The galaxy will no longer be at peace this friday, as the first, entirely new 2D Metroid in 19 years comes out.

I'm fairly excited for this and to blow off the cover of dust that has settled on the top of my Switch. While I have never finished a 2D Metroid before (I've played Super Metroid several times, but the very unguiding nature of it has always made me stop at some point), I've always enjoyed certain aspects of the series a lot. I did play through Metroid Prime some years ago and had a blast with it, so I'm definitely going to jump at MP4 whenever that happens, but I've also grown to appreciate metroidvanias a lot more in recent years, so I'm more than ready to jump right in with Dread too.

It *would* have been nice, if Nintedo currently had some sort of console where they could put all their 2D Metroid games out on, but I suppose I can settle for the story synopsis that this game offers...and eh, maybe I would've overdosed on Metroid before Dread, if I could've played all of them easily on Switch. Or maybe I would be even more hyped, who knows!

• Destructoid 8.5/10
• Eurogamer 'Essential'
• Gamesradar 3.5/5
• Game Informer 9/10
• GameSpot 8/10
• IGN 9/10
• Polygon
• Screenrant 5/5
• TheSixthAxis 9/10
• VGC 5/5

Also excited for Dread. The WiiU is close. It has Metroid 1, 3 & 4 (Metroid, Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion) on it. I thought Metroid 2 was available, but the eShop website seems to say that's only on 3DS. I really thought there were GB games available on WiiU, but even wiki is saying there are not. Also interesting, you can play 1, 2 & 3 on the 3DS. It is really weird.

@ginormous76: If you have the ambassador program on the 3DS you have Fusion as well.

@ginormous76: Also worth noting that SNES Virtual Console only works on *New* 3DS systems. So Metroid 1, 2, and 3 are listed in the 3DS eShop, but it literally won’t allow you to purchase or run Metroid 3 if you’re using a normal 3DS or normal 2DS.

Looks good. I might pick it up this weekend. I will say though, that the Metroid formula ought to evolve a bit, so I hope this one isn't too similar to past outings. I want a lot of new items and mechanics. There have been a ton of indie Metroidvanias like Hollow Knight that show where the genre can go when done right. There's only so many times I want to collect the missiles, super bomb, screw attack, etc.

This is one of the few games I really wanted that special edition for, but they sold out first hour they were available. Resellers got them for like. $300 on Amazon now. I swear Nintendo only made like, 12 of those things.

Whelp, it'll play the same when I download it. Super pumpeed.

You know, I thought there would be more fervor around a new, official Metroid game, but there doesn't seem to be any crazy hype. Maybe there's only loud fan voices and not much more than that.

I think you'd only get one with Prime was still warm. It feels forever since an official, new Metroid and not long at all since Samus Returns.

@ghost_cat: I mean, the problem for me is that this looks like an indie game. It just seems nuts to be charging 60 dollars for it. Visually it also just looks really bland to me.

I think of myself as a Metroid fan but for whatever reason this game, despite the reviews, just doesn't get me excited. Perhaps that's just because I was hoping we'd see something about Prime 4 this year; and this is very much not that.

I'm at the second major boss and my impressions so far are not particular positive because of the games terrible control layout. All I have is joycons since I don't really play switch games much, but this game was not made for them. For example if you want to shoot a bunch of missiles at a boss you gotta hold L1 to aim, R1 to enable missiles (which is not a toggle), and then mash the one face button. There's no loose lock-on or anything either while aiming. It ends up really hurting my hands. I could consider getting another controller but that's money and what they should have done is just let me configure my own controls. There's not even any sort of options related to that.

The EMMI robots: Suck. They're one hit kill. You can apparently parry them to get away, but it's super tight (more mashing) and they can just kinda appear behind doors or below you while your in their areas when you don't expect it. You get abilities to help avoid them, but if they touch even a little bit, that's it. There's no way to stun or impede other than set doors and stuff.

It feels like reviewers are being too positive on it like they did with SR.

The environmental art is a huge step up though. Each area is actual pretty unique looking unlike in SR where rooms had sort of tile sets based on what sort of room they were. The cutscenes all look really nice too. The music has been pretty good too.

The map feature is fantastic. It labels pretty much everything. You can set markers, but unfortunately, they just give you a variety of colors rather than shapes or icons.

