I went into this title with low expectations, mainly due to having already played Samus Returns for the 3DS (developed by the same folks at Mercury Steam) which was okay but not as good as the other mainline titles or as AM2R -the fan remake of the same game- and the fact that no official 2D Metroids have ever come close to being as good as Super Metroid 27 years later and I have come to terms with this.
Having finished my first playthrough, I can say this game blew away my expectations.
The best way I can describe Metroid Dread in a short paragraph is it being a cross between Fusion and Super with improved movement and controls.
The controls have been fine-tuned very nicely, they feel precise and responsive. Controlling Samus to do the actions you want is seamless but make no mistake, this is probably the hardest Metroid game out there along with Fusion but it manages to accomplish this for the right reasons.
The new combat options Samus has in her arsenal are very fun and are implemented very well, out of all of them my favorite has to be the 'Flash Shift' which is basically a dash à la Doom Eternal but you can do multiple in a row; you will need to take advantage of this movement option for some boss fights and puzzles. This ability and some other are balanced by the Aeion bar (brought back from Samus Returns but implemented way better here), the bar auto-recharges over the span of 2 seconds or so which don't deter you from using them but it's just enough for you not to spam them in boss battles (which will get you killed anyway).
Speaking of boss fights, that's the main thing along with E.M.M.I. -which I will go into later- that makes this game more challenging than the other titles in the franchise. The boss fights all feel fair and are the best out of any Metroid game out there by far, I found some of them very creative and they demand the use of your powers and new movement options, I also liked the fact that you usually have multiple options to defeat a boss while keeping the high difficulty which is not an easy thing to accomplish.
My only complaint with the bosses is how you fight some of them multiple times (I'm talking 4 or 5) but at least they are fun, well-designed boss fights.
E.M.M.I. is what SA-X wanted to be but at the end failed to, my problems with SA-X stem from the fact that it was way too easy to escape from it and all the encounters felt very scripted in nature (because they were) so you didn’t feel any fear at all. Here on the other hand, encounters with E.M.M.I. make you genuinely fear for your life and there are many moments in which you will manage to barely escape from them which feels very good given the non-scripted nature of these encounters.
Added to your arsenal is the 'Phantom Cloak' which lets you turn invisible for a limited amount of time at the cost of limiting your movement and Aeion (or energy after Aeion runs out), this comes handy in E.M.M.I. encounters. All of these things make for the E.M.M.I. encounters to be a very welcomed addition while not hindering exploration as they are limited to E.M.M.I. zones.
The only bad thing about the E.M.M.I. being limited to these zones is that you kind of know when to expect them and as such they are not very scary outside of these zones; that is to say, you won't have the feeling of dread in the back of your mind while exploring the other parts of the map. This is a good compromise to make exploration fun if you ask me, it strikes a good balance between a survival horror and a metroidvania.
Now that I have talked about the best this game has to offer, I will go for the things that while good I thought could be improved.
The map design in this game is superb for the most part. Most areas are interconnected which is something I like but something I don't like so much is the way these are interconnected -by elevators, teleport stations and shuttles- which I know is very much a Metroid thing but I wish there was an exception or two -like the magic feeling of going from Brinstar to Maridia in Super for example-, other than that I feel the map design was mostly good but for some exceptions.
Those exceptions are 'closed doors' and 'thermal doors'. The 'closed doors' should have been called 'walls' because there's no way to go through them unless you progress in the game, this would be fine if they required an upgrade or something but just shutting them down feels like a cheap way of accomplishing things.
I'm also not very keen on the thermal doors spread throughout the beginning of the game -where you are forced to redirect thermal energy in order to open them- but at least they are only overused in the beginning of the game, probably to make the game more accessible and direct new players in the correct direction. This is pretty much the only hand-holding this game has and it’s done in a tasteful way instead of an AI pointing to the exact location you need to go; it’s only for the beginning so it’s not too bad.
The soundtrack is very ambient and sets the mood very nicely for the inhospitable World of ZDR but it also feels kinda underwhelming at times, not bad by any means but I cannot think of many tracks that stick out after beating the game other than 'meeting with Quiet Robe'.
I feel the atmosphere was just right, the film grain in the E.M.M.I. zones was done masterfully and the backgrounds were a big step up from Samus Returns, not nearly as much seems copy-pasted. I also really like how some areas have very muted colors, they really transmit the feeling of Samus not belonging there perfectly.
Because this is a Switch game I feel the need to mention this as well: the framerate; an important aspect of the game considering its difficulty and fast-paced nature. The framerate aims for 60FPS and it almost always delivers it, it only drops at times but it doesn't hinder the experience in any critical way because the drops are not massive; it’s not NGII on the 360 is what I’m trying to say.
On another note, I don't really get all the complaints about this game being linear, just barely a week has passed since the game's release and many sequence breaks -some seem intended, some others unintended- have been discovered (you can even skip the Drogyga boss fight lmao).
