Metroid Dread’s second boss is one of the series’ most infamous recurring characters. How these dudes manage to come back after being literally exploded by missiles is a true mystery. But hey, whether or not it makes sense Kraid is back. The star of a particularly nasty Smash Bros. level, Kraid is here with his signature… stomach thingies. But like always, getting to his weak point is the challenge.
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Kraid’s first phase sees Samus getting up in his face right away, and your mission is to make the overgrown lizard open his mouth. You can do this with a missile or a charge shot, natch. Bop him on the head and he’ll roar at you, giving you a few seconds to feed him some ammo. You’ll have to deal with two different kinds of projectiles during this phase, Kraid’s boomerang-like claws and some bomb-like devices. Shooting both of these gives you resources, in true Metroid boss fashion.
Phase 2, also known as the Gross Belly Phase, sends you down to Kraid’s gut level. And as we all know, Kraid’s whole thing is shooting his innards at you. This time, Kraid has a disgusting, festering wound on his stomach, which contains all sorts of goodies for Samus. There’s a blob that creates a goopy shockwave when it hits the ground (jump), a blob that bounces (shoot ‘em), and those weird platform things Metroid veterans will recognize (crouch).
The whole time you’re defending yourself you need to be shooting Kraid’s wound. You can even damage it with your normal shots if you want to conserve ammo. Deal enough damage and a Spider Magnet grip will come down for you, which you can ride back up to Kraid’s face. Feed him more missiles and he’ll swat at you to send you back down.
You’ll be repeating this little loop for a while, but when you deal enough damage to Kraid you’ll get a counter opportunity when you’re upstairs. You only get this once, so if you want to see the animation be ready to hit that counter button. Otherwise, Kraid will eventually succumb to a post-boss cutscene regardless of if you hit the counter or not.
Will we see Kraid again? Who can say. But for now, he’s toast.
Metroid Dread Boss Guides
