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Metroid Prime 4 Beyond |OT| We place our faith in you, Chosen One.

I finally started it this evening and played for about an hour.

Seems pretty f'n awesome to me! Can't wait to play more tomorrow!

The music and atmosphere are excellent. Loving it, so far.
 
I finally started it this evening and played for about an hour.

Seems pretty f'n awesome to me! Can't wait to play more tomorrow!

The music and atmosphere are excellent. Loving it, so far.
Wasn't as bad as some said it was.. but not up to par with the likes of Prime 1 Remaster/Prime 2 Emu. It does have some great music and nice gameplay moments, but it forgot what it USED to be. I think that sums up what The Prime fans have been saying.
 
Well, I finally finished it. Here are some thoughts, in no particular order.

  • Puzzles are way too few and way too easy to the point where I didn't even bother getting items because there's no challenge to it.
  • To much combat vs. exploration.
  • Too many loading screens/elevators (and some very silly looking transitions, like the running)
  • Desert section, while not as bad as I thought it'd be, doesn't add much. Same with the bike. I'm a bit indifferent to both.
  • Green crystal fetch quest is really bad.
  • Story makes no sense to me and Sylux just comes off as an awful antagonist, if you can even call him that? He's barely in the game.
  • Powerups are mostly just the usual stuff with "psychic" put in front of each name..
  • Loads of wasted potential with abilities in general. We should be walking on walls, upside down etc. with stuff like the psychic boots. Antigravity powers could've been really fun etc. etc.
  • Opening doors is such a stupid use for the abilities.
  • Scanning is nowhere near as good as in past entries.
  • Where are the visors? Huuuuge missed potential there.
  • Levels are way too linear, more Zelda-esque than Metroid or Castlevania. Feels "cheap" compared to previous entries.
  • Music was pretty great.
  • Game looks amazing, can't wait to see Metroid Prime 5 built for Switch 2 specifically.
  • Runs really well, super smooth.
  • Lots of different control options that all work great. I've tried them all to some degree.
  • Very polished throughout, didn't encounter any issues anywhere.
  • NPC voice acting wasn't as bad as I thought it'd be, and not as prominent (thankfully).
  • Very poor enemy variety.
  • Being forced to heal the NPC's is an incredibly stupid addition and almost made me quit the game entirely.
  • The Auto-save is pretty terrible.
  • To me it feels like they've tackled the game like it's a shooter when it should be more of an action adventure game. E.g. the combat sections where you're getting swarmed by enemies feel super out of place to me.

Not even close to being up to snuff with past entries imo - but still better than something like Other M/Federation Force. If I squint my eyes and look beyond all of its issues I can see a foundation to build on going forward. But they have their work cut out for them to say the least.. This entry is Metroid 'Prime' in name only, it misses pretty much everything that makes the Prime series unique.

This lands somewhere in the 6/10 range for me. Definitely the biggest disappointment this year for me, and the worst AAA Nintendo game I've played in a looooooong time.

Playtime: 18 hours


TLDR Review:
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Well just completed it and certainly enjoyed it.

I was not going to get the game as I didn't enjoy the MP remastered on Switch or Corruption back on the day, I also dropped Dread after getting stuck at a boss fight, so this was not appealing to me at all but I got a new controller, wanted a game to play and good a good deal on it.

Overall fun to play, good looking game, nice music, yes some of the characters are annoying but it doesn't overstay its welcome.

Thumbs up from me.
 
Finished the game this afternoon. The graphics and boss fights were the highlights except first half of last boss, and morph ball stuff was cool as always. I liked the controls, except how sometimes you need to aim the reticle while locked on during certain fights. Would have worked with Wii Remote pointer, but with a regular controller it was awkward. Level design was very simplistic; it reminded me of something like Wonderboy and the Dragon's Trap with linear action stages branching off of a hub area. At least the areas were cool looking and entertaining enough to trek through. The plot and federation characters were OK, not great but not offensive either.

Overall it was a fun game. 7/10
 
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-The fangirl is much worse than Mckenzie....like holy fuck cringe central

-And Samus...shut the fuck up. The constant head nodding at people counts as talking. What have they done to you my girl?
 
