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Metroid Dread |OT| Prime Hour

Eevee86

Eevee86

Member
KielCasto said:
Finished it! The last boss and the sequence after that clicked so much with me, gameplay- and narrative-wise. I was so engrossed in the fight, I couldn't tell if I was still in control of Samus or a cutscene was playing. I pretty much never let go of the Y button until the credits rolled. What an amazing game with a great portrayal of Samus.

But I didn't understand why the chozo helped Samus in the ship? And this doesn't mean that all chozo are dead now, does it?
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This is just a guess, but I don't think that X is absorbed entirely by her. By taking over Quiet Robes body, it gained the ability to control Metroids as it was from the Thoha clan. It may have saved her as a way to escape the soon to explode planet and still be living inside her. Something they'll explore later on I imagine.
 
BadBurger

BadBurger

Many “Whelps”! Handle It!
I decided to go ahead and buy this, try it out given all of the glowing reviews and GAF anecdotes (also, it's not like Nintendo is ever going to drop the price). It's pretty good after about an hour with it. I find myself not liking the control layout, so I guess for the first time I'll have to use the Switch feature that lets one remap controls for any game. I just wonder if that will mean all games are remapped.

Looks pretty good. I forgot how much I missed Metroid music.
 
Icymanipulator

Icymanipulator

Member
just beat hard. Wasn’t trying for a fast time, just went through the game but knew everything so it cut my time down by 5 hours lol.
34% items.
yQ1VVpv.jpg
 
abstract alien

abstract alien

Member
I went into this on a near complete blackout, so I had no idea what was shown in any of the promotional material. I wanted as pure and "intended" experience as possible, and damn, was that the right move. They showed a little too much for a game about discovery, and spoiled some rather impactful things. It's nice to go back and watch afterwards, but it shows just how much they gave up for things that would have been impactful to fans of the series.
 
MiguelItUp

MiguelItUp

Member
I started playing this Thursday evening, and I just wrapped it up this morning. I loved it a great deal, I just wasn't expecting to be done with it so soon, haha. I was tempted to try the hard mode, but honestly for me I think this is a "one and done" kinda game. But, it felt REALLY nice to finally play a new Metroid, especially on a console rather than a handheld.
 
DjMystix

DjMystix

Member
It was pretty great. Not sure about the "too difficult" complains. I am not a fan of souls games (except sekiro). This game is not that hard. You will just die a few times trying to learn enemy patterns and that's really it.

The game controls and animations were fantastic. Level design was good but frustrating sometimes when you don't know what yo do next.

Great experience overall. 👍
 
Icymanipulator

Icymanipulator

Member
Ok the bosses definitely have more health. Went back after beating last boss on hard to face him again on normal for a reference point. Definitely a bit more aggressive and more health. Way more shots required to trigger transition/phase shifts.
 
Kataploom

Kataploom

Gold Member
Eevee86 said:
This is just a guess, but I don't think that X is absorbed entirely by her. By taking over Quiet Robes body, it gained the ability to control Metroids as it was from the Thoha clan. It may have saved her as a way to escape the soon to explode planet and still be living inside her. Something they'll explore later on I imagine.
Click to expand...
I didn’t think the Metroid DNA got removed from her in that scene but controlled, like as the Metroids arc in the series is over, now she’s literally “The Metroid” (tho still can’t crawl 😛)
 
Eevee86

Eevee86

Member
Kataploom said:
I didn’t think the Metroid DNA got removed from her in that scene but controlled, like as the Metroids arc in the series is over, now she’s literally “The Metroid” (tho still can’t crawl 😛)
Click to expand...
That's how I saw it. That X turned the E.M.M.I.s back on so I hardly think it wanted to help her, just a last ditch effort to survive. An X capable of controlling Metroids could be trouble in the future. We'll see where they take it from here. Hopefully we don't have to wait a few decades.
 
CGiRanger

CGiRanger

Banned
My playtime shown is only 6 hours. But I swear I have played much more than that. Is the play timer in the save slots accurately tabulating time?
 
Aldric

Aldric

Member
You know after replaying the game it comforted my opinion that the OST really is the weakest part. An area like Ghavoran is actually really well realized in concept, lots of things happening in the background, bizarre creatures and plantlife everywhere that I missed during my first playthrough and a pretty fantastic job done with lighting and textures that give the zone a sickly, decaying atmosphere that's a really good fit for the franchise, it nails the hostile alien forest esthetic. It's just too bad it's ruined by the terrible music, I hate the themesong in this area.
 
