again I have to protest because I got lost multiple times in this game lol
and I take issue with the premise of this video because metroid dread isn’t a “metroidvania” in the sense that he is describing. there is a clear linear path, exactly like in fusion, even if the game isn’t explicitly directing you through that path. I think there’s only one place in the game where you can optionally choose to do two objectives in any order.
even super metroid was fairly linear! I really think the concept of “metroidvania” that people have just doesn’t correspond to the reality of metroid games. the only non-linear metroid is metroid on NES. the concept of “sequence breaking” could not even exist if there wasn’t a set sequence to start with.
Yeah I realized how on-rails it is in my recent replay, and I think it’s actually quite good for it. But yeah, it’s not even close to non-linear. It’s mostly memorable for the scenery and atmosphere and a couple neat tricks. And the bosses rule.
thinking about how the grapple beam is used as a hard gate for exactly one (1) optional item in all of super metroid (the spring ball), whereas dread and SR never stop giving you breakable grapple blocks in your path to flout its “usefulness”
I’ve really enjoyed Mark Brown’s channel and Boss Keys in particular for how methodically he broke down the different Zelda games’ philosophy toward dungeons.
Haven’t played Dread yet, but his assessment of it seems straightforward and hard to dispute: they had an agenda and they did these three things in support of that, which results in a game that tries to maximize forward progression over coherency of environment or navigational challenge.
Whether or not this technically qualifies as a “metroidvania” is a pedantry trap and I will not let you people drag me into it by arguing about taxonomy.
yeah I gotta say, I’m really tired of there being like a dozen different kind of doors and breakable blocks for each upgrade you get. just feels cluttered after a certain point
this is basically what I mean when I say the game makes the most sense as a direct successor to fusion. like it honestly feels like they had most of this design laid in a fair amount of detail way back when and this game sticks to it, arguably to a fault. the focus on forward progression made a lot of sense for expectations of portable games in the early aughts. expectations for switch games are so different now, and they could have tried to reconfigure the game to be less action-oriented and geared towards forward motion. but personally I’m glad that we got the game that we did, partly because of how anachronistic it is in 2021.
it’s also just an incredibly tight action game that has more or less the same strengths and weaknesses that fusion has. I actually think it’s mechanically stronger and more compelling than fusion, but fusion has better writing and more coherent visual direction and production.
they should fire whoever came up with the area names though. and whoever decided it was a good idea to give samus those huge green lightning bolts that vaguely suggest a slingshot bikini on the gravity suit
I just can’t unsee this now…
for me, the biggest gripe i have regarding the gating is that heat/cold/liquid damage quickly rachets up over time, effectively making those damage sources hard gates in a couple places. like, I would like to do the two room hellruns in Dairon to get bombs and such varia, but from my understanding that’s unworkable.
contrast that with the upper norfair hellruns in super, which all strike me as being intended (for very skilled players). plus, there’s something to be said about the crystal flash making longer dives into heated areas more workable.
