With Metroid Dread, Nintendo finally gets the action hero it deserves
MercurySteam’s brilliant animation work has made Samus Aran cooler than ever, but it came at a price
Games Features Nintendo
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Metroid games, particularly the early entries on the NES and Super Nintendo, have traditionally been at their best in isolation. Literally: Metroid games are at their most iconic when they’re presenting players with a haunting, lonely atmosphere that really sells the idea that series protagonist Samus Aran is all alone on an alien world where everything wants to kill her.
Ridley Scott’s Alien has been famously cited as a major influence on Metroid, and it’s not hard to see why. The games aren’t necessarily scary, but with their minimalist soundtracks and seemingly endless webs of barren alien caves, they’re absolutely spooky.
It would make sense for the recently released Metroid Dread to be more of the same. It’s the first mainline Metroid sequel in nearly 20 years, an obvious olive branch to a long-suffering fanbase, and the proverbial call up to the big leagues for developer MercurySteam (which released the 3DS’ Metroid II remake, Samus Returns, a few years ago). Nintendo would have no excuse to phone this one in, and no reason to dramatically change the Metroid formula. But there is something different… Metroid Dread is not, despite the title, spooky. Like, at all.
To be clear: The game is phenomenal, possibly the best thing Nintendo has done since Breath Of The Wild. But MercurySteam has deliberately stepped back from an aspect that that is supposed to be so integral to the Metroid experience. The reason is simple: Samus has become extremely awesome.
Dread is quietly a celebration of Samus as a character, partially because this is the first time in the main Metroid series that she actually feels like a character, and not just a woman in a cool suit. Samus was more like a robot in the old games, effectively a gun with legs, which is one of the reasons why it’s a twist ending in the first Metroid that she turns out to be a woman in a suit.
The graphical limitations of systems like the Super Nintendo and Game Boy Advance made it hard for developers to do much with her beyond that (especially when the environments, and the power-ups, are usually the star in a Metroid game). But keeping the side-scrolling 2D format on a (relatively) powerful system like the Nintendo Switch gave MercurySteam a chance to slip some personality into Samus’ armor, and instantly make her feel more fully realized than anything Nintendo has done in the previous decades.
The Samus of Dread always stands at the ready, with her big gun arm pointed ahead. But hit the button to switch to the more granular aiming mode, and Samus will shift her feet slightly to steady herself. Lean up against a wall and she’ll turn her head to keep an eye on her surroundings. Perform a melee counter move (one of the things MercurySteam adapted from Samus Returns) and she’ll kick out her leg for a little slide as she obliterates whatever poor alien creature got in her path. Every frame has been tweaked to give the appearance of a warrior doing what she does best.
It’s not just combat, either. Get on a tram that takes you from one area to another, and Samus will walk into the background, taking a slightly awkward little step onto a big railcar that wasn’t designed for someone human-sized. Hop onto an elevator, and Samus will ascend its little stairway with a speedy move that will be instantly familiar to anyone who has walked up oddly small steps. The animations are humanizing, without ever compromising the character’s cool.
These little moments don’t really mean anything in the game, but like Sonic The Hedgehog tapping his toes if you don’t hit a button for a while or Link’s giant cartoon eyes in The Legend Of Zelda: Wind Waker, the animation in Dread finally gives Samus a personality. She’s never just standing there or just firing her gun, she’s always moving or positioned in a way that says, “I’m a person who moves like people do, I just happen to be a stone-cold professional alien-killer in a metal suit.”
The end result of this is that Samus is cooler than she’s ever been, having become the action hero that she always looked like on box art—the action hero that Nintendo has insisted that she is. At the same time, though, Samus is too awesome to be scared now. If Metroid still has any similarities to the Alien movies, then Samus is now firmly in Aliens territory, Ellen Ripley strapping a flamethrower to her rifle and taking the fight to the Xenomorph queen. She’s a pro, she’s not concerned with a desolate alien planet where everything wants to kill her. She has a job to do.
