Vandus

This. If you could find a fast travel between biomes that would help a lot in the endgame. There are some shortcuts in a few areas to make backtracking slightly less tedious, but it’s not enough for a Metroid game

Dont look a r/metroid or any youtube discourse lol

A lotta nitpicks add up quick with this game.

The clickbaity stuff doesnt irk me, it’s more the little things that seem unfinished adding up in this game.

There was a 10/10 game in there, but something had to have happened in development to water that down to a 7 or 8/10 experience

Totally feel you on all points there. A lot of it was confusing as a lifetime fan of Prime and Metroid. I think people coming in fresh or from Dread may feel fine.

The desert did sorely need something more to it. Like maybe a space pirate camp or something

Prime 4 is a good one then. I think part of the goal was to get new players in on the series, and this one doesn’t get too bogged down (there is one little grindy part)

If you don’t care too much for %, you can get through it in 10hrs or so and have a blast the whole way through

Need to do a replay now of all primes plus Beyond. It sits just below 3 for me rn, still a fun ride though

They are all so ROUND

First boss is a round alien
Second is a round plant
Then you have a round robot
And some more round bugs

Plus one snek

I think I would actually rather Retro do a full remake of hunters with expanded multiplayer and refreshed bosses. Like MS and Samus Returns.

Hand the remasters of 2 and 3 to a third party

Then once those are out, go for Prime 5 and get it bang on with all the lessons learned

I think there was a rumor it was handed off near completion so retro could start full force on Beyond

Just a rumor tho

Remastered was just a visual refresh though. The core gameplay and design aspects were locked in.

I think new Retro has some explaining to do, and makes me truly wonder how bad the Bandai version was if this is the end result

If there is one thing they absolutely nailed, it’s the graphics on all modes. Switch 1 handheld all the way to switch 2 docked… all looks good and runs smooth.

They Halo 4’d my boy

Yeah the cost to this one project would be insane after nearly 10 years of funding development for what was supposed to be a Switch 1 title. Corporate prob wanted it done and out the door and the Devs were probably just trying to package something finished.

Yes, really hoping some devs give interviews

I made a point abt this in my own thread but it went from a switch 1 project to cancelled, changed hands and went through COVID and then had to be on Switch 2…and took 6 years from restarting to finish.

Doesn’t sound like a healthy dev cycle

Yeah they kept it so vague that it still give me hope they can sit down and make the next Prime game with more focus.

It all feels like a bunch of ideas cobbled together at the last minute to deliver on a promise that the game exists lol

Can I also point out how SPOILERS

The lore is aliens make machines, machines bad for planet, turn to green energy, green energy fucks everything up.

Feels really weird if you look at it from a political lens saying Green Energy is evil

Maybe I’m just reading into it but it’s just weird

I didn’t really see anything that would point to a continuation of the story

Can’t say much without spoilers, but it’s left so vague that you could probably skip this game’s story and not need to worry when Prime 5 comes around

It wouldn’t be as bad if it weren’t for the crystal collection, that was worse than any of the other collectathons in the other games.

And they didn’t even have an interesting name, just green energy

Also super weird how the story was “Green Energy Bad” in today’s political climate

They aren’t even fun to collect because you will miss your first pass and then have to circle around and aaaarrrg

The ideas were cool with the bike and the hubworld but execution was flat.

Apparently it’s just no helmet Samus like in the first Prime

Id rank this between Hunters and Corruption at 4/5 for the Prime series

I had a lot of fun, and am happy we got more Prime.

Looking forward to more

Or that this would have been just fine had it released around the same er/time as Dread, capitalizing on the initial hype.

I am still very excited though for Prime 5. There were a lot of REALLY cool elements to the game itself, and I hope they really expand on things next time.

I love Metroid, and I think this was a nice experiment. But what we desired was a return to form but bigger and more immersive. Not a brand new formula.

This feels it would have been a better Prime 5 game after good faith was built up with a super solid Prime 4

Minor spoilers I think, but aside from the tutorial, there are zero space pirates or metroids. Super weird, especially since most bosses are fused with metroids. And sylux only pops in briefly.

A great way to keep momentum in the second half would be to add those forgotten elements, add spice

I loved what it was trying to be, and the first third of the game is exciting and beautiful and had me bought in. But it seems like they got that down and then did a copy paste because there was not the time or resources available to make the third act truly unique.

With all aspects of the game, it feels like they wanted to go bigger but hit walls and this is what we got.

The desert could have used more attention to make it interesting.

The levels could have used more exploration elements.

The story could have used some room to breathe

I also wonder how production was behind the scenes. Planning started with the switch 1, was canned, restarted, and then COVID hit and switch 2 was on it’s way.

That’s a lot to dilute focus on the game, especially a core IP with a large team.

Lot of contractors in those credits

What they ended up doing though is trying to blend an sci-action story with open world and metroid. I think it shows this series only really has room for two of those, but all three dilutes the others and it gets a bit odd.

It was a fun action adventure game. It was not really a metroidvania a la Silksong or even Prime 1 & 2

What it felt like was Nintendo wanted open world Metroid, because back in 2017 that was the thing to do (Mario + Zelda)

Finished Metroid Prime 4

Thoughts ahead….