So far, I think if, like me, you hated SR, then maybe pass this game up completely. It's very much a sequel to that game mechanically with some improvement. If you're like "I really love Super Metroid" or "I really loved the GBA games" this game is not them and doesn't really draw from them outside of general stuff.

I'm looking forward to this game but I'm not going to froth at the mouth over hype. Also I didn't love Samus Returns, but I didn't hate it either. Curious to try it out later today. The story bits have my interest but the reported high difficulty turns me off.

@d_w: Or, they just enjoyed it?

I love it, about 4 hours in killed the first few bosses. The controls are so responsive and the movement is very fluid, probably one of the best controlling 2D games I have played in a while.

This is also my first Metroid game, and to Nintendo's credit they made a good job at introducing the story in the intro. Far better then the couple of 20+ minutes YouTube videos I watched.

Really fun game. Beat it after a little over 6 hours, not a super high item % completion but it doesn't look like there are any secret endings so not gonna bother getting more, as the stuff you find by sticking around the main path are more than enough resources to beat the game and any challenges it throws at you.

I pretty much agree with all positives and negatives I've seen mentioned by reviews. It looks amazing, feels great, is fun to play. Yet at the same time, feels a bit too "clean and sterile", the story is kinda whatever, and the music is really nothing special. I never played the Samus Returns remake so I can't speak on the how many of these things existed there and remain here or not.

All and all, if you like older Metroid games you'll likely enjoy this. If you don't care for them this game won't change anything. The price point is maybe a bit rough these days, 60 USD is a lot of money for a game that, for anyone who has played "one of these" games before, has roughly the same runtime as the older ones. Though I suppose the cost discussion rarely matters with Nintendo first-party games, seeing how even on sale you'd only really get it for 5/10 dollars less.

I'm loving this so far. My only negatives are really the EMMI encounters not really being scary but more annoying after the first couple, and the Switch in handheld mode itself. The game feels great and I think the control scheme is good, but I typically don't play action games handheld (ie, without the controller) but I'm in a situation where I don't have access to my controller (forced Covid quarantine away from my home) and after tense action sequences it feels like my hands and wrists are dying.

Now I want to go back and play Fusion...boy how nice would it be if Nintendo ever stopped being Nintendo and just dumped a bunch of old games onto their online service? What a concept.

Is this Red Planet the Movie the Game?

A.M.E.E. == E.M.M.I.

Beat it 100% earlier today. The EMMI encounters are probably the most disappointing aspect for me, as I usually found myself trying to brute force the encounters since trying to successfully stealth could feel like such a crapshoot.

Other than that, I thought the game was absolutely fantastic. The visuals really surprised me after Samus Returns was so bland and my general expectations for the Switch. Sound is pretty good, movement is incredible, especially after some upgrades like speed booster and space jump. Most of the new items were at the very least neat (if not exactly anything radically revolutionizing for the series), and the old ones are given to you in an order that spices things up.

The bosses are real big vertical walls in difficulty, and they're VERY heavy on button mashing, which I found somewhat tiring. I had similar issues with Samus Returns, but this isn't quite as ridiculous as that game was. I will say, if you have access to a controller with a Turbo option, maybe consider using it???

Anyway, 9/10, would play MercurySteam's Metroid 6. In case you're wondering about my subjective views on the mainline games, to gauge my tastes to your own, I'd probably rank Zero Mission/Dread/Super top 3 (not necessarily in that order), Samus Returns, Fusion, (AM2R), OG.

@heyitsdale: This pretty much sums up all of my thoughts after finishing. Loved it, but boy I fucking HATED the EMMI parts. It's a testament to how great the game is that those parts didn't really bother me in the long run. The only other thing I didn't like was how the Space Jump felt. Spin jumping in general just felt *off* to me.

Regardless, I fucking loved ALL of the boss fights and the sheer anxiety and tension they brought with them, and I was sad when the game was over...less than 24 hours after purchase. It also just made me want to go back and play Zero Mission, Fusion and Returns even more...but, yeah, oh well.

@d_w: This game feels great with a Switch Pro controller. I haven't played it with the Joycons, but I think a lot of Switch games are downright unplayable with the Joycons anyway. There are some complaints I have with controls, I think it would be way better if you could tilt the analog stick halfway and walk and tilt it all the way to run, and I prefer pushing L to aim diagonally instead of holding it to anchor to the ground and aim any direction, but otherwise I think it feels kind of amazing to play.