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I’m only a little ways into Dread but have enjoyed what I’ve seen. I appreciate that unlike a lot of games which do the “you must run/hide from this enemy because you cannot fight them” thing, the game is very clear about where the EMMIs are and when you have to go in one of their areas you kinda steel yourself and just… well, so far running like hell seems to be a pretty good strategy. Will report back later.Also on the Switch I picked up Paradise Killer, a very surreal first person mystery Visual Novel thing. The premise involves an island which keeps getting destroyed and recreated in hopes of finding perfection, this time someone killed the council who are supposed to reset things, you’re an exiled detective called back in to find out what’s going on, every suspect is some kind of demigod… it’s weird. It’s meant to be open-ended in that you can announce at any time you’ve figured it out and maybe finger someone and maybe get it wrong. It’s got a cool funky vibe and some weird touches- it’s tricky to do a mystery in the context of a very elaborate fantasy setting that you also have to explain to the player but I guess that’s part of the challenge. Again I’ll see how it plays out.
Non-spoiler: Paradise Killer works really well, largely because it isn’t exactly a visual novel. It actually ends up playing out as an exploration game requiring you to make your way around this bizarre space and using that exploration to backfill its weird mythology as well as understand the logistics of the case at hand.
Paradise Killer was one of my favourite games of last year. It’s astonishing how well the game holds together narratively while giving you near-total freedom to navigate the island. It must have been a ridiculously difficult undertaking for the devs to fit it all together.
I… Don’t like it, because it is a straightforward vaporwave Danganronpa where I cannot connect to anything it is telling and the environment is literally cardboard. Just saying this because for both Danganronpa and Paradise Killer I read only positive reviews (even comparing both to Phoenix Wright??) when they are an aquired taste.
Metroid Dread is great. I may be biased because Super Metroid was one of my absolute favorite games as a kid, and then I never had any of the mid-period Nintendo consoles and never played any of the other metroid games after that. But my kid has a Switch, and when I saw that there was a new Metroid side-scroller coming out, oh man, was I on board.It’s almost exactly what I wanted. A side-scrolling adventure with all the classic abilities and then a bunch more for good measure. The look is great, there’s tons of secrets to explore. I only have a few minor complaints, like I think the map could use some filtering, or the ability to toggle various things on/off (like, most of the time I don’t need to see the teleportals). A setting to show/hide all acquired items would be nice; and some better indications of what kind of doors are which. I repeatedly found myself having to scroll over an icon to tell whether it was in the open or closed state, or if I’d picked up that item or not.I also feel like it’s maybe a little too difficult in spots. (99% of my deaths were to EMMIs and bosses; I think I died out in the wild exactly once.) Learning EMMI routes and boss fights by dying over and over is… certainly an approach, but there were a few that were super frustrating. I’m a big believer in games providing an “easy mode” setting that drastically lowers the difficulty, because I’m at a point now where completing difficult challenges isn’t really all that interesting; I just want to see the content. If someone wants to play on hard difficulty, great. I’d just prefer a little less frustration.
It’s worth going back and playing the GBA games if you’re a fan of Super Metroid. Zero Mission is my favorite Metroid game, full stop. AM2R was worth the hype, too.
Seconding this. I replayed Zero Mission and Fusion a few years ago and they hold up.
I mostly agree with the map; it would be great to be able to filter icons more. The “highlight” feature does help, though. For instance, if you hover over a missile collectible and hit Y, it’ll fade out everything that’s not a missile and put a box around all the missiles in the map. It’ll even mark the ones you’ve collected as silver and the ones you still need as gold. That’s helped me a lot in the late-game clean-up.
It’s also probably worth noting how much of an improvement the map is over, say, Super Metroid, which gave you absolutely nothing. Being able to at least see what types of doors and blocks were stopping my progress from the map saves so much time when backtracking.
