Nothing is more frightening than a fear you cannot name.
After 11 long years of waiting, Samus Aran is back and the Metroid series has seen a new entry (not a remake) that marks a return to form. What’s most surprising, however, especially considering its reliance upon tradition and precedent, is the reception Metroid Dread has received. Who had “Metroid will be at the epicenter of multiple controversies” on their 2021 gamer bingo card? Yet, in that very statement lies the admission that it is 2021. Controversies shouldn’t come as a surprise.
From its difficulty to the portrayal of its protagonist, its retail price to the perspective of its camera, it seems that even after 11 years, the world was not ready for a new Metroid. Maybe it’ll go down in history as just another game in a long line of games that some journalists struggle with. Maybe gaming society has come to develop new expectations from female leads. Maybe we have been taught to define what is AAA in such a way that the term excludes certain games based on their genre and/or platform, not merely on the size of their budget or team.
But, this is a critique of Metroid Dread, not of society, believe it or not. More invested writers will need to explore the social reactions the game garnered. My aim here is three-fold: evaluate Metroid Dread and its intrinsic qualities as a product and an artwork, or commercial art if you like; express my own personal feelings on the experience I had with it; do both of those things without allowing the conflagrations of social media controversy to influence either my final scores or my final thoughts. Picking sides in culture wars has little overlap with a game review about the game itself, in my view.
Controversy to category
Now with all that out of the way, let’s get to the meat of what Metroid Dread is: a 2D action-adventure platformer set firmly within the vein of the subgenre that earlier entries in its series helped establish. A Metroid game that is a Metroidvania finds cause for explorative gameplay where progression relies upon item acquisition and weapon upgrades. Frequently, this involves backtracking through previous areas. Dread has nine such areas from Artaria to Itorash (and they each start with a descending letter of the alphabet, hey lookit that).
Unlocking new secrets and passageways via new abilities will seem imminently familiar to anyone who has played a 2D Metroid before or to fans of the Metroidvania subgenre. Really, aside from the chrome shine of new weapons and tools our heroine Samus has never wielded before, there’s very little that’s been fundamentally changed about the way that Metroid Dread is structured compared to its ancestors. Its evolution, rather, has preoccupied itself with Samus’ own movements and mobility. Traversing the familiar structures of Dread’s landscapes has never been smoother, quicker, more riddled with tension.
Elegance in motion
While Super Metroid remains entrenched as the pinnacle of this series for me, Dread ups the ante by granting the intergalactic bounty hunter an ease of movement that was simply unimaginable on the Super Nintendo, or the Game Boy Advance for that matter. Vaulting over low obstacles, ducking into sphere form, climbing ledges, ricocheting off walls, and firing in any direction at any time, Dread puts together a parkour paradise that takes 2D platforming to new highs. Even the timing-oriented parry from 2017’s Samus Returns gets an injection of adrenaline; instead of having to remain stationary to pull off a parry, Samus in Dread can counterattack on the go. It’s a comparably seamless mechanic that moved from prototype in 2017 to full version in 2021.
Dread makes previous games look downright sluggish. Sure, you’re interrupted more frequently here by somewhat severe loading screens between areas, but playing the game itself is a fast-paced experience. Nowhere is that clearer than in the speedrunning scene. As soon as Metroid Dread launched, the speed savants of the world united to set new records. While I’m not a speedrunner myself, speedrunning played a significant part in my experience with Dread. I played through the game six times and tried speedruns on both difficulty modes. I almost cracked three hours! Not even close to the astonishing one hour and some change runs that I’ve seen.
The Last Metroid
However, it’s not merely the movement that advanced in Dread. As a direct sequel to 2002’s Metroid Fusion, a sequel nearly two decades in the making, Metroid Dread advances the mainline story of the series. What I look for in a sequel, particularly one of an episodic nature, is if and how the sequel changes the status quo or if it merely returns to it.
When I first began playing Metroid Dread, the question suddenly occurred to me: why is this series even called Metroid anymore? It’d been a long time since the last Metroid was in captivity and the galaxy was at peace. That last Metroid gave up its ghost years ago. But as it turns out, Dread gives new meaning to both of the words comprising its title. This is where the spoilers come in. If you haven’t the stomach for that, I suggest skipping ahead to the 8-bit review portion of this piece.
Role Reversal
Still here? Excellent.
In Metroid Dread, Samus chases a lead to a mysterious planet named ZDR in the hopes of exterminating another of her universe’s dangerous amoebic lifeforms, the X parasite. Shortly after arriving on the planet, though, she encounters a violent figure that quickly overpowers her. The Chozoic stranger frees her and the game begins in which Samus is the hunted, not the hunter.
