4/5 ★ – elkniodaphs's review of Metroid Dread.

Recollecting Metroid Dread in its entirety, I’m struck with two outstanding truths; that the game environment, Planet ZDR, is as complex a puzzle as I’d ever care to solve. One gets the impression that progress gates were analyzed and organized by computers, as any crack small enough to be infiltrated by Samus must have met its reckoning through rigorous testing and methodical world building. It seems very much an environment designed and governed by a computer. Second, I’m struck with the overall scope of the accessible world, each section a different biome and each biome a series of microcosmic gauntlets touched by expert design and intuitive arrangement. In my playthrough, I found that I would collect an upgrade and seem to backtrack, but immediately be presented with some divergent path which could only be traversed in some linear way. Samus Aran exists in this open world, but the developers had intended for the player to advance down rabbit holes of linear progression which are always evident if you watch your map. Dread does not ‘hold your hand,’ but respects you enough to guess that you’ll follow the bread crumbs discovered by improvements to your mobility and utility. Boss encounters are a kind of puzzle in their own right, won by memorizing patterns and adapting to new and unfamiliar enemy movesets. The best and worst moments in the game are boss encounters, the height being Experiment No. Z-57 and the worst being the final boss. There is a parry mechanic which throughout the entire game is used as a way to collect resources. Defeating enemies by damaging them also grants resources, so you assume damage and resources are intrinsically linked. Staying alive at the final boss for thirty minutes, I began to feel two things; that I was doing something wrong, and a pain in my arm brought about by a type of repetitive stress syndrome. For the final boss, you are meant to parry, then let your missiles fly during a short cutscene. It is the first time in the game that you’re expected to intuit to input commands during a cutscene to make progress as other bosses could be defeated outside of this mechanic. On the subject of things that could be better, I was a bit confused at the beginning of the game with a character telling me that my main priority should be to find my ship. I could open the map and see my ship icon far above me, and an ‘area exit’ to the right. Not knowing the scale of the map screen, or how far indeed my ship was away from me, I guessed that it must be close because I didn’t suspect I would get the objective to find it otherwise. I ignored the area exit to the right because it was counter to the position of my ship, so I assumed that I missed an upward exit somewhere. After much backtracking and frustration, I gave in and took the exit to the right which of course, is what you’re meant to do. Not knowing this, I feel as if I botched my experience with the first hour of the game. That being said, understanding that you’re lost and accepting that sense of confusion is part of Metroid’s DNA. Sometimes it throws you to the wolves and that is what makes it a unique series inside the world of triple A game development. It is not easy, it doesn’t care if you like it, it doesn’t care if you’re happy with your circumstance, and it assails you consistently and without mercy. There are difficult moments, but you can explore to gain more health and missiles or bomb capacity thus expanding your toolset in the fight against various enemies and bosses. This is an old-style game with modern amenities. I think Metroid Dread can appeal to a broad range of people, though some might be put off by the SNES-era difficulty. You will feel lost, you will feel frustrated, but coming out the other end of it gives a feeling of accomplishment rarely found in modern games. The strength of Samus Aran’s evolution from start to finish in Metroid Dread is truly something to experience and you really do feel that growth as a player. In the end, you truly feel invincible, and then you find chaos.