Metroid Prime 4: Beyond | Review Thread

So i've played the game for about 5 hours straight now and i can give some insights.(mild spoilers)
The part where you accompany the annoying guy is pretty short. Yes his dialogue is cringe but it's over quickly. Beyond that you need to return briefly to him for certain upgrades.
Apart from that, after Fury Green you are headed for the
Spiky Power Plant type area
this is where you get the Bike and
Red Suit
The whole area is packed to the brim with mini-bosses and bossfights. At point you have
a mini-boss, a short puzzle, another mini-boss, a boss, and another mini boss, right after each other, with little walking between.
The bike stuff is pretty much focused on the desert area mostly, which serves as a "Hyrule Field" kinda hub-world.
The game looks good and plays good.
Bossfights are fun and revolve around techniques and finding the right approach to weaknesses.
I am eager to play more tomorrow.
 
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"Sarge, look! She's doing Morph Ball!"

Fucking LMAO 🤣
LOL if I were going to write a fake review just to troll the fanboys, I would fill it with stuff like this. I still can't believe this shit is actually in the game.

Reviewers are a joke, no 2 ways about that but...the defence force at display here is the usual one when it comes to everything Nintendo, someone help my guy Mozza 'cause he's been doing double shifts since the topic went up.

And by the way, 80+ isn't a bad score by any means, it's just that everything that people were worried about from the previews are, in fact in the game - the same things that the usual 4-5 absolute fanboys in here were trying to deflect for weeks now by calling others "haters®" and accusing them of "concern trolling ®"

It's not about "hate", the thing that will bring this company down is the insufferable, zealot fanbase which is 100x worse than xboys Sonyboy and PCMR combined.

Fanboys are the worst. These people would be the first to brag if the game got a 90+. But if their hyped game (which they haven't even played yet) gets less than excellent reviews, they will pick through the negative ones and come up with any excuse why the review is unfair or should be disqualified for some reason.

For fuck's sake, 8/10 is still a good score. You are allowed to love a game even if it gets "only" 80 Metacritic. It's not an attack on your personal identity and self worth.

Personally I'm still planning to get the game and enjoy it for what it is. It's OK
 
I don't think that anyone seriously believes that 80% is a bad score, it's just not great for a Metroid game.

I'm quiet surprised by the score myself to be honest. It seems quiet low for a proper Metroid.
8/10 is not a bad score at all in a vacuum.

It is a bad score if you're carrying the legacy of metroid prime, one of the greatest games in the history of mankind
 
I've always considered the 10 scale reviews like this:
10 = prime, not perfect but an "essential" play for most
9 = superb, an amazing game with a flaw or two
8 = great, a very worthwhile game for fans with some issues
7 = good, enjoyable with a good bit of things that needing fixing, but some will still love it
6 = mediocre, just for specific people who like a particular genre/style etc.
5 and below = specific issues, broken or unfinished, bad mechanics, bad design and more.
 
So i've played the game for about 5 hours straight now and i can give some insights.(mild spoilers)
The part where you accompany the annoying guy is pretty short. Yes his dialogue is cringe but it's over quickly. Beyond that you need to return briefly to him for certain upgrades.
Apart from that, after Fury Green you are headed for the
Spiky Power Plant type area
this is where you get the Bike and
Red Suit
The whole area is packed to the brim with mini-bosses and bossfights. At point you have
a mini-boss, a short puzzle, another mini-boss, a boss, and another mini boss, right after each other, with little walking between.
The bike stuff is pretty much focused on the desert area mostly, which serves as a "Hyrule Field" kinda hub-world.
The game looks good and plays good.
Bossfights are fun and revolve around techniques and finding the right approach to weaknesses.
I am eager to play more tomorrow.
this is such a turn off to me, metroidvania games are all about moving/puzzles/action with almost no down time, having a desert filled with filler content is a no no for me.

imagine how tedious the back tracking ll be if you need to cross this desert every time you have to go to another area, i hope they have some teleports like in Dread.
 
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I am just sad.

Zelda, Metroid, and then Super Metroid was the foundation of my gaming life. They influenced everything about the way I look at games.

To see my most beloved game series continually fall further and further from the heights that defined it is really painful. I held out hope for Metroid Dread, but it turned out to be yet another hand holding modern game.

On one hand I am sad. The greatest game of all time Super Metroid, has devolved into this kiddie game modern day marvel script slop.

On the other hand I got Silksong. A true successor to the throne of Metroidvania. A game made by people who absolutely within their soul understand what makes the genre shine.

I was going to buy a switch 2 for prime 4. Now I am not buying either of them.
Bilewater sucks ass tho
 
Am I the only one not bothered by the characters? I find it kind of refreshing to have characters that talk so much, usually I'm sensitive to that sort of writing, but I don't think it ruins it.

Though it is funny, Nintendo uses Austin devs, gets "millennial writing", NA devs can't NOT do it like that.

