This is gonna be a tough one. To be honest, this game forced me to re-organize my backloggd notation and create "4stars : very good in its genre"
Because I believe it's exactly what Dread is: really good in its genre. I cannot honestly state it is bad or things aren't well done, with the notable exception of music, which isn't not as as good as I think it might have been considering the production level, the production owner (Nintendo), the licence the game belongs to (Metroid) and the genre the game belongs to (Metroid-vania). Yet, can I say I consider it a good Metroid-vania? That's a good question.
To be fair, that's the first Metroid game I ever payed if we consider wandering arround completely lost in a 1st person metroid on the Wii at the age of 6 isn't something we can call a game experience. Nontheless, I know what metroid-vania are: I'm used to Castlevnias (Dawn of Sorrow, Order of Ecclesia, Bloodstained, Super IV) and I certainly know or/have played other games in the genre. About Castlevania: i consider the games I've played masterpieces. I frequently listen to their killer soundtrack.
Considering all things said above, my expectations were to discover a pinacle of the genre featuring a great soundtrack. As stated, soundtrack isn't great, but what's about gameplay?
Well, the 1st hour is... Beyond all expectations. It is carefuly crafted, it's in my opinion a near perfect 1st time user experience. You learn how to move, then how to fight. You're then introduced to simple rules establishing the world, its concepts, enemis and levels. Then you encounter the deadliest enemies and your introduced to the counter-attack system. You fight this enemi in a simplified boss fight. Then you're forced into a scary survival horror phase leading to a pursuit in which you have to run for your life.
This is as brilliant as stressful and exhausting. It voluntarly doesn't give you enough time to get confident with controls and mecanics. This is all for pace, and as I state in many of my reviews: pace is 90% of games pleasure.
If this boiling hot pace was maintained throughout all the adventure this game would have been one of the best ever made. Unfortunately, strange design choices lower the interest of the cat-and-mouse game between you and EMMIs (I think of the invisibility feature, which in my opinion is available too soon). That being said, the game's globaly well paced thanks to two major things: bosses and upgrades.
Bosses are very good in their vast majority. I have no complain about them. I'll even remember the magma core boss for a while considering how clear and joyous its patterns were. I also want to point out the submarine boss, which was more of a puzzle, which constituted a nice (nintendo) switch of pace. Unfortunately there are two things I found not-so-good about bosses. The first one is the final boss, which is interesting, but waaaaaaaay too long and difficult. The second one is something I honestly struggle to understand considering nintendo funded this game. The game's flooded with really poor designed sub-bosses you'll fight counteless times. Neither chozo soldiers nor Mawkin warriors are fun to fight. Even if I was convinced it was something of the past, the game spams two of them in a small area to create "novelty, challenge" -> this only create a urge to pull-out the cartridge and sell it to the nearest videogame shop.
Upgrades are, I think, the issue I have with this game. There are two types of uprgades: the ones that actually are upgrades that unlock gameplay, and the ones that aren't upgrades. The first one are cool: walking on the wall, running very fast, charging your shots... All this unlocks new possibilities and empowers both the character and the player. The second one are smokescreen that actually change nothing to the game except allowing you to open a door : piercing shots are just shots, stronger missiles are just missiles, ice missiles are just missiles.
All of this is very disturbing considering upgrades are at the core of metroid-vania designs. I mean, when you unlock something in castlevania, you either use it till the very end (i.e : double jump), either you CAN you use it if you want: most of the time, it's a new weapon with a new pattern, which mean you can use it outside of its straight mandatory use of opening a door. Metroid doesn't feature that, which mean skillset strangely appear... Weak, in comparison of a Castlevania. From the begining to the end of Dread, all you do is shooting and walking, which isn't the same in Castlevania. This bother me, because i'm scared i'm in a "I knew Castlevania when I was a kid so I love it and cannot consider it inferior to other things" mood. But I honnestly think castlevania is much more interesting on this point than Metroid is.
This is a much bigger issue than it first seem because here's the catch: why would you lock a door with a key you've unlocked on level 2 (let's say, invisibility) during level 8? There's no point in it: the devs know it, that's why they didn't do so. But this creates the following issue: upgrade are perishable. If the level designer doesn't specifically design a puzzle arround the running ability, then there's no point to run. That's exaclty what happens. As a consequence, the running ability becomes useless since the 4th level is done. This is a pity.
I must also point out what I'll call "lame" upgrades, like "infinite jump, but only on a horizontal line under water when the moon is half and it's 4am". This seems like... Useless. This seems like exactly what it is after i talked to a friend who knows the serie: legacy. Dread is drowned under the serie's legacy: it is too scared of disappointing to try something new. As a matter of fact, it is even too scared of its legacy to try NOT to put somehting in the game. What's the point of infinite jump in an horizontal line under water? None. But if we don't implement it, Jean-Michel-fan-of-Metroid will complain. So we do. This leads to difficult to use mecanics, like infinite jumps you have to time on who knows what (even the game says "you have to execute it on a precise timing" but doesn't tells you what timing it is lol).
So yeah. A very, very good action game. Very difficult too: in fact I think it's too hard as I think nearly all metroid-vanias are too hard and I don't know why we keep setting their difficulty like this. In my opinion, a game that use less smartly and with less diversity it's "action" side compared to Castlevanias. It trades it for horror sequences that are wonderful at the beginning of the game, better plateform sequences and very cool high-speed chase phases.
Not an absolute must have on Switch, but definitly a good pick.
