Eu não sou fã de metroidvania. Joguei muitos poucos, e zerei só o Metroid: Zero MIssion (passei mais raiva do que diversão). Mas esse é um caso beeem diferente.

A gameplay é muito gostosinha, e acho que o que contribuiu pra eu gostar bastante é o design das fases ser um pouco mais intuitivo, indo na direção oposta do que eu não gosto nos que joguei desse subgênero.

Outro ponto que curti muito foram os bosses. Pega uma cutscene de entrada deles e dá até pra enganar que é de Elden RIng. Isso sem falar nas batalhas muito intensas.

Não esperava gostar tanto assim desse.

I’ve only been a Metroid fan for a little over four years now, but it quickly grew to become my favorite video game series. Despite not being a fan as long as others, it still feels unreal to finally get a brand new 2D game after so long. Better yet, it is said to have been designed after Super Metroid, which I considered to be my favorite game. I was extremely excited for Dread to release, but I was also worried that it would fail to live up to my expectations. After playing the game three times and unlocking all the gallery images, I am luckily able to say that it instead surpassed my expectations in nearly every way.

The game has many interesting environments with extremely detailed backgrounds that make the world feel alive. Players can spend a ton of time just observing the background elements in each room. Gameplay-wise, these areas are all expertly designed, as it always subtly pushes the player in the right direction and provides many hints on where to go next. I also love seeing the sequence breaks or other tricks that were intentionally included in the game, as they add new and interesting ways to play an already amazing experience. The need for backtracking in speedruns is reduced to a minimum, as the developers ingeniously created the world in a way that, if you know what you’re doing, makes it clear which path will lead directly to the next objective. The map contributes to this since it is immensely detailed, to the point where it shows each individual tile and marks special blocks (such as beam blocks or bomb blocks). The world in Dread is gigantic, so having a map as intricate as this is greatly appreciated, especially when going back to collect items that could not be obtained before.

The size of the world can be overwhelming at points, but the movement in the game is so fast and fluid that getting around never becomes an issue. Samus is extremely agile, but yet the controls still allow for precise actions. Every time I made an error it felt like it was entirely my fault rather than some flaw in the controls. I already considered Dread to have my favorite movement in any 2D platformer while I was early on, but it is further enhanced by upgrades unlocked throughout the game. Speed Booster/Shinespark puzzles are extraordinarily satisfying to pull off, and the new Flash Shift ability is very fun to use.

The Flash Shift also improves combat, as it provides a quick way to dodge incoming attacks. This, as well as the free aim and counter, easily makes the combat the best it’s ever been in a Metroid game. Combat has never been a strength of Metroid games before this, but they often include excellent boss fights that are tough but with patterns that can be learned, and this is still the case here. Every boss is expertly crafted so they’re challenging at first but can be taken down quickly once you know what you’re doing. The final boss is a perfect example of this, and it quickly grew to become one of my favorite boss fights. Successfully countering a boss even allows players to do massive damage during a strikingly cool animation. While EMMIs aren’t necessarily bosses, they’re still an excellent addition. Being chased by one always had me on the edge of my seat, and I liked how you can still prevent yourself from being killed by them if you’re skilled enough at knowing when to counter.

Sadly, Dread isn’t without its flaws. Metroid games have always had some of my favorite soundtracks for games, as their music has great melodies while creating a strong sense of atmosphere. Super Metroid in particular does a great job of this, but Dread disappointingly isn’t the same. I can’t think of a single track that I genuinely liked. I don’t hate the music, but I’d say I just tolerate it. I also didn’t like how many rooms there were. In Super, each room feels like it has a specific purpose, but the same can’t be said for Dread. However, each room still has a unique layout and, as mentioned earlier, is enjoyable to go through thanks to the exceptional movement, so it is hardly an issue.

I had high hopes for Metroid Dread, and I am lucky to say that it went above and beyond my expectations. After it came out, I was addicted to the game and played through it three times in the span of a little over a week. Super Metroid is one of the only other games that made me want to replay immediately after beating it. I adored my time with the game, whether it was taking my time to find everything the first playthrough or to rush through to try and get a low time. I definitely plan to play this game on many more occasions. At the moment, I am undecided on which game I prefer, but Metroid Dread currently rivals Super Metroid as my favorite game of all time.

Exploration not as an organic, joyous act, but as one of obligation.

I think this franchise might be cursed. Maybe it's being haunted by the restless spirit of Gunpei Yokoi, his wandering soul pursuing everyone who believes that Nintendo ordered a yakuza hit on him. In this speculation, though, one thing remains unquestionable: Metroid is not allowed to have good games that release without drama. Virtually every game in the franchise since its graduation from the Super Nintendo has been plagued with either being a completely middling (or outright bad) final release, going through a hellish development cycle, or both. Metroid Prime was good, but it took hundred-hour weeks to get out the door. Metroid: Other M had a fairly drama-free production, but was absolute garbage. Federation Force got delayed and it was shit. Now enter Metroid Dread, a game which is overwhelmingly okay at the cost of a nearly two-decade development cycle where employees were forced to work under brutal conditions and found themselves unceremoniously cut from the credits. Oh, well. At least Metroid Prime 4 is coming along smoothly, right?

