Despite being one of the more recognizable and prestigious flagship titles from Nintendo, Metroid has always struck me as being more of a niche franchise than what its historical legacy would suggest. In a similar fashion to what Link to the Past did for the Zelda series, Super Metroid polished and perfected the open ended design and progression concepts of its predecessors, eliminating much of their more frustrating aspects, and established a success formula that the franchise has religiously followed from then on. In doing so, Metroid has been the same game for more than two decades, and putting aside its 3D detours with the Prime series, it has been trapped in an ever increasingly enclosed bubble of self reference and iteration.
Metroid Dread wastes no time with introductions, and the moment you grab hold of Samus Aran, it feels like coming home again. Take away the new coat of paint, and you are back to the same old Metroid song and dance, rushing past grid like corridors of underground caves and industrial lab rooms filled with alien critters to waste away and locked doors that you will inevitably open once you get the next power up on the checklist. Ever the stimulating power trip that characterizes the series, Dread's biggest achievement is how it seamlessly paces itself and constantly rewards the player in quick succession as it twists and turns the map, demostrating a seasoned understanding of the Super Metroid formula that makes putting down the controller a very hard thing to do. After what felt like a deliberate eternity, getting the Morph Ball power up was a non spoken mutual understanding between game and players in the know.
Unfortunately, that's only what Dread ever is. While the E.M.M.I. cat and mouse chase segments are the most inspired Dread ever gets, they are restricted by a need to appease the fandom's rejection of inconvenience, and so are sectioned off into clearly identifiable areas where a death only amounts to setting the player back to the start of said area. A brief pesky light detour into survival horror before going back to business as usual. For a series so deified for its somber atmosphere and exploration of the unknown, Dread contents itself with regurgitating the same landscapes and biomes we have grown tired of seeing since Super that rarely give an excuse to trade the foreground for the background, and the story, apparently a passion project in the works for many years, hardly justifies its purpose other than continuining on the concepts and themes that previous entries have already expanded upon in a much more meaningful way. Metroid Dread does not earn its title. So I ask this question: how many more times must I expect to get the space jump near the end of the game? How many more instances of blowing up a glass tunnel with a power bomb will I be subjected to? How much longer must the Chozo be the center of the universe?
Thanks to the flourishing of indie development of the last decade, the metroidvania genre has since seen a vast increase in experimentation that has given every kind of Metroid fan something to look forward to. I have made my peace a long time ago with the notion that the Metroid series now occupy a very specific set of qualities and standards meant to appeal to an audience that values the power fantasy of the franchise above everything else, and I can gladly say that Dread fits that bill perfectly with the most fun to control Samus and a plethora of movement and combat options that I'm sure will be exploited for years to come. If I want that old feeling of treading an alien and hostile environment by the skin of my teeth, I'll play Rain World. If I want to revel in indecipherable mystery and obtuse puzzle solving, I'll play La-Mulana. If I want to experience Metroid's atmosphere, I'll play Environmental Station Alpha. I just hoped that Metroid Dread could have once again been all those things for me.
Metroid Dread is good. It's great for most of it, even. But it's never exceptional. And as long as the franchise decides to live under Super Metroid's shadow, it will never be again.
Metroid Dread wastes no time with introductions, and the moment you grab hold of Samus Aran, it feels like coming home again. Take away the new coat of paint, and you are back to the same old Metroid song and dance, rushing past grid like corridors of underground caves and industrial lab rooms filled with alien critters to waste away and locked doors that you will inevitably open once you get the next power up on the checklist. Ever the stimulating power trip that characterizes the series, Dread's biggest achievement is how it seamlessly paces itself and constantly rewards the player in quick succession as it twists and turns the map, demostrating a seasoned understanding of the Super Metroid formula that makes putting down the controller a very hard thing to do. After what felt like a deliberate eternity, getting the Morph Ball power up was a non spoken mutual understanding between game and players in the know.
Unfortunately, that's only what Dread ever is. While the E.M.M.I. cat and mouse chase segments are the most inspired Dread ever gets, they are restricted by a need to appease the fandom's rejection of inconvenience, and so are sectioned off into clearly identifiable areas where a death only amounts to setting the player back to the start of said area. A brief pesky light detour into survival horror before going back to business as usual. For a series so deified for its somber atmosphere and exploration of the unknown, Dread contents itself with regurgitating the same landscapes and biomes we have grown tired of seeing since Super that rarely give an excuse to trade the foreground for the background, and the story, apparently a passion project in the works for many years, hardly justifies its purpose other than continuining on the concepts and themes that previous entries have already expanded upon in a much more meaningful way. Metroid Dread does not earn its title. So I ask this question: how many more times must I expect to get the space jump near the end of the game? How many more instances of blowing up a glass tunnel with a power bomb will I be subjected to? How much longer must the Chozo be the center of the universe?
