Metroid Dread Review — Never truly dead

By David Flynn

Posted on October 11, 2021

The last metroid is dead. The bounty hunter, Samus Aran, exterminated the creatures on planet SR388. However, this had the unintended consequence of allowing the X Parasites to thrive, their only predator being the metroids. Ironically, when Samus is infected by an X the only way to save her life is to infuse her with metroid DNA, making her the only lifeform able to stand against the parasites. After eliminating the X, the galaxy is finally at peace, or so she thought. When footage of a surviving X is found on planet ZDR, the galactic federation sends 7 E.M.M.I. robots to investigate. When they lose contact, however, their only choice is to once again turn to Samus who finds much more than she bargained for upon arrival…

I have a complicated history with the Metroid series. I’ve played quite a few of the games: the original, Super, Prime, and fusion; but I haven’t really enjoyed any of them. Sure, I can see how they’re all excellent in their own rights, but something about them never clicked with me like other Metroidvania, or Search Action, games. After playing through Dread, however, I finally get it. While it has its problems, Metroid Dread has helped me see what makes Samus’ adventures so special.

After being attacked by a mysterious Chozo warrior, Samus is stripped of all her gear (as usual) save for missiles. Standing no chance against this foe even at full strength, the AI ADAM instructs her to make a break for her ship on the surface. Unfortunately, the bounty hunter is deep underground, so you’ll need to get all your stuff back, along with a few new toys, if you want to contend with the creatures of ZDR that stand in your way. As soon as you gain control, Samus feels responsive and quick. Moving with the left analogue stick, jumping with B, and firing blasts with Y all feel great; if there’s anything Nintendo is good at, it’s making the simple act of moving around joyous. It can feel a little awkward to hold L to aim and/or R to activate missiles, but we’ll get deeper into the controls later.

You are mostly free to explore ZDR as you see fit, coming across items and areas you can’t quite get to yet with your current equipment. While there were a few times I got lost, the game is very good at nudging you towards progression by opening up shortcuts. These shortcuts often lead directly to a place you can use an item you just got, like the Phantom Cloak or power bombs, to open a door you passed on your way through earlier. It’s clever design and feels natural to play through, even if the environments can be blend together and be too large for you to navigate without the shortcuts.

Speaking of environments, you’ll explore quite a few on your journey through ZDR. The planet is gigantic, but it feels mostly manageable thanks to teleportals for fast travel and the fact that Samus is so quick on her feet. As mentioned before though, none of them really stand out and I’m already forgetting where things were after finishing the game yesterday as of writing. There’s the grassy underground area, lava area, and rainy area that stick out in my mind, but those are actually at least two different biomes for each description. Having a completion percentage on the map certainly helps for getting all the items, but this brings me to one of the game’s major problems: color choice.

I played through Dread on a standard Switch from around launch, and I can’t help but feel the game was designed for the new OLED model released the same day. The map is very colorful, with each color denoting a specific type of area. However, with all the different colors and transparency levels of markers it’s really difficult to make out specific icons. You can thankfully highlight a specific type by hovering over it and pressing Y, but even with that it’s hard to see much of anything. On the normal HUD as well, any emptied energy tanks turn from bright purple to black which makes it impossible to see your maximum health in some of the darker areas given the background to these elements is also a dark blue. It’s a strange dichotomy when everything but the UI in the game is clear and easy to see.

Metroid Dread’s next issue rears its head when you’ve gained a myriad of abilities. It’s already a bit awkward to hold L, R, and rapidly press Y to fire missiles at bosses, but some go even further. For the grapple beam, you have to hold L and move the left analogue stick to aim, hold ZR to engage the beam, and also hold Y to grapple onto anything. It can get to be a lot, especially in the frantically paced boss fights. As per usual for Nintendo, there are no options or rebinding controls to be found, I’m actually surprised they included a brightness slider. Seeing as Super Metroid in 1994 had rebinding and more, this is just a travesty. If you’re disabled or unable to use complicated inputs very quickly, there’s no way for you to play this game. I say this often, but it bears repeating: if Nintendo claims to make games for everyone, they should actually consider EVERYONE.

Later on in the game, you’ll also come across mandatory quick time events utilizing Samus’ nifty melee counter with the X button. Initially, this is an optional mechanic used to make enemies vulnerable and deliver a finishing blow, but as you progress it becomes more and more necessary with foes that have tons of health and a final boss that requires it to deal damage. It makes some encounters feel much more reliant on memorization than they should be, such as most boss fights. Where it’s used well, however, is with the E.M.M.I. you’ll encounter in certain areas.

There are 7 of them total on ZDR, and they’re where the “dread” comes from because these things are heckin’ scary. They’re completely invincible, will relentlessly chase you down, and can kill you in a single hit. If you are caught however, you have two chances to escape using the counter. The game describes this small window as “virtually impossible” to hit, but over time I could pull it off with decent reliability. Even so, I died very often to the E.M.M.I. and they never failed to make me scared. They get much more powerful over time, with the ability to stun you and see through walls, but I felt there could have been just a bit more done with these foes. I was very satisfied with the encounters, but defeating the last one didn’t really feel like much of a victory, it was more of a “welp, they’re gone now” kind of thing. Maybe if there was a boss fight to cap it off or a collectible for defeating them all it would have felt more complete.

Completion is something I’m still working towards in the game, along with a speed run in the unlockable hard mode since my first playthrough took me exactly 8 hours. Some upgrades are hidden in neat ways that make interesting use of your abilities, but quite a few of them just feel unreasonable, mostly the speed boost blocks. The Shine Spark is now part of the Speed Booster tutorial and some items will require you to really know the ins and outs of the mechanic in such a way that’s just not fun. For example, to reach one upgrade you have to start boosting in another room, jump up a platform, wall jump to change direction, slide under a narrow gap to reach a room where you can actually store the Shine Spark, quickly use a bomb to open the way, then use the spark in morph ball to break the blocks. This is also where the “dread” comes in because there are a ton of collectables like this that are a pain to pull off. Unless you really love this game, which I certainly do, don’t attempt a 100% playthrough more than once.

Metroid Dread Review — Never truly dead

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