19 Years Later - Metroid Dread pt.1 (2021-10-11)

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Jerp

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Published on October 31, 2021 5:00:23 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kj6HFd03LO8

Game:

Metroid Dread (2021)

Duration: 5:38:35

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So it’s been something like 19 years and Metroid Dread finally happened and I’ve been eager to check it out. Outside of the initial trailer stuff, I’ve been able to avoid spoilers. I did hear that the game is comparable to Super Metroid, so I was optimistic on the way in.

After the game started with a few text dumps to get people up to speed, there was a surprisingly quick jump to fighting an unknown Chozo warrior to kick off the story and de-power Samus. For a moment I was a bit confused about what I was even looking at - if you’re not paying close attention to Samus’ suit, you won’t immediately notice that the intro cinematic skips forward/back in time a bit.

Overall the game feels pretty good to play, though I loathe needing the left analog stick for movement. I'd rather lose the ability for precise aiming and use the dpad for movement. The map/etc. and abilities are on the cardinal directions and wouldn’t feel too out of place with being controlled via analog stick. My later sessions left me feeling like part of the control layout for the game is some direction to use as much of the controller as possible.

The EMMI units so far have been pretty solid - they do a great job of keeping you on your toes, although I will admit I wish they patrolled a larger amount of the map rather than limited zones. Considering how the zones are handled overall (EMMI navigates those areas despite being off-screen, and minimal, simple enemies until the EMMI is defeated), I kind of wonder if it would be a technical limitation where the EMMI units would be too CPU intensive to pathfind through the entirety of each zone. The Central Units are a cool touch too, being basically Tourian-esque mini-Mother-Brain fights, though I do wish they got more elaborate and more Tourian-like with each subsequent EMMI.

Having the Morph Ball so late was quite an interesting decision. I think to some degree it’s trying to tell the player that it’s a significantly different Metroid game and not to expect a lot of the same stuff. I think there was also the intent to make acquiring the Morph Ball feel like it greatly expanded your movement options rather than something you took for granted. Of course, not having the Morph Ball for so long also gave the player a ton of time to get familiar with the Slide ability as well.

It was interesting to see Kraid show up - while I found out later that the Chozo (at least the Mawkin tribe) had captured him, I’d like to know more of how Kraid got to ZDR in the first place. The fight was a pretty strong reminder of how generic the majority of the music in the game is. I think I would have been super pleased if there was a remix of the Super Metroid Kraid fight music, but I think there could have been a completely different track that would’ve been fine as well. The Kaid fight was also a great example of how generic and underwhelming most of the sound design has been as well - there’s a pretty awful-sounding bird screech whenever you damage Kraid and none of the large, menacing dragon sound from Super Metroid (which, to be fair, is a somewhat copy/paste sound, but at least a decent choice).

At the end of this first session I’m really feeling the huge restrictions put on exploration. The game feels like Fusion except you’re allowed to turn around and get lost rather than be fully railroaded into a single path. It’s easy to miss Beam Blocks or Pitfall Blocks, leave a room, and then end up browsing most of the rest of the world to only get a couple of missile packs before you figure out what the game wants. Super Metroid and the other games did a better job of either making the breakable blocks obvious (being a different tile or having cracks/damage on those tiles, etc.), or preventing you from leaving the room or getting too far away.

Dread is strangely inconsistent here - some rooms just flat out prevent you from leaving (especially Chozo statues with abilities), but others will let you leave even if there’s nothing to do. While I later found that there’s some decent sequence breaks at least after the first hour or two, it sucks to have so many opportunities to waste time with exploration yielding no real fruit on a first playthrough.

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