Tatsuche

I’m Tatsuche, 28, speedrunner and fan of the Metroid series since my youngest days with Super Metroid on the SNES, which is probably one of my best gaming memories. Later one, I played the 3D games on Gamecube with Metroid Prime 2, and the rest of the 2D games on emulator. I got into speedrunning with Zero Mission about ten years ago now, with my most recent speedrun being Super Metroid.

A few months after the release of Metroid Dread, I fell in love with the game. Nineteen years after Metroid Fusion, the long-awaited sequel blew me away on many aspects but most importantly with its gameplay. The variety of possible movements and the fluidity of the game makes it very enjoyable to run through and master. MercurySteam understood the codes of the series very well while adding new gameplay mechanics making Samus nearly unstoppable. I decided in early 2022 to speedrun the Unrestricted category of the game, which authorizes the use of every glitches and bugs to complete it. It’s not the most popular or the easiest category, but I find the possibility of going even faster than in the NMG category (No Major Glitches) by breaking the game to be a lot of fun, and made me want to go even further.

I unfortunately didn’t get the chance to submit a run during what is called now the “Legacy” version of the game, in which the invincibility glitch was possible, allowing to skip the Varia Suit, Kraid and the Diffusion Beam. The patch that fixed this disappointed me a lot, because this route was the most fun to do.

Back then I started chatting with other running, mostly the international community of the game, which has a very active Discord server that has been very invested in the game since the game came out. I later joined the French community of the game after four of the biggest runners participated in an NMG race during the second Speedons, a French caritative speedrun event. I quickly joined Oopla’s Discord server, on which I met Gala, Destructor, Caaaaarlito, AntoineXVI, Duplaine and many other fans of the Metroid Dread game. I had never been this invested in the speedrun scene and wanted to make a name for myself, but that wasn’t easy! With the birth of my son in march 2022, work and personal commitments, I quickly realized I’d need to sacrifice some sleep if I wanted to reach my goals with this game. I was often tempted to give up, as it requires a lot of time investment and the Unrestricted route changed a lot over time. But I still kept going back to the game, checked Discord servers and top FR/world livestreams, community guides…

In September 2022, the Unrestricted category underwent a massive change with the discovery of a new major glitch called “Bohumey Skew”, allowing to prepare a Shinespark without moving, and even go through walls. The route started to stabilize itself, going from about 1:05:XX to less than 1:00:00, less than 50:00 and even lower with Satorha’s recent record slightly under 45:00. It took me a lot of time to achieve my initial goal which was to complete the game in under an hour.

Even if the route was finally stable, it was also harder and more RnG reliant than even, especially because of the red Chozo soldier, the infamous Raven Beak-X battle without the Metroid Suit, and having to do the final escape without that same suit. Once I reached my sub 1 hour goal, I had decided to put the game down once and for all. But I eventually ended up speedrunning it again, aiming to become one of the top Unrestricted runners, or even do a sub 50 minutes time. I had never managed to pull it off, but I wanted to beat Oopla’s record (there were only the two of us grinding the category in France) and with a lot of relentlessness, I did it!

Then came the day of the announcement of my participation on the big scene of Stunfest, I couldn’t believe it! I was so happy to be able to show what the game had became since its release, and show the categories to the broader audience. It was very stressful, but I managed to beat my PB by three seconds and I had a really good time at the event. That was for me the consecration of all this time spent training.

Now, I think I reached the end of this adventure. The popularity of the game lowered drastically since October 2021, even on the speedrun scene, but it’s a very very young game and I’m encouraging people to try running Metroid Dread. Disregarding the fact of playing really fast or beating your own record or the other’s, speedrunning allowed me to meet people that are a lot more talented than me, both in France and foreign countries, and I wish to name them here: Oopla, Gala, Destructor, Caaaarlito, AntoineXVI, Duplaine for the “Dreadeux” community. The scientist Arkandy, Bdog, Satorha, Hobbit, Karterfreak, Torvus, Raine_BT, Ednolium, Bane, Yokkora, Noyazaki, and many more for the international community.