Skip to main content
Customer Review
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2021
So hear me out... The last Metroid game I played was Metroid II Return of Samus on my Gameboy (the original Gameboy from 1991 which still works to this day) and I played the heck out of that game, finishing it in its entirety. I'm familiar with Metroidvania style games and love a good side scroller. Metroid Dread is a well made and polished game, and it is fun to explore the levels, collect items, etc... but the biggest nuisances are the EMMI's and some of the boss battles. The EMMI's cannot be directly attacked and you have to obtain an Omega cannon by destroying the central unit for each EMMI, and afterwards the Omega cannon ceases to function until you destroy the next central unit. The EMMI's follow a pattern and you need to kind of understand it to avoid them. Otherwise they can one-hit kill you, unless you have super twitch fast reflexes to counter their moves in a special action sequence.
The same goes for the boss matches. Some of them are fairly simple to understand, others are missile magnets that require repeating certain attack patterns otherwise you die. You can get the Gravity Suit and the boss attacks will quickly drain your health as if you didn't have that suit. I see Youtube videos of expert players going against high level bosses with only a few energy tanks and it is clear they have super cat like reflexes and recognize every single pattern of attack. I'm more of a driving/flight sim player and not a twitch/pattern player. Executing some of the Shinespark moves to break speed booster blocks takes practice and finesse and I can see the expert players breaking out those moves without an issue.
Aside from the pattern recognition and EMMI's, the game is great. There are lots of items that can be obtained out of sequence. You're probably familiar with 3 different ways of destroying Kraid, but aside from the Morph Ball Bomb, Flash Shift, and Pulse Radar that can be obtained out of sequence before meeting Kraid, you can also grab the Space Jump, Cross Bomb, Gravity Suit, Screw Attack, and possibly the Power Bomb before even going against the Escue boss to obtain the Storm Missile and then the Ferenia EMMI for its Wave Beam. Otherwise, the game is actually quite linear. You are forced down certain routes and sequences based on the abilities you have or need to obtain to move to the next phase. Those out of sequence items I mentioned are the primary ones you can get out of sequence. I got sick and tired of being hunted down by the Ferenia EMMI because of its hyper long range radar and beam bubbles so I decided to see if I can get the Space Jump and Gravity Suit to find other routes in the EMMI zone.
AMIIBO are available, and if you get the Metroid Dread amiibo, they add 1 extra energy tank and 10 extra missiles permanently. If you use them again, they restore between 50-200 energy once a day, or 30-60+ missiles once a day. Not very useful during a boss battle as I've had the Samus amiibo only add 50 energy once.
By the time you are getting close to the end of the game, Samus's abilities are pretty much back to what we're familiar with in other games with the space jump, spin boost, screw attack, morph ball bombs, etc...
Overall: 4/5 stars. I really have to deduct 1 star because of the EMMI's and how the boss encounters are structured. It's too heavily dependent on exact patterns. It should be a bit easier to counter the EMMI just to ease the frustration a bit. Boss encounters can be learned by failing and repeating over and over and over and over and over again. The same goes for using the Omega cannon on the EMMI. Need to find the right place to overheat its armor and then aim carefully using the Joycon sticks that are made of glass. But it is an otherwise well made and fun game, almost true to the core Metroid DNA (no pun intended).
The same goes for the boss matches. Some of them are fairly simple to understand, others are missile magnets that require repeating certain attack patterns otherwise you die. You can get the Gravity Suit and the boss attacks will quickly drain your health as if you didn't have that suit. I see Youtube videos of expert players going against high level bosses with only a few energy tanks and it is clear they have super cat like reflexes and recognize every single pattern of attack. I'm more of a driving/flight sim player and not a twitch/pattern player. Executing some of the Shinespark moves to break speed booster blocks takes practice and finesse and I can see the expert players breaking out those moves without an issue.
Aside from the pattern recognition and EMMI's, the game is great. There are lots of items that can be obtained out of sequence. You're probably familiar with 3 different ways of destroying Kraid, but aside from the Morph Ball Bomb, Flash Shift, and Pulse Radar that can be obtained out of sequence before meeting Kraid, you can also grab the Space Jump, Cross Bomb, Gravity Suit, Screw Attack, and possibly the Power Bomb before even going against the Escue boss to obtain the Storm Missile and then the Ferenia EMMI for its Wave Beam. Otherwise, the game is actually quite linear. You are forced down certain routes and sequences based on the abilities you have or need to obtain to move to the next phase. Those out of sequence items I mentioned are the primary ones you can get out of sequence. I got sick and tired of being hunted down by the Ferenia EMMI because of its hyper long range radar and beam bubbles so I decided to see if I can get the Space Jump and Gravity Suit to find other routes in the EMMI zone.
AMIIBO are available, and if you get the Metroid Dread amiibo, they add 1 extra energy tank and 10 extra missiles permanently. If you use them again, they restore between 50-200 energy once a day, or 30-60+ missiles once a day. Not very useful during a boss battle as I've had the Samus amiibo only add 50 energy once.
By the time you are getting close to the end of the game, Samus's abilities are pretty much back to what we're familiar with in other games with the space jump, spin boost, screw attack, morph ball bombs, etc...
Overall: 4/5 stars. I really have to deduct 1 star because of the EMMI's and how the boss encounters are structured. It's too heavily dependent on exact patterns. It should be a bit easier to counter the EMMI just to ease the frustration a bit. Boss encounters can be learned by failing and repeating over and over and over and over and over again. The same goes for using the Omega cannon on the EMMI. Need to find the right place to overheat its armor and then aim carefully using the Joycon sticks that are made of glass. But it is an otherwise well made and fun game, almost true to the core Metroid DNA (no pun intended).
Product Details
