Trigger Cut Game Reviews

I have always been more of a fan of the Metroid Prime games than the 2D entries of the franchise.  Dread was pretty much my first foray into the 2D entries in the series.  I came away from the experience mostly positive but also not without frustrations.  First off, this is easily the best looking Switch game I have ever played, the art design is amazing, and the music is phenomenal.  I am bad at Metroidvanias and this game only solidified that.  I got lost an embarrassing amount in this game.  I’ve seen others online say this is one of the more linear Metroid games but I can only speak to my experience and it simply did not feel that way to me. The difficulty in this game is really high and I honestly struggled more with this than Elden Ring at times, which is insane.  I can offer some more solid critiques that lie outside of how bad I was at this game.  The game’s controls are overwhelming and it felt like the joy cons just could not handle all the possible inputs and moves you could pull off.  I’m sure a pro controller would solve these issues and I recommend you use one if you have it.  The game introduces instant fail stealth sections through the implementation of E.M.M.Is.  These are robots that are at first unkillable and if they find you, you’re dead.  You can parry these enemies to escape but the window is incredibly small.  All of these areas look the same so it’s easy to get lost in them and instant fail stealth sections never feel good.  I got about 50% of the power ups however, I felt like the game was punishing me for exploring and finding upgrades because going off whatever the beaten path was would usually end up with me getting lost.  Back to the positives, the boss encounters here are impressive, especially for a Switch game.  The difficulty of some of these bosses is oppressive and I was surprised at how much precision and skill it took to take these monsters down.  The upgrades are nothing that exciting and mostly lead to powers that open up new doors.  In conclusion, this was a rough, frustrating, and challenging experience for me that I did not always enjoy. However, if you are a fan of the series or a Metroidvainia fan,  you will probably have a much better time with this game than I did.