Good:
Metroid's story has always been a bit nonsensical but the story formed in Dread is cohesive without being overbearing with forced cutscenes you can't skip. Samus as a character is perfectly characterized in this game without having to monologue her thoughts or speak any dialogue. Her actions and mannerisms in the cutscenes perfectly convey her attitude and line of thinking. She's cautious but also confident and acrobatic and an overall badass honestly.
Gameplay is fantastic. It's the best a 2D metroid has ever felt and the way Samus moves through the environment has never felt better. Sliding, wall jumping and overall traversal makes the game fun to navigate. The combat itself is responsive and quick and Samus does not feel sluggish at all. The bosses need to be defeated through quick reflexes and liberal use of QTEs and the bosses were very enjoyable to fight. The liberal checkpointing also resets you to the door right before the boss room so there is no run back or farming for resources needed to fight them again. The bosses can be hard but they are not punishing which makes them fun to engage with.
The artystyle can be divisive but I personally loved the 2.5D look of the game. Some of the environments were beautiful and pretty memorable to me. Samus' Dread Suit design is probably one of the best designs in the series and her upgraded suits are even better.
Dread does a great job of guiding the player without being over intrusive. It wants the players to get lost but it subtlety guides the players to the right way. The power up progression speaks volume to this design because there was several points in the game where I thought to myself, "Did I miss a power-up or is it designed like this?" when I was stuck at several points. In all those instances, the game was designed to make you feel lost but in reality you were still on the right path and I didn't accidently sequence break or soft lock the game but the game had tricked me into thinking I did.
Shinespark puzzles are great. Give more.
Neutral:
I didn't particularly care for ADAM as your 'companion' and I think the game would have been fine without him trying to give you hints and help.
The in-game map itself is great but it can get cluttered and I really wish there was better filtering icons options.
Teleporters create a better streamlined design but it also creates somewhat of a disconnect in the gameworld.
Music is hit and miss for me. There are some really good tracks but the sound design of Samus constantly running/shooting along with enemy sounds can often drown out the ambience and music.
While Dread does a good job of guiding the player to the critical path, it does to to the detriment of back-tracking. Often times you'll be locked specific areas of the map without being able to explore backwards. I understand the intent and I certainly didn't mind it at times but there can be a case to be made that people playing Metroid games want to be even more lost and Dread simply doesn't allow it at some points.
I really hated EMMIs at the beginning because of the one hit death mechanics but the generous checkpointing has made me somewhat neutral on them. Treating the EMMI sections more like fast-paced escape areas rather than stealth sections also made me less frustrated but I hope they can better refine this if they wish to continue using this concept in the future.
Negative:
The control scheme is quite a handful. Too many actions need to be mapped on the Switch controller and sometimes there isn't room or buttons get shared. Shinespark being on L3 makes it awkward to use consistently and slide/morph both triggering from the same button is also awkward. The lack of customizable remapping is also a problem.
Difficulty options are definitely needed. Dread is probably the hardest 2D metroid to date and it's certainly going to deter people from playing it or finishing it. Bosses are really no longer a war of attrition where you spam missiles into them and try to kill them before they kill you. Bosses can easily kill you in less than 5 hits in this game. Some people are fine with this, others aren't. More options is always better.
Post game stuff. I really wish Metroid had any sort of post game content. Samus by the end of the game is so powerful and it's extremely fun to utilize her entire toolkit but there is realistically only one enemy left to fight by the time you reach that point. Give us boss rushes, more puzzles, something more to do.
Load times are atrocious. Not much more to say but at least the load screens look awesome.
Overall, it was definitely one of my favourite games of this year. I'd honestly recommend Dread to anyone looking to get into the Metroid series as long as you're okay with a difficulty game (by Nintendo standards).
Metroid's story has always been a bit nonsensical but the story formed in Dread is cohesive without being overbearing with forced cutscenes you can't skip. Samus as a character is perfectly characterized in this game without having to monologue her thoughts or speak any dialogue. Her actions and mannerisms in the cutscenes perfectly convey her attitude and line of thinking. She's cautious but also confident and acrobatic and an overall badass honestly.
Gameplay is fantastic. It's the best a 2D metroid has ever felt and the way Samus moves through the environment has never felt better. Sliding, wall jumping and overall traversal makes the game fun to navigate. The combat itself is responsive and quick and Samus does not feel sluggish at all. The bosses need to be defeated through quick reflexes and liberal use of QTEs and the bosses were very enjoyable to fight. The liberal checkpointing also resets you to the door right before the boss room so there is no run back or farming for resources needed to fight them again. The bosses can be hard but they are not punishing which makes them fun to engage with.
The artystyle can be divisive but I personally loved the 2.5D look of the game. Some of the environments were beautiful and pretty memorable to me. Samus' Dread Suit design is probably one of the best designs in the series and her upgraded suits are even better.
Dread does a great job of guiding the player without being over intrusive. It wants the players to get lost but it subtlety guides the players to the right way. The power up progression speaks volume to this design because there was several points in the game where I thought to myself, "Did I miss a power-up or is it designed like this?" when I was stuck at several points. In all those instances, the game was designed to make you feel lost but in reality you were still on the right path and I didn't accidently sequence break or soft lock the game but the game had tricked me into thinking I did.
Shinespark puzzles are great. Give more.
Neutral:
I didn't particularly care for ADAM as your 'companion' and I think the game would have been fine without him trying to give you hints and help.
The in-game map itself is great but it can get cluttered and I really wish there was better filtering icons options.
Teleporters create a better streamlined design but it also creates somewhat of a disconnect in the gameworld.
Music is hit and miss for me. There are some really good tracks but the sound design of Samus constantly running/shooting along with enemy sounds can often drown out the ambience and music.
While Dread does a good job of guiding the player to the critical path, it does to to the detriment of back-tracking. Often times you'll be locked specific areas of the map without being able to explore backwards. I understand the intent and I certainly didn't mind it at times but there can be a case to be made that people playing Metroid games want to be even more lost and Dread simply doesn't allow it at some points.
I really hated EMMIs at the beginning because of the one hit death mechanics but the generous checkpointing has made me somewhat neutral on them. Treating the EMMI sections more like fast-paced escape areas rather than stealth sections also made me less frustrated but I hope they can better refine this if they wish to continue using this concept in the future.
Negative:
The control scheme is quite a handful. Too many actions need to be mapped on the Switch controller and sometimes there isn't room or buttons get shared. Shinespark being on L3 makes it awkward to use consistently and slide/morph both triggering from the same button is also awkward. The lack of customizable remapping is also a problem.
Difficulty options are definitely needed. Dread is probably the hardest 2D metroid to date and it's certainly going to deter people from playing it or finishing it. Bosses are really no longer a war of attrition where you spam missiles into them and try to kill them before they kill you. Bosses can easily kill you in less than 5 hits in this game. Some people are fine with this, others aren't. More options is always better.
Post game stuff. I really wish Metroid had any sort of post game content. Samus by the end of the game is so powerful and it's extremely fun to utilize her entire toolkit but there is realistically only one enemy left to fight by the time you reach that point. Give us boss rushes, more puzzles, something more to do.
Load times are atrocious. Not much more to say but at least the load screens look awesome.
Overall, it was definitely one of my favourite games of this year. I'd honestly recommend Dread to anyone looking to get into the Metroid series as long as you're okay with a difficulty game (by Nintendo standards).