ok. metroid dread's primary failing is being very much a metroid game and all the obvious stuff that implies, such that ai companion adam knows samus will be able to find the gravity suit she needs to navigate a certain area, and that type of thing. on this alien (robot) planet she's never visited before. because, of course, there are chozo ruins there (oh, right—this one might be their original homeworld), and with that comes all the tech samus needs for every mission...? i guess? it's just a bit convenient, is all. maybe they could've gone for some new ideas with regard to power-ups we've seen many times before, for the sake of a believable and verisimilitudinous world. at least they, uh, shook things up slightly by delaying the morph ball.
that said... one kind of interesting detail which i find somewhat (if not entirely) mitigates the above quibble is the nature of samus and her suit's uncanny ability to 'absorb' functions. some have scoffed at the concept of missile-firing capabilities being downloaded in fusion: in dread, she literally absorbs the energy from fallen enemies, sometimes as actual glowing energy and others in the form of some mechanical cube found within its body—or in the palm of a huge chozo statue. perhaps, along with the power suit's tendency to have its appearance altered, unlocking new functions through the interpretation of computer data speaks to the suit being some sort of crazy chozo biotech. as if the suit is no mere armor or robotic apparatus: it is energy. a legendary chozo weapon in symbiosis with samus aran's body. and we've seen samus simply absorb energy in every metroid, whether as far back as the final battle of super metroid or the very first time she picked up a lingering mote of energy from a dead creature on zebes. it all goes some way toward making some sense of the ebb and flow of samus' 'powers' (and therefore her freedom and autonomy) game to game. and if you ask me, the answer to the old question about how the morph ball works would be that samus' own physical matter is temporarily rearranged on a subatomic level, or something—as if being teleported, though remaining inside the spherical form of the suit. (i'm no physicist and it's probably better not to overthink the suit's capability to modify its own mass-energy, let alone samus'—it clearly has its limitations. it's fun to develop some kind of loose headcanon about it, though.)
beyond that... whether this understanding of the power suit began with super or with fusion, i feel it comes to a climax with dread. and i would say that this is its primary triumph. samus feels amazing: faster than ever before; also somehow more... real. iconic as ever. white-knuckle, treasure-tight boss fights really let you feel the power of unreal agility and furious blasting. the game also looks and sounds fantastic! animations in particular are a real highlight. there's worldbuilding stuff and foreshadowing all over the place. the backgrounds (beyond the 2d plane upon which you travel) alone are wild. i used to be skeptical of the whole 2.5d thing as a fit for metroid, but even if this is the last one, it's one of the prettiest.
having played a bunch of metroid recently, i'm still inclined to point to super as my personal favorite—above all, i like its mysterious openness more than the task-driven style of the rest. really, though, between return of samus, super, fusion, and now dread, you've got a handful of excellent space horror adventures with an awesome protagonist. right now i'm just glad for the opportunity to spend some time in samus' power suit once more, and i feel this was a very satisfying metroid 5.
that said... one kind of interesting detail which i find somewhat (if not entirely) mitigates the above quibble is the nature of samus and her suit's uncanny ability to 'absorb' functions. some have scoffed at the concept of missile-firing capabilities being downloaded in fusion: in dread, she literally absorbs the energy from fallen enemies, sometimes as actual glowing energy and others in the form of some mechanical cube found within its body—or in the palm of a huge chozo statue. perhaps, along with the power suit's tendency to have its appearance altered, unlocking new functions through the interpretation of computer data speaks to the suit being some sort of crazy chozo biotech. as if the suit is no mere armor or robotic apparatus: it is energy. a legendary chozo weapon in symbiosis with samus aran's body. and we've seen samus simply absorb energy in every metroid, whether as far back as the final battle of super metroid or the very first time she picked up a lingering mote of energy from a dead creature on zebes. it all goes some way toward making some sense of the ebb and flow of samus' 'powers' (and therefore her freedom and autonomy) game to game. and if you ask me, the answer to the old question about how the morph ball works would be that samus' own physical matter is temporarily rearranged on a subatomic level, or something—as if being teleported, though remaining inside the spherical form of the suit. (i'm no physicist and it's probably better not to overthink the suit's capability to modify its own mass-energy, let alone samus'—it clearly has its limitations. it's fun to develop some kind of loose headcanon about it, though.)
beyond that... whether this understanding of the power suit began with super or with fusion, i feel it comes to a climax with dread. and i would say that this is its primary triumph. samus feels amazing: faster than ever before; also somehow more... real. iconic as ever. white-knuckle, treasure-tight boss fights really let you feel the power of unreal agility and furious blasting. the game also looks and sounds fantastic! animations in particular are a real highlight. there's worldbuilding stuff and foreshadowing all over the place. the backgrounds (beyond the 2d plane upon which you travel) alone are wild. i used to be skeptical of the whole 2.5d thing as a fit for metroid, but even if this is the last one, it's one of the prettiest.
having played a bunch of metroid recently, i'm still inclined to point to super as my personal favorite—above all, i like its mysterious openness more than the task-driven style of the rest. really, though, between return of samus, super, fusion, and now dread, you've got a handful of excellent space horror adventures with an awesome protagonist. right now i'm just glad for the opportunity to spend some time in samus' power suit once more, and i feel this was a very satisfying metroid 5.