Metroid Dread discussion

[Hynad]

TruckOSaurus said:

Wow! What a ride this game was! Brilliant controls and level design. Samus feels like such a badass in this game and she moves like she's on a mission (well... she is....). The bosses were solid and I didn't mind the repeat ones because it felt good to see how much better you got at handling them (with a combination of experience and new abilities). The Flash Shift has got to be my favorite new ability here, it helps make boss fights really dynamic.

I didn't really see the supposed difficulty some people mention. Yes bosses can dispatch you pretty quickly but they allow have very telegraphed moves that can be avoided without too much hassle if you're attentive and outside of bosses and EMMIs I never even came close to dying from regular enemies.

I finished the game in 8h30 with 60% items found so now it's time to go on a hunt for collectible. I might let myself be tempted by the hard mode.

Edit: Also, something has to be said about the quality of the animations, the slide, Samus pushing against wall, the backflip when you counter from morph ball, how she braces herself when changing direction while in speed boost, all top notch!

I am close to the finish line, so I won’t get into spoilers territory just yet. But I have to say that the bosses are definitely a stand out. Sometime I get into a new one and they dispatch me quickly while I try to figure out how to dispatch them and learn their behaviour. Many of them require twitch reactions. But it’s always a matter of adjustment on the player’s part rather than them being unfair or exaggerated (although they can appear as such at first). On the other hand, I think the E.M.M.I.’s are poorly developed and overstay their welcome by how repetitive and uninspired their sequences are and they ultimately mostly break the flow of the game. If they had mixed things up gameplay wise and not have them all play out the same way, that might have worked better. But as it stands, it reinforces how stellar the flow and overall game design of Super is superior to everything else in the series since then. Which is amazing and worrying at the same time, considering the game came out in 1994.

Where Dread comes on top of Super is in the controls and mobility of Samus. Which makes me hope they’ll give the game the Zero Mission treatment: remake it with Samus’s added mobility and abilities while staying true to its level design. That’d be a wish come true for me.

Also: Samus has never looked this baddass. They nailed that as well.

So far, I’d say it’s my favourite since Super, which is no small feat, considering that spot was help by the first Prime game until now.

Last edited by Hynad - on 12 October 2021