For all the talk about Samus’ Metroid Powered Uncontrolled Angry Time Scream, I think the scene right after is one worth mentioning that wasn’t mentioned here.

Samus gets up, sees the giant X-Raven Beak amalgam, and wordlessly destroys it. When the X parasite appears on its own as it does after defeating any X-infected creature, rather than absorb it as one usually would for some extra power, she destroys it too. Immediately after her fit of rage, she’s in control to the point that the instinctive Metroid desire to consume is no longer even in play, and Metroid instinct is something she struggled with in previous cutscenes.

Just so we’re clear on what those cutscenes were, one was her entering a room with what looked to be pods for suspending enemies. One of the creatures apparently broke free and as Samus turned to it her hand glowed with the purple Metroid energy and she formed it into a claw-esque shape. She then regained her bearings and shot the creature instead.
The other instance was from her seeing the wall carving of Raven Beak. She wasn’t even in any danger but the innate antagonism to Mawkin Chozo caused her hand to claw up and the energy to appear.

"But did we need Samus screaming her head off?"

Yes, we did. Even stoic badasses need to scream their heads off in fury once in a while.

The absolute scariest moment in the game was immediately after the X Parasite was released and you begin to backtrack to the previous area.

If you played through Fusion then you'd know what the X Parasite is capable of, but in your mind you may believe that the smaller creatures just might have been able to escape them.

You then fire upon a small swarm of flying creatures, only to see them become miniature X Parasites and you realize that the planet is doomed.

I felt like having Quiet Robe the Chozo be able to remanifest himself even as an X copy actually offered some cool recontextualization of some of the moments from Fusion. Like why that X human scientist tried to blow up the station or why the SA-X returned and did what it did at the end of the game. It's something to think about, that may be we didn't understand the parasites as much as we thought.

I like to think that the overt violence and Samus' animalistic tendencies in battle were meant to foreshadow the ending.

In defense of her screaming her lungs out in the ending, I interpreted it as a combination of her Metroid nature going absolutely apeshit (her movements on the next cutscenes are even more animalistic and agressive, like she wants to rip everything she encounters), and Raven Beak being the absolute bastard that killed almost all of the pacifist Chozos she considers her second family and then he daring to call her his daughter. So yeah, amped up agression due to her becoming a monster and Raven Beak being a personal foe of hers justifies screaming for bloody murder in my eyes

All these people in the comments talking about their reasoning behind Samus screaming and I'd just like to point out how Metroids screech before/when attacking. Y'know, like she does... when she becomes one.

that overblood 1 ost comparison almost made me tear up man

Regarding your point on the counter animations:

I would argue that Samus is SUPPOSED to look and feel more animalistic in this game; remember that after her first encounter with Raven Beak, her Metroid DNA began to awaken much more quickly. Those quicktime events are essentially her letting the beast out, probably without necessarily realizing it.

Consider the first time she absorbs an enemy in a quicktime finisher; she was just acting on her new Metroid instincts, and her body was moving on its own. To me, that's a substantial part of the subtext throughout the entire game - that something is just a BIT off about her, about how animated and - sometimes - feral she seems compared to her composure in the Prime games. It IS a bit jarring, but it's supposed to be, and it makes me appreciate Dread even more.

EDIT: as for Samus screaming when she transformed and killed Raven Beak, I'd guess that it was partly fury and raw instinct, since her Metroid DNA was reacting to a Mawkin threatening her like in the intro, but MOSTLY because it FUCKING HURT. Like, seriously, I can't imagine what was happening to her skeleton and innards when her suit turned into that - for all practical purposes, the suit probably WAS her body at that point, what with how organic it looked, and honestly I found that whole sequence really scary and unsettling as a result, like, "holy shit, what if she's stuck like this forever now?"

In short, that WAS NOT a dime-a-dozen "screaming willpower" moment. Rather, it was a DECONSTRUCTION of those types of moments. She wasn't screaming due to her willpower. She was screaming because she LOST her will to the Metroid DNA inside her, which - due to her life being in mortal danger - went into absolute overdrive and she likely couldn't control it, or herself, AT ALL. As with the quicktime stuff, something is SUPPOSED to feel off and unsettling about it, because it's literally Samus losing to the invasive DNA of an apex predator species that's slowly - and then very suddenly - taking over her body.


TL;DR - as with every good Metroid game, a lot of the story is told through subtext. And in the case of this specific game, you don't need elevator monologues explaining Samus' thoughts when the Switch's hardware allows the conveyance of her gradual descent into ferality without a single word, unlike the GBA.

I think Samus's screaming is specifically more of a character fall for samus given all the stuff about giving into hunger, and after that scene samus reasserts her humanity and victory over that hunger by ignoring it to calmly disentegrate Raven Beak instead of eating him.

18:10

Fully with you on having an abandoned colony as a setting. The character of the Metroid universe mainly comes from the locales that Samus explores. In that respect much of what we see of the Metroid universe is, consequently, the backwater of the galaxy. We see a lot of what she's fighting to protect people from, but never what exactly she's fighting to protect. It's a pretty easy pitch too, the GF loses contact with a densely populated planet closer to the frontier, Samus investigates only to find it completely abandoned. The more urban domestic environments would certainly be a nice departure from the usual caves Samus trudges around in.

Honey, wake up. The british dude just uploaded another banger.

Unexpected surprise but a welcomed one nonetheless

I've been waiting for this review for so long! Adore your Metroid videos mate. Here's to whenever Prime 4 drops...

18:23 Wasn't expecting a Tak and the Power of Juju callout in my Metroid review.

They really did nail the characterization of Samus. She communicates a lot of her perosnality physically rather than verbally. Even in the shitty loading screens, she’s got her free hand on her blaster cannon, ready to take aim if anything tries to jump her.

Charlie: I wasn't afraid of the emmies
Me: (gets PTSD after hearing those beeps and boops)

It's not everyday you hear a Tak and the power of JuJu reference.

next metroid game needs to have someone call samus a dumb bitch before their boss fight

Dread had me revitalized as a Metroid fan like a man finding water in a hot desert. Most of the improvements I requested for Samus' Return has been addressed, and I love the storytelling this game has not only to the lore, but with the main character herself. Samus has never felt this cool and badass before, and despite not uttering a word, she still has layers of depth to her character that even most modern female protagonists with highly-talented voice actresses and triple A cinematic presentations don't have.