Metroid general

[BrunoMattei]

I got the Cross Bomb and made it to Hanubia before stopping for now. I fucking hate items that are sealed away and require tricky speed booster bullshit to get them. I've never gotten it down how to store the speed boost and pull off tricky shit so I just skip those items.

It definitely is not hand holdy especially after the first hour. It makes you work to get that morph ball. And it most definitely has the best boss fights in the series. Metroid has always had a problem with shitty boss fights where the pattern is very simple and all you need to do is avoid one or two attacks and you can really just tank it and lay waste to a boss. That's not an issue here. Best Metroid since Zero Mission without question and that one's my favorite.

Edit: as I thought, Hanubia is the end game. I'm wondering once I get the power bomb should I go back and try to get some more items or just deal with it? There's one energy tank tucked away with a tricky speed booster spot. There's another one but you have to go all the way around the map to finally get it but I might just get that one and call it a day with item collecting.

 

[Str8Bustah]

Edit: as I thought, Hanubia is the end game. I'm wondering once I get the power bomb should I go back and try to get some more items or just deal with it?

The game is pretty lenient with letting you come and go from hanubia, if you want to do more shinespark puzzles then I'd give it a shot.

 

[BrunoMattei]

The game is pretty lenient with letting you come and go from hanubia, if you want to do more shinespark puzzles then I'd give it a shot.

Cool. I figured it was lenient and wouldn't just lock you in once you get the Power Bomb.

 

[Timaeus Testified]

I can only hope that Prime 4 looks as good as this. Though I have to say I did notice the frames getting a bit choppy during one particular boss fight. Is this why the OLED model came out the same day?

Either way, it's good to have Metroid back.

 

[Takayuki Yagami]

I actually had a post typed up in response to this but I had to delete it all because I started having second thoughts when I remembered that the majority of people who are mad about Dread are either nostalgia-zombified supertrannies or hollow knight fanwankers (with the rest of the peanut gallery being made up of contrarians and shitposters).

The general reception from people who've actually played the game and aren't either mechanically stunted or deliberately looking for reasons to justify autistic rage has been way more positive than I was expecting.

I know I’m liking it. My main complaint would probably be the map not marking things as well as it probably should.

 

[The Iconoclast]

I played the OG Metroid (with a guide) and Super Metroid shortly after Dread was announced, then played Fusion on my computer last week. I was really surprised with how much I liked them, given that I was hardly ever a big fan of other games with the "Metroidvania" category

Dread was great though, I thoroughly enjoyed the hell out of it

 

[Grand Wizard Wakka]

Cool. I figured it was lenient and wouldn't just lock you in once you get the Power Bomb.

Theres essentially no point of no return. After you beat the game, you can load up your save and spawn before the final boss and go clean up the map.

 

[gaspump]

Hot take: Dread is now my favorite in the series. I beat it last night at what seems to be the median: 7ish hours, 50% item completion.
I love the game's show-don't-tell nature even as they retained the Fusion nav rooms. It never really tells you where to go but you need to pay more attention than most games these days. Like the early lava shunts. The first one operates a platform in the room you're in. The next couple operate things way outside visual range, but you just pay attention to background1 elements and you can see tubes now lit up with lava that weren't before and you can trace them along.
Same deal with bosses. You cannot face tank anything, but every boss SHOWS you how to beat them. I got filtered pretty hard on the final boss. Took a little break and a few deep breaths. Then I pushed his shit in simply by not mashing and paying attention.
It's a little sad that this feels so unusual these days when it used to be the norm.
I like the layer of light survival horror that navigating EMMI areas introduces.
I love how Samus feels so light and agile, so fast and mantling one-block obstructions without extra inputs. The control feels perfect.
But the ultimate question remains:

Spoiler

Why can't Metroid crawl?

 

[Grand Wizard Wakka]

Spoiler

Why can't Metroid crawl?

Play Zero Mission. Metroid can, but just in bailey.

Spoiler: Ending Spoiler

Since Fusion, and really driven home with Dread's ending, I guess its now technically not entirely incorrect to refer to Samus as Metroid.

 

[gaspump]

Play Zero Mission.