Actually, there were several key moments in Metroid Dread that had me thinking this title turned the series on its head, particularly in relation to Super Metroid. Without belaboring the point, both Dread and Super find Samus in pursuit of a parasite on an alien world, though in Super she is the hunter and in Dread she is being hunted. The mechanical horrors of the E.M.M.I. play a key role in the game and they certainly help to give it its name.
Likewise, in Dread Samus must work her way upward to return to her ship while in Super she ventures downward from the surface where her ship landed. In Super, Mother Brain is the final antagonist, a singular, impersonal entity providing a final obstacle for the player whereas in Dread, organic supercomputers visually resonant of Mother Brain provide Samus with a unique special ability. There’s even the matter of the recurring enemy, Kraid, who was the master of his domain in Super but in Dread is held a prisoner. And let’s not forget the prevalence of the Chozo themselves, represented by mere artifacts and relics in Super while present as living breathing beings and unliving wraiths in Dread.
Like Father
It’s less about subversion and more about reversal. In Super, a strong theme of motherhood develops through Samus’ relationship with the last Metroid, a baby, and the lengths to which she goes to retake it. It’s a game of two kinds of mothers and the deep isolation that some mothers experience (more on that theme here). In Dread, however, there’s another switch. We eventually discover that the armored figure who accosted Samus at the start of the game is a power-hungry Chozo despot named Raven Beak, who in the rich tradition of sci-fis reveals himself to be Samus’ father. We’re given mere glimpses of her origins and the tenuous biological relationship Samus may have with the vicious space avian, but these cues help set Dread into a frame not of mother and daughter but father and daughter. The scope of Raven Beak’s plans are revealed, underscoring his relevance to the series going all the way back to the beginning, and his nefarious plans for the destiny of his offspring in Samus frame the series in an entirely new light.
What’s more, what once represented the biggest threat to the universe in the Metroid species now resides within Samus herself. The Metroid vaccination given to her when she was exposed to X parasites previously apparently infused her DNA with Metroid DNA. She is now the last Metroid and Raven Beak wants her power for himself. Dread is about Samus “growing up” under this hellish twist on parental hopes and dreams for a child, like a lab rat in a labyrinth, and her ultimate transformation, if not mutilation, is a sight to behold.
Metamorphosis
Most importantly, though, her transformation, whether external or internal, affords the Metroid series an opportunity to adapt, to change, to try new things. Nintendo survived for so many years in gaming while others have come and gone not merely because of ruthless cutthroat business tactics (although I’m sure that helped) but also because in many ways they seem to be against fixing what isn’t broken. “Formula” is the word of the day for many of their IPs and series, but when it comes to Metroid, perhaps it was time for a change.
Metroid, as a franchise, hasn’t historically been a best-seller. It’s out-performed by an array of Nintendo franchises (more info on that collected here). A fundamental narrative shock like the one that occurs at the end of Metroid Dread may just be enough to anticipate the future of the series not with anxiety but with hope. And if the sales of Dread so far are anything to go by, there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
What does this mean for Samus herself? Can she control her new powers? What is left of the X parasites? What other villains would take the last Metroid for themselves? Answers are coming. So long as we don’t have to wait for another 20 years…
The 8-bit Review
Visuals: 8/10
Metroid Dread isn’t going to win any awards for graphics, at least not with the context of the Nintendo Switch’s more powerful competitors. That seems by design, though, and within the capabilities of the Switch, Dread does the best it can. Fidelity is one thing, art design and conceptualization, the ability to be instantly recognizable via a single screenshot, are quite another. Samus has never moved better or looked better while moving with a distinct grace while simultaneously being a hardcore killing machine. There are moments of cinematic blockbustery embedded within the game, particularly surrounding boss fights, but the most common refrain I heard, and rightly so, was just how great the character animations look. Not to mention it’s occasionally creative within the 2D perspective.
Audio: 7/10
Where Dread bows down to Super. “Atmospheric” is a word that gets thrown around in the Metroid context frequently and I see no reason why it’s not appropriate here. I can’t recall too many standout melodies because much of the soundtrack is alien, industrial, and ethereal sounds. However, when the Metroid theme hits, it hits hard. It’s lovely to hear a modern take on old familiar tunes.
