It’s not bad. Decent, even. Catch me on a nice day and I’ll tell ya it’s good! But as much as I enjoyed my time with Metroid: Dread (and I did enjoy it, mostly), I can’t help but feel like it plays things way too safe while also somehow fumbling a lot of the fundamentals. I think the clamoring for a new Metroid game may have overshadowed any priorities for what that game should be. Truthfully, the Metroid name has a lot of baggage. When I hear that name, I think of the NES original’s ambitious nonlinear structure, Return of Samus’s willingness to make you uncomfortable, Super’s masterful sense of immersion and player freedom, or Fusion’s total disruption of series tradition. Dread on the other hand is just… another Metroid. A fine Metroid, but there’s nothing here that really even attempts to be as innovative or transgressive as the 4 games it’s a sequel to, and that to me is the biggest disappointment here.

World design is once again Mercury Steam’s downfall. The linearity isn’t what bugs me –only 2 outta 7 games in this series truly dedicated themselves to the concept, if we’re being honest –but the way it’s implemented is pretty lame, I think. The map always spits you out exactly where you need to be, with any attempts to move off the beaten path usually met by dead ends. I never felt super connected to ZDR in the way I still do to Zebes or SR-388 or the BSL station, and I think it’s because the game never provides any incentive or really any opportunity to familiarize yourself with its layout. It doesn’t help that, while not as egregious as Samus Returns, the level design is still quite cramped and blocky. This doesn’t feel like a living, breathing world as much as a backdrop for a computer entertainment game. It’s also just a really obnoxious approach to building a Metroidvania, if you ask me. I decided to do some backtracking for items before the final boss, and had a pretty terrible time because so many of these screens are so tight and obstructive that they seem intentionally designed to hinder player traversal. The fact each major area is only connected by elevators and teleporters, each one equipped with their own lengthy, demotivating loading screen only makes things worse. And speaking of making things worse, the EMMI zones only serve to compound Dread’s issues with map design. The way each one has to gut whatever area it’s in to make room results in those areas feeling so much less cohesive. It doesn’t help that these zones each look identical, making a by all accounts very pretty and aesthetically diverse game feel visually samey in my head.

The EMMIs themselves also, uh, suck? I think these suck. Relegating each one to their own clearly-demarcated sections that you can freely walk in and out of immediately deprives them of any sense of oppressive spontaneity that something like the SA-X had. Then, once you actually get inside, it’s a formality. Either you effortlessly make it to the other side without hassle, or you get insta-killed immediately and respawn right outside the door. If these were more substantial sections with a little more leeway there might be interesting conflict here. But as is, I’m either gonna skate by mindlessly or I’m getting stuck repeating the same 10 seconds of gameplay over and over again, each loading screen killing the pace and my patience more and more. The omega cannon segments, a genuinely creative new idea, at least have some compelling puzzle design and an exciting flashiness to them. But for me they ultimately get really bogged down by an overly cumbersome control scheme and that same trial & error tedium. The EMMIs also lack any of the thematic resonance that made the SA-X or the Space Pirates of past games so memorable, which is like, the best part of these type of encounters??? I think even the devs get bored of these guys after a while, since they go largely absent from the mid-to-late game only for the final EMMI to be killed off unceremoniously in a cutscene. I dunno man, a big swing and a miss for me.

A lot of Metroid: Dread has this weird give-and-take to it. The power-ups are really cool and satisfying to use, but the way they’re implemented is shockingly unimaginative. Outside of a few optional missile tanks (the only optional collectible you’ll find 80% of the time), you’re mostly only using these upgrades as specialized keys for specialized doors, the grapple beam and ice missiles being the biggest offenders. Boss fights are fantastically frenetic, but so many of them are copy-and-pasted, particularly in the late game, that they lose a lot of their initial impact. I actually really like the attempt at a steeper difficulty, but while some challenges feel really tense and gratifying, others like the EMMIs just feel like banging your head against a wall until it cracks. The game is fucking stunning to look at, easily one of the best graphical showcases for the Switch, but the environments themselves are just kind of bland and forgettable to me. Outside of some novel Chozo structures, it all felt like more of the same caves, plant areas, waterworlds and Norfair clones I’m used to.

This review seems really mean and that’s because yeah, it is. But as I said at the start, I did enjoy my time here. For all that I think Dread gets wrong, I think it gets Samus very, very right. Her controls feel wonderfully agile, and the way she moves in cutscenes is just…so fucking cool like holy shit wow. While I don’t think her moveset here has as much depth as it did in Super or as much crunchiness as in Fusion/Zero Mission, I can’t deny how satisfying the simple act of moving and shooting is in Dread. This was the thing that really ruined Samus Returns for me, but fuck dude, even the counter and Aeion system don’t make me want to kill myself now! It’s a remarkably fun game to play considering how unremarkable so many of it’s design decisions are. And hey, as nitpicky as I can get here, I can’t deny how great the sense of spectacle is here. Sure it’s fanservice, but that Kraid fight had me a hootin’ and a hollerin’, and moments like that go a long way in the final analysis. I have a lot of grievances with Metroid Dread, but I don’t think it’s a bad game per se, and I’d easily recommend it to any aspiring Metroid fan. Just, y’know. Play the other ones first.

“But schlocky,” you cry, “Does all this redeem Mercury Steam for Samus Returns?” Hahaha absolutely not. Are you fucking kidding me? Have you read the articles about what they put their developers through? No way man. Burn that shit to the ground.