Yeah, you just need to hold the button and then aim when it's already charged. Is actually pretty easy.

I did the early Grapple Beam / Bombs sequence break on my Hard playthrough and I've got to say

23 hours in

I'm having a hard time finding hidden items, or to even manage to get trough Speed challenges, I guess I will stop and challenge the final boss

So far backtracking is somewhat the worst part in an otherwise terrific game, I'm giving it an big 9/10 regardless of the final boss

There's a Speed challenge at the top of Cataris that took me a good 20 minutes.

Oh that's nothing. There's a speed challenge in a hidden area in Burenia that took me close to 40 minutes because I didn't want to look up how to do it. You can chain shinesparks. Discovering that was really cool.

Well, that does help a lot, and I'll see how I fight with the rematch I hear is waiting in Burenia. (Yes, I looked it up, wanted to know what I was in for haha)

Difficulty is almost always relative; what's easy for one person might be very difficult for another. Due to my autism I have a mild fine motor control impediment so I find demanding games more difficult than more dextrous folks, mostly stuff that requires a lot of precision at high speed or under pressure.

Welp I was walking through Walmart yesterday and remembered that they sell all Switch games for only $50, and since I'm passing through Oregon (no sales tax) I was like hmmm I can get Metroid now for $49.94 physical instead of having to wait a year or two for a decent discount to like $40 on the digital version, so I just picked it up on a whim.

Only an hour in but good so far. I am actually very surprised that I do in fact feel the Dread! Whenever I'm in an EMMI zone I'm freakin out and get all tense. Didn't think that would actually happen. So good job Nintendo. Cool so far, but I do miss the old school style of lots of platforms with enemies walking in loops around them - just feels a bit less like classic Metroid. The slide and targeting and counter attack are all nice. Great atmosphere. I like the no hand-holding approach how you just gotta figure everything out on your own. Died a bunch on EMMIs already.

Finished my hard mode playtrough with 100% in 12 hours, one hour faster than normal mode with 70% of the items.
Beat the final boss first try.
Starting another run, can't get enough.
Gonna replay Super Metroid after that then.

I'm still on my first run. No idea how much is left. I only have 40% of the items, and have played for 7.5 hours. I realize I'm really slow and not very good at this game, but I cannot get enough. I'm not even a diehard Metroid fan, but I freaking love this game. Definitely my favourite game to come out this year.

I just read Guardian's recent review of Dread, and felt like it was a bit harsh. It is all subjective I know, but the last line was like "I left Dread feeling like Metroid's legacy are the games it inspires rather than the games themselves." I think this reviewer played a different game.

Try as I might I could never get into 2D Metroid before, but this one has me absolutely hooked. The combat, exploration, and upgrade loop is like a constant dripfeed of pure dopamine. Tonight I fight Experiment Z-57; nervous as hell as the boss fights so far have almost all pushed me to my limits, but I've come this far, I won't give up without a fight.