Metroid Dread is not especially good, but there are parts of it that are enjoyable. Samus is incredible, both in terms of her characterization and the fluidity in her movements. There’s an astounding amount of grace and confidence in the way that she transitions from slides, to flips, to beam charges. Every animation flows smoothly and dynamically into the next, really selling the idea that Samus knows what she’s doing. She’s a calm, cool, brutally efficient professional, and she’s clearly seen enough bullshit through the past four games to not be phased by life-threatening alien fauna. Her normal beam weapon has never felt this strong, aided heavily by the fact that there’s no alt-fire modes; each upgrade overwrites the previous and makes it more powerful than the last to an almost comedic degree, morphing from a little pellet shooter into a triple-wide plasma gun that blasts through walls and armor with the penetrative force of super missiles. It rules. The many, many tools in her kit require your fingers to dance along the controller, with nearly every button having a unique function that gives you a new way to fight through enemies or traverse the environment.

The quality stuff starts to peter out there, however, and Metroid Dread begins to fumble some exceptionally root elements of the search action subgenre in ways that are as baffling as they are frustrating.

Rarely did I ever feel an "aha!" moment while playing Metroid Dread. Contrary to what David Jaffe might think, the biggest problem with the game is that it's so utterly terrified at the thought of letting go of your hand that it refuses to give you any opportunity to think for yourself. An area is blocked off? Shoot it with a missile to find out exactly what powerup you need to destroy that specific type of block, and then come back later. If you can come back later, that is. In order to make sure you don't deviate from the intended path whatsoever, Metroid Dread also likes to regularly, permanently seal paths behind you, making it difficult to backtrack even if you want to. This (perhaps inevitably) becomes less of a problem as you collect more movement abilities and weapon types, but these feel less like ways in which you can interact with a living world and more like Samus is just picking up Doom keycards. The way that you can create a neon tunnel of blocks which explicitly tell you that you're going to need morph bombs or power missiles or the shinespark to progress makes everything feel as artificial as aspartame.

Metroid Dread is, in a word, rote. I'm running down a checklist of things I'll need later, and the game has zero restraint when it comes to adding as many items as possible to that list. There are so many different types of blocks I'll need to blow away scattered so far across this massive map. Why bother keeping track of any of this when it means taking ten minutes to sprint back through the exact same corridors fighting the exact same enemies so that I can open one specific, singular path with my new toy that rewards me with nothing more than two fucking missiles? Ammo and health are so plentiful and so easily farmed even during boss fights that there's virtually no point in going out of your way to collect energy tanks and missile boosts. Just grab whatever's on the critical path and you'll be able to bruteforce your way through every encounter. Even if you die, you'll just be plopped back on the opposite side of the door like nothing even happened. There's no penalty for poor planning, and there's barely any reward for preparing. Why bother?

More to the point, there’s no dread in the game called Dread. I realize that this comes off as — and let’s be honest, probably is — a guy who’s too old to be playing children’s games calling them out for not being gritty and adult enough, but what is there to be scared of, here? The EMMIs? The robots who are secluded to their own, clearly-labelled rooms, and can never come out of them, all of which are easily evaded by just walking out the door? When you get the Omega Stream, it becomes nothing more than a puzzle to find a long enough straightaway where you can just park yourself at the end of the hallway and blast away without any real fear of retribution. They’re so all-or-nothing. An encounter with an EMMI ends either with you leaving uneventfully or dying the instant you get caught; hitting the QTE to get out of their grasp has such a tight timing window as to be unfeasible, practically speaking. And even if you do end up dying to one, you immediately respawn back outside. No muss, no fuss. They’re annoying more than they are fearsome. I “dread” the EMMI encounters the same way that I dread tax season. Comparing them to Metroid Fusion’s SA-X is so unfavorable in every conceivable way that a judge would dismiss it as prejudicial evidence if you dropped it in front of a jury.

Bland. I'll never think about this again unless someone else brings it up first.

I've never really been that into 2D Metroid. Honestly, the first Metroid Prime game is really the only one I could say I had any strong affinity for. I played Super Metroid, understood why it's important and revolutionary, and also had a perfectly OK time with it. Fusion felt basically the same way, "Yeah this is fine but not my thing." I didn't like the movement, I didn't like how items were hidden in what felt like arbitrary ways, I didn't really care about the bosses, I kind of just assumed I wouldn't get anything out of the other entries in the series. That being said, it was hard not to get excited for Dread.

I mean, it's the first non-remake, non-spinoff Metroid since Other M, the first real progress in the Metroid saga, a whole new location, a new story, new enemies, on the Switch, look at that fucking suit! I felt that hype, and to be honest I wanted to be proven wrong about Metroid. I like metroidvanias, a lot, and if this is a whole-ass new entry from the series that created the genre, well I'd be a fool to not at least try.

