I knew you'd notice how convenient the teleport stations are haha. It's almost like Dread doesn't want you to *get* lost, more so that they want you to *feel* lost by regularly shuffling you around the map. Throw that in with the EMMI areas, which are difficult to navigate for obvious reasons, and Dread sort of simultaneously disorients you yet keeps you making progress. Is it linear? Maybe, but it disguises it extremely well and I think it makes for a tremendous experience.
If it weren't for the Points of No Return peppered into areas a good way before getting the item you need to circumvent them so often, or another item that lets you loop back around the long way, the game would be much less linear but also a fair bit more confusing.
Typically in a game if I find I am going the "right" way, I'll purposely go in a different direction for fear of missing a secret or something, Metroid dread broke me of this, eventually I surrendered too the game and said fine I won't try and explore Also spoilers? haven't quite finished the game yet
David Jaffe is a loser but even a broken clock is right twice a day. There are many, many instances with enemies on screen, but unaccessible and without destructible block between them. Even if it was intuitive, it's inconsistent and that's a problem.
@@grimruben really? To be fair I was also about that age when I beat it but I remember it taking me the best part of a year whereas I beat dread on the day it came out… albeit with the entire day dedicated to it. Felt like I was opening a Pokémon booster box in 1 day 😂
I actually laughed out loud when I saw this title. Seems like you're on the far opposite end of the spectrum from me, haha. I was SO lost so frequently, my first playthrough took four hours longer than yours! I think I tend to be so squarely focused on action and execution in games that I overlook what other players might see as unnecessary handholding. Clues like that never seem to enter my working memory. I backtracked so far at one point that I sequence broke my way into getting the Pulse Radar after the Flash Shift, and it felt like the designers taking pity on me! Which is a good thing; I NEEDED IT. It's my 2021 GotY for sure, easily one of my favorite Metroid games, and I've finished it four times since then. Excellent vid, it's always enlightening to see what games are like from another perspective!
I can vividly remember feeling very lost on my first and even second visit to the water area, the game has a very smooth progression curve when you are on its track, but if you fall off that track it can be a wholely different sort of lost. Not to a detriment though, I genuinely loved finding myself actually having to backtrack for any clues I'd missed, and barring one annoying floor I just somehow forgot to shoot, the whole experience feels good to play even when derailed.
Playing dread for me was like feeling lost at all times while still going forwards at all times. A controlled sense of lost. Very weird feeling that was. But a blast to play!
Completely agree. I always kept screwing around to find new locations, little did I know I was just following the story. My exploration was actually getting me through the mission the way the dev wanted
@@anselgrabill6316 There's a phenomenon I've been noticing for years, any games that give you multiple paths, one being the important way forward and the other being a dead end with a treasure, trying to guess things in the right order can range from mildly annoying to hugely frustrating (if the way forward locks you into a big cutscene and now you can't get back) this one I just couldn't win with that. it's kind of cathartic finding out i was being guided.
Yep, this game had the perfect balance between getting lost and finding things, where the "lost" part was actually enjoyable because it didn't last that long.
Happened to me once because I forgot about the diffusion charge in the charge beam 🤷🏼♂️ but yep, didn’t last long. Very satisfying when you figure it out
I got 3 or 4 times, but when I did get lost, I got lost for a really long time. Finding the where to go after getting the space jump kept me lost for the longest time.
I got lost once and scoured the whole map looking for areas to go, and it ended up being that lava area with the blocks hanging down from the ceiling, as I didn't want to go through the lava or shoot the blocks (both of which would have worked fine haha). I did enjoy that part as traversal feels great in Dread, and the map wasn't so huge at that point.
At 13:14 (room where u have to blast the ceiling) I think, I was shocked and amused by it too. Like DAMN that’s gonna need a lot of aloe gel for that burn.
The game does everything it needs to do to get you to figure that room out. The only thing it doesn't do is spell it out for you completely like oh I dunno a god of war game might. God of war was great for combat but it wasn't about exploring. Exploration wasn't the gameplay so you had to have your hands held more... Well I guess that's how people feel anyways, I'd be fine if they let go a bit more. For Metroid though, why even play if you just have an arrow pointing you in the right direction? Even if they used other tricks to guide you in dread it's waaaaay more satisfying then just an arrow or a flashing block or whatever
This metroid game definitely makes you want to speedrun. The sequence breaks and movement techs make you feel like a god when you do something out of critical order, even if it was intentionally left open for you to do.
I think lots of them were intentional, there are so many really easy to do sequence breaks. And I encourage everyone to give it a go and try them in a second playthrough. The game is basically begging you to replay it, I think is a big part of its design and ignoring it is somewhat missing the point, or not trying to analyse what the developers were trying to do. I believe that the first playthrough of Dread is more of a tutorial, so of course it is easy... you are learning the controls and the combat. But once you do even just a few sequence breaks, the map really opens up, several teleporters and elevators become optional, you can do things out of order and even some boss fights become optional.
@@inrevenant I honestly don't think so. I don't personally think hollow knight is a very replayable game. Specially if you like 100% completing your games. It took me 70+ hours to complete the game with the boss rush and everything. And I did attempt to do a second playthrough... That I abandoned, the start is honestly kind of slow and your initial movement ks kind of boring... Unlike super metroid or metroid dread, where you have a ton of movement options from the start, you start hollow knight really basic. I think Hollow Knight does the metroidvania trope of exploration and getting lost better, maybe even better than super metroid. But I don't find it as replayable or as rewarding to control, specially in the early game. Loved the game though
@@diegog1853 Idk if I'm in the minority, but I adored hollow knight even more on my second playthrough! Got to 105%, excluding the pantheons, trial of the fool and NKG fight. And I'd love to play it again when I have time. To each their own.
Being a Metroid fan, I noticed the developers' tricks fairly quickly, and I thought I would hate what they were doing. I was pleasantly surprised, however, and enjoyed the wild ride they threw me on and was very impressed with how well they handled the tricks and the integration/synthesis of the map. A work of art, really, in its own right--just the design of the map itself.
I noticed it right away too, and it kept bugging me the whole game. I wanted to backtrack and freely explore and simply could not, more often than not. It felt hand-holdy in a way that wasn't at all welcome for me. I like to puzzle out how to progress the game and not have it spoon-fed. Still a very enjoyable game, and I hope they make more, even if it does the same things.
I have the exact opposite opinion. It turned me off and I stopped playing after the 4th area... I just have no desire to keep playing any longer. I liked the original Metroid more than these new carrot on a stick/guided tour hand holding gaming sessions.
I pretty quikly realized too that the next power-up was always magicly popping in front of me, but since i wanted to play the game i didn't tried too hard to get out of the way. Also, the number of locked items felt so big it was a little too sad to search them at each new power-up wich ones i unlocked so i pretty soon gave up and waited until the end of the game to 100%
The game did a great job of tricking me into thinking I was discovering my way forward with pure cleverness. But I’m also miserable at reading maps and remembering locations in video games, so Dread was the ideal Metroid experience for me.
I actually found my old Metroid habits worked against me with Dread. I think the “point of no return” implantation was good and helped me from being overwhelmed, but at times in the middle of the game I would unnecessarily backtrack and go back to explore somewhere random, when the path forward was really nearby through a tele-porter.
Same, I did a lot of unnecessary looping around lmao. Usually they'd still reward you with like one extra missile pack along the way, or the opportunity to get slightly further along a future path before coming to a second lock.
2 years later, I know, but I feel the same way. I'm just now playing it and all my old Metroid habits do not work whatsoever. The map letting you have markers on certain doors helps though
Exactly what I did. When playing a Metroid game, when I get a new power up, I want to go back and see all the places I can use it. But Dread actually punishes you for doing this. Either by locking you in an area with some scripted event (a wall crumbles and the only way to get out is using the teleporter or the like) or you walk all the way through various areas, only to find the item you're going for needs not only the super missiles you just got AND the power bomb AND the shinespark. This same issue existed in Samus Returns. Even worse in many ways.
The devs knew they'd have to thread the needle between being open for series veterans without leading players by the nose, AND avoiding making new players feel overwhelmed. I'd say they nailed it about as well as I could've hoped.
Yes this was much better then fusion or even Zero Mission which I know people love and I did too but it still had markers pointing you to places. Also if the game wants to lead me the first time a bit, then cool, as long as I can break it somehow in future runs which it absolutely does and I absolutely did.
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point in the next decade, Nintendo ends up releasing an open-world style Metroid game -- like BOTW. They already did an amazing job with BOTW, halfway did it with Sword/Shield (only part of the game), and going by the trailers for the newest pokemon game, it looks like they're going full-steam-ahead, so that's two _major_ IPs that Nintendo has transitioned to open-world style gameplay.
I feel like something left out of this discussion was the need to make Metroid Dread accessible to new players, leading to the slightly more hand-holding nature of the game. Nintendo invested a ton in marketing for this game, and is likely trying to make Metroid their more mainstream grown-up game, but needs to make it easier to get into. While I love games that are more challenging to navigate and traverse, I think that (especially with Nintendo's current audience), it's challenging to get people into that on a first try. I think Metroid Dread did a fantastic job of being satisfying for Metroidvania enthusiasts while still being approachable enough for a first-timer. I think this is a great step in the right direction and I'm optimistic that as the Metroid audience grows, the games can get more complex with time.
If their goal is accessibility to the most players, why not also put difficulty modes? The difficulty is clearly designed only for hardcore players, much like getting lost in some other Metroid games is designed for hardcore players. They just shifted where they decided to make it hard. Before finding where to go was the hard part, and now it's the combat that's hard. I think they sacrificed one from of accessibility (one that hurts me because I like very non linear design) in favor of another. What I'm saying I don't think the games prime philosophy was accessibility so it's a shame it sacrificed non linear design in its name.
Thank you for your post, but there’s been historical examples of dumbing down games for audiences which ended up backfiring and creating disappointment with handholding.
The infamous ceiling you have to shoot earlier in the game.. the enemies in the room above are more of a backup solution. The other enemies crawl along the breakable blocks within the same room you are in. They are the primary and more natural cue to progress, as they cause you to shoot the breakable blocks by accident.
That didn't work for me at first, cause unless they were in my way, I only shot enemies if I wasn't at full health. I was at full health, and they weren't in the way, so I ignored them
@@Eidlones Maybe, but I'd say the majority of players shoot enemies most of the time because they otherwise cause problems. The spiders that crawl on that ceiling can launch acid blobs from their butts, which can bounce around and hurt you, so taking them out quickly is kind of important to avoid damage. The ones above you in the ceiling are also the annoying kind that are best dealt with by melee counter.
As a level designer (and a HUGE Metroid fan), I LOVED what they did with the points of no return. The way I played the game, I placed map markers on all the spots I wanted to return to later, and then I carefully studied the entire map each time I got a new power. What I realized is that the points of no return will limit access to previous areas, but not always in the same way! Sometimes I would come to the conclusion that I was completely unable to backtrack at that point, but other times I realized that I actually COULD go back to a certain area, but I'd have to loop around through ANOTHER area because of how a fidget spinner or a grapple block had closed one path but opened another. That is the reason I never gave up on backtracking and getting all the items, because even though I knew that passages were always closing behind me, I never knew exactly which passages, how many, and if they'd still let me access parts of that area if I took the long way around. Special mention definitely goes to Ghavoran, because I'd spend so much time scrolling through the map there, thinking "Wait, I can't get over there. Wait no, I can! Oh, nevermind, I can't. Hmm... Actually, I can, but unless I can fit a Screw Attack through a one-block opening, I'll have to teleport all the way down to Burenia and climb back up!" and I did, and it was fun, because to me, successfully planning a route while ogling the map is just as satisfying as actually playing the game. That said though, I did find that the pacing jumped ahead a bit at the end, when you find yourself already standing at the final boss' doorstep before realizing that the entire world had opened up completely about an hour back. Presumably, that's where most of the cut content would've taken place, creating a bit more of a build-up and also filling out the suspiciously empty spot in the top right of the map. And since this comment is already a wall of text, I might as well add that I really enjoy how the world is portrayed in the backgrounds of this game. If you peer into the back of the scenery, there's always some detail that connects the room to the rest of the zone, whether it's a tube that dissappears off into a vent, hinting at a secret area, the support pillars and guard station entrances that connect the Dairon labs to the surrounding cave system, or the fact that you can see the curvature of the Elun dome while descending the catwalks in western Ferenia. It feels similar to how the Souls games often let you spot upcoming locations waaaaay ahead of time, but only if you know exactly where to look and what to look for.
As a game player I hate this design mentality. I would never buy your games (if I knew you are the level designer). Why? It's simple... contrivances. This kind of level design is not thoughtful, it is "rat" in a maze levels of "someone controlling your progress" while unseen forces blocks, corrals, or prods you towards something. There is a reason many fans of Metroid did not receive Dread very well, I am one of them. I played the original Metroid on NES so I am "old school". This problem is not just confined to Metroid Dredd, but when paths are "arbitrarily" blocked like this it breaks immersion because it begs the question "who did that to me? and why?". Now... if this "fits" into the game narrative then that is "fun" for example... when you entered a boss room in Super Metroid that door would "lock"... you see THAT makes sense. But in Dread where rocks fall blocking your path, or water levels change, or specially & conveniently placed explosion rocks are both blocking and providing access to new areas while blocking old ones does NOT make sense and it offends a scruitinous mind. Metal Gear on the nes worked in similar ways. You had to find keys to get through doors, but all of that makes excellence sense given the game setting. So it is definitely possible to do these things "right" while you and Dread are doing them all wrong. Every game that boasts "open exploration" that has these gimmicks are a failure to me. They don't belong in them! If they must be used, then use sparingly, but Dread not only used them a plenty, it throws it right into your face. And yes... I heard the "excuses", the idea is to build "Dread" in the player making them "feel" like a rat in a maze. Well... that's fine... except they are all "natural formations" and constant caveins "well placed explosives" conveniently positioned water leveling and hidden passages are NOT natural. To me, MetroidDread was a complete failure on all levels of what could have been a fantastic game! This is failed deverlopers taking a great IP and using it to make a game while "not understanding" what makes Super Metroid so good! The game was designed to provide sequence breaking and speeding running a thing "but according to developer logic" and THAT is a fail. Open woulds should always be... "here is your move set" now lets see what you can do. It's NOT "here if your move set" oh... by the way... we put "gimmicks" into everything to see how well you tolerate all of these "gotcha's". I never finished playing Dread, it is one of my "regret" purchases now because I knee jerk purchased that game expecting something great... but it was not.
I feel that a lot of the choices they made about guiding the player through was for those who have never played a Metroidvania/Metroid game before, especially considering this is the first actually new 2D Metroid in years, and for that, I can't really fault them. Guiding inexperienced players via an invisible hand can be extremely helpful, considering they won't be the most knowledgeable on various things veterans know.
Can I just say I really appreciate you giving such a good summary of a feature set that DIDN'T fit your own play style? The ability to acknowledge and appreciate a games mechanics seperate to your own personal experience is admirable. Good job, great video as always
I kinda predicted you wouldn't like Dread's world design when I was playing it, I did feel like the game was gently pushing me towards the next objective, and every time I missed the path forward, there were one of those points of no return that made it easy to find the hidden blocks I missed. Personally I think for the majority of players this is good design, since most players hate getting lost and having to remember that one room you are supposed to go next between hundreds of rooms. You can still do that in this game, in my first playthrough after I got the space jump I did remember those lights in the water area and went there on my own, without finding the teleporter, and it did feel pretty good. But for those that like to get lost and have to make mental notes like yourself, I can see why this game is a little disappointing in that regard, but for me I thought it was masterfully designed, I didn't feel like the guiding was aggressive at all like you mentioned, as you have said it's still very possible to get lost.
Yeah I noticed it immediately the game just pushes you forward, I love the game but I did find it slightly agressive... That being said the game is genius when you completely ignore the pushing forward and you te to go and break it (granted you need at least one playthrough to enjoy and execute this)
> I did feel like the game was gently pushing me towards the next objective I didn't feel like the game was very gentle with its pushing. The points of no return stopped me from doing what I want several times.
It was perfect for me. It made me feel like I was a bit lost, but never actually was. The videos point about “cognitive load” is huge for me and I believe is why I mostly bounce off this genre. It’s one of the few metroidvania games I’ve ever really LOVED for this reason. Just as an example, I HATE hollow knight. It’s just the definition of confusing & overwhelming to me.
