I've finally seen all of Metroid Dread, and I'm recording my admittedly scattered and rambling thoughts about it here. If you're at all concerned about spoilers for Dread or Fusion, skip this one. I take a while to get to Dread itself. Sorry. You can scroll past my long preamble and pick up at the bolded all-caps text if you like. <3
Also, it's almost 4 AM and I'm not making another proofreading pass, so sorry for any errors. You get what you pay for, I guess. :)
My background with the Metroid series is pretty sparse, to be honest. I played Fusion when it came out (I was 15 then) and it made a big impression on me. I played a lot of it in the dark with headphones, more to avoid parental scolding (and strict screen time restrictions) than to set a mood, but the effect was the same. The SA-X segments legitimately creeped me out, the soundtrack stripped to nothing but an unsettling drone and its Terminator-like footsteps. The bosses were a wild array of weirdos, and I marveled at their designs even as I cursed their attack patterns. The latter part of the game opened hidden connections between the space station's sectors that made me feel like I was getting away with something even though they (and the Restricted Lab section) were obviously scripted. I loved the sleek, rubbery Fusion Suit and Samus' new, very purple gunship (purple is my favorite color). I remember white-knuckling my way through the SA-X fight only to discover its second, horrifyingly deconstructed form.
Metroid Fusion has lived in my imagination ever since, and I wanted a sequel to follow up on its ideas. What did it mean for Samus to now be part Metroid, the creature she had fought so hard to eradicate - could she still be considered human, and would she remain so? What of her rebellious discovery and destruction of the Federation's clandestine Metroid cloning program - had she burned her relationship with the ? And what about her strange reunion with AdHAHAHAHA I can't pretend I ever cared about Adam. I'm not sure anyone has ever cared about Adam. Except Yoshio Sakamoto, I guess. Whatever, dude. Adam's vocoder voice in Dread kinda gives me ASMR, though. I'll give you that.
Anyway, Nintendo seemed content to give us odd spinoffs on the DS and the Prime series on the big consoles, and I wondered if they felt like Fusion had gone in a darker direction they didn't want to follow. Then, in 2021, I got the news I thought would never come. A direct sequel to Fusion, with the title Dread (which I hoped indicated an extension of the suspenseful parts of Fusion I loved), and a day before my birthday to boot! Unemployed at the time, I traded in several Switch games I was finished with and managed to score my GameStop's one and only deluxe edition, and I even had enough credit for the Amiibos as well. I don't generally go for collectibles, but this was a special occasion and I was going to do it all the way, damn it. I am not immune to propaganda.
It . . . took a bit longer to give it a proper run, though. I have a fairly severe case of inattentive ADHD, and I haven't been able to afford treatment aside from the occasional can of Monster. Getting around to actually playing games or looking into media I'm interested in is difficult for me. I've got the first season of Twin Peaks on loan from the library and I'm about to renew it for the second time in hopes I actually watch them this time. I don't want to tell you how many times I've borrowed and returned them without getting that far. I understand why so many of my peers start podcasts to give structure to their media consumption. I'm also Bad At Video Games and always have been, so it's not uncommon to get frustrated with a tricky part of a game and then forget about it for months. This happened with Dread. Twice. I played it almost immediately after purchase, naturally - lights out after dark, in honor of 15-year-old Thomas. I got frustrated pretty early, primarily with the Free Aim system (which had also irritated me in Samus Returns, the Dread team's previous project) and decided to take a break. Months later, I sat down and determined to get through this game I had waited for.
I got most of the way through this time - upon review, I had just started the segment for the final E.M.M.I. - but by that point I was frustrated and tired. I was excited at the return of the X parasites (which I had come to understand as Nintendo's T-rated take on The Thing) and horrified at their devouring of Quiet Robe. It felt like the action was ratcheting up, but the gameplay itself was no longer something I wanted to endure. I decided to watch a walkthrough instead, disappointed but wanting to at least see the plot through. That . . . took until just recently. I finished watching a 100% walkthrough a couple hours ago.
OKAY, THE DREAD THOUGHTS ARE HERE, IT'S FINALLY TIME FOR THE POINT OF ALL THIS BULLSHIT
I . . . want to like Metroid Dread more than I do. I feel like I should probably give it another run through some time this year. I don't like Free Aim - it feels more fussy than my memories of Fusion's controls. The Melee Counter is fine, and it's cool to pull them off on bosses. The Phantom Cloak doesn't do anything for me, and I don't think Dread's attempt at stealth in general isn't particularly satisfying. The grapple hook feels a bit fussy, probably because it relies on Free Aim as well. Mechanically, it just doesn't feel as good as Fusion did to me. I recognize that it's been years and my memories of Fusion may not be faithful to my actual teenage gameplay experience.
As for the E.M.M.I. robots, ostensibly the SA-X's successor as bosses who stalk Samus through the levels . . . I mostly found them annoying. Maneuvering around them never felt as methodical as I wanted, and it felt like I was always catching their attention and being forced to careen through their zone for the nearest safe exit. There was none of the suspense of the scripted SA-X scenes, even though the SA-X scenes are technologically much simpler. Their constant presence also dampens their menace, as opposed to the surprise of the soundtrack dropping out and the SA-X walking methodically into view. I wanted more of that feeling of being stalked by a calculating threat, rather than a pack of buzzing metal guard dogs.
