Metroid Dread

To stop clogging the Switch thread with potential spoilers

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Good shout

Hello! Just so you know today is Menless Monday!

I’ve played a lot of dread today and really loving it. It’s massively impacted my productivity though.

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I am 3 EMMI down and around 60% collectibles in each area BUT totally stumped. Have looked everywhere for where to go next. I feel like I’m missing something obvious…

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Resorted to a guide in the end to figure out what zone I ought to be in. Feel a bit like I’ve cheated. But also, I came through this section three times and didn’t figure it out, so…

Loving this so far. What a game.

When I saw some of the 8/10 reviews there seemed to be a lot of hedging going on - I was quite worried. they had fucked it. Turns out the heading was in the other direction - it’s at least a 9.

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2 down before I slept.

I think that sense of ‘where on the map do I need to be’ was always the tiny issue with metroidvania. Lately I’ve been replaying Aria of Sorrow and there’s similar moments where the only real sense of the game being hard is just not knowing where the door you can now access is.

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Yes. That second EMMI was a moment of immediate panic for me but that in itself felt so good!

By comparison the first boss I did was easy as hell but then I’ve spent too long playing cuphead

Can someone sell this to me as someone who has never played any Metroid game. Its some side-scrolling shooter thing, right? Why are people in love with it?

It is. But the exploration aspect is what makes it for me. It’s not linear, and it’s satisfying discovering the different areas. It’s designed really well so that areas you’re in have parts that are inaccessible until you’ve gained certain abilities, making the areas and gameplay kinda evolve as you gain each one. There’s sometimes a puzzle element to how you get about, and loads of little secrets that can be a bit puzzle-y too. And there’s a lot of great bosses. Atmospheric too - feeling of being isolated on a strange planet, and bloody tense at points this one.

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It’s hollow knight with guns, nearly

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This sounds like I’m being flippant maybe but basically Metroid and Castlevania together created a genre that Hollow Knight became the natural king of.

HK is unfathomably harder I suspect, but as Vamos says that sense of old school wonder while playing is rare. Removing the linearity is a sneaky way of the entire game feeling like a puzzle without having to actually put in many puzzles.

Dread has taken that vibe and then taken a few bonus cues from survival horror this time which makes everything a lot more tense

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Had another couple of shots at the final boss and still getting totally destroyed. I’m 50/50 whether I should keep chipping away and learning the moves, or head back into the world and find more health tanks.

Such a great game.

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Dunno, I’ve found myself staring at the Game Over screen on Dread more times than I care to count. I could just be Bad At Games, but then I did finish HK too. Older Metroid games are far easier - it’s almost as if they have seen what people are willing to go through in terms of challenge from HK and tried to match it.

Yeah tbf I’m only 2 EMMIs in so that’s why I said I suspect - just remember the HK difficulty ramping very very fast

Also as far in as you are now, how’s yer EMMI end screen reflex? I’m about a 2/10er right now

Getting better, I reckon 50/50.

There are bosses later on which have definitely got a HK feel to them in how they move and attack. Really enjoying it.

Once I was past the tutorialesque section at the start the rest has been gold.

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Probably around 10% of the time. Thing is I’m not even sure what point I’m supposed to be twatting them.

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There are 2 points you can. The first is easier.

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