Phase

Phase

Member
CGiRanger said:
My playtime shown is only 6 hours. But I swear I have played much more than that. Is the play timer in the save slots accurately tabulating time?
Click to expand...
Every time you die you lose the progress, so it doesn't save unless you do. The game only counts the time you successfully lived and progressed through. I just finished with 10hrs showing on the file, but I played ~20hrs in total.
 
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tommib

tommib

Member
Aldric said:
You know after replaying the game it comforted my opinion that the OST really is the weakest part. An area like Ghavoran is actually really well realized in concept, lots of things happening in the background, bizarre creatures and plantlife everywhere that I missed during my first playthrough and a pretty fantastic job done with lighting and textures that give the zone a sickly, decaying atmosphere that's a really good fit for the franchise, it nails the hostile alien forest esthetic. It's just too bad it's ruined by the terrible music, I hate the themesong in this area.
Click to expand...
Music sounds really so lazy and like a Sound Blaster 16 test file most of the times. It's very strange since we're talking about the same team that scored Metroid Prime, I think. I like the ambient stuff during teleporting and when riding the "train". They really should've hired some vaporwave electronic guy. Oneothrix Point Never would've done the trick.



Or Autechre of course, who sound totally alien and Metroid-ish:

 
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CGiRanger

CGiRanger

Banned
Aldric said:
You know after replaying the game it comforted my opinion that the OST really is the weakest part. An area like Ghavoran is actually really well realized in concept, lots of things happening in the background, bizarre creatures and plantlife everywhere that I missed during my first playthrough and a pretty fantastic job done with lighting and textures that give the zone a sickly, decaying atmosphere that's a really good fit for the franchise, it nails the hostile alien forest esthetic. It's just too bad it's ruined by the terrible music, I hate the themesong in this area.
Click to expand...
The strange and sad thing is that, this part was not even something that MercurySteam had any control over, since the Music is done in-house at Nintendo and Directed by long-time veteran composer Kenji Yamamoto (Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, Prime Trilogy etc.).

So I have no clue why the music and sounds have turned out the way they did. Perhaps Kenji is doing more of a supervisory role and letting his junior composers do most of the work? But even so as the Director he'd set the tone of the composition as a whole, so this more "low-key-ambient" score would still be approved by him.
 
Dr Bass

Dr Bass

Member
CGiRanger said:
The strange and sad thing is that, this part was not even something that MercurySteam had any control over, since the Music is done in-house at Nintendo and Directed by long-time veteran composer Kenji Yamamoto (Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, Prime Trilogy etc.).

So I have no clue why the music and sounds have turned out the way they did. Perhaps Kenji is doing more of a supervisory role and letting his junior composers do most of the work? But even so as the Director he'd set the tone of the composition as a whole, so this more "low-key-ambient" score would still be approved by him.
Click to expand...
Yeah. The whole situation is bizarre. An incredible score would have elevated this game to the stratosphere. It makes such a huge impact on the "feel" of the experience too. Just shows how strong the rest of the game is that people still love it so much despite being a turd in this area.
 
partime

partime

Member
OMG am I the only one complaining about the music? Like, it's hardly even there. Hollow Knight, Super Metroid, hell even Undertale has better atmosphere.

This game SUFFERS from the awe and excitement of going to/from areas. It's such a fantastic game otherwise.
 
Marty-McFly

Marty-McFly

Banned
CGiRanger said:
My playtime shown is only 6 hours. But I swear I have played much more than that. Is the play timer in the save slots accurately tabulating time?
Click to expand...
Look at your playtime, and quadruple it and that should be about the real amount of time you played (dying, getting lost ect.)

I found it funny play time was Gamespot's main critique and the morons didn't even know how the timer worked. :messenger_tears_of_joy:
 
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Arozay

Arozay

Member
Took 7 hours on my first playthrough. I was suprised the map was as big as it was, and you got a lot of upgrades pretty quickly but then there were limited uses for most of them (use the speed boost once or twice for progression then forget forever, etc). Meanwhile, you're playing tekken with the shoulder buttons, and aiming like its Goldeneye while there's a cosmetic right analogue stick.

