Finished Metroid Dread, followed by Zero Mission and Super Metroid, all with 100% items. This also concludes my revisit of the entire Metroid franchise, excluding the DS and 3DS games which I'm not interested in. And I don't think there are any Other Metroid games left.
Metroid Dread was mostly annoying. I'm sure there is an okay Metroid game buried underneath all those cutscenes and underdeveloped ideas. At least, Samus controls nice and moves fast. But I've seen reviewers call this the "most rewarding Metroid ever" because ... you can parry melee attacks and the game is harder than average Metroid? Yeah, I'm not impressed.
The parry thing just devolves into QTEs during boss fights, and I mean literally. The game goes into confusing cutscenes in the middle of a fight, and you have to guess what you are supposed to do:
1) Sit back and watch Samus do all the cool shit.
2) Spam the shoot button while Samus is doing all the cool shit.
3) React to QTEs and then wonder if you hit them right because sometimes there isn't even a sound or visual cue to confirm.
The most rewarding experience!
Exploration is also sub-par thanks to a confusing, almost fractal-like map layout and the frequent and long elevator/tram/teleporter rides. At first I thought maybe they just
feel so long because I was already annoyed by other parts of the game. So I measured them. Numbers don't lie.
How much time does Metroid waste on elevator rides, from the moment you step onto the platform until you regain control on the other side?
Zero Mission: 5 seconds (excluding two or three one-time cutscenes)
Super Metroid: 12 seconds
Metroid Prime: 20 seconds
Metroid Prime 2: 17 seconds
Metroid Dread: 35 seconds
How far we've come. Only 10 of those 35 seconds are actual loading time. The other 25 are wasted on unskippable animations. Every. Single. Time. And you will be hopping back and forth between areas a lot.
Then there are the EMMIs. It seems like the developers had this cool idea that the player would be constantly being hunted, had to be on alert all the time, use the cloak to hide, etc. Basically what Fusion did with SA-X in some scripted scenes but for real now. But then it turned out to be too difficult to get it right, or some higher up told them it's not what fans would want from Metroid, so they confined the EMMIs to small sections that you get linearly funneled in and out of. Or maybe this is
exactly what they wanted, I don't know. In any case, it's neither fish nor flesh.
Zero Mission was pretty short and simple in comparison but also more enjoyable, at least up until Mother Brain. I played this on hard since the rom still had my old save from 2004(!). And fuck, Tourian on hard is srs bsns! There are a lot more Metroids than usual while you have reduced max ammo and 50% HP. They can easily overwhelm you. Mother Brain herself is also protected by a million projectiles and lava pits...
The game goes downhill fast after Tourian with the added Pirate ship, forced stealth, and optional collectathon. You can break out of the ship and revisit the other areas to get all the remaining items. But it feels so pointless here. You are just a few rooms away from the final boss but then turn around to hunt more items you don't need, some of which are so well hidden behind ridiculous shinespark parkour, that I'd say it's not worth it. I like the idea of shinespark parkour (I liked them in AM2R and even in MD), but these were too extreme for my taste. Or maybe I didn't fully understand what I was supposed to do.
Super Metroid is easily the best game of the three, especially in terms of exploration. But it was also the hardest to get used to the controls for me. Samus is so floaty compared to the other games. And there is also a run button for some reason. Why would I ever
not want to run? And I could swear there was a bit of input lag. I can't be certain, but it felt like input lag after playing for a few hours and consistently sliding off ledges instead of jumping because I'm pressing the jump button 1 or 2 frames "too late". Maybe the game just is like this, or it's probably an emulator issue.
The most satisfying thing though are the walljumps which are a completely optional ability. Even after I got the Space Jump upgrade, I kept climbing up walls with walljumps because it's faster. And they allow some easy sequence breaks, like I found a power bomb expansion before the actual power bomb upgrade. You know what happens then? You get the power bomb, of course ...
unlike in MD!
Another memorable part is when you are stuck in Norfair for a long time and can't get out until you find the Ice Beam which may take a while if you don't know where to go. And when you finally crawl back to the surface,
Samus's Theme starts playing for the first time. No cutscenes needed.
This is also the easiest game with an extra easy final boss in order to not ruin the Baby™ moment. A hard mode would have been appreciated. There are probably rom hacks for that. And a feature that tells you which area still has hidden items was also needed, like in the other games. I only say this because I was missing just
one missile tank at the end. Where should I even start looking? I'm glad I used a guide to get this last tank because I would have never found it on my own. It's number 8 on
this list, a random spot in some giant wall with no platforms near it, so you can't even reveal it with the X-Ray visor.
That's enough Metroid for me until MP4 comes out.
to 
and when you hit the last Nar Sahddda segment (getting Lady Luck ready to escape) it rises to a 
.