But yeah, musics are disappointing.
Because I believe it's exactly what Dread is: really good in its genre. I cannot honestly state it is bad or things aren't well done, with the notable exception of music, which isn't not as as good as I think it might have been considering the production level, the production owner (Nintendo), the licence the game belongs to (Metroid) and the genre the game belongs to (Metroid-vania). Yet, can I say I consider it a good Metroid-vania? That's a good question.
To be fair, that's the first Metroid game I ever payed if we consider wandering arround completely lost in a 1st person metroid on the Wii at the age of 6 isn't something we can call a game experience. Nontheless, I know what metroid-vania are: I'm used to Castlevnias (Dawn of Sorrow, Order of Ecclesia, Bloodstained, Super IV) and I certainly know or/have played other games in the genre. About Castlevania: i consider the games I've played masterpieces. I frequently listen to their killer soundtrack.
Considering all things said above, my expectations were to discover a pinacle of the genre featuring a great soundtrack. As stated, soundtrack isn't great, but what's about gameplay?
Well, the 1st hour is... Beyond all expectations. It is carefuly crafted, it's in my opinion a near perfect 1st time user experience. You learn how to move, then how to fight. You're then introduced to simple rules establishing the world, its concepts, enemis and levels. Then you encounter the deadliest enemies and your introduced to the counter-attack system. You fight this enemi in a simplified boss fight. Then you're forced into a scary survival horror phase leading to a pursuit in which you have to run for your life.
This is as brilliant as stressful and exhausting. It voluntarly doesn't give you enough time to get confident with controls and mecanics. This is all for pace, and as I state in many of my reviews: pace is 90% of games pleasure.
If this boiling hot pace was maintained throughout all the adventure this game would have been one of the best ever made. Unfortunately, strange design choices lower the interest of the cat-and-mouse game between you and EMMIs (I think of the invisibility feature, which in my opinion is available too soon). That being said, the game's globaly well paced thanks to two major things: bosses and upgrades.
Bosses are very good in their vast majority. I have no complain about them. I'll even remember the magma core boss for a while considering how clear and joyous its patterns were. I also want to point out the submarine boss, which was more of a puzzle, which constituted a nice (nintendo) switch of pace. Unfortunately there are two things I found not-so-good about bosses. The first one is the final boss, which is interesting, but waaaaaaaay too long and difficult. The second one is something I honestly struggle to understand considering nintendo funded this game. The game's flooded with really poor designed sub-bosses you'll fight counteless times. Neither chozo soldiers nor Mawkin warriors are fun to fight. Even if I was convinced it was something of the past, the game spams two of them in a small area to create "novelty, challenge" -> this only create a urge to pull-out the cartridge and sell it to the nearest videogame shop.
Upgrades are, I think, the issue I have with this game. There are two types of uprgades: the ones that actually are upgrades that unlock gameplay, and the ones that aren't upgrades. The first one are cool: walking on the wall, running very fast, charging your shots... All this unlocks new possibilities and empowers both the character and the player. The second one are smokescreen that actually change nothing to the game except allowing you to open a door : piercing shots are just shots, stronger missiles are just missiles, ice missiles are just missiles.
All of this is very disturbing considering upgrades are at the core of metroid-vania designs. I mean, when you unlock something in castlevania, you either use it till the very end (i.e : double jump), either you CAN you use it if you want: most of the time, it's a new weapon with a new pattern, which mean you can use it outside of its straight mandatory use of opening a door. Metroid doesn't feature that, which mean skillset strangely appear... Weak, in comparison of a Castlevania. From the begining to the end of Dread, all you do is shooting and walking, which isn't the same in Castlevania. This bother me, because i'm scared i'm in a "I knew Castlevania when I was a kid so I love it and cannot consider it inferior to other things" mood. But I honnestly think castlevania is much more interesting on this point than Metroid is.
This is a much bigger issue than it first seem because here's the catch: why would you lock a door with a key you've unlocked on level 2 (let's say, invisibility) during level 8? There's no point in it: the devs know it, that's why they didn't do so. But this creates the following issue: upgrade are perishable. If the level designer doesn't specifically design a puzzle arround the running ability, then there's no point to run. That's exaclty what happens. As a consequence, the running ability becomes useless since the 4th level is done. This is a pity.
I must also point out what I'll call "lame" upgrades, like "infinite jump, but only on a horizontal line under water when the moon is half and it's 4am". This seems like... Useless. This seems like exactly what it is after i talked to a friend who knows the serie: legacy. Dread is drowned under the serie's legacy: it is too scared of disappointing to try something new. As a matter of fact, it is even too scared of its legacy to try NOT to put somehting in the game. What's the point of infinite jump in an horizontal line under water? None. But if we don't implement it, Jean-Michel-fan-of-Metroid will complain. So we do. This leads to difficult to use mecanics, like infinite jumps you have to time on who knows what (even the game says "you have to execute it on a precise timing" but doesn't tells you what timing it is lol).
So yeah. A very, very good action game. Very difficult too: in fact I think it's too hard as I think nearly all metroid-vanias are too hard and I don't know why we keep setting their difficulty like this. In my opinion, a game that use less smartly and with less diversity it's "action" side compared to Castlevanias. It trades it for horror sequences that are wonderful at the beginning of the game, better plateform sequences and very cool high-speed chase phases.
Not an absolute must have on Switch, but definitly a good pick.
But yeah, musics are disappointing.