Yeah, the map overall is a vast improvement over (say) Super Metroid. And I did make use of the highlight feature, I just think it could be even better: e.g. little things like having a menu of icons to select from, rather than having to scroll around until you find one to highlight others like it; and have it include all icons, not just items. As it stands, I found myself repeatedly having to zoom in/out and scroll around slowly, laboriously examining each door to see if it’s a kind that I can now open but haven’t yet.One design issue with a lot of games is that they don’t take into account the decreased eyesight quality of older folks. I’m only 43 but, even with vision correction (I’ve been wearing glasses since I was 10, got LASIK at 31, then started having to wear glasses again at 40), it can still take a lot of slow effort to scan around a complicated visual environment like that, and it’s a lot harder than it used to be. (I played the game on a 55″ HDTV, not on the tiny Switch screen.)
Little things that make it easier on older folks are much appreciated; not everyone has the perfect vision of a teenager.
The difficulty spike for bosses really is something else. And tbh maybe kinda needed? I’m at 5 tanks rn and running through the stages is decently easy; the platforming and figuring out to get items is the main source of difficulty
It’s hard for me to say that the difficulty of the bosses is a mistake; taken on their own, they’re very well-calibrated, and you slowly learn the patterns and get better on each try. Raven Beak was a lot of fun from that perspective, especially since by that point I was accustomed to the bosses being really difficult to figure out, so I knew going in that I was going to die fifty times before I killed him.But it made the early bosses really dispiriting, because I’m like, holy crap, is the whole game this hard? I personally would have preferred an easy difficulty to play on, and then go back and beat it on progressively harder difficulties.
My main gripe is how the counter mechanic is a requirement now. I hated it in Samus Returns (New 3DSXL is still one of the most uncomfortable handhelds I’ve ever played for hours… which kinda applies to most Nintendo handhelds since the GBA SP. Just not grip friendly at all.) and I’m not really a fan of it here. I’m all for it being in game but the designers made it a requirement to advance some boss encounters. Not to mention that most of the enemies seemed to be designed to be annoying as hell if you don’t counter them. I know I really hated all the Chozo types until the Storm Missiles made it so I wouldn’t spend forever dodging and waiting for them to do their counter move instead of that slash that has random timing and way too much distance.
I’m generally okay with counter mechanics, and even with limited quicktime events (like how the counter is used during micro-cutscenes at the end of the chozo soldier fights). MD’s implementation isn’t great, though, in a couple of ways.1) Regular enemies vary radically in how much they telegraph the counter opening, how much time you have to hit the counter, and even how far away you can be to even use the counter. There’s no visual indication that they operate differently; you just have to remember that when fighting the non-boss goo chozo X parasites, you have about 0.1 sec after the counter spark to hit it or they hit you, but you can actually hit it before the spark and it works normally. Meanwhile, the little flyers in Artaria not only telegraph the spark, they show the spark way before they get near you, so you can actually wait until you see the spark.2) Counters during regular boss combat (not QTEs) are generally fine, but they still do vary in how much time you get to react, with little rhyme or reason. The QTE counters are similar, in that there’s only a couple of bosses that even have them (only various chozo, including Raven Beak, I think), and the timing is pretty consistent. However Raven Beak has… well, not everyone thinks it’s a bug, but I sure as hell do: when he does the taunt “c’mere” thing, you run up to him and if you do the counter too early… nothing happens. He just stands there for a second. If you wait too long, then you fail. It’s a bizarrely narrow window.And don’t even fucking get me started on the EMMIs. I can totally understand the design intent of having them be really hard to counter (the design intent is that you shouldn’t even get caught by them, and shouldn’t be able to rely on escaping), but the counter sparks they give off has absolutely no relation to whether you successfully counter. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if their countering window is not only random but not even connected to the spark.While I’m bitching (don’t get me wrong, I love the game, which makes easily-fixed design flaws all the more frustrating), let me say that traversing each EMMI zone is generally nice and tense, but they made a huge mistake in having the EMMI’s starting position when you enter the zone be random. It may have seemed like a good idea, but it means that when you enter, if the EMMI’s in the wrong position, you basically have no chance of escaping and may as well turn around and walk outside again until you get a better position. Teaching the player that the optimal strategy is to waste time walking back and forth hoping for better RNG is degenerate gameplay. Tthe challenge should be to learn 1) where does the EMMI start when I enter from this door, and 2) based on that, how do I get to the exit without it catching me. Random positioning would be fine if it didn’t affect your chance of escape, but there have been times when I walk through a door and the EMMI is already visible on the screen.I also wish they had the gameplay timer visible during the game! If I’m trying for a sub-4-hour game, I have no idea whether the timer still runs if the game is paused, or when I’m watching a cutscene (skippable or otherwise), or during loading screens. The only fair mechanism would be if the timer only runs when you have control over Samus; not while paused, not during unskippable animations (e.g. approaching a network terminal), not when ADAM is gibbering at you. It’s probably possible to figure out which one of those affect the runtime, but why not just friggin’ show it?!