This game is a very interesting example of how developers can't just go back and make a game in the style of something from 20 years ago from scratch anymore. Like all the knowledge and expertise of the original Prime's development has been lost to time and what we get is this weird interpretation which feels like the skin of a Metroid Prime game on top of something else. Sometimes I'm playing this game and it's quite uncanny how Metroid Prime it is and then suddenly it's nothing like Metroid Prime. Or it tries to do something from the original Prime series but for some reason it doesn't quite feel correct (scanning being the major one for me.)

Is it purely because of the development hell this game had or is it like how no one can make films that look like the films of the past anymore because we simple forgot how to.

A good warning for all those clamouring for new a Metal Gear Solid and the like even after getting remakes and ports. Although I think games like Shenmue 3 and recently Ninja Gaiden 4 have already shown this.
 
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This game is a very interesting example of how developers can't just go back and make a game in the style of something from 20 years ago from scratch anymore. Like all the knowledge and expertise of the original Prime's development has been lost to time and what we get is this weird interpretation which feels like the skin of a Metroid Prime game on top of something else. Sometimes I'm playing this game and it's quite uncanny how Metroid Prime it is and then suddenly it's nothing like Metroid Prime. Or it tries to do something from the original Prime series but for some reason it doesn't quite feel correct (scanning being the major one for me.)

Is it purely because of the development hell this game had or is it like how no one can make films that look like the films of the past anymore because we simple forgot how to.

A good warning for all those clamouring for new a Metal Gear Solid and the like even after getting remakes and ports. Although I think games like Shenmue 3 and recently Ninja Gaiden 4 have already shown this.
It is kind of a people thing yes, super hard especially for good devs and artists to be humble and learn from others, to learn how something worked and why and continue on that approach making it theirs. Compared to the old era of apprenticeships / artists learning from their teachers mastering their teachers' style before expressing their unique one you have generations of people being educated to express themselves first and foremost… some almost incapable of learning from others.
 
To me it feels like they've tackled the game like it's a shooter when it should be more of an action adventure game. E.g. the combat sections where you're getting swarmed by enemies feel super out of place to me.
I remember that when it came out, Nintendo at the time clearly spent time telling people it was not an FPS but an FPA aka First Person Adventure game.

E.g.:
 
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I remember that when it came out, Nintendo at the time clearly spent time telling people it was not an FPS but an FPA aka First Person Adventure game.
It's definitely more like that (or at least should be) than something like, say, CoD/Halo or your typical FPS.

I certainly don't play Metroid for FPS combat gameplay at least. If anything I'm more likely to just run past enemies while backtracking/exploring rather than engage.
 
It's definitely more like that (or at least should be) than something like, say, CoD/Halo or your typical FPS.

I certainly don't play Metroid for FPS combat gameplay at least. If anything I'm more likely to just run past enemies while backtracking/exploring rather than engage.
Exactly, that is what I got out of the first Prime game, MP4 sounds a bit like they tried to make a sequel to Super Metroid that plays more like Metal Slug.
 
I remember that when it came out, Nintendo at the time clearly spent time telling people it was not an FPS but an FPA aka First Person Adventure game.
They play more similar to Iguana Entertainment's Turok(which when Iguana went under, Talent went to Retro Studios) games particularly 2 which featured mazelike levels.

The mazelike/labyrinthian level design is a big part of Metroid Prime.

FPA is just Nintendo trying to make a distinction from the FPS genre of that time period. Since it features nonlinear exploration, puzzles, and shooting things.

P Panajev2001a Unlike Sol Valley, OoT Hyrule Field was filled with secrets and quests to do which is what makes it so memorable.
 
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They play more similar to Iguana Entertainment's Turok(which when Iguana went under, Talent went to Retro Studios) games particularly 2 which featured mazelike levels.

The mazelike/labyrinthian level design is a big part of Metroid Prime.

FPA is just Nintendo trying to make a distinction from the FPS genre of that time period. Since it features nonlinear exploration, puzzles, and shooting things.

P Panajev2001a Unlike Sol Valley, OoT Hyrule Field was filled with secrets and quests to do which is what makes it so memorable.
Not really, I know the DNA of some of the staff, but it is the emphasis on platforming, exploring, etc… over shooting. Turok has a far higher emphasis on shooting mechanics and combat than Metroid Prime did which plays into the FPA vs FPS distinction too in terms of managing expectations.
 