Is it worth it to play it on a Switch OLED? Or is the difference between Switch 1 and 2 too stark? Where does 4 fall in the timeline? Unless that's a big spoiler meant to be a big reveal.
 
I've always considered the 10 scale reviews like this:
10 = prime, not perfect but an "essential" play for most
9 = superb, an amazing game with a flaw or two
8 = great, a very worthwhile game for fans with some issues
7 = good, enjoyable with a good bit of things that needing fixing, but some will still love it
6 = mediocre, just for specific people who like a particular genre/style etc.
5 and below = specific issues, broken or unfinished, bad mechanics, bad design and more.
I play games the same way you view them here. The amount of 7/10 games I've played that were really good are numerous. Anything above that is guaranteed great.
 
Should've used the voucher for MindsEye, bro
giphy.gif
 
I like the chatty Metroids (Fusion, Prime 3, Other M) so I'm OK with this. Samus doesn't need to be alone 100% of the time or stoic 100% of the time. She doesn't need to be a silent protagonist either (even Super let her monologue at the beginning).
I always thought Fusion was underrated but didn't play the other two
 
I thought we'd get a ton of really good first party stuff early on considering they made a trillion dollars with the Switch. Even the pipeline looks like shit. This is very disappointing.
 
Yeah, that's not how writing works. Nice try, though.
It's the nickname people call it, whatever you want to call it, you know exactly the style of writing I'm talking about.

And again, I don't think it ruins the game, but it is funny how NA devs can't help but keep doing the same tropes over and over again in every single game, like a person with OCD, they can't NOT do it, you were gonna get Marvel style dialog from Austin devs no matter what.
 
Miles Mackenzie alone brought it down 10 points.
I would not care If this "companion" was handled like in Dread.

Adam is great, It ll tell you what is happening and your current objective just at specific rooms, other than that Samus ll explore ZDR quiet as It should be.

But having annoying NPC talking everytime is always annoying in any game.
 
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Giant Bomb gave it 100%, I trust them more than these random reviewers on Metacritic that I've never heard of



Liked seeing his opinion.

I understand it can be divisive but there's been a couple of trusted reviewers I watched that rank it up there as 2nd best in the Metroid prime franchise so really, I think I'll fucking love it.
 
It's the nickname people call it, whatever you want to call it, you know exactly the style of writing I'm talking about.

And again, I don't think it ruins the game, but it is funny how NA devs can't help but keep doing the same tropes over and over again in every single game, like a person with OCD, they can't NOT do it, you were gonna get Marvel style dialog from Austin devs no matter what.

Do I need to repeat what I said? That's not how writing works. That's now how people work. That's not how generations work.

It's a choice. They can not do it.
 
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"I have a great idea, Samus! Oh, uh, can I call you Samus? Yes? No?... Maybe?"

"I'm not hearing a no. Still not hearing a no. Oh! That look you just gave me, that's a no, isn't it?"

"Definitely a no. Well, anyway, I have a great idea , Samu - uh, Galactic space lady person. What if we... check the map!"

"If we check the map, we can get our bearings in the region! Great idea huh, Sam, er, Mrs Aran?"

"Is it Mrs Aran or Miss Aran? Is there a Mr Aran at home? Does he perhaps morph into a cube? I'm asking for a friend."
 
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"I have a great idea, Samus! Oh, uh, can I call you Samus? Yes? No?... Maybe?"

"I'm not hearing a no. Still not hearing a no. Oh! That look you just gave me, that's a no, isn't it?"

"Definitely a no. Well, anyway, I have a great idea , Samu - uh, Galactic space lady person. What if we... check the map!"

"If we check the map, we can get out bearings in the region! Great idea huh, Sam, er, Mrs Aran?"

"Is it Mrs Aran or Miss Aran? Is there a Mr Aran at home? Does he perhaps morph into a cube? I'm asking for a friend."
I can't even tell if this is satire at this point.
 
People in these comments need to stop COPING. 80 for a mainline Metroid Prime is a DISASTER. Just accept it. Joss Whedon fucked us all. He's all you'll be thinking about while that NPC delivers AWESOME ONE LINER as you collect your fifteenth power up.
 
This review, Giant Bombs and the Digital Foundry one have more more excited about the game than I was before. The NPC thing seems vastly overblown.

Pretty much my the 3 that have convinced me this game will consume my time when it releases.

It's not flawless, the lows are low, but just hearing that some places have some of the best levels in metroid prime franchise alone and that its better than Metroid prime 2 & 3 for these peoples is...

Season 7 Reaction GIF by The Office
 
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There's obviously no option to turn off the Galactic Force Companions or skip the central desert map huh? It sounds like this game will land at or below the Metroid Prime 3 in my tier list.

Some of the reviews are weird too like they are trying to not come down so hard on the game.

"This is one of the most beautiful graphically advanced games Nintendo has ever released" *If you ignore how empty and bad the desert map looks and feels*

"Come one guys the companions aren't a THAT bad" *If you compare them only to the ones found in Metroid Prime 3 and not compare it to a modern game*
 
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8/10 sounds about right.

