurring.
This is seriously incredible. One thing I’d really love more of would be more exploration and zoom ins even of background stuff to see how much detail they put in those background elements. Great vid!
heh watching this made me think of something, way back in the day there was the mystery of why a baby Metroid would imprint on Samus as a mother figure... this game explained why. Samus's powers came from having Metroid DNA inside her all along.
@@marhawkman303 I present you another theory: It's her Thoha genes she got from Grey Voice. Since the Thoha included a script of 'friendly' behaviour towards their creators aka the Thoha. And while Samus is the first thing the Baby Methroid sees = 'mama'. She also has Thoha genes = 'my creator, friendly' The Baby Metroid hasn't evolved to a stage of Alpha etc. so it'd make sense as to why it'd still have that whole 'Thoha genes = Friend' factor to itself
It's a chimera of some of the main bosses, not just a split Kraid. It has the arms of Corpious, the split mouth and extra tiny arms of Z-57, the body of Kraid, the Head of Raven beak, and the little red spot in the middle is reminiscent of Drogyga. The implication here being that the X were gathering DNA from all of the most powerful creatures on the planet to take Samus out.
Really cool that we can see this stuff so soon after the game's release. The effort that went into this game was clearly filled with blood, sweat, and tears. It really seems like it was Mercury Steam's passion project.
@@ddnava96 the devs came out and mentioned a lot of company work culture issues caused by the higher-ups. No crunch but a ton of disrespect and mistreatment of the devs all around.
This is a seriously cool one. The backgrounds have so much detail, it’s awesome to see after the GBA relied so heavily on some tiled backgrounds for the caves. I kind of wish Kraid had left a skeleton in the lava, one you watch get absorbed by that X Parasite seen at the end of the game.
"Another zoom out, this one is of the tram system... PACIFICALLY the one that had an ocean background" Genuinely can't tell if it was a slip of the tongue or a cleverly hidden joke but it made me chuckle
On top of the zoom-outs, I honestly would have loved to see some more zoom-ins as well. The backgrounds had so much detail to them and I would spend so much time just looking at them and imagining what could be there.
So much detail in this game, it's incredible I didn't think raven beak's entire ship was modeled, and in a way that the area layout actually fits into properly, that's completely unnecessary but very cool to see like that
I was honestly a little disappointed with the backgrounds, but this video really showed me how actually well done they are, I guess most of my gripes are with the switch's hardware itself, I never played on the switch except for this game which I borrowed to play dread, so I guess I never realized just how far behind it is other consoles/pc games. While its impressive what they did with the tech, it makes me worried about future Metroid releases like the Prime 4 on the switch, especially since the Prime trilogy are significantly larger and more expanded games.
I honestly don't mind game devs working to get the most bang for their buck within tight console limitations; imo there's only so far you can go with graphics before you start seeing diminishing returns. Art direction takes priority in any case. Hopefully future Nintendo consoles have a little more weight to them, though! Being able to see creative graphics in more detail would be nice.
@@river_brook yeah but we really saw high tight this was, I personally was suffering bad frame rates (very rare but still happened) and the awkward blackscreen loading times. The switch is in bad need of an upgrade or a new console, because outside of smaller party type games, the larger narrative games that focus so much on style suffer.
Generally, whenever there’s a cube, or other random object someplace with no explanation, I assume it’s a script object. Honestly, it’d be pretty funny on the developer’s part of they just put the script object in the hands of the statues to hold.
Amazing as always, but I was hoping to see in detail the creature in the big tank on Dairon. The one that kind of looks like Draygon from _Super Metroid._
They created such a highly detailed Zero Suit Samus model that would be perfect for a ending unmasking scene, yet the only time you see it is a silhouette of it for a second when you die. What a waste.
14:40 The buzzcut look is pretty standard for more realistic human models. It's meant to act as a filler texture to account for shading caused by the hair. That being said, it's still pretty weird that the devs would go out of their way to add those kinds of details when we never get to see the full model up close or with good visual quality. My best guess is that her full model was going to be used as part of the 100% + Speedrun endings like they've done with previous games in the series, but they got scrapped last minute. There's also the possibility that this is based on an existing model of her (possibly her Metroid 2 Return of Samus model) that was tweaked to look nicer for Switch hardware. The second option is most likely since both games were made by Mercury Steam, and there's no real point making a new ZS Samus model from scratch when they already have one available.
