Oooooooooooooooh boy. There it is. THE most hype game of the year.

The previous game in this series is Metroid Fusion, in 2002. Prime is a separate series, both in gameplay and story, while Other M is a spin-off (despite being a direct sequel to Super Metroid and it has references to things that happen in Fusion and contradicts… stuff from Prime… it’s for sure non-canon despite what Sakamoto says). But even counting Prime and Other M, the Metroid series has been rather dormant for a good long while. The only other Metroid games since Fusion were Zero Mission, a remake of the first Metroid on NES, and Samus Returns, a remake of Metroid 2 from the Game Boy. THAT one is important, because it is made by MercurySteam, the developers that would go on to make Metroid Dread, and adds some plot context that the original version of it didn’t have. It feels like a “if this game is good you can make the next one” kinda thing.

I’m a big fan of the Metroid series, and it’s great to finally get closure to the main storyline of the original series, after 19 years without a new mainline Metroid. My favorite of the series is Super Metroid (and probably still is), but the desire for more normal, non-3D Metroid (alongside more 3D Metroid, of course, Prime 4 getting its development reset was unfortunate) is always there. Metroid is a series that should be bigger than it is, and maybe Dread will be the breakout hit.

Nintendo seems to have gone all-out as far as spoiling this game before release, but thankfully for me all I had seen before release is the E3 announcement trailer… and one very spoilery screenshot. It’s nice that they were advertising it a lot, but they could’ve done so without… showing what seems like everything.

So yeah, this just came out, I finished it, and it’s time to review the game of the year (probably), let’s fucking go.

Developer: MercurySteam
Publisher: Nintendo
Release date: October 8th 2021
Platforms: Switch
Genre: Castleroid

After the events of Fusion, X Parasites are thought to be gone due to the destruction of SR388, and Metroids are gone after the destruction of Zebes in Super Metroid. However, the Galactic Federation receives an anonymous video from planet ZDR, showing that there’s still X parasites on that planet which could be a galactic-level threat. They send powerful E.M.M.I. robots to eliminate them, but after a while they lose contact. So they hire Samus, the only person in the universe that can deal with X Parasites, due to the Metroid DNA she got in Fusion, to investigate. She arrives on the planet, faces off against Raven Beak, a powerful Chozo warrior, and loses that first encounter. Nonetheless she mysteriously survives and, because of reasons, she loses all her abilities again and basically gets lost on the planet. Her ship’s AI, Adam, tells her she needs to get back to her spaceship (and also this because Adam is being kinda weird), but there’s many obstacles, namely the E.M.M.I. robots having gone rogue, protecting certain areas of ZDR, and of course Raven Beak and some of his Chozo warriors doing weird stuff, and of course the potential existence of X parasites on the planet (though they’re not being very obvious right now). So basically, Samus needs to find out what’s going on, find upgrades along the way, and leave the planet.

The story is fun here, as it explores a lot of elements from the previous games (makes sense considering there’s Chozo around on this planet), and it has a lot of cutscenes that feel like they’re kinda there to give Samus some extra “cool factor” by making her do some cool badass things for kinda no reason other than “it’s badass” (and a bit of “fuck you I’m stronger than you” kinda moments against some bosses). While Samus is almost entirely silent, they give a lot of personality to her in her animations. So yeah, the story is definitely good, and it ties up a bunch of loose ends in the series. It was said before release this would be the last game in this “arc” of Metroid (from 1 to Dread), and that’s definitely true now.

I know I kinda skip over graphics in reviews, mostly because… you’re on the internet, you can find screenshots. That said, I think this game is actually beautiful. Technically there’s some things to talk about, like occasional frame drops in some areas (usually it’s stable 60, but there’s some parts where I did notice drops) and some low-res textures, but you see things from far away enough that it doesn’t matter (and they’re not even that bad compared to textures in games on other, stronger platforms). That said, Samus’ new armor looks awesome, every environment looks good with detailed, animated backgrounds and actually really good lighting effects, good enemy designs that make sense with the local environments and some really great cutscenes. There’s even some nice little details like how Samus places her hands on walls depending on the shape of the wall or where holes may be so it looks really natural. It’s definitely a looker. And music-wise it’s fine, the music is very subdued and kinda atmospheric, but if you stop to actually listen to it, it’s decent. Not the best in the series, but it’s fine, there’s a few areas that I like.