I also want to note that this game seems to be flying off the shelf. My brother found a picture of a store with a picture telling people they're out of copies of Metroid Dread. That's great to hear about a Metroid game!

For me, this one falls in the same tier as Fusion and Prime 2 - great games, but not cream-of-the-crop Metroid. For all I can say about its controls and its well-done map design, I think the EMMI encounters are by far the worst part of the game and it's front-loaded with those things. The first 2-3 hours of this game are, for me, in some pretty low territory. Not downright bad, necessarily, but repetitive and hand-holdy and much too linear for my liking. It opens up, eventually, and becomes a pretty good Metroid game, but I wasn't super into it for that first bit. I haven't actually finished it yet, for the record. I was playing a bunch of it and then people started inviting me to play multiplayer games and I haven't got back to Metroid.

One other thing that's sorely lacking - music. It feels like it's barely there. There's some atmospheric stuff that you can hear if you strain your ears, but for the most part it's the occasional remix of Super Metroid tracks and... nothing. No Phendrana Drifts theme, no Brinstar theme, nothing even attempting some new music. It exists but it's like they wanted it totally buried.

"One other thing that's sorely lacking - music. It feels like it's barely there. There's some atmospheric stuff that you can hear if you strain your ears, but for the most part it's the occasional remix of Super Metroid tracks and... nothing. No Phendrana Drifts theme, no Brinstar theme, nothing even attempting some new music. It exists but it's like they wanted it totally buried."

THIS. I'm mostly loving the game, save what others have said about the EMMIs inspiring more annoyance than dread, but the lack of any real driving themes is... disappointing. It's not ruining the game, but it's definitely one thing keeping it, for me, from rising to the heights of certain other entries. That said, being near the end now, it's still, again, for me, either third or fourth of the eleven mainline games (excluding Pinball, Federation Force, and Hunters).

Absolutely love how it feels to move around, really digging the challenge (again, everything BUT the EMMIs), adore how it looks and how the world comes together... but it's just not quite *there.* Totally worthwhile in almost every way, but steps shy of touching Super or Prime (my #1 and 2; right now I have it neck-and-neck with Zero Mission, which was my previous #3 in the rankings, with the very bottom of the list being Other M and Fusion).

Finished with 100% completion after about 14 hours and thought the game was really fantastic overall. Like others have said, I felt the EMMI stuff was very lackluster and the most tiring part of the game. If they hadn't put you at a checkpoint right before the EMMI zones, I'm not sure I would have had the heart to keep trucking at times.

The overworld layout and those gorgeous 2.5D vistas were really aesthetically pleasing to me. The many different biomes were all gorgeously detailed. I never played any of the GBA Metroid games, but have played the original NES/SNES games plenty of times and thought all of the abilities were interesting. @sethmode I agree 100% with you on the Space Jump, that never felt exactly right to me either. Reminded me of the old double jump in Revenge of Shinobi for the Sega Genesis that I never mastered way back when.

I thought some of the boss fights were borderline unplayable at first, but definitely got into a groove with most after learning the patterns. Though that 2nd to last boss fight gave me a very rough time of it, even though I knew the patterns. I felt like that boss did much more damage than the last boss himself.

Awesome game and I hope the game does well enough to merit some more 2D-esque Metroid games going forward.

@edens_heel: I think that the biggest issue with the EMMIs is that they aren't even really challenging. They're just kind of there in every sense of the word. In some ways they remind me of the issue that Uncharted games had: this is a cool, exciting thing in theory, but once you fail 4 times in a row it inspires the wrong mind of dread (sorry, couldn't help it). Like, all of the stakes are gone and it now just becomes this thing you have to get through to get to the next thing.

Killing the next to last one was a part of the game that I just absolutely hated. Although I did like what they did with the 7th one story wise. It almost felt like they knew players would be fed up at that point.

@elyk247: Yeah that second to last one was brutal. The last one was hard in the sense that it had 3 forms, but it was filled with so many opportunities to get back health and missiles that once you learned how to properly get around the second forms machine gun and not panic in general, it became pretty easy (that second form was when I really started to loathe the space jump).

