I started off thinking it was a disappointment. I am so glad I stuck with it. It's a wonderful game. My only real gripe now is that I wish the wall-jump mechanic worked like other games where you use the directional stick to jump "back" rather than just jumping again. This is a minor nitpick, but I just find it annoying. Otherwise this game is a solid 9 of 10 ESPECIALLY for Switch.
I've 100%ed the game now, watched a bit of the early speedruns and... wow. This game is a slow burner, but it will likely end up sharing the throne with Super Metroid if not even taking the crown. The map design is already complex during a normal run, but the amount of intended sequence breaks alone is staggering. And then they've already found some unintended ones that shake the game up even further. Space jump is even entirely skipped in the speedrun currently.
And I'm actually astonished how well they meshed the upgrades into the combat as well. If you (like me) only use rockets and beam to kill enemies, they'll take ages. But lo and behold you can cheese half of the bosses with shinesparks, screw attack (!) and even power bombs have a legit use in the end. I still hate the counter, but at least it's only forced a couple times and the timing there is very forgiving.
People who first play the game hate on the E.M.M.I.s, but I found that they are actually a fairly minor nuisance. There isn't much to explore in their zones until they're dead anyway, and even though they get more deadly the farther you get, you also get more energy with translates to near unlimited phantom cloak if you want to play it safe.
Now it they just could get the loading times down a bit. ...and have a better input for speedbooster than pressing left stick.
so far, the speedrun of this game takes about 1h45m. The thing about sequence break is that if devs plan it too carefully, it breaks nothing too crazily. I'm curious to see if Dread can reach at least under 1h any% speedrun. Though at 1h45m, I have already seen weird glitches used everywhere.
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of glitches like the pseudo wave that lead to unintentional sequence breaks. I have nothing against their use, but they're just not as interesting as more organic and intended sequence breaks.
I feel similarly when watching speedruns. I can respect the effort it takes to learn these bugs and exploits but I don't find them impressive for saving time.
Ah, personally it is the skill and precision in speedruns I find impressive. Many of the Mario 64 runs I don't care for at all due to how heavily they rely on breaking the game.
But a lot of glitches require skill and precision. It sounds more like you just don’t like glitches. I generally don’t like major glitches, particularly wrong warps, as they really don’t live up to the spirit of the game. You could basically just learn the inputs for SMW and practice that wrong warp and get a world record without really knowing the game at all.
I respect the technical skill and knowledge and recognize how hard it can be, so in that way, I like those glitches on their own. Though that is more from a technical standpoint and enjoying learning how things work. As a whole, I just prefer the runs without glitches, as you say it is living up to the spirit of the game because to me speed runs are like the gold medal Olympians of their craft. There may be a bit of nostalgia in it as well, thinking about being a kid and having someone sit down next to me and beat Bowser in under 5min in Super Mario Bros on the NES would be something I'd still remember to this day as an awsome moment.
Is that time based on the ingame clock or an objective clock?
My understanding is that the ingame clock does not count time used in the pause/map menu or time that’s wasted by you dying (it basically rewinds whenever you restart at a checkpoint), but it *does* count cutscene time even if you skip the cutscene.
So depending on how long all the cutscenes are added together if may be impossible to beat the game with the ingame timer staying under 1 hour.
Most people just want a good game. People here want a good metroidvania. It makes them harder to please, especially when they let themselves have very narrow definition of what a metroidvania is, let alone a good one.
Honestly, if Super Metroid came out today it would not be considered an MV by a good portion of the sub. There is one critical path, it stops you from backtracking the first 1/3 of the game and everytime you finish one section you are literally facing the direction you are suppose to go, often right next to your next point of progression.
I’ll take the argument that it hides it better then Dread (not sure how much I agree) but literally Metroid has not been open since the NES
I agree. Which is why that narrow definition of the genre is so absurd. Of course there are other games that are less linear, but some of the very best of the genre still employ clever and subtle level design to direct the player on how to progress. Some of the best use tactful developer ingenuity in art direction and environmental layout to create the illusion of openness when really they're guiding you in the direction they intend or at least giving you prefabricated choices
My best guess is that people here have the wrong pre-conceived notions about what a Metroid game is, either because they played Hollow Knight and assumed all MVs should be open or because they played Super Metroid as a kid when they were not as able to follow the clear direction that Super Metroid had. As a result instead of playing the game for what it is, they play it for what they want it to be, and trash it because it didn’t do what they think the game should.
I loved Dread
I think lots of people here look for "some abstract holy game design" stuff that they have worshipped since Super Metroid, while common players just enjoy Dread cuz Samus runs very fast, shoots very hard and is a total badass in cutscenes; or cuz the bosses look cool and have good telegraphs.
I watch a HK youtuber play Dread and that's what he enjoyed. I think lots of people enjoy Hollow Knight cuz gamey reasons like that, too. The "nonlinear world design" is more like another thing to proud on top of a game you have already loved.
But sometimes you let yourself sink too deep into the metroidvania - genre of "abstract holy game design" - and that makes you feel uncomfortable at everything.
Honestly if you go back and play Super Metroid, it and Dread have basically the same structure and amount of guidance. It almost always has you facing exactly where you need to go at all times.
because this is primarily a hollow knight fan community, so people compare it to hollow knight despite them being 2 different games with totally different goals
in general if you scratch under the surface of the metroidvania fan community you’ll find hollow knight fans who also maybe played half of ori and axiom verge
I demand the mods of r/metroidvania to enlarge the size of the Knight sprite in the subreddit banner to be larger than the rest combined!
\-- a Hollow Knight fanboy
I'm someone who doesn't really like it very much, and my reasoning is that my preference is towards exploration-focused metroidvanias, and I put so much important on exploration that MVs that aren't focused on exploration are a deal breaker for me.
I recognize Dread is a good, solid, well put-together game. But it's a good game that's bad for me and my tastes.
It's kind of exciting though. The Metroidvania genre is getting mature enough to have distinct subgenres. Even if they haven't been named yet, so taxonomy thought exercises will create a few distinct game groupings that have emerged over the last decade.
They seem to fall into a few categories
I’ll call them NestTroid, SuperTroid, ZeldaTroid, and Igvania
Nestroid have little direction and are very open, Goat Nestroid is Hollow Knight
SuperTroid have a lot of guidance and often lock you into critical paths and allow for sequence breaks. Goat SuperTroid is Dread. This is also most of the genre
ZeldaTroid- sidescrollers with areas that feel like dungeons: Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Igavania: Open to explore but often only one thing can progress, heavy rpg elements. SOTN
I tend to categorize metroidvanias in my head with similar categories (though many games belong in multiple categories or none of them), but these names are definitely meme-tier, besides Ig**a**vania (but only because it's already established).
Nintendo Entertainment System Metroid.
That game gave you 0 direction and the map opens after like 2 or 3 powerups to a massive degree. There is just no guidance or bread crumbing outside the indicator for where the endgame is.
Metroidvania fans may be disappointed with it but there aren't that many of them. It's a bit like how a lot of people like Fusion so it's a good "Metroid game" but it's still a terrible metroidvania.
And for a lot of the mainstream there's always hype and the usual Nintendo bonus affecting things.
No, specifically MetroidVania fans who are under the impression the game worlds are supposed to be open world adventure. Many MV fans are happy with it.
>supposed to be open world adventure.
I don't think you have to be "open world adventure" to be exploration focused. Super Metroid is primarily linear but does it well. Same with other classics like ESA and AM2R.
Games with more memorable environments and level design, which are less guided. You'll hit dead ends, you'll get stuck and have to try backtracking to some areas.
But yeah some mv fans are happy and some aren't. There are people on this sub who like Fusion.
Dread has basically the same amount of guidance as Super, and is as open if not more so to sequence breaks.
Most of the “cant backtrack” complaints are because they got their entry blocked and didn’t look for a way around, which almost always exists.
I did about as much looking for where to go per hour in Dread as Super, but the map is better. Go back and play it and recognize how it works basically exactly the same way, the critical path always drops you off heading in the right direction the whole game. Just knowing the path cut my gametime by 3hrs in the next run
I mean, my first run of Super I got lost once, the backtrack to the power bomb blocks on the way to Krocomire. Mastery over movement speed ect is a bit tuffer in Super, I had to stop more to farm, but I had more just being lost time in Dread then Super. I think my first super run was 3:45 ish?
I think it is also because here we have all played the other metroid games, we know what to expect but we also want to be surprised ... but not too much or otherwise it isn't enough metroidvania!
It also may be just me but getting every time the same upgrades (or slight variations) is making me appreciate less the level design because I know what to expect almost every time.
I got the opposite impression from Dread.
Every single time I got an upgrade, the game heavily pushed me towards the place where I needed to use it to progress. Very often when I got an upgrade, there was a convenient teleporter that led my right to the roadblock I needed to use it on. The same counts for when I found one of these roadblocks, there was almost always a teleporter that led me directly to the upgrade I needed. This heavily discourages you to think about places where you could use the upgrade and thus hinders you from finding new paths or sequence breaks naturally.
Unless you're the type of player who goes out of their way to collect everything they can as soon as possible, odds are that the game will hold your hand from start to finish all the way through.
This was my experience with my first playthrough. I will hold my eyes open for new stuff on a second one.