God damn, this is some good-ass Metroid. Like, you don't need to be a fan to recognize how well this does the Metroid formula. Feels buttery smooth to play, each new movement option is incredibly fun and engaging, and the pace that all the power-ups come in at is basically perfect. When people described how Metroid games make you go from powerless to completely powerful and in control, I understood what they meant but never felt that in any previous entry, but I felt it immensely here. You get one power-up, feel like you can take on everything now, but there's always something else stopping you, not in a way that feels disappointing, but incredibly encouraging. Like, "damn if this game is fun to play with only this many power-ups, I can't imagine how it's gonna feel when I have everything!" The pace in general, how you move between different areas and are exposed to new obstacles all the time, the way the game gets you to frequently revisit old areas without feeling like a retread (it helps how quickly you can make it from one end of the map to the other), like I said, smooth as hell.

This game also really does right by Samus's character and story arc, speaking as someone who has a sort general understanding of the Metroid story up to this point. The way she reacts to bosses in cutscenes, she really sells this feeling of being in complete control of the situation, never losing confidence, but not afraid to make things personal either. There's a reason so much of the talk around this game has been "holy shit Samus is so cool". The story was incredibly solid the whole time, especially everything in the second half of the game that basically had me hooting and hollering at the screen.

I feel like I "get" Metroid in a way I didn't with previous games, to the extent that I feel like I could go back to older Metroid games and appreciate them more. A lot of the things people talk about Metroid excelling at, I felt here. I mean, it's the first time I've 100%'d a 2D Metroid, I might even go for the under 4 hours run. Shout out to Mercury Steam for going from Lords of Shadow to THIS.

Samus Aran is to date the only Nintendo character to ever achieve the prestigious EGOT:

The E.M.M.I.

The Gorea

The mOther brain

and the Tony Award, for her stunning work in the recent Broadway revival of Kiss Me, Kate

I was preparing for Metroid Dread to offer immersive exploration and intense combat, and all my expectations were still blown away. This is the first 2D Metroid where everything feels consistently responsive and precise, and it's all in service of the perfect moveset that just gets better as the game progresses. Like I had hoped after playing Samus Returns, parrying now has momentum behind it and opens up so many options for both fighting and navigating the game. If all the beautiful regions weren't enough reason to traverse Dread's world, just moving around in general feels fluid and satisfying. This is the kind of game that is does a phenomenal job of integrating its story into the control scheme as well, turning the EMMI segments into a true test of how capable you are of controlling Samus under immense pressure. I'll be returning to Metroid Dread many times, as I can tell it's the type of game that's dedicating to offering that perfect fulfilling experience.

ok. metroid dread's primary failing is being very much a metroid game and all the obvious stuff that implies, such that ai companion adam knows samus will be able to find the gravity suit she needs to navigate a certain area, and that type of thing. on this alien (robot) planet she's never visited before. because, of course, there are chozo ruins there (oh, right—this one might be their original homeworld), and with that comes all the tech samus needs for every mission...? i guess? it's just a bit convenient, is all. maybe they could've gone for some new ideas with regard to power-ups we've seen many times before, for the sake of a believable and verisimilitudinous world. at least they, uh, shook things up slightly by delaying the morph ball.

that said... one kind of interesting detail which i find somewhat (if not entirely) mitigates the above quibble is the nature of samus and her suit's uncanny ability to 'absorb' functions. some have scoffed at the concept of missile-firing capabilities being downloaded in fusion: in dread, she literally absorbs the energy from fallen enemies, sometimes as actual glowing energy and others in the form of some mechanical cube found within its body—or in the palm of a huge chozo statue. perhaps, along with the power suit's tendency to have its appearance altered, unlocking new functions through the interpretation of computer data speaks to the suit being some sort of crazy chozo biotech. as if the suit is no mere armor or robotic apparatus: it is energy. a legendary chozo weapon in symbiosis with samus aran's body. and we've seen samus simply absorb energy in every metroid, whether as far back as the final battle of super metroid or the very first time she picked up a lingering mote of energy from a dead creature on zebes. it all goes some way toward making some sense of the ebb and flow of samus' 'powers' (and therefore her freedom and autonomy) game to game. and if you ask me, the answer to the old question about how the morph ball works would be that samus' own physical matter is temporarily rearranged on a subatomic level, or something—as if being teleported, though remaining inside the spherical form of the suit. (i'm no physicist and it's probably better not to overthink the suit's capability to modify its own mass-energy, let alone samus'—it clearly has its limitations. it's fun to develop some kind of loose headcanon about it, though.)