@sethmode: All fair, though funnily enough, the second-to-last one was the only EMMI encounter that I actually enjoyed. :P

Finished last night with 100%, mostly loved it. Still think it drops the ball -hard- on the music front, except for when it pulls from previous games (the boss music is especially disappointing, and I wish they'd brought out a version of the old SM fight music at least for the battle with Kraid). And while this will likely piss off one Daniel Ryckert, the combat very much feels like they cribbed from Hollow Knight—mostly with respect to the speed and flash dash manouevre.

I don't feel like getting too into it, but I would put this as the second-best 2D game, third best overall in the series.

Personal ranking of just the mainline games, based on enjoyment not influence (no FF, Hunters, or Pinball): Super>Prime 1>Dread>Zero Mission>Prime 2>Samus Returns>Prime 3>OG Metroid>Return of Samus>Fusion>Other M (I know, a lot of people love Fusion, but I loathe its linearity, and for my money it commits the cardinal sin of a Metroidvania: gating you from going exploring near the end without you realizing you've been gated/funnelled to the endgame—I know you can come back and get everything after, but I don't care, I hate this aspect of it).

@edens_heel: It's probably mostly my fault...I kept fucking up the part where you kill it. I must have had to do it like 8 or 9 times so it really had me infuriated by the end.

I don’t know how far along I but I’m having real trouble with the non-EMMI boss fights, and it’s not the games fault, it is the controllers. I never got a pro controller so I’m using the slide-lock puppy face pack in, and anything needing precise timing or weapon switching just feels like I’m bumbling my way through it, even when I succeed.

It’s just a little too many button combos for the tiny zebra brains that live in the tips of my fingers to figure out quick enough. 15 deaths later I can bust through, but I stop enjoying the death by the fourth time. And I can enjoy dying in dark souls games 50 times because it’s just my real human brain failing then, but this is a limitation of the controller it feels like. Doesn’t help that any game I play on it makes my wrists hurt two minutes into the session, boss fight or otherwise.

Main thing is that this comes down to a good game limited by my hardware. Not really a fair criticism but one I run into nonetheless. For a Metroid game to make me sort dread (ha) the next ability because it’ll mean another 4 button combo to use a grapple hook I need to kill a squid even when it’s a pattern boss, it’s a little bit of an arthritic bummer. Again, not the games fault, I could probably do it on a not-square controller a bit easier.

Finished it today. My first Metroid game really (I have dabbled a little bit in Super Metroid, Samus Returns and Other M). Got to say I think it is absolutely phenomenal! Movement and boss fights just felt so good. I thought difficulty was pretty much spot on for me. I actually really, really enjoyed the EMMI moments - the music was so exhilarating when getting chased - had a few really memorable moments escaping from them.

The only thing I'd say is, definitely don't touch this game if you don't have a Pro controller. I couldn't imagine getting through it with the joy cons.

So I quoted you above saying it feels pretty good on a Switch Pro controller. I completely forgot about a feature that the Switch has that is for some reason totally hidden. From the Switch's home menu, you can go to System Settings - Controllers and Sensors - Change Button Mapping and set up a handful of different profiles. This unfortunately doesn't change the in-game prompts and such so you have to remember that you changed Y to ZR or something crazy like that, but you can change up buttons.

It's probably too late for this game but may come in handy in the future.

So I 100%'d this game this morning. It's a pretty good Metroid game!

My complaints are largely the same as above. The EMMI sections suck, especially the purple EMMI. That one involves a creature that moves faster than you, can see through walls, can shoot a purple ball at you through walls, and mostly involves trying to get through water without the gravity suit. The EMMI sections in general are bad, but this particular one is especially awful. Fortunately, the EMMI stuff is loaded in the front of the game, with a smaller resurgence in the back half. If they were as prevalent as the marketing would have you believe, I wouldn't have finished this game. As it is, they're a relatively minor part of the game.

The music is also very lacking. Here, listen to this, it's the Brinstar theme from Super Metroid. Dread completely and utterly lacks anything of the sort and what music this game does have is buried beneath everything else happening. I listened to some of the soundtrack on Youtube and it's just really bland and boring, so it's not entirely the fault of the audio mixing. I played some of this on a decent home theater system and some of it with a pair of headphones at my computer and at both places it's the same story.