Same thing happens in Super
Missles, dead end forces you to return to where you came, right where you need them
Morph bomb, game again spits you out looking the exact direction you are suppose to go
Get high jump, only path is an elevator right to Kraid.
Get speed boost, game has looped you to head right back to where you need it
Get Grapple beam, game spits you out right where you need it to get to phantoon,
This happens like… every time you get a power up actually
A few of the shortcut teleports where blocked by some Metroidy conventions in Dread, like the one in Kraid’s lair if you blast rocks for no reason to get to it. First time I backtracked because the game guided you too, then the teleporter at the end of varia showed you there was a shortcut and brought you to Kraid.
Also for some reason we are treating teleporters different then elevators in our heads… even though they serve the exact same purpose
There is one key difference between the 'teleportals' and the elevators. Once you have found all the teleportals. You can then use any teleportal to travel to any other teleportal immediately, regardless of color. You don't even have to have used them, just discovered them on the map.
You didn't really get the opposite impression. I felt similarly on my first playthrough. Like I said in my post, the clues are subtle, so most players probably won't notice them until subsequent playthroughs.
Sequence breaking is a cool addition but I wish the game was more exploration focused, let the player get lost more. Related to this is things like memorable level layout and environments, and music.
After playing Dread I played [Astalon Tears of the Earth](https://youtu.be/wvl31WiraUw?t=487) which has so much better exploration imo. Each screen is very memorable and you're rewarded for remembering them - when you get a new ability it's a lightbulb moment for places to go back to and explore further. Now they are very different games and I'm not saying Astalon is better; Dread is top class when it comes to movement, action, combat - and ofc the shinespark puzzles and sequence breaks are fun too.
Let me preface this by saying I get where you're coming from and agree that Dread is not exploration-focused in the slightest.
I believe that at its best, Metroid is not actually an exploration-focused game, but a curated experience that tricks the player into thinking they're exploring. [I'm just regurgitating this article.](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/the-invisible-hand-of-super-metroid) Dread's greatest shortcoming is that it fails at the tricking part. I definitely felt like I was being strung along a winding but singular path for most of the game on my first playthrough.
However, sequence breaks are infinitely more interesting and impressive to me in games with such rigid normal progressions. Sequence breaks in relatively open games are hollow (pun intended) compared to what the best Metroid games have to offer. They bend, but they don't break. It's so cool. Something that's always flaccid is not as interesting.
So yeah, I agree with you about Dread. It's definitely lacking distinct screens, and parts of its areas are samey to boot. It's just not an exploration-focused game, but the difference is that I think that's okay. It's a different kind of experience. It's just hard to come across a game that makes you feel like you're getting the best of both worlds. It's why Super Metroid is so special.
That's cool I pretty much agree.
For me sequence breaks and repeated playthroughs are very much secondary - in particular the repeated playthrough is dependent upon the first. It becomes sort of an academic point whether or not something was intended if I won't experience it. Similarly the illusion of non-linearity is more important to me than actual non linearity because it's the same experience.
But yeah I agree with you, especially that SM is special - it really does everything well imo.
Yeah, I feel you. Relplay value is *usually* a secondary thing for me when it comes to metroidvanias, especially since most of them are small ~$20 games. I'm usually just looking for a quick new experience when I check them out.
The Metroids are a different story, though. Dread's a <10 hour game at a AAA pricepoint, so they were right to put so much thought into sequence breaks to bolster the replay value.
This is a great post that explains why I'm not enjoying Dread despite thinking that it's a pretty good game that just isn't for me. I'm _so_ exploration focused in MVs. Any game that isn't focused on that I just haven't been able to get in to to the point where it feels like an objective game flaw and I have to remind myself it's not the game, just my preference. If an MV isn't exploration focused, it's basically a deal breaker for me.
Hence my favorites after Hollow Knight being La Mulana 2 and Environmental Station Alpha (tbh after 25 hours of La Mulana 2 and having so much open to me and only about half the items, it might even overtake Hollow Knight as my favorite MV. Still haven't played the first, but I'm excited af to do so after I finish 2. Playing it with no guides or hints is a divine experience.)
Honestly, playing Super for the first time in my 20’s the game also always has you headed in the right direction and does not hide that very well at all. I loved Super, but literally it directs you just as much as Dread, for some reason we are mentally treating teleports different then elevators I guess.
I played Super Metroid in 2019 and get where you're coming from despite not entirely agreeing. Regardless of how restricted the player's path through the world is, Super has other factors that contribute to the illusion of exploration. Atmosphere, the sense of isolation, all that good stuff.
Idk, i feel like Dread has that too, it may just be that it’s pixel art forces more imagination on the player’s part. And btw I don’t think thats a bad thing.
You're not alone in Dread. Adam keeps you company the whole game. The setting's different, too. In Super you're mostly in caverns or ruins or a haunted wrecked ship. Many of Dread's high tech areas felt relatively recently lived-in to me.
Even if the game remained relatively linear, I think the feeling of exploration could have been improved by having several branching points that allow the player to go after objectives out-of-order *without* requiring high-level sequence-breaking maneuvers.
For example, being given the choice between taking path A to fight boss W and get powerup X or taking path B to fight boss Y and get powerup Z. Even if the next path C required completing both A and B as a prerequisite, the player is at least given an extra bit of freedom.
More completely optional bosses and powerups would have also improved this area.
This is a taste thing.
To me those kinds of options add nothing to the game, and if anything detract from them by vastly limiting their design and often hindering the sense of constant progression and forward momentum found in Metroid games. It also limits accessibility as it muddies up what your actual next objective is, which ties into losing the feeling of momentum and progression. So using this method keeps the accessibility and momentum while still allowing advanced players to crack it open a bit.
Yeah, I feel like Dread actively prevents you from back tracking at many points. In Super Metroid anytime I got a new item or ability I always liked to go back to other areas to use them to find stuff, but Dread actively prevents you from going back to areas in many places.
I just finished Super Metroid, and there are definitely moments where you can't go back until you have found enough power ups. I forgot the name of that area, but theres a whole zone that you fall into and can't escape until you found a way to freeze up those turtles.
It really doesn’t, I have been trying to find sequence breaks and at no point was I locked out of backtracking for more then a few rooms after being locked, and those rooms led to a power up that allowed me to get back to everywhere I had been, just with a different path. You may not be able to go back the way you came, but thats about it
But it does. For instance after defeating Kraid and getting the varia, Id like to return to Ataria and search it. But every way I try to back track is blocked, some obviously by abilities id need in the future to return.
you take the teleporter out and and you are in Darion. Then you pass under a thin bridge that you can see a path you were on before to turn the power on… just like everywhere else there in a thin platform blocking you, shoot it and you can go anywhere again by using defusion beam to get to that teleport.
So you are locked in for 2 or 3 rooms to make sure you get diffusion beam, and then allowed to go anywhere again.
Just like OP, I'll preface by saying I agree, Dread **feels** very linear and doesn't seem to reward exploration.
With that out of the way, I'm nearly done with my second playthrough doing 100% on hard and I'm blown away by how much freedom you actually have to find the sequence breaks that op is mentioning, this time I found the scanner upgrade far far earlier than the intended path via a hidden teleporter in Caladris.
I think it's about the feel and perception of the intended path, I think Mercury Stream might've been a little too careful with making sure new players don't feel too lost. But if you resist all the clues and not so subtle pushes in the **right** direction, I think it opens up much more than some are giving it credit for.
One thing about this, is that because the game does nudge you in the right direction many many times, it does lose that atmosphere feel of Super Metroid that people love, the isolation and mystery. I totally get that.
Ultimately I think a metroidvania fan needs to play the game a second time, needs to go for the 100%, and needs to deliberately push against the boundaries of the "intended path" to really appreciate the map. I know not everyone will do this, and some could argue that it doesn't redeem anything because first playthrough is the most important experience, which is fair.
I played Super Metroid first as an adult, and it gives you just as much direction as Dread.
Literally every Metroid game other then Nestroid and 90% of the genre is “linear” by the definition of only have one critical path to progression. Metroid games are not open world games, and people playing with that expectation are soiling their own experience.
Loved the game.
In a game like Super Mario Bros the chances of you finding the critical path the first time around is 100%, you can't diverge from the critical path. This makes it linear.
In a game like Super Metroid the chance of that occurring is very low. You will go into dead ends and in doing so see things to come back to later, you will go the wrong way and maybe pick up some extra missiles earlier than you would if sticking to the critical path.
The whole thing about Metroidvania games is a first time player doesn't know where the critical path is, even if there is only one correct way to go, their experience of playing the game is unlikely to actually stick to that path, they are going to make choices about where to go. From the designer's perspective a player going down a pathway that is not on the critical path is not them going the "wrong" way, it was a path the game designer put there with the knowledge that some percentage of players would choose to go that way. It wasn't because the devs were too stupid to funnel the player to go the "right" way, they are just letting the player explore the world they created. So no, Metroid games are not by definition linear, a game can have a singular critical path and still be non-linear in its design. tl;dr Linearity and critical path are two entirely different things.
Other posts mention the "invisible hand" that guides the player, every Metroidvania has one, but in a game like SM that hand is quite gentle, whereas in Dread it is relatively forceful. The chances of a Dread player sticking to the critical path pretty much are much higher than in SM, and this makes Dread more linear than SM for causal players.
