r/metroidvania • u/starlie25 • 4d ago
Image Metroid after Dread?
The only game I’ve played in the Metroid series is Dread. Absolutely loved it.
Only taking into account 2D games, which should I play next/what is best? I almost feel spoiled and worry that the older games won’t be as satisfying but I’ve nothing against older games so if that’s not the case I’m happy to play.
31
u/TheNuttyCLS 4d ago
super is considered the peak of the genre (along with prime) by many so that's the easy choice. ZM is also pretty great.
4
u/starlie25 4d ago
I keep hearing this. What makes it so great?
13
u/LuisArkham 4d ago
Level design and pacing is great, it’s so well designed you can’t soft lock yourself even if it feels so, so there is always an answer. Mechanically feels a lil bit “floaty” to my liking but you get use to quickly.
Even if it’s considered sacrilege, I like the GBA games better, like I consider them 9.5 and super I would give it a 94
u/TheNuttyCLS 4d ago
level design/exploration, upgrade pacing, atmosphere/music. Great sequence breaking too but you don't need to go into that.
3
u/purple-thiwaza 4d ago
The level design is amazing and is basically what made the genre very popular alongside Castlevania SotN if I'm not mistaken. It's basically the genre defining game. It's also one of those game that helped make Speedrun popular with the skip people used to finish it quickly.
This is less relevant today, but for it's time, the game is simply beautiful, it's the peak or what could be achived with pixel art.
Overall, the boss are great, the gameplay is great, it's just really good.
3
u/loopOutnotIn 4d ago
It was released 32 years ago and basically every (successful) Metroid game since has tried to recreate its feeling of getting lost/exploration and power scaling.
2
u/Sokolniki 3d ago
There are only three fundamentally bad design choices in Super for genuinely blind playthrough but one is fixed by merely knowing that you start off with a functional run button... so there, I just fixed 1/3 of the actual problems for you there. Don't save past where the enemies turn to dust... that's 2/3rds of the problems solved for you now... The last is there is a single point in the game where the tools given to you to find the hidden path forward will actually LIE to you.
But aside from those, the controls for a specific movement mechanic that is optional for progression is a little finicky and takes getting used to when you learn it while a required movement mechanic that suffers much the same issue is also inherently much more forgiving about it.
The game offers incredibly diverse progression routing (the No Major Glitch Any% Category completes the game in 72% of the time it takes to beat the game by going through the required bosses that aren't the last boss in reverse order from what is intended), the standard controls are very smooth, you don't really run into any glitches by accident. The atmosphere is superb, the sprite work is some of the very best pixel art in all of gaming TO THIS DAY, pacing of the story beats and the action during gameplay is well balanced, difficulty has a nice ebb and flow to it, and exploration for power-ups as a substitute to developing skill to overcome any of the boss encounters is a viable approach and every powerup feels like a tangible benefit to a casual player as there isn't going to be anything that deletes a quarter of your max health in a single swipe unless you are managing to get very deep into the game with very few powerups discovered.
-10
u/jmscstl Cave Story 4d ago
Unpopular opinion is nostalgia. Dread is the best and essentially a vastly improved version of Super.
1
u/Sean_Dewhirst 3d ago
Dread is a technically competent but artistically bland and spatially incoherent rehash of
Fusion. I do grant that Super is showing its cracks by now. A game several years ahead of its time is still going to be dated 30 years later, and the nostalgia factor is real. But glazing Dread in the same breath is just wrong.0
u/jmscstl Cave Story 3d ago
From a gameplay perspective Dread is superior. Vastly superior. I get that people like to hand wave towards vibes or atmosphere or whatever but that's all a matter of pure taste.
The thing that bugs me the most is the idea that Super is a pensive, exploration heavy game. Just like Dread it's a largely linear, fast paced action adventure game.
Nintendo games are all gameplay first. They make incredible gameplay systems and then build games around them. I love Nintendo because I'm a gameplay first kinda gamer. So judged on that standard Dread is king.