One complaint I didn't mention above deals with 100%ing the game. ALL of the tough-to-get expansions in the game are hidden behind shinespark puzzles. ALL of them. Not "most of them", all of them, as if the only challenge Mercury Steam could come up with was fucking shinespark puzzles. Now, I do enjoy a clever shinespark puzzle and I don't think any franchise outside of Metroid has ever done them, but I want something else. Anything. A difficult environment to navigate, a bonus boss, something cleverly hidden that requires analyzing the map for oddities, something other than another shinespark puzzle. Everything else is pretty easy to find, but there's no wall jumping puzzles, no tight platforming, nothing as far as difficult hidden items. Just shinespark puzzles as far as the eye can see, and by the final one I was so fucking done with shinespark puzzles.

Finally, I feel like the controls are too loose for some of the things they want you to do in the late game, especially when dealing with the aforementioned shinespark puzzles. I personally would rather use L to aim diagonally like in Fusion/Zero Mission than hold L to anchor your feet to the ground and aim with the analog stick. I also think that Samus shouldn't aim her gun any direction other than straight ahead or straight up unless you're holding down that bumper. Far too often, I would fumble a shot or something because I had the analog stick tilted a little too far up or down so that Samus wasn't aiming straight ahead. I also think that you magnetize to ledges a little too easily (I want to drop down, damn it) and I think the game misses spin jump inputs a lot. Like, a whole hell of a lot, to the point where I occasionally took tons of damage because Samus didn't jump in mid air even though she was somersaulting and I was pushing B. Speaking of controls, I can't imagine playing this with the Joycons. Play this on a TV with the Pro controller. If you have a Switch Lite... ouch.

I have a few other nitpicks - I think the first few areas are visually uninteresting, for instance - but I think the above are the things that keep this from being in the same class as Super, Zero Mission, and AM2R.

On the bright side...

I did say this was a pretty good Metroid game and I meant it. The bosses here are great, mostly. I especially liked the final boss, which felt ripped straight out of Mega Man Zero and I mean that in the best way possible. I think the levels and areas are designed really well and navigating them is a lot of fun. The game's first half feels pretty linear, but we've already seen a lot of sequence breaks and crazy shit people have been doing. I got the Scan Pulse way earlier than I was meant to via some good ol' fashioned bomb jumping. I complained a bit about aiming, but the actual movement - navigating around the environment and stuff - feels great. I think it's interesting that the game is way more about an ascent than a descent - you start at the bottom of the world and not the top, which mixes things up in some interesting ways. I think the map is extremely useful (this is how you fucking do it, Hollow Knight, you and your goddamn "find the cartographer" bullshit). I think the game strikes a really good balance between hiding things well but also ensuring that you never need a guide to figure out what to do. In the same vein, I think it leads players along its main path without having to explicitly tell people where to go. I think it's really good about letting you get to places you're not supposed to be able to get to and also subtly ensuring that you can get back out. I don't know for certain if there's anywhere you can soft lock, but it seems like you'd have to try really hard to find such. I really like that if you die, you pretty much always start right outside of the last safe door you went through (right at the boss door, right at the EMMI gate, etc.).

I genuinely think this is a great game. It's not the best 2D Metroid, it's not as good as Timespinner, it's certainly not as good as Bloodstained, but it's still really good and I'd call it a must-play for the Switch. With a Pro controller, on a TV. Don't use the Joycons.

I think I’m about 75% through the game and it’s…fine. It’s fine. I don’t like the emmi encounters, and I don’t like the cutscene when they catch you. It’s like sloppy and edited poorly somehow, even though it’s kinda real time? Also I think the game is ugly, I don’t like the art direction or environment design.

This year is becoming a pretty big bummer for me, games-wise. So many things I was really looking forward to-this, Deathloop, even that silly Super Monkey Ball game, none of them have been jiving with me and it’s sad. I’ve definitely played games that I’ve liked this year, but the ones I expected to love have not been games that I love.

Finished it in about 13 hours. Like many others, I found the EMMIs to be either lackluster or frustrating. Some of the bosses were rough too, though the insane amount of button smashing played heavily into that.

In general, the very slick and satisfying gameplay made up for a lot of things, even when it at times felt like I could’ve used an extra set of fingers.