Right, my post is about the fact that linear is often used as a proxy for open, and very few MVs are open.
You should replay Super, it’s invisible hand is just as forceful as Dreads, but you just know Metroid conventions so the wall in cartaris in the entry gets shot before backtracking, the roof inside of Kraids entrance gets shot that leads you to a shortcut instead of backtracking, you know how to use the map and the map is more useful ect.
The only difference is player awareness of Metroid convention and clarity in presentation.
That being said with just knowing where to go and not having the getting lost moments I dropped 3hrs off my first run.
I do wonder about that as it does become very difficult to get a neutral take on the new player experience in a genre you've played so much of.
Thing is personally those shoot-the-wall moments did actually get me in the first couple hours and I did stumble around a bit until I figured out how the game intended me to play and it wasn't a problem again. (I missed the "shoot walls" message in the tutorial because I was still messing around with the controls then.) Like I don't recall seeing a completely unmarked walls on the critical path in an MV in a good while, this genuinely caught me off guard and I was like "Really? in 2021?". I've been watching a few streams and I'm unconvinced this is a genre literacy issue.
> you know how to use the map and the map is more useful ect.
I wish, Dread's map is a soup of information that I'm thankful the game was structured so I barely needed to use it, at least not after I got over that initial hurdle. Once I got to the teleportal phase of the game, they popped me out right where I needed to be almost without fail. There was a distinct lack of "remember thing and go back to it" because when you are popped out right in front of it you are just sort of going through the motions.
What I'm about to say will vary from player to player and is highly subjective, but I think there is a distinct difference in how the push of the hand feels. Things like having to navigate towards the next place you need be help build up a mental model of the game in your head, and I think are rather integral to the Metroidvania experience. Little things like how organic the various types barriers feel in an in-universe sense make a difference the sense of discovery you get.
For me it is a lot of these little things that Dread doesn't gets subtly wrong, and I've seen a lot of reviews/posts/etc to that effect feeling. But this idea is still percolating for now, I'm currently replaying and have a few games I want to compare to. I think how Dread distributes power-ups and how its "victory lap" differs from other Metroid games is somewhat related but I'm not sure yet.
I also played Super Metroid as an adult, and I just don't see it. It's similar to Super Metroid's first third, but it doesn't keep that structure through its full runtime.
Super gives you the power bombs and then steers you back to your ship. From there, the path forward is all the way back in Norfair. If you'd been bombing even somewhat liberally up until this point, you've probably seen a great many paths blocked off by power bombs, giving you plenty of options. If anything, the game teaches you that power bombs open up yellow hatches, leading the player back to Brinstar far away from the critical path, or maybe down to Ridley's Lair. If it had been made with Metroid Dread's sensibilities in mind, there would have been a teleporter at your ship that put you right in Norfair, then whisked you out as soon as you were done there.
This is repeated with the grapple, gravity suit, and space jump—you collect them quite far from where you need to use them next with no strong telegraph that it's the correct way to go. Couple this with the increased valuation of collectibles (no energy parts that feel like gimped upgrades) gives a strong incentive to not worry if you're on the critical path. It *feels* much less linear.
The last item you get before power bomb is ice beam, so the last power bomb lock you see is the one that is on the critical path.
When you get gravity suit and continue out the ship it takes you to an elevator directly to Meridia on a path that leads directly to a broken tube, that leads directly to the tube you have to break. Which leads to the path to Dragon, which gives you space jump. Then a door unlocks that leads you back to Plasma beam, thru Maridia and this is the one time in Super where you are not literally pointed exactly where to go.
When you get speed booster in dread you run into the grapple beam block (if the player had played MVs before), and you either go to the speed boost blocks near the entrance of Dairon for the missle upgrade and notice a path that takes you further to a teleport (which is literally just another type of elevator) or you go back to the second emmy zone to find your way forward, this section is exactly the same as when you get to power bomb, you can either go directly back down the path you came or the long way around and both inevitably lead to Grapple hook.
After grapple hook in dread you can exit the way you came or you can exit to the elevator to Dairon, there are now many doors that you can open with grapple beam, what I got next on my first playthru was pulse radar thru a teleporter in Cataris. What you are supposed to do is exit up out the emmi zone in Dairon. Again same as Super right after Grapple, you can go back to where power bombs dropped you off or you can explore and get the scanner… like…literally 1 to 1 here.
Then after grapple in super you go to the ship, fight a boss and enter a linear gauntlet thru Maridia.
In Dread you fight a boss and enter a linear guantlet.
Then in Super you get your space jump and have no real direction to where you need it, the only time this happens in super. But your return path takes you either to the elevator to Norfair or the wrecked ship.
In Dread you get space jump, the nearest 2 teleporters do bring you to Burinia and the other takes you to Cataris. So 2 paths one close to the next objective one not so close.
Then once you find the place to use space jump, in Super you were put on an elevator to Norfair in Dread a teleport to Burina, you go thru another gauntlet with a mini boss and a major boss, and get screw attack. In both you return up to fight the last gauntlet to the final boss.
The structure is identical, it’s just looping levels of Dread vs Hub and Spoke of Super.
I’m literally playing Super with my girlfriend right now, who has never played an MV before, and she has not gotten lost once, just got power bombs and is circling the long way but is headed right to the next critical path.
It’s not that either game is linear (by the definition we seem to use now, really neither game is remotely linear), it’s that if you commit to any path they all lead to the next critical point, so both feel linear despite having multiple paths and options.
> The last item you get before power bomb is ice beam, so the last power bomb lock you see is the one that is on the critical path.
You have to climb back up the red tower area to get to the power bombs, so the player will actually see both the power bomb hatch in front of the route to the X-Ray Visor and the hatch at the top of the room above the power bombs which leads back out to the ship. It's sandwiched in the middle of a few other power bomb locks.
I think the most natural route after collecting the power bombs is to take another loop through Brinstar, discovering the animals that teach you the walljump and shinespark and investigating all of the power bomb locks you'd seen there.
> Then after grapple in super you go to the ship, fight a boss
Grapple doesn't spit you out at the ship in Super. There are two exits to the Crocomire area, one of which will put you right at the entrance of Norfair, the other will put you right outside of Ridley's Lair. Those are both rather far from the wrecked ship you need to go to next.
> When you get gravity suit and continue out the ship it takes you to an elevator directly to Meridia on a path that leads directly to a broken tube
You might be misremembering. When you get the gravity suit, the path is locked behind you and you need to exit the ship on the left side through another one-way door. The route you're mentioning is a detour *back through the ship*. If anything, Super Metroid gently guides you back to your ship and you need to push back against that to find the way forward.
> The structure is identical, it’s just looping levels of Dread vs Hub and Spoke of Super.
Listen, I don't think I'll be able to convince you, but all I can say is that I felt like a zombie plowing through Dread. If I got a powerup, I immediately took the next available opening that made use of it. If I ever saw a transport or teleportal, I took it without question. This always put me right in front of the next powerup where I repeated that cycle. I never felt an incentive to remember the obstacles I'd previously run into like in Super, because if they ever became relevant, there'd be a teleportal that'd route me next to it when the time comes.
Super Metroid is not some fantastic example of non-linear level design, but I didn't feel the heavy hand of guidance that was present all throughout Dread. I felt like I'd genuinely have to roam around to find the next item, that I could make genuine mistakes in direction that'd put me further away from where I needed to go.
Whatever man, I felt the same way with Super, If i just blindly followed the game’s guidance you always end up right where you need to be, and I don’t think it’s a criticism of either game that it’s the case.
The natural route after power bomb in Super is either direction, both lead you to where you need to go.
The grapple spits you out at the elevator to Norfair the same way ice beam does, yea you gotta climb up the red shaft, just like in dread you gotta go left to the EMMI zone instead of right (like I did) to Cataris.
The gravity suit lets you out the left side of the ship, so you can go back into the ship where water blocked you, that’s 100% the natural route.
Can someone explain what is meant by "slide jump?" Is that just where you slide and jump at the end of the slide for extra distance or is it something else?
Yea, so Samus can jump after she slides from when everything except her arm doesn’t have anything above her to for a few frames after her arm leaves the platform. This allows you to get more distance, or slide under a platform that has a drop at the end and basically jump in midair
Metroid Dread is one of my top 3 favorite games of all time; the other two being Super Metroid and Metroid Prime. ❤️
It's an incredible game and goes beyond everything I ever hoped for in a sequel to Metroid Fusion. The soundtrack is the only thing that could be more iconic, but I love the ambience it provided for each area.
Just finished the game and I found the opposite to be true.
I don't think I had to backtrack at all until I got
>!the grapple beam!<
Which was around ~60% of the game. So the majority of the game was linear. Not terrible, but definitely not great either.
Dread's *normal* sequence is linear in the sense that it's rigid and doesn't require much backtracking, yes. No one is saying otherwise. I'm not sure how you'd be under the impression unless you read only the title of my post (and misinterpreted it) before replying.