Not really, I know the DNA of some of the staff, but it is the emphasis on platforming, exploring, etc… over shooting. Turok has a far higher emphasis on shooting mechanics and combat than Metroid Prime did which plays into the FPA vs FPS distinction too in terms of managing expectations.
Metroid Prime is more about exploration and puzzles. Even the boss fights historically have been puzzles to figure out. Although I found the puzzles in MP4 to be too simple. However the core concept is there. Complete objectives or find items/powerups within a maze in each level. In Metroid you have your Powersuit upgrades. In Turok 2 you had Sacred Talismans that gave you different abilities and some were even passive like walking on lava or swimming in toxic water.
 
The labyrinthine design of classic Metroid was already criticized by not a few people when Prime released.
The heavy backtracking, and the sense of not knowing where you are and where the heck you should go once you get deep enough into a map, has always been a con about Metroidvanias for some people. It's not for everyone. Prime certainly had a lot of backtracking — so much of the game was going through Magmoor to get somewhere else. Prime 2 made maps even more confusing by changing some layouts while you went through the game (the area surrounding the Grapple Guardian was incredibly confusing after you'd beaten the boss), and by having the dark world divided into several small areas.

I somehow understand modern players having a hard time with that, and modern devs wanting to trim the backtracking and dispersiveness. The problem with that is that, inevitably, at one point you find out you've trimmed so much, you now have to pad what's left with a lot of filler.

There is no easy solution to this, because gamers and gaming have changed.
You either make the game you want, and risk it bombing. Say it's an excuse all you want, but Metroid has its best seller in Dread, the latest in a 35-year series, selling roughly 3 million copies on a system standing at 150 million units sold.
Or you do as most AAA games have been doing for a long time. It's either a linear movie-like affair where you can select the difficulty, or it's a 20-to-30-hour main quest that John Doe and his grandma can beat squeezed between 50+ hours of optional content for those who want more.

Game design isn't a lost art. There's tons of indies doing games that are more than a match for the classics. And they're indies for a reason. The market is too big to invest $200 million in a game that has the level design of Silksong and the puzzles of Cocoon. It would possibly sell even less that the indies it imitates, precisely because people aren't used to complex game design coupled with the greatest tech anymore.

That said, it's hard to believe the heads of the Prime 4 project saw where the game was going and said "yeah, that's exactly what it should be". The overall design of the game is too amateurish. There must be more than what they're revealing in the interviews about why the game feels like they didn't even try to emulate the design of the old games. "The game was lagging behind the times" is a pretty lame statement, considering that MP's design is 25 years old and it's still as good as it was back then - in other words, the fans would have been totally ok with MP4's design to feel old, because it was so good and it hasn't aged a day.
 
I'm back at the point where my game bugged out and I couldn't continue. Luckily, this time there are no issues.

That said, I'm a bit burned out now lol. Still, I'm glad I can finally move on
 
Man just spent like 10 mins grinding down an (admittedly cool looking) boss' health that constantly regenerated its parts, and the reward was the fucking space jump boots LOL Oh wait they're psychic now because of arbitrary invisible platforms.

Why didn't they just make the boss fight a lot shorter but harder? Instead they basically give you unlimited health refills because they clearly knew it dragged on for way too long for the amount of health and weapon power you have at that point in time. This game is funky.
 
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I'm done with this game.

I've never played another Metroid so I didn't really know what to expect.

First hour was fine but with the next few and all the backtracking required it just killed me on the inside.

Not for me.
 
Man just spent like 10 mins grinding down an (admittedly cool looking) boss' health that constantly regenerated its parts, and the reward was the fucking space jump boots LOL Oh wait they're psychic now because of arbitrary invisible platforms.

Why didn't they just make the boss fight a lot shorter but harder? Instead they basically give you unlimited health refills because they clearly knew it dragged on for way too long for the amount of health and weapon power you have at that point in time. This game is funky.
the entire game is full of padding. Padded boss fights, padded scans, padded loading times and animations, padded desert shit.