Gameplay is much like you’d expect from any good Metroid game. This is made by MercurySteam, so it takes on a lot of the ideas they introduced in the Samus Returns remake making a comeback (though there’s one specific element useful for finding items that was tweaked so it’s less OP). The melee counter is still here but faster (now you can do it without stopping your movement which is nice), as is moving with the analog stick which is also how you aim, a button to stop moving so you can stand in place and aim, and you can grab onto ledges. They’re a bit refined here though, it’s a bit smoother. And there’s some new things, namely sliding which means there’s SOME short areas you can go through pre-morph ball (which you actually get weirdly late in this game). One thing about this game is how fast it moves. Samus Returns had good speed, this one is a bit faster. And you see from further away which I think is nice.

So Samus can jump either straight or doing a somersault if she jumps while moving, wall jump if she’s in a somersault, slide, shoot normal shots, shoot missiles, and melee counter, as far as basic abilities. There’s plenty of upgrades to find in the game. Some new, lots of old, all pretty fun. A fun thing with the upgrades is that basically none of them are just “you need this to go to this place” kinds of upgrades, they all have use outside of that, may it be extra damage potential or movement potential. Like, Diffusion Beam SEEMS useless beyond its normal progression use of hitting things within walls, but pre-Wave, it can actually hit enemies that go into walls and floors if you use it well. And of course there’s a ton of items to find that require specific items to get to. Samus at the start of the game is very different from Samus at the end. One of the weird kinds of upgrades is the missiles. You start with normal missiles, but when you get Supers, they just overwrite your normal missiles and use the same ammo (and so on). You actually can’t even de-activate upgrades (which is fine since there’s no ice beam to mess with), and some of them just don’t show up on the status screen once you have something that overrides them. Like, there’s no reason to change suits or beams or missiles, so they make it easy and don’t let you switch. There’s also one item type you can find that you can’t use when you find them (which is a bit unfortunate since you can’t use them to sequence break), until you find a specific upgrade that lets you use them.

Just something to note on items, some of them are actually super hard to get, specifically using speed booster (not really a spoiler because, you know, it’s a post-Super Metroid game, so obviously there’s a speed booster). Some have multi-room, difficult-to-execute, complex speed boosting/shinespark things you have to do so you can bring a shinespark charge into a sport that you obviously can’t normally. Just a hint that the game doesn’t really telegraph well: if you shinespark into a slope, you go back into speed boost state (and can run up the slope) and are able to charge another shinespark. You also maintain speed boost off wall jumps and in morph ball, and can shinespark in morph ball mode if you’re able to keep the shinespark charge long enough. You’re welcome. I will say some of these were pretty fun to do, but quite tough.

There’s special areas in the game that are E.M.M.I. zones. Basically, this is where the E.M.M.I. robots “live”. They can’t get out of those set zones, but they’re constantly patrolling the area, trying to find… you, specifically. They’re invincible unless you have the Omega Canon (which is a temporary upgrade you get from… something kinda interesting), kill you if they touch you, and hear you if you move at all using an air vibration sensor (and they have cameras, of course). Plus the way they move is kinda crazy and unexpected. Some can shoot you with stun shots, or see through walls, or move real fast. If they see you, it actually locks exits from the zone as it pursues you, so if you want to escape you need to get out of view from it. If an E.M.M.I. does touch you, you actually have a very small chance to escape without dying. The killing animation has 2 very very very short moments with a couple frames of a red flash. If you press the melee counter right there, you can escape them. You can’t really react to these red flashes (it’s literally too fast), you basically have to guess (there’s a few E.M.M.I. kill animations, but they’ll run at different speeds). They’re QTEs but, alongside the other QTEs that you get against some bosses, are actually some of the only examples IN ALL OF GAMING of QTEs that actually aren’t shit WHOA. There’s ways to avoid them entirely, but it’s rough since even getting invisible is temporary, and any movement after getting visible will alert the robot again. Once an EMMI is destroyed, the zone becomes mostly-safe forever, which is nice.

Game flow is an interesting thing here, because I recall Fusion getting a bit of criticism for being more linear. Super Metroid does have an “intended” path for you to follow, but it’s not super strict about it, and it does have a lot of ways to sequence break just using normal mechanics, and overall kinda lets you figure out the way forward and there’s a point pretty quick where you can kinda go where you want and do things in whatever order. Dread is kind of an in-between. It does very much guide you to the next upgrade, especially early on, but I’d say the latter half of the game it does open up quite a bit. There’s definitely a set path to follow, but it does let you figure it out for yourself, and you can absolutely get lost, or take detours, or just mess around and try to find items. It doesn’t just point you directly to the next upgrade or boss, it just lets you explore and find the next spot for yourself… or find extra items if you go the wrong way. A weird one for me was hearing about people taking a big detour to a certain upgrade, but I weirdly didn’t feel like I was really doing that, it just kinda felt natural and I was pretty surprised when I found it considering what I heard about it. I actually really like how the game ends up flowing, because every upgrades means you have access to items to find, and it doesn’t FULLY hold your hand. It’s a nice, good middle ground between Super and Fusion that feels great.