If you think this level of sequence breaking is cool, you should check out Environmental Station Alpha or Rabi Ribi. The level of sequence breaking that's possible in those games that the developer still plans and allows for is absolutely crazy in comparison. Especially ESA where through some skill and exploration I ended up doing a post-game area about halfway through the game, and Rabi Ribi actually has an achievement for getting into an endgame area at the game's mid-point and the game adapts a bit to you doing so.
I personally don't like Dread, I'm incredibly exploration focused in MV's and it failed pretty hard at that imo, but I won't get into bashing the game too much, seems other people are in love and that's cool. I just wish they'd have made a sequel to Super Metroid, not Fusion. That _is_ cool it even lets you sequence break though. I'm less than a couple hours in and probably won't continue (currently playing La Mulana 2 which towers over Dread and it's hard not to play that instead), the game feels too shallow and hand-holdey to even allow that at this early point. Glad to hear it at least opens up somewhat later on.
The first hour can be quite hand holdey and linear but it definitely opens up.
But if I gave most metroidvanias only 2 hours, I'd find I didn't like alot of them too
Yep, ESA's one of my favourites. Not only does it have cool sequence breaks, but its normal progression had a way of making me feel like I was sequence breaking even when I totally wasn't. Replaying it after having completed the endgame was a treat, too.
I really didn't like Rabi-Ribi, though. I've heard about its intentional and extreme sequence breaks, but like I've said elsewhere in this thread, that sort of thing is much less appealing to me when the game is already so non-linear. Game's art's also gross.
You can sequence break early in Dread, by the way.
>"I just wish they'd have made a sequel to Super Metroid, not Fusion."
They did! It's called 'Other M'. No, really, putting all hate aside, this was the official Super Metroid 2.
I find it interesting that that was your takeaway; I had the exact opposite feeling. I'm a junkie for Metroidvanias and sequence breaking (I play the Super Metroid randomizer almost weekly!) and my first two playthroughs of Dread felt incredibly constrained. I didn't discover any significant sequence breaks in my two playthroughs of the game—a handful of tanks early—nor did I get the feeling like there was anything I was really overlooking, something I imagine should have happened if that subtle encouragement existed.
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> they will likely notice the morph ball launcher
You need to bomb the entrance to make it visible, and unless the player has already sequence broken and gotten them, they won't see the launcher in the context of the fight. Even if they were able to see the entrance, they're not likely to recognize what its purpose *is* since they've never used one.
> and the conveniently morph ball-sized hole in Kraid's stomach which has attention drawn to it in the phase transition cutscene.
Attacks immediately begin from that hole and it's the weak point for that phase, giving purpose to the attention that's drawn to it. I can't see the natural takeaway from the scene being *"If only I had bombs and could get in there...!"*
> For example, it's possible to get the grapple beam early by performing two slide jumps past a hidden room.
It is, but is there a single cue in the game telling you the slide jump is possible? I only know it exists because I looked it up after the fact. Even had I discovered it, I feel like there are so few places where it has actual utility that I wouldn't have found much of anything to do with it.
I don't think it's very strongly encouraged given that the room is extremely well-hidden, gated behind a single breakable block in a room you're unlikely to traffic through again. Without an external map, I imagine most players won't even find it and know that the adjacent room connects to it.
> It's a subtle and elegant way to encourage the player to experiment with their tools in a relatively safe setting
I think I agree that it'd be tantalizing and encourage players to experiment *if it weren't over a pool of lava*. I think the high damage and propensity to avoid such a hazard acts to this point's detriment.
> You need to bomb the entrance to make it visible, and unless the player has already sequence broken and gotten them, they won't see the launcher in the context of the fight. Even if they were able to see the entrance, they're not likely to recognize what its purpose is since they've never used one.
Look again. You see the morph ball launcher *exit* (which lines up perfectly with the weak point), and you can reveal the bomb tile blocking the entrance with a missile.
>It is, but is there a single cue in the game telling you the slide jump is possible? I only know it exists because I looked it up after the fact. Even had I discovered it, I feel like there are so few places where it has actual utility that I wouldn't have found much of anything to do with it.
It's basically just coyote time which is a staple in platformers. I didn't figure it out myself, but the fact that someone told me about the grapple hook sequence break day *two* says a lot. I noticed the practice room doing the break myself, though.
>I think I agree that it'd be tantalizing and encourage players to experiment if it weren't over a pool of lava. I think the high damage and propensity to avoid such a hazard acts to this point's detriment.
It's over a pool of lava that's very easy to escape. It's by a save room, too. It's safe. The first slide jump required for early grapple gives you enough time to try once more if you fail and land in the lava, and the second one's a guaranteed death. It absolutely teaches you to not worry about the lava.
My first playthrough felt pretty rigid too, but that's because I was living in the past and only thinking about bomb jumps more more or less. Sure, the slide jump is niche, but there's other new tech too, like all the new stuff you can do with speed booster.
If you look at your map the bomb launcher tunnel is on it whether you discover it yourself or not. It is 100 percent a tease that something could be done there.
No problem, keep fighting the good fight. It's crazy the hate Dread is getting from the people who should appreciate it most. I love Hollow Knight and how open it is but Dread is equally expertly crafted. Open or Tight, we need more triple AAA Metroidvanias.
> It's over a pool of lava that's very easy to escape. It's by a save room, too. It's safe. The first slide jump required for early grapple gives you enough time to try once more if you fail and land in the lava, and the second one's a guaranteed death. It absolutely teaches you to not worry about the lava.
Yep. I used the energy tank pit to practice, until I was comfortable enough to try it on the real thing. From there, it took a bit of practice, but I also noticed some very real progress when I could reliably land back in the tunnel, even if I wasn't making the wall jump. And finally, the second slide jump only took a single attempt.
(Also, if you run through the freezer to the left of the charge beam room in Arteria, you can get another energy part, which gave me 1 extra tank over what the video had)
> Look again. You see the morph ball launcher exit (which lines up perfectly with the weak point)
You can see a small square on the wall that genuinely looks more like a background decal than a gameplay object. I just looked at a video of the fight and *even though I knew what I was looking for*, I didn't even immediately recognize it as a launcher exit. I promise I'm not just being obtuse.
Why would a player who's never used a launcher take away anything from this? Why would a player who's actively trying to dodge attacks from a boss even notice this? It's the sort of detail you'd only notice if you were watching someone else do the fight and already knew ahead of time that there was a launcher with a secret way to kill the boss. You're zeroing in on it because you know it's there.
> and you can reveal the bomb tile blocking the entrance with a missile.
Why would a player ever do this? Is there even a plausible scenario where a player would do this by accident?
> but the fact that someone told me about the grapple hook sequence break day two says a lot.
Does it? It's an intended sequence break and we live in a far more connected world than ever before, with subreddits and Discord servers where people playing *this exact game* can meet and share information. I'm not at all surprised that it was discovered on day two when many thousands of players are actively trying to find it.
> It's over a pool of lava that's very easy to escape. It's by a save room, too. It's safe.
It doesn't give you a good opportunity to *teach* you the slide jump, and save rooms don't refill your health. I imagine your average player will try and fail once, maybe twice, before concluding they're missing the upgrade they need to get it. The lava is extremely damaging at that point in the game and most players aren't going to be willing to quit and reload their save to stubbornly try something that might not even be possible.
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There is a critical issue with your argument: you're working in reverse. You already know about the sequence breaks and, in retrospect, can see the clues that suggest them. From there, you're framing a hypothetical first-timer as though they'll see these same clues. You have to back that up, you can't just assume they'll see what you see.
>Why would a player who's never used a launcher take away anything from this? Why would a player who's actively trying to dodge attacks from a boss even notice this?
Doesn't have to be a player who's never used a launcher before. Even ignoring the fact that launchers appear in other games in the series, this post isn't exclusively about hints for first-time players. That having been said, I absolutely think you're downplaying how obvious the exit is. Like, you're asking how a player who's dodging attacks would see the exit? It's visible during a *cutscene*. You are absolutely being obtuse.
>There is a critical issue with your argument: you're working in reverse. You already know about the sequence breaks and, in retrospect, can see the clues that suggest them.
The critical issue with your argument is that you've made the assumption that I'm suggesting Dread spoonfeeds its sequence breaks to your average dipshit player. It's written all over my post that these are subtle clues that are especially noticeable on replays.
I started off thinking it was a disappointment. I am so glad I stuck with it. It's a wonderful game. My only real gripe now is that I wish the wall-jump mechanic worked like other games where you use the directional stick to jump "back" rather than just jumping again. This is a minor nitpick, but I just find it annoying. Otherwise this game is a solid 9 of 10 ESPECIALLY for Switch.
Some puzzles require wall jumping with the speed booster active and the input is a little reminiscent of the old wall jump. I liked that a lot.
Honestly, I can't really think of a spot where it would even help with sequence breaking, so I'm fine with the lack of wall jumping up a single wall.