I feel like I played a different game than everyone else. I found that I was lost very often. Idk if it was my bad memory or if I didn't pay enough attention, but I got stumped quite a few times. I felt like I would gain an ability, discover some of the area, then spend a long time trying to figure out where to use the new ability. At one point, I remember getting an ability and searching almost the entire map before going to a small area in burenia and finally finding the boss. Am I alone in my experience?
Happend to me aswell. Think the issue is, if you go for collectibles inbetween (because you got a new ability to be able to reach things you remembered). If you kind of follow the game where it tries to lead you instead of exploring, it wont be as bad.
Yeah I actually had to look up where to go cause I went off looking for collectibles part way through. Went off the golden path and forgot where to go back to 😅
I am somewhat embarrassed to admit this happened to me too after getting the grapple beam. That is because I ran off the beaten path to go back to find something new to use an ability on, and I forgot where the game was pointing me.
I only got stuck finding the Varía Suit, instead of going just left, I explored all the map using the morph ball, I thought the suit was hidden in another area. The effects of playing Super and Prime 1 lol
Surprisingly as backwards as it sounds, the more you replay dread the more open it becomes and entices exploration. The sequence breaks you mentioned where nice, but by far not the end of it. The game deliberately tries to teach you tricks on the first playthrough, which you can use on subsequent playthroughs. If you are going for 100% which many of us are on our first playthrough, you are confronted with really complicated shinespark puzzles. What players don’t know, these puzzles give you the basics for shinesparking end game. Why end game? Because it will be important on a later playthrough. The second playthrough you play through. You are going to ask yourself, can I do this with that, only to be rewarded with opening up the gated map, leading to early boss fights and or early items. What players don’t know is that the entire map was made to be sequence broken. Many blocks, secret passages are consecutively placed to make guide you to an item, in an unintended order. The best part, if you get said item early, the devs planned it, leading you to getting another item early and another. Making an entirely different Route, while being able to get lost and explore the whole map. Most of the time you feel like you are outsmarting the devs, only to notice, that they made a secret route, to an upgrade. And here’s the best part, those secret routes, are never meant to be explored on a normal playthrough. They don’t have tanks or are connected to the intended route. They are just there to be for sequence breaking. Best example. The very first EMMI zone features secret tunnels throughout frozen artaria, to lead you to the screw attack before experiment Z-57. After the shinespark puzzle in Burenia, there are secret tunnels that lead directly to the room pre gravity suit. An entire room has been added in Dairon, to get thr grapple beam early, and with it (you can also get following upgrade without the GB) you can get the bombs, with which you can get the flash shift and pulse radar early. Before Kraid mind you! All Aeion Abilities within early game. If you cleverly shinespark in Dairon, you can get the Super Missiles early, which are a great help for bosses like the chozo soldiers and Drogyga. After getting the ice missiles, you can get the cross bombs early by sequence breaking out of an intended area with the shinespark. In the same room, you can get to Burenia early ro get the gravity suit early, of course shinesparking required. In Ferenia, with cross bombs and the shinespark, you can get the space jump early. With the shinespark and screw attack you can kill escue in 10 seconds. The gravity suit, makes the purple EMMI sections a breeze. And all of these are dev intended and don’t require glitches, but clever thinking. If you sequence break one item, you are led by an invisible hand to sequence break all of them. 70% of the items are early obtainable, without glitches!!! All being intended by the developers!!! Talking abouz the first run through dread is doing a major disservice to the true openness of the Game. The openness may be hidden at fist, but the first playthrough is there to teach you, how to break out of the shell! All of those Missile tanks and E Tanks that where only possible with Shinesparking, where a tutorial for the „hidden” game experience for dread. So if any if you think Dread is linear and focuses less on exploration, please try sequence breaking the game. Only then you will truly experience the brilliant game design of Metroid Dread Of course Super is still superior in the SB department, with the reverse boss rush and all. But Dread comes really really close to Super Metroids openness regarding sequence breaking. Dread is significantly more open in that regard than Zero Mission.
Fair points and it's cool that Metroid offers this style of repeat play, but personally I found that it made the first playthrough kinda bland. The map felt so mechanical and artificial, not like an organic world I ever wanted to learn more about.
I have done a sequence break playthrough in dread and can second this post but I absolutely disagree with Dread being more open to sequence breaking than zero mission. In ZM you are free to not pick up most upgrades and finish the game with just the morph ball, a single missile tank, power grip, bombs, ice beam and the 3 unknown items required for a 9% item completion just because the varia suit is given automatically when you get the fully powered suit. You can fight ridley before kraid, grab the screw attack before the varia suit, get super missiles early, there are many different routes you can take to beat the game, all developer intended and also has a special ending illustration for hard mode under 15%. It's definitely the second most open game in the series for sequence breaking.
Kinda reminds me of what Mark Rosewater would call lenticular design. For a card game, you can make a card that seems simple to newer players yet complex to advanced ones. You do this by making an obvious intended use for new players to see, while advanced players can see all the edge cases it can be applied. The complexity is gaited by the amount of knowledge you have.
As someone who was really disappointed by the level design, maybe I should try that. I did LOVE how the end game shinespark puzzles taught me new ways to use the ability, it might be fun trying it earlier on. Not sure how much I'll enjoy having to escape so many one-way lock traps though, I feel like I could easily have my precious sequence breaking taken away by just stepping on the wrong tile lol I might give it a shot and play through the game a second time
For me personally, Dread struck the perfect balance between letting me explore and guiding me forwards. I did go right when I got the morph ball *on purpose* to go check all of those morph ball tunnels I had seen throughout the game so far... And it was slightly confusing in a cool way to realize that the final area I was targeting was where I was *supposed* to end up, just from the other side.
When it comes to the Morph Ball leading to the Varia Suit, I don't know if I've repeated a path from Point A to Point B. Granted I've only completed that section of the game 3 times, but that's sweet map design to allow for multiple paths to get to the same location. Of course, I did restart the game after the first time I got the double jump because I didn't understand the underwater jump mechanic *despite it literally being part of the description when the double jump is first obtained* and felt like I was completely stuck in the Ghavoran water, but I figured out the double jump on my second playthrough attempt. XD
My most negative experience with this world design is when I finally did circle back and look into optional areas, sometime after getting the gravity suit, and finding rooms clearly designed for the varia suit: hot, but with lava at the bottom that you still need to avoid. As I made quick work of them with the gravity suit, I genuinely wondered when I had the option to go here with the varia suit. There undoubtedly was a point when I could do that, but the world design just took me all the way from varia to gravity before I broke out and started wandering. I felt kinda sad for the rooms, like they were being actively sabotaged by the rest of the world. If you weren't dedicated to exploration for its own sake you'd never see the challenge they were designed to hold, you'd only see trivial roadblocks that don't mean anything to a late-game Samus.
the space jump makes it feel like you're wrecking the level 8 rattata kid with your level 73 legendaries because you missed him on route 1 at the start of the game
That's definitely been a theme since the gba games: the exploration after completing everything, and it does feel like it slightly breaks emersion. It's sort of what the prime series did too (though I find it slightly better since the ruins were required).
Honestly - I appreciated being lead in the right direction most of the time. There was one or two times where I blanked the "obvious" progression route and accidentally explored a bunch - but since I got to explore more and pick up upgrades I missed then that was still an enjoyable experience. Mostly though, I'm just a lot busier nowadays - so I definitely appreciate a game that will give me a focused and concentrated experience if I'm willing to follow it's lead and not force myself to fight against it. Metroid Prime 1 will always have a special place in my heart - as my first Metroid game, and the one where I truly had time to explore and get lost in its environments. Metroid Dread was a concentrated romp from start to finish - and I even took the time out first time through to get 100% items. EDIT: It may have also helped that this was my second 2D Metroid game; the first being Fusion. Not being able to cakewalk the bosses definitely helped slow down my experience a little - and that might have helped break up the exploration a bit more than the average player.
This was my first Metroid game, and the strategies described here really made the experience for me. It’s not a coincidence that the most frustrating part of my first playthrough was shortly after getting the speed boost. The devs rely on you learning the shine spark to navigate easily to the teleporter that takes you to the grapple beam. I didn’t know how to shine spark and consequently got lost searching for progression in Burenia, when I was supposed to head back to Arataria through one of the teleporters mentioned in the video.
I noticed this myself. Whenever I would come to a teleport, I knew I was meant to go through it at that exact moment. I literally never got lost once from beginning to end.
I'm personally a completionist when it comes to Metroidvania's, and this game was pretty great for that, because it was generally clear which way I had to go, so I would check around the other ways and clear out what I could find, then move on. That said, the one-way gates got INCREDIBLY frustrating when I was finishing up the last few unlockables, because a path would look clear on the map, but then it wouldn't be when I got there. I wish a late game powerup (say, power bombs) could have been able to destroy the flip gates. It would have saved a lot of tedium.
You must not have known then that if you take the elevator to Itorash and then go back down, all of the teleporters will connect to each other, so you can go literally anywhere easily.
Agree with this a ton, knowing where you need to go is equally useful when you don't want to go that way. And those valve gates really should've been toggleable with the last powerup at least.
@@nikxneon6615 Wait, really. FFS, I decided to go collectible hunting right before going to Itorash because I thought going there would be a cutoff point, or at least it would've felt weird to leave the final boss area just after entering it in order to go collectible hunting. Well, useful for future playthroughs, I guess.
Honestly I felt it's the way fusion should have been done. It gives the player some sense of agency, but allowing the developer to tailor the experience and narrative.
I noticed how Dread continually locked the door behind me and enticed me forward with teleporters pretty early on in my first playthrough and I felt a little underwhelmed by the exploration, but I also play metroidvanias for the lore and combat just as much as the exploration and both were incredible in Dread, so I didn't let it bog me down too much. I feel the exploration really shines in subsequent playthroughs, as backwards as that sounds, because its then that you start realizing that the game has way fewer hard backtrack locks and way more ways to get things early than you first realized. Doing a second playthrough getting grapple beam, ice missiles, and gravity suit early was a completely different experience to the normal progression, and motivated me to do the speedrun challenges for the gallery on both normal and hard mode
I usually see sequence breaks as valid paths outside the critical path, in Mark's Zero Mission Review I disagree with him disregarding them as valid alternative paths built in the game's level design The usual skills used for sequence breaking are even taught in the demo that plays on the Super Metroid title screen, I feel like the game gives you all the tools and it's just a matter of the player's creativity to use them to do things in a non- conventional way, similar to puzzle solving on Zelda BotW. But on Dreads's case, they purposely give you the morphball and bombs later in the game and limit the sufaces the wall jump work on so they can have more control over the player. The things needed for sequence breaking are like special secrets you will only find out after playing the game at least once. They add replay value, but don't help with the exploration on your first playthrough.
To be honest, I really wish that Dread kept map progress on new game plus the way Fusion does. I want to try replaying the game to see if I can’t get some of those upgrades out of sequence, but the fact that I’d have to literally plan it out *before* starting the game rather than being able to check around and figure out where the routes I missed the first time around are makes it seem less possible to me…
after learning about the one-way door in Super, I started paying attention to points of no return, so I noticed a lot of the ones in Dread, but I also learned to welcome them and keep some of them in mind, especially with the ability to place markers in the map. They didn't feel as much like a direct interference in my gameplay but rather an invitation to visit the place again later, after uncovering more of the world elsewhere. I actually made sure to backtrack after finding out about Itorash so I could get some upgrades and visit some more hidden areas. The only thing I didn't do were the shinespark puzzles because I didn't know at the time that it was given more flexible mechanics and thought they would require some very heavy execution
I'm kinda in two minds so far with Dread. On the one hand the feeling of movement and navigation is superb, but on the other there's been times where I got a new power and felt like I was being shuffled towards the next one rather than being given a chance to explore and find the way myself. Like the avenues for discovery were a little too narrow. Overall I am enjoying it a lot though.
Until I started sequence breaking, the only main I felt was that I was being herded into moving where the devs wanted me to go. It felt like Fusion to me, but without the blinky "TARGET" label on my map.
In my opinion that feeling comes from how claustrophobic the rooms are. Look at the map, and you see that each room is shaped exactly how it needs to be. In super metroid, the rooms are much larger and rectangular, making them more open. In my opinion that openness adds much more to atmosphere than the rooms shaped just how the have to be, and then crammed with stuff.
Yeah, the game "tricked" me for the first few hours; I understood what it was doing, but BUT it started letting the other parts of my brain creep to the forefront for items and speedrunning. Other than Super M, this is the first Metroid game that I immediately started playing again after the credits, knowing that I wanted to get all the items. The shine spark puzzles were mindblowingly fun to work out, then execute, which took even longer. In other Metroid games, if I got stuck on a shinespark puzzle that wasn't essential, I would just leave it behind. I guess what I'm trying to say is that in previous games ALL I cared was exploration (thanks Super M and Prime), NOW I play for completion, speed-running, AND sequence breaking, which is crazy to me.
@@electroamp I also liked that the power bombs had good utility in the last boss battle. That sun like thing killed me way too many times until I discovered its weakness.
I kept getting lost specifically in a loop between a couple of the teleports, and I can't quite recall which item I was missing for progression. I should probably play through again.
As someone who played Metroid in the ‘80s and had played every mainline game, Dread feels more like a Metroid-inspired game than a true Metroid game. Superficially it seems like a Metroid game, but there’s a lot they didn’t get right. Namely the atmosphere, music, exploration. All of this in exchange for many boss fights and mini-boss fights. It felt like a game that was way more skills-focused. I’m questioning if we’ll ever get a proper 2D Metroid game again. I enjoyed Samus Returns, but something was lost with Dread. I’m hoping Nintendo gives someone else a crack at the series or does it in-house next. Something like Super or Zero Mission with updated graphics and gameplay.
@@Labyrinth1010 "As someone who played Metroid in the '80s" ... ... Dude. You sound absolutely miserable to be around. Go back to playing Metroid on the NES. Dread is easily one of the finest installments of the Metroid series since Prime. You do not come off as superior for playing Metroid in the 80's; you come off like an ass.
@@0ThrowawayAccount0 piss off, dude. It’s a freaking opinion. The gold standard of Metroid games is Super. How much of that game is about combat and skill? Metroid games are first and foremost about exploring, not combat. There are many that share my opinion. It’s ok to have different opinions on things. Really. It’s ok. Mercury Steam didn’t get the vibe right, the essence of a Metroid game. Retro did. Prime got it right.
I got a little annoyed by the point of no returns at times, like when I got an ability, remembered an item I could now get on the other side of the biome, but that part was now locked off and I was forced to move on. But the combat and pacing was near perfect, so I loved the game and the end-game item hunt, going trough all areas with all abilitys and being able to just easily cross all of those Points was very satisfying. Plus some of the items are very well hidden or behind tricky speed-booster puzzles, so there was still a sense of exploration in that item hunt.
I really strongly feel like the game's number scale for damage and health is way off basically from Kraid onward. Did you know the golden Chozo bot deals 300-400 damage with its spear? Why do we have so many health upgrades for the sole purpose of allowing you to survive 3 or 4 hits to an endgame boss? If you want it to be a threat, then make it feel earned, rather than the same boss for the fifth time just with More Numbers. I did 100% item completion and got to the final boss and then got stunlocked in the corner for more than have my health because I missed a jump over his melee combo and he just stood on me. Metroid Dread may be the finest playing Metroid game to date, but it is by no means perfect in execution.
@@JoshTheValiant The flaw with that argument is that all the bosses in this game rely heavily on pattern recognition. After you've been beaten enough times, eventually you'll be able to beat a boss with minimal scratches. Therefore, upping the damage and restricting your margins of error is, in my opinion anyway, a decent way to make the boss threatening. For sure, fighting a recolor of a previous boss isn't that big a deal since the strategy doesn't change, but knowing that it will hit you harder and demand even more precision from you is a perfect way for them to be more threatening for this game.
I didn't think they final boss could stunlock you. Yes, you can absolutely get cornered, but there was always just enough room to escape after a combo, so long as I was jumping toward the wall behind me, and not toward the boss (as I erroneously tried on a few of my attempts). The latter will definitely make you feel like you get stuck there, but you're not actually.
Extremely. If I didn't want the possibility of backtracking or getting lost, I wouldn't have played every Metroid before Dread. It's part of what makes this genre. Get more capable, expand your reach into world. Dread actively thwarts that key mechanic. And that just blows.
@@ebi_tempura That might help in a couple scenarios but not in most. Dread uses a wide variety of ways to lock you into their path including high water, rotating barricades, one-way doors, and even freezing the entire map for no reason and no pay off.