I have no idea what they've done for 6 years.
 
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I've dropped it for now. Everything feels so half baked. The power ups haven't been amazing and the tasks of finding missile expansions and green crystals isn't keeping my interest. I feel like a fan made Prime game could have been better than Prime 4.
 
The comparison between Sol Valley and Hyrule Field kind of makes sense on the surface (big hub world, few/repetitive enemies, only a handful of secrets), but here are some notable differences:

-A large 3D space like Hyrule Field was new at the time which added to the novelty
-The music in Hyrule Field was nice and kept that sense of adventure going
-YMMV but I find Vi-O-La's controls to be kind of stiff compared to Link's
-Epona lets you blaze across the field way faster than the bike lets you go through the desert
-You can fast travel in OoT so you aren't crossing Hyrule Field constantly
-Hyrule Field doesn't *require* the player to collect hundreds of resources while playing
-For that matter, the Green Energy crystals are meant to give you something to do but the way they're designed mixed with the bike controls means you often can't just crash through them but have to circle back to get all of them. So you suddenly have these little chores to do as you traverse and they'll often kill your momentum
-The secrets you DO find are usually available from the get-go; MP4's little grottos almost all require later items
-From an open-world perspective, you can actually travel to most places early on in Hyrule Field, whereas Sol Valley locks you out of most of its "spokes" until you get the right item

I can see some similarities between the desert and Wind Waker's Great Sea but there are just as many differences there that I don't feel like going into right now. Above all else, these big Zelda areas were attached to outstanding games. If the rest of MP4 was awesome, the desert would be acceptable.
 
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I've never played another Metroid so I didn't really know what to expect.

First hour was fine but with the next few and all the backtracking required it just killed me on the inside.
The backtracking is egregious in every Metroid game.
In MP4 it's lazy and uneventful, but at least it's straightforward.
Finding your way back in the old games could be very hard, and anyway you'd be going back and forth through the same areas several times, even if you knew the entire map. There would always be something new to find or unlock on your way back to keep things interesting, but if you don't like backtracking period, then Metroid is not for you, not even its best games.


I can see some similarities between the desert and Wind Waker's Great Sea
IMO, the Great Sea is still the worst thing Nintendo ever put in a game from their major IPs.
The futility of that empty sea was a lesson for the ages. It wasn't fun. It wasn't interesting. It played very badly as soon as you had anything to do but go straight. It required doing the same things over and over and over again. And it was much bigger than MP4's desert, or at least it feels like it.
This is one comparison that MP4, as weird as it sounds, wins hands-down.
 
Overall fun to play, good looking game, nice music, yes some of the characters are annoying but it doesn't overstay its welcome.

Thumbs up from me.
Exactly. I think that's why the game has been fun enough for me. The meh parts don't last too long. NPCs. Elevators. Hallways. Going across the map just to 'cash in' a chip. ...
 
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Lots of (mostly) deserved criticism here, but can we give to some credit for having NO 30fps mode on Switch2?

Even in handheld, quality mode is 60 fps. Performance has a 120 target!
 
The generator room is spectacular.
I still can't reconcile the game looking so good and detailed with the complete lack of complexity in the area design.
 
IMO, the Great Sea is still the worst thing Nintendo ever put in a game from their major IPs.
The futility of that empty sea was a lesson for the ages. It wasn't fun. It wasn't interesting. It played very badly as soon as you had anything to do but go straight. It required doing the same things over and over and over again. And it was much bigger than MP4's desert, or at least it feels like it.
This is one comparison that MP4, as weird as it sounds, wins hands-down.
Hard disagree. First the music was 10/10 in the big sea, and there was more stuff to do, and it had a day and night cycle. It gave you a great sense of adventure. I didn't find it that annoying.
 
Hard disagree. First the music was 10/10 in the big sea, and there was more stuff to do, and it had a day and night cycle. It gave you a great sense of adventure. I didn't find it that annoying.
I can get that it's not for everyone, but at the very least, TWW offered a fast-travel mode so that you never had to sail more than a square or two away once you got it. The music and gorgeous day/night visuals really did a lot of the heavy lifting too. There was something about pulling up to a mysterious, misty island at the crack of dawn that really stoked my imagination.
 
