joffocakes

Yeah Dread definitely the hardest Metroid game in terms of bosses. Super's Ridley fight was kinda tough but that's about it. I dont recall Fusion having any difficult encounters though Prime's Meta-Ridley and Omega Pirate fights were a little tougher but still pretty generous in how many mistakes you could make I before needing to retry.

The staff wielding soldier fights are quite similar in attack pattern to the Hornet fights too. Overall I prefer Dread's tighter map design but Hollow Knight's combat is a lot more satisfying.

I think the E.M.M.I parry window is more generous in the underwater sections? I don't know if it's generous enough to react to though, rather than pre-empt.

Galaxy is a phenomenal but PyramidFace is right about the long jump sapping momentum, it's one of my biggest disappointments with that game. Skating on ice is superb though. Sliding on your belly in Sunshine is excellent fun too but unfortunately does not make up for everything else.

I am hoping the new ordinances will have something that plucks the weeds for me. Or the flowers, which are even worse.

Yeah I'm very familiar with Super Metroid and I've finished Fusion (not played Zero Mission but definitely will next) so I understood the flow of this and was almost exactly one hour slower than your time, then 9h50m for 100%. Main struggle was that I was appallingly bad at the E.M.M.I sections. I wouldn't be surprised if I was caught over 100 times by them.

I need to play Arkham Asylum. Wasn't ever really interested I've heard a few folk say it has Metroid structure.

@MikeF mentioned it in their original post but yes, Hollow Knight is one of the very best. Maybe my absolute favourite (a little too long, though).

Gato Roboto is nice and short.

Yeah I didn't notice that when I parried once and panicked trying to escape:

There is one annoyingly long mid-game cutscene and the occasional short status update section but it's mostly free of that kinda stuff.

Finally finished this tonight, 7h37min in total (with only 49% of items collected as the pace just kept ploughing forward). Thoroughly enjoyed it the entire way through, even if I got caught by E.M.M.I over a hundred times. Only minor criticisms were a fair few instances of slowdown (not ruinous) and a few cutscenes were too long for my tastes. Everything else was perfectly Metroid, almost impossible to stop for the night when there's the temptation to see how far your new gadget will get you. It's a beautiful looking game too, even playing on my launch Switch exclusively in handheld mode. There was a cutscene early one (part of the intro?) where we see through Samus' visor and it made me briefly wish I was playing a new Metroid Prime but now that I'm done all I want is more 2D Metroid, immediately. I hope Mercury Steam get to work on a sequel, but I've not played Zero Mission so I'll get stuck into that. Once I've got all of Dread's items, obviously. My one small disappointment:

Yeah, I'm early on but I've only countered the E.M.M.I three times (and died trying 20 times). I assume it's during the glint but it's pretty tight. At least one of those times I failed to get away even after the counter as well.

This is good.

OH OH OH.