Why do people always get Aliens Ripley wrong? She spends the first half of that movie still traumatized by her encounter against the Xenomorph in Alien and warning everyone about the threat of death and destruction they bring. She’s treated as almost crazy because of her fear and warnings about them. Yes, she overcomes that fear in the end. Part of it could be a survival instinct that kicks and part of it comes from wanting to protect Newt and stepping up to do so but it’s not like she’s the same as, say, Sarah Connor in Terminator: Dark Fate who’s almost a one-note “bad-ass” from beginning to end. To characterize Ripley in Aliens as someone who’s there to chew gum and kick Xenomorph ass and she’s all out of gum is a totally incorrect take of that character. Heck, she has to be shown how to use the Marines gun’s during the movie because she’s not a soldier and she wasn’t brought along to kick alien butt.
The Ripley you’re describing is more like Aliens: Resurrection. That Ripley isn’t really scared of anything and is nearing superhero status with her elevated senses and reflexes having had Xenomorph DNA mixed in with hers to clone her. It makes further sense with Metroid Dread since Samus had Metroid DNA infused with her to counteract the X Parasite infection she had in Fusion.
I actually think Dread is a really strong and interesting horror game, and a big part of that is twisting who you’re meant to be scared for.I think ‘Dread’ is a fitting name, but not in the direction you first expect; it isn’t really the dread that comes from facing up against the EMMIs (although I think the first few wield that well). I actually think there’s rather a few moments in the game that punctuate an overall feeling of dread that grows, and permeates everything. After a very specific point, my feeling stopped being ‘oh no, I’m scared for Samus’; it started being ‘oh no, I’m scared for everything else’. Samus is a viewpoint from which you can see terrors that would tear apart anyone lesser—and Samus isn’t exactly an indestructible wall against it. I’d talk more about how it does that, but… well, it’s spoilers for a week-old game, and well-executed parts of it at that, so I won’t.Any other games I can think of that take that sort of angle kinda just go all-out action with it; so what if the Flood are nightmarish terrors, Master Chief can just Master Chief at the problem until it’s gone. But Metroid Dread keeps its feet on the ground, keeps making sure, through various framings, that you know this is terrifying even if Samus can rip this thing apart. And thinking about it, maybe it’s the EMMIs that make sure that grounded feeling happens; you can’t fall into the ‘Samus is a superhero so it’s all fine’ mindset, because you keep getting faced with proof that she is very much not.
I certainly agree that this game, more than any other, has shown Samus as a total badass. Most especially, the cutscenes that show her casually side-step an angry boss’s projectile, the non-flinching when a defeated boss’ room-sized corpse lands with a thud just inches away from her – it’s all very Hollywood action hero. Only once did I notice a glimpse of worry from her during the intro to one particular boss fight – if you’ve played it, you know which one I’m talking about. 🙂 I was like “ooooh shit, if Samus is backing up, this is gonna be hard.” And it was — gloriously!
