cabbitcabbit
NeoGaf Donator
- 2,687
- 8,379
Metroid Dread
- Thread starter Rajaah
- Start date
I finally gave up on most of them. I seriously almost broke my Pro Controller when I smashed it against my coffee table. The hassle of trying to perfect 20 different buttons at the precise right moment, plus putting a cross bomb in the precise right spot, followed by having to try to shinespark and jump back up to said ledge just to get a + energy tank or 2 more missiles is totally not worth it, and not even necessary to defeat the game. Whoever thought that was a good idea to implement into the game I hope dies of a flesh eating virus. I think I finished with like 152 missiles, so not sure how many more you can get, but whatever. It was enough to defeat Ravenbeak, and like I mentioned before, I took the game back to Walmart and got a refund.
The game had some really cool moments for sure, and some of the exploring and opening of new parts of the map was exciting. And I really didn't even mind the EMMI's that much (except for the last one), but some of the puzzles and some of the bosses just sucked most of the enjoyment out of the game for me. I'm glad I beat it, but I don't think this game was worth the $50. Whatever. Darkest Dungeon 2 comes out tomorrow, and I'm playing a lot of Back 4 Blood. Metroid was mildly entertaining for the 4 or 5 days I played it, but it's not a game that overall I will look back too fondly on.
- 3
Rajaah
Honorable Member
- 13,344
- 17,984
I'm trying to figure out if I want to sell the Collector's Edition or not. Could get a nice profit on it. However it's pretty nice, especially the artbook. For a series fan like me, the artbook is tremendously cool. I don't know how much I'll refer back to it post-initial read, though. I guess I'll hang onto it, and maybe in a few years it'll be worth even more.
Definitely looking forward to playing Ori 1+2 on my new Switch OLED in the near future.
- 1
LiquidDeath
Magnus Deadlift the Fucktiger
- 5,140
- 12,456
This is the greatest game review ever.
I simultaneously agree with everything he said but also have no idea how he really feels about the game.
cabbitcabbit
NeoGaf Donator
- 2,687
- 8,379
It sums up my feelings entirely. Tedious is how I would best describe the game. Nothing is really challenging it’s just annoying. Boss tactics, “puzzles”, backtracking and level design. Outside of the main bosses, it just rehashes the same enemies over and over. 90% of all the rooms are just up and down variations of each other with almost no discernible features so I have constantly look at the map to figure out where the fuck I am. A lot of the puzzles have no “ah-ha” moment and are just based on twitch movement skills. Also, why the fuck does this game have so many one way doors even at the very end of the game?
- 5
I think this review is being a little too harsh. Nothing wrong with a game being 2D. I actually liked that aspect of the game. Also, I don't know what the fuck he's talking about, because you can deflect the EMMI's attack and get away (albeit, it's extremely difficult). I I don't think it's nearly as bad as he's saying, perhaps a little too much hyperbole. But I do agree that Hollow Knight blows the doors off of this game. And yeah, $60 is a tad too high for how short this game is. Whatever, I beat it and took it back. Had some fun with it. Is it game of the year contender? Not a chance. Is it the worst game ever made? Not even close.
- 2
Caliane
Avatar of War Slayer
- 15,902
- 12,542
got to this game finally. and this is really hitting on a number of my frustrations.
the game looks great. and I do love the 3d/2d mix. but, the emmi shit is annoying. "heres a stealth cloak, use it to avoid emmi!" stealth cloak is totally useless, since they path right over you every time anyway. "you can block the emmi with a perfect timed block!" when exactly are we supposed to do that? its so unclear. Also, lets have emmi spawn right on top of you sometimes when you walk through doors. instakill repeat, instakill repeat. as you blindly run around trying find the doorway you need. This shit does not work at all. and would be way more enjoyable if it were easier to block out, and run away. instead of dieing, and having to restart, to get lucky with a clear path and find the right door.
oh, and unskippable cutscenes. (unlabeled + and -does work on some, but not all cutscenes.) cutscenes, dialogue, and tutorials in metroid at all. stop it.