Hi Mark. Having watched your Boss Keys before, my first playthrough through Dread was with that critical eye and noticed the Points of No Return whenever they happened. Something I thought would have been good to talk about was the much more detailed map in Dread than in previous Metroid games. Hollow Knight creators went with the decision of a minimally detailed map because they thought too many map markers would confuse players. Mercury Steam went in the complete other direction with Dread and noted every single obstacle in the path. And, ultimately, I think that is the better decision. In one of Nerrel's videos, he made an interesting note: the more detailed map listing every obstacle could effectively serve as another form of waypoint marker. The difference is, whereas games like Zero Mission explicitly put your next destination on the map, the more detailed map in Dread served to show various points of interest the player could now explore with their new abilities. It just doesn't explicitly tell you "You can get through THESE obstacles now!". And leaves you to find these disguised "waypoint markers" on the map screen for yourself. The more detailed map served as a tool to guide the player in finding the path forward. In a way that the player could find on their own, by effectively putting multiple "waypoint markers" on the map at once, disguised as obstacles on a more detailed map. And cutting down on player frustration of having to make their own notes.
You make a very good point about how the game uses the map to guide the player in a subtle, but effective way. Having every single "lock" marked on the map cuts down on the frustration a first time player might experience trying to remember all the places where they might have the ability to use a certain powerup to progress.
@@somerandomchannel382 Oh my god I couldn't agree more... They went too far in the blocking. I feel they need to take the lesson from super metroid's highjump/icebeam lock when you fall in the room in red brinstar right after the wave beam one way: the best locks in these games can be picked without having you do shit like shoot through the wall by sliding and jumping into the ceiling... You don't technically need the varia suit in super metroid, it's just that if you're not extremely good, you will not make it through the hot areas, making those very hot areas my favorite god damn locks in the series. When I got to the first hot room in dread, I was excited to be able to do the exact same thing, only to discover that A: they all have even more locks in them, so going through them early is almost always useless, and B: you will die before you can even do the skip anyways to the 50 fucking damage per tick. There are only 3 places you can get lost in Super if you have the skills the game expects you to have (so no IBJ, shinespark, wall jumping, etc.), immediately after icebeam if you don't get the grapple beam, immediately after space jump, and the entirety of maridia. For the first two, the solution is relatively simple, just rearrange the map so there is an obvious pathway from ice beam to grapple beam/swap their locations so that you can't escape norfair/ lower brinstar without getting the more obscure upgrade and make a more direct pathway from space jump to ridley's lair. For maridia, that just needs an entire rework, because maridia SUCKS
@@somerandomchannel382 have you played it tho? I didn't yet but it seems really well designed, i don't think they went too far with the block for what i'm seeing here, since it keeps you from getting lost by going in the wrong direction BUT i'm with Boss Key in the sense that they should've made some collectables outside of the main path for those who want to explore. [But as i said, i haven't played it yet so my opinion is purely based on my other Metroid experiences and this video]
I literally just finished my first playthrough of Dread and I gotta say, it shot immediately up in my top 10 games ever. I've always loved the Metroid series, but in previous games I would often stop playing when I got frustrated by getting lost and not remembering where I'm supposed to go, so this "breadcrumbs" that you mention are perfect for me. Dread is such an incredible addition to the series, hopefully not the last one.
@@metalicarus8372 a games journalist who got stuck in the room at 13:15 which I also have begun to call ''The Jaffe Room'' That's probably the reference being made :) The clip I've seen shows him going to ALL the different blocked off paths before going back, then proceeds to make zero effort at moving forward, because aparently, ''all rooms are dead ends'' Well, this is a metroid game, if all rooms are dead ends, start blasting.
@@ezralaguna Sorry can't get you link right now but I think its on the Japanese Nintendo youtube channel and its tips for the demo if that helps. The first tip actually shows the room David Jaffe got stuck in, so maybe they felt it wasn't obvious enough... or they are having a jibe at him.
Me, 10 hours after finding the Phantom Cloak and having no idea what I'm supposed to be doing next, oh and also having been eaten alive about 150 times since then: "Yeah, I'm gonna need to watch this one closely."
Wait a minute... 3:36 for real!? I have the Phantom Cloak but I don't have the Morph Ball, yet somehow I have access to almost the entire map (of course, by "entire" I mean I can get to both ends of it). I must have broken something somewhere...
I had a blast with Dread, but I did feel let down by its guided linearity. I want to get lost and explore. After awhile I realized the game was putting me exactly where I needed to be, and took some of the magic out of what I am attracted to in metroidvanias.
Honestly this aspect of the game, the frequency of the "point of no return" bugged me. I'd get a new power up, want to head back to a blocked area, only to be railroaded, with the endgame having the same miniboss on loop. This game is great! Amazing bosses, Interesting lore for Metroid, but I just wanted freedom.
I remember fighting the linear aspect and based on my experience from other Metroid games, I instantly back tracked and that's actually what caused me to get lost or felt I was soft locked. I picked up on the navigation aspect based on the teleport locations that made it undeniable that I was in the right area. I also remember getting the bombs and bomb jumping my way into secret areas and getting the nostalgic Metroid feeling I was expecting. I loved it!
Dread was my first Metroid game, and my second Metroidvania. And the lack of obvious direction coupled with a very subtle but concrete adherence to the critical path helped me not feel like I was throwing myself against a wall the way I sometimes felt playing Hollow Knight. And, even though the path was more or less handed to me, I still felt very _smart_ for continually uncovering it. And, ultimately, while it could’ve been more earned in retrospect, I don’t think that smart feeling can be discounted.
I would really love to see you take on Dread's sequence breaking more thoroughly (which I don't see as distinct from exploration, at least with a game that expects it to this extent.) You acknowledged it at the end of the video, but an analytical approach to when a sequence break significantly opens up more of Dread's map, and when it doesn't, would be fascinating. I suspect (although I'm not sure) you might appreciate that aspect of the level design more if you dig deeper into it.
sequence breaking is part of what makes metroidvania world design to begin with. You could make an entire video about how just doing red tower early in SM basically immediately breaks the entire game open.
a video about this dimension of the game would be ideal to really give that notion of "casual player" or "expert in the genre" that the developers apparently chose to create.
Even as a veteran of Metroid I actually really liked the pace this sort of level design provided. Without the game locking you back out I think navigation would be pretty tough as it’s harder for me to distinctly remember what connects to where compared with other Metroid games for some reason. I think the game more than supplements the lost difficulty on this way by making the bosses in general harder than most of the series. As well as having all the emmi sequences making exploring a faster, more frantic experience until you take that emmi down.
I remembered playing dread and being like, damn it’s really easy to get lost in this game. And then I played an old Castlevania game and realized, oh shit dread’s been really good at giving subtle hints of where to go all along
@@VCXZ883 also for me, it was very late in the game when this happened. It stops holding you hand a little, but it still leads you the right way. When you fail to see it, then you begin to wander off and get lost.
I never felt too guided on my first playthrough of Dread, I think they've done a really good job at making the player feel lost while also making sure that the path forward isn't unnaccessible
The problem is that they've also made sure that the path back is almost completely unaccessible. Sure, fine for players like you who just want to press forward. Awful for seasoned Metroid players who actually like to explore properly. Every time I wanted to go out of my way to explore, I was f***ing blocked.
@@thenonexistinghero Not only that, in past metroid games, they give you a new item and expect you to backtrack to be able to use these new items and find new paths. When in this game you back track get completely lost for an hour or so just to find out you needed to press forward and shoot an invisible wall.
I was watching the invisible hand the whole time thinking: "Oh no! Not another Fusion!", but soon after I completed the game, I found the speedrun, and immediately, there were sequence breaks left and right and glitches being discovered like the pseudo-wave beam, and I'm optimistic about my second playthrough.
@@Itsakoopahere It's still not nearly as good as super metroid. Don't praise the game devs for skips that involve glitches, only early bombs/flash shift (a waste of time), early super missiles (virtually useless, there are no super missile outside of the intended path) and early gravity suit/cross bombs deserve any recognition for the devs, and of those only 1 is actually useful or interesting... meanwhile in super metroid, kraid is almost optional, power bombs can be gotten as your 4th item, space jump can hypothetically be skipped (but it will be PAIN), etc... I don't think getting to ridley without gravity suit is possible without glitches, but it might be. I never looked into it too hard because it was far too painful...
@@bastian_5975 I mean, we can get screw attack at any point after speedbooster. Gravity is possible soon as you have ice missiles. Space and spin boost are completely optional. You can get grapple as soon as you have Varia, and then go get bombs if you'd like. The game is pretty linear up until just before vanilla diffusion beam, at which point your options really open up (if you know the speedrun strats)
There was only one place in the game where I got stuck (for about an hour), and that was the first time I encountered the magnet-pull-down platform. I misinterpreted it when I first saw it, thinking you had to stand on top of it, and put it out of my mind. It's also kinda tucked away in a spot that's easy to overlook and you are unlikely to revisit when re-exploring. It was my only way forward and I completely misunderstood its purpose hahah. Apart from that, I completed the game without doing a ton of unnecessary backtracking and it honestly felt kinda short, despite being a full-length 2D Metroid game and even after 100%ing it.
Same lmao, I realized it was my fault instantly when I looked at where I needed to go on the internet, it was right there but my idiot self just went the other way
I also got lost. Right before getting Super Missiles I went in the wrong direction and ended up wandering around the map for an hour before returning where I had been and found the missiles.
The fact that what feels like exploration at first turns out to be more linear than it first appears, and in particular the idea that you're being invisibly guided along a linear path through the game is actually thematically appropriate to the game's story. I won't give any spoilers though.
Noticed all of the "points of no return", or as I was calling them during my playthrough "one way doors", after the first couple of upgrades. I think the level design to make this happen is incredible, even though I would overall prefer a bit more freedom to explore as well. I feel like the limits on exploration would have been harder to swallow without the really fun combat, especially the boss and sub-boss fights, and the larger focus on the story than is typical in the Metroid series. And I was skeptical about the EMMIs going into this game, but those sections were awesome: frustrating to be caught but really captured the feeling of dread. This definitely felt like a soft-reboot of sorts, a way to make the genre easier to jump into for new players. And I hope lots of new players do try this out because I want huge sales numbers to encourage Nintendo to make more!
one interesting thing is that you end up studying the map just as hard as you would if you had full freedom.. you're tracing out the paths you could take, only instead of "hmm i could go this way.. or i could go that way.. which one should I do first.." with no real clue as to which path is going to ultimately be more beneficial in what order, if at all. Whereas in Dread you're tracing paths on the map going "well I can't go that way.. or that way.. oh but THIS way, I can go! .... but only if I'm careful not to go that way, which will lock me off." and it wouldn't have been so frustrating except for one or two parts where, only if you knew ahead of time, you could totally skip ahead of where it was funneling you. I'm reminded of several falling sequences where you had a brief window to grapple or dash into a gap, but if you missed it, too bad for now.
15:22 even as a completionnist, sometimes when the game blocked my path backwards I WANTED to find a way back just so I can grab the items I could now with my new upgrades
I constantly thought the same, and was frustrated the game wouldn't let me backtrack to get items. Ironically I think that contributes to the already heightened combat difficulty in this game too.
That's what drove me nuts. I knew the game was driving forward but I wanted more power for boss fights. It was a real struggle as I fought the railroad constantly.
I picked up on a lot of the guiding techniques quite consciously, and its really cool to see someone else repeat my thoughts back to me. Really good video, thanks!
It is amazing how Mark managed to put all my feelings about Dread into words, even when I myself struggled with explaining it myself. Im firmly in Team navigation regarding metroid games
The fact that you used the clip of that *one* room while calling out people saying that it's a crime against game design is still funny, one year later.
"Why you didn't get lost" Speak for yourself, you can _never_ underestimate how bad my sense of direction is! (Still loved the game, but there's a reason my completion time was 12 hours.)
@@AlexTr0uble 12 hours was like, 92%. I had to go back afterwards and do the shinespark puzzles after I beat the game (I didn't know the tricks like "walljumping while speedboosted" before).
seriously, how do you get lost in this game? I feel like its built so well that my directionless ass managed to never be "lost" for more than 1 minutes, and then I'd feel even dumber because it was kind of obvious
@@brya9681 At a couple of points late in the game, it opens up so much that there are a handful of places you can go, and even more places where you can _almost_ go, but you'd have to check to make sure. Especially if you go out of your way to explore and collect goodies everywhere, it's pretty easy to overlook or forget, like, three completely unmarked blocks you have to break.
While I can appreciate being challenged in exploration and navigation every so often, I absolutely *despise* being directionless to the point of wandering aimlessly for long stretches of time. A lack of direction with no foothold, nothing to latch on to when my patience exhausts, is one of the most surefire ways to get me to drop a game in irritation. There is a limit to how lost I can be before I just give up. While yes, Dread is rather aggressive in its indirect guidance, I honestly prefer to have it than not or barely at all. I thought it was all quite clever and usually pretty subtle in how it was executed. But what also deserves a mention here that wasn't touched upon in the video is the map screen. For the first time, the map will show you exactly what each door requires once you have the needed ability, where you have encountered destructible blocks and what destroys them (such blocks also stay revealed once uncovered, unlike in previous games), collectibles are marked on the map once discovered and specify if they have been collected or not, save- and transport rooms are colour-coded and hidden collectibles are hinted at through by having a section of the map flash, so you're not left bombing every wall of every room aimlessly. This further assists in navigating and especially makes the collectible hunt much more respectful of the player's time. All in all I absolutely adore Dread and man, I can't wait until this game gets to make a GDQ appearance. It's gonna be wild.
As someone who loved hollow knight and got all achievements plus some with the bonus things like hall of gods and path of pain, Metroid Dread was phenomenal. Easily my game of the year. The combat and movement in Dread is just on another level, Samus just feels so good to control. Plus the boss fights are amazing, think the only flaw I saw with those was the x chozo warriors but otherwise enjoyed every fight. As for exploration, I’ve 100% the game four times now and while you keep sequence breaking and speed running separate from exploration, I’d argue they are one in the same. All Metroid games have pushed players to attempt sequence breaking/speedrunning with the clear time rewards. Sequence breaking simply gives players alternate methods of exploration and as you pointed out, the devs very intentionally wanted players to sequence break. For my first play through, when I noticed how the game subtlety guided the player I came to appreciate the world design so much more, and instead of taking the obvious route that was just nearby, I’d mark it in my map using the marker system and return when I had collected all the bonus gear I could scattered around the map.
I feel like it truly combines both worlds, Dread _can_ be for those veterans who are looking for ways to break the sequence, and having tons of mobility options that mastery requires a lot of skill. But it also welcomes newcomers all the same with invisible guiding techniques shown in this vid that keeps them engaged and not frustrated by giving them too many options at once. Combat is great, boss fights are great. What's not to love about this? Glad you enjoyed it man, from one Metroid fan to another.
I think it is a near perfect balance of guidance and disorientation. I loved that it had a seemly faster pace without literally telling you where to go. I definitely got lost a few times but not enough to where the game became frustrating. It was an enjoyable experience throughout. Everything I want out of a Metroid game Excellent video BTW. Great topic to discuss and analyze.
I never really got lost in Dread, but I've seen a number of people who did, especially at the point where you get the wide beam and have to double back (which is the one part of the game that isn't very intuitive). It's interesting to see the difference in experiences among different players.
I really liked Dread, and honestly I would often feel lost in the world. The world of Dread feels way bigger than any of the other Metroid games, so I don't mind these little techniques they implemented to guide the player.
I actually was able to get myself lost in Metroid dread for a good while, somewhere around halfway through the game I went on an item hunt backtracking through most of the previous areas. And after I had my fill of that, it actually took a fair amount of thinking and exploration at random before I found the critical path again. It only took maybe an hour to find it, so I didn't find this too frustrating. It was fairly satisfying to carefully examine the map to figure that out for myself. I prefer being able to do that.
i've been replaying the metroid prime trilogy recently (yet again) and even though i was spoiled by the toggleable hint system when i played them as i was younger, i always went back to them just because. it felt like comfort food, or a bunch of treats laid out in front of me, all the extra gear to find and lore items to read periodically, within this interesting "movie".
As someone who’s first Metroid game was Fusion, I instantly fell in love with this game. I ended up finishing my first playthrough at around 12 hrs with 64% completion, but I’ll be playing this one for years, I’m sure.