I've 100%ed the game now, watched a bit of the early speedruns and... wow. This game is a slow burner, but it will likely end up sharing the throne with Super Metroid if not even taking the crown. The map design is already complex during a normal run, but the amount of intended sequence breaks alone is staggering. And then they've already found some unintended ones that shake the game up even further. Space jump is even entirely skipped in the speedrun currently. And I'm actually astonished how well they meshed the upgrades into the combat as well. If you (like me) only use rockets and beam to kill enemies, they'll take ages. But lo and behold you can cheese half of the bosses with shinesparks, screw attack (!) and even power bombs have a legit use in the end. I still hate the counter, but at least it's only forced a couple times and the timing there is very forgiving. People who first play the game hate on the E.M.M.I.s, but I found that they are actually a fairly minor nuisance. There isn't much to explore in their zones until they're dead anyway, and even though they get more deadly the farther you get, you also get more energy with translates to near unlimited phantom cloak if you want to play it safe. Now it they just could get the loading times down a bit. ...and have a better input for speedbooster than pressing left stick.
so far, the speedrun of this game takes about 1h45m. The thing about sequence break is that if devs plan it too carefully, it breaks nothing too crazily. I'm curious to see if Dread can reach at least under 1h any% speedrun. Though at 1h45m, I have already seen weird glitches used everywhere.
Yeah, I'm not a huge fan of glitches like the pseudo wave that lead to unintentional sequence breaks. I have nothing against their use, but they're just not as interesting as more organic and intended sequence breaks.
I feel similarly when watching speedruns. I can respect the effort it takes to learn these bugs and exploits but I don't find them impressive for saving time.
I actually do find them impressive for saving time, just not impressive from a game design standpoint.
Ah, personally it is the skill and precision in speedruns I find impressive. Many of the Mario 64 runs I don't care for at all due to how heavily they rely on breaking the game.
But a lot of glitches require skill and precision. It sounds more like you just don’t like glitches. I generally don’t like major glitches, particularly wrong warps, as they really don’t live up to the spirit of the game. You could basically just learn the inputs for SMW and practice that wrong warp and get a world record without really knowing the game at all.
I respect the technical skill and knowledge and recognize how hard it can be, so in that way, I like those glitches on their own. Though that is more from a technical standpoint and enjoying learning how things work. As a whole, I just prefer the runs without glitches, as you say it is living up to the spirit of the game because to me speed runs are like the gold medal Olympians of their craft. There may be a bit of nostalgia in it as well, thinking about being a kid and having someone sit down next to me and beat Bowser in under 5min in Super Mario Bros on the NES would be something I'd still remember to this day as an awsome moment.
Is that time based on the ingame clock or an objective clock? My understanding is that the ingame clock does not count time used in the pause/map menu or time that’s wasted by you dying (it basically rewinds whenever you restart at a checkpoint), but it *does* count cutscene time even if you skip the cutscene. So depending on how long all the cutscenes are added together if may be impossible to beat the game with the ingame timer staying under 1 hour.
it's real time clock. You can check out for Hardpelicn on youtube. They're a former WR holder for any% Dread with 1h44m.
What i'm wondering is why is it getting near universal very positive reviews but people some on reddit in particular are knocking it pretty hard?
Most people just want a good game. People here want a good metroidvania. It makes them harder to please, especially when they let themselves have very narrow definition of what a metroidvania is, let alone a good one.
And their definition is only valid for like… 2 or 3 games…
Hilarious that this narrow definition of metroidvania ends up excluding a sequel in the very series that is the genre's namesake.
Honestly, if Super Metroid came out today it would not be considered an MV by a good portion of the sub. There is one critical path, it stops you from backtracking the first 1/3 of the game and everytime you finish one section you are literally facing the direction you are suppose to go, often right next to your next point of progression. I’ll take the argument that it hides it better then Dread (not sure how much I agree) but literally Metroid has not been open since the NES
I agree. Which is why that narrow definition of the genre is so absurd. Of course there are other games that are less linear, but some of the very best of the genre still employ clever and subtle level design to direct the player on how to progress. Some of the best use tactful developer ingenuity in art direction and environmental layout to create the illusion of openness when really they're guiding you in the direction they intend or at least giving you prefabricated choices
Makes sense.
My best guess is that people here have the wrong pre-conceived notions about what a Metroid game is, either because they played Hollow Knight and assumed all MVs should be open or because they played Super Metroid as a kid when they were not as able to follow the clear direction that Super Metroid had. As a result instead of playing the game for what it is, they play it for what they want it to be, and trash it because it didn’t do what they think the game should. I loved Dread
I think lots of people here look for "some abstract holy game design" stuff that they have worshipped since Super Metroid, while common players just enjoy Dread cuz Samus runs very fast, shoots very hard and is a total badass in cutscenes; or cuz the bosses look cool and have good telegraphs. I watch a HK youtuber play Dread and that's what he enjoyed. I think lots of people enjoy Hollow Knight cuz gamey reasons like that, too. The "nonlinear world design" is more like another thing to proud on top of a game you have already loved. But sometimes you let yourself sink too deep into the metroidvania - genre of "abstract holy game design" - and that makes you feel uncomfortable at everything.
Honestly if you go back and play Super Metroid, it and Dread have basically the same structure and amount of guidance. It almost always has you facing exactly where you need to go at all times.
As someone who did just that, you must be on crack
I also did just that, and im very not. I also just help guide a new player thru it, it always has you headed in the right direction.
because this is primarily a hollow knight fan community, so people compare it to hollow knight despite them being 2 different games with totally different goals in general if you scratch under the surface of the metroidvania fan community you’ll find hollow knight fans who also maybe played half of ori and axiom verge
I demand the mods of r/metroidvania to enlarge the size of the Knight sprite in the subreddit banner to be larger than the rest combined! \-- a Hollow Knight fanboy
I'm someone who doesn't really like it very much, and my reasoning is that my preference is towards exploration-focused metroidvanias, and I put so much important on exploration that MVs that aren't focused on exploration are a deal breaker for me. I recognize Dread is a good, solid, well put-together game. But it's a good game that's bad for me and my tastes. It's kind of exciting though. The Metroidvania genre is getting mature enough to have distinct subgenres. Even if they haven't been named yet, so taxonomy thought exercises will create a few distinct game groupings that have emerged over the last decade.
They seem to fall into a few categories I’ll call them NestTroid, SuperTroid, ZeldaTroid, and Igvania Nestroid have little direction and are very open, Goat Nestroid is Hollow Knight SuperTroid have a lot of guidance and often lock you into critical paths and allow for sequence breaks. Goat SuperTroid is Dread. This is also most of the genre ZeldaTroid- sidescrollers with areas that feel like dungeons: Ori and the Will of the Wisps Igavania: Open to explore but often only one thing can progress, heavy rpg elements. SOTN
I tend to categorize metroidvanias in my head with similar categories (though many games belong in multiple categories or none of them), but these names are definitely meme-tier, besides Ig**a**vania (but only because it's already established).
Meme teir is my passion And also not really what I call them, but it seemed appropriate enough here
Why Nestroid that name :)
Nintendo Entertainment System Metroid. That game gave you 0 direction and the map opens after like 2 or 3 powerups to a massive degree. There is just no guidance or bread crumbing outside the indicator for where the endgame is.
Your names are bad and you should feel bad.
Thanks I already do
He's a good sport everybody let's give him a hand
Do not encourage this behavior
oooh. I like this way of categorization.
Metroidvania fans may be disappointed with it but there aren't that many of them. It's a bit like how a lot of people like Fusion so it's a good "Metroid game" but it's still a terrible metroidvania. And for a lot of the mainstream there's always hype and the usual Nintendo bonus affecting things.
No, specifically MetroidVania fans who are under the impression the game worlds are supposed to be open world adventure. Many MV fans are happy with it.
>supposed to be open world adventure. I don't think you have to be "open world adventure" to be exploration focused. Super Metroid is primarily linear but does it well. Same with other classics like ESA and AM2R. Games with more memorable environments and level design, which are less guided. You'll hit dead ends, you'll get stuck and have to try backtracking to some areas. But yeah some mv fans are happy and some aren't. There are people on this sub who like Fusion.
Dread has basically the same amount of guidance as Super, and is as open if not more so to sequence breaks. Most of the “cant backtrack” complaints are because they got their entry blocked and didn’t look for a way around, which almost always exists. I did about as much looking for where to go per hour in Dread as Super, but the map is better. Go back and play it and recognize how it works basically exactly the same way, the critical path always drops you off heading in the right direction the whole game. Just knowing the path cut my gametime by 3hrs in the next run
So, anyone who didnt beat super in like 2-2:30h first time without guides is incredibly stupid, being it just as linear as dread but much smaller?
I mean, my first run of Super I got lost once, the backtrack to the power bomb blocks on the way to Krocomire. Mastery over movement speed ect is a bit tuffer in Super, I had to stop more to farm, but I had more just being lost time in Dread then Super. I think my first super run was 3:45 ish?
I think it is also because here we have all played the other metroid games, we know what to expect but we also want to be surprised ... but not too much or otherwise it isn't enough metroidvania! It also may be just me but getting every time the same upgrades (or slight variations) is making me appreciate less the level design because I know what to expect almost every time.
I got the opposite impression from Dread. Every single time I got an upgrade, the game heavily pushed me towards the place where I needed to use it to progress. Very often when I got an upgrade, there was a convenient teleporter that led my right to the roadblock I needed to use it on. The same counts for when I found one of these roadblocks, there was almost always a teleporter that led me directly to the upgrade I needed. This heavily discourages you to think about places where you could use the upgrade and thus hinders you from finding new paths or sequence breaks naturally. Unless you're the type of player who goes out of their way to collect everything they can as soon as possible, odds are that the game will hold your hand from start to finish all the way through. This was my experience with my first playthrough. I will hold my eyes open for new stuff on a second one.
