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Metroid Dread developer Mercury Steam is working on two unannounced games | VGC
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Mario Kart World [S2] | Jun 05 Nintendo Switch 2 Welcome Tour [S2] | Jun 05 Donkey Kong Bananza [S2] | Jul 17 Drag x Drive [S2] | 2025 Hyrule Warriors: Age of Imprisonment [S2] | 2025 Kirby Air Riders [S2] | 2025 Metroid Prime 4 | 2025 Pokémon Z-A | 2025 The Duskbloods [S2] | 2026 Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream | 2026
[S2] means Switch 2 only.
It was overall good. I’m a Metroid addict and this was the sole game in the series I did not 100% due to ridiculously hard shinespark puzzles (essentially complex controls/mechanic driven puzzles). I’d say that would be my only critique (they’ve always been hard…this game was in my opinion the hardest of all of them in the series), but could also just be age catching up to me…so I’ll keep that critique to myself haha.
Overall it is fantastic and think it didn’t get due credit around the time of release but glad to see over time it seems to get more and more recognition.
I didn't even understand how the shinespark thing worked until I watched a video on it because there was something that I couldn't figure out how to get. Which I think is telling that they didn't do a very good job explaining it and designing levels around it. We didn't ever need it until those optional puzzles.
I did end up getting 100%, but I never would have without watching a video explaining the mechanic.
man I know exactly what you're talking about, they were brutal
I think this game definitely has the hardest shinespark "puzzles", but the actual execution of shinespark is much easier than in previous games which balances it out. Super Metroid had items where figuring out what shinespark maneuver to do was easy, but actually executing it was difficult, while Zero Mission and Fusion had easier-to-pull-off shinesparks with harder puzzles.
With Dread, the challenge is almost entirely in figuring out what to do, once you know exactly where/when to shinespark the actual execution is very intuitive and feels amazing when you land a complex sequence of shinesparks/speed booster runs/wall jumps.
It didn't get credit because it's a $60 game lapped by games that launch at half the price like hollow knight and ori.
Despite the love I had for Dread, the price was too high.
It's not a bad game at all. But platformers and metroidvanias are just past the point where you need the backing of a Nintendo or AAA studio to do a good job. The 2D games Nintendo brings to the table (regardless of all the business structure stuff) are all competent and polished, but they just don't do anything that isn't matched by indies any more. Metroid's visuals might be more technically difficult than my examples of Hollow Knight or Ori, but the end result, while looking pretty good, isn't inherently prettier. It's polished, but so are they. You're looking at preference between any of them over anything you can point to as inherently better, and the two "indies" (I know Microsoft bought Ori partway through the process) have more content.
I'm not going to actual argue they're "better" despite my first post, but the point is that for $20-30 full price, and steeper sales, there are a lot of very competent options, with a lot of unique approaches to mechanics. It's just really hard to justify pulling the trigger, at maybe $40 at the cheapest they'll ever sell it for, with how competitive the space is. TOTK is a $70 game. Fire Emblem is a $60 game. Dread is like a $30 game that should discount to $15-20.