beyond that... whether this understanding of the power suit began with super or with fusion, i feel it comes to a climax with dread. and i would say that this is its primary triumph. samus feels amazing: faster than ever before; also somehow more... real. iconic as ever. white-knuckle, treasure-tight boss fights really let you feel the power of unreal agility and furious blasting. the game also looks and sounds fantastic! animations in particular are a real highlight. there's worldbuilding stuff and foreshadowing all over the place. the backgrounds (beyond the 2d plane upon which you travel) alone are wild. i used to be skeptical of the whole 2.5d thing as a fit for metroid, but even if this is the last one, it's one of the prettiest.

having played a bunch of metroid recently, i'm still inclined to point to super as my personal favorite—above all, i like its mysterious openness more than the task-driven style of the rest. really, though, between return of samus, super, fusion, and now dread, you've got a handful of excellent space horror adventures with an awesome protagonist. right now i'm just glad for the opportunity to spend some time in samus' power suit once more, and i feel this was a very satisfying metroid 5.

Are you ready for some rambles? (Reason at the bottom)

Metroid itself is a lot to many different people, something impossible to really balance altogether. It's the nonlinearity like Super but not Fusion. It's the sequence breaking like the original Metroid but not Zero Mission. It's the environmental storytelling like Prime but not the original Metroid. It's the anti-power fantasy like Metroid 2 but not Super. It's the action-oriented bounty hunting like Samus Returns but not Federation Force. (I don't actually believe some of these, just throwing out things I've heard)

I said to others while playing this that it felt like Dread was actually thinking about the DNA of the series in terms of what to focus on more than the prior games. And the last hour DEFINITELY did, what a goddamn rug pull. Samus has always toed the line between being used by a literal police imperial force to basically blow up planets and commit genocide, while also still doing so for the sake of the galaxy and saving people (although only a few games ever show a more human side to her that felt like she had her own agency around the mission itself, like saving animals). Metroid 2 was a literal genocide simulator. But Dread turns everything that came before completely on its head. She's originally here for the mission, but it immediately becomes the quest to get out, literally putting you at the bottom of the map, the furthest from her ship in any game so far. Without spoiling, the ending turns the entire concept of its formulaic approach on its head, actually using its gameplay to a strong narrative point around Samus' identity.

Spoilers

I LOVE how a lot of the strongest tools that you got in earlier games actually take longer to get. I initially thought it wasn't enough but I realized at that point you'd have to remove them wholesale. I like how the Morph Ball actually takes its time to get there to force you to find ways of navigating along with the Speed Boost.
The game rarely tells you where to go like its original idea. It's a lot closer to the DNA of the original than it has been in years, albeit an amalgamation of design quirks, focused around the concept of a hostile world that you are alien to, structured in a weird balance between structured factories made out of sprawling alien worlds. It's almost like the game is balancing on a scale, trying to connect its environmental storytelling while also being, by far, the most action-oriented title so far. It also has pretty good environmental storytelling through the regions and vibes, while trying to push the player towards being conscious of the world, and then continually doing its best to make you second-guess what you knew.

The EMMIs are the new idea to the series of adding a real stealth component that's less cinematically scripted and more dynamic. They're good on paper, especially the second and third one that genuinely challenge your pathing and stealth, but I kinda wish they weren't boxed in to the EMMI areas and they could actually surprise you outside of it. They give the greatest challenge of suddenly pushing a stealth option but around the 4th or 5th EMMI the patterns of the EMMI rooms tend to coalesce and you're more knowledgeable of the movement by then that they become a joke and more of just running away execution. The areas also look too similar so it somewhat approaches novelty if not for the ending.

I really like the emphasis this game has on its environments in terms of a factory-controlled world, where it feels more in tandem between experiments and the enemies adapting to what the Chozos have done, although I think it goes... too much on the factory. Some of the areas start to blur together in terms of color design, which is fine (it still does a good job signposting without maps, with the environmental storytelling literally helping as landmarks), but it also made the areas a bit less distinct. The starting zone in particular is bland as hell regardless of it being a "tutorial" zone or not.
Some of the item collection was a bit frustrating but I liked how much of it actually challenged my damn movement, with some really cool speed puzzles with tight as hell situations.

I'm on the fence on whether the world changes a bit too quickly is a good thing or bad thing. It's great narratively and mechanically for keeping you on your toes and feel alien, but it slightly messes with the general idea it ends on.

I think the overall vibes are good-ish. I like the factory SFX along with a few of the songs, but its imitation of previous games weren't as good this time around, and honestly I think the game should've been even quieter. There was an area where it was in darkness with very few noises but it was for such a short time! The other rooms have too much sound (even the break rooms), especially by the last hour. Some of the songs fell flat but I'm going to listen again at some point, could be audio mixing.

Didn't find the parry remotely broken and that could be because I'm just bad (>_<) but I also found the game literally challenging how you approach parrying anyway as it progressed. You could just shoot from a distance until they come at you for parrying, but then they get faster than you can even go, they get armor, and then you have to approach them. There was more attention to enemy placement in the last two zones as well.