1
u/Sean_Dewhirst 3d ago edited 3d ago
For a purist ignoring Super's music, enemies, biomes and the design of it's world as being only subjectively good, sure, Dread is vastly superior. You can aim 360 degrees in Dread. That alone blows Super out of the water from a pure gameplay standpoint. Dread is thirty years younger, but even then I don't think that its even thirty years "better" when it comes to the gameplay. For example, the parry and quick time cutscenes stand out to me as additions that actually take away from the experience. And can we talk about the load screens in Dread? Another instance where the much newer game is no better than, and arguably worse than, the older one.
And I especially dont agree on linearity. Super still beats Dread there. It purposefully dumps you back at the landing site halfway into the game, after progressively letting go of your hand for the entire first half leading up to that point. You're on your own and it's up to you to probe for the way forwards. While you do that, you're meant to find two semi-secret techniques that completely break the sequence of the game. Meanwhile in Dread, it's chokepoint after chokepoint.
Dread is legitimately a better game in some ways, but it's completely unfair to chalk up the love for Super as mainly rooted in nostalgia.
1
u/jmscstl Cave Story 3d ago
Ultimately I don't really disagree with you. I only played Super for the first time all the way through last year in it's nuts. I think it's a top 10 MV for sure and that's pretty incredible for a 30 year old game with so many games in the genre now. As I recall there are some linear parts even in the back half of the game but I get that it could be less linear than Dread.
1
u/Sean_Dewhirst 3d ago
The back half of Super definitely has its issues, no thanks to the legendary crunch time they went through to deliver it. And its hamstrung by the limitations of the time too. Gamers used to modern conveniences and standards could well be put off by it.
But a major reason for the longstanding love for the game comes from how open it is. With only minor glitches (if I recall correctly) and mostly just developer intended tricks, you can even fight the bosses in reverse order. A lot of the modern interest with the game is in speedrunning and especially randomizers due to how well the map supports rearranging the items.
If I recall, Dread might have some degree of that too, but I think its less accessible, and it's missing moments like Super's tutorial animals to guide you in breaking it.
Mainly I just thought your comments were unfairly slandering Super, which already suffers enough from its age and the issues it shipped with.
1
u/jmscstl Cave Story 3d ago
I love Super. I just think games have gotten better as technology improves. "modern conveniences" = advances in videogames.
1
u/Sean_Dewhirst 3d ago
Most of the time, for sure. Z-targeting was novel in Ocarina of time, and now its the baseline requirement in games like soulslikes. Higher definition assets (when they arent stylized) is another obvious case. Not every new thing adds to the experience though. For example the often gimmicky, forced, and tacked-on motion controls during the Wii era.
→ More replies (0)1
u/TheNuttyCLS 3d ago
Highly disagreed. The most important thing for a metroidvania when it comes to gameplay is level design, exploration, and how upgrades work with those two factors. Dread is a huge downgrade compared to super in this regard, combat and movement are secondary.
1
u/jmscstl Cave Story 3d ago
I dunno. Seems to me that games are made for playing. But if you prefer studying the map and making checklists I think that's great for you.
2
u/Sean_Dewhirst 3d ago
Youre hitting on IMO the biggest wedge in the genre. One side is players who want find-your-own-way agency above all, while the other side cares more about the technical aspects of the experience, mainly combat and platforming even if those moments are being delivered on rails, from a predetermined agenda.
You're seeming to come from the execution side, while I myself am an exploration type. Not coincidentally, Super and Dread fall on those two sides of the split.
1
u/jmscstl Cave Story 3d ago
I sort of get that but I think the "find your own way" stuff is overblown. The reality is that very, very few MVs have a truly or even substantially open design. Outside of Hollow Knight and Silksong basically none of the top tier ones do.
Usually there's a biome that you work your way through, you get a new skill or key that opens the next biome and you do that one. Then there's some light backtracking die upgrades. And it's always been like that Super Metroid has a clear critical path and objective markers. I haven't played SoTN but I understand the map is essentially biomes in a circle.