Narrative: 9/10
Metroid Dread changes things and progresses the saga of Samus without necessarily giving us a cliffhanger ending. While there are story beats that in retrospect seem predictable, I was fairly held under its spell through my first playthrough. Dread doesn’t have a ton of narrative and it doesn’t try to tell a complex plot whilst stumbling over its gameplay feet. Players won’t spend hours getting lost only to reach the next cutscene and forget what’s happening in the tale. Its lack of density befits its genre, keeping the action going. Besides the borderline cliches, I mostly bemoan the loss of Raven Beak. An overarching nemesis for the series could have done it a great service, but it remains to be seen what the storytellers behind Metroid will decide to do with the puzzle pieces scattered about by Dread.
Gameplay: 9/10
Far and away the thing that kept me coming back to Dread is the gameplay. Again, I demolished it six times through. This is where I can understand qualms about it being too short. Even with the meta-game of speedrunning as well as getting 100% item completion and fully comprehending the story, I still found myself wanting to play through the game once more. After six runs, I decided I’d better put off a seventh until some time down the road.
Where the E.M.M.I.s are concerned, these killer robots that hunter-seek Samus for those sweet insta-kills, though it’s even sweeter when you pull off a parry on them, I had heard some moaning about the mechanoids being too commonplace. One per major area is indeed plenty, though I think they play into a larger issue: that being that the game does recycle several encounters and bosses, making them just a bit harder each time (did we need so many Chozo soldiers and Chozo bots instead of unique enemies?). The E.M.M.I.s, however, I found to be satisfying puzzle bosses that require your attention for evasion and navigation until you pop a super omega laser to their face. Their ferocity is unmatched and so the eventual triumph is unparalleled.
Replayability: 9/10
100% item completion has worn out its welcome, I think, even with truly tricky and creative gauntlets to dash yourself against for those last few tidbits. After a certain point, hoarding hundreds of missiles and energy tanks seems utterly superfluous. I would have loved to see perhaps some Easter eggs or even worldbuilding mini-articles to collect. Heck, any unique collectibles would have been great to either flesh out characters present and past or the game’s universe. This is something the Metroid Prime games had in spades. All that said, though, a half dozen replays is nothing to sniff at and the game itself is absolutely built for speedrunning. As with previous entries in its series, Dread is going to be a game that people return to for a long time. This, in many ways, makes Metroid Dread seem like a modern retro game.
Challenge: 8/10
Is Metroid Dread too hard? Depends on how much time you’re willing to spend learning its somewhat demanding pace and control scheme. Is Metroid Dread inaccessible? That’s a different question. As far as the difficulty, I think the problem we saw with journalists complaining about its brutality is their job demands they complete games within a specific time period in order to put out an article in a timely manner. Whether that article is premature or not is a question worth asking, but with a game like Dread, I think the player benefits from having time to practice. That’s a luxury not everyone has. Beyond that, the game employs a timing-based counterattack system that’s integral to survival and overcoming obstacles. Without the necessary reflexes, or refining those reflexes, I’m not sure how players could manage.
This is where the game’s twin difficulty settings should be mentioned. There’s no easy mode. Just a normal mode and a hard mode. Normal in this instance is the easiest, of course. Hard mode isn’t impressive, unfortunately, simply adding to enemy health and offense. If there was an easy mode, would it do the same thing? Would lowering the amount of damage Samus takes and be enough? Remember, we already have players getting lost in a large world plus a reflex counterattack system? Would they need to remove those things to make the game really easier or would that fundamentally change the game? Those are potentially accessibility questions, at that point.
Uniqueness: 8/10
Metroid Dread relies on what’s come before, but it does so in a way that refines the systems and structures we’ve seen since the ’90s. It’s not the best Metroidvania I’ve played, but it is an excellent Metroid game.
Personal: 10/10
Among the best games that I played this year, Metroid Dread is one that’ll remain relevant for years to come, not merely in the discussion of genre and legacy and pricing, but through players like myself who evidently can’t get enough of it. I’m not sure that this is the sort of game that’d best benefit from significant updates or DLC, but you can rest assured that I was left wanting more. Whenever the next Metroid game is slated to come out, I’ll be first in line. Spanish developer MercurySteam did good work with Nintendo’s quasi-horror, science fiction queen. Fans are hungry for more.
Aggregated Score: 8.4
Red formerly ran The Well-Red Mage and now serves The Pixels as founder, writer, editor, and podcaster. He has undertaken a seemingly endless crusade to talk about the games themselves in the midst of a culture obsessed with the latest controversy, scandal, and news cycle about harassment, toxicity, and negativity. Pick out his feathered cap on Twitter @thewellredmage or Mage Cast.