The music was definitely disappointing. Not bad, but just overall very forgettable (outside of the SM tracks, of course).

Got 100% in just over 11:30 and loved it.

It's incredible that they found space between the openness of Super Metroid and the linearity of Metroid Fusion. If you want, you can totally play it as a linear game, and it was almost always successful at telegraphing the 'right' way forward. Beyond that though, there's layers to it: with a little bit of knowledge from previous games (walljumping, infinite bomb jumps) you can get a few missile upgrades early. But no major items: to get truly sequence breaking, you've got to really push at the game. It was beyond me to find anything myself, but there's already plenty of Youtube videos of neat ways to skip items or get things early; I'm looking forward to seeing what the speedrun routes end up being. Having the Metroidvania-ness layered in like that is, frankly, a remarkable achievement in world design.

Otherwise, I have the same issues as everyone: the run-from-the-EMMI sections are at best fine, and at worst frustrating, and I can't imagine the hand cramps you'd get from trying to play this with joycons, and the few times I'd hear a melody from a previous game used as a leitmotif made me really want more from the soundtrack. But nothing to really stop my enjoyment. It's no Super Metroid, but it's still really good.

I have to admit - I don't get the overwhelming praise. The boss fights are unbelievably repetitive. Like, sure, Super Metroid has a repeat of a boss fight, but at least it's separated by basically the entire duration of the game. This one has you fighting the same bosses over and over again. It's fine fighting them the first time, but every subsequent time is just like "yep, I've done this before - execute the steps". It does this with three different bosses throughout the game (totalling 15 boss encounters for three unique boss types). That just felt very lazy.

Then as others have pointed out - the areas aren't particularly distinct from one another, and the music doesn't do a lot when it's not a cover of a classic track. The controls overwhelm the joycons. EMMI sections are fine at best.

It's not that it's a bad game, it's just that it has massive flaws that I think detract greatly from it.

@taosd: I don't recall any repetitive boss fights? Are you talking about the sub-boss characters you encounter?

@sethmode: Yes - 15 of them - love the attempt to split hairs on boss vs sub-boss though

@taosd: OK duder, no need to get hostile. I was just making sure I understood what encounters you were talking about. I loved the game but have plenty of my own complaints in this very thread.

@justin258 said:

I'm aware of this and it's still BS. Not really an acceptable solution to be frank as it changes it across all games, and wouldn't fix/address the issues I had with the game. The controls do start to feel better once you get the Storm missiles since precision aiming isn't as important than. But the game still need to have a lot of controller/accessibility settings.

Which bosses are repeated? If you count the EMMIs, there's only actually five of those proper, and I'd hardly count those as bosses. The only other repeating boss I recall are the Chozo Soldiers, of which there are five normal ones and two occurrences where you fight two of them. Am I missing any? I personally found the Chozo Soldiers fun to fight, even though I'd agree that the fight repeats too many times. Even with that complaint, the rest of the bosses can't be discounted, they're all unique and great fun if you're looking for SNES/GBA-era boss design.

@justin258: I assume he's speaking of the robot chozo, the X-parasite chozo and the mother brains

The controls are bad (even on a pro controller). It seems aiming should just have been on the right stick, and some of the hold-button controls should have been toggles.

I wish (mini) bosses had health bars. I'm currently stuck on Ferenia, there's some kind of mini-boss after a long cutscene, and he's killed me probably about 8 times or so before I gave up. I just want to know if I'm doing any damage to this guy and I'm really close to beating him, or I've barely touched him and need to try something else. Presumably there is some kind of feedback when hitting enemies (e.g. white outline), but if there is it is too subtle for me to read during combat.

The game also doesn't seem to have any accessibility or difficulty options to make it more manageable, so I'm probably not going to be able to finish this game, which is really disappointing for a game I purchased on release date and was looking forward to.

I've been playing this and enjoying it a lot. It's definitely not easy. I just got to Kraid and I have yet to beat it, but I'm enjoying the challenge. I actually enjoy the Emmi encounters quite a bit - it's a kind of tension you don't usually get in this type of game. There are a few tricks you can do to hide that make you feel like a ninja when you pull them off. It's also very pretty and smooth as butter at all times. The environments and music aren't terribly memorable, though.