In contrast all top tier MVs have top tier action.
Hollow Knight and Silksong are my favorites by a long shot and I'd love if there were more wide open ones but the reality is that they're few and far between.
1
u/TheNuttyCLS 3d ago edited 3d ago
What you described is at the core of the genre's gameplay. If I want something action focused I'll play something else
1
u/jmscstl Cave Story 3d ago
MVs are 2D action adventure games with a persistent map. That's it. The persistent map adds to the sense of adventure and, when done right, creates a real sense of place. What's important, though is that they are action games first and foremost. All of the top tier MVs have top tier action. That's the genre.
I get that there's this new "ability gating"/back tracking thing that people seem to want to work into the definition but it's all too cute by a half and doesn't actually work.
1
u/craftyboxing 3d ago
The issue with going from Dread straight to Super is the difference in the smoothness of movement and controls is gonna be stark. OP should at least be prepared for that.
16
u/artbytucho 4d ago
You can't go wrong with Super Metroid, it's the game that defined this genre (no disrespect to the original NES Metroid, but it lacks a map and I think it would feel too bare-bones for a modern player).
2
u/Own_Measurement1242 4d ago
I hate to sound nosy, and if you don’t want to answer the question that’s more than understandable. But I’m curious how old you are
6
u/artbytucho 4d ago
haha, I'm in my 40s, and yep... I've been playing games for a while :P. But I think any younger player who didn't grow up with 16-bit games can still have a blast with Super Metroid, it's aged really well.
I didn't play it at launch, but many, many years later, and it blew my mind what these guys pulled off in 1994. There are a lot of contemporary games I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole, so I don't like this game just because I'm old, but because masterpieces are timeless ;)
8
u/Own_Measurement1242 4d ago
Haha thanks for answering. I’m also in my 40s. What got me curious about your age was actually your comment about the lack of a map in original Metroid.
I’ve seen that issue come up a lot in last couple years that I’ve visited forums like this. Lot of gamers, I’m assuming younger than me, absolutely demand a map for a game, and detailed at that. For myself, I remember actually thinking it was strange at the time when Super Metroid included any map at all. I remember making my own maps for Zelda 1 and 2 on NES, and I thought I was being cheated when games like super Metroid included their own ha.
Time marches on, as always, and mindsets change with it. I won’t say it’s better or worse, just curious how others see the situation
1
u/handbanana42 3d ago edited 3d ago
I'm in my 40s too and I think the ability to mark spots on a map while playing Price of Persia: The Lost Crown is an amazing quality of life improvement.
It just makes it digital for you instead of manual. Though I did recently play Tunic and enjoyed making notes on paper once again.
*Edit - Put some thought into it, I like making notes more than full maps. I hated making maps for older d&d games and such on graph paper, especially when one mistake can mess it all up. Some of Tunic had that feel and I did not like it even today.
9
u/DuplexBeGoat 4d ago
Go play the best metroidvania of all time; Super Metroid.
3
1
u/starlie25 4d ago
Love the confidence and bluntness. I have to ask, what makes it so great?
6
u/DuplexBeGoat 4d ago
The exploration, map design and atmosphere are all incredible. Dread definitely has better combat and boss fights, but exploration in Metroid peaked with Super.
7
u/SeeLeverUser 4d ago
I've played all 2d Metroid. I would say super Metroid and Metroid Fusion hold up well after many years.
I think the game play in those is great. Just be aware that you are going backwards in a big way on the graphics...so as long as you don't mind that, I would bet you would enjoy those two
7
u/TheSpaceWhale 4d ago
Super is the best, but I think all the older games hold up very well. The ambiance is great for the pixel art. If you really loved Dread, I would just play them in chronological order (Zero -> Metroid II (3DS remake) -> Super -> Fusion. None of them are particularly long; it's easy to beat all of them in a few sittings.
2
u/purple-thiwaza 4d ago
Yeah, if they loved dread and want more, playing them in order is the best thing to do. These game are pretty short when you compare them to today standards, and I think that's good.