Frustrating controls. depressing L for boost run. why? why not automatic like every other.. Lz for slide. why? why not just down and B like every other slide in every other game. holding R for missiles.. why? either a toggle, or just press to fire missiles directly. Adding more buttons does not make a game more enjoyable, or more controllable.
world design seems ok at best. teleporters are just cheating. levels don't feel lived in at all. no logic to the layouts.
- 3
Caliane
Avatar of War Slayer
- 15,902
- 12,542
and starting to get outright annoyed.
joystick shinespark puzzles... can't use the keypad. finnicky as shit.
more talking... just hit that chozo exposition dump, where he gets shot in the back. ffs. talk talk talk. in fucking metroid. leave that, go 30ft, and now Adam talking..
"raven beak". seriously? raven beak. do chozo even know what a raven is? It'd be like a 40k space marine named Monkey snout. why the fuck would he be named after some animal all chozo kindof resemble?
joystick shinespark puzzles... can't use the keypad. finnicky as shit.
more talking... just hit that chozo exposition dump, where he gets shot in the back. ffs. talk talk talk. in fucking metroid. leave that, go 30ft, and now Adam talking..
"raven beak". seriously? raven beak. do chozo even know what a raven is? It'd be like a 40k space marine named Monkey snout. why the fuck would he be named after some animal all chozo kindof resemble?
- 1
cabbitcabbit
NeoGaf Donator
- 2,687
- 8,379
Rajaah
Honorable Member
- 13,344
- 17,984
My advice is to take a break from it (unless there's a large chance you won't get back to something you take a break from). Go back to it in a week or something. Otherwise you'll just hate it more as you go. It's one of those games that feels like it continually moves the endzone away from you if you're in a hurry.
The remainder of the game after the exposition dump basically turns into Metroid Souls because it has like 6 or 7 extremely hard bosses in succession. Stuff that knocks off two energy tanks per hit kind of thing.
I love Metroid and I love Souls, but I don't play Metroid to get a Souls/Hollow Knight experience and I wish they would have gone a bit lighter on the later boss difficulty. Main thing that kept me from ever replaying it. Final boss took about two hours of trying (which is alright I guess, it's the final boss) and a few of the Chozo Warrior bosses took me over an hour of dying to get past as well, which was annoying when I was ready to be done with the game at that point.
Caliane
Avatar of War Slayer
- 15,902
- 12,542
Final verdict.
ugh. Calling it quits on stage 2 of bird beak.
I ended up getting most of the powerups. I think I missed 4 naturally. looked up how to get those 4. and grabbed 2 of them. The last two decided nope.
two main factors here. I figured out by practicing myself, that you can diagonally shinespark charge and got a couple ones I was having trouble with naturally. I was totally lost on the last 4. Looking up, I found out hitting Y and B mid spacejump, will take you out and put you into the shiinespark charge mid-air. Something the game doesn't tell or hit at. so that let me get a couple I couldn't figure out how the hell you were supposed to get, easily
last two. one was a twitchy one, that I just nah out of. And the last was a total bullshit, again shinespark mechanic that is not hinted at or natural. you can shinespark into a diagonal floor, which will reenter boost run, letting you run, and restart the shinespark, after you get onto a flat floor again. so, while after reading the answer, actually getting it, should have been easy. I just said no, because fuck you. if you are going to have shit like that, you need to show the player its a thing.
Bird brain. I didn't find the elevator as bad as others. Although its still true. why? stage 1 I figured out fast enough. refills. countering move it along to stage 2. A bad design issue here, and a couple other times is the game doesn't let you know what is pure cutscene and where you are in cutscene.. but also need to be shooting missiles. or is that even just for looks? I have no fucking idea.
stage 2. fight is already too long. patterns are annoying. not having fun, I'm done. like, people were bitching about the elevator. Im just sick of stage 1.
theres a stage 3? fuck you.
Most of my thoughts on this mirror everything already said by everyone else.
Nintendo doesn't understand the appeal of Metroid. They seem to have no idea what they are doing.
"samus you are a metroid. " what even the fuck?
in the reddit on metroid prime remake someone commented on how prime is slow and methodical, while current metroids are fast paced and running. its true and a huge problem. look at that one review of prime, that mentions how prime invites you to explore, learn about the world, read, etc, and how its menacing, lonely and fills you with dread. THAT is Metroid.
