See, this is why I never throw old game hardware away! I have at least five separate devices I can play Metroid Fusion on. They really need to implement that rumored GBA store for the Switch! There’s an insane amount of content on that system.
Yes! GBA and Gamecube.
I would love this. One can only hope.
Anyone playing yet? Is it:
excellent modern combat and some of the best boss fights ever
or
frustrating boss battles and cumbersome controls
?
Sorry, couldn’t resist. I probably will wait on this, maybe pick it up around the holidays. Love to hear some impressions too.
You live in the future. It’s another 4 hours before it drops for me.
Oops, sorry! I guess I should be the one playing it and reporting back! :)
Played about three hours so far. Fans of 2D Metroid games will love it. However I can see younger gamers used to constant objective markers and other hand-holding mechanics getting really frustrated. It requires a certain amount of backtracking and patience that is lacking in most modern AAA games. Even though it has old-school
sensibilities, it controls great and looks pretty good too. I’m really enjoying it!
Sounds perfect! :-) Objective markers can get in the bin.
Same, though I’ve not hit three hours and haven’t faced a boss yet, it looks and controls great and seems interesting to explore so far.
I originally thought the videos looked kind of bland, but it’s actually quite nice with lots of little incidental details happening in the backgrounds.
I have torn my hair out over E.M.M.I already… just brutal, and I get why it’s called ‘dread’ now. Shades of Alien Isolation when you enter their zone, but worse… :P
After first facing the second one I was thinking they would be a massive pain, but I came around pretty quickly since it restarts you just outside the zone rather than back at the last save point. So you push a bit further each time, learning a bit more of the layout, dreading that beeping noise, and looking forward to finding the power that lets you turn the tables.
It shows you how to counter them and escape, and says you get ‘one almost impossible chance’ to do so, by timing your button press to the flash… but there are two flashes? Since the tutorial paused that bit, I don’t really get the timing - I’m sure I’ll get many, many more chances!
The standard counters are a lot easier to pull off though, and very satisfying.
Yeah, I think as long as you stay mobile (not hard to do thanks to the level design), the early EMMIs are not much of a threat. I have a feeling they are going to be more difficult later though.
The first boss was not too difficult, though still took a couple tries. It’a kind of weird how there’s no real build-up — you still kind of stumble onto it. I guess that’s pretty “old-school” as well.
this is feeling more and more like a game I should watch lets plays of instead of, well, trying and failing to play
I’m very curious about it, but not enough to actually buy it. I played the NES and the SNES games briefly on emulators on my roommate’s modded Xbox back in the early 2000s. I did not care for them.
On the other hand, modern graphics and especially modern sound and music can do wonders, so it might actually be right up my ally. Especially if the controls feel better than the ones designed for d-pads back in the day.
Nintendo are such limp dishrags for not putting together decent conversions of Zero Mission + Fusion + Samus Returns and selling them to me for $20-30 a pop to pump me up for Dread.
So just like every other game then, am I right?
Oh I loved this bear when I was a kid!
As a way to resist any impulse purchasing such expensive game, I’ve started, finally, playing Metroid Prime.
It better lives up to Craig’s propaganda!
I hope it does! It is my second favorite game of all time for a reason.
Sure some of the things are less impressive today, seeing Samus’s face reflecting in her visor when you fired shots, or the steam in the tunnels steaming up your visor are not groundbreaking the way they were almost 20 years ago, but man it really helps create a sense of place.
Also the Phendrana Drifts music is great.
The planet got a great sci-fi atmosphere.
I wished you could lock onto stuff without holding to the detente the trigger though. I also need a proper sit in front of my CRT. I’m used to playing small sessions of arcade games, but this extended session ruined my back.
Logistics!
Those are still impressive by today’s standards.
Technologically they are much easier to do. In 2002 it seemed like magic. Nobody was doing things like that.
At one point there is a pitted bronze oval mirror that you can see Samus’ ‘reflection’ in. The material chosen was deliberate to allow a lower resolution ‘imperfect’ reflection without having to worry about the room and such. Still that was something I spent several minutes walking back and forth on.
Today a mirror with perfect reflection of the entire environment is easy* to implement.
*In the sense that engines and technology support it out of the box, not in the sense it doesn’t incur performance hits.