Metroid Dread

[hatlock]

This game excels in giving you a huge arsenal and set of moves and also tons of situations to use (and master) them in. It also trades some of the open-endedness of Super with tons of environmental and ecological changes to ZDR (where the game is set). Passages will open or close, areas with activate or deactivate, and the ecology of a region will also change in both small and dramatic ways.

People who primarily want to explore may be the most likely to be disappointed with this entry. But people who've been enjoying the enhanced combat and movement capabilities of Samus in Zero Mission, Fusion, and Samus Returns may find a lot to like with this entry.

I also think that, thematically, Dread really differentiates the Metroid series from Alien, which it was heavily based on. I especially love the idea that hunting a super predatory into extinction (Metroids) unbalances the ecosystem and gives their prey (X-parasite) a chance to dominate. Like, what if it were revealed the xenomorphs were designed to hunt some sort of worse form of prey (something like "The Thing")? I also think the Chozo have been better fleshed out than the Space Jockeys/Prometheans.

 

[Grauken]

Finished Dread, really lives up to the hype, gets into my top 3 Metroids

 

[lightbane]

>girl
>she
>her

I know we're talking about a Ruskie, but that's the name of the title.

Is the Ryujinx emulator thing compatible with Windows 7?

 

[Morgoth]

This runs astonishingly well with Ryujinx. Shockingly so. I thought emulators were supposed to make my GPU sweat.

 

[Vorark]

This game excels in giving you a huge arsenal and set of moves and also tons of situations to use (and master) them in. It also trades some of the open-endedness of Super with tons of environmental and ecological changes to ZDR (where the game is set). Passages will open or close, areas with activate or deactivate, and the ecology of a region will also change in both small and dramatic ways.

This is what I really enjoyed but wasn't sure what to call it, just grouped it in "exploration".

They were too timid with the environmental changes, it's something that should have been played out even more throughout the game. Stuff like how emptying water or diverting the lava flux from one area to reveal unavailable paths in another was present mostly in the initial zones and then almost dropped. A big one, the dynamic between Artaria & Cataria, was relevant for a brief moment nearing the end game, and even then the developers took the easy way out and sealed most doors. I would have traded out the EMMI robots for more interactions like these and without frozen/thermal/special beam doors/one way passages being so prevalent.

What they nailed were the effects of the X taking over, drove the point that things were spiraling down fast and made weak enemies and initial areas engaging once more. It also differs from the approach taken in Fusion, when they were already all over the station.

 

[J1M]

Aside from water being a pain in the ass to move in again, there isn't much outside of cosmetic differences in the zones...

The cold area could have had slippery floors, the hot area could have overheated your weapons, etc.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

So I bought this and am playing it now. Only about two hours in, but thus far it's quite fun.

First impressions:

The Good:

+Controls/movement/feedback feel great. Easily the best out of all the 2D Metroids, and very good for a Metroidvania, period.
+Graphics/performance are some of the best I've seen on the Switch. We all know it's not a particularly powerful console and for some reason Nintendo insists on unnecessarily throttling it on top of the hardware limitations, but the game looks clean and crisp, and it runs without any FPS drops so far. It's also only 4.5 GB which is something I really appreciate since compression seems to be a dead art in 2021. Only minor gripe is a weirdly long initial boot.
+Atmosphere. It's good. Very Metroid-ey. Not quite on the level of Super Metroid, but roughly at the same level as Prime 1.
+ Individual room layout is good, as is overall level design. It's somewhat linear so far, although definitely not completely so, but I've heard that this corrects itself in the midgame so I'm willing to forgive it.

The Meh:

)E.M.M.I. feel under (or maybe over?) designed. Sometimes you waltz through one of their sections without even seeing them, and sometimes you enter to find one right on top of you and get an insta-death. I get that they were trying to avoid the Alien: Isolation "leash" problem, but I don't think it's a success. Sometimes it's really fun, sometimes it's boring, and sometimes it's just fucking annoying.
)Basic power beam feels underpowered as fuck. To be fair, this has always been somewhat of a problem for the series, but come on! It's a fucking high-tech sci-fi arm-mounted plasma cannon! At least give me some innocent little critter that I can annihilate with it.
)So far upgrades are uninspired. Climb on special walls... turn invisible temporarily...yawn.
) Thus far it's way too easy. I honestly don't know what everyone on Reddit is crowing about regarding its difficulty. I replayed both Zero Mission and Super Metroid directly before this; Zero Mission is very easy up until you get to Tourian (at which point there is an insane difficulty spike), and Super Metroid is generally pretty difficult, especially if you're not cheesing it with a 100% items guide. Dread is overall easier than Zero Mission, and substantially easier than Super Metroid. It's also much faster paced than either, but especially moreso than Super Metroid.

The Bad:

-This ties into the above point, but the parry is substantially OP. Metroid games have never been particularly stingy with health/missile drops, but the parry takes it to a new level. A successfully executed parry is basically a full-heal and an ammo-refill. It's nuts.
-As others have noted, the map screen is total garbage. I have no idea what the fuck the devs were thinking here. It's a bunch of completely unreadable and cluttered bullshit. One of the worst mapscreens I've ever seen in a Metroidvania. Just really embarrassingly terrible for a high-profile release.
-Too heavy a focus on narrative. Dread is by far the most story-heavy 2D Metroid, even beating out Fusion (which was the leader by a huge degree). It's like they learned nothing from Corruption.