The "pacing" which you describe is actually a big part of the reason why I've never managed to get into Hollow Knight. As much as it's held up high as a quintessential Metroidvania experience, it's never quite managed to match the same elegance of games like Super Metroid for me where its scale manages to stay fairly modest and compact; rooms never go on for longer than they need to, understanding the layout (even with the poor map) feels more immediately rewarding because progress is made more abundantly clear, and the momentum stays brisk upon the path forward. Even with the knowledge that Hallownest makes a litany of contingencies in the event of straying away from the beaten path, there's an element of diminishing returns for me where its alternate solutions feel just a bit too cheeky and overwhelming in the sense that any other direction may have been more optimal. As someone who adores Metroid and the explorative world building aspects that it has codified, I find this a little too much of a good thing, and it doesn't help that the game feels like it takes too long to really get going in terms of making traversal mechanics satisfying. I've never really had a desire to return and re-experience Hollow Knight for a lot of these reasons. There is naturally a big argument to be made that Dread veers too far into the other direction; there were times I did get a little bit lost after a power up, and I wish those moments happened more often. I suspect the quicker pace and slightly guided exploration is a means of them to separate the 2D formula more from the Prime series. Nonetheless I appreciated that the sensation of being lost didn't have to linger for longer than it needed to. The game's peerless movement mechanics also made those moments of backtracking all the more riveting. If anything was to a detriment to the world design, I don't think it was an effect of the world's design itself as much as it was the way the biomes are presented, and how concepts like the EMMI zones (which I quite loved as a means of juxtaposing speedier pathfinding and exploration in some aspects), much like Breath of the Wild, could've used with some different visual candy - I recognize that the zones have some unique idiosyncrasies but it would've been interesting to have EMMIs roaming more undefined areas that the player would have to make mental notes of where their zones begin and end. Still, while this game isn't quite the spaghetti maze as Super Metroid was, I don't think it's any lesser of a game. I'm at a point where I recognize that Super Metroid is kind of incomparable in its nuances and that there likely won't be a game that truly captures its unique elements; for better and for worse. Dread settles for the only thing I could ask for, giving me an exciting dive back into the world of Metroid and completely decimating the argument that the series has been antiquated by its peers, providing something only Metroid can provide, and is easily up there in my top 10 of all time.
So basically you like your games "efficient".... You don't like wasting much time on optional stuff... That's what I am. Getting from this comment... Right?
How tf does Super have a "bad" map system? It literally set the standard. I feel like this is just a late night bad take, fam. Or low key the hardest bait ever developed, I'm actually impressed.
Hollow Knight is not a game that rewards an "optimal path" mindset. It's like walking through a cathedral or a museum, why are you even there if your focus is on reaching the exit as soon as possible? It's made for a different aesthetic of play :) And paradoxically that made it beloved by speedrunners :) routing different objectives brings you to wildly different runs :)
@@CLSharpman5000 Super's map system is good at giving you a picture of the game's layout but in terms of understanding it, it's pretty dated, between things like not removing dotted pickups, signaling what pathways are connected via doors, or showing you the specific type of doors that exist; things that more or less every Metroid and Metroidvania after it have addressed. As much as I adore Super and have the entire game in my muscle memory, a big part of why the game can get tedious for a first timer or to do a full completion run of is that the map system doesn't give you enough info to make educated approximations on where to go next, so you can end up wasting a lot of time going to one end of the map, only to hit a dead end with a rare chance to show something for it.
I wonder if to some extent, this was a conscious design choice from on-high in order to increase the series' appeal and ensure more players actually finished Dread?Like when Fire Emblem Awakening added no-permadeath mode. Of course, that game saved the FE series, so I'm not mad about Dread making a few concessions if that's what it takes.
IMO the answer to solving the "do we want a hand-holdy smaller map that's harder to get lost in, or more player freedom without artificial barriers?" question is to have multiple separate objectives (in different parts of the map) that the player can do in any order. Hollow Knight does this in the second half of the game with the Three Dreamers, Dark Souls 1 and 2 both have self-contained paths from the central hub to 4 story bosses, etc.
@@Vulume it was fun to get lost, in all the past Metroid games. I think Super Metroid was the most confusing only because of the samey environment art (tech limitation) and the clunky movement. Not to mention Super was still pioneering the formula. Zero Mission and Fusion were near perfect in the exploration department. Fusion is especially surprising because despite being so linear and story-driven, it STILL managed to have tons of exploration and openness within and between the sectors.
On my first playthrough, I eventually realized the game was leading me by the hand, but I also saw there were opportunities for sequence breaking. I think I had five or six power bombs before I even got them, and they weren’t that hard to get. I’m not a speedrunner, but I have been playing Metroid games since the 80s. One of my favorites was Shadow Complex, and sometimes Dread reminded me strongly of that game. It was a pleasant surprise.
OMG, this is exactly what I thought when I was playing it. The map seems overwhelming and confusing, but somehow, you always end up where exactly need to be.
I actually felt similarly to how Mark felt - I enjoyed the controls and especially the bossfights, but I ended up noticing too many of the anti-backtracking devices, and I felt like my ability to make the world my own was diminished.
Really try sequence breaking. You can get 70% of all items early. The amount of dev intended, yes developer intended sequence breaking this game allows is insane. Significantly more freedom than Zero Missions sequence breaks, but less than supers
This review really hits the nail on the head. I too often felt like my hand was being held and guided to the next section. At the same time, this made sure the action was always ongoing and I wasn't getting frustrated that I didnt know where to go
it's like being pulled through a museum to look at all the art in the tour guides order while constantly trying to break from the group to see what's eye catching and being forcefully kept in the group
Yeah, instead the developers replaced the backtracking frustration with an even heftier does of frustration with the E.M.M.I. stealth sequences! One step forward, two steps back...
I felt like I got a good exploration fix form the Active Emmi Zones. I would find myself standing in front of an Emmi door. Knowing I would only have so much time to act while hunted, I would stare at the greyed out map and try to imagine what the critical path was before entering the fray.
Personally, I can’t imagine playing Metroid and not wanting to spend time getting good at the movement tech and the sequence breaking it enables. I’ve replayed Dread like eight times by now. A really smart bit of level design I think you overlooked by not going for 100% is the extent to which 100% trains you to sequence break on subsequent playthroughs. Multiple expansions are directly on the paths you would use to get major upgrades early, so by playing for completion, you’re able to work out some of the important skips. That isn’t really true in ZM, which is a game that takes a similar approach.
Yeah I am kinda surprised tbh that that wasn’t a focal point of the video. On your first playthrough you are on a linear path, but on the second playthrough the map is almost completely open, if you try to sequence break. The game tries to deliberately teach you zo sequence break. Especially with the shinespark puzzles on the first run. Teaching you the shinespark if you go 100% fully. And then on the next playthrough you think to yourself, can I use it here, only to find out you can, rewarding you with early Super Missiles, early Cross Bombs, Space Jump, Gravity Suit, Screw Attack etc etc. The first playthrough of Dread is a tutorial in my opinion
Another clever aspect is that to get 100%, you have to learn the movement tech that enables much of the sequence breaking. The post game on a first run through is actually a tutorial for a second run. It's brilliant.
I've started a second play through, and I'm planning on getting 100% in each area once more, but take less time than 12 hours to complete the game this time. I admittedly took my sweet damn time with the game, and trying over and over with bosses and EMMI zones. I did a lot better in Artaria and Cataris the second time around.
@@m0dus.troll3ns This is pretty much what I wrote in my initial comment, but I didn’t just mean that it teaches you how to do the movement techniques; it shows you some of the places to apply them. For instance, there’s a missile+ tank directly on the path you take to get early gravity suit. That’s how I worked that skip out.
As a dude who's super pumped about sequence breaks and speedrunning-- 10/10, loved both the ease of the main path AND the devilishness of the sequence breaks + speed techniques
This articulates pretty much exactly how I feel about Dread. I think it's a great game, but I love the exploration element of Metroid, and Dread feels like it works against that sometimes by locking you out of areas and pushing you in certain directions. I like the idea of 'points of no return', I just wish they were used more sparingly. It only really feels like the game lets you truly explore when you're going after items in the post game, and that's a bit disappointing to me.
You can get a LOT of optional upgrades via backtracking once you have Flash Shift, Space Jump, and Speed Booster. It's a decent middle ground between the "end game item run" and the early phases of the game. Admittedly, going back at this point still leaves you with a few things you can't get because they're locked behind Screw Attack or Cross Bomb or Swarm Missile obstacles, but at least you can go off the rails for a while and get some goodies.
I’m not too keen on exploration and almost quit plying hollow knight when I hit a dead end after beating the false knight (glad I kept at it though) so Dread is perfect for me
In Super Metroid, most points of no return are very localized, they just make sure that you understand how to use the power up that get in the same room or so. Those are great. And there are only a few others. I wish Dread was more like that...
I was frustrated with this decision at first, but there were a few key moments where the reduced space pushed me to explore something I missed and prevented me from totally useless backtracking. “Ok my available space is here so the next step is nearby” is a much better feeling. Overall I think they achieved a perfect balance. It kept exploration as a key element but killed useless backtracking.
@@possible-realities Perhaps the next game they make can be opened up a bit more. I did find myself hesitating using elevators when I found them and wanted to explore a bit more.
I felt similar to how I felt about some wind waker dungeons, I got a new item and went “ooh, how do I use this?” And then was immediately forced to where I need to use it as if the game didn’t trust me to be intelligent enough to solve it myself. It wasn’t awful and it never ruined the experience, but I felt like I wanted more and to be challenged more. Fortunately this is my first Metroid, so I hope the older games can challenge me how I want to be challenged~
I adore how the team did this. I love metroidvanias and almost every game on my switch is one, and I can certainly say that navigation was the best here. I like the linearity of it and the guidance while simultaneously feeling like you've got a lot to explore. Very good explanation Mark!
Same, I had to use a guide the whole game cause I never had any idea where to go next. Aimlessly wandering around was just not fun. Loved the combat, music, and environments just wish there were quest markers or something along the way pointing you in the right direction.
As a VERY casual player of this series, i found myself getting frustrated with being stuck in one area, only to find out the game was guiding me to "focus" on this one zone. Especially if i just got an new ability, i would think "sweet, now i can go to this other zone and get that item thats been winking at me, only to be stuck a with no return path. I felt lost, but not in a direction kinda of way, but what arbitrary puzzle i had to figure out in said room to be able to move freely again. I love this game, but damn the pacing stops on a dime alot at the cost of exploration.
I kind of felt the opposite way. I felt that when those times hit where the way forward was less clear were also when it was most beneficial to back track and find secrets. Right after getting speed booster, the fact you should go to ferenia and how to get there is unclear, but now you can go back and pretty thoroughly explore the previous areas. The game gives you good times to explore.
Honestly i kind of feel this. it couldve been cool if they maybe made bosses harder but in return they laid out more more energy and missle powerups to players that take the time to backtrack and grab those winking items beforehand
"grrrr I want to explore, let me hinder (aka not progress the story) the rate at which I get the things that will greatly enhance my ability to explore!" 🤣 Imagine thinking you can do any meaningful exploration while lacking critical items that would make exploration meaningful.
@@MajorasWrath1 using this logic the only time exploration would ever be encouraged would be directly before final boss when every ability is unlocked and youve already seen 99% of what the game has to offer.
@@FreshFrixy2358 Not really. You can have a ton of exploration in the mid game and just keep piling it on until the end. The beginning necessarily has to be linear. How much exploration do you want to do before getting the spider magnet or even double jump, really? The way some people go on about it they seem interested in wanting to explore entire zones with just the pea shooter. Or have entire biomes that are just heat and cold rooms.
I watched my son play this game for 11 hours when it came out. Our strategy was to find an ability and go back as far as we could to the beginning each time as new places were unlocked. While this does contribute to the long play time, I'd say it was mostly dying at the hands of the bosses more so than exploration.
I'm not a big metroidvania fan and have noped out of my fair share of them, primarily because I hate backtracking and not knowing where to go. I bought Dread on a whim and loved it. IMO it's 2022's GOTY. And a lot of it comes down to what you explained in this video.
I knew you'd notice how convenient the teleport stations are haha. It's almost like Dread doesn't want you to *get* lost, more so that they want you to *feel* lost by regularly shuffling you around the map. Throw that in with the EMMI areas, which are difficult to navigate for obvious reasons, and Dread sort of simultaneously disorients you yet keeps you making progress. Is it linear? Maybe, but it disguises it extremely well and I think it makes for a tremendous experience.
If it weren't for the Points of No Return peppered into areas a good way before getting the item you need to circumvent them so often, or another item that lets you loop back around the long way, the game would be much less linear but also a fair bit more confusing.
plus, speedrunners are breaking it apart anyway, so really it's best of both worlds
You nailed it with this analysis. I have nothing to add.
My thoughts exactly.
Typically in a game if I find I am going the "right" way, I'll purposely go in a different direction for fear of missing a secret or something, Metroid dread broke me of this, eventually I surrendered too the game and said fine I won't try and explore
Also spoilers? haven't quite finished the game yet
"Enemies on the other side of a wall can encourage you to blast through hidden blocks."
David Jaffe in shambles rn
This didn’t work for me either. Only two of those blocks are breakable, so after shooting the wall and seeing that it didn’t break, I gave up
@@duane6386 ouch
repost to make god of war devs angry
David Jaffe is a loser but even a broken clock is right twice a day. There are many, many instances with enemies on screen, but unaccessible and without destructible block between them. Even if it was intuitive, it's inconsistent and that's a problem.
@@duane6386 actually there's 4 or 5 breakable blocks in a row there.
This game was far easier to navigate than even Samus Returns, but swaps navigational difficulty for its tough combat and Emmi challenges
Try fusion, which imo is harder combat than dread but even more linear!
@@ToxikDnB544 I thought dread was harder. I even beat fusion when I was 4. Fusion is still my favorite though.
hey croton!!
@@grimruben really? To be fair I was also about that age when I beat it but I remember it taking me the best part of a year whereas I beat dread on the day it came out… albeit with the entire day dedicated to it. Felt like I was opening a Pokémon booster box in 1 day 😂
@@ToxikDnB544 did you even consider that you might be better at metroidvainas lol
I actually laughed out loud when I saw this title. Seems like you're on the far opposite end of the spectrum from me, haha. I was SO lost so frequently, my first playthrough took four hours longer than yours! I think I tend to be so squarely focused on action and execution in games that I overlook what other players might see as unnecessary handholding. Clues like that never seem to enter my working memory. I backtracked so far at one point that I sequence broke my way into getting the Pulse Radar after the Flash Shift, and it felt like the designers taking pity on me! Which is a good thing; I NEEDED IT.
It's my 2021 GotY for sure, easily one of my favorite Metroid games, and I've finished it four times since then. Excellent vid, it's always enlightening to see what games are like from another perspective!
I can vividly remember feeling very lost on my first and even second visit to the water area, the game has a very smooth progression curve when you are on its track, but if you fall off that track it can be a wholely different sort of lost. Not to a detriment though, I genuinely loved finding myself actually having to backtrack for any clues I'd missed, and barring one annoying floor I just somehow forgot to shoot, the whole experience feels good to play even when derailed.
Same. Was always lost.
I'm the sam got lost real fast
Same
Literally everyone I know got lost. I still love it though.
Playing dread for me was like feeling lost at all times while still going forwards at all times. A controlled sense of lost. Very weird feeling that was. But a blast to play!
Completely agree. I always kept screwing around to find new locations, little did I know I was just following the story. My exploration was actually getting me through the mission the way the dev wanted
@@anselgrabill6316 There's a phenomenon I've been noticing for years, any games that give you multiple paths, one being the important way forward and the other being a dead end with a treasure, trying to guess things in the right order can range from mildly annoying to hugely frustrating (if the way forward locks you into a big cutscene and now you can't get back)
this one I just couldn't win with that. it's kind of cathartic finding out i was being guided.
I got lost at a couple points due to overlooking something. Didn't happen for long but it happens.
Yep, this game had the perfect balance between getting lost and finding things, where the "lost" part was actually enjoyable because it didn't last that long.
Happened to me once because I forgot about the diffusion charge in the charge beam 🤷🏼♂️ but yep, didn’t last long. Very satisfying when you figure it out
Me too. Like after the first elevator you have to break the wall to the left. I didn’t see the crack, so didn’t know I could break it.
I got 3 or 4 times, but when I did get lost, I got lost for a really long time. Finding the where to go after getting the space jump kept me lost for the longest time.
I got lost once and scoured the whole map looking for areas to go, and it ended up being that lava area with the blocks hanging down from the ceiling, as I didn't want to go through the lava or shoot the blocks (both of which would have worked fine haha).
