A core theme of Metroid is initial disempowerment. How this is achieved varies in credulity (big explosion, virus ate your suit, you just forgot your bag on the ship after Metroid 2) but it's an essential part of the formula, because the other complementary theme of course is the slow pull to becoming overpowered as Samus rediscovers her lost gear. That is easily most prevalent in Dread, and is perhaps made the most explicit it has been throughout the series by the end.

But like... do we really, really need to collect the Morph Ball again? One of my main criticisms of Dread is that we've seen almost every power up in it before. There's some smart mixing of when you get stuff (Morph Ball is surprisingly late! I let out a genuine sigh of relief when it dropped), but otherwise you're still mostly running the same arsenal from Fusion. The new powerups (and those returning from Samus Returns) are fun and empower some kinetic battles, but I wish there were more of them.

What about the EMMI, the box art baddies, that Nintendo have been hyping since trailer drop? Well, they're fine. Initial encounters are tense and terrifying, but after a while (especially considering their stalking zones form a large part of 7 of the game's areas) running through an EMMI zone becomes rote, and quite the pacebreaker. By the latter half of the game I was just cannonballing through instead of playing stealthy - purely because it seemed to be much more successful. Any tension had evaporated. I think this is partially because Dread is very generous with checkpointing, dropping you immediately outside the EMMI door you entered if you get insta-killed by one. To be fair, respawning at a save station each time you get caught would be arduous, but it means the main gimmick of these sections gets completely neutered.

The good news that other than these gripes the rest of the game is phenomenal. A genuine tour-de-force of how a Metroidvania should be made, Dread demonstrates that no matter how many pretenders to the throne there may be, there's only one true Metroid. Dread follows the template of Fusion quite closely, although it is more generous in how it allows you to explore than the previous game in the series. Personally, I never felt lost - the excellent map and smart level design ensured that - but if you were to diverge from the critical path, there's plenty to be found early on. Naturally, many E-tanks and missiles are hidden behind late-game upgrades, as you'd expect, but there's plenty to find before that.

The areas are gorgeous to explore, although they do arguably stick a bit too close to the series' archetypes (jungle, cave, hotland, etc). Framerate is 99% perfect, only dropping below that 60fps target in particularly busy scenes - and, oddly, during any non-gameplay section in handheld mode. Why does talking to Adam force a half-rate refresh? Odd.

Speaking of Adam, the plot is basically fine. It's hardly the thematic heights of Fusion, but it serves the purpose, and it manages to avoid the Bad Shit of that game and Other M. There's two late game twists - one really lands as a thematic end-game of the entire 2D series to this point, and one is utterly bizarre - and oddly remniscent of another recent game with a gonzo plot chicane that just doesn't really tonally fit.

But again, that's a minor gripe (literally, it's sucha minor plotpoint that you'd be forgiven for forgetting about it immediately after it happens) and can be forgiven when Dread overall is such a welcome return for a series long thought dead. Whether this is the Dread we all wanted or expected when news of the original DS project spread, I cannot say. But I am very, very happy with the Dread we got.

This game seems to be Mercury Stream's Fusion remake with a few elements of the DS Dread pitch. Every aspect of this game from the items, to the controls, to the high damage bosses, to the enemy stalking, to Adam, to the x parasite, and even the strictly linear progression are all ripped from Fusion. Even specific story beats like returning to an area only to find it frozen over so you have to go back to another area and fight a boss is just ripped from the overgrown power generator in Fusion.

Starting with some positives the game controls a lot better then Samus Returns with faster movement and 8 directional aiming (the wall jump is still super nerfed sadly) and the secrets are way better hidden. No longer do you just scan blocks and hit them with the right item as many items are hidden beyond shine spark puzzles or using bombs in a clever way.

Sadly in every other way the game ends up just a pale version of Fusion. The EMII are a poor replacement for the SAX with the special EMII zones and their bland copy paste nature taking away the horror of them. It doesn't help that you can simple QTE away from an EMII which turns them into absolute jokes. While both Fusion and Dread are strictly linear, Dread goes one step farther by constantly blocking off backtracking every couple of rooms, which does allow for there to be a more tightly controlled item grab, but also means that you can't really explore till right before the final boss when you have every item. It is also frustrated some sequence breaks have been removed. I was able to get 3 Power bomb tanks before getting the power bombs, but the game wouldn't let me actually use the power bombs until I got the upgrade in the story. Compare this to zero mission where a super missel tank can be grabbed early and used immediately.

Fusion had, with the exception of one boss, the consistently best bosses in the 2-D series, but while Dread has a few okay bosses too many are either direct copy pastes (you fight 6 different mother brains and a dozen of the same chozo warriors), or have way too much health/too many phases which cause the fights to drag. Fusion wanted to be a horror game where Samus was underpowered, which Dread also seems like it wants to be, but Dread also goes the Other M route of having Samus flip around and do crazy cutscene stunts every fight. In the Prime games great care was put into Samus's facial expressions to make her seem genuinely disturbed by what she saw, while in Dread she casually blasts everything in her path. The less said about the story the better. It is mired with incredibly badly written exposition, strips any mystery away by retconning the Chozo's role in Metroid 2, and ends in a star wars tier twist that is super forced and adds nothing to the story.

I'm sure fans will be pleased with this game. Unlike Samus Returns it has competent level design and movement, and Fusion is well liked enough to make more Fusion a palatable concept. But I can't shake the feeling that a better version of this game came out 19 years ago. Metroid used to be at the top of the pack with a dark and horrific atmosphere, and very different gameplays between main entries. 19 Years later the indie scene has greatly surpassed Metroid and the tone has entirely shifted to bland alien planet action. Samus isn't fighting for her life on an alien world, shes doing front flips onto enemies and shooting a charge beam directly into their mouths. If you just want a decent game that has Samus in it then you can't go wrong with Dread, but if you want a game that pushes the genre foreword like Metroid used to do then stick to something else. For my money 2021's Axiom Verge 2 takes the cake for best exploration based platformer of the year.