I'm going to start by explaining where I come from concerning Metroid, and the whole 'Metroidvania' genre in general. Growing up I never liked Metroid or Castlevania, something about how the games controlled just never felt quite right to me. I realize this isn't an issue with the games themselves, it was always just something I could never quite feel comfortable controlling. It was a long time before I had started playing any games of the genre I could even enjoy, though a few have started cropping up here and there, Hollow Knight being my personal favorite. While I still can't enjoy Super Metroid, I played a bit of it via the Switch Online service, I still decided to give Metroid Dread a shot, since I am more open to the genre these days.
You get a brief history of Samus, so there isn't really a need to play any other game to follow the story, and the story here is shallow. Samus get's lured to a planet by a video with a surviving X, a species from previous games that were thought to now be extinct. You eventually find out why, but it's not a big part of the game. If you are looking for a good story in your game, you don't get that here at all. I am going to just quickly toss in that despite the game looking fantastic, it doesn't live up to the atmosphere of dread promised by the trailers.
Metroid Dread is all about the gameplay, and this is where the game won me over. I can't explain it, cause in a lot of ways it still plays like Super Metroid, but the controls feel a lot better to me. Certain button placements feel a bit odd, and I kept finding myself dashing instead of sliding, or vice versa, in a few areas where things get a bit tense. It can also be a bit strange holding L1 to aim, R1 to switch to the missile, and then Y to shoot them off. None of this is bad, but it can take a bit of getting used to. Once you adjust though, the game handles smoothly.
As you progress you get upgrades to your weapons, additional abilities that allow you to explore more places of the world, and everything you have come to expect with the genre. And like any good game of the genre, a lot of these abilities not only help you explore, but can be used in combat scenarios as well. Once you get the ability to do multiple jumps during your spin jump, it makes some of the later boss fights a lot more fun and dynamic. The game does a really good job at pacing out the upgrades and then making use of them in the game's big moments to keep from getting stale as you progress.
I did not play through on the hard mode that unlocks after the game is cleared, but to clear the game I ended with only about 55% of the items in the game collected and didn't find myself hurting for missiles or health. There are a few ways in most boss fights that will allow for recovery of missiles, so for a normal run, the sheer amount of upgrades can start to feel a bit excessive, even for me who only plays games of the genre occasionally. The more experienced player is likely not going to need to collect nearly all that much on a normal run.
The one issue I have is the complete lack of fast travel. I understand why it's not there, because the game isn't that massive, but there is a lot of backtracking in this game, especially since you are never given a detailed guide of where to go next. You are meant to discover things. Some backtracking can be fine, but you will be seeing the same areas over and over again. And after you have re-visited the same place once or twice, it's not going to be hard to get through it again. It's nice to have the chance to come across a new spot in an old area you can now access again, but after a certain point, it just starts to feel excessive.
That isn't enough to spoil the fact the game does handle exploration very well. As mentioned you aren't told exactly where to go, so you have to prioritize exploring every nook and cranny the game has to offer. And to the game's benefit, there are a lot of things to discover. At times it can even feel like you just stumbled across a random boss fight because there were no obvious indicators that a boss was right around the corner. It makes exploration fun.
At the end of the day even if the story is lacking and it fails to create a tense atmosphere you might expect from a game titled Dread, the game is just fun to play. You get a lot of fun and classic abilities to play with, a lot of places and things to discover, and a decent challenge that keeps you on your toes. All of which keeps fun and fresh the entire run of the game. I defiantly recommend Metroid Dread.