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The generator room is spectacular.
I still can't reconcile the game looking so good and detailed with the complete lack of complexity in the area design.
It's funny to go through Prime 3 after playing this now. I'm playing with a regular DualSense controller, HD texture pack and shit and the game consistently feels impressively "alive". It's a weird Metroid game in that in SkyTown you're basically doing the engineering job the dude from Dead Space should've been doing but man, the technology and lived-in feel of it all is so cool compared to MP4. Some rooms are jam-packed with shit to do and to come back to. And some of the puzzles are really complex and intertwine. Maybe not difficulty-wise but the way some of these have layers and layers is killer. It doesn't feel like a bad movie set.

I did that gunship battery drop puzzle earlier and was like man...this room has fifty fucking puzzles and things to do, wow. The crux of great gameplay is problem solving so even despite the stupid hand holding early on, this game illustrates pretty well how lacking MP4 is.
 
Finished it yesterday.

Could be some minor spoilers ahead ...

Opinions on it changed a bit beyond first impressions. And I probably don't have much original to say at this point so I'll try to keep it to my takes on the more "controversial" aspects. Some more obvious ones ... I initially said Samus being mute was fine (after only hearing Mackenzie's initial dialogue) but in light of the whole game she should have spoke. There were just some absurd conversations where someone is talking quite a bit and she is basically just standing there staring at them. We've already experienced the version of her where she has diarrhea of the mouth in "Other M," something a bit more restrained would have worked just fine.

I think the actual bike gameplay was "fine" and steering it was actually kinda fun. It's basically Batman's bike from The Dark Knight and it's very maneuvarable. It got pretty easy to power slide through green crystals and not really slow down. And some of the "battles" looked cool as you were racing alongside your enemies and using the targeting system. And the collection of crystals wasn't so bad since I knew I needed to get them. If I had done none of that and had to get them all at the end? I think I would have been pissed because collectively it takes a decent amount of time to get them. Would be interesting to see an hours count. That said, they shouldn't bring it back unless they could figure out a great way to incorporate it. The over world map just doesn't have enough to justify laying the game out that way.

The areas are definitely too linear.There is no sense of real exploration in terms of figuring out how to navigate. In fact, in retrospect, I'd say the game feels small. Some of the areas do look really impressive at times to me, with great art direction. In fact, it might be my favorite of the prime series in that sense. I remember being so disappointed with Prime 1 in that regard, and I don't remember it getting better in 2 or 3. Maybe 3 was a little more spread out feeling, but it's been so long since I played them my memory could be off here. Going through some of the areas it felt like there was a chance for something great with the way the areas looked and felt but it just didn't entirely come together.

Some of the morph ball areas looked so great as you were rolling through them. Not a fan of morph ball "puzzles" that are like, "turn into a ball and spin this device." It feels too purpose built for Samus. "How convenient" more or less. It works best when it feels like you're actually sliding through areas people are not meant to get through otherwise. And there are not really any puzzles in that sense for this. In Super Metroid there are areas where you can figure out which paths to take and how to bomb through certain directions to land in different resulting areas. None of that here, even if going through some of the paths looked great.

They shouldn't allow you to shoot with A and Zr. You need to be able to shoot and use the right stick at times, and you just can't do that with A. Some people might not make that connection and will really struggle on certain bosses .... that just feels like bad design to me.

The visuals overall were better than I expected and I am more than happy with what the Switch 2 can do. I don't think games need to focus on looking more realistic, whatsoever. Big expansive worlds are possible if necessary. so I would prefer companies focus on the actual gameplay/fun, art direction, high frame rates etc. Of course if visuals can continue to improve with the "same" amount of work then by all means, but that doesn't appear to be what's happening in the industry.

The "psychic" stuff ... I don't get it. It's all the same abilities with the word psychic in front of them. Samus could have still had that connection with the "Lamorn" or whatever they were called while still just having the regular abilities. It came across as dumb IMO.

The music stinks, just like all prime games. The "enemy" theme which starts playing immediately when the game starts is something that has grated since Prime 1. It's sad that no Metroid game has hit the heights of Super Metroid, or even Metroid 1 on NES from a composition and memorable point of view. Music makes a BIG difference. There are some decent atmospheric moments but that's about it.