I'm surprised you didn't realize that was a model of Kraid for the final boss. I haven't even played this game yet and when you showed that scene my initial response was "oh, the final boss is Kraid?" but then I saw the split face with a bird poking out.
To be fair, Kraid deserves to be the final boss at one point Or an extra boss like Phantoon in... Ugh... Other M. Sorry, I still nearly vomit whenever I have to say and/or write that game's name.
@@skyray16 once again, I blame my phone's autocorect It hates me even more than the usual autocorect, as it tends to fix words even after I've saved them in it's dictionary
That was my initial reaction as well. I was like, "ok - so does this mean Kraid started as a Chozo?" BTW If you're interested in even more cam coverage of Dread, I've got tons. Very cool of Shesez to have me on.
i wish the fusion suit had the slim shoulders they used to have, so when you got the varia, it felt more visually impactful. the difference betweeb Fu and Va felt like a hue slider pulled one way
I'm like 99% sure that my girlfriend bought Metroid Dread to give to me on my birthday in December, so I haven't played it yet, and my watch later playlist is filling up with Dread videos.
I definitely noticed Raven-Kraid X on my first playthrough, presumably the X that absorbed Raven Beak also found Kraid's corpse, but what I didn't notice was that it added feathers to Kraid's elbows.
I always loved Metroid Dreads background details, they put so much effort into it! There were couple of cool stuff I didn't know about. I knew about Raven Beak X being mixed with Kraid.
Those cubes were upside down hammers, check the ones in the final that had smaller hammer models to lean on, but they had the hammer end the same way as the others.
Awesome stuff, dude! Dread is the first Metroid game I finished 100%, so I love seeing all the areas I thoroughly explored from a vastly different perspective! One thing I do wish we could've seen more of was how the transformation into Metroid Suit Samus worked with the camera zoomed out; like, I wonder if there were chunks of her main model swapped out over time or if the entire suit just loaded in as Samus...screams her heart out.
@@HeroC14 what a rock solid argument. It’s over guys, pack it in. Mercury Steam can do whatever they want to their employees. It says so in the company policy.
@@That1PlaceBehindTheBush Tell me you're a literal child with no experience in life without telling me you're a child with no experience in life. Has any argument been provided for why they should include anyone in the credits just because they breathed near the code? I for one am thankful the credits aren't too long like obnoxious companies that don't have any restraint like Lionhead Studios who put everyone and their mother in the credits.
i think the only thing i really wanted to see that didnt get covered was what does draining the water areas look like? also surprised most didnt noticed the Kraid part of Raven Beak at the very end. it was the first thing i noticed.
I think the Chozo suit seen in Cataris at 8:35 is something like the HEV Suit from Half Life or Probe Ride Armor from Megaman X series, used for exploring extremely harsh/ dangerous environments
The shoulder balls evolve over the game. I wonder if the shoulders are fully modeled so they wouldn’t have to worry about redoing them as they added/removed/transitioned between the shoulder ball models.
Some theories on what is shown based on my experience in gamedev: - The orb for the omega cannon being a texture rather than a sphere might not be a form of saving resources but rather a way to allow the artists to change the design more freely, without having to animate and texture a 3D model. - The fishes in the tank are all the same model with the same materials. In that case there is a way to send to the gpu only one mesh for the base model and then a list of transforms (position, rotation and scale) and it will be much faster than handling them as individual game objects. It has some limitations so it's mostly use for decorative stuff. - The statues holding cubes in the final battle room might just be a mistake. Probably someone merged all the meshes together to create the low-poly version and those cubes where some helper geometry that wasn't supposed to be exported. - Samus mouth, shoulders and other fully modeled/textured stuff that we never get to see: Game development is iterative. Since there is no clear objective other than making the game fun, the plan on what to do can often change substantially from the first prototype to the final released game. Sometimes some element was used at some point but not in the final game, and other times it might be easier to fully model/texture something "just in case" rather than do the bare minimum and then having to change a model, rig it again and also make sure it still works the same way in every other situation. - X-Raven Beak being Kraid was probably made on purpose since it's pretty obvious once you notice it and you don't need any cheats to do it. I wonder what it means.