The map system is quite useful, as it shows you exactly where you’ve been (literally parts of rooms you didn’t go to yet don’t light up, like if you go into a room but you don’t jump, the top half of the room won’t be lit up in the map) and notes what is required to open certain spots (if you have the required upgrade, otherwise it gives you a “???” so you know to go back later when you do get an upgrade, or you can figure out what you need based on how it looks, of course). Also travelling is really fast just in general, going through an area is pretty quick. And if it’s not fast enough, there’s teleporters which, at first, only bring you to the same-color teleporter (which is how the game starts out semi-linear since, when you find a teleporter, it brings you to a specific spot), but once you activate every color of teleporter, you can use any teleporter to go to any other teleporter, so it becomes a pretty nice fast-travel system that’s not too OP.

The bosses in this game are damn hard. Most of them killed me at least once, some a lot more. There’s a “basic” kind of boss that you fight several times, those wrecked me a couple times each time I fought them. The final boss was a bit of puzzling to figure out how to fight him, but it was quite fun even if I did die to him like 20 times, if not more (though one counter to one of his abilities did make him a bit trivial). The game isn’t super hard, and the parts that ARE hard (namely bosses and E.M.M.I. robots) are not punishing at all. In other Metroid games, dying brings you back to your last save spot. Here, dying brings you right before the last door you entered before dying, with I believe all the resources you had then. So basically you can retry bosses over and over really easily (and you can skip cutscenes which should be a basic thing in games but aren’t, so it’s nice to see). This game is super forgiving, which I’m fine with. It’s hard at times so you have to git gud, but it doesn’t just make you lose everything when you die, and you actually can’t lose progress if you decide not to save at some point. So it’s challenging, but it’s pretty easy overall because of how it handles the difficulty.

Overall

This game is fucking good. Just buy it.

The only real issue I have with this game is that you can’t move using the d-pad. That’s it. And I understand why since that’s also how you do some free-form aiming while moving. Other than that, there’s a few subjective things, like how the E.M.M.I. zones are handled might not be something you’ll personally enjoy (I think they’re fine, as far as gameplay design it’s sound and functional), and the early game being quite linear side so it might feel a bit too hand-holdy for a small portion of the game… but man. This game.

The story is great. The game feel is fucking amazing. The bosses are great. The challenge is fine. The exploration is fun. The completion is fun. It’s so good even the QTEs are actually good. So strange.

The speedrun potential is probably really good (I have not watched a speedrun as of the writing of this review). Since it’s not a super-extra-long game (your first playthrough will probably be 12-15 hours, depending on how much completion you’ll do… my finish time was 8 hours 51 minutes (with 73% of items found, I’m up to 93% as of this writing and I took a quick look at hard mode), but that’s not counting any time spent looking at the map which you WILL do a lot, nor does it count time you took, you know, dying to boss fights, and I think it doesn’t sound cutscenes and dialogue), and I’m sure people will… find ways to break it, because it’s Metroid. The lowest time I’m finding as of the writing of this is 1 hour 50 minutes, and that’s with deaths, so I’m sure there’s a ton of room for improvement/tricks to find. I’ll definitely be taking a look at speedruns for this as time goes on, it should be fun to check from time to time.

This gets a “no duh” recommendation. It’s a non-spin-off Metroid game, making it worth buying based on that alone, but beyond that, it’s actually amazing. You should not be missing it.. I’m not confident in other games being even close to matching it in the first official JOBOCAN Game Reviews Games of the Year awards, and this year had many GotY-worthy games (so it’s good that I choose 5-7 winners every year in my awards).

…

I hope Metroid Dread is to the Metroid franchise what Fire Emblem Awakening was to the FE franchise, in the sense that it’s the one game that finally takes the game out of the dark and into a mainstream Nintendo franchise… you know, which it isn’t right now considering it took 19 fucking years to get a new one. Even considering other Metroid sub-series, Prime 3 (the last Prime game) was 14 years ago, and Other M was 11 years ago. Metroid has been basically inactive since unless you really want to count remakes (and, even then… Zero Mission was 2005, and Samus Returns was 2017 and basically just a test run before giving Dread to MercurySteam), or Federation Force (which… no, don’t count it). I don’t even mean they should keep MercurySteam as a Metroid-only team (though they’ve MORE than proven themselves at this point, as far as being able to making good games under the supervision of Nintendo (unlike the one time they completely ruined Castlevania)), but overall having Metroid games actually coming out at all would be kinda amazing. Plus, it’s actually considerably better than FE:A.