I did enjoy that part as traversal feels great in Dread, and the map wasn't so huge at that point.
I just love how THAT room is becoming a bit of a meme in the community
what room?
At 13:14 (room where u have to blast the ceiling) I think, I was shocked and amused by it too. Like DAMN that’s gonna need a lot of aloe gel for that burn.
Gotta love the Jaffe Room. You have to wonder how many game journalists got trapped in it.
The game does everything it needs to do to get you to figure that room out. The only thing it doesn't do is spell it out for you completely like oh I dunno a god of war game might.
God of war was great for combat but it wasn't about exploring. Exploration wasn't the gameplay so you had to have your hands held more... Well I guess that's how people feel anyways, I'd be fine if they let go a bit more. For Metroid though, why even play if you just have an arrow pointing you in the right direction? Even if they used other tricks to guide you in dread it's waaaaay more satisfying then just an arrow or a flashing block or whatever
I'm surprised people got stuck there since my first thought was to shoot the ceiling, but I guess it's unfair to assume they've played as much Metroid
You underestimate my ability to get lost.
we got you Jaff
Same
This metroid game definitely makes you want to speedrun. The sequence breaks and movement techs make you feel like a god when you do something out of critical order, even if it was intentionally left open for you to do.
I think lots of them were intentional, there are so many really easy to do sequence breaks. And I encourage everyone to give it a go and try them in a second playthrough. The game is basically begging you to replay it, I think is a big part of its design and ignoring it is somewhat missing the point, or not trying to analyse what the developers were trying to do.
I believe that the first playthrough of Dread is more of a tutorial, so of course it is easy... you are learning the controls and the combat.
But once you do even just a few sequence breaks, the map really opens up, several teleporters and elevators become optional, you can do things out of order and even some boss fights become optional.
@@diegog1853 hehey, you make it sound like hollow knight!
@@inrevenant I honestly don't think so. I don't personally think hollow knight is a very replayable game. Specially if you like 100% completing your games. It took me 70+ hours to complete the game with the boss rush and everything. And I did attempt to do a second playthrough... That I abandoned, the start is honestly kind of slow and your initial movement ks kind of boring... Unlike super metroid or metroid dread, where you have a ton of movement options from the start, you start hollow knight really basic.
I think Hollow Knight does the metroidvania trope of exploration and getting lost better, maybe even better than super metroid. But I don't find it as replayable or as rewarding to control, specially in the early game. Loved the game though
@@diegog1853 112% (but I get what you meant)
@@diegog1853 Idk if I'm in the minority, but I adored hollow knight even more on my second playthrough! Got to 105%, excluding the pantheons, trial of the fool and NKG fight. And I'd love to play it again when I have time. To each their own.
Being a Metroid fan, I noticed the developers' tricks fairly quickly, and I thought I would hate what they were doing. I was pleasantly surprised, however, and enjoyed the wild ride they threw me on and was very impressed with how well they handled the tricks and the integration/synthesis of the map. A work of art, really, in its own right--just the design of the map itself.
I noticed it right away too, and it kept bugging me the whole game. I wanted to backtrack and freely explore and simply could not, more often than not. It felt hand-holdy in a way that wasn't at all welcome for me. I like to puzzle out how to progress the game and not have it spoon-fed. Still a very enjoyable game, and I hope they make more, even if it does the same things.
I have the exact opposite opinion. It turned me off and I stopped playing after the 4th area... I just have no desire to keep playing any longer. I liked the original Metroid more than these new carrot on a stick/guided tour hand holding gaming sessions.
I pretty quikly realized too that the next power-up was always magicly popping in front of me, but since i wanted to play the game i didn't tried too hard to get out of the way. Also, the number of locked items felt so big it was a little too sad to search them at each new power-up wich ones i unlocked so i pretty soon gave up and waited until the end of the game to 100%
@@poledra4153 Nice name? Any reference to the Belgariad/Malloreon/Polgara by David Eddings? The Wife of Belgarath?
@@CD-vb9fi
It's an anagram of leopard, but with a "é" because i talk french
The game did a great job of tricking me into thinking I was discovering my way forward with pure cleverness. But I’m also miserable at reading maps and remembering locations in video games, so Dread was the ideal Metroid experience for me.
I actually found my old Metroid habits worked against me with Dread. I think the “point of no return” implantation was good and helped me from being overwhelmed, but at times in the middle of the game I would unnecessarily backtrack and go back to explore somewhere random, when the path forward was really nearby through a tele-porter.
Same, I did a lot of unnecessary looping around lmao. Usually they'd still reward you with like one extra missile pack along the way, or the opportunity to get slightly further along a future path before coming to a second lock.
2 years later, I know, but I feel the same way. I'm just now playing it and all my old Metroid habits do not work whatsoever. The map letting you have markers on certain doors helps though
Exactly what I did. When playing a Metroid game, when I get a new power up, I want to go back and see all the places I can use it. But Dread actually punishes you for doing this. Either by locking you in an area with some scripted event (a wall crumbles and the only way to get out is using the teleporter or the like) or you walk all the way through various areas, only to find the item you're going for needs not only the super missiles you just got AND the power bomb AND the shinespark. This same issue existed in Samus Returns. Even worse in many ways.
The devs knew they'd have to thread the needle between being open for series veterans without leading players by the nose, AND avoiding making new players feel overwhelmed. I'd say they nailed it about as well as I could've hoped.
100%, I much prefer this over how fusion did it.
Yes this was much better then fusion or even Zero Mission which I know people love and I did too but it still had markers pointing you to places.
Also if the game wants to lead me the first time a bit, then cool, as long as I can break it somehow in future runs which it absolutely does and I absolutely did.
The community seem to be loving it, myself included so I'm hear for it personally
Honestly I wouldn't be surprised if, at some point in the next decade, Nintendo ends up releasing an open-world style Metroid game -- like BOTW.
They already did an amazing job with BOTW, halfway did it with Sword/Shield (only part of the game), and going by the trailers for the newest pokemon game, it looks like they're going full-steam-ahead, so that's two _major_ IPs that Nintendo has transitioned to open-world style gameplay.
@@flingage this is my hope for prime 4 if I'm being honest!
I feel like something left out of this discussion was the need to make Metroid Dread accessible to new players, leading to the slightly more hand-holding nature of the game. Nintendo invested a ton in marketing for this game, and is likely trying to make Metroid their more mainstream grown-up game, but needs to make it easier to get into. While I love games that are more challenging to navigate and traverse, I think that (especially with Nintendo's current audience), it's challenging to get people into that on a first try. I think Metroid Dread did a fantastic job of being satisfying for Metroidvania enthusiasts while still being approachable enough for a first-timer. I think this is a great step in the right direction and I'm optimistic that as the Metroid audience grows, the games can get more complex with time.
I agree. I've never played any Metroid, but by Mark's description, this approach screamed 'make it accessible to new players' to me.
If their goal is accessibility to the most players, why not also put difficulty modes? The difficulty is clearly designed only for hardcore players, much like getting lost in some other Metroid games is designed for hardcore players. They just shifted where they decided to make it hard. Before finding where to go was the hard part, and now it's the combat that's hard. I think they sacrificed one from of accessibility (one that hurts me because I like very non linear design) in favor of another. What I'm saying I don't think the games prime philosophy was accessibility so it's a shame it sacrificed non linear design in its name.
@@EdreesesPieces dark souls is popular but It's hard, why not the same thing with metroid?
Thank you for your post, but there’s been historical examples of dumbing down games for audiences which ended up backfiring and creating disappointment with handholding.
@@TheFoodieCutie examples?
The infamous ceiling you have to shoot earlier in the game.. the enemies in the room above are more of a backup solution. The other enemies crawl along the breakable blocks within the same room you are in. They are the primary and more natural cue to progress, as they cause you to shoot the breakable blocks by accident.
That didn't work for me at first, cause unless they were in my way, I only shot enemies if I wasn't at full health. I was at full health, and they weren't in the way, so I ignored them
@@Eidlones Maybe, but I'd say the majority of players shoot enemies most of the time because they otherwise cause problems. The spiders that crawl on that ceiling can launch acid blobs from their butts, which can bounce around and hurt you, so taking them out quickly is kind of important to avoid damage. The ones above you in the ceiling are also the annoying kind that are best dealt with by melee counter.
Ahhhhhh the famous "David" room!
I just found myself shooting missiles at anything remotely suspicious, but this isn't my first metroid experience.
I don't remember getting stuck at that room at all. I probably shot at the other enemies and accidentally hit the blocks
As a level designer (and a HUGE Metroid fan), I LOVED what they did with the points of no return.
The way I played the game, I placed map markers on all the spots I wanted to return to later, and then I carefully studied the entire map each time I got a new power. What I realized is that the points of no return will limit access to previous areas, but not always in the same way!
Sometimes I would come to the conclusion that I was completely unable to backtrack at that point, but other times I realized that I actually COULD go back to a certain area, but I'd have to loop around through ANOTHER area because of how a fidget spinner or a grapple block had closed one path but opened another.
That is the reason I never gave up on backtracking and getting all the items, because even though I knew that passages were always closing behind me, I never knew exactly which passages, how many, and if they'd still let me access parts of that area if I took the long way around.
Special mention definitely goes to Ghavoran, because I'd spend so much time scrolling through the map there, thinking "Wait, I can't get over there. Wait no, I can! Oh, nevermind, I can't. Hmm... Actually, I can, but unless I can fit a Screw Attack through a one-block opening, I'll have to teleport all the way down to Burenia and climb back up!" and I did, and it was fun, because to me, successfully planning a route while ogling the map is just as satisfying as actually playing the game.
That said though, I did find that the pacing jumped ahead a bit at the end, when you find yourself already standing at the final boss' doorstep before realizing that the entire world had opened up completely about an hour back. Presumably, that's where most of the cut content would've taken place, creating a bit more of a build-up and also filling out the suspiciously empty spot in the top right of the map.
And since this comment is already a wall of text, I might as well add that I really enjoy how the world is portrayed in the backgrounds of this game. If you peer into the back of the scenery, there's always some detail that connects the room to the rest of the zone, whether it's a tube that dissappears off into a vent, hinting at a secret area, the support pillars and guard station entrances that connect the Dairon labs to the surrounding cave system, or the fact that you can see the curvature of the Elun dome while descending the catwalks in western Ferenia. It feels similar to how the Souls games often let you spot upcoming locations waaaaay ahead of time, but only if you know exactly where to look and what to look for.
As a game player I hate this design mentality. I would never buy your games (if I knew you are the level designer). Why? It's simple... contrivances. This kind of level design is not thoughtful, it is "rat" in a maze levels of "someone controlling your progress" while unseen forces blocks, corrals, or prods you towards something. There is a reason many fans of Metroid did not receive Dread very well, I am one of them. I played the original Metroid on NES so I am "old school".
This problem is not just confined to Metroid Dredd, but when paths are "arbitrarily" blocked like this it breaks immersion because it begs the question "who did that to me? and why?". Now... if this "fits" into the game narrative then that is "fun" for example... when you entered a boss room in Super Metroid that door would "lock"... you see THAT makes sense. But in Dread where rocks fall blocking your path, or water levels change, or specially & conveniently placed explosion rocks are both blocking and providing access to new areas while blocking old ones does NOT make sense and it offends a scruitinous mind. Metal Gear on the nes worked in similar ways. You had to find keys to get through doors, but all of that makes excellence sense given the game setting. So it is definitely possible to do these things "right" while you and Dread are doing them all wrong.
Every game that boasts "open exploration" that has these gimmicks are a failure to me. They don't belong in them! If they must be used, then use sparingly, but Dread not only used them a plenty, it throws it right into your face. And yes... I heard the "excuses", the idea is to build "Dread" in the player making them "feel" like a rat in a maze. Well... that's fine... except they are all "natural formations" and constant caveins "well placed explosives" conveniently positioned water leveling and hidden passages are NOT natural.
To me, MetroidDread was a complete failure on all levels of what could have been a fantastic game! This is failed deverlopers taking a great IP and using it to make a game while "not understanding" what makes Super Metroid so good! The game was designed to provide sequence breaking and speeding running a thing "but according to developer logic" and THAT is a fail.
Open woulds should always be... "here is your move set" now lets see what you can do. It's NOT "here if your move set" oh... by the way... we put "gimmicks" into everything to see how well you tolerate all of these "gotcha's".
I never finished playing Dread, it is one of my "regret" purchases now because I knee jerk purchased that game expecting something great... but it was not.
I feel that a lot of the choices they made about guiding the player through was for those who have never played a Metroidvania/Metroid game before, especially considering this is the first actually new 2D Metroid in years, and for that, I can't really fault them. Guiding inexperienced players via an invisible hand can be extremely helpful, considering they won't be the most knowledgeable on various things veterans know.
Can I just say I really appreciate you giving such a good summary of a feature set that DIDN'T fit your own play style? The ability to acknowledge and appreciate a games mechanics seperate to your own personal experience is admirable.
Good job, great video as always
Always a good sign of an open minded fellow.
I kinda predicted you wouldn't like Dread's world design when I was playing it, I did feel like the game was gently pushing me towards the next objective, and every time I missed the path forward, there were one of those points of no return that made it easy to find the hidden blocks I missed. Personally I think for the majority of players this is good design, since most players hate getting lost and having to remember that one room you are supposed to go next between hundreds of rooms. You can still do that in this game, in my first playthrough after I got the space jump I did remember those lights in the water area and went there on my own, without finding the teleporter, and it did feel pretty good. But for those that like to get lost and have to make mental notes like yourself, I can see why this game is a little disappointing in that regard, but for me I thought it was masterfully designed, I didn't feel like the guiding was aggressive at all like you mentioned, as you have said it's still very possible to get lost.
Yeah I noticed it immediately the game just pushes you forward, I love the game but I did find it slightly agressive... That being said the game is genius when you completely ignore the pushing forward and you te to go and break it (granted you need at least one playthrough to enjoy and execute this)
Perfectly put. Nailed it to a tee.
> I did feel like the game was gently pushing me towards the next objective
I didn't feel like the game was very gentle with its pushing. The points of no return stopped me from doing what I want several times.
It was perfect for me. It made me feel like I was a bit lost, but never actually was. The videos point about “cognitive load” is huge for me and I believe is why I mostly bounce off this genre. It’s one of the few metroidvania games I’ve ever really LOVED for this reason. Just as an example, I HATE hollow knight. It’s just the definition of confusing & overwhelming to me.
@@martfp88 Even pushing the player forward is so well engineered I think it is genius.
I feel like I played a different game than everyone else. I found that I was lost very often. Idk if it was my bad memory or if I didn't pay enough attention, but I got stumped quite a few times. I felt like I would gain an ability, discover some of the area, then spend a long time trying to figure out where to use the new ability. At one point, I remember getting an ability and searching almost the entire map before going to a small area in burenia and finally finding the boss. Am I alone in my experience?
Happend to me aswell. Think the issue is, if you go for collectibles inbetween (because you got a new ability to be able to reach things you remembered). If you kind of follow the game where it tries to lead you instead of exploring, it wont be as bad.
Yeah I actually had to look up where to go cause I went off looking for collectibles part way through. Went off the golden path and forgot where to go back to 😅
I am somewhat embarrassed to admit this happened to me too after getting the grapple beam. That is because I ran off the beaten path to go back to find something new to use an ability on, and I forgot where the game was pointing me.
I was the same
I only got stuck finding the Varía Suit, instead of going just left, I explored all the map using the morph ball, I thought the suit was hidden in another area. The effects of playing Super and Prime 1 lol
Surprisingly as backwards as it sounds, the more you replay dread the more open it becomes and entices exploration. The sequence breaks you mentioned where nice, but by far not the end of it. The game deliberately tries to teach you tricks on the first playthrough, which you can use on subsequent playthroughs.
If you are going for 100% which many of us are on our first playthrough, you are confronted with really complicated shinespark puzzles. What players don’t know, these puzzles give you the basics for shinesparking end game. Why end game? Because it will be important on a later playthrough.
The second playthrough you play through. You are going to ask yourself, can I do this with that, only to be rewarded with opening up the gated map, leading to early boss fights and or early items.
What players don’t know is that the entire map was made to be sequence broken. Many blocks, secret passages are consecutively placed to make guide you to an item, in an unintended order. The best part, if you get said item early, the devs planned it, leading you to getting another item early and another.
Making an entirely different Route, while being able to get lost and explore the whole map.
Most of the time you feel like you are outsmarting the devs, only to notice, that they made a secret route, to an upgrade.