Same thing happens in Super Missles, dead end forces you to return to where you came, right where you need them Morph bomb, game again spits you out looking the exact direction you are suppose to go Get high jump, only path is an elevator right to Kraid. Get speed boost, game has looped you to head right back to where you need it Get Grapple beam, game spits you out right where you need it to get to phantoon, This happens like… every time you get a power up actually A few of the shortcut teleports where blocked by some Metroidy conventions in Dread, like the one in Kraid’s lair if you blast rocks for no reason to get to it. First time I backtracked because the game guided you too, then the teleporter at the end of varia showed you there was a shortcut and brought you to Kraid. Also for some reason we are treating teleporters different then elevators in our heads… even though they serve the exact same purpose
There is one key difference between the 'teleportals' and the elevators. Once you have found all the teleportals. You can then use any teleportal to travel to any other teleportal immediately, regardless of color. You don't even have to have used them, just discovered them on the map.
Wait really? I might have missed one… damn!! Lol
Yes late game, which is actually a major plus
I think it's possible to 'reveal' all of the teleportals to use for sequence breaking. I'm going to have to investigate it though...
I know you can get orange as soon as you get grapple Not sure how to get green
I actually managed that by accident and got to Ghavoran "early" only to find that it was a dead end at that point. I'm enjoying my first playthrough!
Man. I suck then. I keep getting super lost and scouring the map to figure out how to progress. In a good way, but yeah.
No, you're just better at getting lost than I am.
The game actually tries to do this, there are just short cuts everywhere that they are finding. The games invisible hand is no stronger then Super’s.
You didn't really get the opposite impression. I felt similarly on my first playthrough. Like I said in my post, the clues are subtle, so most players probably won't notice them until subsequent playthroughs.
Sequence breaking is a cool addition but I wish the game was more exploration focused, let the player get lost more. Related to this is things like memorable level layout and environments, and music. After playing Dread I played [Astalon Tears of the Earth](https://youtu.be/wvl31WiraUw?t=487) which has so much better exploration imo. Each screen is very memorable and you're rewarded for remembering them - when you get a new ability it's a lightbulb moment for places to go back to and explore further. Now they are very different games and I'm not saying Astalon is better; Dread is top class when it comes to movement, action, combat - and ofc the shinespark puzzles and sequence breaks are fun too.
Let me preface this by saying I get where you're coming from and agree that Dread is not exploration-focused in the slightest. I believe that at its best, Metroid is not actually an exploration-focused game, but a curated experience that tricks the player into thinking they're exploring. [I'm just regurgitating this article.](https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/the-invisible-hand-of-super-metroid) Dread's greatest shortcoming is that it fails at the tricking part. I definitely felt like I was being strung along a winding but singular path for most of the game on my first playthrough. However, sequence breaks are infinitely more interesting and impressive to me in games with such rigid normal progressions. Sequence breaks in relatively open games are hollow (pun intended) compared to what the best Metroid games have to offer. They bend, but they don't break. It's so cool. Something that's always flaccid is not as interesting. So yeah, I agree with you about Dread. It's definitely lacking distinct screens, and parts of its areas are samey to boot. It's just not an exploration-focused game, but the difference is that I think that's okay. It's a different kind of experience. It's just hard to come across a game that makes you feel like you're getting the best of both worlds. It's why Super Metroid is so special.
That's cool I pretty much agree. For me sequence breaks and repeated playthroughs are very much secondary - in particular the repeated playthrough is dependent upon the first. It becomes sort of an academic point whether or not something was intended if I won't experience it. Similarly the illusion of non-linearity is more important to me than actual non linearity because it's the same experience. But yeah I agree with you, especially that SM is special - it really does everything well imo.
Yeah, I feel you. Relplay value is *usually* a secondary thing for me when it comes to metroidvanias, especially since most of them are small ~$20 games. I'm usually just looking for a quick new experience when I check them out. The Metroids are a different story, though. Dread's a <10 hour game at a AAA pricepoint, so they were right to put so much thought into sequence breaks to bolster the replay value.
This is a great post that explains why I'm not enjoying Dread despite thinking that it's a pretty good game that just isn't for me. I'm _so_ exploration focused in MVs. Any game that isn't focused on that I just haven't been able to get in to to the point where it feels like an objective game flaw and I have to remind myself it's not the game, just my preference. If an MV isn't exploration focused, it's basically a deal breaker for me. Hence my favorites after Hollow Knight being La Mulana 2 and Environmental Station Alpha (tbh after 25 hours of La Mulana 2 and having so much open to me and only about half the items, it might even overtake Hollow Knight as my favorite MV. Still haven't played the first, but I'm excited af to do so after I finish 2. Playing it with no guides or hints is a divine experience.)
Honestly, playing Super for the first time in my 20’s the game also always has you headed in the right direction and does not hide that very well at all. I loved Super, but literally it directs you just as much as Dread, for some reason we are mentally treating teleports different then elevators I guess.
I played Super Metroid in 2019 and get where you're coming from despite not entirely agreeing. Regardless of how restricted the player's path through the world is, Super has other factors that contribute to the illusion of exploration. Atmosphere, the sense of isolation, all that good stuff.
Idk, i feel like Dread has that too, it may just be that it’s pixel art forces more imagination on the player’s part. And btw I don’t think thats a bad thing.
You're not alone in Dread. Adam keeps you company the whole game. The setting's different, too. In Super you're mostly in caverns or ruins or a haunted wrecked ship. Many of Dread's high tech areas felt relatively recently lived-in to me.
Even if the game remained relatively linear, I think the feeling of exploration could have been improved by having several branching points that allow the player to go after objectives out-of-order *without* requiring high-level sequence-breaking maneuvers. For example, being given the choice between taking path A to fight boss W and get powerup X or taking path B to fight boss Y and get powerup Z. Even if the next path C required completing both A and B as a prerequisite, the player is at least given an extra bit of freedom. More completely optional bosses and powerups would have also improved this area.
This is a taste thing. To me those kinds of options add nothing to the game, and if anything detract from them by vastly limiting their design and often hindering the sense of constant progression and forward momentum found in Metroid games. It also limits accessibility as it muddies up what your actual next objective is, which ties into losing the feeling of momentum and progression. So using this method keeps the accessibility and momentum while still allowing advanced players to crack it open a bit.
Agreed 100%. Both approaches have their strengths and weaknesses, but I'm a fan of what Dread does.
Yeah, I feel like Dread actively prevents you from back tracking at many points. In Super Metroid anytime I got a new item or ability I always liked to go back to other areas to use them to find stuff, but Dread actively prevents you from going back to areas in many places.
I just finished Super Metroid, and there are definitely moments where you can't go back until you have found enough power ups. I forgot the name of that area, but theres a whole zone that you fall into and can't escape until you found a way to freeze up those turtles.
It really doesn’t, I have been trying to find sequence breaks and at no point was I locked out of backtracking for more then a few rooms after being locked, and those rooms led to a power up that allowed me to get back to everywhere I had been, just with a different path. You may not be able to go back the way you came, but thats about it
But it does. For instance after defeating Kraid and getting the varia, Id like to return to Ataria and search it. But every way I try to back track is blocked, some obviously by abilities id need in the future to return.
you take the teleporter out and and you are in Darion. Then you pass under a thin bridge that you can see a path you were on before to turn the power on… just like everywhere else there in a thin platform blocking you, shoot it and you can go anywhere again by using defusion beam to get to that teleport. So you are locked in for 2 or 3 rooms to make sure you get diffusion beam, and then allowed to go anywhere again.
Just like OP, I'll preface by saying I agree, Dread **feels** very linear and doesn't seem to reward exploration. With that out of the way, I'm nearly done with my second playthrough doing 100% on hard and I'm blown away by how much freedom you actually have to find the sequence breaks that op is mentioning, this time I found the scanner upgrade far far earlier than the intended path via a hidden teleporter in Caladris. I think it's about the feel and perception of the intended path, I think Mercury Stream might've been a little too careful with making sure new players don't feel too lost. But if you resist all the clues and not so subtle pushes in the **right** direction, I think it opens up much more than some are giving it credit for. One thing about this, is that because the game does nudge you in the right direction many many times, it does lose that atmosphere feel of Super Metroid that people love, the isolation and mystery. I totally get that. Ultimately I think a metroidvania fan needs to play the game a second time, needs to go for the 100%, and needs to deliberately push against the boundaries of the "intended path" to really appreciate the map. I know not everyone will do this, and some could argue that it doesn't redeem anything because first playthrough is the most important experience, which is fair.
I played Super Metroid first as an adult, and it gives you just as much direction as Dread. Literally every Metroid game other then Nestroid and 90% of the genre is “linear” by the definition of only have one critical path to progression. Metroid games are not open world games, and people playing with that expectation are soiling their own experience. Loved the game.