Fusion, and Dread do not understand Metroid. too fast, too much 1 hit kills, trying to be hollow knight. talk, talk, talk.
rehashing is bullshit as well. chozo, metroids, x. kraid. all the abilities. cross bomb and storm bombs the only new thing? get some new ideas. oh wait. counter. counter. counter.
I don't know what to call this, or a number to give. is this a highly polished turd, or great game mired with some TERRIBLE choices dragging down the good?
Incredibly disappointing.
already mentioned it, but I'll talk Emmi again. I understand dread was concepted around them in the first place. taking the SA-X idea, and expanding on it. That concept is ok. they just failed at doing it horribly. 1. repetitive deaths. Terrible choice. tag your dead. continue? over and over. as you blindly flail about trying to figure out where you are supposed to go. the emmi counter should have been much easier. maybe every time it caught you, it would get harder to avoid. but still the mad dash to get away, get grabbed, push and try to get away would have been tense. dieing over and over and restarting is not tense. it kills the pacing.
2. lies to us about how to avoid them. invis skill. holding up on grapple to lay flat. game outright tells us to use these things. and they dont work at all. the emmi just walks over you and kills you. various ball holes as well, seem to be there to avoid emmis. but dont work either. so, theres no real skill or using powerups to avoid them. its just pure run away. wouldnt be as bad if they didnt outright lie.. but still not good design. all those cool doors. invis door. dash door. pressure plate doors. why werent we using those to ditch them?
3. repetitive mother brain fight. why even? what is this? zero difficulty as well. the repetitive chozo fights at least scaled up in difficulty. I don't really know why those exist either...
ugh. Calling it quits on stage 2 of bird beak.
I ended up getting most of the powerups. I think I missed 4 naturally. looked up how to get those 4. and grabbed 2 of them. The last two decided nope.
two main factors here. I figured out by practicing myself, that you can diagonally shinespark charge and got a couple ones I was having trouble with naturally. I was totally lost on the last 4. Looking up, I found out hitting Y and B mid spacejump, will take you out and put you into the shiinespark charge mid-air. Something the game doesn't tell or hit at. so that let me get a couple I couldn't figure out how the hell you were supposed to get, easily
last two. one was a twitchy one, that I just nah out of. And the last was a total bullshit, again shinespark mechanic that is not hinted at or natural. you can shinespark into a diagonal floor, which will reenter boost run, letting you run, and restart the shinespark, after you get onto a flat floor again. so, while after reading the answer, actually getting it, should have been easy. I just said no, because fuck you. if you are going to have shit like that, you need to show the player its a thing.
Bird brain. I didn't find the elevator as bad as others. Although its still true. why? stage 1 I figured out fast enough. refills. countering move it along to stage 2. A bad design issue here, and a couple other times is the game doesn't let you know what is pure cutscene and where you are in cutscene.. but also need to be shooting missiles. or is that even just for looks? I have no fucking idea.
stage 2. fight is already too long. patterns are annoying. not having fun, I'm done. like, people were bitching about the elevator. Im just sick of stage 1.
theres a stage 3? fuck you.
Most of my thoughts on this mirror everything already said by everyone else.
Nintendo doesn't understand the appeal of Metroid. They seem to have no idea what they are doing.
"samus you are a metroid. " what even the fuck?
in the reddit on metroid prime remake someone commented on how prime is slow and methodical, while current metroids are fast paced and running. its true and a huge problem. look at that one review of prime, that mentions how prime invites you to explore, learn about the world, read, etc, and how its menacing, lonely and fills you with dread. THAT is Metroid.
Fusion, and Dread do not understand Metroid. too fast, too much 1 hit kills, trying to be hollow knight. talk, talk, talk.
rehashing is bullshit as well. chozo, metroids, x. kraid. all the abilities. cross bomb and storm bombs the only new thing? get some new ideas. oh wait. counter. counter. counter.
I don't know what to call this, or a number to give. is this a highly polished turd, or great game mired with some TERRIBLE choices dragging down the good?