And here’s the best part, those secret routes, are never meant to be explored on a normal playthrough. They don’t have tanks or are connected to the intended route. They are just there to be for sequence breaking. Best example. The very first EMMI zone features secret tunnels throughout frozen artaria, to lead you to the screw attack before experiment Z-57. After the shinespark puzzle in Burenia, there are secret tunnels that lead directly to the room pre gravity suit. An entire room has been added in Dairon, to get thr grapple beam early, and with it (you can also get following upgrade without the GB) you can get the bombs, with which you can get the flash shift and pulse radar early. Before Kraid mind you! All Aeion Abilities within early game.
If you cleverly shinespark in Dairon, you can get the Super Missiles early, which are a great help for bosses like the chozo soldiers and Drogyga.
After getting the ice missiles, you can get the cross bombs early by sequence breaking out of an intended area with the shinespark. In the same room, you can get to Burenia early ro get the gravity suit early, of course shinesparking required. In Ferenia, with cross bombs and the shinespark, you can get the space jump early. With the shinespark and screw attack you can kill escue in 10 seconds. The gravity suit, makes the purple EMMI sections a breeze. And all of these are dev intended and don’t require glitches, but clever thinking.
If you sequence break one item, you are led by an invisible hand to sequence break all of them.
70% of the items are early obtainable, without glitches!!! All being intended by the developers!!!
Talking abouz the first run through dread is doing a major disservice to the true openness of the Game. The openness may be hidden at fist, but the first playthrough is there to teach you, how to break out of the shell! All of those Missile tanks and E Tanks that where only possible with Shinesparking, where a tutorial for the „hidden” game experience for dread.
So if any if you think Dread is linear and focuses less on exploration, please try sequence breaking the game. Only then you will truly experience the brilliant game design of Metroid Dread
Of course Super is still superior in the SB department, with the reverse boss rush and all. But Dread comes really really close to Super Metroids openness regarding sequence breaking. Dread is significantly more open in that regard than Zero Mission.
Fair points and it's cool that Metroid offers this style of repeat play, but personally I found that it made the first playthrough kinda bland. The map felt so mechanical and artificial, not like an organic world I ever wanted to learn more about.
I have done a sequence break playthrough in dread and can second this post but I absolutely disagree with Dread being more open to sequence breaking than zero mission. In ZM you are free to not pick up most upgrades and finish the game with just the morph ball, a single missile tank, power grip, bombs, ice beam and the 3 unknown items required for a 9% item completion just because the varia suit is given automatically when you get the fully powered suit.
You can fight ridley before kraid, grab the screw attack before the varia suit, get super missiles early, there are many different routes you can take to beat the game, all developer intended and also has a special ending illustration for hard mode under 15%. It's definitely the second most open game in the series for sequence breaking.
Kinda reminds me of what Mark Rosewater would call lenticular design. For a card game, you can make a card that seems simple to newer players yet complex to advanced ones. You do this by making an obvious intended use for new players to see, while advanced players can see all the edge cases it can be applied. The complexity is gaited by the amount of knowledge you have.
As someone who was really disappointed by the level design, maybe I should try that. I did LOVE how the end game shinespark puzzles taught me new ways to use the ability, it might be fun trying it earlier on. Not sure how much I'll enjoy having to escape so many one-way lock traps though, I feel like I could easily have my precious sequence breaking taken away by just stepping on the wrong tile lol
I might give it a shot and play through the game a second time
He needs to pin this comment !!
For me personally, Dread struck the perfect balance between letting me explore and guiding me forwards. I did go right when I got the morph ball *on purpose* to go check all of those morph ball tunnels I had seen throughout the game so far... And it was slightly confusing in a cool way to realize that the final area I was targeting was where I was *supposed* to end up, just from the other side.
When it comes to the Morph Ball leading to the Varia Suit, I don't know if I've repeated a path from Point A to Point B. Granted I've only completed that section of the game 3 times, but that's sweet map design to allow for multiple paths to get to the same location.
Of course, I did restart the game after the first time I got the double jump because I didn't understand the underwater jump mechanic *despite it literally being part of the description when the double jump is first obtained* and felt like I was completely stuck in the Ghavoran water, but I figured out the double jump on my second playthrough attempt. XD
11:44 "enemies on the other side of a wall can encourage you to blast through hidden blocks" david jaffe in shambles
My most negative experience with this world design is when I finally did circle back and look into optional areas, sometime after getting the gravity suit, and finding rooms clearly designed for the varia suit: hot, but with lava at the bottom that you still need to avoid. As I made quick work of them with the gravity suit, I genuinely wondered when I had the option to go here with the varia suit. There undoubtedly was a point when I could do that, but the world design just took me all the way from varia to gravity before I broke out and started wandering.
I felt kinda sad for the rooms, like they were being actively sabotaged by the rest of the world. If you weren't dedicated to exploration for its own sake you'd never see the challenge they were designed to hold, you'd only see trivial roadblocks that don't mean anything to a late-game Samus.
This is so true. I know exactly what room you’re talking about lol
the space jump makes it feel like you're wrecking the level 8 rattata kid with your level 73 legendaries because you missed him on route 1 at the start of the game
@@dazcarrr Puzzle: Clearly for the grappling beam
Me: Space Jump go WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
That's definitely been a theme since the gba games: the exploration after completing everything, and it does feel like it slightly breaks emersion. It's sort of what the prime series did too (though I find it slightly better since the ruins were required).
I disagree. Personally, I did all those rooms with the Varia suit, and even accidentally found sequence breaks just wandering around the map. Woops?
"Why You Didn't Get Lost in Metroid Dread"
Anakin Voice: You underestimate my power!
"Why you didn't get lost in Metroid Dread?"
the only correct answer: because my name is not David Jaffe
lol
I can tell 13:16 was absolutely a jab at David Jaffe.
@@freetrader0000 Well, he got lost, so I guess he won't watch this video
Ja, very quickly the thought came to my mind that he should watch this video.... he probably won't though :P
Was that the guy who couldn't beat the cup head intro?
I actually got lost early on my first run but from a different section with hidden blocks
Honestly - I appreciated being lead in the right direction most of the time.
There was one or two times where I blanked the "obvious" progression route and accidentally explored a bunch - but since I got to explore more and pick up upgrades I missed then that was still an enjoyable experience.
Mostly though, I'm just a lot busier nowadays - so I definitely appreciate a game that will give me a focused and concentrated experience if I'm willing to follow it's lead and not force myself to fight against it.
Metroid Prime 1 will always have a special place in my heart - as my first Metroid game, and the one where I truly had time to explore and get lost in its environments. Metroid Dread was a concentrated romp from start to finish - and I even took the time out first time through to get 100% items.
EDIT: It may have also helped that this was my second 2D Metroid game; the first being Fusion. Not being able to cakewalk the bosses definitely helped slow down my experience a little - and that might have helped break up the exploration a bit more than the average player.
This was my first Metroid game, and the strategies described here really made the experience for me. It’s not a coincidence that the most frustrating part of my first playthrough was shortly after getting the speed boost. The devs rely on you learning the shine spark to navigate easily to the teleporter that takes you to the grapple beam. I didn’t know how to shine spark and consequently got lost searching for progression in Burenia, when I was supposed to head back to Arataria through one of the teleporters mentioned in the video.
I noticed this myself. Whenever I would come to a teleport, I knew I was meant to go through it at that exact moment. I literally never got lost once from beginning to end.
I'm personally a completionist when it comes to Metroidvania's, and this game was pretty great for that, because it was generally clear which way I had to go, so I would check around the other ways and clear out what I could find, then move on. That said, the one-way gates got INCREDIBLY frustrating when I was finishing up the last few unlockables, because a path would look clear on the map, but then it wouldn't be when I got there. I wish a late game powerup (say, power bombs) could have been able to destroy the flip gates. It would have saved a lot of tedium.
You must not have known then that if you take the elevator to Itorash and then go back down, all of the teleporters will connect to each other, so you can go literally anywhere easily.
Agree with this a ton, knowing where you need to go is equally useful when you don't want to go that way. And those valve gates really should've been toggleable with the last powerup at least.
@@nikxneon6615 Wait, really. FFS, I decided to go collectible hunting right before going to Itorash because I thought going there would be a cutoff point, or at least it would've felt weird to leave the final boss area just after entering it in order to go collectible hunting. Well, useful for future playthroughs, I guess.
@@nikxneon6615 Wait what do you mean? You can choose any teleporter you want as a destination? Does it tell you this?
@@Dharengo It tells you that just after unlocking the last teleporter. (I actually had the blue teleporter as my last one and not the one on Itorash)
The sequencing of this game is like Metroid Fusion, but quiet.
That is painfully accurate
Honestly I felt it's the way fusion should have been done. It gives the player some sense of agency, but allowing the developer to tailor the experience and narrative.
The gating of dread is way more organic and seamless than in fusion.
@@IIIXouIII to be fair they actually wanted to do a Fusion remake
differences here you can do multiple breaks while in fusion eh not so much
I noticed how Dread continually locked the door behind me and enticed me forward with teleporters pretty early on in my first playthrough and I felt a little underwhelmed by the exploration, but I also play metroidvanias for the lore and combat just as much as the exploration and both were incredible in Dread, so I didn't let it bog me down too much. I feel the exploration really shines in subsequent playthroughs, as backwards as that sounds, because its then that you start realizing that the game has way fewer hard backtrack locks and way more ways to get things early than you first realized. Doing a second playthrough getting grapple beam, ice missiles, and gravity suit early was a completely different experience to the normal progression, and motivated me to do the speedrun challenges for the gallery on both normal and hard mode
I usually see sequence breaks as valid paths outside the critical path, in Mark's Zero Mission Review I disagree with him disregarding them as valid alternative paths built in the game's level design
The usual skills used for sequence breaking are even taught in the demo that plays on the Super Metroid title screen, I feel like the game gives you all the tools and it's just a matter of the player's creativity to use them to do things in a non- conventional way, similar to puzzle solving on Zelda BotW.
But on Dreads's case, they purposely give you the morphball and bombs later in the game and limit the sufaces the wall jump work on so they can have more control over the player. The things needed for sequence breaking are like special secrets you will only find out after playing the game at least once.
They add replay value, but don't help with the exploration on your first playthrough.
To be honest, I really wish that Dread kept map progress on new game plus the way Fusion does. I want to try replaying the game to see if I can’t get some of those upgrades out of sequence, but the fact that I’d have to literally plan it out *before* starting the game rather than being able to check around and figure out where the routes I missed the first time around are makes it seem less possible to me…
I just killed that floating eye mini boss ... and i am freaking LOST
There's 7 of them, you're gonna need to be more specific
After those bosses you get the ability to kill the nearby emmi and get a new ability.
after learning about the one-way door in Super, I started paying attention to points of no return, so I noticed a lot of the ones in Dread, but I also learned to welcome them and keep some of them in mind, especially with the ability to place markers in the map. They didn't feel as much like a direct interference in my gameplay but rather an invitation to visit the place again later, after uncovering more of the world elsewhere.
I actually made sure to backtrack after finding out about Itorash so I could get some upgrades and visit some more hidden areas. The only thing I didn't do were the shinespark puzzles because I didn't know at the time that it was given more flexible mechanics and thought they would require some very heavy execution
I'm kinda in two minds so far with Dread. On the one hand the feeling of movement and navigation is superb, but on the other there's been times where I got a new power and felt like I was being shuffled towards the next one rather than being given a chance to explore and find the way myself. Like the avenues for discovery were a little too narrow. Overall I am enjoying it a lot though.
I was about to say something, but you just sums it up with your comment (:
I didn't really feel "free" until I got Space Jump.
Until I started sequence breaking, the only main I felt was that I was being herded into moving where the devs wanted me to go. It felt like Fusion to me, but without the blinky "TARGET" label on my map.
100%
In my opinion that feeling comes from how claustrophobic the rooms are. Look at the map, and you see that each room is shaped exactly how it needs to be. In super metroid, the rooms are much larger and rectangular, making them more open. In my opinion that openness adds much more to atmosphere than the rooms shaped just how the have to be, and then crammed with stuff.
Yeah, the game "tricked" me for the first few hours; I understood what it was doing, but BUT it started letting the other parts of my brain creep to the forefront for items and speedrunning. Other than Super M, this is the first Metroid game that I immediately started playing again after the credits, knowing that I wanted to get all the items. The shine spark puzzles were mindblowingly fun to work out, then execute, which took even longer. In other Metroid games, if I got stuck on a shinespark puzzle that wasn't essential, I would just leave it behind. I guess what I'm trying to say is that in previous games ALL I cared was exploration (thanks Super M and Prime), NOW I play for completion, speed-running, AND sequence breaking, which is crazy to me.
this is a very interesting point "the game has led you to consider making these challenges more accessible than other interactions"
@@electroamp I also liked that the power bombs had good utility in the last boss battle. That sun like thing killed me way too many times until I discovered its weakness.
I kept getting lost specifically in a loop between a couple of the teleports, and I can't quite recall which item I was missing for progression. I should probably play through again.
Same
As someone who played Metroid in the ‘80s and had played every mainline game, Dread feels more like a Metroid-inspired game than a true Metroid game.
Superficially it seems like a Metroid game, but there’s a lot they didn’t get right. Namely the atmosphere, music, exploration. All of this in exchange for many boss fights and mini-boss fights. It felt like a game that was way more skills-focused. I’m questioning if we’ll ever get a proper 2D Metroid game again. I enjoyed Samus Returns, but something was lost with Dread.
I’m hoping Nintendo gives someone else a crack at the series or does it in-house next. Something like Super or Zero Mission with updated graphics and gameplay.
@@Labyrinth1010 "As someone who played Metroid in the '80s" ... ... Dude. You sound absolutely miserable to be around. Go back to playing Metroid on the NES. Dread is easily one of the finest installments of the Metroid series since Prime. You do not come off as superior for playing Metroid in the 80's; you come off like an ass.
@@0ThrowawayAccount0 piss off, dude. It’s a freaking opinion.
The gold standard of Metroid games is Super. How much of that game is about combat and skill? Metroid games are first and foremost about exploring, not combat.
There are many that share my opinion. It’s ok to have different opinions on things. Really. It’s ok.
Mercury Steam didn’t get the vibe right, the essence of a Metroid game. Retro did. Prime got it right.
@@Labyrinth1010 cry some more
I got a little annoyed by the point of no returns at times, like when I got an ability, remembered an item I could now get on the other side of the biome, but that part was now locked off and I was forced to move on. But the combat and pacing was near perfect, so I loved the game and the end-game item hunt, going trough all areas with all abilitys and being able to just easily cross all of those Points was very satisfying. Plus some of the items are very well hidden or behind tricky speed-booster puzzles, so there was still a sense of exploration in that item hunt.
I really strongly feel like the game's number scale for damage and health is way off basically from Kraid onward. Did you know the golden Chozo bot deals 300-400 damage with its spear? Why do we have so many health upgrades for the sole purpose of allowing you to survive 3 or 4 hits to an endgame boss? If you want it to be a threat, then make it feel earned, rather than the same boss for the fifth time just with More Numbers. I did 100% item completion and got to the final boss and then got stunlocked in the corner for more than have my health because I missed a jump over his melee combo and he just stood on me.
Metroid Dread may be the finest playing Metroid game to date, but it is by no means perfect in execution.
@@JoshTheValiant The flaw with that argument is that all the bosses in this game rely heavily on pattern recognition. After you've been beaten enough times, eventually you'll be able to beat a boss with minimal scratches. Therefore, upping the damage and restricting your margins of error is, in my opinion anyway, a decent way to make the boss threatening. For sure, fighting a recolor of a previous boss isn't that big a deal since the strategy doesn't change, but knowing that it will hit you harder and demand even more precision from you is a perfect way for them to be more threatening for this game.
@@hedgehoundable Not to mention the Chozo Soldiers *do* get some new tricks with the new recolor showing up.
@macross_56 That's my biggest criticism of the first two Prime games.
I didn't think they final boss could stunlock you. Yes, you can absolutely get cornered, but there was always just enough room to escape after a combo, so long as I was jumping toward the wall behind me, and not toward the boss (as I erroneously tried on a few of my attempts). The latter will definitely make you feel like you get stuck there, but you're not actually.
As someone who loves backtracking to previous areas, these points of no return were really frustrating.
Extremely. If I didn't want the possibility of backtracking or getting lost, I wouldn't have played every Metroid before Dread. It's part of what makes this genre. Get more capable, expand your reach into world. Dread actively thwarts that key mechanic. And that just blows.