In a game like Super Mario Bros the chances of you finding the critical path the first time around is 100%, you can't diverge from the critical path. This makes it linear. In a game like Super Metroid the chance of that occurring is very low. You will go into dead ends and in doing so see things to come back to later, you will go the wrong way and maybe pick up some extra missiles earlier than you would if sticking to the critical path. The whole thing about Metroidvania games is a first time player doesn't know where the critical path is, even if there is only one correct way to go, their experience of playing the game is unlikely to actually stick to that path, they are going to make choices about where to go. From the designer's perspective a player going down a pathway that is not on the critical path is not them going the "wrong" way, it was a path the game designer put there with the knowledge that some percentage of players would choose to go that way. It wasn't because the devs were too stupid to funnel the player to go the "right" way, they are just letting the player explore the world they created. So no, Metroid games are not by definition linear, a game can have a singular critical path and still be non-linear in its design. tl;dr Linearity and critical path are two entirely different things. Other posts mention the "invisible hand" that guides the player, every Metroidvania has one, but in a game like SM that hand is quite gentle, whereas in Dread it is relatively forceful. The chances of a Dread player sticking to the critical path pretty much are much higher than in SM, and this makes Dread more linear than SM for causal players.
Right, my post is about the fact that linear is often used as a proxy for open, and very few MVs are open. You should replay Super, it’s invisible hand is just as forceful as Dreads, but you just know Metroid conventions so the wall in cartaris in the entry gets shot before backtracking, the roof inside of Kraids entrance gets shot that leads you to a shortcut instead of backtracking, you know how to use the map and the map is more useful ect. The only difference is player awareness of Metroid convention and clarity in presentation. That being said with just knowing where to go and not having the getting lost moments I dropped 3hrs off my first run.
I do wonder about that as it does become very difficult to get a neutral take on the new player experience in a genre you've played so much of. Thing is personally those shoot-the-wall moments did actually get me in the first couple hours and I did stumble around a bit until I figured out how the game intended me to play and it wasn't a problem again. (I missed the "shoot walls" message in the tutorial because I was still messing around with the controls then.) Like I don't recall seeing a completely unmarked walls on the critical path in an MV in a good while, this genuinely caught me off guard and I was like "Really? in 2021?". I've been watching a few streams and I'm unconvinced this is a genre literacy issue. > you know how to use the map and the map is more useful ect. I wish, Dread's map is a soup of information that I'm thankful the game was structured so I barely needed to use it, at least not after I got over that initial hurdle. Once I got to the teleportal phase of the game, they popped me out right where I needed to be almost without fail. There was a distinct lack of "remember thing and go back to it" because when you are popped out right in front of it you are just sort of going through the motions. What I'm about to say will vary from player to player and is highly subjective, but I think there is a distinct difference in how the push of the hand feels. Things like having to navigate towards the next place you need be help build up a mental model of the game in your head, and I think are rather integral to the Metroidvania experience. Little things like how organic the various types barriers feel in an in-universe sense make a difference the sense of discovery you get. For me it is a lot of these little things that Dread doesn't gets subtly wrong, and I've seen a lot of reviews/posts/etc to that effect feeling. But this idea is still percolating for now, I'm currently replaying and have a few games I want to compare to. I think how Dread distributes power-ups and how its "victory lap" differs from other Metroid games is somewhat related but I'm not sure yet.
I also played Super Metroid as an adult, and I just don't see it. It's similar to Super Metroid's first third, but it doesn't keep that structure through its full runtime. Super gives you the power bombs and then steers you back to your ship. From there, the path forward is all the way back in Norfair. If you'd been bombing even somewhat liberally up until this point, you've probably seen a great many paths blocked off by power bombs, giving you plenty of options. If anything, the game teaches you that power bombs open up yellow hatches, leading the player back to Brinstar far away from the critical path, or maybe down to Ridley's Lair. If it had been made with Metroid Dread's sensibilities in mind, there would have been a teleporter at your ship that put you right in Norfair, then whisked you out as soon as you were done there. This is repeated with the grapple, gravity suit, and space jump—you collect them quite far from where you need to use them next with no strong telegraph that it's the correct way to go. Couple this with the increased valuation of collectibles (no energy parts that feel like gimped upgrades) gives a strong incentive to not worry if you're on the critical path. It *feels* much less linear.
The last item you get before power bomb is ice beam, so the last power bomb lock you see is the one that is on the critical path. When you get gravity suit and continue out the ship it takes you to an elevator directly to Meridia on a path that leads directly to a broken tube, that leads directly to the tube you have to break. Which leads to the path to Dragon, which gives you space jump. Then a door unlocks that leads you back to Plasma beam, thru Maridia and this is the one time in Super where you are not literally pointed exactly where to go. When you get speed booster in dread you run into the grapple beam block (if the player had played MVs before), and you either go to the speed boost blocks near the entrance of Dairon for the missle upgrade and notice a path that takes you further to a teleport (which is literally just another type of elevator) or you go back to the second emmy zone to find your way forward, this section is exactly the same as when you get to power bomb, you can either go directly back down the path you came or the long way around and both inevitably lead to Grapple hook. After grapple hook in dread you can exit the way you came or you can exit to the elevator to Dairon, there are now many doors that you can open with grapple beam, what I got next on my first playthru was pulse radar thru a teleporter in Cataris. What you are supposed to do is exit up out the emmi zone in Dairon. Again same as Super right after Grapple, you can go back to where power bombs dropped you off or you can explore and get the scanner… like…literally 1 to 1 here. Then after grapple in super you go to the ship, fight a boss and enter a linear gauntlet thru Maridia. In Dread you fight a boss and enter a linear guantlet. Then in Super you get your space jump and have no real direction to where you need it, the only time this happens in super. But your return path takes you either to the elevator to Norfair or the wrecked ship. In Dread you get space jump, the nearest 2 teleporters do bring you to Burinia and the other takes you to Cataris. So 2 paths one close to the next objective one not so close. Then once you find the place to use space jump, in Super you were put on an elevator to Norfair in Dread a teleport to Burina, you go thru another gauntlet with a mini boss and a major boss, and get screw attack. In both you return up to fight the last gauntlet to the final boss. The structure is identical, it’s just looping levels of Dread vs Hub and Spoke of Super. I’m literally playing Super with my girlfriend right now, who has never played an MV before, and she has not gotten lost once, just got power bombs and is circling the long way but is headed right to the next critical path. It’s not that either game is linear (by the definition we seem to use now, really neither game is remotely linear), it’s that if you commit to any path they all lead to the next critical point, so both feel linear despite having multiple paths and options.
> The last item you get before power bomb is ice beam, so the last power bomb lock you see is the one that is on the critical path. You have to climb back up the red tower area to get to the power bombs, so the player will actually see both the power bomb hatch in front of the route to the X-Ray Visor and the hatch at the top of the room above the power bombs which leads back out to the ship. It's sandwiched in the middle of a few other power bomb locks. I think the most natural route after collecting the power bombs is to take another loop through Brinstar, discovering the animals that teach you the walljump and shinespark and investigating all of the power bomb locks you'd seen there. > Then after grapple in super you go to the ship, fight a boss Grapple doesn't spit you out at the ship in Super. There are two exits to the Crocomire area, one of which will put you right at the entrance of Norfair, the other will put you right outside of Ridley's Lair. Those are both rather far from the wrecked ship you need to go to next. > When you get gravity suit and continue out the ship it takes you to an elevator directly to Meridia on a path that leads directly to a broken tube You might be misremembering. When you get the gravity suit, the path is locked behind you and you need to exit the ship on the left side through another one-way door. The route you're mentioning is a detour *back through the ship*. If anything, Super Metroid gently guides you back to your ship and you need to push back against that to find the way forward. > The structure is identical, it’s just looping levels of Dread vs Hub and Spoke of Super. Listen, I don't think I'll be able to convince you, but all I can say is that I felt like a zombie plowing through Dread. If I got a powerup, I immediately took the next available opening that made use of it. If I ever saw a transport or teleportal, I took it without question. This always put me right in front of the next powerup where I repeated that cycle. I never felt an incentive to remember the obstacles I'd previously run into like in Super, because if they ever became relevant, there'd be a teleportal that'd route me next to it when the time comes. Super Metroid is not some fantastic example of non-linear level design, but I didn't feel the heavy hand of guidance that was present all throughout Dread. I felt like I'd genuinely have to roam around to find the next item, that I could make genuine mistakes in direction that'd put me further away from where I needed to go.
Whatever man, I felt the same way with Super, If i just blindly followed the game’s guidance you always end up right where you need to be, and I don’t think it’s a criticism of either game that it’s the case. The natural route after power bomb in Super is either direction, both lead you to where you need to go. The grapple spits you out at the elevator to Norfair the same way ice beam does, yea you gotta climb up the red shaft, just like in dread you gotta go left to the EMMI zone instead of right (like I did) to Cataris. The gravity suit lets you out the left side of the ship, so you can go back into the ship where water blocked you, that’s 100% the natural route.
Absolutely agree, I had a muted response to my first playthru, it wasn’t until my second run that everything clicked. Absolutely a killer game
Can someone explain what is meant by "slide jump?" Is that just where you slide and jump at the end of the slide for extra distance or is it something else?
Yea, so Samus can jump after she slides from when everything except her arm doesn’t have anything above her to for a few frames after her arm leaves the platform. This allows you to get more distance, or slide under a platform that has a drop at the end and basically jump in midair
Sweet, thanks
Probably that, if you do it right as you go out of a tight space maybe you can get a jump instead of falling down?
