• Completed in about 8 hours without aiming 100%
  • Timer in-game does not appear to account for deaths
  • So we're probably more about the 10 hours of play!
  • Metroid / its GBA remake, Metroid: Zero Mission
  • Metroid Prime
  • Metroid Prime Hunters
  • Metroid Prime 2: Echoes
  • Metroid Prime 3: Corruption
  • Metroid Prime: Federation Force
  • Metroid II: Return of Samus / its remake 3DS, Metroid: Samus Returns
  • Super Metroid
  • Metroid: Other M
  • Metroid Fusion
  • Metroid Dread

Samus is back and the least we can say is that the bounty hunter knows how to be desired. Metroid Dread continues the history of Metroid Fusion... released in November 2002 in Europe! So it took all this time to know the rest of his adventures. The MercurySteam studio, known for its good work on Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. The Spaniards were already in the hands of Metroid: Samus Returns in 2017, the only episode of the saga on which I never laid my hands. Drafted by Super Metroid in 1994 and further defined by Castlevania: Symphony of the Night 1997 Metroid Dread Does it fit into the established formula of metroidvania? Answer below.

The Samus cruise

It all starts when the Galactic Federation receives a video showing the existence of X parasites on planet ZDR. These damn crippled bugs in Metroid Fusion are able to imitate to the perfection of other organisms. Think Metamorph. EMMIs – for Interplanetary Multiform Mobile Explorers According to Le Petit Robert – are then deployed to investigate. The contact with the machines is quickly lost, forcing Samus Aran to go to the hostile star to restore the situation. Problem: these almost invincible robots are now determined to track it at all costs. So here is the pitch of the start of the game whose frame lets itself be appreciated in the absence of a strong point.

The reunions with Samus are grim. The young woman is lively, reactive and can draw laser rays at 360 degrees. His jumps are precise and instinctively calibrate in full flight, offering a touch of additional precision welcome during the more platform oriented phases. The noises also fly. The power of the heroin canon arm is felt up to its smallest plasma particle and the enemies volatilize in explosive sheaves of the most beautiful effect. With regard to wildlife, there may be some classicism in the overall bestiary. Indeed dragonflies, fish, reptiles and other animals give us the impression of having seen them elsewhere, the peak for such a distant planet. Same observation for the combination skills all or almost already seen in the previous parts of the series.

Technically the balance sheet is flattering! Metroid Dread is fluid most of the time despite some rare decreases in fluidity here, especially during journeys between biomes. Moreover, cutscenes during these hidden loads are chically achieved. In terms of artistic direction now, it is clearly the cold palette that dominates. If the fears of an opus with a more clinical visual style prove to be well-founded, we can rest assured of the coherence of the whole. With hindsight, I do not remember that said any particular framework, the fault perhaps to certain a classicism in the arrangement of levels.

EMMI without family

This icy atmosphere mentioned above is not innocent. It serves as a catalyst for the desired anxiogenic and claustrophobic atmosphere of the title. EMMI killer robots continue to hunt Samus in some well-defined territories and enter into contact with one of these mechanical creatures causes a game over Almost instant. You get that said from a hope of getting out of it if you successfully realize a QTE. The deliberately arduous timing of the manoeuvre, however, makes a good execution rather unlikely. These moments create peaks of difficulty, albeit largely surmountable but devilishly frustrating. It's that Metroid Dread benefits from such a fluid progression that EMMIs make even more grain of sand in a perfectly oiled gear. So you'll be advised not to get angry and be patient about these piles of scrap. These live encounters would have gained to be more permissive, if not more scripted. The emphasis could then have been put more on the feeling of oppression, through a better-worked staging, as was so well known Excellent Metroid Fusion. Here, past the surprise of the first EMMI, the routine settles down and the stress gives way mainly to impatience and annoyance.

If there is one point on which Spanish developers have a lot of talent to resell, it is the intensity of fighting against bosses. You really feel the legacy of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow in the impacts! All of which have several phases and each representing one challenge Full but fair, these monsters, often gigantic, will be able to give you a twist. And what a joy to play a Nintendo license in which enemies resist us or even confront us about fifteen times on the end screen. Special mention to the fierce final confrontation, exhausting but so satisfying. The difficulty outside EMMI is cleverly measured and only the bosses will push you to exploit all the subtleties of the gameplay, from the counter-attack to the spinning spin and passing. No question here to force to defeat, you will have to use your sense of observation under penalty of seeing your reserves of life melt like snow in the sun. A treat.

« How is it not fresh, my Aran? »

The player is constantly mobilized by the gameplay, sometimes to the point of tangle the brushes for some manipulations that require to press multiple buttons. I am thinking specifically of the control of the grapple, the only one that proves to be quite imprecise for as little as one jumps simultaneously, and some approximate hooks to the cornices. Let's talk about exploration now! This one regularly confronts us with environmental puzzles, some of which can be solved immediately and others which need to be postponed to a later date, for lack of the capacity adapted to the first passage. In this case one can pin a thumbnail on the map, a practical mnemonic medium to remember nothing. We unlock the upgrades at a sustained pace and witness the transformation of Samus into a space warrior always has its small effect. Unfortunately the teleporters are too far away from each other and are not all interconnected. When the next end of the journey is seen, we refuse to finish searching the universe, because of areas made therefore too time consuming to cross and because of a carrot not attractive enough to throw body and soul into a quest « Completionist ». The concern also arises during the rest of the adventure because of the areas guarded by the EMMIs, so inflating that it comes to resigning itself to cross them in order to get this reserve of missile that had been spotted and set aside for later.