@@joesterling4299 early grapple. Then you dont really have thay problem as much
@@ebi_tempura That might help in a couple scenarios but not in most. Dread uses a wide variety of ways to lock you into their path including high water, rotating barricades, one-way doors, and even freezing the entire map for no reason and no pay off.
@@proteamdirector true. The game is only properly open when you also allow pseudo waves which are a glitch
I actually found it even more satisfying when I could finally loop back and reach those areas.
Hi Mark.
Having watched your Boss Keys before, my first playthrough through Dread was with that critical eye and noticed the Points of No Return whenever they happened.
Something I thought would have been good to talk about was the much more detailed map in Dread than in previous Metroid games.
Hollow Knight creators went with the decision of a minimally detailed map because they thought too many map markers would confuse players.
Mercury Steam went in the complete other direction with Dread and noted every single obstacle in the path. And, ultimately, I think that is the better decision. In one of Nerrel's videos, he made an interesting note: the more detailed map listing every obstacle could effectively serve as another form of waypoint marker. The difference is, whereas games like Zero Mission explicitly put your next destination on the map, the more detailed map in Dread served to show various points of interest the player could now explore with their new abilities. It just doesn't explicitly tell you "You can get through THESE obstacles now!". And leaves you to find these disguised "waypoint markers" on the map screen for yourself.
The more detailed map served as a tool to guide the player in finding the path forward. In a way that the player could find on their own, by effectively putting multiple "waypoint markers" on the map at once, disguised as obstacles on a more detailed map. And cutting down on player frustration of having to make their own notes.
You make a very good point about how the game uses the map to guide the player in a subtle, but effective way. Having every single "lock" marked on the map cuts down on the frustration a first time player might experience trying to remember all the places where they might have the ability to use a certain powerup to progress.
I was eagerly waiting an episode on Metroid Dread, love this series
That makes two of us! Or maybe a million.
@@Vandreand Probably a million lol (me included)
The amount of convenience in every level design is so Metroid
This seems like metroid, the toddler edition. Hope a game with free exploration comes
@@somerandomchannel382 Oh my god I couldn't agree more... They went too far in the blocking. I feel they need to take the lesson from super metroid's highjump/icebeam lock when you fall in the room in red brinstar right after the wave beam one way: the best locks in these games can be picked without having you do shit like shoot through the wall by sliding and jumping into the ceiling... You don't technically need the varia suit in super metroid, it's just that if you're not extremely good, you will not make it through the hot areas, making those very hot areas my favorite god damn locks in the series. When I got to the first hot room in dread, I was excited to be able to do the exact same thing, only to discover that A: they all have even more locks in them, so going through them early is almost always useless, and B: you will die before you can even do the skip anyways to the 50 fucking damage per tick. There are only 3 places you can get lost in Super if you have the skills the game expects you to have (so no IBJ, shinespark, wall jumping, etc.), immediately after icebeam if you don't get the grapple beam, immediately after space jump, and the entirety of maridia. For the first two, the solution is relatively simple, just rearrange the map so there is an obvious pathway from ice beam to grapple beam/swap their locations so that you can't escape norfair/ lower brinstar without getting the more obscure upgrade and make a more direct pathway from space jump to ridley's lair. For maridia, that just needs an entire rework, because maridia SUCKS
But it's not Super Metroid level convenience.
Tell that to Metroid on NES lol
@@somerandomchannel382 have you played it tho? I didn't yet but it seems really well designed, i don't think they went too far with the block for what i'm seeing here, since it keeps you from getting lost by going in the wrong direction BUT i'm with Boss Key in the sense that they should've made some collectables outside of the main path for those who want to explore.
[But as i said, i haven't played it yet so my opinion is purely based on my other Metroid experiences and this video]
I literally just finished my first playthrough of Dread and I gotta say, it shot immediately up in my top 10 games ever. I've always loved the Metroid series, but in previous games I would often stop playing when I got frustrated by getting lost and not remembering where I'm supposed to go, so this "breadcrumbs" that you mention are perfect for me.
Dread is such an incredible addition to the series, hopefully not the last one.
“Why You Didn’t Get Lost in Metroid Dread”
That is, if you aren’t David Jaffe
wth is that
@@metalicarus8372 A jab at a moron having trouble with "The Jaffe Room".
there were parts where i wanted to avoid a boss and attempted to find a way back and wasted a lot of time doing it
@@tallynnyntyg6008 Bets it gets called that if they make a randomizer someday?
@@metalicarus8372 a games journalist who got stuck in the room at 13:15 which I also have begun to call ''The Jaffe Room''
That's probably the reference being made :)
The clip I've seen shows him going to ALL the different blocked off paths before going back, then proceeds to make zero effort at moving forward, because aparently, ''all rooms are dead ends''
Well, this is a metroid game, if all rooms are dead ends, start blasting.
Poor David Jaffe, first the japanese tip video and now this. The blows just keep coming.
Which tip video?
I laughed when he actually showed that section in the video. Felt like a very slight nod that his way.
@@ezralaguna Sorry can't get you link right now but I think its on the Japanese Nintendo youtube channel and its tips for the demo if that helps. The first tip actually shows the room David Jaffe got stuck in, so maybe they felt it wasn't obvious enough... or they are having a jibe at him.
The first joke had me wondering, jokes 2 and 3 made me certain he was calling out David. To be fair, the shade was well earned.
@@Kuranghi thanks anyway
Me, 10 hours after finding the Phantom Cloak and having no idea what I'm supposed to be doing next, oh and also having been eaten alive about 150 times since then: "Yeah, I'm gonna need to watch this one closely."
Wait a minute... 3:36 for real!? I have the Phantom Cloak but I don't have the Morph Ball, yet somehow I have access to almost the entire map (of course, by "entire" I mean I can get to both ends of it). I must have broken something somewhere...
@@NintendoCapriSun Sequence Breaking is a classic part of metroid, congratulate yourself
@Nintendocaprisun Tim!
@@NintendoCapriSun You can jump and morphball in the air, I think I did the same thing to backtrack, but I could be wrong
"My favourite company AND drink into one man?!"
I had a blast with Dread, but I did feel let down by its guided linearity. I want to get lost and explore. After awhile I realized the game was putting me exactly where I needed to be, and took some of the magic out of what I am attracted to in metroidvanias.
I got lost for an hour, and took me 15 hours for my first play through where I got 100%, and loved every minute of it.
Honestly this aspect of the game, the frequency of the "point of no return" bugged me. I'd get a new power up, want to head back to a blocked area, only to be railroaded, with the endgame having the same miniboss on loop.
This game is great! Amazing bosses, Interesting lore for Metroid, but I just wanted freedom.
I remember fighting the linear aspect and based on my experience from other Metroid games, I instantly back tracked and that's actually what caused me to get lost or felt I was soft locked. I picked up on the navigation aspect based on the teleport locations that made it undeniable that I was in the right area. I also remember getting the bombs and bomb jumping my way into secret areas and getting the nostalgic Metroid feeling I was expecting. I loved it!
I never felt like I was allowed to explore in this game, it feels more like I’m on a rollercoaster with a “progress game” button.
Dread was my first Metroid game, and my second Metroidvania. And the lack of obvious direction coupled with a very subtle but concrete adherence to the critical path helped me not feel like I was throwing myself against a wall the way I sometimes felt playing Hollow Knight. And, even though the path was more or less handed to me, I still felt very _smart_ for continually uncovering it. And, ultimately, while it could’ve been more earned in retrospect, I don’t think that smart feeling can be discounted.
I would really love to see you take on Dread's sequence breaking more thoroughly (which I don't see as distinct from exploration, at least with a game that expects it to this extent.) You acknowledged it at the end of the video, but an analytical approach to when a sequence break significantly opens up more of Dread's map, and when it doesn't, would be fascinating. I suspect (although I'm not sure) you might appreciate that aspect of the level design more if you dig deeper into it.
I agree. I definitely think that is something to dig into.
sequence breaking is part of what makes metroidvania world design to begin with. You could make an entire video about how just doing red tower early in SM basically immediately breaks the entire game open.
a video about this dimension of the game would be ideal to really give that notion of "casual player" or "expert in the genre" that the developers apparently chose to create.
Even as a veteran of Metroid I actually really liked the pace this sort of level design provided. Without the game locking you back out I think navigation would be pretty tough as it’s harder for me to distinctly remember what connects to where compared with other Metroid games for some reason.
I think the game more than supplements the lost difficulty on this way by making the bosses in general harder than most of the series. As well as having all the emmi sequences making exploring a faster, more frantic experience until you take that emmi down.
I remembered playing dread and being like, damn it’s really easy to get lost in this game.
And then I played an old Castlevania game and realized, oh shit dread’s been really good at giving subtle hints of where to go all along
I actually did get lost, but it almost always seemed obvious once I found the right way to go. They did a good job.
Same. When I realized where I was supposed to go, I just felt like an idiot for not seeing it sooner.
@@VCXZ883 also for me, it was very late in the game when this happened. It stops holding you hand a little, but it still leads you the right way. When you fail to see it, then you begin to wander off and get lost.
I never felt too guided on my first playthrough of Dread, I think they've done a really good job at making the player feel lost while also making sure that the path forward isn't unnaccessible
The problem is that they've also made sure that the path back is almost completely unaccessible. Sure, fine for players like you who just want to press forward. Awful for seasoned Metroid players who actually like to explore properly. Every time I wanted to go out of my way to explore, I was f***ing blocked.
@@thenonexistinghero Not only that, in past metroid games, they give you a new item and expect you to backtrack to be able to use these new items and find new paths. When in this game you back track get completely lost for an hour or so just to find out you needed to press forward and shoot an invisible wall.
I was watching the invisible hand the whole time thinking: "Oh no! Not another Fusion!", but soon after I completed the game, I found the speedrun, and immediately, there were sequence breaks left and right and glitches being discovered like the pseudo-wave beam, and I'm optimistic about my second playthrough.
unfortunately it's still extremely linear...
I had a lot of fun on my second play-through breaking the games normal sequence honestly
@@Itsakoopahere It's still not nearly as good as super metroid. Don't praise the game devs for skips that involve glitches, only early bombs/flash shift (a waste of time), early super missiles (virtually useless, there are no super missile outside of the intended path) and early gravity suit/cross bombs deserve any recognition for the devs, and of those only 1 is actually useful or interesting...
meanwhile in super metroid, kraid is almost optional, power bombs can be gotten as your 4th item, space jump can hypothetically be skipped (but it will be PAIN), etc... I don't think getting to ridley without gravity suit is possible without glitches, but it might be. I never looked into it too hard because it was far too painful...
@@bastian_5975 I mean, we can get screw attack at any point after speedbooster. Gravity is possible soon as you have ice missiles. Space and spin boost are completely optional. You can get grapple as soon as you have Varia, and then go get bombs if you'd like. The game is pretty linear up until just before vanilla diffusion beam, at which point your options really open up (if you know the speedrun strats)
@@bastian_5975 Oppsie Doopsie Doo! What I didn't want to hear!
There was only one place in the game where I got stuck (for about an hour), and that was the first time I encountered the magnet-pull-down platform. I misinterpreted it when I first saw it, thinking you had to stand on top of it, and put it out of my mind. It's also kinda tucked away in a spot that's easy to overlook and you are unlikely to revisit when re-exploring. It was my only way forward and I completely misunderstood its purpose hahah. Apart from that, I completed the game without doing a ton of unnecessary backtracking and it honestly felt kinda short, despite being a full-length 2D Metroid game and even after 100%ing it.
I did EXACTLY the same thing
I actually DID get lost 😂 my map-reading skills are way rusty!
It’s actually my fault 😂 so used to hand-holding from other games I guess 🤔
Same, back tracked the whole map before I realized I could get to the last Central Unit with what I had.
Gonna be honest I find the map to be a bit hard to read at first. The colors made it really hard to tell what is going on.
Same lmao, I realized it was my fault instantly when I looked at where I needed to go on the internet, it was right there but my idiot self just went the other way
I also got lost. Right before getting Super Missiles I went in the wrong direction and ended up wandering around the map for an hour before returning where I had been and found the missiles.
"get stuck in a room and proclaim it as a crime against game design".
A poke at David Jaffe
The fact that what feels like exploration at first turns out to be more linear than it first appears, and in particular the idea that you're being invisibly guided along a linear path through the game is actually thematically appropriate to the game's story. I won't give any spoilers though.
Noticed all of the "points of no return", or as I was calling them during my playthrough "one way doors", after the first couple of upgrades. I think the level design to make this happen is incredible, even though I would overall prefer a bit more freedom to explore as well. I feel like the limits on exploration would have been harder to swallow without the really fun combat, especially the boss and sub-boss fights, and the larger focus on the story than is typical in the Metroid series. And I was skeptical about the EMMIs going into this game, but those sections were awesome: frustrating to be caught but really captured the feeling of dread. This definitely felt like a soft-reboot of sorts, a way to make the genre easier to jump into for new players. And I hope lots of new players do try this out because I want huge sales numbers to encourage Nintendo to make more!
one interesting thing is that you end up studying the map just as hard as you would if you had full freedom.. you're tracing out the paths you could take, only instead of "hmm i could go this way.. or i could go that way.. which one should I do first.." with no real clue as to which path is going to ultimately be more beneficial in what order, if at all. Whereas in Dread you're tracing paths on the map going "well I can't go that way.. or that way.. oh but THIS way, I can go! .... but only if I'm careful not to go that way, which will lock me off." and it wouldn't have been so frustrating except for one or two parts where, only if you knew ahead of time, you could totally skip ahead of where it was funneling you. I'm reminded of several falling sequences where you had a brief window to grapple or dash into a gap, but if you missed it, too bad for now.
Recently saw a better description: points of later return
15:22 even as a completionnist, sometimes when the game blocked my path backwards I WANTED to find a way back just so I can grab the items I could now with my new upgrades
I constantly thought the same, and was frustrated the game wouldn't let me backtrack to get items. Ironically I think that contributes to the already heightened combat difficulty in this game too.
That's what drove me nuts. I knew the game was driving forward but I wanted more power for boss fights. It was a real struggle as I fought the railroad constantly.
I picked up on a lot of the guiding techniques quite consciously, and its really cool to see someone else repeat my thoughts back to me. Really good video, thanks!
Your analysis & attention to detail is incredible. Awesome explanation.. thank you.
It is amazing how Mark managed to put all my feelings about Dread into words, even when I myself struggled with explaining it myself. Im firmly in Team navigation regarding metroid games
The fact that you used the clip of that *one* room while calling out people saying that it's a crime against game design is still funny, one year later.
Metroid is the type of game series where it feels open to explore but with clever design is actually a linear game that desguises itself well
"Why you didn't get lost"
Speak for yourself, you can _never_ underestimate how bad my sense of direction is!
(Still loved the game, but there's a reason my completion time was 12 hours.)
Did you get 100 percent completion?
@@AlexTr0uble 12 hours was like, 92%. I had to go back afterwards and do the shinespark puzzles after I beat the game (I didn't know the tricks like "walljumping while speedboosted" before).
seriously, how do you get lost in this game? I feel like its built so well that my directionless ass managed to never be "lost" for more than 1 minutes, and then I'd feel even dumber because it was kind of obvious
@@brya9681 At a couple of points late in the game, it opens up so much that there are a handful of places you can go, and even more places where you can _almost_ go, but you'd have to check to make sure. Especially if you go out of your way to explore and collect goodies everywhere, it's pretty easy to overlook or forget, like, three completely unmarked blocks you have to break.
@@swagner7767 I had almost 12 hours at 100%. I don't think you got lost that bad then.
While I can appreciate being challenged in exploration and navigation every so often, I absolutely *despise* being directionless to the point of wandering aimlessly for long stretches of time. A lack of direction with no foothold, nothing to latch on to when my patience exhausts, is one of the most surefire ways to get me to drop a game in irritation. There is a limit to how lost I can be before I just give up.
While yes, Dread is rather aggressive in its indirect guidance, I honestly prefer to have it than not or barely at all. I thought it was all quite clever and usually pretty subtle in how it was executed.
But what also deserves a mention here that wasn't touched upon in the video is the map screen. For the first time, the map will show you exactly what each door requires once you have the needed ability, where you have encountered destructible blocks and what destroys them (such blocks also stay revealed once uncovered, unlike in previous games), collectibles are marked on the map once discovered and specify if they have been collected or not, save- and transport rooms are colour-coded and hidden collectibles are hinted at through by having a section of the map flash, so you're not left bombing every wall of every room aimlessly. This further assists in navigating and especially makes the collectible hunt much more respectful of the player's time.