I am not of the opinion that things have to stick to the same formula and only the formula to continue on. I think having the Federation soldiers around Samus was fine. You are still alone 90% of the time. If they do another prime, they should either get rid of the bike or massively improve the idea. Make the areas more interconnected (which would require getting rid of said bike more or less) with actually intricate environmental puzzles. Make Samus speak if she is dealing with other people. Give the villain some actually decent motivation.

In the end it said it took me 17 hours to finish, though I think some of that I had left to do other things while the controller sat there. And it certainly doesn't feel like I spent 17 hours which is a good thing I suppose. Prime 2 is the only one I couldn't bring myself to finish (I remember hating the dark world or whatever it was) so there is that at least.

If I was forced to pick a number I'd give it a 7 I think. It's an ok game with some high points and some low points. I don't regret playing it. I can understand people loving it or hating it. I do think the "4" score that Edge gave it is total nonsense though, that to me would be a broken game with hardly any redeemable qualities. But Metroid and Metroid Prime as a whole can be so much better.
 
I finally started it this evening and played for about an hour.

Seems pretty f'n awesome to me! Can't wait to play more tomorrow!

The music and atmosphere are excellent. Loving it, so far.
I was down on it at first, because of hand-holding. But I kept playing and I've been having fun tbh, I think I'm near the end and it's a solid 8 so far. Looks amazing at times!
 
I was down on it at first, because of hand-holding. But I kept playing and I've been having fun tbh, I think I'm near the end and it's a solid 8 so far. Looks amazing at times!
Seems like this is just the type of game it is!

I'm going to play it all New Year's Day and weekend. Really looking forward to diving in more. I'm glad I went in mostly blind.
 
I keep seeing this abnormal fear of Samus talking when it was awesome in Metroid Dread when she spoke Chozo and screamed for about 3 minutes straight. Not sure why they keep saying Other M was her last voiced role.
 
Finally continued

It's definitely a vibe. I'm not trying to over analyze or critique it too much in my head and just letting it be what it is. The music has been really good so far. I already saw Volt Forge mentioned, and I want to echo that praise

mmLruPmkpy5AzhXI.jpg
 
I'm still in the middle of the Ice Belt. Just got the
Psychic Whip
Still enjoying it immensely and I think the music in this zone has been really good so far as well. Serious ambiance.
 
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I'm surprised people are being down on the music. I really like the choir vocal stuff they added like the title theme, and again in Fury Green and other areas. Volt Forge is awesome like people mentioned. I also like the crazy guitar bits in Sylux's theme.

I guess this one might be controversial, but the Vi-O-La theme is bad ass. Admittedly, I'm a tool and bought all the Amiibo before the game even came out, but cruising across the desert listening to that song (along with Volt Forge and Xelios) made me feel like I was kicking ass, even if I was mostly just crashing into green crystals.
 
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Continuing to slowly play the game and taking my sweet time with it. About halfway thru the lava area.

My thoughts haven't changed much. It's a wonderful game. The soundtrack might be the best thing ever put in a video game. The visuals, everything about it is just top-notch, AAA. Nice to see Nintendo do something like this after so long. It's an absolute visual tour de force and unbelievable they got this to run on a Switch 1 @ 60 FPS.

The Ice area is the most impressively ambient level in a Metroid game since the dead ship in Corruption. It was haunting. I had hoped there would be a little more enemy variety, but the atmosphere was straight up dripping.

Still loving the bike. Anyone who shits on it or Volt Forge is on dramatic levels of crack.
 
In the fire zone. Dungeons and bosses have been fine. The rest..ehh. Combat could use a few more tricks. Samus is begging for a glory kill like system. The out of the way upgrades are hillariously bad. Not all but most of them are just..

angry GIF


I dread the late game grind. If its too infuriating I might just watch the ending on youtube.
 
In the fire zone. Dungeons and bosses have been fine. The rest..ehh. Combat could use a few more tricks. Samus is begging for a glory kill like system. The out of the way upgrades are hillariously bad. Not all but most of them are just..

angry GIF


I dread the late game grind. If its too infuriating I might just watch the ending on youtube.

 
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