It felt like exploration was dictated more by abitrarily locked doors rather than acquired upgrades, and then the upgrades which did progress the game were just glorified door unlockers instead of clever use of game mechanics™. Though I have seen that the game is very sequence break friendly which will be interesting to look in to.

The difficulty wasn't too bad, E.M.M.I sections got repetitive and the deaths felt kinda cheap (2d-stealth lol), the bosses weren't too bad. I didn't think it was necessary to fight the same TWO slightly varied mini-boss 20 times, and I over-thought the last boss thinking you had to colour-coordinate attacks like in Prime instead of just counter-ing twice..

It was strange that I thought the game was longer than I thought it'd be, but then the last 15 minutes were abrupt like they were told to wrap it up and turn the last boss into a cutscene and roll credits.

Its a good game, just feels like it should have come out a decade ago, as I probably prefer Hollow Knight and Ori more as an overall package. It did feel like an improved 3ds-era game with some of the janky presentation. Regardless, it's good to see the series alive, and I'm looking forward to Prime 4/Pinball even though its on Switch hardware.
 
Trunx81

Trunx81

Member
I’m at the last boss, got my ass handed to me a few times and will now start exploring. Worst time to run out of missiles during a boss fight. Energy isn’t that big of a problem as one hit takes so much away, so you better learn the patterns and stay save. But missiles .. !!
 
Porcile

Porcile

Member
CGiRanger said:
The strange and sad thing is that, this part was not even something that MercurySteam had any control over, since the Music is done in-house at Nintendo and Directed by long-time veteran composer Kenji Yamamoto (Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, Prime Trilogy etc.).

So I have no clue why the music and sounds have turned out the way they did. Perhaps Kenji is doing more of a supervisory role and letting his junior composers do most of the work? But even so as the Director he'd set the tone of the composition as a whole, so this more "low-key-ambient" score would still be approved by him.
Click to expand...

My feeling was they were just going for an oppressive soundscape-y feeling to blend in with the sound effects rather than attempt anything particularly melodic that might create a mismatch in mood. It's a bit on the nose, but I still liked some of the atmospheric musical pieces in this game, even if it wasn't very Metroid.
 
Marty-McFly

Marty-McFly

Banned
Emmi's timing is different everytime.

I've yet to parry one 5 times in a row afters hundreds of tries.
 
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Nico_D

Nico_D

Member
So much to love, but also quite a lot to be frustrated about. At best I think it's a brilliant game, at worst - when it is spamming sponge enemies/small bosses - I consider stop playing.

Personally I'm not a big fan of game design where you HAVE to play segments multiple times to know in advance how it goes and then play it right. I just don't think it's fair. It was pretty evident in Frostpunk which I tried two missions but when it turned out that choosing "a wrong" upgrade I had already lost the game without knowing it because of something that happens later in the scenario and for which I should've upgraded something else. That said, i think EMMIs are clever and well designed puzzles.

I thnik Dread is really good game for genre fans and sometimes it is that for me too.
 
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T

Tg89

Member
Nearing the end and think this one will easily be my GOTY at this point, having played most things I'm interested in till now and knowing there's not much left to come out this year, maybe AOE4.

I'll start with my couple complaints:

1) The music. This isn't that big of a complaint, the music is great...captures the mood, provides the ambience, etc. It's just not quite Metroid level good. There's not Phendrana Drifts, Brinstar, etc. in this one.
2) The games a bit too good at directing you where to go next. I keep reading people online getting lost and I just don't see it. For a Metroid game there's been very little opening the map and trying to figure out where to go next. Every time I get a new item I seem to be end up right beside where I need to use it and continue progressing, not to mention the game straight up blocking off old areas temporarily (thermal redirecting, destructible stuff, etc). That said, this also contributes directly to my first good point:

Good
1) In a world where games are full of bloat and trying to be 20-30 hour experiences despite only having maybe 6 hours of worthwhile content, this game does the exact opposite. Such a refreshingly concise and compact experience. One of the only games in recent memory where I just sat down and went through it in 3 decent sittings. No lulls to speak of, just an action packed game beginning to end. Yet the game still feels damn big. I look at the map and can't believe how much I've covered in a seemingly short amount of time. I wish more games would do this, I don't need everything to be a 20-30 hour experience and most games straight up just aren't good enough to try to be that.
2) Movement/controls are fantastic. Outside of a couple abilities which are giving my old man muscle memory fits it all just works so well and moving through the world feels fantastic. I can't wait to go back through old areas with my full kit and just collect items. You can tell they were definitely running out of buttons a bit by the end but (on a pro controller at least) it still feels great to me. They did a good job of compounding/replacing old abilities to compensate. The way they handle the missiles especially.
3) Looks fantastic. The first area was a tad bland but once they got into the more traditional Metroid biomes it really started to impress.