Some of the bosses were ACTUALLY GOOD THIS TIME, albeit almost all of the good ones were in the last hour. If you include EMMIs, the speed boost one freaked me the hell out when I thought I could just figure it out while running.
I think the biggest highlights were the implementation of the Chozo Warriors (I'm always gonna dig enemies that have your movesets, even if they're still pretty weak they make you fucking learn your moveset). That and the final boss were amazing strengths of challenging combat as opposed to keyhole or puzzle bosses from prior games. You really have to be good with your mobility, the execution of space jump, flash shift, etc. The final boss really kicked my teeth in.

The bosses that suck usually are the ones that don't challenge your movement at all and just have very little error for mistakes. While I died to Kraid a few times, it had way more to do with ridiculous damage output.

People keep saying I should play Rain World because I had a lot more fun in this game when I was trying to get away and figuring out how to navigate rather than shooting and parrying. The final boss was amazing, sure, but I was drawn to Metroid moreso for vibes, its environments, and figuring out how to move forward. Something for me to think about.

Gonna come back to this game a lot for some of its environments though. That one region with all the flowers and plants that react off-screen to Samus' presence. By far the most gorgeous region.

(Note explanation: I'm doing rambley reviews instead of structured ones as soon as I finish games as an experiment to actually put something out. I have huge issues of wanting to be detail-oriented and understanding every corner of something, and unfortunately that brain worm is never going away. So a lot of these will get follow-ups at some point, but I wanted to, y'know, put something out there on why I loved a game for the time being :D.)

flashback to my fusion review: I am not a fan of that game. the new concepts it brings to metroid are interesting, but the design language it draws from previous metroid games is not. as the game takes a more linear approach to its map design, it often locks you to a small set of rooms at a time to figure out how to proceed, and when it provides a legitimate puzzle it works wonderfully. however, the game mostly relies on tedious invisible blocks instead of properly testing your understanding of the tools at your disposal. likewise there's an increased focus on bosses, but with little added depth to the encounters past the "shoot missiles like crazy and occasionally dodge attacks." even SA-X is mostly restricted to scripted encounters and of no real threat to the player other than a couple of chase sequences. the concepts and mechanics they draw from super metroid work in super because that game has a slower pace, a wider realm to explore in, and a relatively forgiving difficulty overall. the mixups that fusion presents are novel but can't thrive when they're welded to mechanics meant for a different kind of experience.

what dread succeeds at is rewriting the mechanics of old-school metroid to make the fusion concepts work. the world structure is now not meant to be a contiguous space but a linearized series of discrete areas broken up by items you need or challenges you must overcome. bosses are now fleshed out with phases of discrete attacks that rely on samus's wider set of movement options. rather than the sparse SA-X sequences of fusion, you now are chased by EMMIs as you criss-cross their zones in order to progress, with stealth moves now baked into the mechanics. the environments even draw heavily from fusion's synthetic/organic dichotomy. it's hard to argue that the resulting project really feels like old-school metroid, but it's a very fun simulacrum of that style.

of course, I think it has to be said there's a sense of artifice to the "metroidvania" aspect of it, since your progress is so tightly constrained that pushing against the game will yield no quarter. the doors are locked behind you at every opportunity to keep you moving completely forward, and the planet itself isn't really explorable in a traditional metroid sense until the point of no return at the end of the game. the upside to this is there's really no getting lost, and hidden items are generally laid out so that you'll always run into them when you have the power-up you need to get them. it's a very western take on the series where the areas are laid out like a series of Skinner boxes, where you have just enough in each place to solve something cool and get your dopamine before you're shuttled to the next one. the biggest downside of this is once you actually get out into the world it doesn't feel like it breathes like in older games. I'm not really gonna fault it for its level design on the micro scale, as fusion does basically the same thing this one does. what makes it feel more jarring is that fusion at least had ludonarrative coherence for why the areas were so choppy, whereas this game seems like it should flow like a living area.

to combat the superficiality of the exploration content, the devs chose to raise the execution ceiling to keep the gameplay satisfying. this is definitely the hardest metroid game other than fusion, but it's balanced out by a wealth of new movement and combat options. bosses pretty much follow the same pattern as in the latter half of samus returns: multi-phase fight, spend most of your time dodging, and use the parry when you can. I didn't really have complaints about any of these, though I could've used maybe one more big boss fight towards the end, maybe instead of golzuna. samus now has access to a "flash shift" dash move that puts the game in line with a lot of other big western platformers like hollow knight and celeste, as well as a very handy slide maneuver that doubles as insta-morph-ball when you're standing still. these two really extend the expressiveness of the player's tactics beyond a point that space jump alone allowed.