It’s been a week of Castlevania, Castlevania, Castlevania. After finishing up my all souls playthrough of Aria of Sorrow, I switched over to the Castlevania Anniversary Collection and… well… finished the whole collection. I’d finished most of the games without save states in the past, but given the choice between starting levels over because a bat zigged when I expected it to zag, and knocked me into a pit, or loading a save at the beginning of each room… I’d rather take a week and be a Castlevania tourist than take a month to master them all. Castlevania II was always my favorite, and I’m glad they pivoted back toward exploration-based games with SotN and all the handheld games.My vacation begins after work today, and kicks off immediately with my group’s second session of Pandemic Legacy Season 0. We’ve skipped two weeks because of the other two gamers’ travel plans, and I’m going to be out of state next week, so this is one of the few times we’re going to play it this month. It’s exciting! I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing how much our successes and failures affect the story, since it seems much less on-rails than the original two campaigns. And stacking abilities to try to break the game, only for the game to introduce new mechanics that completely nerf your broken character builds, is Pandemic Legacy. I’m looking forward to being thwarted.Then comes a week of road tripping with 2000+ miles to cover. I’ll be playing a board game or two with my nephew, but otherwise I think the next week’s going to be pretty slim on games for me. Which is fine. The past year and a half has consisted entirely of work and video games for me. It’s time to get out and see some friends.
As someone who loves Metroid and Metroidvanias (I have played and loved both ‘Ori’s and Hollow Knight in the past year), but has never played a Castlevania, the Anniversary Collection has intrigued me – would you recommend? How do they hold up?
Can’t say much about the Anniversary Collection, since I haven’t played it. What I did do, though, was play the games (or at least a good part of them) when they originally came out. *cougholdmanalertcough*.From what I can say, they might be not what you are expecting. The Castlevania series only turned truly into “Metroidvanias” with Symphony of The Night. A good part of the games in the anniversary collection are “just” (pretty damn hard) platformers: No character progression, linear paths (which also means no backtracking once you obtained a new skill, because, well, there are no new skills), and so on. As someone who grew up on 8-bit games, I’d also say that the games are very much dated. Which is not a particularly negative thing to say — what might be irritating or frustrating from a pure “fun” perspective is certainly of historical interest. Also, aesthetically, a lot of them are nice — the soundtrack is fantastic, starting with Castlevania III at the latest. Also, there are countless memes that were spawned by the franchise (Simon’s Quest specifially).
There are also different approaches when it comes to design in some of the games in the collection. What would later turn out to be heart of the Metroidvania formula is very much laid out in Simon’s Quest, for example, which is somewhat closer in design to Zelda II than Castlevania I or III.
So, it depends, I guess? But if you’re specifically after Metroidvanias, I think you’ll be happier with the more recent “Castlevania Advance Collection”. I have never played the GBA games, but from what I’ve heard, they’re much closer to the current understanding of the genre.
Agreeing with needle.hacksaw here. The earlier Castlevanias are largely not what you’re looking for, with the exception of Castlevania II. The Castlevania Advance Collection, however, I can highly recommend. The three GBA Castlevania games are still a blast to play.
Harmony of Dissonance just does nothing for me. Circle of the Moon and Aria of Sorrow both hold up really well though.I think part of what annoys me about Dissonance is the hopping between castles.
Yeah, HoD is basic. If it were made before SotN, the progression of metroidvanias would make more sense, but the “surprise, two castles!” gimmick had already been done in a more interesting way, combining sub weapons with elements had already been done in a more interesting way in CotM, and the controls are a little loose.That said, I still found it fun when I replayed it last week. It’s far and away the weakest of the three GBA entries, but it has fun secret areas and bosses, and I guess I just like hitting things with whips.
I may go back to HoD after I finish AoS. More likely I’ll finally try one of the extra modes first though. This conversation has inspired me to install the other Castlevania: HoD. The weird multiplayer XBLA game Harmony of Despair. I loved that game when it came out. They should do another multiplayer one.
Ahhh wait, sorry, I was getting my Castlevania collections confused – it is the Advance Collection I have my eye on. Cheers for the recommendation!
“Metroid series that she actually feels like a character”Not sure, I don’t see much differnce tbh between this and other Metroids. It’s still a suit (then again, I never got Master Chief or Doomguy either, suits just are suits). Great game, but still below Super M, Prime or Hollow Knight as far as these games go.