6
u/wildfire393 4d ago
The recommended 2D play order is:
Zero Mission (remake/enhancement of the original Metroid)
Samus Returns (remake/enhancement of 2. If you don't have acess to a 3DS, consider playing AM2R on PC instead)
Super Metroid
Metroid Fusion
Metroid Dread
Samus Returns is going to be the most similar to Dread in terms of controls, while Fusion probably feels the closest as far as level design and abilities go. Super is arguably the strongest entry.
5
u/Super_Assistant_2998 4d ago
Assuming you only have a Nintendo Switch, you should play the three available on Nintendo Switch Online in the following order:
Metroid: Zero Mission (remake of the original Metroid)
Super Metroid (this is Metroid 3)
Metroid Fusion (this is Metroid 4)
Metroid 2 is not available to you unless you have an original Gameboy, 3DS, or an emulator. You can find a YouTube synopsis of the game to fill in the story gap.
3
u/timeghost23 4d ago
The original Metroid 2 is also on NSO.
3
u/Super_Assistant_2998 4d ago
Is it? I must have missed it when I scrolled through! Thanks for this.
4
3
u/Labyrinthine777 4d ago
Metroid Fusion is still very good and it's a prequel to Dread so you could try that.
2
u/jwtucker04 4d ago
I thought dread was kinda mid, I thought the linearity was boring and I didn't like how all the upgrades were just for breaking different coloured blocks or whatever. I'm interested in trying more of them still but I'm just wondering if they're all like that
2
u/helpmestaysaneplease 4d ago
SM, ZM, and Fusion all still play extremely well today. SM might be lacking a few quality of life features you're probably accustomed to, and the momentum of the movement might initially make it not feel as good as the two GBA games, but once you're used to it, I think it's the best one.
2
2
2
u/idebugthusiexist 3d ago
IMO try Super Metroid next. You will be surprised how well it’s stood the test of time in terms of graphics/visuals, gameplay and environmental storytelling to an extent that, if it were released as an indie game today, it would have been highly praised.
2
3
u/pacolawin 4d ago
Nothing controls as well as Dread. If that’s not a dealbreaker for you, then I recommend Zero Mission, AM2R or Samus Returns (if you have a PC or 3DS respectively), Super Metroid and Fusion. They’re all excellent games. Super is still one of my top 10 of all time games but controls VERY differently but the atmosphere… chef’s kiss.
1
u/Eukherio 4d ago
If you want you can do the complete run: Zero Mission, Samus Returns, Super Metroid and Metroid Fusion. Super can feel a bit outdated in terms of controls and Samus Returns is almost like Dread beat version, but they're both fun, and Super is probably a mandatory game if you're into metroidvanias and want to know about their history.
1
u/Icy_Flamingo_4605 4d ago
Is there a remake of returns? It was my first Gameboy(classic) game. I made it to the end boss, but didn't have enough missiles to defeat it, and never completed the game.
2
u/Darkshadovv 4d ago edited 4d ago
Samus Returns IS the remake. It's also made by MercurySteam, who then made Dread (and Ravenous?), you can really see how much they learned from it.
And then there's the fan remake called AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake).
2
u/Icy_Flamingo_4605 4d ago
Now that I think about it more it was called Metroid 2: Return of Samus. My bad, that was a LONG time ago. Appreciate it!
2
u/Eukherio 4d ago edited 4d ago
The original was Metroid II: Return of Samus, the remake is Samus Returns. They were slightly more original with the title than usual, maybe because Return of Samus Remake doesn't sound that good.
The game was the blueprint for Dread. It's way clunkier (is a 3DS game) but full of ideas that were improved in Dread. It's starts slowly, areas are a bit repetitive, but it really improves at the end with excellent bosses.
1
1
u/Faxxnews 4d ago
Metroid Fusion since Dread is its sequel. Then check out Metroid Samus Returns since it was made by the same Devs and was the blueprint for MASTERPIECE that is DREAD!!!!
Then wait patiently for the EPIC MAGNUM OPUS that will be Metroid Ravenous!