I also felt a bit disappointed by Dread's generally clean and shiny 3D looks as opposed to the pixelated crunchiness of Fusion. The purple gunship's sleekly looming form and compound-eye-like cockpit are flattened into a stiffer, more angular form in Dread, despite being ostensibly the same craft. Even the environments are pretty clean and well lit. Given the suspense themes and at least gestured-at body horror of the X parasites and Samus' Metroid-infused makeover, I wanted it to be more, well, creepy and wet, and a bit dirty. I like Dread's incorporation of fibrous muscle-like texture to the blue parts of the Dread suit (to their credit, they reimagine the Fusion Suit in the prologue to incorporate this more muscle-like form, making it weirder than in Fusion) but dislike the Apple-esque white panels, which interrupt the colors of the various (Varia-s? sorry) suits in a clumsy way. The white and blue is also an odd choice given that Samus seems to return to Varia Suit-like orange after devouring the SA-X's Core X at the end of Fusion. So it's not the return to semi-normal Fusion's ending implied, but it's not different in the weird, mutated way I always wanted. Again, it's oddly clean. The Metroid Suit at the very end of the game is a neat wrinkle that actually hints at the mutated vibes I was hoping for, with its crab-meets-alligator textures, jagged glowing red accents, and toothy details. So of course it's only for the last gameplay sequence and then they take it away at the end, leaving Samus safely back in the Gravity Suit. (The Gravity Suit's shades of purple are very pretty, though.)
I can't be too disappointed. It's not like I could honestly expect NINTENDO of all people to lean into the horror vibes I imagined after playing Fusion. (Hey, remember in the Fusion intro when Samus says the Power Suit had to be surgically removed, "radically altering [her] physical appearance? That implies so much about her and her body's relationship to the suit that just goes nowhere) I would have loved for Samus' own appearance to change - maybe translucent skin, mutated eyes, and Metroid-like fangs (yes, I want her to become a frightening mutant space vampire - I'm a goth, okay? It would be sick and also hot) - but even though the Metroid Suit briefly comes with Samus screaming in rage and uncontrollably draining energy from Raven Beak and his ship, it all gets tied up neatly by absorbing the parasite-infested Quiet Robe, who pops up as a deus X (sorry) machina at the last second. Samus is her normal, conventionally pretty self and her latent Metroid tendencies are completely neutralized. What a waste.
I also have to acknowledge that Metroid's never been that complex from a story perspective. It's pretty broad strokes - a splash of Alien with the Federation's insistence on trying to weaponize the Metroids and SA-X, Fusion's X parasites are basically The Thing minus the gore, and Samus' evil Chozo "dad" Raven Beak is a vague Darth Vader riff. None of these influences are taken terribly far, though - just a little borrowed flavor. Raven Beak is revealed to have been impersonating Adam, but it doesn't go that far. None of it's going to go that far. This is the Mario company, after all. It's fine.
Conclusions? Do I have any? My conclusions are honestly as much about me as about Metroid Dread. I think the game is exactly what it was always going to be. I have to give them credit - the Chozo designs are very cool, and you can tell a lot of work went into the backgrounds of the various sectors. It appears that they made the game they intended to make very competently. That it differs from the version I had built up in my head by extrapolating from my childhood memories of Fusion over the years can't really be laid at Nintendo's feet. They're in the business of making toys for children, not satisfying the headcanons of some thirtysomething goth dork. A smarter, more creatively motivated thirtysomething goth dork would have written/drawn/coded their own story that actually goes the places they know Nintendo wouldn't. That's not me. I'm busy trying to teach myself Ableton Live and music theory while contending with an uncooperative brain, not to mention the responsibilities of adult life. The darker Metroid sequel with a weird, monstrous Samus pursued by the cold and manipulative Federation will have to live in my head.
I don't even know if I could honestly call the gameplay flawed. I grew frustrated, but it was a generally functional Metroid game, and I can't say for certain my problems don't stem from my own lack of ability at action-packed games in general. I didn't spend as much time gaming as many of my peers, and rarely in a multiplayer setting. I don't spend a lot of time gaming now, and I don't plan to. I think the general expected skill level of games has steadily increased as they became more common, and I haven't spent the time to keep up. I played the latest Kirby game, which I loved (as I love every Kirby game I've played), but it definitely gets harder than any previous title in the series (its move to 3D motion may have contributed) and I struggled to complete it more than ever before. I could probably stand to git a little gud.
I don't have the depth of experience to give any kind of professional evaluation here. I can only relate my individual interaction with the game, which is all this post was ever meant to be. I'm working through my thoughts in black and white, and maybe they're some kind of use or at least amusement to you.
Maybe this is my conclusion: I didn't get the Fusion sequel I wanted, and it would be foolishness to expect it. Even before release, I knew it wouldn't be the thing I had been imagining, and I went into Dread trying to see what it would be. It was fine. Metroid's going in a direction I don't entirely want, and I don't expect it to turn in my direction. I don't think this is anyone's fault. I can't expect to have the same relationship to this corporate media product at 35 that I had at 15, and no one should.
Thanks for reading. I'd like to try to write some more of my thoughts about various media in the future (I had a pretty sheltered upbringing that I'm trying to make up for), and I expect Cohost will be the venue for at least some of that. Tumblr's too big, and I'd rather not have something I wrote to work through my own thoughts blown up and decontextualized. This place is a lot smaller, quieter, and so far nicer.