You ever just start moving in a game and go "wow this feels nice"?

Dread is juggling so many things for the player to keep track of. Varieties of beams, missiles, forms, movement, unlockable blocks, enemy weaknesses, and enemy encounter types. Maybe it's a strange comparison, but it makes me think of Metal Gear Solid. Where those games, especially 2 and 3, reveled in cumbersome control schemes, Dread is silky smooth.

So you're juggling all of these things and doing light exploration. And compared to Super Metroid and other games inspired by it, the exploration IS light. You're never expected to backtrack through too much; at certain points, old areas are blocked off to keep your ambit properly limited to a few corridors. But even if it is more limited, it is also properly satisfying.

Not much else to say since usually I'll go more indepth on story themes. Dread has a narrative but it's pretty light and Samus never talks herself. I wonder if Mercury Steam was inspired by the new DOOM games to keep their hero a silent killing machine. The few scenes of exposition are punctuated by laser blasts, either from enemies or Samus herself. There's a whole lot more Doomguy than Ellen Ripley in her, uh, DNA in Dread.