The Metroid stuff seems great (and it does look on point). But the companions and bike go against what a Metroid experience should be. Huge misstep from Retro there.
 
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Do I need to repeat what I said? That's not how writing works. That's now how people work. That's not how generations work.

It's a choice. They can not do it.
It's quips like what you see in a Marvel movie, it's the same kind of humor, what am I supposed to call it?

Can they not do it? Because it seems like a lot of devs can't help but do the same exact things these days, I compared it to an OCD, because it really is like that.

I can see what the thought process was, they didn't want you to just going through the whole game with silence, so they added wacky side characters to spice it up, the trouble is people have seen that sort of thing a million times now.
 
Huge misstep from Retro there.
Inclined to agree. Missed opportunity for Speed Booster and Shinespark. Should be a no-brainer for both wide open spaces and long corridors. Not to mention it's always great to see those exhaust's on the Chozo Armor's back flare up.

 
Sounds like a game with very high highs and very low lows
That seems to be the common sentiment so a 7 or 7.5 should be more appropriate in my mind but I can't help but feel like they WANT this game to succeed and are really hesitant to go for that score because it's a "Nintendo game" or because it's been 18 years since Metroid Prime 3.
 
After some initial, more heavy-handed hours, Myles mercifully fades into the background whenever you're out of the home base. But if you're driving around the desert for too long, he'll buzz and unsubtly remind you that if you're not sure where to go you can give him a call for a tip. On a few occasions - usually after finishing one dungeon but before you have the necessary skills to enter another - the game casts you fully loose to figure out how to get the keys you need on your own. But this only goes so far - take too long, or enter an area that is irrelevant at that point, and Myles will pop up on the radio eagerly. 'Hey, Samus - wasn't there a door you couldn't open in the volcano?' You can sense the design strain of wanting players to experience the 'search' part of the 'search-action' genre moniker without any handholding butting up against an equally large desire to ensure people don't lose patience. In this, we can perhaps sense the most difficult part of making a game like this, for Nintendo no less, in 2025.

When you're spelunking in these dungeons, the hours just melt away. Much as with the selection of abilities, there's nothing planet-shakingly new here, but what is here is a very confident expression of what made the previous Metroid Prime games great. To dip into cliche, I had a good time with the core dungeons, but I also found them nothing really to write home about. They're just a good but fairly forgettable time.

It is one of those games that is - excuse another cliche - less than the sum of its parts. I enjoyed my time with it; when you're deep in those dungeons, the design is snappy and confident and the atmosphere impeccable even in the company of chatty NPCs. Puzzley boss encounters, where you die once but use that death to 'download' a strategy before wrecking the boss on your second attempt, are each a delight. These things are glimpses of vintage Metroid. But the way it all stitches together just isn't. In fact, those heady highs serve to really emphasise how this game could have - and perhaps should have - been so much more.

No matter how much you enjoy the gameplay part, I don't think there's much more disappointing than finishing a game that's relatively narratively-driven and thinking, "that's it?" at the credits. Don't give me this rubbish about Metroid not being narratively-focused, either: I felt a sense of narrative satisfaction ushering that baby Metroid to safety in black and white, without any dialogue, back in 1993. I also understood the emotion behind why Samus decided to rescue a manifestation of the very thing she'd spent all game killing.


Alex Donaldson, Eurogamer. 3 stars out of 5.
 
"I have a great idea, Samus! Oh, uh, can I call you Samus? Yes? No?... Maybe?"

"I'm not hearing a no. Still not hearing a no. Oh! That look you just gave me, that's a no, isn't it?"

"Definitely a no. Well, anyway, I have a great idea , Samu - uh, Galactic space lady person. What if we... check the map!"

"If we check the map, we can get out bearings in the region! Great idea huh, Sam, er, Mrs Aran?"

"Is it Mrs Aran or Miss Aran? Is there a Mr Aran at home? Does he perhaps morph into a cube? I'm asking for a friend."

wtf GIF
 
Most likely this. Metroid isn't a huge seller but it's one of the few gamer games from Nintendo. People want to see it do well. Hard to cope with mediocrity.
And I get the thought process too "If we give the game a bad score less new/general consumers will buy the game which means less sales for the game which means Nintendo might shelf the franchise for another 10+ years again"

And considering how long they held on to the completed remake of Metroid Prime 1 and how long it has been since a new F-Zero game has released out of all publishers out there Nintendo is one of the most willing to pull this sort of thing but at the same time it doesn't feel right that this game is getting off easy because of this.
 
Pretty much my the 3 that have convinced me this game will consume my time when it releases.

It's not flawless, the lows are low, but just hearing that some places have some of the best levels in metroid prime franchise alone and that its better than Metroid prime 2 & 3 for these peoples is...

Season 7 Reaction GIF by The Office
Better than Metroid prime 2 and 3 at 81

Austin Powers Doctor Evil GIF


Thats what 18 years of starvation does to ppl
 
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