![]() It is a beautifully intricate thing, vast multi-level rooms tying together with tight corridors in a mind-twisting sprawl. Similar to her Nintendo stablemate Mario, the world Samus inhabits is built as her own personal obstacle course. Of particular satisfaction is Samus’s counter-punch, sweeping back against an attacking enemy with perfect timing before eviscerating them in a blaze of plasma fire. Her growing skill-set is shared around the controller and while it can often be initially tricky to get your head around some of the complexities, each part of her arsenal becomes second nature as you progress. While she says very little throughout the course of the game, she bursts with a sense of character encapsulated in that movement and agility. Whip-quick but built with a sense of weight, there is a dash of style in the way she nonchalantly but precisely takes aim or sweeps into a laser-ducking slide. It starts with Samus herself, who is a joy to manoeuvre. But Metroid Dread developer MercurySteam, which cut its teeth on Castlevania: Lords of Shadow and the 2017 remake of Metroid: Samus Returns, has done more than enough here to suggest that Samus is still the queen. Ori and the Blind Forest, Hollow Knight, Steamworld and countless others have made a decent fist of outstripping their inspiration. One could argue that Dread is the first ‘proper’ new 2D Metroid since then, while its coined ‘Metroidvania’ structure has been aped and refined by many imitators since. Metroid dread blue blocks full#Metroid Dread is a direct sequel to Metroid Fusion, a full 19 years since that game appeared on Game Boy Advance. New kit –the morph ball, grappling hooks, fancy new missiles– has her sweeping through the environments like a whirlwind, eviscerating beasties and breaking down walls that previously blocked the way. It is one of those empowering building blocks of hero Samus’s continuous levelling up, that takes her from a capable but underequipped explorer tentatively pushing at the edges of the world to a heavily-armed super soldier. The wonderfully labyrinthine map of planet ZDR –a febrile place of underground techno-labs, volcanic nooks and sumptuous jungles– opens up as you can now shrink to the size of a football and squeeze through the vents and natural cracks that spider throughout the world. The moment you unlock the morph ball in Metroid is always a special one and Metroid Dread does it better than most. ![]()
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