Flammie reviews: Metroid: Dread

Metroid dread is the newest 2d metroid. Based on classical metroid formula it’s a very tight package from beginning to end, everything is very well designed, the maps, the items and skills you unlock and so on. A bit too linear at times in that some paths are blocked randomly to guide you in the right direction but that is probably a good thing for most beginners at least, and you eventually get to backtrack and collect the hidden items with the skills gained. The only unique new thing that is supposed to be the “dread” part is the kind of stealth and escape part when fighting against the emmi bots, for me it was kind of boring, you retry the emmi parts generally 1-10 times to find the correct path and then it’s done, but I’m not a horror fan so I probably just miss that point; for the comparison I do find the bots in breath of the wild more menacing. The music and sounds are great. The controls are perfect, perhaps a bit tricky with triggers at times but in general if you make mistake it’s on you and not bad controls. The boss fights are challenging but all have recognisable patterns to learn so it really is all about learning the boss patterns, rather than having lightning reflexes and good luck, which is one of the main point that sets it apart from poorly designed indie metroidvanias.

★★★★★★★★★☆ (9 out of 10)

(A version of this review was submitted to metacritic)