In short, it is a strange emotion that leaves us with the level design of the Metroid Dread who recited his lesson of the perfect metroidvania for an undeniable effect with brilliance but too schoolly best-of. If the fluidity of experience is likely to be a strength for a majority of people, it will certainly be a weakness for the regulars, I'm hearing those who like to get lost and then better appropriate their environment. Dark Souls and Hollow Knight embody good examples of an "active exploration" of a world. In the masterpiece of From Software, the absence of map forces us to design our own mental mapping, with all that contains personal landmarks and imaginary boundaries, making it unique. There are so many Dark Souls All players. In the title of Team Cherrry, it is getting a map to a NPC that eventually tempers our navigation on sight. All this to say that even if the Metroid Dread brush us in the direction of the hair, it has the undesirable effect of never really mobilizing our sense of orientation so that satisfaction turns out superficial because not deserved, as if the game feared to lose us. To make short one never feels personally invested in a mission, the one that makes us delay the moment to go to bed to find the reserve of energy or missiles that will make the difference.

A concrete example of this philosophy, which holds its hand without saying it, lies in a silly detail: a few powers to unlock are only used in a handful of places. This is an artifice of game design Basic enough to guide the player, in contrast to a Castlevania: Symphony of the Night or Metroid Prime in which the discovery of a new skill meant potential access to many new places or upgrades, or even a new road that eventually only reached a temporarily blocked exit, prompting us to turn back to deepen our tracks. This will never happen to you in Metroid Dread. One feels catapulted like a ball in a closed circuit instead of having the intoxicating sensation of evolving in semi-free electron in an organic hive with multiple secrets, as could be the case in Metroid Prime or Super Metroid To name but a few.

Verdict

Is Metroid Dread a good game? Definitely. A good methroidvania? Sure. But for a cult saga celebrating its eleventh episode without counting remakes and spin-offs, were we not entitled to expect more news? Effective without being inventive, hardcore in its action but casual in its exploration, Metroid Dread enchants without transcending. If the title shines with its tedious jousts against raging bosses, the beautiful tension generated falls back like a bellow during encounters with EMMIS, the equivalent of a heart attack on the electrocardiogram of the progression. As for exploration, it is too agreed to be truly rewarding. One slides on his driving wire according to the gameplay pirouettes, without ever feeling involved more than rigour in the discovery of this extraterrestrial clinical territory and too little organic to take relief in the spirit of the player. Some will say that it is in the old pots that we make the best recipes, others will say that we must not rest on his laurels. With Metroid Dread, MercurySteam and Nintendo add a modest and school-based stone to the metroidvania building that the series itself helped build. In such a competitive genre, however, there is room for doubt that the only quiet force is sufficient. At the time of the stocktaking, one emerges from the experience with a smile but with less memories than one would have hoped.
For
  • Battles of arduous boss, haletants and well staged
  • A fluid progression pattern...
  • Effective exploration...
  • A rather varied DA...
  • A potato of every moment
  • A gameplay mobilising
Against
  • Teleportation not permissive enough
  • ... mistreated during meetings with EMMIs
  • ... but agreed and with visible strings
  • ...but far from being memorable
  • Repeated confrontations during the last third
  • Musics that do the job but no more
  • The bestiary in half tint

Permanent resident in the small town of Raccoon City and proselyte of the genius Rain World Since 2017, he is sometimes heard swearing to full lungs when he loses lamentably in front of the monkey of Sekiro To a lemming hair. In search of a 3080 for almost a year, the unfortunate man hopes to receive his order in 2022: the important thing is to believe it! His favorite TOC? Identify in a PDF all the games he played in his life.

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Nosphor68
Nosphor68
4 years

I understand « half-deception » from Ummagumma on Metroid Dread, be careful it remains a good game to do in the absolute especially on Switch where there is also not 36000 excluded Nintendo at the end of the year (and then the world of Metroid it remains a must whatever we think, we would like Nintendo to do +!!!).
Hard to reinvent the wheel when we've had tons of MetroidVania released in recent years.

Since on MaG you don't notice the games, I put a 7/10 as a GOOD game without being extraordinary.

Bravo for this review Ummagumma 👍😎🎮🥳🤩

Nosphor68
Nosphor68
4 years
Answer to Ummagumma

It is true that the music on Metroid Dread is not significant compared to the old Metroid, on the other hand, the sound effects in the phases of Gameplay are generally successful. Ever since I got the OLED Switch a short time ago, the Sono in portable mode (without helmets) has had a big step and that's really a big + not negligible.

Concerning Metroid Prime 4....... In my opinion it won't be until a new generation of Switch (thank you Covid and the internal worries at Nintendo since they started the project again at 0.1.)

I always expect a new F-Zero......... 😭😭😭🎮🎮🎮😩😩😩

KillerS7ven
Administrator
4 years

Arlesian F zero... I stopped hoping for each E3. It will probably come but not immediately in my opinion or at the end of console life to cushion the risk. What a shame, there would be so much to do. Even a remake with a serious history mode and an on Line, ranking trackmania way would do the job very well!

Otherwise excellent test that traces very well the history of the Metroid series. Too bad about the music, but boss's fights are a huge urge.

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