It would be awesome if we could get a follow up to this video detailing where the Chozo Soldiers and Robots are stored, what they look like under their helmets before their second phase, and where Esque is stored before being called in. Also, the boss that gives you Cross Bombs. It's also seen in Artaria in a room in the E.M.M.I. Zone.
16:43 the fact that these ships exist in the first place might indicate that the X parasites have found a way to pilot one and fly to another planet, so this might also mean they'll reappear in future metroid games 👀
I'm thinking the green eyes on Samus with her suit on are there to keep the eyes as clear as they can be. They are pretty bright and 'light' in color overall, so having the green of the visor mix with the blue of her eyes might not have been as clear or made them harder to read than the developers wanted, so they chose to make them temporarily green for these scenes. Just a guess But these are so freaking cooool, hot daymn. I love this game so much, it's got so much detail and it looks so Good. I could stand around and observe the background and character models for Hours. Had my friend check out Metroid too and when we got to Dread it was just a big ol' 'this looks So Good'. Both of us started to really want a spa or swimming hall themed after Burenia xD That place is so gorgeous, it left my friend speechless for a bit as she was just taking in the details and I absolutely adore that
I just played Dread for a bit a couple weeks ago. Never been much of a Metroid fan but the controls were very tight. The split Kraid idea was pretty clever. Hope to catch you on Twitch sometime!
I made the mistake of reading the comments before watching this video, and now I don't even want to think about Metroid Dread knowing about mismanagement...
I really wanted to see Draygon, or what is supposed to be Draygon (the maridia's boss in super metroid) in one of the frozen rooms. What it looked like while it was dark and what it looks like when frozen. :\
Sekiro boundary break when? There's these weird antenas on top of some structures, maybe lightning rods, but the design seems almost futuristic, would be great to have a closer look
You know what? I'd imagine the reason Samus' shoulders are fully modeled under the shoulder pads is due to them deciding to make her model modular. Rather than have a ton of different Samus models, they instead have two major ones, with a bunch of minor models that are swapped in and out when needed. In other words, at base you have Samus in her normal suit and one in her Metroid suit. The Metroid Suit is probably a full model with no modularity, outside of her face under the visor. Where as her normal suit's model at base would lack an arm cannon and shoulder pads. The game would then apply an arm cannon (normal or Omega Blaster) and shoulder pads (Power, Varia, or Gravity) as the situation demands, whilst applying the appropriate textures. Edit: *Three major ones. Forgot the brief flash to Zero Suit when you die.
I finally was able to beat Raven Beak haha I'm not that great in games and I got side tracked with Apex Legends and man, what an ending. Love the video, finally able to see it without fearing spoilers
2 года назад
I wonder if there is any actual lore / story related thing about Kraiden Beak X. Or really just Devs being creative with it?
Take this with a grain of Salt but I think this game's version of Kraid may imply a different way in which kraid was able to get around despite his size. While it could just be X influence, it seems that Kraid may have been capable of travel on all four limbs. When you look at his posture during his boss fight, he bends backwards to expose his belly holes which have a large layer of armour just above each. 17:07 Now when you look at his theoretical four legged travel, his spine is straightened out. This causes the torso plating covers up the holes which would be efficient not to drag anything in while he moves about on his stomach. I think comparing his posture in both the boss fight and final encounter suggest that kraid may be a more flexible creature than we previously believed.
I so mad no mention was made of how Samus' armour is decoloured on the sides not scene by the camera. what would that help? I wouldnt think that rendering the colour would would slow things down and it only seemed to be Samus
This is one of the best boundary breaks! The constrained perspective in the game makes it so interesting to see the world close up and from other angles. The same thing applies to a Link between worlds.