This is my 2nd favorite 2D Metroid after Super and has become one of my favorite games, I will see if that opinion changes on subsequent playthroughs but I doubt so.
Now onto Hard 100%! :)
Having finished my first playthrough, I can say this game blew away my expectations.
The best way I can describe Metroid Dread in a short paragraph is it being a cross between Fusion and Super with improved movement and controls.
The controls have been fine-tuned very nicely, they feel precise and responsive. Controlling Samus to do the actions you want is seamless but make no mistake, this is probably the hardest Metroid game out there along with Fusion but it manages to accomplish this for the right reasons.
The new combat options Samus has in her arsenal are very fun and are implemented very well, out of all of them my favorite has to be the 'Flash Shift' which is basically a dash à la Doom Eternal but you can do multiple in a row; you will need to take advantage of this movement option for some boss fights and puzzles. This ability and some other are balanced by the Aeion bar (brought back from Samus Returns but implemented way better here), the bar auto-recharges over the span of 2 seconds or so which don't deter you from using them but it's just enough for you not to spam them in boss battles (which will get you killed anyway).
Speaking of boss fights, that's the main thing along with E.M.M.I. -which I will go into later- that makes this game more challenging than the other titles in the franchise. The boss fights all feel fair and are the best out of any Metroid game out there by far, I found some of them very creative and they demand the use of your powers and new movement options, I also liked the fact that you usually have multiple options to defeat a boss while keeping the high difficulty which is not an easy thing to accomplish.
My only complaint with the bosses is how you fight some of them multiple times (I'm talking 4 or 5) but at least they are fun, well-designed boss fights.
E.M.M.I. is what SA-X wanted to be but at the end failed to, my problems with SA-X stem from the fact that it was way too easy to escape from it and all the encounters felt very scripted in nature (because they were) so you didn’t feel any fear at all. Here on the other hand, encounters with E.M.M.I. make you genuinely fear for your life and there are many moments in which you will manage to barely escape from them which feels very good given the non-scripted nature of these encounters.
Added to your arsenal is the 'Phantom Cloak' which lets you turn invisible for a limited amount of time at the cost of limiting your movement and Aeion (or energy after Aeion runs out), this comes handy in E.M.M.I. encounters. All of these things make for the E.M.M.I. encounters to be a very welcomed addition while not hindering exploration as they are limited to E.M.M.I. zones.
The only bad thing about the E.M.M.I. being limited to these zones is that you kind of know when to expect them and as such they are not very scary outside of these zones; that is to say, you won't have the feeling of dread in the back of your mind while exploring the other parts of the map. This is a good compromise to make exploration fun if you ask me, it strikes a good balance between a survival horror and a metroidvania.
Now that I have talked about the best this game has to offer, I will go for the things that while good I thought could be improved.
The map design in this game is superb for the most part. Most areas are interconnected which is something I like but something I don't like so much is the way these are interconnected -by elevators, teleport stations and shuttles- which I know is very much a Metroid thing but I wish there was an exception or two -like the magic feeling of going from Brinstar to Maridia in Super for example-, other than that I feel the map design was mostly good but for some exceptions.
Those exceptions are 'closed doors' and 'thermal doors'. The 'closed doors' should have been called 'walls' because there's no way to go through them unless you progress in the game, this would be fine if they required an upgrade or something but just shutting them down feels like a cheap way of accomplishing things.
I'm also not very keen on the thermal doors spread throughout the beginning of the game -where you are forced to redirect thermal energy in order to open them- but at least they are only overused in the beginning of the game, probably to make the game more accessible and direct new players in the correct direction. This is pretty much the only hand-holding this game has and it’s done in a tasteful way instead of an AI pointing to the exact location you need to go; it’s only for the beginning so it’s not too bad.
The soundtrack is very ambient and sets the mood very nicely for the inhospitable World of ZDR but it also feels kinda underwhelming at times, not bad by any means but I cannot think of many tracks that stick out after beating the game other than 'meeting with Quiet Robe'.
I feel the atmosphere was just right, the film grain in the E.M.M.I. zones was done masterfully and the backgrounds were a big step up from Samus Returns, not nearly as much seems copy-pasted. I also really like how some areas have very muted colors, they really transmit the feeling of Samus not belonging there perfectly.
Because this is a Switch game I feel the need to mention this as well: the framerate; an important aspect of the game considering its difficulty and fast-paced nature. The framerate aims for 60FPS and it almost always delivers it, it only drops at times but it doesn't hinder the experience in any critical way because the drops are not massive; it’s not NGII on the 360 is what I’m trying to say.
On another note, I don't really get all the complaints about this game being linear, just barely a week has passed since the game's release and many sequence breaks -some seem intended, some others unintended- have been discovered (you can even skip the Drogyga boss fight lmao).
This is my 2nd favorite 2D Metroid after Super and has become one of my favorite games, I will see if that opinion changes on subsequent playthroughs but I doubt so.
Now onto Hard 100%! :)