“Metroid Dread is not, despite the title, spooky.”See, I would argue the opposite and it’s specifically because of the coolness you mentioned. The Dread comes because of how powerless the game can make you seem in the face of the EMMIs and the big boss. Samus is very rarely powerless, hell the speedrunning (and sequence breaking) community for Metroid is basically built on the concept that Samus is never really unable to take on every enemy all the way until the final boss. Dread changes that by introducing very early that Samus is out of her depth by having her get choked out by the first enemy you encounter, and the EMMIs being completely immune to all of her weapons makes it clear that you are not the top dog on this planet. Hell, even the spiritual predecessor to the EMMIs, the SA-X from Metroid Fusion, could be frozen for just a second after Samus got the appropriate upgrade; not so with EMMI, they can one-hit kill you any time they catch you, regardless of how many energy tanks you acquire. Yeah the dread isn’t constant, they establish early on that EMMIs are only limited to certain zones, but both story-wise and gameplay-wise, Dread is the scariest Metroid in the series imo.
I am dying inside every time i have to go into an EMMI zone. I am immediately filled with dread and stress lol. I have to take breaks when I am stuck in those zones! I am deeply loving this game though. <3
I love Dread’s atmosphere because everything is just relentlessly cold. ADAM punctuates every info dump and tutorial with a reminder of how goddamn fucked you are. The EMMI are clinical, uncanny predators. But Samus is stone cold right back – she’s 100% business, unflinching pragmatism. No fucking showy backflips, no waiting for an enemy to make the first move, no fuss because there’s no time, damn it. Nothing sells the atmosphere of danger and dread as well as her ruthlessness.It’s very reminiscent of the mindset of the last two DOOMs. The Doom Slayer might have carved quite a path through Hell but he doesn’t fuck around and never gets cute about it. He doesn’t underestimate anything or anyone in what he does, he treats every danger exactly as he should.
Been playing through Final Fantasy Remake VII Intergrade on “Classic Mode” (normal difficulty) which I think is secretly the game’s hard mode, because all the dumbass character AI wants to do is block until you take back direct control and move them the fuck out of the way. There are a couple of boss fights (shakes fist at Hell House) that are essentially unwinnable playing classic mode as intended. And I get the mode is a sop to turn-based players, and it would be too easy if characters dodged perfectly every time, but it’s still a frustrating experience sitting back and yelling “why are you just standing there? he’s coming right at you! move, like, an inch! no, not into the pile of poison goo!” while desperately waiting for someone’s ATB bar to fill up. Mostly, I just miss FFXII’s gambit system, which FF7R kind of nods toward with materia like “synergy” and “auto-cure” but the general dearth of linked materia really limits your strategic options.
I actually kind of like FFVIIR’s ineffective teammate AI, but only because the game makes switching between characters a ton of fun. I really feel like I’m playing with all three characters at once rather than having 2 bot assistants.With that said, I would kill for another FF game with the Gambit system. I never thought I wanted computer programming in my RPGs, but that combat system was so good.
I’d like something like an old Final Fantasy game crossed with Darkest Dungeon. Like you form parties of four from a pool of characters, supply and equip them, set up their gambits and set waypoints where you want them to go. So really it’s a management game where you could be toggling between three parties in three different dungeons as they basically each auto-play based on how you set them up. Making sure no one dies and that you don’t have to cast warp and get out of there.
Oooh, yeah, hell house in FFRVIIR was… Rough. So I bought ffVII og on switch. I… Don’t think I am going to get far. The graphics and translation have NOT held up. Tho frankly I think the higher res rendered polygons actually makes it look worse. I wanted to dive into the materia system and I genuinely barely remember the game past Junon Harbor, but……..
