My Review
Finished the game and this are my initial thoughts
Take in consideration that i played this game after finishing Dread and Prime 1 so my expectations were sky high.
The game is a good Metroid game but at the same time it inst a Metroid game, its has the shooting mechanics of prime but there is it, no sense exploration or discovery, its too linear and too guided with the most tedious backtracking of any Metroid that i've played. The game has an amazing art direction and a awful level design, most level are only straight corridors with almost nothing to discover.
Ice Belt ( power off ) is the best level of the game by far, the lack of music and the environment story telling is peak, the sense of isolation ( even if it has a npc talking you from time to time ) is the best in the game, it has that sense of discovery since is the only level where you can really find hidden lore using your scanner.
Volt Forge was the worse level in the game for me, it had so much potential and such amazing art direction, but the level design was basicly 3 elevators that would lead you direct to you objective and a straight line to ride your bike to the next elevator, this level had potential to host the whole game in it with each tower being a different biome with intricate and interconnected level design, it was such a waste of potential that it hurts.
The bike and the desert is one of the worst inclusion to a game that i ever played, its just boring work and i think enough was already said about this.
The scanner that in Prime 1 was one of the major mechanics of the game since 90% of everything had a meaning, almost every scan in that game would tell you something about the pirates, the metroid experiments, the biology of the planet, the chozos or the disaster that fell upon Tallon, this game scanner was probably just an after thought, something that the devs had to put in game to maintain the Prime aspect of the gameplay, 90% of your scanner in Prime 4 are trash that serves no purpouse in game, story telling or lore.
Combat is good, morphball animation is so fluid that makes me smile every time i use the damn thing, the lack of diferent visors made the combat feel a little more shallow, since you basicaly have only too aim and fire this time.
Boss battles are really great, but again the lack of different visors made things a little shallow, for example when you fight Thardus in Prime 1 you have to use the heat vision to find his weak spot, but once you expose his weak spot the heat visor stop working because exposing his weak spot cause an overflow of Phazon radiation that overloads your visor, its not even a great fight but this level of detail help with the world building of the game, something that imo Prime 4 lacks even if the bosses are cool to fight.
The suits, are the worst suits i've seen on a Metroid game, its only a biker suit with big shoulderpads ( i have to give props to the shoulder pads that at least resemble chozo heads imo ).
The visuals and the art direction of the game are amazing even on switch 1, the performance is spot on and makes the gameplay feels responsive as it should.
Audio design is great, it has punch and it ll immerse you if you have a good headset or surround system, amazing job here.
The OST is hit or miss for me, there is some really good ones, but overall i think its bellow Prime in every way ( i miss my euro techno junk )
The end of the game is something that ll divide ppl and i need to sleep on it a little bit to see if i liked or not and comment about it later.
Overall Metroid Prime 4 alone is a good action/adventure game, with some flaws here and there but nothing game breaking, if i would to score this game on its own i would give a 7.5/10... BUT since i came from Dread and Prime my personal bias score cant go higher than 6/10.
At the end of the day its a good game, but a disappointing Metroid.
* Sorry for any grammar error, english is not my main language and i try not to use translation tool in order to practice the damn thing.
