nearly all of the boss fights were just gimmicks; figure out the trick(s) and you win, otherwise you die.
QTE-heavy boss fights and, again having to wait for QTE gimmicks to 'quickly' dispatch normal enemies
mini-bosses (defeated with QTE gimmicks) used over and over again
constantly locking you in new areas preventing backtracking
stupid one-way doors/paths all over the place that again force huge amounts of backtracking
the EMMI sequences were not difficult or tense; they were just tedious to figure out where you needed to go to not be detected. Instant death DOES NOT BELONG IN A METROID GAME. It was the worst part of the otherwise great Zero Mission, too.
too many shinespark 'puzzles'
completely forgettable soundtrack
story was almost as dumb as Other M; I'm glad I've forgotten most of it. Oh hey, we finally meet a Chozo and he's evil. And sort of Samus' dad. Hooray.
It's the only Metroid game that I never bothered to replay. I'd rank it right ahead of Other M.
But at this point I'm prepared to say that 2d Metroid is no longer the series that I grew up with, and if people like all of the handholding and railroading, I guess I'll stick with Super Metroid and the Prime trilogy. I should have gatekept harder.
While I enjoyed Dread, I agree with you on pretty much every point and have also never felt the desire to replay it. I think it was inevitable for the series to go the railroading route given how Nintendo tries to add things to games to make them easier for bad gamers. Veteran players are supposed to sequence break by going through those heated rooms and such, but those all feel very clearly intended as sequence breaks by the devs rather than feeling like natural exploration.
For big companies like Nintendo you are going to have dev teams and processes that are really thorough and so you probably won't get any cool emergent gameplay like you might when they were smaller
This is a very good point. Gaming is too much about the numbers now rather than just making some cool shit. The future of metroidvanias is probably in indie games where they can still capture the magic of games without being completely sanitized by corporate.
I'll take your word for it w.r.t. the scripted 'sequence breaks'. I just never bothered with reading up on or watching any videos on Dread after I finished it. No interest.
In a way, it reminds me a little bit of Metal Gear Solid: I've gone back to replay it a few times over the decades but I never have any interest in trying to speed-run it because I don't want to watch all of those damn unskippable cut scenes every time. In the case of Dread, it's several things that I simply don't feel like doing again.
And Nintendo wanted to bury it instead of hiring the guy who made it to lead some more remake efforts. Thank god for the Internet's tendency to never let something be deleted forever. I have played AM2R on more consoles as homebrew than I can count on one hand and I love the Internet for that.
Dread was awesome. So this is good news if true.
Hard disagree.
It's the only Metroid game that I never bothered to replay. I'd rank it right ahead of Other M.
But at this point I'm prepared to say that 2d Metroid is no longer the series that I grew up with, and if people like all of the handholding and railroading, I guess I'll stick with Super Metroid and the Prime trilogy. I should have gatekept harder.
While I enjoyed Dread, I agree with you on pretty much every point and have also never felt the desire to replay it. I think it was inevitable for the series to go the railroading route given how Nintendo tries to add things to games to make them easier for bad gamers. Veteran players are supposed to sequence break by going through those heated rooms and such, but those all feel very clearly intended as sequence breaks by the devs rather than feeling like natural exploration.
For big companies like Nintendo you are going to have dev teams and processes that are really thorough and so you probably won't get any cool emergent gameplay like you might when they were smaller
This is a very good point. Gaming is too much about the numbers now rather than just making some cool shit. The future of metroidvanias is probably in indie games where they can still capture the magic of games without being completely sanitized by corporate.
I'll take your word for it w.r.t. the scripted 'sequence breaks'. I just never bothered with reading up on or watching any videos on Dread after I finished it. No interest.
In a way, it reminds me a little bit of Metal Gear Solid: I've gone back to replay it a few times over the decades but I never have any interest in trying to speed-run it because I don't want to watch all of those damn unskippable cut scenes every time. In the case of Dread, it's several things that I simply don't feel like doing again.
One of the boss fights can be ended early if you have morph bomb, which is only achievable if you use an intended sequence break.
As in, there’s a bombable wall only useful in the boss fight that skips a few stages of the fight.
AM2R was the only Metroid game to be released after Zero Mission, everything else is just skin suits.
And Nintendo wanted to bury it instead of hiring the guy who made it to lead some more remake efforts. Thank god for the Internet's tendency to never let something be deleted forever. I have played AM2R on more consoles as homebrew than I can count on one hand and I love the Internet for that.