Spider

A beautiful return for an extraordinary series, Metroid Dread managed to take the best ideas and mechanics from its predecessors and bled it into possibly the definitive Metroid game. Perhaps even the definitive metroidvania. Although you can play similar, longer games from the same genre for much cheaper, none have the vast level of polish found in this game. It's clear from the moment the title screen boots up that the game is a triple A title. I'm glad this game wasn't released on the DS as the movement feels fluid and precise with the switch's additional controls. I would like an option to use the right stick to aim, but it never felt like it was the games fault when I missed a shot or failed a parry. (although parrying an E.M.M.I was a wonderful feeling) I will note the shinespark seems easier to use than the last entries, however that may just be because I'm more comfortable with it than when I first played zero mission and fusion. However the inclusion of the shine spark makes 100% less plausible to new players and it's never taught in game, which was what made Super Metroid's level design go down in gaming history. The loading screens for fast traveling are a bit long and broke the flow of gameplay a little bit, however they aren't really noticeable until you go back to 100% the game. The difficulty is reasonably high, challenging but not hard, so it's not a game you should pick up for small children, but that's part of why it has an age rating. Adam doesn't hold your hand like in fusion, however he does still give you direction. A nice blend and it's always nice to speak to him after beating a challenging boss or escaping an E.M.M.I room. I also think it's quite linear. Not a necessarily bad thing, and I defiantly spent less time blasting walls wondering where to go than usual, but quite early on you run across a boss called Kraid and with the map so closed off early in the game, you don't have the option to backtrack to upgrade your health as you've probably picked up all the energy tanks you can on your way there. The difficulty of Kraid was defiantly higher than he should have been at that point in the game, however the other bosses felt well balanced and genuinely fun to fight. The E.M.M.I rooms where a fantastic addition and where I died the most. They are a fun extension of the stealth that made my blood pump in fusion with the SA-X. It trully feels like the perfect next step. I do hope they can expand it again in the next game, however long that takes to make. The story was exiting yet fairly simple and went a direction I didn't expect. It's not required to play any other games before this to understand the plot, but I'd recommend playing at least Fusion first as to avoid spoilers in case you want to go back and play that game. It doesn't spoil any of the other games much and never mentions the prime games, but Fusion has a heavy impact on the story of Dread. That being said, the old games aren't very accessible at the moment unless you have a Wii U or a GBA, so maybe hold out for a fusion remake or port. I do however think that locking a collectable behind an amiibo pay wall is unfair. They did the same with Samus returns for 3DS and it meant that I could never truly complete the game. Metroid has always had a rough time with sales, so I hope that this game will be the one that brings the franchise out from Nintendo's dusty "to do sometime" list and back to being the third pillar of Nintendo. The perfect blend of Mario's platforming and Zelda's story and openness.