My favorite moment in Metroid is the end of Prime. We’ve seen the whole game through Samus’s POV, except for a variety of largely badass cutscenes, and throughout the experience there are constant reminders that she’s wearing a visor. The HUD is her visor, we see her face reflected in it when certain attacks hit, electricity blinds her, she can switch out what visor allows her to see what objects, it’s impossible to separate her perspective from her suit.Then, after a final boss that hinges on flipping through those visors faster than ever, she escapes from its lair, which happens to be nestled within the ruins of the dead race who raised her. And as her ship prepares to leave, this hardened warrior gazes down at one more instance of her people being destroyed, and she pulls off her helmet to see it with her own two eyes.It not only is the first time we see her face in 3D to see that she’s only human, but her head is flanked by the massive pauldrons of her suit to contrast who she is with who she’s had to become. And it ironically gives her a moment of privacy with her grief, because while we’re still with her, we aren’t using her eyes as she takes one last look at the ruins before taking a breath and getting back to work.This happened almost 20 years ago, so I’m as baffled by the take that she’s only just now being characterized as I am by the take that the most straightforward horror game in the series isn’t spooky. Especially because if you think that just showing she’s a badass action hero is a character trait I can point to the entire Prime Trilogy; just look how she reacts when she saves an entire living race from genocide and they offer her thanks:But the most baffling bit of all is that your take is that being a badass action hero is what makes her a great character, rather than what has possibly supplanted Prime’s ending as my favorite moment for her: when she speaks for the first and only time in Dread. It’s just a perfect little moment for a character defined by loss, but nope, she walks up steps now and that’s what makes her cool.
when she speaks for the first and only time in DreadI think I somehow missed this on my first playthrough. When does this happen?
After Quiet Robe exposits in a Chozo language for minutes on end explaining how fucked they are, Samus replies in the same language. It’s like slipping back into a childhood accent, it rules.
Ohh, that’s right. I didn’t really even grok it as her talking (I mean, I knew it was her talking, but it was alien gibberish so it didn’t “count” in my mind.) Thanks!
I read this article in growing confusion at its thesis, somehow having missed the byline. Oh. Checks out.
I’ve made some progress in Tales of Arise, coming up on what I believe is the boss of the third realm. I still feel like I’m waiting for the game to “show” itself. It still feels like I’m in the prologue, in a way. I think I just want the game to open itself up and feel like a grand adventure. I got that feeling from Zestiria, and while Arise is just a more solid game overall, it doesn’t feel grand in scope.The Good Life just dropped today, and I had Kickstarted it for some reason, so I might fire it up tonight just to see how much of a glorious trainwreck it is. I loved The Missing and couldn’t finish Deadly Premonition because it kept crashing, so Swery has a mixed track record in my view.
I haven’t picked up Dread yet but I’m really looking forward to it. I prefer the first-person Metroid games, but the platformers are often brilliant as well.Also, anyone with a Switch needs to get Katana Zero. It’s one of the coolest platformers I’ve ever played. Super fast-paced 16-bit ultraviolence that can be brutally difficult at times, but every time you die the game rewinds a few seconds. It’s awesome.
Katana Zero is one of the only games I actually completed last year. Although I never went back to figure out all the secrets and extras, maybe I should go back to it.These days I have a hard time committing to a game, and I want a challenge but I don’t want to have to replay things a bunch, so I’ve really enjoyed the micro-genre of games where you die constantly but respawn instantly and only have to beat a small level/section at a time and then feel badass when you pull it off. Hotline Miami was the first one like that that grabbed me, I know I have played more than that and Katana Zero but I can’t remember others right now… Ghostrunner seems to be the same kind of deal, I need to get that (on PS4 maybe, as the Switch version doesn’t look great).
What? No mention of the homage to the cult flick Red Planet???
I’m really enjoying Dread, but man, do I loath the E.M.M.I. sections. They do exactly what they’re supposed to do—make the game scary and stressful. The problem is, I don’t find those sections in the least bit enjoyable. To the game’s credit though, killing an E.M.M.I. is super satisfying. No moments have given me greater joy in this game than stumbling upon one of those brain-eye mini-bosses that recharge my super cannon.