there's also the EMMI areas, which I think do a better job of capturing the fear of being chased than SA-X did. the early section where you're forced to drain the right amount of water to get into a chute leading out for the area while the EMMI creeps up is a perfect implementation of this concept. later EMMI zones don't really capture this however... it ends up being more like walking in and out until you get a cycle where the EMMI is far away and then running like hell. part of this is because stealth does not seem to be the viable option the developers intended, or at least that's how felt after trying it for a while. the EMMI is so highly mobile that it feels better to evade it rather than hide and hope that it doesn't decide to blindly run right into you. the omega cannon sections make up for this a bit in how they encourage you to search the environments you were previously hauling ass through to look for long areas you can comfortably fire from. even with the flaws present, this exceeded my expectations of the quality of these sections from the trailer, so I'd say it's a net win in the end.

the presentation didn't strike me the wrong way at any point - thank god for how good the framerate is - but it isn't all great. the UI easily trumped all other aspects for ugliest aspect for me: that font feels so wrong to be slapped on absolutely everything, and it reeks a bit of Unity project style menus in a way. the actual environments mix up locales often however, and hit a variety of both natural and constructed styles. it's unquestionably a very bright game tho, as it's kept in line with nintendo's in-house graphics style for the most part. however, there's still a great deal of detail to be had, even if the areas end up a little on the generic side.

there's a couple other random things I wanted to bring up: there are honestly too many items in this game. there's not enough time to enjoy a new upgrade before you get another one, and getting major upgrades super late in the game is a letdown considering how little you get to use them before the final boss. the map could use some fine-tuning to make it less visually dense, or at least a better way to see what items on your map hasn't been collected. the parry is utilized much better than in samus returns, and doesn't impede the action remotely as much as it used to. the story is not really at the forefront, but there's a very cool cutscene halfway through that was a fun treat for fans that put a grin on my face.

it's odd to play an official metroid game that draws so much from the indie games that came many years after the last mainline titles, but mercurysteam really felt themselves with this one. the game repackages the old standards of metroid into an extremely polished experience that stands as one of the most solid switch titles to have dropped on switch up to now. if mercurysteam keeps working on this series, I'll be happy to play whatever they put out without the reservations I went into this game with after samus returns. there's still room to go up from here if they keep listening to fan feedback.

It was pretty imperative that they didn't miss with this one with the 2D series banking on this game for its big comeback and it's my pleasure to inform you they didn't fucking miss.

Metroid Dread is easily the best game MercurySteam has ever developed and they've finally crafted a Metroidvania here that can go toe to toe with the best of the genre. Presentation wise I really enjoy what they've done here. The backgrounds are extremely detailed with biomes that get more and more interesting as you progress. The cold, clinical atmosphere the game often creates is evocative of the rest of the series, but there is definitely a bit of a sterile, less natural element at play here (with the exception of a few areas) which I think gives the game something distinct from its predecessors. I actually really like what they've accomplished with the 2.5D look as well, lighting is often used to great effect and the material work still manages to look good with the side view perspective. The only downside in the presentation, imo, is the music. Young composers and series newcomers Soshi Abe and Sayako Doi handled the music for this game. I like the fact that they've injected some new blood here but while I certainly don't think the soundtrack is bad, the focus is more on Fusion style ambience (and still not quite as well done as Fusion) than Super Metroid's perfect mix of ambient tracks and melodic yet still atmospheric tracks, which I loved. I hope that the series focuses more on Super's musical style in the future as I do think this did sometimes detract from the series' signature atmosphere.

The story is another thing that is somewhat mixed for me. I think a lot of people were expecting a very specific story to come out of this game after Fusion and if those people refuse to accept anything else they will probably be disappointed. I think the story here is still good, with hype moments, good reveals, and stellar cutscene direction, plus it manages to avoid essentially all of Other M's myriad of issues while still not shying away from some of the ideas presented in both it and Fusion (though mostly Fusion). That said, it ends just a bit too abruptly after the big climax and it's certainly not doing quite as much on a thematic level as Fusion was, though there is some interesting stuff going on here that I think should not be overlooked!! Overall I'm saying I enjoyed it and really don't think the story should be dismissed just because it wasn't directly following up on what Fusion set up (I think that could well be still to come for this series anyway).

The level design and movement are absolutely best in class. This is like, an RE4 level of fine tuned to me. It feels like a middle ground between Fusion (you always have an objective) and Super Metroid (you are not told where to go to reach that objective). They do block off backtracking a bit more than I'd like occasionally, but it never feels arbitrary or too restrictive as before long you'll acquire whatever item you'll need to break through that backtracking barrier and have things open up again. The way things loop back in on themselves and the design guides you back and forth through the game's various zones feels masterful and extremely well paced, it is by far one of the game's greatest achievements. On a micro design level, the level of execution required in some of these ability based puzzles to get Missile/Energy tanks is devious but never cheap, requiring both thoughtful planning and precise execution. This execution is never an issue because the movement is so fantastic. All abilities feel vital while also never being frustrating to control once you get a hang of the learning curve on some of them. No hesitation this is one of the best feeling Metroidvania games I've ever played.

