Before We Begin
Please be good please be good please be good please be good please be good
Observations
In my review of Samus Returns, I noted some issues that held it back from being a truly great Metroid game. Dread is by MercurySteam, the same developer as Samus Returns, so it seems fair to compare the two. Let’s put together an inventory of my issues with their previous effort:
- Visuals with little character apart from the backgrounds
- Subworlds that don’t distinguish themselves from each other
- Restrictive environments packed with Morph Ball corridors
- Overreliance on counters, slowing down movement
- Bullet sponge enemies, again slowing down movement
- Overstays its welcome
- So-so Aeion abilities that have to be swapped out each time, with an energy gauge that’s painful to replenish
When I saw the Metroid Dread reveal, I was conflicted. The first original 2D Metroid game in almost 20 years was officially billing itself as Metroid 5, which meant a direct sequel to Fusion. And yet, the visual style showed it was clearly by the same developers as Samus Returns. This could mean another game that, while fun, was a little tedious to play and ultimately didn’t feel quite like the series we all knew and loved.
I’m happy to say Metroid Dread fixes all those issues. Mostly. Kind of. It’s…it’s complicated.
My biggest gripe with the MercurySteam games continues to be the visuals. Dread looks sharp, and clean, and entirely devoid of the griminess that used to be typical of a Metroid game. If this were any other franchise, I don’t think I would have many complaints. The backgrounds are gorgeous, and frequently feature the critters of ZDR (the planet you’re stranded on this time) moving around or even reacting to Samus as she moves by. There’s even an underwater segment where you can see a bunch of giant fish lurking in the distance, which was one of the only sections to genuinely unsettle me.
Aside from the backgrounds, however, Dread completely fails to establish any sense of atmosphere. Foregrounds continue to be black boxes outlined in either soil or dirt. For example:
Compare that to the things Super Metroid does with its ground textures:
It seems like a small thing, but seeing nothing but black boxes for several hours starts to make it feel sterile, like you’re playing through a pre-release version that still needs the finishing touches put on.
In addition to this problem, or maybe partly because of it, the various subsections of ZDR rarely distinguish themselves from each other in meaningful ways. It’s certainly better than Samus Returns, but there are only a few areas with a memorable look to them, and from a gameplay standpoint, only the depths of Burenia and the magma pools of Cataris actually mean anything. All other areas, to my memory, are functionally the same.
The level design also has the same scattered feel as Samus Returns. In previous Metroid games, the platform placement made a weird kind of sense, and you could kind of buy that you were wandering through an actual alien world. In Dread, it feels like the developers placed random platforms and obstacles just for the player to have something to do. It always feels like you’re uncovering secrets that were placed there specifically for Samus to find, rather than areas and items that had been lost in the depths of an unknown planet.
The enemies, too, are a letdown. Again, this is an issue that really only affects the atmosphere, because they get the job done from a gameplay perspective. Many of the standard mobs behave similarly to enemies from previous games, but they have much less personality this time around, possibly because of the less cartoonish look MercurySteam is trying to pull off. This isn’t true of the (fantastic) bosses, which I’ll get to later, but the standard enemies are mostly forgettable.
This is also sadly true of the EMMIs, the entire reason we’re here right now. Their movement is unsettling, taking a human form and contorting it into positions that aren’t normally possible. Their design is, again, less than inspiring. It’s pretty much just the same metal plating in seven different colors. For robots that have been investigating a dangerous enemy on an unknown planet, they’re in pristine condition. Maybe it was meant to make them seem scarier – such a predatory force that even the creatures of ZDR can’t damage them – but since EMMIs are so easy to take down in the grand scheme of things, it just makes the player feel like there’s nothing to be apprehensive about going forward.
In short, MercurySteam took a Metroid game, a game where the entire point is running from killer robots, a game literally called Dread, and sucked all semblance of creepiness out of it.
Things are much better on the gameplay front, however. The world is still not as open-feeling as I’d like, but you’re not constantly going into Morph Ball mode here like you had to do in Samus Returns. The addition of extra buttons also means you don’t have to press down twice when you do – instead, you just need to slide into a corridor and Samus will automatically curl up when she starts to slow down.
Movement in general is fun as hell. You move much faster than in Samus Returns. Samus has more tricks at her disposal, and counters are no longer an absolute must when you’re up against the mobs. When you do counter, you can do it while moving, and in fact you get an extra-powerful counter for doing so. You never have to wait for an enemy to attack – often they’ll do it before you can think to react. Bullet sponges are almost entirely absent aside from bosses (and those never overstay their welcome). MercurySteam clearly made a conscious effort to keep Dread from feeling like a constant red-light-green-light exercise, and despite the issues I still have, it’s a vastly improved game from Samus Returns because of it.
About those bosses. This game’s marketing focuses on the EMMIs, but the bosses are the real stars of the show. They’ll put you through your paces perhaps more than any other Metroid game. I think my final death counter was just under 60, and even for me, that’s unusual. The brilliant thing about them, though, is that they never feel unfair. MercurySteam has done a fantastic job of balancing them so they’ll take you out easily if you’re unfamiliar with them, but their patterns are very learnable. Every attack is avoidable (although a small handful do feel a little too precise).
The game also isn’t punishing beyond reason. It’s easy to die, but unlike in previous Metroid games, there’s not a lot of catching up to do when it happens. You almost always restart at a recent room, which means bosses come down more to repetition than to conserving enough energy on the way there. I say I don’t like hard games, but when it’s handled like this, they can actually be really satisfying (speaking as someone who loved Devil May Cry 3 on gold mode).
I’m of two minds on the story. This is the lore-heavy Metroid I’ve always wanted, but the way it’s delivered is less than elegant. Some of the exposition dumps feel like the kinds of things you’d find in BioShock audio logs, except they take place in real-time conversations. One of the final twists is…ugh. It feels like a conclusion to the five-game saga that last continued in Fusion, but it doesn’t quite satisfy in that regard.
We do get a very cool moment where Samus starts speaking in Chozo, and I was leagues happier with the voice acting than in Breath of the Wild or Fire Emblem: Three Houses. I also have to give a shout-out to the animators, because Samus is characterized fantastically well in Dread. She grips the wall and points her gun through Morph Ball tubes when you run into a dead end. She does kickflips when you string together the right moves. Best of all, she has a cockiness when facing down bosses that’s conveyed without her even speaking. Samus in Dread is exactly the way I’ve always pictured her, freed from the limitations of pixels.
Conclusion
It does a lot well. It does some things not-so-well. It doesn’t feel like the leap forward that Breath of the Wild and Super Mario Odyssey were for their respective series, even if it’s damn fun to play.
I think my biggest problem with Dread is that, after almost 20 years, I still feel that Super Metroid and the GBA games are the definitive 2D Metroid experiences. The Metroidvania genre has evolved a lot in the time since Fusion, and MercurySteam was right to pull from some of the best new ideas. But it doesn’t seem to understand what made a Metroid game feel like a Metroid game all those years ago.
Given the choice between Dread and another 17-year drought, I’ll happily choose Dread. It’s a blast, and I have no doubt I’ll revisit it soon. But…man, do I miss the old days.
Mister Binger 