If beating Metroid NES was eating a medium rare steak with a swiss army knife, this is blendered hamburger meat through a straw. Fast food stuff. The more they lean into Samus assimilating Metroid DNA, the more this series seems to lose it and I'm not sure what's supposed to make Dread all that special then in a crowded field of its spiritual offspring.

On its own hyper-polished terms, I was able to enjoy slicing through the compartmentalised performative cleverness like a hot knife through butter (if the designers don't exactly hold your hand they're constantly showing theirs) and was initially delighted to find I could run away from the Kraid fight and explore quite a bit of the map for powerups and abilities. But when I enter a heat room, exit into an adjacent Chozo room and immediately correctly think, "oh that must be the Varia suit" what are we doing here? The constant dopamine drip of SO many abilities and upgrades (and abundance of missiles and energy for that matter) may feel good in the breadcrumbed and bite-sized moment-to-moment but feels trivialising in the grander scheme. If Samus has become smoother and tighter to control, most everything else (the controller configuration, stacking mechanics, new systems (hello Aeion Ability), exposition dumps, itemised map, loading screen tool tips) is bloated and cluttered, graceless stuff.

But I switch off my brain and enjoy the finger feel of near-autopilot navigation well enough (the game seems to have its cake and eat it: ushering newer players through without getting lost while baiting hardcore speedrunners with the well-oiled machine of it all, but those who enjoy Exploration with a capital ‘E’ are left with an empty stomach) until they slam on the brakes for boss battle after boss battle. While it does feel satisfying to master these lockstep tangos I couldn't help but feel it was wasting my time after a while (perhaps I just suck) repeating these over and over, gradually getting better with each death screen to loading screen to traversal/elevator lead up to skippable cutscene and finally yet another attempt ESPECIALLY if the only thing perpetuating this cycle is my failing to nail a single QTE. Seriously fuck that shit.

Aside from sanding down the edges of the Metroid formula to near frictionlessness outside of these boss battles, Mercury Steam’s main contribution seems to be making Samus’ adventure EPIC and BADASS with the most ham-handed Saturday morning cartoon gestures. I do not need all this convincing to those ends. I knew Samus was badass when I picked up the Game Boy game in ‘92 and only beat it decades later as an adult because of how epic it truly is (and gracefully verisimilitudinous, that ending! a crystalline haiku compared to this B-grade comic book business) but I’ll spare Dread any more elaborate and harsh comparisons to its betters. This is some junk food, with all the instant gratification and indigestion and immaterial unsatedness that implies.

Honestly if someone wanted to get into Metroid and asked me which one to play first I'd say start right at the beginning with this one. It's tough, demanding (draw a map, it's good for you, leave with a souvenir) and ultimately rewarding, a singular exercise in capital 'E' Exploration and the sequels/remakes (OG Game Boy is my fav) do not "fix" or improve upon it, they mutate and deviate for better or worse.

This is a thoughtfully designed game with some rough edges but what may seem cruel at first reveals itself to be quite playful. It's playing with you. I'm glad I played back (my third attempt over 12+ years mind you, no guide!)