Overall just a fantastic game and a nice surprise for me. Between them even announcing/making this game and the unexpected level of quality given recent things like Other M I couldn't be happier. Hope this game does great numbers and they let Mercury Stream continue with the series, having a consistent 2D Metroid release schedule would be such a big thing for Nintendo's library going forward.

Now back to hoping for Prime Trilogy (or just the first remade, that works) and Prime 4.
 
tommib

tommib

Member
Tg89 said:
Nearing the end and think this one will easily be my GOTY at this point, having played most things I'm interested in till now and knowing there's not much left to come out this year, maybe AOE4.

I'll start with my couple complaints:

1) The music. This isn't that big of a complaint, the music is great...captures the mood, provides the ambience, etc. It's just not quite Metroid level good. There's not Phendrana Drifts, Brinstar, etc. in this one.
2) The games a bit too good at directing you where to go next. I keep reading people online getting lost and I just don't see it. For a Metroid game there's been very little opening the map and trying to figure out where to go next. Every time I get a new item I seem to be end up right beside where I need to use it and continue progressing, not to mention the game straight up blocking off old areas temporarily (thermal redirecting, destructible stuff, etc). That said, this also contributes directly to my first good point:

Good
1) In a world where games are full of bloat and trying to be 20-30 hour experiences despite only having maybe 6 hours of worthwhile content, this game does the exact opposite. Such a refreshingly concise and compact experience. One of the only games in recent memory where I just sat down and went through it in 3 decent sittings. No lulls to speak of, just an action packed game beginning to end. Yet the game still feels damn big. I look at the map and can't believe how much I've covered in a seemingly short amount of time. I wish more games would do this, I don't need everything to be a 20-30 hour experience and most games straight up just aren't good enough to try to be that.
2) Movement/controls are fantastic. Outside of a couple abilities which are giving my old man muscle memory fits it all just works so well and moving through the world feels fantastic. I can't wait to go back through old areas with my full kit and just collect items. You can tell they were definitely running out of buttons a bit by the end but (on a pro controller at least) it still feels great to me. They did a good job of compounding/replacing old abilities to compensate. The way they handle the missiles especially.
3) Looks fantastic. The first area was a tad bland but once they got into the more traditional Metroid biomes it really started to impress.

Overall just a fantastic game and a nice surprise for me. Between them even announcing/making this game and the unexpected level of quality given recent things like Other M I couldn't be happier. Hope this game does great numbers and they let Mercury Stream continue with the series, having a consistent 2D Metroid release schedule would be such a big thing for Nintendo's library going forward.

Now back to hoping for Prime Trilogy (or just the first remade, that works) and Prime 4.
Click to expand...
I spent 15 hours with it and it’s my ideal playtime. Hate all the endless bloat of AAA titles. The only other games I can play endlessly are From Software’s. Well, and Returnal - I have 100 hours on that one. 🤷🏻‍♂️
 
Cutty Flam

Cutty Flam

Banned
chaseroni said:
That room will forever be haunted by the Jaffe memories for those of us who were around for it lol
vZgUMg2.jpg
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Probably just a premeditated publicity stunt on his part tbh though, there’s no way any man who was that deep in the industry could actually think that was bad design. He didn’t read the tutorial hints at the start and had a little trouble starting out, it was as simple as that and he was frustrated because of it. Well played by him I guess, riles up followers and attaches some newly found haters to his base that’ll listen to his commentary

I refuse to believe that a man who directed God of War could be that simple, it couldn’t be… Selling his name sort of like a WWE or UFC promo, it has to be that
 
tommib

tommib

Member
Punished Miku said:
I went in that room the other day and immediately recognized the significance. It will never be the same.
Click to expand...
I’m also replaying it on hard and immediately started to shoot that section without even thinking. I actually think he just doesn’t like Metroid and was trying to find something to bring the game down. Which is fine. I hated Resident Evil Village from the initial demos and while playing it everything was annoying me and an excuse to rant. It’s ok, Jaffe. We still love you.
 
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