Metroid Dread (Switch)

The Metroid series of exploration-focused platformers has reliably been thick with atmosphere. The adventures of bounty hunter Samus Aran take her deep into alien planets, she’s explored abandoned space stations and ruins, and often found not only hostile lifeforms but the signs that people who have come before her had met grislier fates. Despite this, Metroid has only really flirted with horror ideas rather than diving deep into them, and even in Metroid Dread it still feels like it’s not the overwhelming theme of the experience, but as the name implies, the vulnerability of being alone on an unfamiliar planet is played up for all its worth in this game that took almost two decades to finally go from idea to reality.

Taking place after her previous missions to wipe out the energy-draining Metroid species and the X parasites those Metroids were apparently created to keep in check, the Galactic Federation receives footage of an X parasite on the planet ZDR and sends seven humanoid machines called E.M.M.I.s to investigate. When they don’t report back, Samus is called in instead to hopefully wipe out what should be the last of the dangerous transforming parasites only to be attacked upon arrival. A Chozo warrior ambushes her, the very species that raised Samus to be a warrior now having one of its members turn against her and leave her deep below the planet’s surface with her power armor stripped of its many helpful weapons and abilities. While Samus doesn’t abandon her goal of wiping out the parasite if it is still present, immediately she realizes she’s far from her ship and more worryingly, the powerful robotic E.M.M.I.s now see her as prey, her equipment no match for these adaptable machines eager to kill her if they can find her.

Despite a set-up that definitely emphasizes that Samus is neck deep in a situation where she will often be outmatched and her only escape is truly out of reach, there is not, funnily enough, a looming sense of dread over proceedings. As Samus begins to explore ZDR she can find some legitimately beautiful sights, speak with a helpful AI named ADAM, uncover useful upgrades, and build herself back up to a power level where she can start rectifying her situation. There are definitely portions where your exploration suddenly shifts into a moodier moment such as a part of a facility where the power is out and damage to the nearby area is evident. You can spot out of the corner of your eye creatures lurking around the background that you may or may not face later, you can find sickly areas where the area around you feels toxic, and quite often you can see the signs of areas you could have been able to reach if you had your equipment but you can only access them if you return later. While mysterious quiet areas and larger aggressive monsters definitely feel like they build up the idea that ZDR is a hostile environment with a dark history, the moments you enter an E.M.M.I.’s stomping grounds is where the game truly leans into upping the mortal terror.

E.M.M.I.s can crawl on all four limbs, hear your movement, and have large visual sensor cones they use to try and find you. Some may pack additional abilities like the ability to contort to enter small spaces so they can pop up unexpectedly out of an access hatch, some can fire attacks to slow down your escape, and the area you encounter them in varies so that trying to find successful ways to navigate or hide can differ from easy to hard to not even much of an option. The thing about these robotic pursuers is if they do catch Samus, you are almost guaranteed to die, and while they do emit short flashes that would allow you to counter them if you time it extremely well, the instances where this works make it more of a fluke than a consistently reliable tactic to lean on. Avoiding them is the best option, the player not truly safe until they’ve passed through special doors that mark the E.M.M.I. territory. To make them a bit more bearable, a death to these robots won’t set you back much, the game in general putting special checkpoints before difficult sections so that the only time you’re thrown back to a save point is if you die while exploring the still hostile environment. You also do eventually get the means to help fight back or better escape your mechanical stalkers as well with things like the Phantom Cloak that makes you invisible but slows you down so you can’t overuse its benefits.

While the E.M.M.I. robots can definitely serve as brief injections of terror at parts, at others they don’t shine quite as brightly. Part of this can come down to the need to repeatedly cross through their territory rather than actively engage or evade them and it does feel like the game’s early chases mostly shift around environmental pieces like platforms before really strong ideas are given the focus instead. One of the most effective moments involving them requires you to constantly break obstructions as it chases you so you do feel that tension and dread since you’re engaged, but at other points the running and jumping around the 2D environments can’t quite nail that feeling of being chased. They don’t overstay their welcome, especially since later iterations start to shift things up just enough, but it feels like Metroid Dread’s strength lie elsewhere rather than with this good but not fully realized idea.

One thing the game does do well during E.M.M.I. encounters, particularly while they have Samus in their grasp and are about to go for the kill, is portray how Samus feels on her adventure. While she is a woman of very few words, her body language and vocalizations do add some strong character and emotion to specific moments. When she is in a robot’s grasp and you mistime that very precise counter, you can feel the futility in her attempt to fight back. When she’s relieved something isn’t as dangerous as she thought she strikes a casual pose that captures that shift to feeling safe, and when she does have the upper hand she can have a confident strut that shows she relishes that moment of control. Visor shots let us see her eyes at key points as well to let us see both anger and terror, this peek at who she is establishing a good amount with very little.

Metroid Dread does have a great handle of many of its returning elements too, and while the big draw was the new stealth segments with the robot pursuers, it feels like the core action and exploration have been upgraded in such meaningful ways they deserve the real credit for making this an exemplary experience. As you begin to explore ZDR you will travel between different sections, and this can at first seem like a fairly linear progression from one spot to the next. However, not only are there little ways to go off the beaten path if you’re clever, soon you’ll find yourself returning to earlier areas as part of pushing forward, often exploring new areas you only had seen on other sides of solid walls or simply didn’t even know existed then. Some spaces can be changed drastically on a return visit and Samus herself can directly damage the environment to open up or close off routes. While you can use your map to help you navigate and find new areas you either haven’t explored or uncover hidden upgrades indicated by a fairly large region flashing, you’ll come to realize area connections can almost be like a spider web as different paths allow you to return to earlier areas.