Oh I have, many times. Somewhere around here I have the GBA carts for it and Fusion. The only physical game I don't have is the original NES Metroid and Other M.
Have to admit I enjoyed seeing Other M not show up on the official timeline. But then again neither did Zero Mission which was excellent.

 

[Grand Wizard Wakka]

Other M

I really like how unlike in Other M, Samus' only emotional reaction in Dread is violent rage. Fight is the Hero's reaction, not flight.

I think Other M's story would've been so much better if instead of Samus freezing up when she saw Ridley, if she just went berserk and unlocked the plasma beam on her own. Instead of Adam yelling "USE YOUR PLASMA BEAM!" because she's an idiot in Other M, have Adam be yelling "YOU DONT HAVE PERMISSION TO USE THE PLASMA BEAM! ITS TOO DANGEROUS TO USE IN HERE! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?" and Samus just being a badass rebel.

All the unlocks should've been more along those lines in Other M. Have Samus initially agree to turn most things off, trying to respect Adam, but as you reach certain points in the story, Samus decides she knows better than him and starts reactivating powers as she needs them, not unlocking them all only because she's trying to respect senpai/daddy. And it would fit the story they were attempting to tell of Samus respecting Adam but also being a rebel. Instead of all those long cringey flashbacks, as she unlocks more of her powers, Adam could have said lines here and there about how thats why she's not in the Federation military anymore, that she could never follow orders, etc.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Fuck items where you need to use tricky speed booster bullshit to get them. I can't say this enough.

I'm up at the final boss fight. Tempted to back track but I've yet to unlock the fast travel. Why hide the fast travel behind the teleporters I don't know. It should have been like: you unlocked the final area, here you go, here's fast travel. Granted that the tedium of finding items isn't too bad but after a while you just get burnt out on doing it.

The E.M.I. sections are cool but the stealth sections lack a dynamic A.I. Allow me to explain, if you stealth it or run past in one screen it doesn't really matter how far behind the E.M.I. is it will follow you to the next screen and will mostly appear in one spot. So it makes more sense to just run through it or as much as you can and use the cloak when you absolutely have to. And I never figured out the QTE to escape instant death either.

These aren't really complaints but more like dings. I think it could be the best Metroid title.

 

[Kulee Baba]

For me the ranking for Metroid is

Super Metroid
Metroid Dread
Metroid Prime
AM2R (Fuck you Nintendo for C&Ding this fantastic work)
Zero Mission
Metroid Prime 3
Metroid Fusion
Metroid Prime 2
And of course dead last Metroid Other M

Not ranked. I never had the patience to beat NES Metroid but I respect it for its place in history & simply for being the epitome of an NES hardcore game. Can't imagine playing the original Metroid 2 with its lack of colors. And coincidentally couldn't imagine playing Metroid 2 3DS because the 3DS simply had an unbearable low res screen.

Cheers to Mercury Steam for finally making a truly great video game & good on Nintendo for giving the studio the support they needed. I really hope this game does well commercially so Nintendo is encouraged to make the long awaited Prime 4 another high tier entry. But hopefully it's now a Switch 2 launch title because I can only stomach 60 FPS for First Person.

 

[BrunoMattei]

Holy shit that final boss fight. I had a 150+ missiles and I think I missed 3 Energy tanks, 4 tops. It was enough. Now for Hard mode.

So here's how I'd rank the games:

Dread/Zero Mission. Yes, Dread might be the best one.
AM2R
Fusion
Super

Played a little bit of Prime and it's not my thing. Never played Other M which looked terrible. The NES original has not aged well and neither has the Game Boy Metroid 2. I'm tempted to try the Metroid 2 remake on Citra.

 

[Peanut Butter in Peril]

I enjoyed Dread. I liked the story and the challenging (to me) combat. Felt good to play and wasn't too brutally punishing.

Spoiler: E.M.M.I autism

I didn't really like the E.M.M.I. stealth bits though. They felt rather inorganic, like you weren't really being hunted. It played as if the game was pretending to not know where you are at all times but it was doing a poor job at it. It was always either loitering in the room I entered from outside the Bone Zone or it immediately follows me into the next room I go despite not being alerted to those areas for any reason. (The last two get a pass due to a mechanic that's introduced to the zone late game.) Plus, as far as I could tell, you could never enter the zone [from the outside] and be at the tail end of a patrol. It always started fresh.