I’m definitely gonna get Dread eventually, but right now I’m glad its brought the 2D Metroids back into the limelight because I just found and traded in my old GBA copy of Zero Mission! Most of my stuff has been in storage for 4 years, and I was surprised to crack open a box and find a GBA looking worse for wear, but 4 carts that just needed a wipe down (Metroid Zero Mission, Gunstar Heroes, Sonic Advance/Pinball, and Klonoa 2). That along with my Animal Crossing NH, New Super Mario Bros, and two worthless PS4 games got me about $200 store credit at the retro game store. They then seemed to mistake my indecisiveness looking at all their cool crap for a negotiating tactic, because they offered a discount on the big ticket item I wanted (dropped from 200 to 150), then offered additional store credit towards the statue I was checking out. So I ended up walking out with $300 sticker price worth of merch for 7 bucks and change and some games I forgot I even had/some games I was done with!That big ticket item:soo00o fucking sweet, and I ended up getting it for the original price LR was charging, but without shipping costs! And coincidentally they had the PS4 version, which is nice because I already own the game digitally on my Switch. Now I have access on both systems plus a physical back up copy for the datapocalypse. Plus an adorable stuffed Boo from Mario Bros., the iconic Akira movie poster I have wanted since I was 12 years old, and a sweet little statue of Alphonse from Fullmetal Alchemist. Noice.
Ok, I played Metroid, Super Metroid and, currently, Metroid Dread. All are fantastic! Why isn’t Fusion clicking with me? I’ve picked it up a few times but it always feels off. In fact the Fusion/Dread comparisons almost put me off.I have Fusion on my ambassador 3DS so please convince me to try harder.
To be fair, the last time Samus was depicted as scared, people got super upset about it and are still upset to this day.Anyway, Metroid Dread is pretty rad.
Metroid Dread is incredible. I am having a blast and it’s just such an incredibly tight package. It’s a game that reminds me of stuff like 2018’s God of War or Mad Max Fury Road – just goddamn rides, economic masterpieces of action that establish a momentum and never lose a step. Literally, because this new Metroid just flows from room to room. Especially with EMMIs, where you’re really supposed to just zip away from those fucks.I love the EMMI sections personally. They are all goddamn tense because those cat and mouse games are fast and they did a great job of making me not wanna be around those fuckers. They aren’t like Mr. X or anything, but IMO they are just right. By the time I thought I’m getting accustomed to the rhythm of those encounters, they threw me a goddamn curveball with the blue one. I think more Metroidvanias should lean into horror/stealth. Samus Aran is basically the Doom Slayer and that’s so damn great. Just pure, unrelenting pragmatism, not a wiff of fuss or hesitation. Her immediately loading up a shot as Kraid is opening his big mouth is the funniest thing I’ve seen in a video game this year. The writing is elevated by how economic everything is and yet how dense the contexts are, so every line is full of interpretations.I’m also loving the boss fights and their difficulty, but I do agree there could’ve been a lower setting, if only so more people could ride this crazy train.I can’t stop thinking about Metroid Dread. At this point it’s a toss up between this or NEO: The World Ends with You for my GOTY, unless Atlus puts out a Shin Megami Tensei for the ages, hee-ho.
Never been a fan of side-scrolling games.Even though this looks like a lot of work went into it, I’ve been ruined by Metroid Prime and its sequels. So, give me a 3D exploration/FPS Metroid, or don’t give me a Metroid at all.
Kind of a weird direction to go with the headline. Arguably, Nintendo did NOT deserve a cool action hero because it was THEIR actions damaging Samus’ reputation as being incredible like everyone thought she was. The Prime games depicted an extremely competent and reliable Samus => made by Retro in Texas. Nintendo’s contribution? The literal infantalizing treatment of Samus in Other M with some of the most woeful VA direction in the business. Plus insisting that she was not a Bounty Hunter per se but someone who just uh… fought villains for justice? Which is the least cool thing they possibly could have said. What’s pulling this reputational tail spin up before it’s too late? Mercury Steam, another non-Nintendo effort.