At first this can be a little confusing. The helpful AI will speak to you at times to give you an idea on what you should be doing but it won’t tell you exactly where to go, so sometimes you need to realize that the action you took in one area now opens up opportunities in the previous one. Never does the game expect you to intuit something unreasonable even though if you’re moving too quickly you might miss a small but vital tool to making progress. The game will never send you down a path that you’re not meant to be on yet although if you poke around a lot for extras you can confuse yourself. The exploration is definitely more meaningful and textured by not leading you by the hand but still usually having a good sense of direction for its intertwining areas.

Action is giving a very good focus as well. Samus’s arm cannon is easy enough to aim while in motion but can be more precise at a standstill, and as you begin to upgrade your arsenal with new beams, missiles, and bombs, you not only start to notice enemies fold more easily but you can start to navigate around the world more easily and quickly. Starting out there are definitely plenty of normal alien lifeforms that can get in surprisingly strong hits and require some brief but active countering, sometimes literally with your melee counter since otherwise they won’t reveal their weak spot. They’re a reasonable and sometimes tough impediment to progress that means you aren’t just worried about E.M.M.I.s and bosses and they can even be part of little navigational puzzles as they obstruct your ability to use some power to get to a new destination. Even when enemies aren’t the danger, some extras like health upgrades or missile expansions will ask you to be more creative with how you can use your movement options to slip into some tight spaces, although conversely it can tantalize you with something you just can’t reach until later when you finally get that satisfaction of snagging it with your new skills.

The boss fights come together remarkably well. ZDR is filled with many alien monsters and even more intelligent warriors to face off with, the battles often high in difficulty but more exciting for it. Entering a boss battle you will need to learn how they attack and what their vulnerabilities are, the player suffering heavy damage if they can’t respond intelligently and you can’t focus solely on attacking or dodging as a good mix is required to defeat your often massive enemies. The Flash Shift gives you a fairly zippy way to dodge through damaging attacks but much like the invisibility mentioned earlier, it achieves a good balance in providing you away to avoid even the strongest attacks but it doesn’t trivialize things since there are restrictions on how frequently it can be used. Bosses very rarely utilize static strings of the same tactics, the fight often getting more involved as you wear down the boss and they start whipping out new tricks. Being caught unaware as you’re feeling out the boss’s tactics isn’t a death sentence, many producing small amounts of resources if you attack them right to recover what you lost as you learned, but they aren’t so forgiving you can ever be careless in these fast-paced confrontations. Save for fights that are perhaps closer to minibosses, these bigger battles mix in both the spectacle of fighting some big or agile foe with true challenge, and while a fair few do culminate in or otherwise involve a scripted animation where you need to counter at the right moments to wrap things up, those are surprisingly lenient so that more often than not you can enjoy the glorious finisher Samus whips out rather than being kept from resolving the battle.

THE VERDICT: While it would have been nice to see the E.M.M.I. sections embrace a broader range of ways to make them threatening, Metroid Dread still crafts those into enjoyable moment of danger amid a game world that is richly realized as it expands on most every other idea it tackles. Rather than a sequence of areas to explore it’s a changing world that connects back on itself while still providing fresh finds and new locations within those old spaces, the extra upgrades hidden about add optional puzzle interludes that require thoughtful ability use to overcome, and the enemy resistance both from basic alien lifeforms and enormous bosses makes for a powerfully challenging but immensely satisfying experience. Taking down a major foe feels like a triumph as Metroid Dread gives ground only when you’ve rightfully earned it while still doing a good job of giving you room to learn what you need to, and the moments of confusion that do crop up aren’t too pronounced.

And so, I give Metroid Dread for Nintendo Switch…

A FANTASTIC rating. This isn’t just a return to the Metroid formula, it’s a thoughtful expansion of it that chose to build onto what worked rather than running off into some risky direction. While the E.M.M.I.’s do feel like they don’t fully measure up to the other gameplay mechanics at play, it’s almost a bit of a “new kid in class” scenario where every other idea has been honed to a sheen that this new idea stands out since it’s simply good most of the time rather than superb throughout. Exploration is made such an intricate experience even when on the main path to story completion, the player continuously experiencing new things because even necessary return trips to old areas inject some new consideration or concept. The player is actively involved in altering the environment and given tools to increasingly encourage more intelligent navigation that pays off with extra items, and while you can see the world had to bend its cavern walls and interior spaces to make platforms and such for Samus, some natural areas can have vivid details and lovely decoration while interior spaces can be cold, foreboding, and even haunting. A story with substance strings together the navigation and the game gives good personal stakes to it that let Samus emote effectively without slowing down the pace of a fairly quick yet still exploratory adventure. The big boss battles really must be commended as well for nailing a good point between difficulty and the rewarding feeling of finally overcoming such a troublesome foe.

Metroid Dread’s biggest successes are taken from evolving the series’s strengths like atmosphere, environmental exploration, and combat encounters where you mostly remain an active participant rather than merely avoiding damage until it’s time to strike. Its newer ideas like the E.M.M.I. pursuers inject something fresh if not as refined as those phenomenally executed elements, but even at its weakest it never dips below enjoyability, especially since sometimes the confusion you experience from an out of reach object or unclear way forward is followed up with some new satisfying navigation skill or the realization you do have some new options for exploring familiar yet interestingly altered places. With the little nudges of help from things like the AI, the map, and even eventual upgrades like the Scan Pulse that shows you breakable objects nearby to open up the path to secrets, Metroid Dread does a good amount to show you the way without boxing you in. Metroid Dread wasn’t content to just come out after nearly twenty years and repeat the same excellent but familiar ideas, it built off the old ones with surprising creativity and added a dash of novelty to make this not only a distinctly new Metroid experience but one of the best in the series.