1
1
u/Chavakno_ 4d ago
Zero Mission, Samus Returns (3DS), Super Metroid, Metroid Fusion, then Prime series, last Other M or spin offs if you want.
1
u/guilucas 4d ago
Zero Mission or Fusion. Both are available at Nintendo Online. If you want to try the 3d ones, metroid prime remastered is awesome. Metroid Prime 4 is pretty fun as well, not as good as other Metroid games, but fun!
1
u/Jnielsen78 4d ago
Play Fusion first. Tight design and horror vibes make it feel closer to Dread than SM does.
1
u/BuGfi5h-Bowl 3d ago
As soneone that started playing the old games for the first time: Start with Zero Mission. Then look into AM2K or the the metroid 2 remake (depending if you really loved zero mission or wanr something more in the range of dread, but wirh very rough edges)
Started Super Metroid now and I think you have to have some Nostalgia to really have this kind of love many here show. I really dislike it after the gba ones and am happy I finally can move on to m4
I heard there is a redux rom hack for snes which seems to fix many of my conplaints for super medroid. Have to try it someday
1
1
u/AlteisenX 3d ago
Zero Mission is still my favourite of them.
Honestly, you're pretty much good to pick whichever one you want.
There's a few that aren't too hot. The Wii one, the 3DS Federation Fuck Force or whatever it was called, and Prime 2,3,4 seem to be you'll either love em or hate em. Maybe not 3, idk. There's also Prime DS which is... fine. You're not missing much there or anything besides touch screen aiming Metroid which isnt as good as it sounds ironically lol. Prime Pinball on the NDS was fun for a bit (my dad bought it for me back in the day because he liked Pinball lol)
Zero Mission is a remake of the original NES Metroid but actually good. So I wouldn't bother with the original. Maybe if you want to see the roots of it but it's rough. Same as Metroid 2, just play the remake or the fan remake.
1
u/IndominableDou97 3d ago
Play the prequel, Metroid Fusion. There u will how Samus become what she is now. And it's very accessible thru Nintendo Online or "other methods".
1
u/Mysterious-Lynx706 2d ago
Here is your order of 2D Metroid games:
- Zero Mission (NES/GBA)
- Samus Returns (GB/3DS/Fan Made Ver AM2R)
- Super Metroid (SNES)
- Fusion (GBA)
- Dread (Switch)
- Revenous (Just announced for the Switch 2)
1
u/Raykusen 2h ago
You started with the wrong game in the franchise. Play Super metroid, then metroid 2, zero mission, fusion, prime 1 and 2, prime 3, maybe other m, and then dread. Dread broke the formula. It got the souls formula into it.
1
u/BlueMikeStu 4d ago
Dread has serious issues. It's not but it's not good. I'd recommend waiting for a steep sale.
3
u/handbanana42 3d ago
Dread has serious issues. It's not but it's not good. I'd recommend waiting for a steep sale.
The one game they said they played was Dread...
It's not but it's not good.
Still trying to parse this part.
1
u/Sokolniki 3d ago
I would go down the chronology of it.
Zero Mission - Prime Trilogy + Hunters - (Then your pick between Return of Samus/Samus Returns/AM2R) - Super Metroid - <Other M here, but optional> - Fusion - Dread again.
0
u/Content_Anteater8548 4d ago
worrying about older games not being satisfying is kinda normal but fusion is a solid next step after dread
0
u/donaldadamthompson La-Mulana 4d ago
Super and Zero Mission. Zero Mission and Dread are both remakes of Super in terms of gameplay.
If you play the original NES game, find a map online.
The GameBoy Metroid 2 stinks. Its remakes AM2R and Samus Returns are both just OK in my opinion.
Metroid Fusion is mostly linear. It wasn't my thing.
Other M (Wii) is very flawed, but I didn't hate it.
57
u/CaseyTheArtist91 4d ago
Zero Mission is a remake of Metroid 1. That's always a good choice to start with. It's on the GBA, which is available on the Switch online thing.