Finally I'd like to talk about combat and the EMMI, because this is where the game shines even brighter and what elevates it to a masterclass in my book. EMMI zones are the game's biggest deviation from the classic Metroid formula, evolving the ideas present in Zero Mission's stealth and Fusion's SA-X to a whole new level. I was definitely a bit worried about how this would be handled but it turned out fantastic. There always manages to be tension in these zones, whether it's a new trick the EMMI throw at you that you must adapt to or a particularly challenging bit of level design to navigate through when one is on the hunt. The EMMI's AI is also extremely well realized, and compares really favorably to even the best pursuer enemies in video games (eat your heart out, Resident Evil!) Working in 2D and the specific concept of the EMMI has allowed them to completely avoid the issues with pursuers in many 3D games where it's all too easy to catch them fumbling around on corners or not reacting to your movements in a nuanced manner. It feels like they are genuinely smart without just automatically knowing where you are, which is the perfect accomplishment for videogame stealth I feel. I think they've also been smart in how they sometimes withhold the part of the expected gameplay loop where you find the Omega Cannon and defeat the zone's EMMI, sometimes for much longer after you've initially set foot in its zone for the first time. It makes it all the more satisfying when you finally get the abilities that allow you to discover where the cannon in that area is and be able to take the fight to the EMMI.

This is hands down the best combat in the series, made better by the fantastic movement I mentioned earlier and how they've refined all combat abilities to ensure they can be used without breaking momentum. Combat feels punchy, fluid, and all the other buzzwords you commonly associate with "good game combat." This is made most clear in the game's bosses, which are absolutely the series best in terms of design and difficulty. I was practically jumping out of my seat with how much fun I was having fighting these things and they tie the whole experience together in a wonderful way.

Play this god damn videogame. Metroid is back. I don't envy Retro, Prime 4 has even more to live up to now.

GOTY 2022 & '21 - NUMBER 2
(Click here for the video)

If I think about games I'm a little precious about, above everything else, it's how much I love the tone. The amusingly goofy kindness of Resident Evil's STARS teams, the whimsically bleak setting of Pikmin, or the underground pop artists delivering high-concept worlds and packaging them in shlocky teenage anime templates in games like PaRappa or Ribbit King or Gitaroo-Man. It's the atmosphere that's established that distinguishes the games I admire from the games I love, and there's very few games as captivatingly atmospheric as Metroid.

I'm deeply attached to how Metroid games have made me feel. It can't help but feel personal. It's such an isolating experience. The only thing between you and the dark, foreboding space caves is Samus Aran - A Bio Booster Armor Guyver version of Ellen Ripley, and the most quintessential example of everything I thought was cool when I was ten. Metroid fucking rules, and Dread feels every bit like the immediate follow-up to Fusion that Yoshio Sakamoto would have made in the mid-2000s if things had worked out perfectly.

The Sakamoto Metroid is something I hold dear. I'm much softer on Other M than most, and will take it anyday over Retro Studios' GI Joe bullshit that crept into the Prime sequels. It's the idea of space being something akin to death. Entering the unknown in complete isolation. Not just a convenient setting to fill a game with a bunch of crazy monsters and superheroes.

One thing Metroid has always done better than Zelda is the upgrade system. In Zelda, you unlock items that help you navigate dungeons and solve specific puzzles. In Metroid, the upgrades fundamentally add to your abilities, whether that's your movement options, weapons or scanning systems. The gameplay becomes more complex as you're gain more skill with the basics, and more appreciation for what options these upgrades offer you. Dread might do the best job of this in the whole series, largely down to the intricacy and flexibility of the combat and Samus's movement.

Samus Returns did a lot to refine Metroid combat, but it always felt dead cramped on the 3DS. On the Switch, and with an entirely new game, they can really make the most of it. I'll never stop enjoying Super Metroid, but trying to introduce that game to new people is a daunting prospect. Viewing from a modern perspective, it's absurd to think of a Metroid game without analogue control or precision aiming. In old Metroid, Samus felt like someone in a massive, heavy robot suit. In Dread, she really feels like the cool, best-in-the-universe fighter that her biggest fans always saw her as. Boosting over and sliding under enemies, taking critical pot shots at muscular alien creatures, and completely undaunted by something as trivial as Kraid. Samus isn't pinned down by her suit. It makes her electric.

As a long-time fan of the series, so much of Metroid Dread is spent shouting "Holy shit! Samus rules!". Not just by how dynamic and effortlessly precise she appears in action cutscenes or the gameplay, but how the story expresses her character. She's surrounded by vicious threats and power-hungry, colonialistic forces, and she just fucking eviscerates them. Always the only hero in the room, and there's no sense of ego to her. Samus fucking Aran. She's the total fucking best.

Metroid Dread features some of the most complexly interlinked level design in the series. The map is dense and labrynthian, but delicately and deliberately so. The newfound confidence in the less restrictive controls have allowed the developers to create a bunch of optional challenges to reward the most dedicated of its players. You rarely get that old Super Metroid feeling of finding yourself at a complete dead-end and struggling to dig your way back to the last curiosity. You're just not that detached from any point of the map, though they don't shy away from allowing players to feel lost or confused either. There's an appreciation for everything Metroid has been.