Incredibly disappointing.
already mentioned it, but I'll talk Emmi again. I understand dread was concepted around them in the first place. taking the SA-X idea, and expanding on it. That concept is ok. they just failed at doing it horribly. 1. repetitive deaths. Terrible choice. tag your dead. continue? over and over. as you blindly flail about trying to figure out where you are supposed to go. the emmi counter should have been much easier. maybe every time it caught you, it would get harder to avoid. but still the mad dash to get away, get grabbed, push and try to get away would have been tense. dieing over and over and restarting is not tense. it kills the pacing.
2. lies to us about how to avoid them. invis skill. holding up on grapple to lay flat. game outright tells us to use these things. and they dont work at all. the emmi just walks over you and kills you. various ball holes as well, seem to be there to avoid emmis. but dont work either. so, theres no real skill or using powerups to avoid them. its just pure run away. wouldnt be as bad if they didnt outright lie.. but still not good design. all those cool doors. invis door. dash door. pressure plate doors. why werent we using those to ditch them?
3. repetitive mother brain fight. why even? what is this? zero difficulty as well. the repetitive chozo fights at least scaled up in difficulty. I don't really know why those exist either...
Last edited:
- 2
Rajaah
Honorable Member
- 13,344
- 17,984
The shinespark puzzles can get pretty obnoxious. That started in either Zero Mission or Fusion (or both), this trend of having a few items require shinespark gymnastics is something I've never been fond of. I managed to 100% both of those games at least. Never bothered with Dread once I heard it had the worst shinespark puzzles yet.
You do need to be firing missiles during the cutscenes on Raven Beak (terrible name btw). Those give you opportunities to pump him full of lead. The main thing is to make use of the item drops on phase 1 to keep yourself somewhat topped-off for the remainder.
It took me a couple hours to beat him and I'm glad I did, cause once everything clicked on the fight it ended up being easy (after seeming ridiculous at first). So maybe give it another go and you'll find it's easier after a break. Personally I'd rather do that and have the game done.
I thought Dread was incredibly over-rated. It had the opposite of that "there's a lot of negativity about something so people start dogpiling on every little issue with it" effect. There was a ton of positivity about Dread so it's like people were afraid to say anything critical. The final boss fight was actually one of the few things I liked, because it felt like a worthy final boss to the whole series.
Caeden
Golden Baronet of the Realm
- 7,762
- 13,044
I’m playing this now because I started it (again) on vacation. Frankly, I must be bad at this shit because I had an easier time in Elden Ring than this shit. Normal mode and each boss still takes 5-6 attempts. And I just find the fucking shinespark shit annoying. I know I missed a lot of upgrades. And that’s probably the problem. That said I’m at the point when everything freezes. I’m told to find a secret item and go back and use some device in Cataris. Am I near the end? I hope so because I want to finish this for good.
Prettiest but least entertaining Metroid ever?
Prettiest but least entertaining Metroid ever?
Rajaah
Honorable Member
- 13,344
- 17,984
Yeah pretty much.
Not sure where you are in relation to the final boss, but IIRC the last 5 or 6 bosses were all kind of ridiculous. "Take two energy tanks off per hit" ridiculous. The Metroid series was never about being Souls Hard, it was about exploring and collecting enough powerups to be OP. I don't think you can ever actually be OP in Dread.
I think they tried to hard to be Hollow Knight or something along those lines.
I only played it the once and I've been thinking about maybe going back and trying a second run to see if I enjoy it more now with tempered expectations, but I just can't get worked up to do more EMMI fights and superhard lategame bosses. Maybe if it got an Easy setting since then? Hell maybe it already had one, I don't know. I played it on Normal.
Caeden
Golden Baronet of the Realm
- 7,762
- 13,044
It has an easy. I’ll see how it goes tonight. I have a hard time beliving I’ve got much left since I’m using the gravity suit and can mostly free roam.
Rajaah
Honorable Member
- 13,344
- 17,984
Nice, just loaded the game up and got a "Rookie Mode Unlocked" message. Maybe I will play it again. Just not keen on doing a repeat of the slog that was Normal mode.