Is socking Bald Bull in the gut during his bull charge "one step away from QTE"?
I'm very excited for Dread, as Metroid is a contender for one of the best gaming series ever. I've been replaying Samus Returns lately to get back in the MercurySteam mindset. They did a great job with Samus's controls and particularly the combat, as the boss battles are fast, dynamic and challenging (and there are a ton of them).
M:SR is great overall but it's not quite in my upper tier of Metroid, and right now, my number one worry with Dread is based on my number one complaint with M:SR. Remember that part of Zero Mission where you sneak around Chozodia and there're all these intricate ducts and holes to crawl through? And then later in the game after the stealth part, it all feels kind of clunky to get around?
That's kind of how big chunks of Samus Returns feels to me. Exploring the world is a little lacking thanks to a combination of hearty foes, a lack of visual variety in the environments (compared to past games), and a lack of really distinctive rooms to give you a sense of place (I think Super Metroid did this the best in the series). I'm hoping the area design is a bit more "open," for lack of a better word, although given the emphasis on stealth and tricking the EMMI, I'm not sure how feasible that is.
That hangup aside, I'm still getting this day one for sure. It's just hard to compete with 90s-era R&D1.