On release, there was pretty heated debate over whether or not Dread was the best Metroid game. I think we've all dismissed that notion as empty hype now, but we shouldn't forget all the good, unique things the game has going for it. It's definitely the most fun Metroid game to move around and fight in. It's taken what Team Ninja presented with their fast-moving, high-flying Samus, and actually put her in a proper Metroid game. It's also a thoroughly encouraging sign that Nintendo still care about SNES fans. We shouldn't take this for granted.

What a weird mixed bag this is. Might be the best Samus has ever felt in 2D, but it's in a world that made my eyes kinda glaze over. Probably a bad sign when the old games with literal boxes connected to each other making up rooms felt more like a place you were, and not just a backdrop you happened to be in front of. It was as if the more detail in an area, the less I noticed it. I don't know.

Lovely improvements on the moment to moment stuff Samus Returns laid down, and a wee change up to the order you expect to get powers in was nice, but general traversal felt like much more of a chore than it ever has, even with the mobility improvements. Maybe it's just me, or how I was feeling at the time, but the world in general here feels like it was designed to slow you down. Not in a challenging way, but more via obtuse layouts that came across as slap dash rather than having any purpose, or feeling like anyone once inhabited these spaces. The EMMI rooms were especially bad for this.

From the first announcement I ignored all the marketing, and the million trailers Ninty put out. So it may be my own fault for not wanting spoiled on stuff, but I truly expected the EMMI to play a bigger part, and have more free-roaming and scripted sequences like SA-X in Fusion. Not confined to specific rooms you can freely dip in and out of. Just a bit of a let down in that regard, especially because every interaction with them feels separate from the rest of the game. Switching modes, and not in a good way. I remember deciding to start clearing the areas and getting all the missed pickups as I could tell I was nearing the end, and at some point while looking at the map I saw the wee bit saying Remaining EMMI: 2/7 and I went "Oh shit aye, The EMMI" out loud. They essentially left my mind whenever I wasn't in one of their designated areas.

Now you might have gotten this far and thought "Guy, there are three and a half stars up there. That's a seven. What the fuck are you playing at?", and I wish I knew. Despite all the shite I've scrawled above, I had a brilliant time. The story is nonsense, I never played Other M so the ADAM shit means nothing to me, and an info dump at the end made me laugh and swear at the game, but at no point was I actually having a bad time. Samus is confident as hell, and with skills to back it up. She has that rep for a reason, and it's on full display. She clowns bosses and it feels incredible. I lost count of the amount of times I was shooting missiles during a scripted sequence and thinking "SHE IS SO COOL!".

She 𝘪𝘴 so cool.

Metroid Dread takes it away with an outstanding sense of progression as you're again stuck on a new planet to explore through every nook and cranny. The area maps are logically tied together with enough open space to navigate and branch out through seperate routes more and also less optimally, while the main path is apparent enough with very little handholding.
Samus is speedy and nimble, a pure joy to navigate around with just like it was in Samus Returns for the 3DS.

Level design and fluidity aside, the environments of planet ZDR weren't really anything beyond the series usual attire, and some sub bosses were recycled just a little too much on the final stretch. The OST was certainly there and added the needed ambience and intensity, but compared to the rest of the series iconic pieces these compositions are my least favourites, still alright, just not very memorable.

Beyond it all, Dread's killer variations of enemy designs and bossfights is another force to be reckoned with and the narrative dropped my jaw to the floor a good couple of times with some of its directions, I really love how grand of a narrative leap Dread took tying in to the preceding games.

In the end apart from being a bit bland with its environmental tropes, Dread is simply amazing to play, it is both intuitive and challenging, beautiful in seamless motion, ultimately a structural masterpiece with great replayability.

Sooooo it turns out there's no reward for filling in literally every inch of every single room on the map.

Shucks.

Best 2D Metroid, no question! Controls are absurdly fluid. This sort of platforming warms my heart. Boss fights are phenomenal. Cutscenes are killer. E.M.M.I.s are terrifying. (They killed me AT LEAST 50 times throughout my 13 hours spent 100%ing this game) New upgrades are surprising and fun to use.

But the best part?

I've been waiting for this game since I beat Metroid Fusion in 2004. I followed every article online that mentioned the game codenamed "Metroid Dread" in development for the DS. I dreamed about this game. I wondered where things would go next. What I did NOT expect were the clever and gorgeous ways that this builds DIRECTLY off of Fusion. Make no mistake, this is not just a new 2D Metroid, this is a direct sequel to Metroid 4, in story, design, and mechanics.

Seeing elements from Fusion represented in gorgeous 3D made me audibly gasp. The story did the same. Dread is more than I ever hoped it could be. After a decade and a half of on-again-off-again development, it's honestly shocking it turned out this great.

Metroid Dread is the anti-Duke Nukem Forever.