Thanks to the flourishing of indie development of the last decade, the metroidvania genre has since seen a vast increase in experimentation that has given every kind of Metroid fan something to look forward to. I have made my peace a long time ago with the notion that the Metroid series now occupy a very specific set of qualities and standards meant to appeal to an audience that values the power fantasy of the franchise above everything else, and I can gladly say that Dread fits that bill perfectly with the most fun to control Samus and a plethora of movement and combat options that I'm sure will be exploited for years to come. If I want that old feeling of treading an alien and hostile environment by the skin of my teeth, I'll play Rain World. If I want to revel in indecipherable mystery and obtuse puzzle solving, I'll play La-Mulana. If I want to experience Metroid's atmosphere, I'll play Environmental Station Alpha. I just hoped that Metroid Dread could have once again been all those things for me.
Metroid Dread is good. It's great for most of it, even. But it's never exceptional. And as long as the franchise decides to live under Super Metroid's shadow, it will never be again.
4 Comments
I didnt touch too much upon this in the review, but something I tried to faintly communicate through this is that the Metroid franchise has enjoyed a lack of critical scrutiny and has been able to maintain its prestigious status thanks to its brand name alone, something that has become increasingly more apparent with the advent of better and more daring metroidvanias that have cropped up from the indie scene. I think following a strict design formula can yield good and interesting results, as the zelda series has demonstrated over the decades, but in Metroid's case, I think we are more willing to let its problems and redundancies slides because it carries the Metroid name, and were these games to not carry that name on their shoulders, I do not think we would be so charitable to them.
I don't agree with the ultimate argument of this review, but I actually think it's very well grounded and argued. Perhaps it's a little obvious, but I suppose people seek and get different things from the games they play. With a different game in similar circumstances, I might've wanted something a little more innovative and distinct; but I'm such a big Metroid fan, that I was bound to like this, and the new things were enough to keep it from feeling stale for me. [I don't even really agree that the environments are typical Metroid fanfare; maybe some to a degree, but I didn't get that overall.] Even if other games tackled specific things more effectively, I came out satisfied. But with what you mentioned, it's easy to see why someone else, such as yourself, wouldn't.
I'm curious about your thoughts on the other games, however, because I don't think Metroid's "in the shadow of Super". It's harder to evaluate than it should be due to the long drought of new games, but most of the post-Super games went their own way. Fusion tried a more oppressive atmosphere in an artificial and linear setting, and while Prime may have adapted the old formula to 3D, 2 and 3 tried different things. Two remakes, Prime Hunters and a crappy game aside, I feel it may more so be that Nintendo / MercurySteam don't know where else to take it now... Either that, or they couldn't quite capture the strength of the others, which is what you seemed to suggest in the penultimate paragraph.
I'm curious about your thoughts on the other games, however, because I don't think Metroid's "in the shadow of Super". It's harder to evaluate than it should be due to the long drought of new games, but most of the post-Super games went their own way. Fusion tried a more oppressive atmosphere in an artificial and linear setting, and while Prime may have adapted the old formula to 3D, 2 and 3 tried different things. Two remakes, Prime Hunters and a crappy game aside, I feel it may more so be that Nintendo / MercurySteam don't know where else to take it now... Either that, or they couldn't quite capture the strength of the others, which is what you seemed to suggest in the penultimate paragraph.
@SpectreMan Thank you for reading and being understanding! Ultimately what I say with "under Super's shadow", is that regardless of the coat of paint and unique characteristics that each entry brings to the table, the design structure and progression setup is ultimately a controlled iteration of Super. Every entry has to have the same type of power ups that will have the same type of function at the same specific stage of the campagin's runtime. And I dont mean that that is automatically a bad thing to explore with the series, but what I feel is that following that design from Super to such a degree causes situations where the new entries arent able to go far enough with their concepts because they have to stick to a scrip that gets increasingly restrictive as the series goes on. Fusion had the benefit of coming right after Super. Dread doesnt have that same benefit, and for me what it does is simply not enough for my expectations of the franchise.
SunlitSonata
2 years ago
The gap in release timing just left more time for the developers themselves to decide what their understanding of Metroid is whilst keeping with modern technology, and whether you like that or not, this is their understanding.