All in all though, quite good, and am feeling pleasantly engaged by it. $60 is far too steep for a Metroid game imo, but apparently people are willing to pay it, so what do I know.

 

[Ivan]

how playable is this via emulator, I hear some/all of the cutscenes are borked? any audio/visual glitches?

 

[randir14]

how playable is this via emulator, I hear some/all of the cutscenes are borked? any audio/visual glitches?

Cutscenes didn't work when the game first came out, but both Yuzu and Ryujinx put out updates to fix it. I recommend playing on the latter since it has a resolution upscale setting. You can also use a program called Emusak to download all the shaders so that the game doesn't stutter while caching them in realtime. I didn't experience any audio or visual problems in my 20+ hours playing with it upscaled to 4K. Also make sure to disable vsync in the emulator and instead force it in your video card settings.

 

[Ivan]

how playable is this via emulator, I hear some/all of the cutscenes are borked? any audio/visual glitches?

Cutscenes didn't work when the game first came out, but both Yuzu and Ryujinx put out updates to fix it. I recommend playing on the latter since it has a resolution upscale setting. You can also use a program called Emusak to download all the shaders so that the game doesn't stutter while caching them in realtime. I didn't experience any audio or visual problems in my 20+ hours playing with it upscaled to 4K. Also make sure to disable vsync in the emulator and instead force it in your video card settings.

Holy shit, 20+ hours, that's not just one playthrough right?

 

[Great Deceiver]

I beat the game in around 8 hours of playtime, 50% items. I'll go back to play hard mode and eventually 100%. I think you can beat it in around 5, I dicked around in the first half a lot because I missed a silly critical path progression.

My final thoughts are that the game picks up considerably in the 2nd half - it's really a lot better. The early game pacing is way too sluggish, the latter half is breakneck speed in comparison. The bossfights especially were great, and the last boss was really intense. It's one of those rare games that improves as it goes along and I have to say it's overall much better than I first thought. Still nowhere close to Super Metroid but a solid 2nd 3rd place for me in the series (after Super Metroid and Metroid Prime). I still think the E.M.M.I. are a silly gimmick that are never really engaging. The game would have been better off without them.

Regarding performance, it is solid in handheld mode, but really chugs in some parts in docked mode. Overall the game looks pretty good and there's much more variety in the environments than I first thought.

If I were to give it a score, it'd be a solid 8/10. Really well done by MercurySteam. Wouldn't pay 60 bucks for it, though.

 

[Grauken]

Yeah, the initial difficulty is pretty low and with the later upgrades even the X outbreak won't bother you much, but the last 3 bosses provide a nice challenge

 

[randir14]

how playable is this via emulator, I hear some/all of the cutscenes are borked? any audio/visual glitches?

Cutscenes didn't work when the game first came out, but both Yuzu and Ryujinx put out updates to fix it. I recommend playing on the latter since it has a resolution upscale setting. You can also use a program called Emusak to download all the shaders so that the game doesn't stutter while caching them in realtime. I didn't experience any audio or visual problems in my 20+ hours playing with it upscaled to 4K. Also make sure to disable vsync in the emulator and instead force it in your video card settings.

Holy shit, 20+ hours, that's not just one playthrough right?

No, that's two normal playthroughs and a hard playthrough combined

 

[Ivan]

How's the music? Same composers as previous entries, IDK offhand if it's the same folks from game to game

 

[Great Deceiver]

How's the music? Same composers as previous entries, IDK offhand if it's the same folks from game to game

Music isn't memorable at all. Much weaker than Super Metroid and Prime, for sure. I can't remember a single tune and I just finished the game.

Atmosphere isn't Metroid Dread's strong suit at all.

 

[Kruno]

THIS GAME IS TOO HARD

 

[CyberWhale]

OK boomer.

 

[Ivan]

he's just milking this bump b/c it's obviously bringing him views/comments.

shame to hear about the soundtrack, do others feel the same? no infectious/atmospheric tracks that stayed with you?

 

[PrettyDeadman]

how playable is this via emulator, I hear some/all of the cutscenes are borked? any audio/visual glitches?

Playing it on YUZU. So far it has been perfect (beat 2nd boss).

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

he's just milking this bump b/c it's obviously bringing him views/comments.

shame to hear about the soundtrack, do others feel the same? no infectious/atmospheric tracks that stayed with you?

Soundtrack is definitely weak compared to other entries.

 

[Grauken]

The soundtrack doesn't really have any memorable tracks, but it's very nice if you want a soundtrack that enhances the mood without trying to attract too much attention or detract from the other elements. But yeah, either Super Metroid or Metroid 2 have better more memorable staff.

 

[lightbane]

Which one emulator is easier to use? Yuzu or Riujinx? Are both compatible with a PS3 controller to emulate the "Pro Controller" thing?

I gave this a quick test and it seems to work, but sadly the initial cutscenes cannot be bypassed or I haven't found a way to do so. Worse, no turbo function nor save states, which I suppose that's a given due being a modern console. Can you at least make a suspend save at least?

 

[Darth Slaughter]

THIS GAME IS TOO HARD

 

[RuySan]

Is this game already on torrent sites? I can't find it anywhere

A certain fit girl has it ready and packaged with an emulator.

This seems like one of those captcha questions, but I can't really figure it out.

 

[J1M]

THIS GAME IS TOO HARD

Thanks, now we know who to blame for the game not having any exploration or upgrade sequence choices: developers.