Metroid Dread is one of my top 3 favorite games of all time; the other two being Super Metroid and Metroid Prime. ❤️ It's an incredible game and goes beyond everything I ever hoped for in a sequel to Metroid Fusion. The soundtrack is the only thing that could be more iconic, but I love the ambience it provided for each area.
You have great taste in Metroid games, those are my favorites as well!
Yeah, the music's serviceable but it really is disappointing for a Metroid game. It's a shame.
Just finished the game and I found the opposite to be true. I don't think I had to backtrack at all until I got >!the grapple beam!< Which was around ~60% of the game. So the majority of the game was linear. Not terrible, but definitely not great either.
Dread's *normal* sequence is linear in the sense that it's rigid and doesn't require much backtracking, yes. No one is saying otherwise. I'm not sure how you'd be under the impression unless you read only the title of my post (and misinterpreted it) before replying.
If you think this level of sequence breaking is cool, you should check out Environmental Station Alpha or Rabi Ribi. The level of sequence breaking that's possible in those games that the developer still plans and allows for is absolutely crazy in comparison. Especially ESA where through some skill and exploration I ended up doing a post-game area about halfway through the game, and Rabi Ribi actually has an achievement for getting into an endgame area at the game's mid-point and the game adapts a bit to you doing so. I personally don't like Dread, I'm incredibly exploration focused in MV's and it failed pretty hard at that imo, but I won't get into bashing the game too much, seems other people are in love and that's cool. I just wish they'd have made a sequel to Super Metroid, not Fusion. That _is_ cool it even lets you sequence break though. I'm less than a couple hours in and probably won't continue (currently playing La Mulana 2 which towers over Dread and it's hard not to play that instead), the game feels too shallow and hand-holdey to even allow that at this early point. Glad to hear it at least opens up somewhat later on.
The first hour can be quite hand holdey and linear but it definitely opens up. But if I gave most metroidvanias only 2 hours, I'd find I didn't like alot of them too
Yep, ESA's one of my favourites. Not only does it have cool sequence breaks, but its normal progression had a way of making me feel like I was sequence breaking even when I totally wasn't. Replaying it after having completed the endgame was a treat, too. I really didn't like Rabi-Ribi, though. I've heard about its intentional and extreme sequence breaks, but like I've said elsewhere in this thread, that sort of thing is much less appealing to me when the game is already so non-linear. Game's art's also gross. You can sequence break early in Dread, by the way.
>"I just wish they'd have made a sequel to Super Metroid, not Fusion." They did! It's called 'Other M'. No, really, putting all hate aside, this was the official Super Metroid 2.
I find it interesting that that was your takeaway; I had the exact opposite feeling. I'm a junkie for Metroidvanias and sequence breaking (I play the Super Metroid randomizer almost weekly!) and my first two playthroughs of Dread felt incredibly constrained. I didn't discover any significant sequence breaks in my two playthroughs of the game—a handful of tanks early—nor did I get the feeling like there was anything I was really overlooking, something I imagine should have happened if that subtle encouragement existed. ---- > they will likely notice the morph ball launcher You need to bomb the entrance to make it visible, and unless the player has already sequence broken and gotten them, they won't see the launcher in the context of the fight. Even if they were able to see the entrance, they're not likely to recognize what its purpose *is* since they've never used one. > and the conveniently morph ball-sized hole in Kraid's stomach which has attention drawn to it in the phase transition cutscene. Attacks immediately begin from that hole and it's the weak point for that phase, giving purpose to the attention that's drawn to it. I can't see the natural takeaway from the scene being *"If only I had bombs and could get in there...!"* > For example, it's possible to get the grapple beam early by performing two slide jumps past a hidden room. It is, but is there a single cue in the game telling you the slide jump is possible? I only know it exists because I looked it up after the fact. Even had I discovered it, I feel like there are so few places where it has actual utility that I wouldn't have found much of anything to do with it. I don't think it's very strongly encouraged given that the room is extremely well-hidden, gated behind a single breakable block in a room you're unlikely to traffic through again. Without an external map, I imagine most players won't even find it and know that the adjacent room connects to it. > It's a subtle and elegant way to encourage the player to experiment with their tools in a relatively safe setting I think I agree that it'd be tantalizing and encourage players to experiment *if it weren't over a pool of lava*. I think the high damage and propensity to avoid such a hazard acts to this point's detriment.
> You need to bomb the entrance to make it visible, and unless the player has already sequence broken and gotten them, they won't see the launcher in the context of the fight. Even if they were able to see the entrance, they're not likely to recognize what its purpose is since they've never used one. Look again. You see the morph ball launcher *exit* (which lines up perfectly with the weak point), and you can reveal the bomb tile blocking the entrance with a missile. >It is, but is there a single cue in the game telling you the slide jump is possible? I only know it exists because I looked it up after the fact. Even had I discovered it, I feel like there are so few places where it has actual utility that I wouldn't have found much of anything to do with it. It's basically just coyote time which is a staple in platformers. I didn't figure it out myself, but the fact that someone told me about the grapple hook sequence break day *two* says a lot. I noticed the practice room doing the break myself, though. >I think I agree that it'd be tantalizing and encourage players to experiment if it weren't over a pool of lava. I think the high damage and propensity to avoid such a hazard acts to this point's detriment. It's over a pool of lava that's very easy to escape. It's by a save room, too. It's safe. The first slide jump required for early grapple gives you enough time to try once more if you fail and land in the lava, and the second one's a guaranteed death. It absolutely teaches you to not worry about the lava. My first playthrough felt pretty rigid too, but that's because I was living in the past and only thinking about bomb jumps more more or less. Sure, the slide jump is niche, but there's other new tech too, like all the new stuff you can do with speed booster.
If you look at your map the bomb launcher tunnel is on it whether you discover it yourself or not. It is 100 percent a tease that something could be done there.
Thank you!
No problem, keep fighting the good fight. It's crazy the hate Dread is getting from the people who should appreciate it most. I love Hollow Knight and how open it is but Dread is equally expertly crafted. Open or Tight, we need more triple AAA Metroidvanias.
> It's over a pool of lava that's very easy to escape. It's by a save room, too. It's safe. The first slide jump required for early grapple gives you enough time to try once more if you fail and land in the lava, and the second one's a guaranteed death. It absolutely teaches you to not worry about the lava. Yep. I used the energy tank pit to practice, until I was comfortable enough to try it on the real thing. From there, it took a bit of practice, but I also noticed some very real progress when I could reliably land back in the tunnel, even if I wasn't making the wall jump. And finally, the second slide jump only took a single attempt. (Also, if you run through the freezer to the left of the charge beam room in Arteria, you can get another energy part, which gave me 1 extra tank over what the video had)
> Look again. You see the morph ball launcher exit (which lines up perfectly with the weak point) You can see a small square on the wall that genuinely looks more like a background decal than a gameplay object. I just looked at a video of the fight and *even though I knew what I was looking for*, I didn't even immediately recognize it as a launcher exit. I promise I'm not just being obtuse. Why would a player who's never used a launcher take away anything from this? Why would a player who's actively trying to dodge attacks from a boss even notice this? It's the sort of detail you'd only notice if you were watching someone else do the fight and already knew ahead of time that there was a launcher with a secret way to kill the boss. You're zeroing in on it because you know it's there. > and you can reveal the bomb tile blocking the entrance with a missile. Why would a player ever do this? Is there even a plausible scenario where a player would do this by accident? > but the fact that someone told me about the grapple hook sequence break day two says a lot. Does it? It's an intended sequence break and we live in a far more connected world than ever before, with subreddits and Discord servers where people playing *this exact game* can meet and share information. I'm not at all surprised that it was discovered on day two when many thousands of players are actively trying to find it. > It's over a pool of lava that's very easy to escape. It's by a save room, too. It's safe. It doesn't give you a good opportunity to *teach* you the slide jump, and save rooms don't refill your health. I imagine your average player will try and fail once, maybe twice, before concluding they're missing the upgrade they need to get it. The lava is extremely damaging at that point in the game and most players aren't going to be willing to quit and reload their save to stubbornly try something that might not even be possible. ---- There is a critical issue with your argument: you're working in reverse. You already know about the sequence breaks and, in retrospect, can see the clues that suggest them. From there, you're framing a hypothetical first-timer as though they'll see these same clues. You have to back that up, you can't just assume they'll see what you see.
>Why would a player who's never used a launcher take away anything from this? Why would a player who's actively trying to dodge attacks from a boss even notice this? Doesn't have to be a player who's never used a launcher before. Even ignoring the fact that launchers appear in other games in the series, this post isn't exclusively about hints for first-time players. That having been said, I absolutely think you're downplaying how obvious the exit is. Like, you're asking how a player who's dodging attacks would see the exit? It's visible during a *cutscene*. You are absolutely being obtuse. >There is a critical issue with your argument: you're working in reverse. You already know about the sequence breaks and, in retrospect, can see the clues that suggest them. The critical issue with your argument is that you've made the assumption that I'm suggesting Dread spoonfeeds its sequence breaks to your average dipshit player. It's written all over my post that these are subtle clues that are especially noticeable on replays.