All in all I absolutely adore Dread and man, I can't wait until this game gets to make a GDQ appearance. It's gonna be wild.
This video has sold me on Metroid dread. A Metroid that cuts out huge swaths of wasted time exploring sounds like a perfect game
...that's removing the whole point of metroid though.
As someone who loved hollow knight and got all achievements plus some with the bonus things like hall of gods and path of pain, Metroid Dread was phenomenal. Easily my game of the year. The combat and movement in Dread is just on another level, Samus just feels so good to control. Plus the boss fights are amazing, think the only flaw I saw with those was the x chozo warriors but otherwise enjoyed every fight.
As for exploration, I’ve 100% the game four times now and while you keep sequence breaking and speed running separate from exploration, I’d argue they are one in the same. All Metroid games have pushed players to attempt sequence breaking/speedrunning with the clear time rewards. Sequence breaking simply gives players alternate methods of exploration and as you pointed out, the devs very intentionally wanted players to sequence break. For my first play through, when I noticed how the game subtlety guided the player I came to appreciate the world design so much more, and instead of taking the obvious route that was just nearby, I’d mark it in my map using the marker system and return when I had collected all the bonus gear I could scattered around the map.
I feel like it truly combines both worlds, Dread _can_ be for those veterans who are looking for ways to break the sequence, and having tons of mobility options that mastery requires a lot of skill. But it also welcomes newcomers all the same with invisible guiding techniques shown in this vid that keeps them engaged and not frustrated by giving them too many options at once. Combat is great, boss fights are great. What's not to love about this? Glad you enjoyed it man, from one Metroid fan to another.
Joining on this too. Dread felt like the best of both worlds and a genius way to welcome all kinds of players.
Except game designers, apparently lmao
I think it is a near perfect balance of guidance and disorientation. I loved that it had a seemly faster pace without literally telling you where to go. I definitely got lost a few times but not enough to where the game became frustrating. It was an enjoyable experience throughout. Everything I want out of a Metroid game
Excellent video BTW. Great topic to discuss and analyze.
I never really got lost in Dread, but I've seen a number of people who did, especially at the point where you get the wide beam and have to double back (which is the one part of the game that isn't very intuitive). It's interesting to see the difference in experiences among different players.
I really liked Dread, and honestly I would often feel lost in the world. The world of Dread feels way bigger than any of the other Metroid games, so I don't mind these little techniques they implemented to guide the player.
I actually was able to get myself lost in Metroid dread for a good while, somewhere around halfway through the game I went on an item hunt backtracking through most of the previous areas. And after I had my fill of that, it actually took a fair amount of thinking and exploration at random before I found the critical path again. It only took maybe an hour to find it, so I didn't find this too frustrating. It was fairly satisfying to carefully examine the map to figure that out for myself. I prefer being able to do that.
Yeah, after the speed booster things get interesting!
i've been replaying the metroid prime trilogy recently (yet again) and even though i was spoiled by the toggleable hint system when i played them as i was younger, i always went back to them just because.
it felt like comfort food, or a bunch of treats laid out in front of me, all the extra gear to find and lore items to read periodically, within this interesting "movie".
Good to see Mark doing Metroid videos again. Love these analyses so much.
As someone who’s first Metroid game was Fusion, I instantly fell in love with this game. I ended up finishing my first playthrough at around 12 hrs with 64% completion, but I’ll be playing this one for years, I’m sure.
The "pacing" which you describe is actually a big part of the reason why I've never managed to get into Hollow Knight. As much as it's held up high as a quintessential Metroidvania experience, it's never quite managed to match the same elegance of games like Super Metroid for me where its scale manages to stay fairly modest and compact; rooms never go on for longer than they need to, understanding the layout (even with the poor map) feels more immediately rewarding because progress is made more abundantly clear, and the momentum stays brisk upon the path forward. Even with the knowledge that Hallownest makes a litany of contingencies in the event of straying away from the beaten path, there's an element of diminishing returns for me where its alternate solutions feel just a bit too cheeky and overwhelming in the sense that any other direction may have been more optimal. As someone who adores Metroid and the explorative world building aspects that it has codified, I find this a little too much of a good thing, and it doesn't help that the game feels like it takes too long to really get going in terms of making traversal mechanics satisfying. I've never really had a desire to return and re-experience Hollow Knight for a lot of these reasons.
There is naturally a big argument to be made that Dread veers too far into the other direction; there were times I did get a little bit lost after a power up, and I wish those moments happened more often. I suspect the quicker pace and slightly guided exploration is a means of them to separate the 2D formula more from the Prime series. Nonetheless I appreciated that the sensation of being lost didn't have to linger for longer than it needed to. The game's peerless movement mechanics also made those moments of backtracking all the more riveting. If anything was to a detriment to the world design, I don't think it was an effect of the world's design itself as much as it was the way the biomes are presented, and how concepts like the EMMI zones (which I quite loved as a means of juxtaposing speedier pathfinding and exploration in some aspects), much like Breath of the Wild, could've used with some different visual candy - I recognize that the zones have some unique idiosyncrasies but it would've been interesting to have EMMIs roaming more undefined areas that the player would have to make mental notes of where their zones begin and end. Still, while this game isn't quite the spaghetti maze as Super Metroid was, I don't think it's any lesser of a game. I'm at a point where I recognize that Super Metroid is kind of incomparable in its nuances and that there likely won't be a game that truly captures its unique elements; for better and for worse. Dread settles for the only thing I could ask for, giving me an exciting dive back into the world of Metroid and completely decimating the argument that the series has been antiquated by its peers, providing something only Metroid can provide, and is easily up there in my top 10 of all time.
So basically you like your games "efficient".... You don't like wasting much time on optional stuff... That's what I am. Getting from this comment... Right?
How tf does Super have a "bad" map system? It literally set the standard. I feel like this is just a late night bad take, fam.
Or low key the hardest bait ever developed, I'm actually impressed.
I found myself getting lost in this comment, so I gave up. How meta.
Hollow Knight is not a game that rewards an "optimal path" mindset. It's like walking through a cathedral or a museum, why are you even there if your focus is on reaching the exit as soon as possible? It's made for a different aesthetic of play :)
And paradoxically that made it beloved by speedrunners :) routing different objectives brings you to wildly different runs :)
@@CLSharpman5000 Super's map system is good at giving you a picture of the game's layout but in terms of understanding it, it's pretty dated, between things like not removing dotted pickups, signaling what pathways are connected via doors, or showing you the specific type of doors that exist; things that more or less every Metroid and Metroidvania after it have addressed. As much as I adore Super and have the entire game in my muscle memory, a big part of why the game can get tedious for a first timer or to do a full completion run of is that the map system doesn't give you enough info to make educated approximations on where to go next, so you can end up wasting a lot of time going to one end of the map, only to hit a dead end with a rare chance to show something for it.
I wonder if to some extent, this was a conscious design choice from on-high in order to increase the series' appeal and ensure more players actually finished Dread?Like when Fire Emblem Awakening added no-permadeath mode.
Of course, that game saved the FE series, so I'm not mad about Dread making a few concessions if that's what it takes.
a no-permadeath option didn't get in the way of players who didn't want that option, nor significantly change the gameplay design in general.
IMO the answer to solving the "do we want a hand-holdy smaller map that's harder to get lost in, or more player freedom without artificial barriers?" question is to have multiple separate objectives (in different parts of the map) that the player can do in any order. Hollow Knight does this in the second half of the game with the Three Dreamers, Dark Souls 1 and 2 both have self-contained paths from the central hub to 4 story bosses, etc.
Make getting lost fun
@@Vulume it was fun to get lost, in all the past Metroid games. I think Super Metroid was the most confusing only because of the samey environment art (tech limitation) and the clunky movement. Not to mention Super was still pioneering the formula. Zero Mission and Fusion were near perfect in the exploration department. Fusion is especially surprising because despite being so linear and story-driven, it STILL managed to have tons of exploration and openness within and between the sectors.
As a “brand new to Metroid” Mario fan, I still got super lost multiple times. Replays tho it all clicked
On my first playthrough, I eventually realized the game was leading me by the hand, but I also saw there were opportunities for sequence breaking. I think I had five or six power bombs before I even got them, and they weren’t that hard to get.
I’m not a speedrunner, but I have been playing Metroid games since the 80s. One of my favorites was Shadow Complex, and sometimes Dread reminded me strongly of that game. It was a pleasant surprise.
"This is a full on metroid-vania." So...It's a Metroid game.
OMG, this is exactly what I thought when I was playing it. The map seems overwhelming and confusing, but somehow, you always end up where exactly need to be.
I actually felt similarly to how Mark felt - I enjoyed the controls and especially the bossfights, but I ended up noticing too many of the anti-backtracking devices, and I felt like my ability to make the world my own was diminished.
Try sequence breaking, i guarantee you will have a new found appreciation for the world design.
Really try sequence breaking. You can get 70% of all items early. The amount of dev intended, yes developer intended sequence breaking this game allows is insane. Significantly more freedom than Zero Missions sequence breaks, but less than supers
What the guys above said. Try a second playthrough and you'll notice how open the world actually is. You just notice it until you see it again.
This review really hits the nail on the head. I too often felt like my hand was being held and guided to the next section. At the same time, this made sure the action was always ongoing and I wasn't getting frustrated that I didnt know where to go
it's like being pulled through a museum to look at all the art in the tour guides order while constantly trying to break from the group to see what's eye catching and being forcefully kept in the group
Yeah, instead the developers replaced the backtracking frustration with an even heftier does of frustration with the E.M.M.I. stealth sequences! One step forward, two steps back...
I felt like I got a good exploration fix form the Active Emmi Zones. I would find myself standing in front of an Emmi door. Knowing I would only have so much time to act while hunted, I would stare at the greyed out map and try to imagine what the critical path was before entering the fray.
That little treat trick is hilarious. I can’t believe how easily I was manipulated with a trail of candy.
Personally, I can’t imagine playing Metroid and not wanting to spend time getting good at the movement tech and the sequence breaking it enables. I’ve replayed Dread like eight times by now.
A really smart bit of level design I think you overlooked by not going for 100% is the extent to which 100% trains you to sequence break on subsequent playthroughs. Multiple expansions are directly on the paths you would use to get major upgrades early, so by playing for completion, you’re able to work out some of the important skips. That isn’t really true in ZM, which is a game that takes a similar approach.
Yeah I am kinda surprised tbh that that wasn’t a focal point of the video. On your first playthrough you are on a linear path, but on the second playthrough the map is almost completely open, if you try to sequence break.
The game tries to deliberately teach you zo sequence break. Especially with the shinespark puzzles on the first run. Teaching you the shinespark if you go 100% fully. And then on the next playthrough you think to yourself, can I use it here, only to find out you can, rewarding you with early Super Missiles, early Cross Bombs, Space Jump, Gravity Suit, Screw Attack etc etc.
The first playthrough of Dread is a tutorial in my opinion
Another clever aspect is that to get 100%, you have to learn the movement tech that enables much of the sequence breaking. The post game on a first run through is actually a tutorial for a second run. It's brilliant.
TFW you think you have a really clever thought and someone else posts it as you're writing lol
I've started a second play through, and I'm planning on getting 100% in each area once more, but take less time than 12 hours to complete the game this time.
I admittedly took my sweet damn time with the game, and trying over and over with bosses and EMMI zones. I did a lot better in Artaria and Cataris the second time around.
@@m0dus.troll3ns This is pretty much what I wrote in my initial comment, but I didn’t just mean that it teaches you how to do the movement techniques; it shows you some of the places to apply them. For instance, there’s a missile+ tank directly on the path you take to get early gravity suit. That’s how I worked that skip out.
As a dude who's super pumped about sequence breaks and speedrunning-- 10/10, loved both the ease of the main path AND the devilishness of the sequence breaks + speed techniques
RUclipsr: explains how you can’t get lost on Metroid dread
Random player: proceeds to get lost and can’t figure out where to go next
This articulates pretty much exactly how I feel about Dread. I think it's a great game, but I love the exploration element of Metroid, and Dread feels like it works against that sometimes by locking you out of areas and pushing you in certain directions. I like the idea of 'points of no return', I just wish they were used more sparingly. It only really feels like the game lets you truly explore when you're going after items in the post game, and that's a bit disappointing to me.
You can get a LOT of optional upgrades via backtracking once you have Flash Shift, Space Jump, and Speed Booster. It's a decent middle ground between the "end game item run" and the early phases of the game. Admittedly, going back at this point still leaves you with a few things you can't get because they're locked behind Screw Attack or Cross Bomb or Swarm Missile obstacles, but at least you can go off the rails for a while and get some goodies.
I’m not too keen on exploration and almost quit plying hollow knight when I hit a dead end after beating the false knight (glad I kept at it though) so Dread is perfect for me
In Super Metroid, most points of no return are very localized, they just make sure that you understand how to use the power up that get in the same room or so. Those are great. And there are only a few others. I wish Dread was more like that...
I was frustrated with this decision at first, but there were a few key moments where the reduced space pushed me to explore something I missed and prevented me from totally useless backtracking. “Ok my available space is here so the next step is nearby” is a much better feeling. Overall I think they achieved a perfect balance. It kept exploration as a key element but killed useless backtracking.
@@possible-realities Perhaps the next game they make can be opened up a bit more. I did find myself hesitating using elevators when I found them and wanted to explore a bit more.
I felt similar to how I felt about some wind waker dungeons, I got a new item and went “ooh, how do I use this?” And then was immediately forced to where I need to use it as if the game didn’t trust me to be intelligent enough to solve it myself. It wasn’t awful and it never ruined the experience, but I felt like I wanted more and to be challenged more. Fortunately this is my first Metroid, so I hope the older games can challenge me how I want to be challenged~
Super Metroid is the one you want. It spends a lot less effort forcing you into a funnel, and you actually have to play it like a metroidvania.
I adore how the team did this. I love metroidvanias and almost every game on my switch is one, and I can certainly say that navigation was the best here. I like the linearity of it and the guidance while simultaneously feeling like you've got a lot to explore. Very good explanation Mark!
I've been going in circles in this game. I've been frustratingly lost for about a week now.
Same, I had to use a guide the whole game cause I never had any idea where to go next. Aimlessly wandering around was just not fun. Loved the combat, music, and environments just wish there were quest markers or something along the way pointing you in the right direction.
As a VERY casual player of this series, i found myself getting frustrated with being stuck in one area, only to find out the game was guiding me to "focus" on this one zone. Especially if i just got an new ability, i would think "sweet, now i can go to this other zone and get that item thats been winking at me, only to be stuck a with no return path. I felt lost, but not in a direction kinda of way, but what arbitrary puzzle i had to figure out in said room to be able to move freely again. I love this game, but damn the pacing stops on a dime alot at the cost of exploration.
I kind of felt the opposite way. I felt that when those times hit where the way forward was less clear were also when it was most beneficial to back track and find secrets. Right after getting speed booster, the fact you should go to ferenia and how to get there is unclear, but now you can go back and pretty thoroughly explore the previous areas. The game gives you good times to explore.
Honestly i kind of feel this. it couldve been cool if they maybe made bosses harder but in return they laid out more more energy and missle powerups to players that take the time to backtrack and grab those winking items beforehand
"grrrr I want to explore, let me hinder (aka not progress the story) the rate at which I get the things that will greatly enhance my ability to explore!" 🤣
Imagine thinking you can do any meaningful exploration while lacking critical items that would make exploration meaningful.
@@MajorasWrath1 using this logic the only time exploration would ever be encouraged would be directly before final boss when every ability is unlocked and youve already seen 99% of what the game has to offer.
@@FreshFrixy2358 Not really. You can have a ton of exploration in the mid game and just keep piling it on until the end. The beginning necessarily has to be linear. How much exploration do you want to do before getting the spider magnet or even double jump, really? The way some people go on about it they seem interested in wanting to explore entire zones with just the pea shooter. Or have entire biomes that are just heat and cold rooms.
I watched my son play this game for 11 hours when it came out. Our strategy was to find an ability and go back as far as we could to the beginning each time as new places were unlocked. While this does contribute to the long play time, I'd say it was mostly dying at the hands of the bosses more so than exploration.
I'm not a big metroidvania fan and have noped out of my fair share of them, primarily because I hate backtracking and not knowing where to go. I bought Dread on a whim and loved it. IMO it's 2022's GOTY. And a lot of it comes down to what you explained in this video.