Sure the E.M.M.I. is supposed to be this scary hunter thing that 98% of the time will kill you but its constant presence eventually wears the terror or surprise into annoyance after 4-5 encounters. It's also got a very visible map indicator and makes lots of noise. Maybe hard mode reduces the indicator and audio cues but that won't stop it from becoming an annoyance early on because you already know that it's always going to be near by. The game doesn't really allow you to lull yourself into false sense of security or safety to be surprised or startled when it's broken due to the E.M.M.I.s constant presence.

 

[Someone in a Tree]

I finally had a chance to play this for an extended amount of time and it seems to get better the more I play it. I just got the speed booster, but I’ve never been good at using the shine spark, so not looking forward to my incompetence keeping me away from some power ups. It really feels like they took the best elements of the earlier 2D games, refined them, and put them together to try to make the most Metroid game ever. The developers really understood the gravity of calling this Metroid 5, as opposed to the team behind Sonic 4.

 

[Tuxedo_Zemus]

The reviewers bitching about the boss fights are such mouth breathers. These are not some kind of unbeatable "accessibility" problems, they have an actual learning curve that you can beat them by figuring out. That's why they give you a checkpoint right before the boss fight.

It's only ever taken me 3 tries to beat a boss, and that's also part of the fun. The first time I just shoot them as fast as I can, and die pretty quick. The second time, I kinda know what their attacks do and when I can use a parry attack. The third time isn't a straight beatdown, but I manage to comfortably stay ahead of the fight and end up winning with half of my health remaining.

The game is challenging, but never puts you in a situation that is unfair.

Edit: As an aside, I got Screw Attack and killed the boss to turn the heat back on. I don't know where the fuck to go now.

 

[Marissa Moira]

The reviewers bitching about the boss fights are such mouth breathers. These are not some kind of unbeatable "accessibility" problems, they have an actual learning curve that you can beat them by figuring out. That's why they give you a checkpoint right before the boss fight.

It's only ever taken me 3 tries to beat a boss, and that's also part of the fun. The first time I just shoot them as fast as I can, and die pretty quick. The second time, I kinda know what their attacks do and when I can use a parry attack. The third time isn't a straight beatdown, but I manage to comfortably stay ahead of the fight and end up winning with half of my health remaining.

The game is challenging, but never puts you in a situation that is unfair.

Using my own metric I've yet to actually get stuck on a boss

Last time I got generally stuck in a game was The Nameless King in DS3. Nothing in here even reaches that level.

 

[Kulee Baba]

The reviewers bitching about the boss fights are such mouth breathers. These are not some kind of unbeatable "accessibility" problems, they have an actual learning curve that you can beat them by figuring out. That's why they give you a checkpoint right before the boss fight.

It's only ever taken me 3 tries to beat a boss, and that's also part of the fun. The first time I just shoot them as fast as I can, and die pretty quick. The second time, I kinda know what their attacks do and when I can use a parry attack. The third time isn't a straight beatdown, but I manage to comfortably stay ahead of the fight and end up winning with half of my health remaining.

The game is challenging, but never puts you in a situation that is unfair.

Edit: As an aside, I got Screw Attack and killed the boss to turn the heat back on. I don't know where the fuck to go now.

I died a lot to Corpius. Didn't count it though. It only dawned on me way too late that I had to do Samus's melee Parry attack to trigger the sequence where you damage it heavily.

That shit is on me. Yeah I agree Dread isn't for everyone, but this demand that all entertainment needs to be accessible is retarded. I think Jean Luc Godard films are boring but that doesn't make his hugely influential films bad, they're just not accessible to me.

 

[Dollar Store Sentai]

I'm enjoying it. I was always a fan of the 2d metroid games over the 3d ones. Only been playing about 2 hours so far and my only complaints are checkpoints everywhere and the EMMI sequences are getting kind of old and I've only killed 3 so far. I'm digging the counter system, but it is making things fairly easy when you can restock in most rooms quickly.