So I haven't beat it, but I'm at what seems to be the final boss of the game. So I'll give it a review based on my experience
Hey DD, is it worth buying?
The simple answer is yes, absolutely. It's a new 2D (or 2.5D) Metroid, which continues the story from Fusion, so yes. Worth a buy. (I pirated it, to be fair).
Controls/Gameplay:
The control is tight, once you get used to Samus' speed on it. If you've played AM2R or the Metroid 2 remake on the 3DS you'll know what's up. I personally am not a fan of having to hold a shoulder button (R) to shoot missiles. I would much prefer a toggle, like in Super. The game cannot be played with the DPad, and it's basically a complete waste of controller real estate. The only button on the DPad that does anything is the left direction. It resizes your map in the top right to small, or medium. That's it. Pressing up, or down or right to activate any of the other weapons such as missiles or super/ice/tracer missiles, or the power bomb would have been a much better idea. Every additional variation of your weapons are activated by holding R. Not a fan. Also when you get the grapple beam, in order to aim it you have to hold L, and then hold the R trigger to fire it. It can be confusing in the heat of traversing areas that need the beam and suffice to say I've lost footing several times because your hand's muscle memory wants to hold L and then hold R to fire it, which just shoots/wastes a missile.
The missiles themselves also change, and you sorta 'lose' them when you get upgrades. You get missiles, they upgrade to super missiles, then you get the ice missile, which is just a super ice missile, and then finally you get a tracer. I cant remember the games term for it, but you lock on up to 5 enemies and shoot a salvo. I haven't gone back to look, but you *might* be able to disable certain power ups like in Super Metroid. So it's possible you can disable the ice, or whatever. But honestly, they consume standard missile ammo, so it's not like you really have to worry about running out of them. So just leave them on as super-ice-tracers.
The parry takes some getting used to, but it is infinitely useful and usually required to defeat a mini boss. Get the parry timing down.
Runtime:
I am at about 10 hours - but I am not at 100% item collection yet. Ive never liked item collections in games other than Metroid, so I'll probably still go and find all of the upgrades which will inflate the play time. But *required* play time is probably about 10 to 12 hours.
Gameplay rant:
You already heard me bitch about them earlier in the thread - but FUCK THE EMMIs. It's not a complaint like people would have about say, Dark Souls, or Bloodborne or Sekiro. The difficulty in those games (although maddening) makes sense. But each enemy can be defeated even the first time you meet them. The EMMIs are hunters that patrol a specific area in each different map. They are invincible. You cannot defeat them, and you can only parry them if you have indisputably amazing timing. The parry will work, but not like it does with every other enemy/boss in the game.
Once you find the control room for each EMMI's area and destroy it, your weapon gets an upgrade to the Omega Beam. At this point you can defeat the EMMI in the area. But only then. Until you get the Omega beam, your weapons do jack shit to them. With the Omega beam you can do a rapid fire which is required to remove the shielding from the EMMI, and then you have to hold L and R to charge the beam to hit them in their one weak spot - the eye. If you time it right and get the shot the first try, they are dead. If you miss, the recharge time for the shot is something like 10 seconds, which by that time the EMMI will have reached you and one-shots you. All EMMIs in the game are instant deaths. It absolutely pulls you out of the game and takes the fun out of it completely. There are arguments in praise of the EMMI macguffin, stating it's more of a stealth puzzle than an action puzzle. Yeah, well eat my taint, if I want stealth I'll play Metal Gear or Splinter Cell. I play Metroid for exploration, item collection and killing enemies/bosses. The EMMIs end up just being an annoyance that prevents you from getting to the next area. But not like a boss. Just a pain in the ass roadblock. There's nothing of value (usually) in the EMMI areas, so you just want to get through them to continue the game. But it slows the pacing to a crawl. You get a stealth power up, but it depletes the energy bar for it very quickly, and if it runs out, will deplete your health bar VERY quickly. And it doesn't recharge unless you're moving quickly - which alerts the EMMIs and is honestly just a big fucking pain in the ass. I said it once, I'll say it again - fuck the EMMIs. Huge oversight in an otherwise great Metroid mainline entry.
Graphics:
I think the game looks great. Samus' suit looks cool and is the obvious evolution of the Fusion suit. I highly recommend playing in docked mode, otherwise the visuals of the game are lost on the tiny hand held screen. Also, Joycons WILL NOT SURVIVE. Dock it to appreciate the visuals, and use a pro controller. There's plenty of detail to enjoy in the background, and if you're in handheld mode, Samus is going to be super tiny. Is it PS5 level graphics? Nah, but who cares, graphics don't make the game. #neogeo
Sound:
There are several callbacks to the original, or Super Metroid songs, but to be completely honest, I essentially tuned out the music since the gameplay is so frenetic. I don't believe it has 5.1 sound in docked mode. But that's ok. It's not a 3D game so you don't REALLY need to hear the enemies that are behind you. The background music may have a larger presence than I recall, but I honestly just tuned it out.
Story:
It's a direct continuation from Fusion and has apparently ignored the Prime games in the continuity. You're not on Zebes or SR388, it's a new planet called ZDR that the Chozo have clearly visited, due to all of the Chozo artifacts and tech you see. I won't go into spoilers, but honestly it's your basic Metroid. The big bad wants to recreate the metroids, there is metroid DNA in Samus' butthole, and the big bad wants it. You see the big bad at the beginning, it kicks your ass and you lose all your weapons, and then you have to find all the goodies. The X parasite also makes an appearance about halfway through the game and makes most enemies stronger, but it is what it is.
Final Analysis:
If you like Metroid, you'll enjoy this outing. It's a fun game. Metroid has always been about replay. I can't count how many times I've played through the original, II, Super, Prime 1 and 2 (not 3, fuck waggle motion) and Fusion. But I will be able to count how many times I play Dread. One times. Thats how many times. Simply because I cant be arsed to fuck with the EMMIs again.
Get the game. You'll enjoy it. You may enjoy the whole EMMI thing. I didn't, but I'm not everyone else.
Rating: 4 out of 5 Chozo statues
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