Just finished Metroid Dread. It was phenomenal, and if you don't want to read any further, I'll just say that Metroid's been one of my favorite series for decades, but this still managed to exceed my expectations.
What surprised me the most was how Dread managed to stand out from the growing crowd of games that have been aping its design for decades in its long absence. Games like Hollow Knight, Axiom Verge, and so many others grew from what Metroid, and let’s be real here, what Super Metroid started. You'd think that the latest swing from the reigning champ would come across as a bit dull, dated, out of touch, but no it's fucking frenetic and it looks amazing (and on a 4-year-old console).
Dread makes some very brave design decisions. It's fast, it's tough, and it doesn't give a shit if you can't keep up with it. That means mastering the controls, which do ask a lot of you. But in a short time, holding L + R while grabbing onto a ledge to aim at the incoming zoomer and fire an ice missile into its face will come naturally and feel fucking great. This sounds like a very old style compliment, but Dread controls very well. Running, jumping, and shooting as Samus feels good, natural, and that's pretty incredible given that it is decoupled from the limitations of the previous games. Dread ramps up quickly, and never really slows down as it continues to unload new abilities, the vast majority of which will be familiar to fans. Of the weapon/ability varieties, this feels like a greatest hits edition.
I did not enjoy Metroid Fusion (the previous game in the series). I didn't like the simplistic trappings of the game—Adam telling you exactly what you needed to do in each zone felt like a betrayal of the unspoken, environmental storytelling of Super Metroid. And while I'm sad to say that this game does provide Adam-directed exposition, the discovery flow from zone to zone feels much more in the hands of the player. Even though it's clearly the result of smart environmental design, it FEELS much more natural to me that I'm not simply following the directional orders of an AI. And it places you in a location that has much more in common with Metroid/Super Metroid's environment than the sedate space station of Fusion.
The biggest new addition to the standard Metroid formula are the EMMI, robots that hunt you down in designated zones, and protect the biggest upgrades in the game. They are creepy and intimidating, and that never really stops being a factor in the game, though certain upgrades make you more capable than those terrifying first encounters. When you step into those zones, the lighting changes, the familiar, eerie music plays, and you feel precisely what the game's title spells out. But they serve a greater purpose than atmosphere. Learning to navigate around them and all the tricks you acquire in evading them helps you assemble the mastery of the controls you need in the later fights, which get much more intense.
There's one big story turn around the halfway point that influences the world, and had me quite giddy, I'll be honest. I don't want to give it away, but it's just as brave as other design decisions.
I've typed a lot here, but it's really quite simple. Dread is a fantastic Metroid game, and that's an incredibly difficult task after 19 years of expectation and fluctuations in the industry. So my hat is off to Mercury Steam, who I truly did not think were up to the task after their 3DS games. But I was proven absolutely wrong.